This book is broken up into two stories: Kitchen (the first 2/3 of the book), and Moonlight Shadow (the last 1/3 of the book).

On Kitchen:

I was struggling to connect with the plot or characters for the first half of it. It was only around the point where Yuichi called Mikage that I got invested in the thread of emotions connecting the two. Before then, Yuichi's character was non-existent and Eriko was not in the picture a lot, leaving Mikage to not have anyone to build off of.

Part of the blame lies in the translation, which reads very simplistic and stilted and likely dilutes the nuanced interactions that reveal the emotional connection between Mikage and Yuichi.

Eriko being the pillar of the story was a nice surprise, and I only wish the more questionable transphobic parts surrounding her could've been done away with.

On Moonlight Shadow:

A short tale that tells of how two people deal with grief in their own separate ways, but still manage to converge in the end.

It reminded me a lot of FLCL. A boy and his brother's girlfriend both use each other as a crutch after the brother leaves, and then a mysterious, mystical girl comes to upend their life.