GIRL I USED TO REALLY LOOK FORWARD TO THIS ONE AFTER LIKE SEASON 1 BUT WHY DOES IT SEEM LIKE A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT MANHWA NOW?? Shhsjssj
the age gap is really uncomfortable and WRONG and he's a minor I WISH THAT WASNT A MAJOR PLOT POINT. BUT GOD THE STORYTELLING IS VERY IMPRESSIVE. IT'S SO MOVING IN EVERY WAY! BOTH OF THEM ARE SO LIKEABLE AS CHARACTERS OUTSIDE OF THE RELATIONSHIP AND EVEN THE ROMANCE WAS COMPELLING! THEYRE FLAWED BUT NOT IREDEEMABLE AND THE SUBTLY SWEET ENDING WAS SO SATISFYING AFTER WATCHING THEM GRAPPLE WITH REALLY DAMN HARSH CIRCUMSTANCES! BRODERLINE GROOMING THO IM SO TORN LOL
gah!! i didnt expect this manhwa to touch my heart like this!!! the story isnt even all about romance, it honestly felt more like kwon young’s character journey haha, like watching him slowly find his way back to himself and back to the light. and isnt finding your way back to the light more romantic than anything?? lol like, the romance feels more like the vehicle for his journey rather than the destination itself, and idk, that just makes it hit so much harder. im so excited for the epilogue!!! i do want the author to develop them more romantically, but i think i’ll also be perfectly fine with just seeing more of them having happy moments together. and i really hope the chairman recovers and hana grows up to be a police officer!!! i dunno man, everything about this story just made me wanna root for ALL of the characters!! and oh my god yoonbin is such a cutieeeee i love him so much, what a radiant ball of sunshine indeed. i’d be blinded by his light too, kwon young really had no choice but to look at him!!!!
I second this!!! One hell of a rollercoaster of emotions but it’s so good
LOOKS VERY VERY DELICIOUS. I WILL PATIENTLY LET THIS MARINATE DKSKSKJSSJ
YALL THEIR LOVE ISNT SUDDEN, the REALIZATION is. their romantic relationship is new, but their emotional intimacy has YEARS of history behind it. that’s why the whole “jooan suddenly fell for seojoon” argument feels so reductive the story didn’t suddenly create a bond between them!!!!! it changed how jooan understands a bond that was already there!!!!! and this is where the distinction between hajin and seojoon becomes SO important: hajin represents the love jooan consciously CHASED, while seojoon represents the love jooan unconsciously LIVED. hajin was the person jooan spent years WANTING. seojoon was the person he spent years HAVING. like HELLO??? that distinction is EVERYTHING. and the really delicious part is that hajin himself understands something about jooan’s relationship with seojoon before jooan does. he’s basically telling jooan, “you’ve been loved in a way you didn’t recognize because you were too focused on the form you expected love to take.”
so it’s not “jooan forgot hajin and randomly picked seojoon.” PLEASE!!!!! it’s literally about jooan realizing that the kind of love he had been chasing wasn’t necessarily the only form love could takeand that he had already been deeply loved by someone who had been beside him all along!!!!!!!!!!! SO SWEEEEEEET BRO I AM CURRENTLY LOSING MY MIND
and I thought I was serious about them, you take the crown
go off with everything you said bc when people say he suddenly liked him I'm like did we read the same story?? It's been setup since their introduction in early s2 like Jooan wasn't tenderly stroking Seojoon's cheek in ch 37 and neutered as a serious love rival from the start for nothing. like from their first chapters the authors show how Jooan NEEDS to be with Seojoon time and time again and he basically envisioned them always being together. He'd eventually realize he couldn't live without him as soon as their close relationship was threatened and even if it never turned romantic he would choose Seojoon over anything every time, their soulmatism is everything to me
YES EXACTLY. plus, the confession was SO romantic, and jooan was even more devastated by the fact that seojoon thinks so little of himself!! he literally lost it the moment seojoon left, especially when seojoon started talking about himself as just hajin’s replacement. like if THAT isn’t love then idk what is!!!?? and everything jooan me did after the confession was just peak deranged man-in-love behavior. like WHO chases someone down with a helicopter just so he can confess?? and WHO remembers your favorite flower that you mentioned YEARS ago???
oh we can share the crown bestie
i binged read all of your comments and i agree with every single one of them wholeheartedly
for everyone doubting the 2nd couple, i’m gonna take hajin’s advice on this one because he literally said it to jooan’s face !!! “love comes in different forms. you realized his devotion late.” THAT is basically the entire point. jooan spent years confusing his attachment to his first love with what he actually wanted in a relationship. meanwhile, he already had the kind of deep, intimate bond with seojoon that people spend YEARS trying to build. he just never saw it romantically because seojoon was his best friend.
and the lemon bread/russian cake metaphor hajin told ines is literally such a perfect representation of the kind of love seojoon and jooan had. “there are others that need the devotion and patience of someone to bring out their true flavor… a sweetness that deepens slowly over time. that’s the kind of flavor i wanted to show u… a flavor of love.”
LIKE??? YEARS OF DEVOTION. YEARS OF KNOWING EACH OTHER. YEARS OF BEING THERE FOR EACH OTHER. jooan just didn’t realize that the love he felt for seojoon as his best friend could grow into something completely different. AND THEN QUEUE THE LAST FEW PANELS OF CH. 59 BECAUSE IYKYK seojoon and jooan standing opposite each other, and then we see seojoon’s eyes locked on hajin while WE KNOW seojoon’s eyes are always on jooan. AND THEN JUST A FEW SCENES LATER, WE GET SEOJOON WALKING AWAY FROM JOOAN AFTER CONFESSING, AND THAT’S THE ONE MOMENT JOOAN FINALLY LOOKS AT HIM. LIKE REALLY LOOKS AT HIM. THE JUXTAPOSITION??? THE CONTRAST??? IT’S SO POETIC!!! seojoon spent all this time looking at jooan while jooan was looking toward hajin, and the moment seojoon finally turns away is when jooan finally looks back YALL I AM SO OBSESSED WITH THE SECOND COUPLE JHSHSHWHEHSJS
YALL i genuinely don’t get the “jooan suddenly fell for seojoon” argument… HEAR ME OUT
1. hajin was his first love, dont u know what CHILDHOOD first love is like????!!! but seojoon was arguably his MOST MEANINGFUL REALTIONSHIP. those two things aren’t mutually exclusive. jooan can have IDEALIZED HAJIN for years while having a much deeper emotional bond with seojoon without recognizing it romantically.
2. he didn’t “suddenly” fall for seojoon the groundwork was literally already there. they were BEST FRIENDS. if anything, that’s probably exactly why jooan didn’t see him romantically. when someone is that deeply integrated into your life, you can take their presence for granted and just think “that’s my best friend” without ever stopping to question what else they mean to you.
3. there’s also a difference between “longing for someone” and actually being compatible with them. jooan spent years wanting hajin, but seojoon was the person who actually knew him, stayed beside him, and shared his everyday life.
4. and the whole “he dated multiple people who looked like hajin” thing honestly supports this more than anything it can be read as jooan trying to RECREATE the FEELING of his first love or something familiar, rather than proving he was still deeply in love with hajin specifically. COME ON YALL, HAJIN EVEN HELPED HIM REALIZE THESE FEELINGS TOWARDS THE END!!
5. AND MOST IMPORTANTLY… jooan and seojoon’s relationship didn’t suddenly appear when the romance started. the “romance” was new, but the relationship wasn’t. they already had years of intimacy, trust, familiarity, and emotional bond as best friends. THE STORY IS LITERALLY ABOUT JOOAN HAVING TO REINTERPRET A RELATIONSHIP THAT HAD ALRDY BEEN INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT TO HIM!!!!
like the romance with seojoon didn’t come out of nowhere. the romantic realization did. and there’s a huge difference
i need to read rhe novel cos the tiktok edits with rhe manhwa are getting too good to pass up lol
mid bl haha i loved gitae and jinwoo though shsjjss i wanted more angst, they had so much potential.