This one hurts my brain. On one hand we have a stupidly naive mc, who is yes cute, but that's all there is he's a bit of a dummy (are you stupid what part of healing your trauma means sex? Actually what part of what he's doing with the ml is healing his trauma? The dating?? Tf)
And then we have the ml who is shown to not like his privileged life because of its constraints and probably expectations from his parents and fake people he doesn't like (hypocrite, he calls the people he doesn't like disgusting but here he is manipulating and gaslighting an innocent person into having somewhat coercive sex with him, and he thinks that's okay because he finds the mc cute and sexy?? What pissed me off the most is how he's basically gaslighting mc into ruining his relationship with the first love, who at this point seems like a good person compared to him)
And lastly the first love who is allegedly a groomer Which, I'm gonna be honest a 4 year age gap is not that bad, but I think the problem people really have is that he met(?) knew(?) the mc when he was 16, a minor. Idk I'm not sure if they had an actual relationship or just flirting with each other because they BOTH liked each other. I can't speak for people who have been groomed nor is this a defense for real groomers. My point is here is that he didn't manipulate the younger person, the mc in this case, to like him and they didn't seem to ever have a sexual and abusive relationship unlike the ml (who I'm gonna be honest feels more like a groomer than the first love) . So far from what we've been shown they had a pretty healthy relationship they never even had sex, there was no power dynamic, people seem to find it weird and suspicious that he named his restaurant after the mc but I think it's just cringe and probably more of the authors choice.
Tldr; The mc is naive The ml is a pos The first love is weird
I wanna make it clear that I'm not saying the first love should be end game or saying he's not at least a little weird, it's just that the age gap seems to bother other people more than the fact the ml basically gaslit the mc to have sex with him, COERCED the mc to have sex with him by threatening to tell people what he's hiding and is now manipulating his trauma so he can HAVE SEX WITH HIM If you just take it at face value the ml basically does the exact things a groomer would
This one hurts my brain. On one hand we have a stupidly naive mc, who is yes cute, but that's all there is he's a bit of a dummy (are you stupid what part of healing your trauma means sex? Actually what part of what he's doing with the ml is healing his trauma? The dating?? Tf)
And then we have the ml who is shown to not like his privileged life because of its constraints and probably expectations from his parents and fake people he doesn't like (hypocrite, he calls the people he doesn't like disgusting but here he is manipulating and gaslighting an innocent person into having somewhat coercive sex with him, and he thinks that's okay because he finds the mc cute and sexy?? What pissed me off the most is how he's basically gaslighting mc into ruining his relationship with the first love, who at this point seems like a good person compared to him)
And lastly the first love who is allegedly a groomer
Which, I'm gonna be honest a 4 year age gap is not that bad, but I think the problem people really have is that he met(?) knew(?) the mc when he was 16, a minor. Idk I'm not sure if they had an actual relationship or just flirting with each other because they BOTH liked each other. I can't speak for people who have been groomed nor is this a defense for real groomers. My point is here is that he didn't manipulate the younger person, the mc in this case, to like him and they didn't seem to ever have a sexual and abusive relationship unlike the ml (who I'm gonna be honest feels more like a groomer than the first love) . So far from what we've been shown they had a pretty healthy relationship they never even had sex, there was no power dynamic, people seem to find it weird and suspicious that he named his restaurant after the mc but I think it's just cringe and probably more of the authors choice.
Tldr;
The mc is naive
The ml is a pos
The first love is weird
I wanna make it clear that I'm not saying the first love should be end game or saying he's not at least a little weird, it's just that the age gap seems to bother other people more than the fact the ml basically gaslit the mc to have sex with him, COERCED the mc to have sex with him by threatening to tell people what he's hiding and is now manipulating his trauma so he can HAVE SEX WITH HIM
If you just take it at face value the ml basically does the exact things a groomer would