
I see…but does a story really need to be depicted as a queer story or have queer characters in order to have content like that? (And if we were to go off of that, wouldn’t smacking a BL label on a story technically be queer-bating?? Idk I’m not an expert on this)
And I mean…it’s not like it has been absolutely confirmed that some of the characters are “queer” per se, it could just be the translations/ and or people reading too deeply into the dialogue…but that’s just my standpoint. I just don’t really see the need to get mad over something that doesn’t really have any clear evidence to back it?

oh but to be perfectly clear, I wasn't mad when I commented the remark on the queer baiting thing. I was just joking since from my own perspective, the author has constantly teased us readers with taehoo's suggestive actions. and based from the author's other works, they really like teasing readers by making the characters appear to be queer.
and to answer your question, no, the story doesn't really have to be depicted as a queer story to have queer characters in it, that'll just depend on the author's decisions if they want to add queer characters.
I would have to disagree on your second statement since BL or Boys' Love technically IS a queer story, yknow? it isn't just a label that you can smack to any story to make it appear as something near to queerbaiting.
and yes!! I agree to your last statement. there's a chance that some readers may depict some actions as something fruity, but then again, we can consume our own media however the way we want ^^ you can assume taehoo's actions to be platonic, some can even suggest that it's romantic, we'll never know!

i am also not an expert on this subject, this is why i say it COULD be taken as queer baiting, since of course you dont need to explicitly say someone is queer, but some dont see it that way. they might think it is offensive because most of the characters seem het, at least so far in the story, but of course nothing is has been confirmed so we dont really know for sure. this could also be a double sided sword where it is confirmed or denied if they are straight and/or queerbaiting. since most of the things that could be taken as "queer baiting" have been poses or phrases that could be taken as explicit (TO SOME) like taehoon saying to not touch what was his after you know.. and could be seen as offensive to queer people as it could be seen as only performing queer acts when you are, in fact, not queer. idk im bad at explaining things and had to read it 10x over, but TLDR: as we know, queerbaiting is performing queer acts in order to gain public appeal when you are not queer, so having many SEEMINGLY straight/het characters say or do things that could be seen as such can be seen offensive to those who are queer, especially when there has not been much ACTUAL queer dialogue. but again, nothing is confirmed so in this case i dont really think its a heavy case of queerbaiting. sorry of this was hard to read
stop it with the queer baiting cmon