It was sweet. It was cute. But it wasn't really all that memorable.
I think the biggest issue this story had was that it was simply just overstuffed with characters. So you had the two mains, Yejun & Minhyuk, then a side couple, Geon & Sarang, and then Yejun's housemate, Dongwoo. That's five characters. When your story isn't even thirty chapters, and the chapters you do have are short themselves, you just simply don't have enough time to juggle a cast of characters like that. They ended up feeling one note and annoying, merely existing as page filler, especially Dongwoo. If you remove him, the story doesn't change even a little.
Dongwoo was notably needless to me because he does nothing . . . Yet he somehow existed everywhere. He was living with Yejun, he ended up forming a friendship with Minhyuk, and he inexplicably somehow knows and is seemingly friends with Sarang. Why does he have such a large presence in the story when he does absolute jack shit? It honestly got distracting. There's no reason for him to exist yet he's connected to nearly every character. And near the end of the story, it tries randomly alluding to depth with him by vaguely talking about issues with his father, but it's never brought up before nor after so it just feels random.
The side couple, Geon & Sarang, I also didn't like. As a couple, I didn't like them that much, and individually as characters, I also just didn't care for them. Geon was simply just annoying, I don't really know why but I just never really connected to his character. He has ties to Minhyuk, since Minhyuk only got that job due to him being a spy for Geon, and that whole subplot was something I found super fucking annoying. They didn't really explain what the point for being a spy was, other than vague "that university is our university's competition," and it was never explained what the stuff Geon had Minhyuk stealing was nor what it was useful for. So that whole subplot was a slog to read.
Sarang . . . I'm a little more conflicted on him. He's really cute, and I liked him for the most part, but his feelings towards Geon just never made sense to me. We're never shown why he likes him. Him having a crush was never developed, he just merely saw him and fell in love. And also in the "relationship" the two had, Sarang was treated like complete shit, and he just accepted it. At the very least he did break it off when he found out Geon had used him, but my God man he just had no self-respect throughout the whole thing. That scene where Geon was spanking him and he just wasn't into it at all, but he still begged Geon to continue so that he doesn't leave him? Insane. Usually I like pathetic characters but I think the lighthearted tone of this story really just negatively highlighted how pathetic he was, since it wasn't funny, and it had no edge of sensuality to it. Just sad.
At the very least, I liked the main characters . . . Most of the time. I did really like their backstory, it felt surprisingly realistic for how lighthearted the tone and general feel of the story was. When they were in school, Minhyuk befriends Yejun, who begrudgingly and slowly accepts his affection. However, this makes Minhyuk's other friends start to give him the cold shoulder, as Yejun is a social pariah due to his cold demeanor & lower financial status. One day Yejun overheard Minhyuk talking to his old friends, in which he calls Yejun a "loser." Because of that, their friendship breaks, and they go their separate ways. I thought that backstory was pretty great; it was a great balance of not being overdramatic while still being hurtful enough to cut a friendship down in the way it did. It also had a lasting effect on Yejun, as Minhyuk was his only friend; the story ends with Minhyuk saying he might not ever be able to fully trust Yejun again, which was something I actually liked quite a bit. Their relationship wasn't perfect but that's what made it good.
Minhyuk was cute. He was really desperate to earn back Yejun's friendship and I found his insistence and the way he refused to give up to be quite adorable. He was very headstrong. However, I will say, I didn't really like how there wasn't ever a scene of him fully acknowledging his past. It's kind of treated like no big deal by him and I don't understand why. It doesn't hurt his character, he doesn't come off as cruel by not treating it too severely . . . But rather aloof? Regardless, I still wish there was a proper scene with him where he says it was fucked up. It is acknowledged, just not to a degree that I felt satisfied with. Also, early in the story we're shown a flashback to right before he joins the new university where he sees Yejun again after all those years, and in that moment, he has like an epiphany where he realizes Yejun is someone he'd want to date. It read like a moment where he realized his feelings, which made a lot of the story seem like him trying to win him over. But then it completely backtracks, and had him act like he wasn't aware of his own feelings at all and was merely trying to have his old friend back . . . Which was weird. And frustrating. Like, really frustrating actually.
