MANGA: Nirameba Koi

Nirameba Koi – Yukue Moegi

Apart from the fact he’s in the student council and has quite strange tastes, Shima is an average, low-profile, quiet high schooler. Therefore, he doesn’t understand why Ryuunosuke, a sports student, always glares at him every time they cross paths. Shima doesn’t want to draw the punk’s attention, but the instinctive hostility of Ryuunosuke towards him troubles him, and he wants to know why the other boy hates him…

This is a super cute collection of stories that explores the juvenile delinquent uke trope. It’s always fun to see these tough boys get all blushy and flustered.

Glare At You Because I Love You is the title story. Told from the point of view of student council member Shima, the story follows how he fell in love with Ryuunosuke, a notorious juvenile delinquent who always glares at him.

This is one of the most adorable falling in love with a tsundere story. Shima is wonderful. He’s the type of guy who finds cats with weird faces cute. I loved how he slowly get to know the secret sweeter side of Ryuunosuke’s personality. I especially liked how he notices the little things Ryuu does that show he really has a kind heart. It was a joy to witness him slowly falling for the intimidating punk who’s really a big softie underneath all that scowl.

Ryuu fell in love at first sight with Shima. He had a really good reason for doing so. The reason and the way he said it was so full of hope and longing you really had to feel for the guy. Don’t judge a punk by his death glare.

There were a couple of other stories in this 2-volume collection.

The Dragon Of Memories is a one chapter, age-gap story of a troublemaker who frequently had run-ins with his school’s new janitor. Unbeknownst to him, the older man was someone from his past and was trying to jog the young man memory. I wasn’t feeling this story. This had a huge dub-con scene.

Notice Me Because I Love You is a childhood friends to lovers story starring Ryuu’s kohai, Reiji, and Akira, the twin brother of their mutual friend, Osamu. Reiji is an uber dense high schooler who failed to notice that Osamu’s twin brother, Akira is in love with him since forever. The three are neighbors and had been friends since they were little kids.

I liked this one as well, though not as much as the main story. The characters were familiar mostly because I have read other stories with similar character types. But I enjoyed the way straight A student Akira was pining for his twin brother’s spectacularly oblivious friend.