hence why i said "sometimes people", meaning im addressing bout the general statement in your comment.
and it's been a while I've read this but iirc 2nd ML didn't do shit like keep in touch or actively woo the MC before they got reunited
it could be he also had a crush (which doesn't have to be malicious just bc of the age gap btw, maybe like "oh wow i sure hope i can find a partner as cute as him" kind of thinking). in any case i was expecting he had no interest when he first showed up and only actively became a hindrance to introduce conflict to the story.
walk me through which chapter he said this again as it's been very long
anyways my point was initially i see nothing wrong with saying "we'll do the fun things like drinking or clubbing when you're older" to someone who looks up to you as the fun older person. it's like the fun uncle saying "yeah I'll take you to the best places" which doesn't have to be creepy 100% of the time
i was referring to comment you made "oh wow i sure hope i can find a partner as cute as him" kind of thinking" this thinking is problematic.
I get you intial point, if he had only said "let's do fun things" it wouldnt be a problem BUT he himself said that he always thought of uju as someone more than a friend.
Mind you Mc was 13-15 years old then wdym "always thought of him as more." Implications are clearly as day, you want to ignore it then it's on you.
Do you mean "college"? lol
You don't go out much do you? Just because they say sus shit like that doesn't mean it's automatically sus. Could be they just want to misdirect you by closing the topic or just saying shit they think would be fun because they're just dumb and young as well. It's a different thing when they *actually* do it versus just talking out their ass, glad I'm not your friend, you might report me for saying I want to commit murder just because I say I'm gonna jinja kill my boss for making us do overtime

Mc was in middle school while the 2nd love interest was in college and literally every other convo they had he was saying things like "when your 20 we'll do this" and "when you become an adult we'll do that"