A Depressed Bisexual Hero in YA Books: Markus Leitner from Before They Got Onto The Roof by Tina Isabel Leung

If you've been searching for a depressed bisexual hero in YA books, Markus Leitner from Before They Got Onto the Roof by Tina Isabel Leung might be exactly who you've been looking for. This depressed bisexual hero character analysis will explore why Markus stands out in the landscape of contemporary YA—not because he's polished or aspirational, but because he's devastatingly real.

Markus Leitner an eighteen-year-old high school student in Berlin, grappling with depression, isolation, a knee injury that ended his football dreams, and the slow collapse of the few connections he thought he could count on. He's also quietly, painfully attracted to a male classmate—a truth he can't name, let alone accept.

Before They Got Onto the Roof is the prequel to the series The Summer That Changed Everything, following Markus and Karsten before the events that reshape their lives. It's available exclusively on Hasalynx Press through the reader plan, and you can start for free. If you're drawn to books with depressed bisexual heroes who feel like people you might actually know—messy, guarded, desperate for connection but terrified of it—Markus might be waiting for you.

What if the hero you've been looking for isn't the one who saves the day, but the one who's just trying to survive it?

Who Is Markus Leitner? A Depressed Bisexual Hero Character Study

Markus Leitner is the kind of protagonist who doesn't announce himself. He moves through crowded hallways like a shadow—"untouched and unseen," as he puts it—existing in a strange limbo where he's visible enough to be targeted but never truly seen. He's the boy with the tattered backpack, the dark hair falling forward to shadow his eyes, the one who watches from the periphery while others cluster together in their tight social circles.

What makes Markus a depressed bisexual hero isn't a label he claims or a coming-out arc that resolves neatly. It's something far more nuanced: the slow, painful recognition of feelings he's spent years burying. His attraction to Karsten Haas—the charming, socially fluid classmate who exists on both sides of the bully-bullied divide—emerges not through grand declarations but through dream sequences, stolen glances, and the terrifying intimacy of being truly seen by someone he's tried so hard to push away.

Markus is intensely introspective, prone to self-analysis that often tips into self-destruction. His blog becomes a chilling window into his darkest thoughts, a place where he contemplates the value of his existence with a detachment that masks profound pain. He's intelligent—genuinely brilliant, even—but that intelligence becomes a weapon against himself, used to catalog every failure and rejection with brutal precision.

For readers who love protagonists who are likeable not because they're heroic but because they're real, Markus delivers. He's not always kind. He's prickly, defensive, sometimes actively self-sabotaging. He pushes people away and then resents them for leaving. He's cruel to Karsten in ways that feel unjustified until you understand the depth of his hurt. But beneath all of that armor is a young man desperate for someone to see him—truly see him—and stay anyway.

His emotional depth comes from what he wants and what he fears being fundamentally at odds. What he wants: connection, love, a future that doesn't feel like an endless slog through gray. What he fears: that he's fundamentally unlovable, that his darkness will consume anyone who gets too close, that the people he loves will always choose someone else.

The romantic dynamic between Markus and Karsten is built on tension rather than resolution. Karsten loves Markus from afar, terrified of being discovered, complicit in the bullying through his silence. Markus sees Karsten as a hypocrite, a fair-weather friend who offers kindness in private but abandons him in public. Their interactions are charged with unspoken longing and mutual misunderstanding—the kind of dynamic that makes readers ache for a resolution that might never come.

Readers will fall for Markus because he's not a fantasy. He's the person you might have known in high school. Maybe he's the person you were in high school. His journey toward self-acceptance isn't linear, isn't triumphant, isn't guaranteed—and that's exactly why it matters.

If you've loved characters like Charlie from The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Adam from We Are Okay, or even the complicated tenderness of Ivy Aberdeen's Letter to the World, Markus offers that same raw, uncomfortable honesty about what it means to be young, depressed, and questioning everything.

What Makes Markus a Perfect Depressed Bisexual Hero

The depressed bisexual hero as a character type is tricky territory. Too often, the depression becomes a plot device to overcome rather than a condition to live with, or the bisexuality becomes a label rather than a lived experience. Markus sidesteps both traps by being specific—by existing as a particular person in a particular time and place whose depression and sexuality are inseparable from who he is.

Markus fits the depressed bisexual hero archetype through the craft of characterization that prioritizes emotional truth over narrative convenience. His depression isn't aesthetic or performative; it's the air he breathes. It manifests in the food he can't bring himself to eat, the sleep that won't come, the small pains he inflicts on himself as a counterpoint to the larger pain that has no physical form. The medication Dr. Fein prescribes doesn't fix him—it just makes him emptier, more hollow, stripping away the sharp edges of emotion while leaving the void intact.

His bisexuality, meanwhile, emerges not through a dramatic coming-out scene but through the dream that shows him what he's been denying. When he wakes with the phantom sensation of Karsten's lips against his, the confusion that follows isn't about what he felt—it's about what it means. "I'm not gay," he insists to Dr. Fein, even as the therapist gently suggests that his intense reactions to Karsten might point to something deeper. Markus doesn't have language for what he's experiencing. He doesn't have a community. He doesn't even have the self-knowledge to name it. His is a sexuality that's still forming, still discovering itself, still getting lost in the confusion of whether he wants to be Karsten or be with him.

The craft element that makes Markus work as this character type is the use of tension building through vulnerability. Every time Markus lets someone in—even a little—it's an act of courage that costs him something. His text exchange with Susanna on Christmas, reaching out when he knew he was about to be left on read. His answer to Karsten's Christmas message, a simple "Thanks. Merry Christmas" that represents a massive internal negotiation. His decision to keep living, not out of hope, but out of a hesitant curiosity about what might come next.

The book doesn't promise Markus a happy ending. What it offers instead is something arguably more powerful: the possibility of survival. Not triumph over darkness, but the decision to stay in the world despite it.

If you're looking for a depressed bisexual hero, Markus is waiting for you—but you'll have to read the book to find out if he makes it through the winter.

Why Markus and Karsten Will Steal Your Heart

The romance at the heart of Before They Got Onto the Roof isn't a traditional love story—it's a collision of two people who are both, in their own ways, terrified of being seen.

Karsten Haas is everything Markus isn't: charming, socially adaptable, surrounded by people who want his attention. On the surface, he's the golden boy who moves between social groups with effortless ease. Beneath that surface, he's hiding just as much as Markus—his sexuality, his unrequited feelings, his guilt over standing by while bullies target the boy he loves.

They meet in the ambiguous space of shared classrooms and school assignments. A mock trial pairs them for a project. Biology lab seats them side by side. Their interactions are awkward, tense, charged with everything neither of them can say. Markus pushes Karsten away, and Karsten lets him—because getting closer would mean admitting the truth. That he cares. That he's in love with someone who might never see him as anything more than a fair-weather friend.

But the moments between them are electric precisely because of what they can't express. The feather Markus brushes from Karsten's shoulder, the touch lingering just a breath too long. The "maybe it's a sign" Karsten whispers, meaning something else entirely. The dream Markus has of kissing Karsten in the hallway while the world dissolves around them—a vision of what could be if either of them had the courage.

The obstacles standing in their way are internal as much as external. Karsten is paralyzed by fear—not just of bullies, but of what it would mean to admit his feelings. Markus is convinced that he's unlovable, that anyone who gets close will eventually leave. And looming over everything is Markus's plan: the blog post, the roof, the chosen date.

What makes their romance compelling is that it's not about whether they'll end up together—it's about whether Markus will survive long enough to know. The stakes aren't "will they get together?" but "will he be alive to find out?" That shifts the entire emotional weight of the story. Every conversation, every moment of almost-connection, becomes precious.

Readers will root for them not because they're a classic romance couple, but because they're both so clearly in need of what the other represents: the possibility of being seen, truly seen, and accepted anyway.

Ready to Meet Markus Leitner?

Before They Got Onto the Roof is available exclusively on Hasalynx Press through the reader plan. You can start for free—no subscription required, no barriers to entry.

This isn't a book that promises easy answers or triumphant endings. It's a book that promises truth—the truth of what it feels like to be young and depressed and desperately trying to find a reason to stay. It promises characters who feel like people you might know, or people you might have been. It promises a romance that's tangled up in everything else—identity, survival, the slow work of learning to trust.

If you've been searching for books with a depressed bisexual hero, Markus might be exactly who you've been looking for. Not because he's aspirational, but because he's real.

Conclusion: Why Markus Leitner Matters

Markus Leitner is a depressed bisexual hero for readers who are tired of sanitized portrayals of mental illness and sexuality in YA. He's messy, complicated, sometimes unlikeable—and that's exactly what makes him worth reading. If you're looking for a depressed bisexual hero character analysis that doesn't shy away from the hard parts, Markus delivers. If you want books with depressed bisexual heroes that treat their subjects with honesty and nuance, Before They Got Onto the Roof belongs on your reading list. This is a romance character study that understands that sometimes the most important love story is the one we have with ourselves—the decision to keep living, to keep trying, to keep believing in a tomorrow that might finally be better.

As the prequel to The Summer That Changed Everything, this book is just the beginning of Markus's journey. It's the story of how he starts to claw his way out of depression, and how he falls in love with Karsten—slowly, painfully, against every wall he's built around himself. Their connection grows through stolen glances, quiet apologies, and the terrifying hope that someone might see him and stay. For readers who need to know what happens after the rooftop, this prequel is where Markus's recovery begins.

The book is available exclusively on Hasalynx Press through the reader plan. You can start reading for free, no strings attached. Whether you're here for the romance, the representation, or simply the chance to spend time with a character who feels devastatingly real, Markus is waiting.