WOW this has been ROUGH in the Life Events category of things, but. slowly crawling out of that. hopefully
this was the opening scene for a something I started writing after watching the Manben inverview with Nishi Keiko and thinking back to all the classic shoujo manga I stayed up reading back in the day, like damn that's so true Urasawa Naoki
it's partially a love letter to all the greats of the genre that I read, and also to the late night teleseryses that captivated me over the years lmao. it'd be nice to find the time to tackle it properly as a comic, but I'm having fun working on it recreationally :)
✨but since it's recreational, some character info✨
the first character seen is lawrence 'law' valenciano (late 30s), the one with the glasses is cris volante (mid-later 20s). law works at a karinderya, cris is an extremely broke university student.
every time a character is introduced with a big/arched/hooked/crooked nose and then slowly loses it to artstyle creep as the series goes on, an angel loses its wings and by an angel losing its wings I mean me, on the floor, softly weeping
theres been a running theme of Ai and hands in particular. Hands reaching out to her, hands enclosing her like a caught rabbit, hands trying desperately to grab onto and hold the final remnants of her (and of Ai too, never managing to reach out and fully grasp onto the other person, no matter how hard she tried)
hands forever reaching out to her, but they never could because there was always some sort of barrier between them, whether it was jealousy, idolisation or just plain refusal to understand her. when its other people talking about her, Ai is drawn in the spotlight, far away from her peers and alone with her face never turned to the viewer
and the only time the hands connect, is when her words are finally heard and she is understood. but Ai is dead and its much too late for it to mean anything but despair and grief. the hands are still separated by time.