Reading this comment section gives me headache

My guess is
- in worse settings, everyone can generally agree it's bad/unhealthy
- bc this is better than that, some people gloss over the red flag part
- so the comments are fighting bc folks tend to be all-in or all-out and have a hard time just acknowledging this has some red flags AND is still an entertaining and lighthearted story

Yeah, that's accurate. And it's probably because people read "worse" stories like that they think the worst when reading "light hearted" stories. But I guess that it's the point if those worse stories. They make all the signs so obvious that they can't be ignored. When it isn't as obvious that makes people think. And usually in those stories it whole point of it. In cases like this, the author might not even consider grooming might become problem in this case.

I think most people in this story don't like the fact that the ml fell in love with mc when he was so young. While the age gap of 6 years seems big when they are children won't really matter when they are adults. And if you think about it the both were children even if there was age gap. I mean I read that grooming can happen even if the are both children but still...If they met now when the story started when they were 24 and 30 it wouldn't be so bad. If the were around same age this even wouldn't probably be a problem at all. Other two thing are that the ml is the one in higher position and his personality is more dominant. Would this be problem if the mc was the older one? Or if the mc was the king/emperor? What do you think, would that change things? The problems would be the same?

Tbh agree that there is often a misogynistic tilt towards how people interpret BL dynamics - there's a story I was following (omegaverse) when one was very drunk and the other was in heat, so ultimately neither was capable of consenting, but everyone was slamming the drunk one (top) anyways. Not sure how I feel about that still, and I'm not sure how changing the dynamic might change this story's interpretation, either. Maybe a couple fewer arguments.

In this case, I lean towards it fitting the definition of grooming - because like you mentioned, grooming behaviors are not necessarily limited to adult/child. It's less about the age gap (though that is a factor - there's a huge maturity difference between kids, less so in adults) and a lot more about how ML got MC used to a lot of intimate behavior without MC realizing it was intimate, even if it's relatively benign (i.e. treats ML's physical affection as normal/expected, like when he thought holding hands was required in the palace - it's not bad, but ML did lie/manipulate MC into physical affection without MC realizing). Agree that what was sketchy about them as kids would've been ok if they met as adults - and this is bc of how young ML kind of shaped MC to behave a certain way with him. Ofc ML doesn't intend to take advantage of MC! But the pattern does match grooming behavior. Idk if the author meant it to or not lol

If you're interested in learning more, I might recommend looking up 'grooming behavior' just bc I think it's important to recognize. I still like this story, think it's cute, and intend to keep reading, but the red flags still exist

If it helps, this is coming from someone who actually had a perfectly healthy relationship w a 30yo at 24yo. But it still would've been hella inappropriate if we had established a relationship (even if just friendly) when I was 14yo (middle school) and he was 20yo (college) and later became a relationship

I agree with you on that it probably fits with the grooming. After reading first arguments in comment section I did look up grooming more so I could understand it better. I do look up thing from time to time when reading. But I have tendency to binge read so sometimes things get past me if I read too fast. But honestly there was lot of red flags. I mean obsession is already one but with all other ones like the kidnapping and the handholding like you said. And honestly at this point many of these things has become norm in many stories so many people don't make a so much noise when they come up.

Like there is this tv show in my country right now that has many people reeling because there is so much things like rape and incest in it. Some people just can't stand it and other people binge watch it. I think it was based in 1920 or something. I haven't watched it but my aunt has. It just shows what kind of lives some people may have had. Some counties still have these kind of things happen. And I don't even want to imagine what happens behind closed doors in my country, because things that I have read or watched may happen anywhere. But honestly I have been watching lot of true crime podcasts lately. Those things are messed up...

I agree. And this bought to my mind that I have actually seen what you said happen, it has just been so long that I didn't think about it and I haven't been in contact with person involved in years.

I was friends with this girl who was couple years older than me. We were neighbours and her parents were divorced so she only came around like couple of times a month to visit her father in weekends and holidays. We went to same school it had all nine grades in same building. (It was small school, about 200 students) so we saw each other more when I started school. And then she started to have strange obsession about busses. I think she was around 15 at the time. I didn't think about it at the time because her father was a buss driver so she could have just liked buses right? (And honestly she did like them, she still likes them she is bus driver right now) But I later got to know that she had a thing with older bus driver. I think I saw them talking sometimes. I don't remember how old he was but he was at lest 5 to 10 years older. I think. Later when she was 18 she even introduced him to my family because we were really close back them. But every body hated him. We just got that weird feeling of him. I think I saw him even before that and thought it as weird. They did break up couple of years after. No idea why because we weren't as close after we went to diffrent schools. But yeah it was red flag and I even recognised it even if I didn't know why it was weird at the time.