the view from here

Is this Aya’s first big flop? She went to Mitsuki’s workplace, a music bar, armed with their favorite songs to request, her friends as backup support, trying to pull her back in, and none of it worked.

Worse, Mitsuki seems predisposed to read every signal as the worst case scenario. Looking for reasons someone would be leaving because deep down being left might feel like her default state.

With whatever happened to her parents and then later with the knowledge she had been the thing between Joe and Kanna that had Kanna gone for six years she's got some baggage. She went through the short checklist of why she thinks Aya has stayed and feels like Aya could just get those things from someone else.

(It's not true, but she's wired to look for the signs because the worst things have happened to her in the past.)

It reminds me of how I don’t think Joe believed until the moment it happened that Kanna would continue her dreams without him back in the day. Aya isn't even trying to leave her and she's having being-left-behind epiphanies anyway.

I don’t think Mitsuki is actually a transactional person, but music between two people is a give and take and they spent years feeling themselves out together through it. They fell in love recognizing each other's rhythm early on, sharing playlists, going to concerts, and pulling off grand musical gestures.

Now that Mitsuki's gone through her music divorce she's shut off her main way of communicating / filtering / feeling. Aya can try to stand outside holding up the boom box, but Mitsuki can't hear it.

She's in such a bad mental place she's writing herself out of Aya's life as though Shu is a new guitar player that can just slip in there and perform the same part.

Earlier Aya didn't want to let Mitsuki's rizz cloud over the conversation she was trying to have with her. That's why that was a no. Now she's drunk and lonely after looking for Mitsuki's attention all night and failing.

(I know things are serious, but I sometimes kinda miss Aya’s tiny girl paws that would sometimes make an appearance in early chapters before the art style solidified.)

Oh dear. She's quit the band she had been forcing herself to perform through, quit music, and now she's forcing something else out of desperation. *pinches bridge of nose*

Ripping that poster is going to be the least of their regrets here. Aya had drunkenly crossed a line she had drawn for herself. She's going to wake up remembering how bad that night at the bar felt AND that she had been lonely enough to fall back on her no-sexy-times resolve with nothing to show for it.

Blues? Booze? Basically the same, right?

Breathe, breathe in the air Don't be afraid to care Leave, but don't leave me Look around Choose your own ground

When who and what you’ve always decompressed with now depresses you bad habits take over.

♪ ༘⋆Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon album ♪♡

Narita has lost control of the situation. He’s basically assembled all of the characters into the “parlor” of a murder mystery and now they’re all going to start with the friction that will break open the case. Or in this situation force people to confront the elephant in the room.

Now I want to rewatch the original Clue movie. (Not sure if they remade it, but I feel like that’s something they’d have done.)

“She’s crying… again…”

So drunk crying in front of her friends has been a regular thing? Oh, Aya.

And no, it’s not because Pink Floyd is playing. It’s worse. Mitsuki is no longer looking.

She’s hitting all the classics and nothing is bridging the gap. It used to be that they could share a look in a crowded room because they loved the same song.

She really physically deteriorates when she hits a wall and is upset. It happened back in high school too.

And she’s powered down after working her way through all of her stages. Only this time it’s not Mitsuki who’s holding her up.

There’s an open stage waiting for you, but she might not always be in the audience like she is now.

I’m sorry, but after Shu has heard all the good things about Mitsuki through Aya all this time it must be whiplash from her POV to see Aya drowning over there because of her.

I'm going to keep the momentum going and read At the World's Mercy that came out with 2 volumes at once. Both of these Rosmei titles are sold out on Yiggybean currently, but you can get on the email list for when there are restocks (or if you are in another country and can source Rosmei stuff elsewhere). It also seems like Rosmei is expanding to physical locations like Kinokuniya in the US more so maybe they'll end up there too someday.

Mitsuki is busy digging herself a deeper hole. But at least this way it means Aya knows where she is most of the time I suppose.

Ok, I do kinda get it.

Mitsuki is probably very happy in every other part of her life besides her relationship with music so why should she complain to Aya that she's feeling like her band ambitions and carefully protected idea of "self" are terminally incompatible?

It probably feels like it's an impossible situation so it's better to just power through by ignoring it. Whenever anything threatens that hurt grade school version of herself she reacts from her old headspace.

Even though she's the super-cool adult Mitsuki now she can still be hurt the same way she was when she was weathering it all alone. While she's not really alone anymore she might not want to draw Aya into that core insecurity with her. Especially with how she probably believes Aya thinks that's been put in the past.

Having Aya know her so well actually made it harder to try to compromise herself to fit in earlier so that's a no-go. She had originally cracked back when she saw Aya in the crowd that day after all.

Aya knows where you live and she knows where you work. And there's no secret third place. You're cooked, Mitsuki.

Shu-chan's face is going to freeze like that. Aya is prematurely aging her.

How did they talk her into going to Aya's girlfriend's place of work when she already hardly tolerates the all gf bragging that's been going on? Narita has thrown in all of his cards with this one.

Someone will eventually have to take drink orders. Will Mitsuki make Rinko do it? Shu is going to get a terrible impression of Mitsuki at this rate too. Or she'll notice Aya is off. What Aya has said and THIS won't match up. She's not dumb.