Finally finished the title story! I’m not 100% sure if this is BL title I should be looking for/if it’s the only BL title in the collection, so I’ll be reading on.
It was…interesting. Definitely has BL elements, though I don’t know if there’s really anything more than that. We have three main characters in this one: Erik, a new transfer student who’s parents are fighting and likely to divorce soon. Thomas (トーマー) is the school idol: golden-haired and sweet. And finally Oskar, an older boy who’s protective of Thomas. Erik and Thomas look eerily alike, and Erik’s got a short fuse, leading to issues between him and the other students.
(Warning: full story spoilers)
So it turns out that Erik and Thomas are twins, separated at birth. Those BL vibes the author was putting in there were just vibes, calm down guys. Honestly the ending felt a bit rushed to me; Thomas just drops dead of pneumonia one day, that’s all she wrote. I’m curious how the story is expanded in トーマの心臓 | L24??.
Honestly the BL feels so close to modern-day baiting that it’s another case of, “I’m having trouble as a modern person putting myself in a reader’s shoes reading this when it was published”. The whole thing felt very tame and not really “serious”, to the point where I wouldn’t call it properly BL. It does make sense to be on a list of early BL though IMO.
I actually have this still sat in its shrinkwrap on my bookshelf - I picked it up from Mandarake years ago… Maybe I’ll finally get round to reading it.
Just as a follow-up to this: that was indeed the only BL story for those looking for that in particular in that volume. I still plan on slowly but surely making my way through most, if not all of the reading list.