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In a way you could say that this story at first feels very familiar. Its very reminiscent of "The Secret Garden" with the main charcter appearing in a new splendorous mansion where they meet a person that has been locked off the rest of the world due to their condition that their parents neglect to properly take care of. It's pretty obvious to anyone reading, that the plot will resolve around the mc helping that person go out more, experience the outside and achieve their long lost happiness.

Despite the "predictability" this story has about itself, the events are very diverse. It explores love, friendship and ... most notably family relations from the perspective of children, parents as well as grandparents concentrating on many emotions that are hard to convey to others and that we often keep to ourselves. It also deals with parting and death of loved ones. Another very important aspect of the story is the problem of defining oneself and establishing an identity. When found in a place where no one really knows you can you even know yourself? The self exploration is really beautifully done. With how likeable and complex the characters turn out to be it's hard to not drop a tear at the turn of events and how they come to resolve their feelings. It's an amazing story definetly worth your time, the one that you will end up thinking about for a while.

A short fairytale type of story, the one you can only lament there is no movie for (I can so pictue this being turned into a Ghibli movie). Probably one of the first shoujo ai there was and due to lengh the pacing is a bit off with a lot of stuff happing within 140 pages. Not gonna lie it does feel a bit confusing at first with how fast everything is happening. Even so the art is absolutely mesmerising adding a lot of fantastic elements to the story, taking you into a different world. It's insane how the manga makes you feel like there ... are supernatural forces invloved when actually there is nothing out of ordinary.

I like when the portrayed people who went through things actually display how that affected their behaviour and them as a person. Especially when they are shown as moraly grey characters or plain bad people. That's simply just realistic.

One thing that this story depicts well is definetly that- how a person who used to be abused develops obsessive behaviours that keep him alive. The portrayal of it though sometimes comes off as "comedic" which rubs me a bit the wrong way but i guess that's what makes the story even possible to be read? It touches apon very serious and hard to stomach topics that ... are at times presented extremely well with a lot of emotions and nuances and at times completly brushed off and poorly executed. The pacing also doesn't make sense sometimes.

One of the best scenes was the sucidal attempt in the sea. To not disclose too much spoilers it was simply well done, both with the actions that came before and after it.

Though something completly unnecessery was a whole character hastly introduced for the sake of the mc (the object of obsessive behaviour) being assaulted many times? The depiction of it being so detailed and graphic was also completly unnecesery but i guess that's erotica for you. The problem is that the character who is responsible for that doesn't have much role in the story otherwise?

Spoiler i guess?
The only way i could see it having any sense is that it confronts the guy with trauma with his loved one facing the same thing? And the concluding conversation where he fully acknowledges his own wrongdoings towards the mc.

Either way, the term "mixed feelings" describes this story ratgher well.