When Yuel Malek has to spend a weekend on the countryside for his aunt’s wedding, nothing goes quite right — traffic fails him, weather torments him, and the online booking system of the hotel ate the booking and took his money. As a result, he ends up staying with his older cousin, Tavi Malek, an extroverted fella who makes the people-averse Yuel uncomfortable.
However, while everyone else finds the wedding a happy occasion, Yuel finds any kind of family reunion a nightmare. It doesn’t help that he holds complicated feelings toward the guy who so compassionately offered to share the double room with Yuel for the weekend.
As always, before I share my thoughts, here’s my obligatory content note for this type of material, for the eyes of parents and other responsible adults: this kinetic novel has explicit sexual content, which is questionable in nature in every way.
If you are under the age of eighteen, this is not content for you.
First, I just want to note that I drafted this in May when I had just played the game. The plan was to post it after the move, but I never got around to it. Because these were the thoughts I had at the time of having just played the game, I have only fixed some typos.
Okay, so, just for full disclosure, I am a weirdo about content sometimes. I found this because ebi-hime mentioned “the cousin thing” in a post on Bluesky and I was immediately sold on this and needed to know more. ebi-hime directed me to this VN, when I mentioned I lack funds at the moment, but Yuel and Tavi do, according to creator, exist in many AU forms. So you might see more games with these character names in the future. I might make a tag for these games, if need be.
As someone who writes non-canon AUs of my characters that was just such a fun quirk to share with someone else.
Now to some actual thoughts on the game…
Thoughts
“What could a 2-4 hour game offer in terms of depth?” you ask.
Well, this visual novel answers it with impressive depth. My conclusion of that depth: Yuel must be protected at all costs — he’s been through it, and he deserves none of the trauma and all of the therapy we can afford to buy for him.
Admittedly, I clocked in at around 8 hours but this is normal for me. I read about half the speed that’s considered average for an English speaker to begin with. However, it doesn’t change that this VN brings up some rather heavy topics for a story that essentially takes place in 2 nights, a wedding day and a morning after. And just breezing through them, Tavi and Yuel really talk about some of these things in surprising amounts of detail.
So, let’s look at the flaws first. I want to say none, but that’s a lie. There are some things that can be considered flaws.
For people who care about aesthetic may note there is a difference between the sprite quality that could potentially bother you and there is a slight discrepancy between CGs and sprite. However, this is not necessarily considered a major flaw, and some may justify this as the game is available for free.
But also, I definitely see something thematic in the sprites whether it was intentional or not. I’m not familiar enough with ebi’s work to say. But the self-deprecating, low self-esteem character getting the sketch-like sprite feels very appropriate, does it not? I do appreciate it.
Another thing that is a minor flaw is that it is from Yuel POV pretty much exclusively for a good chunk of the VN. Then suddenly the commentary had Tavi’s perspective and it absolutely threw me off. This story doesn’t have explicit chapter divisions, so there was nothing to prepare me for a POV change.
And yet, despite going, “Well, that’s an interesting POV change??” when it caught me off-guard, it didn’t take me all that many lines to go, “Oh, okay, now this makes sense at this point in the storyline.” It was a good executive choice, in my opinion, to work with the plot this way, but it was just that the change was so sudden without a transition that could prepare me for a potential POV switch. Thus I find it a minor flaw, rather than a major one. It didn’t affect the overall experience, but to some people it might be more jarring than it was to me.
The framing device around the talk is good; putting two characters to talk helps to avoid unnecessary exposition. However while it’s established early that Yuel hasn’t met Tavi in many years, it’s later revealed Tavi keeps in touch with Yuel regularly. That’s fine, as they aren’t mutually exclusive. Nonetheless, that does make me feel like that’s a little odd because Tavi seems to know nothing about Yuel. This can to some degree be explained with Tavi doing most of the talking or texting when they’re not communicating in person, but it also seems like Tavi is relatively good at noticing something is wrong, and, while he can’t needle Yuel to just about anything when Yuel is sober, he does have some influence in whether he gets an answer and seemingly what answer he actually gets. So I just feel the man would have more understanding about Yuel than he’s depicted having. Like, yeah, he might not know about the boyfriend, but some other things just feel a little weird not to know.
But that’s just my opinion about how the character functions. Which I see no problem with having, but I also don’t know everything about these characters. Maybe the only question Tavi brings to the table in every call with Yuel is essentially nothing but “What’s your opinion on…?” and if so, I would have liked to know for consistency. Maybe Tavi has been too busy teasing Yuel to ask how he’s been over the phone or text.
The way they discuss matters such as domestic abuse, child abuse, homophobia, and being disowned is nuanced, and also very real. That these things are presented vaguely at the start and we learn more abou Yuel’s mental struggles and trauma is a good choice. His social anxiety, his aversion to people due to his past trauma, and his crush on his cousin all feel very plausible.
The presentation of depression, from the perspective of the depressed is relatable. I know I reacted with, “Oof, yeah. That’s how depression makes kindness look like, isn’t it?” ane “Ah, depression really likes to distrust sincerity, doesn’t it,” because of personal experiences.
Some people who are depressed need a gentle hand to bring them support and need to be treated as fragile sometimes, but that’s not always the case. Depression makes a person always look bad in their own eyes, and this story really captures how someone with clinical depression thinks they are an inconvenience to the world.
It hurt in a good way. I have not only been in Tavi’s position and seen someone I care about a lot express they think they’re bothering me when all I feel is that I want to take all the bad things away from them, but I’ve been right there in Yuel’s shoes too. I know that’s how the reality feels like. Kindness is necessary to those suffering, but the kindness is also warped into pity by the receiver. It is, truly, heartbreaking. And it resonated with me deeply.
I also found that the discussion about how conversation comes with boundaries was great! Tavi slipping away because he felt the bridesmaid was too much and overstepped boundaries because of (drunken) oversharing was perfect. That him and Yuel end up talking about how intimate one can be with someone and in what way is a matter of consent. Tavi signed up for some quick intimacy in the bushes, but got a strange sharing about awful men by someone who seemed more into him than he was into her… Yes. This, yes. Very good plot choice to move into a conversation about how it’s a matter of context when to share these things. Yuel deserves to go into sll the stuff that causes him grief because they have years of relationship as cousins, while that one girl had a night of flirting. That it also establishes that Tavi cares deeply about consent during intimacy is important later too. It’s a perfect way to both lead into some of the trauma, but also is very character establishing beyond Yuel’s “Tavi has it so easy because he’s able to talk to people and thrives in social situations”.
There is no good way to pivot to the next point, so let’s do the awkward transition: So… was the explicit content any good, one might wonder. I will just say I don’t know.
I retain the opinion that explicit sexual content isn’t for me. I essentially sat through it, thinking it was, well, a lot. I’m not the greatest fan of sexual content, but the reason I generally stand it in books is the lack of visual representation, meaning the CG made it… uncomfortable. Well, more uncomfortable. I didn’t come for the explicit scenes. I even weighed not to read it when I saw it was graphic. My need to know more about the cousin thing won over the knowledge that I would be sitting through content I dislike. It was worth it. It held emotional value, and being in Tavi’s POV really helped with the moral aspects, and we needed it, not to make the action moral, but to see this man is both aware what he’s doing, and absolutely more drunk that he realises.
Overall, it was a good experience playbwith VN. It was absolutely worth my time. Good character-driven plot, well done emotional depth and a few comic moments to ease the tension.
Generally not recommended to people who have issues with discussions of depression and its symptoms, trauma, and complex human emotions that aren’t necessary appropriate according to society, as well as things like drinking and drunken sex.
Meanwhile it’s warmly recommended to my fellow BL lovers, who don’t mind people being people, trauma, and one sharp-tongued boy with depression getting needy when intoxicated. “The cousin thing” that hooked me absolutely delivered with this one.
