半分あげる

I hyped myself up too high with this one, lads. I don't regret reading this, I just went into this wanting more... tragedy. More angst, more hurt to balance the comfort. And the comfort wasn't that strong either but was more present than the hurt. I think the main characters are fine, them as a couple are cute, I love re-encounters, and the story was interesting to me. However, doing the timeskip thing where the first 3 chapters are their senior year and the last 3 (+ extra, so 4) is them meeting up again after a couple of years I felt made both halves feel rushed. There's also the weird way they do scene cutting that didn't feel smooth, so it was really weird to follow like an odd video editing cut back and fourth.

I really wanted to see more communication between Koru and Shiraki during those 3 days. I wanted more slow, quiet moments that would've made the sex scene in chapter 3 worth it. Before, you only really saw Shiraki grow a fondness for Kuro, who was in a "he's my friend, I want to protect him" kind of mode. When the first kiss happened, I was hoping for them to talk after that, but instead, it did a cut away. I felt the same way in the second half when Shiraki confessed because now we know that Kuro still had feelings but was scared to pursue that. And when we do get a perfect "pause and talk" moment, they cut away again to a flashback. We eventually got to sit the fuck down and talk through some stuff but even that I felt like it could've been delved deeper, but I was happy we got it.

I did leave this liking this couple. I left this liking this book. I felt myself about to cry during chapters 6 and the extra. But I think I went into this hoping for something like CUT and then being let down because it was close to being as emotional as CUT was.