Rasetsu by Chika Shiomi

Eighteen year old Rasetsu Hyuga is an exorcist working for a company in Tokyo. Though she tends to be abrasive and short-tempered, she is an excellent spirit-chaser. She only has one problem in her life- imprinted on the skin her breast bone is a red rose- the mark of a demon she encountered back before she first learned of her abilities.

The demon marked her, then told her that unless she discovered her true love by the time that she was twenty, it would return to claim her... forever. And though ever since then, Hyuga has come into her own as a powerful exorcist, even she knows that she isn't powerful enough to drive the demon away from her. She's rather fatalistic about the possibility, but she isn't out there desperately looking for love, either.

Yako Hoshino is a teacher who comes to the agency to help him take care of a matter he cannot handle on his own- that of a possessed book. Though he is surprised by Hyuga's looks, he can smell the stench of the demon on her from the mark on her body, and makes some rather insulting assumptions about her right away- ones that Hyuga carefully and calmly refutes in a way that is equally insulting to Hoshino, and shows she can give as good as she gets.

When he realizes the truth, he is apologetic, but she isn't having any of his apologies. Still, as Hoshino is blackmailed into joining the same agency that Hyuga works for, she still doesn't warm to him much, and he finds out her other awful secret- her powers are fueled by sugar- mostly cake, but she will eat mounds of sugar crystals if she can't get cake. He finds this gross and disgusting, but finds himself drawn to her nonetheless.

But Hoshino has some secrets of his own, and one of them is that he once fell in love with a girl who looked just like Rasetsu Hyuga. But it's only on a trip for a mission to Hoshino's old school that Hyuga discovers that the woman Hoshino fell in love with was a ghost- a guardian ghost who watched over Hoshino and moved on when he no longer needed her.

Hyuga finds herself fascinated, and looking at Hoshino in a whole new light. Does this mean she really has feelings for him deep down? And will her fascination with this new information about the man who has been a thorn in her side spell doom for the case they are working on?

I read the first chapter of this book in the now-defunct magazine, ShoujoBeat, and it was interesting enough to make me pick up the book. Having read plenty of romantic shoujo manga in my time, I can already tell that Yako Hoshino is being set up as her soul mate and true love, but both of them are going to have to realize that. And the demon who marked her probably lied about letting her go if she found her true love- and they will have to work together to defeat it.

But it's not so much the destination, but the journey that marks Shoujo manga, and it will be all about how the end up caring for each other and learning to show that caring and coming to rely on each other. For that, I am willing to read this manga and watch that slow flowering and the background of ghostbustings and exorcisms.

It will be interesting to see two people who are so guarded come to care for each other and let the walls down for each other and work together. So far, we have only the gentlest inklings of such a future, but I am willing to be there for the ride and see how it happens. The unusual background of being exorcists only raises the stakes for the outcome. Recommended.