
Although I AM sticking around until the end of the story, this manga is definitely very confusing. There are no motivations for the actions of any of the characters - why does the uke accept the seme's behaviour? Why does the seme switch personalities without any warning? Why does the uke start avoiding the seme to begin with? Why does a random yakuza guy want to rape a high schooler, even going through the tremendous pain of blackmailing him? This story feels like it's lacking an entire volume of background and character development to get to the point they are now. Nice but kinda lazy writing tbh

I agree, I read between the lines and I got the same conclusions as you. What I actually meant is: these are not good motivations at all. For instance: uke realizes somewhere along the way he likes seme, so decides to turn a 180 degree from when they were children and not only become a deliquent, but also actively ignore/hurt his childhood friend. Why? In the first place, what led him to become a deliquent to the point he would become a "bad influence" to the seme, or even a danger to him? More than that, why is he taking the responsibility of protecting his friend's reputation? He claims he is pushing the seme away for his own good but, again, what is he protecting so fiercely? Because the seme's family seems to cheerish their friendship, and so does the uke's own mother. In fact, it seems keeping the seme away is causing him more pain than keeping him close would. All these questions could easily be answered with a "because he likes him and therefore wants to protect him", but you get my jam, both of them are taking EXTREME actions towards each other, that motivation is at best lacking and at worst nonexistent ╥﹏╥
(Oh, the last question is basically: if that dude is such a bad yakuza guy, he could very easily pay for a young sex worker boy. He literally didn't have to go after a random high schooler, who could pretty much call the cops on him, to sexually harass and rape him. It's just too much trouble/danger. Again, his reasoning could be "the uke is my type and I really really want to bang him". And again, really weak motivation)

If I could chime in~ Atsu (seme) and Touma (uke) liked each other since they were children. Since Touma was little, he always felt he wasn't normal and he picked fights with older opponents and Atsu was always by his side to look after him. My guess is that Touma is badly coping with his feelings for Atsu because he doesn't want to "taint" him. He wants Atsu to have a normal life, normal marriage, etc. He participates in fights and became a delinquent as a way to cope with these feelings and to push Atsu away~
Atsu just wants to be with Touma (he always had since they were children), and after being mentally cornered by Touma's indecisiveness and getting mixed signals from him, he ended up forcing Touma into a sexual relationship~

I haven't hated an antagonist this much in a long long while. I am just so angry because everything that has happened to Youngmin is actually very common, especially in College. A professor using his place of power and the admiration he harbours to lure young students into his traps, and manipulate them into doing things they would not do if given a choice. Fuck, I wish he would die in a horrible way.

I am so touched by this chapter. At first, I feared they would go with the usual trope of solving the problem magically because oh suddenly Ruri no longer stutters thanks to the power of love! This fear increased with every word Takashina said during the argument, implying that stuttering can be cured if you just ~remain calm~. So to see that Takashina was taught clearly (by a Nice Woman in Yaoi!) about stuttering, and understood he is in fact wrong to assume Ruri just "didn't try enough"... I am very happy ٩(๑❛ᴗ❛๑)۶

"I had no intention of breaking up with you, that's why I never contacted you once and simply went overseas after that one time you reasonably refused to leave your entire life and career behind when I asked in a totally casual tone if you'd go with me" boy the uke was nice to slap you and tell you to get out. I'd have slapped you all the way outside AND got a restriction order.
Still I am cheering for them cuz I have no shame ╮( ̄▽ ̄)╭
Did... did they just completely avoid a misunderstanding by properly TALKING with each other? Wow. Iconic.