[Note: This review contains spoilers for the ending]

The fate of those who try to buck fate in Japanese manga is not pleasant. Someone always gets turned into angst fodder for the fans. Second Love is no exception. When we last saw our heroes, wimp (Ryou) and boyfriend (Ryuuji) had been told they had to prevent a certain event from happening. King Saladin the hot blond reversible was killed accidentally during a battle by his one-eyed lover Shura. (And I don't know why I called him Ashra in the first review. His name is Shura. Subconscious influences from Someone With Ears, perhaps.) This event made Shura curse himself and all future incarnations of himself to lives of misery. Wimp is the incarnation of Shura, boyfriend is the reincarnation of Saladin, and if they want to be happy they have to do something about that curse. But Shura attacks boyfriend at the start of this book and 'kills' him, which sends Ryuuji back to his own time. Ryou is determined to starve himself to death in Saladin's world so he and Ryuuji can get back together in their own time.

This annoys the little shotacon Rin (also an avatar of Shura) who shows him the future that awaits if the curse remains effective. Wimp is dismayed to discover that he and boyfriend will never connect. In fact he'll remain the unwilling ('Iya! Dame!') fuck partner of his predatory tutor. Rin isn't interested in Ryou's problems. He wants Ryou to do something so he (Rin) can grow up and have sex with the 'master' he adores. Master is some kind of heavenly caretaker who observes the unfolding events, with Rin at his elbow, so Rin has inside information on what wimp is and is not doing.

With impeccable logic, wimp figures that if Shura is dead, Shura won't be around to kill Saladin; ergo, all one has to do is kill Shura. This isn't so easy. Shura has divine protection. The desert is under the rule of a goddess who likes strong men, and Shura is the strongest man around, and he's immune to poison and most other things as well. On the plus side (if there is a plus side in having to kill a perfectly good one-eyed hero who should be left alone to screw his king), all the other guys the king screws want Shura out of the way as well so they can have him full-time. This is very silly of them. King makes it with these guys because a) it's the custom of the desert that guys do it with guys and b) he needs them as allies in his fight against the emperor. (As the arms trader remarks, the revolution has been built on two things- Shura's arm and Saladin's ass.) King isn't doing it for love of them, and you'd think they'd have the brains to know it. OTOH, Shura is upset at finding King screwing with some potential ally, which is very silly of him. King regards this as an unavoidable part of his duties, and you'd think Shura would have the smarts to realize that too. A monarch's lot is not a happy one, especially when he's a charmer like Saladin.

Master and Rin observe Ryou's planning and see the necessity to have Ryuuji back on the scene. Alas, once through the door, there's no entering a second time. But master has old acquaintances who can open other doors- for a price. O.A. is a marquis called Gil with a mysterious past one rather hopes the artist will deal with (has dealt with) elsewhere, and price involves letting Marquis have his willful way with master, and for once the artist doesn't show us all the details in detail, the cow. Just enough to make Rin furious with jealousy. Ryou's first attempt on Shura is about to end in disaster for Ryou, but Ryuuji appears in the nick of time to pull him away to safety. The two then go have sex for eight pages before getting back to their plotting. Meanwhile Rin's jealousy has led him to declare his heart to Master, and the two come to a happy understanding. Ryou and Ryuuji get to the final battle. And the rest is a spoiler.

Ryuuji is going to spear Shura as his attention is distracted. But king, whose incarnation Ryuuji is, 'feels' his intention and leaps in front of Shura to save him, getting himself killed a per plan. Ryou, Ryuuji, Rin and Master all return to the celestial observation point. Master says all will go as it did before- no changes. Ryuuji insists there must be something they can do. Gil appears to say there's nothing they can manage. It's too dangerous for them to go back into that time because Ryou is already there. If the two meet, they'll cancel each other out and both be destroyed. But using that principle--- he takes them to a year after the battle to where Shura has become a wanderer, uncaring and nearly catatonic, his reason for living gone. It's Shura who returns to the battle and kills the Shura of a year before in order to save Saladin. Saladin, we learn, in grief for Shura's death, went on to win the battle and bring down the Emperor.

Meanwhile we're back to the beginning of book 1, the fateful day Ryou got turned down by the girl he was in love with and met Ryuuji-- who'd also been given the brush-off by his girlfriend and was looking for consolation. The two go off together to do that very thing, observed by Master and Rin. They recall Saladin's vow on the battlefield, holding the dead Shura in his arms. "I am the King. I could never be yours alone. But in some future I'll come back as an ordinary man, and at that time I'll love only you." Vow looks like it's coming true. Rin seems to have grown taller already, and is looking forward to the day when he can screw Master. 'You mean I'm the uke?' Master asks. 'Obviously,' Rin says. (That's not how it happens in the attached side story, but we have hopes.)