Papillon Volume 2 by Miwa Ueda

Ageha is a twin, but she's always been the brainy twin to her sister Hana's beautiful twin. She deliberately dressed down to not take attention off her sister, but now she's decided that she wants to be beautiful, too. But Hana isn't letting her sister usurp the spotlight without a fight, and she's ready, willing and able to do anything she can to take everything her sister wants away from her.

Starting with Hayato, the boy who has long been Ageha's friend, and who she fell in love with. Ageha started on her road to being attractive to become Hayato's girlfriend, but Hana quickly stepped in to steal him away. Now, Ageha is being coached by her school guidance counselor, Ryusei, into becoming more confident and able to take Hayato for her boyfriend. But when Ageha sees Hayato kissing Hana and he breaks his date to go see her grandmother with her, she is heartbroken.

Ryusei shows up, but Ageha runs from confronting Hayato, and instead goes to the hospital to see her grandmother after all. But Ryusei has plans to help Ageha in her plan to make Hayato her boyfriend. Starting with her poor relationship with her mother. Ageha has always felt second to Hana in her own mother's eyes, especially when her mother raised Hana and Ageha was sent to live with her grandmother in the countryside. But it takes a terrible accident for Ageha and Hana's mother before Ageha can admit her feelings for her mother.

Afterwards, her mother apologizes, and so does Ageha, and the two of them look through the pictures of her as a baby that her father took. Her father soon gets in on the action, and Hana is displeased to see how close Ageha, her mother and father are.

But as Ryusei continues to help Ageha, she is not so certain that she really wants Hayato after all. Because now that Hana has him, she thinks he is stupid to fall for her twin. And Ryusei is the one that makes her heart go pitter-pat. But is a romance even possible between a schoolgirl and her guidance counselor?

I am of two minds about this series, which definitely still reminds me of Miwa Ueda's first series, Peach Girl. Momo and Sae have definite dramatic offspring in Hana and Ageha, but so far their rivalry is less horribly backstabby than Momo and Sae's relationship.

But for all Ryusei's trying to help Ageha, I have to wonder if Ageha really wants to be in a relationship with someone. She's ready to call it quits on Hayato when she finds him with her sister... she doesn't even try to fight for him. And then she decides she is in love with Ryusei instead. Who is more or less unavailable, because he's an adult who is over her in the school.

Regardless, I still find this series extremely uncomfortable to read. I hate the poisonous relationship between the two girls, and it just makes me very sad and upset to read. I certainly wouldn't pay money for this, so I'm glad I can get it from the library. But I'd have to be desperate to read another volume.