note: in this review, tae seong is written as taesung and haet bit is written as sunny as per the translation on tappytoon.
warnings/kinks (from most to least relevant)
trigger warnings:
-unhealthy/abusive relationship
-history + discussions of manipulation in a relationship
-depiction of near-death experience (not by either of the main characters. also the "accidental death" tag is incorrect)
-trauma due to all of the above
-depictions of hospitals due to above near-death experience, and collapsing in the epilogue
-sliiight depiction of parental homophobia
kinks:
-everything is vanilla aside from the obligatory sex scene at school lmao
-also thankfully everything is consensual \o/
some gripes i have (MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD)
for context: sunny's relationship with young is like cecilia's relationship with adrian in the invisible man (2020), but without the murderous genius of a partner. young isolated and controlled every aspect of sunny's life: from his clothes, his career, even his own personal preferences. it becomes so fucked up that once sunny is free from his relationship with young, he still finds it difficult to choose something as simple as a movie bc he's not even sure of what he likes. that said, the story handles this completely fucked up relationship more shallowly than i'd hoped. young gives up on sunny pretty quickly despite literally controlling everything sunny did since they were in high school. and though i am all for victims living their best lives post-abuse, i feel like there could've been more explored with how sunny dealt w the trauma that's hinted at even after he gets with taesung. if the comic had another season, i think this would be worth exploring.
relatedly, i'm still not sure how i feel about hosung and young getting together at the end. if hosung truly cares about taesung the way he says he does, why would he ever get with the guy that A) tried ruining his best friend's happiness and B) is very obviously manipulative??? he even calls out young for being a manipulative asshole, so why he would ever enter a relationship with him makes no sense. it seems like the author just went "pair the spares" for hosung/young, which was completely unnecessary.
also, ending with sunny becoming a children's book author came out of nowhere. i wish there was more throughout the story of sunny sketching, or reading children's books, so the resolution where he receives an award feels more earned. (which isn't to say sunny doesn't deserve the award, bc honestly the poor man deserves all the good things in the world, but narratively it was out of left field and super rushed.)
my final issue is that i wished there was more of the student council!! the kids are hilarious, and early on in the story i really thought that there would be a side couple involving any combination of them, so i was disappointed to find out there was none (;﹏;)
and despite all that, my feelings are still as the tin ^^^ says: this is basically everything i want (ᵕ̣̣̣̣̣̣ ω ᵕ̣̣̣̣̣̣)
it's cute as hell and funny when it needs to be, the romance got my heart aflutterin, the drama makes me wanna punch the antagonist in the face (and then some), the art is absolutely gorgeous, all the characters are fine as hell, and the porn is 👌👌👌🙏🙏🙏🙏🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
why this doesn't even have a 7/10 rating (as of this review) is unfair and beyond me. it's definitely 10/10 would recommend for fans of slice of life ramdrams imo (-u-)b
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