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I highly recommend 10 Things I Want to Do Before I Turn 40

#10 Things I Want to Do Before I Turn 40 #40 made ni Shitai 10 no Koto #old-fashioned cupcake #bl manga #rec #yaoi #I LOVE the author of 10 Things I Want to Do Before I Turn 40!!#author Mamita

07/50: same as it ever was (sagan sagan, "old-fashioned cupcake")

One of the hardest stories to write and be appreciated for is the ordinary love story between two ordinary characters. Summarized roughly, "Old-Fashioned Cupcake" is so nondescript and generic it feels like a blank template upon which other, more real stories might rest. A man who is nearing forty takes stock of his life and finds it lacking. His subordinate, who is ten years younger, is in love with him. For the thinnest of plot reasons, they begin hanging out. Eventually, they begin dating. Eventually, they are as good as married. Then, the story ends.

How do you even begin to describe Nozue and Togawa? They are barely characters, but not because they are poorly written. Rather, they are so well-written in their specific mundanity that talking about them feels like talking about boring coworkers or friends-of-friends you might know. Nozue in particular seems easy to describe at first, but becomes vaguer and less defined the more you examine him. He is not a traditional workaholic, who throws himself completely into his job and leaves no time for his personal life, or a traditional almost-40-year-old oyaji, who has allowed himself to become sloppy and pathetic. Instead, he takes care of himself, can cook and clean, but has no hobbies or passions. He is meticulous at work and about his own appearance but has allowed himself to be made complacent by the monotony of his day to day. You get the sense, perhaps unfairly, that Nozue has stopped trying and begun to coast. But he is so naturally good-natured and encouraging, so considerate and cheerful to his subordinates, and so allergic to taking on different and bigger responsibilities that he has remained steadfastly adored, though always at a distance, like the way one might treat a mascot or a neighbor's fluffy dog.

In another story, a man like Nozue might face pressures (from work, from exes, from his friends and family) to do something more. He might, for instance, be encouraged to take on a hobby or visit a new café where he meets a younger, energetic lover who inspires him to change his life, and we would follow Nozue as he gets a brand-new lease on life, learns to appreciate what he has and is renewed by new experiences. And that does happen, in a way. In the opening chapter, Togawa invents a hobby called "taking Nozue on dates without actually calling them dates" so that he can bring Nozue to parfait parlors, souffle pancake restaurants, and the zoo. This brightens Nozue up considerably; by chapter 2, Nozue and Togawa are flirting in the work kitchenette while making coffee and someone pulls the classic "You look more cheerful lately, Nozue-san. Did you get a girlfriend?!" line.

But by chapter three, their teenage girl foodie roleplay ends. Nozue has settled down and come to the realization that his life isn't bad. "I've worked hard and it's earned me people's trust," he muses. "I should probably call on my own experiences and find more things to enjoy and share." He likes his life, even if it isn't exciting. He doesn't need new hobbies or dramatic anti-aging therapy. He just needs to ponder questions of happiness and life on his own time--and apparently, with Togawa by his side.

"Old-Fashioned Cupcake" is not a story about great change. Love does not necessitate Nozue reinventing himself to create a new life with Togawa. Instead, love is Nozue learning to let Togawa into the life he already has. The sequel, "Old-Fashioned Cupcake with Cappuccino," makes this even more obvious. When Nozue finally processes that he's dating his straight, male subordinate who is ten years younger than him and has a painful freakout about it, the stakes are simultaneously so big and yet so small. What is he asking Togawa to take back, exactly? House visits, dates near Nozue's house, making bento lunches, leaving two suits at Nozue's place, a spare key. That's all, and yet at the same time, this is indeed all their relationship consists of: the little things of Togawa's that have become a part of Nozue's life.

Nozue's crisis of faith, too, is solved not by a grand coming out gesture or any material changes in either his or Togawa's lives. Rather, it is through his friends and other coworkers reminding him that he's lived a good life, and that good life will come through for him. "Don't think you have to change who you are," Kirishima tells him. "You're a good person, a good man, and an occasional ass. Good thing you made yourself such a darling." It's because Nozue has always been teaching Togawa to find love in his work that Togawa decides it's his life that needs change, not Nozue's. "Life isn't like the movies," Togawa tells Nozue. "Problems don't end with one solution. And that's okay. If we fight over the same thing a dozen times, let's make up a dozen different ways." It's only because Nozue is so constant, so consistent a person, that Togawa is able to say this so confidently. It's because Nozue was part of Togawa, helped make Togawa into the man he is today, that Togawa is also able to give Nozue exactly the comfort Nozue needs.

Through Nozue, Sagan Sagan forgives us our complacency, our shying away from big consequential decisions, our need for comfort and the familiar. We -- the readers, the other employees on Nozue and Togawa's team, maybe even Sagan Sagan herself -- are drawn into Nozue's orbit, wanting nothing more for Nozue and Togawa than spending each day sleeping in, making apple pie, bickering about laundry, and having toothachingly sweet sex. But what more should life be? The reality is that the life Nozue had in the beginning of the series was fine. He had that revelation by chapter 3. The issue was simply that he needed to open it up for someone who appreciates it and him.

And by the end of "Old-Fashioned Cupcake with Cappuccino," Nozue does just that. He proposes, ring and all, to Togawa. Not while on onsen vacation, not in a romantic candlelit restaurant, but over an ordinary breakfast of natto and rice, in the ordinary apartment he now shares with Togawa, which is full of signs of their ordinary shared life. Togawa's name on a note taped under the nameplate. Moving boxes full of Togawa's camping stuff in one corner. And one detail that has totally slipped my attention, until just this week:

After the proposal, Nozue pours them coffee into cups labeled S and M. This is also the first time that Togawa (Minoru) calls Nozue by his first name.

Nozue's first name is Saki.

Those are couple cups…!

Addendum: I didn't know how to fit this into the essay, but I wanted to gush a little about how amazing the paneling and art is in "Old-Fashioned Cupcake" and its sequel. Sagan Sagan's art is so unique in her love of situating the characters in their space. More than any other bl mangaka I can think of, she loves to draw panels that look at the characters from great distance, on crosswalks or in subway stations or in an overhead shot while at the office. This is paired with loving closeups of insignificant things, like a pair of slippers or a box of tissues or Nozue's hands fiddling with pistachios while he confesses to Kakitani and Kirishima. These details all come together to make Nozue and Togawa's world feel tangibly real. These two approaches combine in a really masterful way by chapter 4. Nozue babysits a drunken Togawa at the train station after a mixer. As they wait for the last train, Sagan Sagan alternates between wider establishing shots of the station as Togawa lies prone on the bench and close-up shots of Nozue and Togawa's faces, then Nozue's hand as he reaches out but does not touch Togawa. The effect is to emphasize how close they are to each other, in the wide emptiness of the station, and yet how impossible it is for Nozue in his current state to close that last little distance with Togawa.

Then, in the remainder of the chapter, Togawa wakes up to find that Nozue has spent the night in his apartment (chastely!). Here, we see for the first time just how much of a slob Togawa is, when left to his own devices, and how he really must have hastily cleaned up everything before letting Nozue through the door in the previous chapter. Books and trash are scattered haphazardly across the apartment, a tie hangs out of a paper bag that is crammed full of clothes, the game controller that was previously shown tucked into a bookshelf now lies on the living room floor. This difference isn't even commented all -- it's just there, a detail of Togawa's characterization that Sagan Sagan took extra pains to establish.

At one point in volume one, Nozue bemoans that with Togawa, "I am getting caught up in the stupid details." But love, Sagan Sagan argues, is made up of these stupid details. Without these stupid details, there is no life together. The morning after Nozue and Togawa have sex for the first time, Nozue ponders what they should do with the rest of their day. He chatters about a dish he wants to eat, climbing equipment that Togawa wants to buy, baking equipment he is eyeing. These are little details that have never shown up onscreen before. It is the new life Nozue realizes he can have now, because he has Togawa. It is a life Nozue and Togawa have lived, are living, together and without us.

"Old-Fashioned Cupcake" and its sequel are available through SuBLime.

#50 weeks 500 words #old-fashioned cupcake #sagan sagan