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Thanks for your reply! I agree with you it would have been too good, and in a way it makes your choices even more meaningful. 

You have a real impact by your choices on those you care about; makes each choice all the more intense and real. 

Fellow bi woman here and I totally relate to all what you said about Aerona. Honestly, i even felt a bit of anger and guilt towards the 5 year forgotten Seren and her toxic attitude towards her.

 She deserves way better than that manipulation. I like immediately fell in love with her personality. When you get to know the soft emotional, lovable interior under the hard exterior it's just magical.

 I'd highly reccomend buying the NSFW version if you haven't. It deepens the romance, emotions and has no off-putting male gaze. 

I also chose to romance Yì Kâi and was also falling for him. The final choice between choosing between him and Aerona was really really difficult.

Although I know the jealousy Aerona felt...I just wanted to see him smile. I relate with him on the body image issues and using something that would harm you over time to look better. He's such a pure soul that you just want to hold and protect. I also absolutely hate how forgotten 5 year Seren treated him, she doesn't deserve him at all.  

So i was torn between choosing someone I want to protect or someone I want to be protected by. I wish there was an ending where you could leave Yì Kai home, travel with Aerona, and come back to the island, then again Aerona has gone through a lot of stress because of Seren, she's within her full rights to refuse.

So you're right, it left me a bit broken either way, especially since i don't know how Yi Kai ended up after I left him on the ship. 

SPOILERS BELOW!

This was honestly one of the best visual novels I've ever read. I love your writing @maneki_mushi especially the emotions and feelings of each character.

It's a parody on the whole concept of the "perfect hero" and even knowing Seren's upbringing, it was hard to demonise the actions she did in those forgotten 5 years...well except for the implied toxic relationship with Aerona.

Being a bi woman myself, I was torn...between choosing Aerona or Yà Kâi.

Aerona was the one I originally fell for. Her harder, battle hardened warrior shell covered a softer lovable inner self, and her personality was something that I liked. The way she cared for Seren, held her close protectively so many times, and her pure love. *Not to mention the scars that make her look good, army women with scars are kinda my type...lol :P and the NSFW scenes with her were so amazing and realistic, no male gaze at all which made it even hotter and...emotional my god* (the ending proposal from her made me cry) 

Then there's Yà Kâi for who I felt a mix of adoration and guilt. I just wanted to see him happy, see him smile and was broken to see him losing his memories slowly but surely. 

Although I leaned more towards Aerona, I still wanted to accompany Yà Kâi to see that he safely reached his home...I don't care about the long journey of going and coming back to Aerona. 

I'd have loved if there was an option to convince Aerona to come with you on the travel to lands of Han just to make sure Yà Kâi is back home safely. Maybe she would only agree if you did enough good things for her in the story choices? That way Seren could get closure and lead a happy life with her fiancée...then again that's just not how life goes sometimes.

The game was great and I loved reading everything! Not many otome games out there cover both male and female love interests so nicely, thank you for the read, well worth the purchase of the pdf and dlc version! :)