You and Harujion

I really, really liked this one.  I was kind of torn because the obligatory push for romance at the end put me off a bit since I didn’t like the age difference, but the rest of the book was so good that I could easily overlook it.

The main character, Haru, starts off as an orphan, and the creepy older man comes out of nowhere to offer him assistance since his father has left him with some sizable debts and goons after him.  Haru rejects this older man, who says he knows Haru, but the older man is persistent.  We find through flashbacks that the older man’s story checks out, though I don’t think Haru ever remembers any of it.  He’s persistent and wants to pay Haru back for the past, and Haru eventually agrees to the man’s help since he’s quite desperate and doesn’t have any place else to live.  The relationship between them grows slowly, and is very cute and father-son throughout most of the volume.  The death and Haru’s financial problems loom darkly through the duration of the volume, and at the end everything kind of gets sunny again.  The pacing and story itself were lovely, and the character growth was quite genuine since there were literally only two characters to develop.

The father-son relationship and genuine need for aid lasted until the last few pages, when  the characters realized they shared a genuine romantic love for each other and everyone lived happily ever after.  Ironically, the shounen ai was the worst part, and it was literally not talked about or developed until the very end (unless you like nuance and hints, which I suppose many people do).  If you were looking for shounen ai though, there is also a short story afterwards which shows another lovey-dovey relationship moment.  This story was more comedic, whereas the rest of the volume lacked a single joke, and I liked it that way.  The short story did much to kind of cement their relationship for anyone who may have wanted more closure.