I had high hopes for this drama. Ok, it is a slow burn in the first half while all the characters are introduced, and we find out how their lives are intertwined. The main plot focused on two sexless marriages and the impact on the relationship of our 4 leads.

It is not unusual for a Japanese drama to take an awkward situation and drill down and come up with something uniquely insightful. This show has a hint of that while tackling the role of sex, intimacy, communication and trust in a committed relationship.

The show does pick up it's pace in the second half and it was reaching a crescendo towards the end when it seems to hit the brakes and the show feels oddly moribund.

Let us backtrack a bit. The show is largely about two marriages and they are both on the rocks because of, at first glance, the same problem. A lack of intimacy and poor communication that created an icy atmosphere and lots of stilted moments. This is not help by one dimensional characters. Their relationships spiral ever downward in a low grade poisonous and self destructive way. They seem to spend the bulk of the time apologising perfunctorily to each other. Timidity, sullenness, frustration and detachment are the four horsemen of this drama.

The show appears to be postulating two types of marriage breakdowns. Both pass through a awkward sexless phase. However, in one case, the love between them is stone dead while the other is a complex dance of false promises, poor communication and selfishness but the flame of love still flickers under the dung heap. There is a lot of penned up emotions and subsurface angst. They have an almost affair, actual infidelity but also attempts to patch things up but the dice is casted, and we are heading to a seemingly obvious conclusion.

It would be too much to ask for a HEA ending, but the last episode feels flat. After a year apart, the FL crumbles and mended her relationship with her ex-husband with little preamble. The second ML is forced to play the Noble Idiot card and walk away empty handed.

We are not told if she accepts the status quo as the new norm or all her grievances were addressed. It seems to come down to the old Love Conquers All trope.

The show put forward a number of questions but ends up walked away without answering them earnestly. We get hints that resolves have been weakened, expectations realigned. It feels like a bet each way. It is insipid and provides little service to its fans. Do we really need 11 episodes to tell this sorry tale?

In terms of acting, all the leads did fine. OST is nice. I could find no valid reason to rewatch this.