Tenshi no Su

Angel Nest (2001) is a collection of four short stories by Erica Sakurazawa, all in the josei vein. The latter three (God Only Knows, Tea Time, and A Gift From the Heavens) are all pretty forgettable romance vignettes, which one suspects were included only to pad out enough content for a paperback, but Angel Nest itself is a really interesting story.

Angel Nest stars Natsu, a career-focused woman whose job frequently takes her away from her husband, Ken. Returning early from a business trip, Natsu walks in to discover that her husband is sleeping with another woman, Emi, and Ken immediately asks her for a divorce.

Sakurazawa takes things in a pretty interesting direction from there, though. With wonderful emotional nuance, we see Natsu neither ecstatic nor crushed, just dealing with the dull realization that her relationship with five years has left her empty. Things get further complicated shortly thereafter when Emi begs Natsu to let her crash at her place, confessing that Ken is actually pretty creepy-obsessive. After an initial ambivalence about sheltering the woman who had an affair with her husband, Natsu gives in, and the two women develop a somewhat quixotic friendship. Sakurazawa does a really good job of depicting the unfolding of complex emotions as both Natsu and Emi figure out what they’re going to do with their lives going forward.

Also there’s a ghost-like “angel” which drinks Bombay Sapphire and just kind of hangs around Natsu’s apartment. There’s probably some symbolism to it.