Go Ara’s manhwa is just… a bit too much for me. I remembered her as the author of “Teenager Younghwa”, one of the most depressing things I’ve ever read – and loved. It was in my early days of reading comics, so I was struck by the contrast of these cute watercolour drawings and heaviness of the theme and triggers the manhwa contained. Nothing was graphic though, but I could feel the pain in everything in that story and it left a deep impression. Lately I remembered about this author and was surpised as I saw that her other works appear to be cute and slice of life stories with no tragedies and decided to give them a try. Haha. I was fooled. It’s just same old Go Ara who can kill me with just a few words and simple lines.
“Beloved Days” is her second long work. It does start with cuteness and awkwardness of ordinary life, yes. And then, quietly and subtly, the author gives much room to family drama, personal drama, bitter feelings of the past, wounds left by love that brought mostly suffering, but no regret it happened in your life. The tone changes, but the slice of life component is as strong as before. As if nothing changed, but now you see the characters under a new light and it just hurts. What else can I say? This is how you make a good story. This is how you show human drama and make me feel things.
I imagine Bakugo meeting the angel of death and being like, “Shit. Guys like you do fucking exists, huh?”
And them being like, “Yes. Are you ready to go?”
Bakugo would look back and remember the crowd cheering after he just saved the city. His last stand, fist up in the air in triumph just like his mentor, plastered on every news coverage on tv and every social media platform known to man. He would smirk to himself, thinking how Kirishima would tease him or say some shit like talk about leaving in a blaze of glory.
People mourn him, of course, but that’s just because they think he’s too young, that he hasn’t even ‘lived’ yet. Jokes on them though, because for Bakugo, it has been a life well lived.
Besides, lives of millions of people over his? It’s not that hard of a choice to make. So he has no regrets. He’d turn to the once mythical creature to him and nod, saying, “Sure, let’s go.”
But then, the angel of death would ask, “Are you certain? Not one soul you want to go back to and say farewell to? Because I can permit that through dreams. Remember, once you cross, there won’t be a way back.”
And suddenly all Bakugo could only ever think of was you.
He knows you’re crying your heart out right now, praying to gods you don’t even believe in. He knows you would want him to still fight. To live.
Suddenly, departing isn’t as easy anymore.
He swallows hard, knowing if he does say goodbye, if he sees you one more time, hear your cries..
Well, that might actually feel worse than dying.
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CONTINUING ON-
JUST OOF COULD YOU IMAGINE???
Like their profession in a way warps their mind when they’re on duty and it leaks into their personal lives. Causing them to drop everything and do whatever it is someone else needs them to do. Even friends. They’re always on edge because even when off duty, they never know when they’ll need their hero instincts to kick in if an emergency happens regardless of them being in their costume.
And throughout so much of your relationship, you spend time trying to teach them that it’s okay to choose yourself. That boundaries are okay. And that not having their body move on its own to spring into action does not make them a bad hero!
You helped them to reach a place of true calm and to learn how to indulge themselves a little. You helped them to really live outside the sprectrum of being this revered guardian.
They had become so much more cautious when out in the field. Taking a moment to process and think critically.
But the day comes along when a looming threat is just too great and the heavy weight of their job and perceptions of it push them to do whatevernecessary.
And the cost of course? Their life.
Which as you wrote in this case Katsuki didn’t particularly mind. But it’s only once he realizes the price was also his time left with you does he come too see how tightly his position had a hold of him. How he mindlessly slipped back into that idea (or put another way ideal) of what a true hero was.
In the process of “doing the right thing” he did the furthest thing from right he could have thought of…
He broke your heart.
And I wonder if he begins to wonder the gravity of people’s dependence on heroes as he’s forced to face losing everything. If he wonders why he felt it right to do an All Might and destroy himself?
If he were to go through the hell of a fight it would be to liveagain…
To come back to you and you specifically, could he even guarantee the same thing wouldn’t happen again? That he wouldn’t make the same mistake ingrained deep within him and hurt you again?
No matter what way he put it or what route he took… it seemed he would have to bear the guilt of ripping apart the one soul he cherished most because he felt he there was no other choice but to save the thousands or millions of bodies he didn’t know.
I was holding back when I wrote that. I actually hold off from writing pieces that involved character death, especially Bakugo because AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.
But you have opened the dam, bebe. Hell gate has been broken. The feels are gushing, the pain is about to run loose!!
