Love has always been one of the greatest goals and driving forces for humanity to thrive since the beginning of our species. Everyone wants to love or be loved, even when they don’t admit it. Putting aside those funky and dry explanations of love from the chemical and biological viewpoint, people often idolized love as the greatest power of the universe which obliterates any obstacle on the way to reaching whichever “happy ending” a person can dream of with their significant other.

However, life is much different from a dream, and in most cases, the harsh reality turns those love stories into anything from bittersweet to utter nightmares depending on the relationship; either because of the ones involved in it, or just simply the external pressure from a fast-revolving society we are living in nowadays. As for the first case, they can work together as a couple to either sort out a solution for their relationship or just end it all and find their journey with someone else more fitting to their preferences. For the second case, it is not as simple as that. The fault isn’t coming from the one within the relationship, but rather from the cold and distress live revolving around them. You cannot blame them for just trying to survive in an everchanging and individualistic society, while still being able to spend time with you on top of that.

What? Why don’t they just run away from such a rushing community, find somewhere to chill in the countryside, and spend their time being happy together with a simple life? Well, if only it could be that simple. That brings us to the main spotlights of our article today: Haru and Hi-chan, an office lady on the way to find her new job and a university student who feels sorry to see how the harsh reality treats her beloved one. They thought about the idea above and decided to throw away everything behind, jump on their motorbike and run away to an island, with an uncertain future in front of their eye.

Okay, let us turn back time a little bit to learn about our two main protagonists. Haru is a graduated girl that spent half a year looking for a new job to no avail. She is just a simple girl, with no special ability whatsoever to stand out from others, resulting in her being rejected by company after company for having an uninteresting personality. On the other hand, Hi-chan is a university student, as well as her beacon of hope and the warmth of her life. They live together, talk together, love each other, and strive together through those challenges facing them. However, those failures keep putting a heavy toll on their mind and at one point, the storm covers the beacon in the darkness. After so much pressure, Haru finds herself a pawn of society and is doomed for failure regardless of how much she keeps trying her best, as long as there is no one out there noticing her efforts. Those lines of encouragement from Hi-chan cannot get through to her and push her up anymore; and as everything breaks down, they decided to put everything behind them, close the door of their past and look for a new place on a nearby island. As for Hi-chan, she also suffers from seeing how Haru broke down inside her embrace and decided to follow her significant other wherever she goes because she is fine with anything, if her girlfriend is there, and they are both happy about it even if it cost her the future of a promising university student. The first chapter ended with them sleeping together in their underwear in the middle of nowhere peacefully, with no thought whatsoever about the life they left being in the city.

Well, if only it stopped there, we’d have a nice Oneshot about a couple finding their place together but no, the claw of reality once again reaches out to the two poor tiring souls. As the story progresses, they find a place to stay, lose their bike and find it with a new friend, get a new job, have some silent moments together, and enjoy their hermit lives. Sound great right? Well, they went through that still being haunted by the past as a member of society. There is no more pressure created by the ones around them anymore, but they unconsciously put pressure upon themselves to live the most of their youth here, as well as the guilt they felt when robbing away other’s opportunities, especially Hi-chan as she was the one came up with the idea of going to the island. There are some lovey-dovey and wholesome moments here and there, but as a reader you can see that there is always something still stuck in their mind, making the overall atmosphere of the series slightly heavy throughout. Live in the countryside island but their mind still being stuck back in the city, worrying about the uncertain future they are facing and exhausting themselves for the sake of others.

As a girl love (yuri) manga enjoyer, these kinds of series with a little angst sprinkled onto them come to me as a surprise but a welcomed one. It doesn’t paint a picture of a lily flower in a pink and shiny background, but a more relatable and grayish color of reality, that anyone of us could have experienced. Although I am now more leaning toward the wholesome and simple slice-of-life reader, this is still a nice change of pace after all those isekai OP protagonist series flooding the market out there; and I look forward to seeing what awaits these two girls next seeming that the series going to take a sharp turn after the latest published chapter. As always, thanks for reading and hopefully I will see you again in the next article.