Even So, Please Call It Love

Even though I already knew my feelings would never be returned, I still couldn’t stop them.

Yamada Karen (28), an office worker who was having a workplace romance with the boss she admired, suddenly receives news of his marriage and discovers that she had been “the other woman.”

In the midst of that heartbreak, the one who approaches her is Ayase Ren (26), the handsome photographer everyone is talking about.

“If you want to give up on love, the best way is to fall in love again.”

Little by little, Karen finds herself drawn to him, a man who combines a kindness that accepts even her weaknesses with an elusive, unsettling air. But Ayase had a secret he could tell no one.

What began as a comfortable, lukewarm relationship meant to help her forget the person she loved gradually becomes something real… a bitter, mature love story.

And so begins an intensely frustrating, slow-burning love full of detours between a woman who cannot move on from heartbreak and a man who wants to move on from his own.