The Pair in the Alley

My heart! Please sumiya, I need a vanilla happy ending sequel for these two!

She's a cute, short hair, glasses wearing, class Prez for crying out loud. She's deserves vanilla happiness!
The Prez is too damn cute to be crying...

The instant the guy spouted his assumptions of what Mukunashi was "REALLY" like (kind, considerate prez, etc.) and would protect her, it became clear that he missed the point. He wasn't offering to protect the real Mukunashi; he was hoping to protect his idealization of her. As far as he was concerned, the girl he just had sex with was just a front Mukunashi put up to get by. However, it was clear that Mukunashi loved sex, and that sex was a core part of her personality.

That said, she also hated the fact that her love of sex was being leveraged for prostitution, stealing the freedom from something she enjoyed and turning it into an obligation that she needed to survive. Overall, it was a complex situation, and she was in a complex frame of mind... but it was clear that our protag wasn't quite capable of comprehending that, instead simplifying it with a boyish "that isn't really you!" rant. And well... that was clearly disappointing for Mukunashi.

Sequel or riot!!!

This was f*cking brilliant. From the story to the artwork…brilliant. Sex and plot felt so crisp and heartbreakingly real! This crushed me…brilliant.

Don't give up bro, go get the girl. There's got to be a way to turn the situation around.

This flies so close to reality that it's actually a massive boner killer. People like this are out there, both kids and adults alike, using everything they have just to survive in a world that at best pretends it cares about their individual wellbeing. So she toughs it out, day by day, taking in the few novel things that gives her life joy, waiting for the time when she doesn't literally need to sell herself to get by. I can understand her reluctance to accept any help from him -- what can he do, a similarly down on his luck individual, to help her?

Really, I feel bad for both of them. But her story is downright heartbreaking.

Ok, this has all the ingredients to be in my favorites but that ending fucking spoiled it for me. Sigh.

That backshot on page 14 is pure schoolgirl outfit goodness

excellent work as expected from Sumiya and, somehow, less depressing than unrequited square

Teenage prostitution is widespread in Japan, but the police
make an effort to curb it. They will stop and question a man
if his female companion looks suspiciously young, especially
if the couple is strolling through a hotel district.
(page 6, panels 4-6)

When a sentimental guy meets a pragmatic,
hard-boiled JK girl, the result will always be
bittersweet.

My fellow fans are clamoring for a "vanilla" sequel,
which is understandable, but that would nullify the
whole point of this chapter, which is that Mukunashi
has given Sugimoto a valuable lesson in cold, sober
reality.

Well, that ending is all kinds of sad... 😢

It's time to suggest a NEW tag:
"JK Girl"

Fakku doesn't have a single tag related to prostitution, which
is simply incomprehensible. There must be scores of chapters
that involve "compensated dating." Within that trope, we also
need tags for:

"Brothel"
"Call Girl"
"Camgirl"
"Housewife Hooker"
"Prostitution" (general umbrella tag)

All those tags are long overdue.

What a bittersweet story! Hopefully we get a sequel where we get a vanilla ending!

Can someone tell me if I'm missing something.

sumiya-sensei, why'd you have to go all deep on me?

I'd really, REALLY would love to see a sequel for this with Prez getting a good ending.

That ending ;_;

Kami-sama! ... now it's sumiya-sensei dropping Deep Shit on us Like It's Hot!

"DAYUM!"

No spoilers, but at least the story didn't go in a deeper darker direction that another artist may have taken it. And I'll be satisfied with that.

"Deep Shit" notwithstanding, ... it's "APPROVED!"