If ever there was a textbook example of a character suffering from internalized homophobia, it would be Shun. Although he seems to have known for much of his life that he was gay, Shun pushed that knowledge down, allowing himself to be caught up in his parents' plans for his life, which included an arranged marriage to the daughter of an acquaintance. Finally, at their wedding ceremony, Shun admitted to his family and his fiancée (and her family) that he couldn't go through with marrying Sakurako because he was only attracted to men, and we learn why it was that he tried so hard to be something he's not: his parents, furious, disown him and kick him out of the house.

It should come as no surprise, then, that when Kanna Kii opens the first volume of Seaside Stranger, Shun is not the happiest of men. He's fled to his aunt's home on a small, rural island off of Okinawa, and although his aunt accepts him for who he is without question, Shun is still struggling with the utter rejection his own parents handed him. Although he's not in the closet any longer, he's also not entirely comfortable with being out of it. We do get the sense that he's working towards that acceptance in his own way, though – his cousin is in a committed relationship with another woman and his aunt has exactly zero problems with it; in fact, the couple lives with them in his aunt's house until they decide to buy their own place midway through the book. Shun's discomfort, therefore, is not based on the way he's being treated in his new home, but rather on the lingering hurt and doubt that plagued him up through his admission – and as we know, unlearning things that have stuck with you for years is neither easy nor always one hundred percent possible.

Although Seaside Stranger is ostensibly a romance, it's not strictly focused on how Mio and Shun end up as a couple. That's absolutely part of the work – and an important part at that – but it's just as much about how Shun comes to understand that he deserves to be happy and that Mio truly does love him for (rather than in spite of) who he is. Mio has a similar journey to make, but he largely does it off the page. When we first meet him, he's a depressed high school student mourning his mother (his father having died when he was younger), and Shun is one of the only people who will approach him and not reproach him for “taking too long” to get over her death. Mio's alienation from the people he's staying with speaks to Shun, especially since Shun's also mourning the loss of his family, albeit in a different sense. The two form a bond before Mio is sent off-island to live in a group home, and when he doesn't hear from the younger man, Shun assumes that Mio's just another someone who couldn't accept him. His life, after all, has primed him to see his sexual orientation as something reprehensible, and it's a short leap of logic from there to “he must find me gross/creepy now that he's meeting ‘normal’ people.”

Mio's return three years after they first met is, therefore, somewhat mixed for Shun. He's happy that Mio is back, conflicted about the other young man's professions of affection, and, although he doesn't say it, very reluctant to take any steps that would make them an official couple. That, he seems to think, would be an irrevocable step for both of them, admitting that they're not heterosexual (Mio seems to be bi or pan, although it could just be the “gay for you” trope rearing its ugly head), and in Shun's experience, that's not a good thing. It's a mark of how he's trying to change his attitudes that he doesn't push Mio away entirely; being around his cousin and her girlfriend has shown him that gender doesn't need to matter in terms of having a successful relationship. But there's a sense that he doesn't see that possibility for himself, and that's the real tragedy of his character. Working through that with Mio's help (and, perhaps unwittingly, Sakurako's) is the true thrust of the story.

It's a sweet, affirming tale in the end. Both Mio and Shun are looking for love in each other, but also for a new sense of family and acceptance, and that means something slightly different for both of them. When Shun plants the clippings from Mio's mother's lily around the bench where they first met, he's offering Mio a place to belong and return to, and when Mio sticks by him unrelentingly, he's offering the same. The story is about them working together to accept what's being freely given, overcoming their own issues to find happiness. There's something lovely about that, and Kii tells the story well. The art can be very busy (almost overwhelmingly so at times) and Shun definitely looks a little too young, but this is a book with its heart in the right place. If you enjoyed I Hear the Sunspot, Seaside Stranger should definitely be on your reading list.