Well, I should've listened to the title, instead of the super misleading reviews on here. This was...not good.
The art's okay, and it has a pretty cover, but there's nothing particularly special beyond that. None of the characters have much in the way of personalities, and the main couple has absolutely zero chemistry. I mean that. None. There's no indication, at any point, of why they might actually like each other, and there's zero effort put into building any type of relationship, friendship, anything.
We mostly see things from the point of view of Sudou, a handsome, rich, spoiled brat of a college student who has all the money and girls he wants, blows off most of his classes because he probably doesn't need a degree to get a job/make a living, and has a wide circle of friends he doesn't particularly seem to care about. The author's note says he was supposed to be "a trashy seme" but he turned out to be a "mischievous playboy" who might "actually [be] a good guy."
Nah. He's a trashy seme.
The story starts with Sudou already heavily engaged in bullying Kishi, a quiet, glasses-wearing, hardworking guy who's two years older than him and seems to spend like......all of his time in the lab. Seriously, I don't think he's ever seen anywhere else, except for a couple appearances at his home. He's a grad student, yeah, but he literally lives there? He sleeps on the couch? He doesn't even seem to go to class? The "plot" of this book is super weird?
Anyway, even though most of Sudou's professors don't seem to have a high opinion of him, according to Kishi's professor-boss, somehow he wound up working in the lab (?) for one of his classes, maybe, and then stuck around because he likes bugging Kishi so much.
The reason he bullies Kishi: the guy looks just like a "girl" Sudou had a crush on and asked out when he was in elementary school. The "girl," who is very, very obviously Kishi from the past, even though it's never actually revealed on the page or to Sudou, rejected him by saying, "I don't really care about love and stuff."
A decade and a half later, spoiled rich brat Sudou is still stewing over the only rejection he's ever experienced in his life, and decides to harass his classmate/coworker to make himself feel better.
After a while, and after a little prodding from a mutual friend (?), Sudou realizes this is the dictionary definition of pigtail pulling, and that he actually wants to sleep with Kishi. So he does. Regardless of how much Kishi objects.
And yes, this line is literally written on the page right before they have sex for the first time: "Mind if I rape you?"
Sudou claims it's a joke, but considering he then proceeds to have sex with Kishi despite Kishi's protests, it's...really not.
And their relationship never gets better from there.
There are some weird attempts at cute moments, like Sudou hanging out with Kishi's siblings and being folded into that family, which is ordinarily something I would really, really like. But even this setup barely makes any sense. Kishi's youngest sister is pretty little, but there's no indication that they even have parents. Who...is taking care of these children? He has three younger siblings and an older brother who seems to be mostly taking on the dad role, maybe because their parents are...dead? Not mentioned! Apparently not important to the story! ?
And I have no idea what happens with those younger siblings while the oldest brother is at work and Kishi is living in his university laboratory. That part didn't follow any logic either; when Sudou first sees Kishi's older brother, he gets jealous because Kishi is gazing up at the guy with a look of extreme blushy adoration, but Kishi later tells Sudou that he sleeps in the lab so his brother won't fuss over him. This is either avoidance (does he actually not like his brother?) or just uh...not helpful, because if he's trying to save his brother some hassle, he could go home and help him take care of the other kids.
The brother could've been a potentially interesting character, but he just...exists. He correctly identifies Sudou as a bully, tells him once to stop spending time with Kishi, and then doesn't actually do anything about it, although he continues to dislike Sudou. Honestly, he was right to be concerned; while there's some nonsense about how Kishi is more comfortable around people after he started sleeping with Sudou, it uh. There's no indication that's actually true. It's not like we see him getting any friends, or even hanging out with Sudou's wide circle of friends.
Even in the bonus chapter where Kishi goes to Sudou's giant mansion of a house for once, he meets Sudou's older sister and barely gets to speak to her because Sudou gets super jealous (of his married sister) and yanks his boyfriend upstairs after yelling at her and calling her ugly.
Nice guy, that. He sure seems to have a lot to offer.
But the thing is, Kishi isn't a particularly interesting character, either - and isn't written very consistently. Initially, he seems pretty level-headed and unflappable. He drives Sudou wild because he doesn't react to any of the dumb gags he pulls, like sending him flowers or replacing his lab coat with one four sizes too big, or stuffing his pockets with candy, or even tripping him and making him fall flat on his face on the floor, knocking his glasses off.
He drives Sudou crazy precisely because he doesn't react to anything. Except! Later on, Kishi runs into a few older classmates and winds up fleeing back to the lab to huddle in a corner and shiver and sob because it was so upsetting to see people who just wanted to say hi to him.
That was literally the extent of the interaction. And we get some backstory, as he cries to Sudou (who says mean things to him while wiping away his tears) about how when he started college, he was shy and got so nervous about talking to people that he started avoiding them and now can't interact with anyone at all.
So what happened to the guy who could get physically knocked on the floor and still be perfectly fine? How did he turn into this sobbing mess who freaks out when someone, intending to be perfectly nice, just says hi to him?? How are these the same character??
Honestly, this entire story was a giant mess from start to finish, even without the messy consent issues. What a major disappointment. Wish I'd read better reviews so I'd known to pass on this one.