Orie finds out that the girl he loves, Yuka, has been cheating on him when the arrogant Tatsumi decides to jump in when Orie and Yuka are having sex. Already confused, Orie is torn even more when Tatsumi decides to introduce Orie to yet another man Yuka has been sleeping with, who happens to be the sempai Orie idolizes on his basketball team. Yuka, however, tells Orie that she loves all of them honestly. Though somewhat antagonistic toward one another, when (sorry for the spoiler, but it's on the back cover so I guess there's no hiding it) Yuka dies, the three begin to be drawn together and bond through their common loss.

This manga is simply breathtaking. If you're looking for a more unique love story (though perhaps you might call it more of a story about love) and you don't mind the bits of hetero sex and heavy subject matter, you really can't do better than this.

The only real complaint I've ever seen made about this is that the actions and emotions are confusing to the point of not making sense. Why would these guys sleep with each other after finding out their girlfriend was cheating on them with one another? And I admit, yes, in simple yaoi logic maybe this doesn't make sense. In your usual yaoi, any situation can be completely understood from a basic plot outline. We know the actions of all characters and why they do these things before we even get to know them. A situation like this, for example, should lead to blinding jealousy. That, or the girl is evil and the guys find solace in one another.

But this story refuses to be so simpistic. I think one has to try to forget how they read yaoi for a second and try to remember (ready for this?) how they and others deal with real life. Don't start trying to guess the 'answer'--there isn't one. And with that mindset, take the story and the actions of the characters as they come. You will see three people who are very sad, lost, and lonely, but despite this have love and even lust to spend, and who in the presence of one another begin to spill these feelings out as a means of coping.

If you're looking for a yaoi with a lot of hot sex, you probably don't want this. There are multiple sex scenes, and they sometimes last multiple pages, but they're fairly discreet things. On the other hand, though I kind of felt bad about it since the characters were having such a hard time, frankly I found most of the scenes more sexy than those in most yaoi, since they were so much more emotionally loaded. There was grief and confusion, but sometimes it was a touching kind of confusion, and sometimes there was tenderness. (Though it probably is worth reminding that these boys are hurt, and hurt people often do unkind things. The interactions sometimes lean more toward the bitter side of bittersweet.)

At first I was curious why Takaguchi did not draw this manga herself, but knowing it better now I can see that while Takaguchi's art isn't bad, Honami's is much more appropriate to this story. It's soft, whispy, and expressive. I'd seen Honami's art before this and thought it was very pretty but wasn't blown away by anything but the general look of it. But reading this leads me to believe that this was not a 'problem' of Honami but of her needing better material to rise up to. The emotions in the story may be difficult to describe in words, but the art expresses it deftly. This manga really reminds that being a GOOD yaoi artist is more than drawing pretty pictures.

The more I read of Takaguchi, the more it seems like the quality of her work from series to series varies considerably. But this manga must be one of the best, and definitely one of the most solid. It's gorgeously written, dramatic, and emotionally complex. If you don't like females in your yaoi, or if you don't like stories where you don't get a simple, direct, and obvious cause for every action and utterance, you might not like it. It's also NOT a light read. There's a very high angst factor. But this isn't some immature emo protagonist trying to drown themselves in their own tears. It's a story of soul searching, and while answers are never clear-cut, it says something about the way we dole out our love and our bodies, and about the void that is left behind when a loved one dies, and the way in which people yearn to fill it. ( )