Lexi

The sunbae badgered him into a relationship he knew iksu wasn’t certain about, knowing iksu wasn’t attracted to him the entire time. In ch2 when Iksu was relaying the story of the almost kiss with sunbae, he averted it and stated he wasn’t gay—which we know isn’t true, now, but he didnt, meaning he never thought of the sunbae that way. In that same chapter we see the sunbae say he had a feeling Iksu was gay and apologize for the attempt. . But instead of him taking it as rejection, he continued to pursue him and then we saw that the sunbae already knew of Dohun at the end of ch3 without even meeting him yet (and we can infer that he would then know about how close they are. At this point, if we can infer that, we can also infer that the sunbae, who already thought Iksu was gay, was feeling a certain way about their relationship). And in ch4, (before they started "dating") he even correctly guessed iksu was thinking about Dohun (again, signaling he felt a way about their relationship)—yet still proceeded to kiss the (obviously) disinterested Iksu and pester him into starting a "casual" relationship. Please.

And then, in this temporary "casual relationship” he made him stop talking to his best friend of years, whom he already knew he was close to before ever meeting, who he already had a feeling a Iksu may like, with no actual reason aside from his suspicion that their relationship could clearly lead to more and interfere with what he wanted from Iksu (which was clearly to gaslight Iksu into thinking they liked each other mutually, atp, idk). All is fair in love and war or whatever, we’re just saying the sunbae isn’t half the victim people are attempting to make him out to be.

And then people are saying Iksu lead him on—where?? Please. Every time the sunbae approaches Iksu romantically, he shuts it down, only to be cajoled into something else (like a relationship, for example. Or the tickets.). Iksu never led him on and was only still in the relationship bc the sunbae wanted to "try it out".

If anything, the only person I feel for here is Dohun—Iksu turned out to be such a shit friend the moment he got in a relationship, and was more than willing to throw away talking to his closest friend with clear abandonment/neglect issues for a "casual relationship" that couldn’t have amounted to more than month, and he was just in bc he had a hard time saying no. Wicked work.

We’re 70 chapters in, the romance hasn’t romanced, the story has barely progressed, and now we’re doing side quests.