Sweet Admiration Story by Yuuki Kousaka Art by Midori Shena Published by Juné Price: $8.95 USD ISBN: 9781569707326

They lost themselves in each other, and the two of them felt like they were melting together, becoming one.

Twelve years ago, there were two brothers that spent the summer in the country, near Katsuya, who was then just a young boy.  Kazuki, the more rambunctious and younger of the two brothers, made quick friends with Katsuya and the two of them have kept in touch, right through to their adult life.  The older brother, Shio, however, was the one that mesmerized Katsuya that summer, the one he had thought so beautiful and still longed to see again.  Years later, his chance comes when he graduates and lands himself a job at a company Shio helped to start.

So near, yet so far, Shio would have still been out of Katsuya’s reach had the company president president been more responsible and was able to provide the company housing promised to Katsuya when he took the job.  As it is, Shio is forced to share the apartment he had been living in alone with Katsuya.  Openly expressing his discontent with the whole arrangement, he tells off the president and is cold to his new roommate, telling him that they will each do their separate things.  Though disappointed that Shio isn’t the person he remembers him to be and unhappy that he seems to be a bother to Shio, Katsuya persists in creeping into Shio’s life, making him meals that he doesn’t eat and walking with him to the station, even in the face of a “No way.”

Shio warms up to Katsuya’s frank and friendly attitude pretty quickly and the two of them get along in their apartment comfortably.  The obstacle in this relationship isn’t Shio’s disposition; the obstacle is Takamasa, a jealous, sickly, clingy, younger brother.  Shio’s wary yet protective attitude towards this brother sparks a bit of jealousy in Katsuya, which Takamasa takes full advantage of, pitting the roommates against each other whenever he can manage it, which is, thankfully, not very often and not for very long.

Sweet Admiration is the most comfortable boys love story I have ever read.  For some, “comfortable” translates to “boring”, while others find solace in only having that gut-wrenching feeling of uncertainty occur once in the whole novel.  Everything that seems like a potential problem is solved rather quickly; Katsuya bounces back from the intial shock of this “changed” Shio after only one day, Shio’s coolness succumbs to Katsuya’s warmth within two weeks, and Katsuya’s giving in to Takamasa’s request to sleep over only has Shio mad for the night.  It’s like the chicken soup of yaoi novels.