Young love is both a beautiful journey and a lesson in what tests it.

And in the second season of Japanese BL School Trip: Joined a Group I’m Not Close To, Hioki and Watarai are beginning to discover what happens after falling in love.

Adapted from Kakuregi Uzura’s novel Shugakuryoko de Nakayokunai Group ni Hairimashita, the series reunites Fujimoto Kodai as Hioki Asahi and Kan Hideyoshi as Watarai Tsukasa. The first season followed Hioki, a quiet and awkward high school student who unexpectedly found himself joining a school trip group made up of some of the school’s most popular boys. Among them was Watarai, whose kindness and attention gradually turned an unfamiliar friendship into something much more personal.

Alongside their friends Morisaka Naoya (Sakuragi Masaya), Nakasato Haruki (Fukuda Ayuta), and Hotta Hayato (Shimizu Kairi), Hioki found not only his first love but also a group of friends who accepted him exactly as he was.

Now, as Hioki and Watarai enter their final year of high school, season two follows them as they navigate the realities of being a couple, where falling in love was only the beginning and learning how to maintain that relationship brings its own challenges.

And I’ll admit, I missed Hioki and Watarai.

I’m not sure I realized how much I missed them until I pressed play on the first episode of season two.

But there they were. Just as sweet. Just as awkward. And just as sincere as they were in the first season, even as they begin to navigate what it means to be in a relationship.

We’re only two episodes in, but it’s already shaping up to be a series and a couple I’ll remember. Not because it’s angsty or dramatic, but because it’s sweet, low-key, and a perfect break from deeper dramas.

That said, the first two episodes immediately begin to test the relationship Hioki and Watarai have entered, beginning with Hioki’s habit of keeping his feelings and thoughts to himself. And I love that these early episodes tackle communication, especially since that’s one of the most important parts of any relationship. The second important part of any relationship is trust. And based on the preview for the upcoming episode, that seems to be the obstacle they’ll face next.

School Trip Season Two is just as sweet and is just as much a blissful escape as its first season, but it’s also already doing a great job expressing the lessons that first love and young love teach us. Even if this love is much less harsh and much less gritty than most real-life love stories.

Honestly, my heart and brain need the sweet, so I’ll take it.

For a chance to revisit the sweet love we witnessed in the first season of School Trip and the friendships made along the way, check out School Trip: Joined a Group I’m Not Close To Season 2, now streaming on GagaOOLala.

Rating- 4.5 out of 5