Recap

Yoh gets bad news, his editor is dropping him and his manga. Also, his editor complains about his unrealistic heroes. Who sound… familiar.

Yoh does housework and spirals into depression. At one point he blames Mizuki for his failure.

Mizuki comes home to a dark apartment and finds Yoh sitting in the dark in front of the washer. Yoh is unable to do anything so Mizuki takes care of him, at one point giving him water via mouth-to-mouth. That’s someone’s kink I guess.

It ends in a joint bath. Yoh explains that his manga is awful, and is disappointed with Mizuki’s calm reaction.

Mizuki blow dries Yoh’s hair and gives him a wind-weather metaphor for encouragement. Yoh is moved by Mizuki’s care enough to initiate sex.

So now Yoh is working on housework and wondering what Mizuki likes about him, because according to him he’s bad at everything including sex. Being in Yoh’s head is rough.

Manju has little sympathy for Yoh’s complaints about being loved by an amazing guy. She doesn’t think he should quit, it’s a hard industry and he’s being financially taken care of already. Manju encourages him to do a semi-biographical manga about him and Mizuki, with her help.

Yoh goes for it! And Manju treats for lunch!

But Mizuki has the day off so Yoh is trapped because Mizuki won’t let him spend time with a woman. Yoh fails at convincing lies as he explains he needs to see his editor and may spend some nights there too. 

Mizuki is concerned Yoh is lying because he’s taking on shady work. He cuddles Yoh and tells him he doesn’t have to earn money since Mizuki takes care of him. Mizuki makes the mistake of saying he doesn’t care about Yoh losing his job.

Yoh interprets this in the worst way possible, yells at him, hits him with a pillow, and storms out. Mizuki watches Yoh walk away, and we see that he slipped a tracker in his bag before he left.

Thoughts

Ah, the downward spiral of the rejected creative. Not that you even need to be rejected in order to jump into that dark pit, sometimes it’s just a day that ends in Y.

So I’m deeply sympathetic to Yoh but I also understand Manju’s exasperation. And I really appreciate her honesty. (Manju is the best!) Being a manga artist is not something that anyone should get into in order to make money.  Most artists don’t make much money. People do it because they love it. Yoh is lucky enough to have someone who supports him financially so he doesn’t need to worry about paying rent.

Yoh can’t see that. Instead he’s gone from viewing Mizuki as a controlling tyrant to wondering why Mizuki cares about him. Then he blows up at Mizuki for ‘not caring’ about his manga career. Mizuki can’t win, but since he is also truly a controlling tyrant I’m not going to get too frustrated with Yoh for being all over the place. Also, I understand what it is to be all over the place.

It was fun to watch Mizuki take care of Yoh. Looks like he might be the better cook too.

Weather wise we’ve gone from rain and sunshine to wind. Blow drying each other’s hair is a trope I’ve seen in heterosexual romances as well as BL, but it’s definitely more popular in BL. I appreciated seeing it incorporated into Mizuki’s metaphor about the changing wind and Yoh’s career. 

Later, we see the wind blow away some of Yoh’s hanging laundry. Where will these two’s temperaments and communication failures blow them next!

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