Harapeko Oyako to Motokare Yanushi - Ch. 27

[Starbright]

What's the chances you think the mc rebound will show up? And chances his rebound will still be single?

 

[Golliboy]

He also left her a standing invitation to reach out if she ever needed help during their last conversation over the phone.

We also only know that it's just Kyou and Minori, and that they were seeking a temporary place to stay because "their apartment is being rebuilt" (per chapter 1). There's no mention of her parents, or the parents of Minori's late father, which means she might have had no one to rely on, and would be worrying for her 14yo daughter whom she prioritizes to her own detriment.

But even all that aside, you could easily phrase her reaching out to Takaharu as seeing him as a dependable and trustworthy person whom she could trust with Minori because of the history they did have together.

So I guess my follow-up question is, why insist on using a negative lens to interpret the premise of them reuniting, when a positive one is just as viable?

I think it just rubs a lot of people the wrong way to take up someone's offer from over a decade ago after having said absolutely nothing to them for that entire length of time. Like I'd do anything for any number of my friends, but I talk to them and hang out with them throughout the year. If someone from when I was in high school or freshman year of university did that to me after over a decade of no contact going "hey remember when you said you'd be down to let me crash at your place way back when?" I would be pissed. I feel like trying force yourself to see the positive spin in that is completely being disingenuous to the situation that is, you can't just treat people like they don't exist and then ask them for things by citing an open ended offer that was made so that long ago. Like if we explained this premise to someone without mentioning that this is a manga I think people would be rightfully annoyed you'd even consider asking.

 

[UdenEmpati]

I think it just rubs a lot of people the wrong way to take up someone's offer from over a decade ago after having said absolutely nothing to them for that entire length of time. Like I'd do anything for any number of my friends, but I talk to them and hang out with them throughout the year. If someone from when I was in high school or freshman year of university did that to me after over a decade of no contact going "hey remember when you said you'd be down to let me crash at your place way back when?" I would be pissed. I feel like trying force yourself to see the positive spin in that is completely being disingenuous to the situation that is, you can't just treat people like they don't exist and then ask them for things by citing an open ended offer that was made so that long ago. Like if we explained this premise to someone without mentioning that this is a manga I think people would be rightfully annoyed you'd even consider asking.

Kyou wasn't just someone to Takaharu, though. Not a friend from high school, but someone who had changed the trajectory of his artistic career. He basically did all portrait & figure work after dating her, because of the time he'd spent drawing her whenever she was eating.
I get what you're saying, and this is a story being dramatised to establish a premise and it will be exaggerated to some degree in order to work for what the author intends. But the core idea of two people who "got away from the other" coming back into one another's lives and reconnecting in a manner that, while initially haphazard, actually allows them both to try again, is something I find interesting. It's clear that Kyou still has lingering feelings for Takaharu, and Takaharu clearly has them for Kyou, and they're dancing around those feelings because neither feels they are actually able or allowed to take that real first step.
But Kyou sought him out because she still loved him on some level, and Takaharu agreed to let them stay because he feels the same. That's the justification for why she shows up so many years later, and it's internally consistent with both of their characters.
Sure, neither could know the other would still feel that way--if Kyou didn't, she'd never have shown up. If Takaharu didn't, he'd have turned them away. In both cases, you wouldn't have a story. But the foundation is solid enough based on their mutual residual love and their shared history, however brief-yet-intense, that it works to establish her showing up on his doorstep and him letting her in.

I'm not going to call this the perfect story or unparalleled writing, because it's clearly not. I just push back against the more egregious comments and sentiments that are being highly reductive and flippant, and especially those that are just outright disparaging when there's zero reason or excuse, and I do think it's reasonable to expect someone actually back up their opinion and explain themselves, if only for the sake of this being a discussion forum that allows more than 240 characters in a post.

 

[SpaceVultureV]

Damn bro when's my smex

 

[UdenEmpati]

What's the chances you think the mc rebound will show up? And chances his rebound will still be single?

We already met Shiori, she showed up in chapter 13.

 

[Kirizuna]

come one minori just give them greenlight for a sibling

 

[Zikeang]

yall need to listen to Bill whithers "use me"

 

[Zikeang]

also to everyone saying that "he never got over her" go back to chapter 14. "I didn't keep my feelings for her all this time. She just crossed my mind now and then"

We don't know what he's been doing for the past n number of years, we just know that he just happens to be single now and had trouble getting over her right after their breakup with the other model. I don't think it's completely fair or definitively true to say that he's been hung up on her for 17 years given what we currently know.

 

[Starbright]

We already met Shiori, she showed up in chapter 13.

Checked the ch again don't see anywhere it states or hints that he dated her before

 

[Starbright]

also to everyone saying that "he never got over her" go back to chapter 14. "I didn't keep my feelings for her all this time. She just crossed my mind now and then"

We don't know what he's been doing for the past n number of years, we just know that he just happens to be single now and had trouble getting over her right after their breakup with the other model. I don't think it's completely fair or definitively true to say that he's been hung up on her for 17 years given what we currently know.

You can't say he got over her where in same ch he's cried over in end basically he remained single because he couldn't forget about her and made paintings of her maybe he thinks he got over her but his actions tell a different story

 

[FiddlePop]

Bro saved rental payment at what cost 🥀

 

[Juicebun]

I dig the stache

 

[Rand00m]

This is painful
It's either move on or tell her straight you still love her. Don't hurt yourself more than this, bro

 

[kar777]

Situationship pro max

 

[nemrafi123]

Ah of course the trope of conveniently falling asleep just before something is about to happen

 

[UdenEmpati]

Checked the ch again don't see anywhere it states or hints that he dated her before

You mean you couldn't put together that Shiori, the model who has worked with Takaharu and acted familiar with him during the gallery showing in chapter 14, is the same model he tells Kyou about in this chapter? We even have Kyou mentioning how Minori told her about Shiori on page 4, and Minori met Shiori in that earlier chapter.

 

[UdenEmpati]

You can't say he got over her where in same ch he's cried over in end basically he remained single because he couldn't forget about her and made paintings of her maybe he thinks he got over her but his actions tell a different story

You mean to tell me you wouldn't cry in relief finding out someone important to you was actually okay, after not seeing them for so long?

Don't forget he was drunk, and alcohol being used to let through honest feelings is a recurring element of this story.

It doesn't matter whether he got over her or not, it's not weird that he'd show emotion like that in that moment.

Also, because somehow this apparently isn't being considered by anyone complaining in this whole thread--

You can get over someone and then still fall for them all over again after reuniting. Takaharu could absolutely have moved on in his life, and only saw his old feelings respark once Kyou walked back in.

Him falling back in love with her doesn't mean he never managed to let her go during those 17 years.

 

[MrSergio]

Some people in here are in serious need of mental care, but I get the feeling it's all wasted breath (or I guess fingers), given how far gone some of the comments are.
Thank God I wasn't born with a single brain cell...

 

[Exceleratorr]

I had a similar relationship in the past that had a profound impact on me and I regret things that happened in it, but I moved on. Not being able to move on makes you way too dependent on the person you once loved to the extent it stops being love and obsessive. It's why I don't get that fluffy feeling others get from this story.

Sure that sucks but still that doesn't mean you can never move on in life, if you had a best friend as a kid who was forced to move away and stop being your friend does that mean you'll stop making friends ever? No. That's what I find weird about him.
It just seems like his life was pre and post her, especially now that he says that a relationship failed to him because it wasn't Kyou. That's just sad.

Yes, here's an interesting story search up Masahisa Fukase and see what happens when the woman you love becomes your obsessive muse. To me this seems like another mark in the whole his life was empty without her which is why I find this story tragic.

Perhaps that's fine but this doesn't read as a whimsical story to me because it reads as a man whose stuck in the past and lived a lonely life. The fact it could only be saved by his former lover who moved on basically coming back to save him is just sad to me.

For the woman's perspective sure, but again for the guy I just don't see it the same way. Hell he didn't even need a bunch of romantic relationships if he had a social circle of close friends, a super successful career as an artist or anything that made him look like he lived some sort of satisfying life after her I would have been more onboard with this being a happy story. I just don't see it that way it just seems like a melancholic story.

Yeah, it's like his whole life revolves around her which is creepy, she is more like a saviour than a lover