I’m only at ch 33 (just after the mutual confession) and I want to start with saying I do like the story. I’m just irritated of how utterly selfish the MC is! I understand kids are selfish and don’t know better, but he’s the exact same after the time skip. ML opens up about being an orphan and being adopted by an neglectful father, all he wants is family. MC says some extremely hurtful words before they drift apart (MC avoids him) and eventually they apart. When ML comes back MC feels guilty but still doesn’t take it upon himself to apologize for how they parted, instead HE is hurt for ML not referring to him as family, something he said to ML before they parted. I understand he didn’t meant it the way it came out as a kid and it was just hurtful words that got spewed out, but he should be able to understand the impact of what he said now when he’s older.
By now meeting again, MC realizes he still likes ML and wants to get rid of the feelings because it makes him uncomfortable, not caring at all about how ML who also has pretty much nowhere else to go will feel or the position he will be forcibly put in. MC just wants to get it out of the way. Because he can’t dare to face him, he writes him a letter which also is barely a confession and more of a ”this is kinda what I’m feeling, let’s not continue this” which is misunderstood by ML who literally decides to exit MC’s life once and for all. Because of the conversation MC overheard between ML and the friend, MC has the idea that ML came back with the hope to restart their relationship as family. So ML has lost his parents, adoptive father, stepbrother (MC), and he’s lost MC - his family - again, but all MC can think of is how heartbroken he is over being ”dumped”. When they clear up the misunderstanding ML asks MC ”is this for real?”(ish) and MC still can’t bear to spell it out because he’s ”to embarrassed”. Ofc it’s still a happy ending, because they both want each other, but I think ML deserves MORE. Stability? Affirmation? Idk.
Are they related??? The description comments say ”cousins” and ”my one and only brother”?
they are not blood related
Tysm!
I think the whole “red flag-psycho-obsessed-violent-manipulator” thing about Andrew is way too early and exaggerated. Of course it’s fina to speculate tough.
As I see it, Andrew grew up without parental love and attention. When he voiced concerns he was immediately shit down and his feelings were severely undermined. The only praise he ever got was when acting like some kind of trophy to show off to other adults. When the stalker situation happened, it was clear his father was not going to help. He didn’t take it seriously in the beginning and not when it got worse either. He even ridiculed Andrew by saying he should just k*ll the stalker, knowing Andrew would never do that and showing that his feelings about being in danger were only valid if he was actually harmed psychically. Andrew knew it was only going to get worse and it was like he was forced to sit and wait for it to happen. His plan about the fake gun and chemicals was to handle both the stalker and show off to his dad. I don’t think he’s necessarily a violent person, just that his feelings have never been taken seriously - ever when he felt his life was in danger - and his ever only been in extreme situations where words were simply not enough to get the other party to back off.
Andrew had never been in love. Not interested romantically invested in anyone before. At the same time, he’s never been show love (as supposed to attraction) and doesn’t have any experience at receiving love or showing love, how to engage in a relationship based on love basically. Now he’s in love with Luke. As we’ve seen earlier, Rubix cube and his studies, he becomes absorbed in anything he’s set his mind on and it becomes his whole world. Now his whole world, internal and external, is centered around Luke all the time.
He loves Luke and wants to support his passion for acting, at the same time his world centers around Luke more than Luke’s world centers around him. He’s inexperienced at showing love and wants more than he is able to ask for. He wishes Luke could stay with him pretty much all the time, but Luke interpret it as cute/romantic comments. He wants his attention but doesn’t know how to get it, as previously stated he’s only been given attention in situations where he’s hurt. I don’t think he would hurt Luke’s friends to get more time with him or anything violent like that, he wants Luke to be happy too. So now, due to negligence in childhood and inexperience in love, he wants to be in love and to show love. But he can only show it in the way he’s learned, which is obvious not healthy, or ask for it (because he’s never gotten any response). His world is centered around Luke and he wants his attention, but Luke has other things taking up quite a lot of his world, he doesn’t want to lose him but isn’t sure how to maintain a healthy relationship.
Idk how much of this makes sense, but the “I knew he was a red flag / it was an act cuz he was too good to be true”-interpretation of this is too shallow for the depth the story has shown so far.
Thankyou for saying this !! People are so quick to forget all about Andrew's past and refuse to see how it had actually affected his character. It is too early to say anything, people are so quick to judge
Yes! Readers want a romantic “red flag” guy who’s toxic towards everyone else but the person they like so badly, but in reality are more complex than that and I think this story is more realistic than the copy-paste toxic characters that are so common nowadays.
*in reality people are more complex
I read the novel starting at ch 70, which picks up after ch 33 of the webtoon, to chapter 310 where the english translation’s currently at and it gets so good y’all. I started reading the novel because of the intriguing mystery of things and never expected to read much further, yet alone hundreds of chapters. Love the world building and this is just the tip of the iceberg for the plot(s) and characters, the lore goes so deep and it’s totally worth reading! Way to underrated.
https://mentoltrans.wordpress.com/the-hunters-gonna-lay-low/
Thank you for the link
Kinda want to drop this, not really my coup of tea, but its tagged drama and even romance so there might be some more intriguing plot building up. It’s not even tagged as smut so maybe there is hope?
Correct me if I’m wrong, but Jigu asked for his christmas plans IN THE GAME, and as far as I know Jigu knows that the neighbor is his online friend but also know that the neighbor doesn’t know??? I feel like if he had assumed he knew, that would’ve at least talked about the game in their irl conversations. They both said they’d be alone and play, I get that they interpreted it differently but there wasn’t really a spoken mutual agreement to meet up and play together- just that they both probably would be online around the same time and probably meet. I do underhand where the delulu coms from but I just feel like he acts like Yeowon KNOWS that he is his online friend, but they have literally never talked about the game which seems super weird because there’s just no way the would never talk about it irl. (I love this btw, I’m not irritated just confused)
my sense to this is: if he's delulu that means he cant think straight lolol
nah, Jigu is aware that YeoWoon doesn't know that Ji9Star and Jigu are the same person, but he feels betrayed and hurt cuz he misunderstood everything, in fact, he even assumed that YeoWoon was seeing another man and that's why he left with him. He's just overthinking shi
He expected YeoWoon to go to his place, because he thinks that YeoWoon likes him too and in Korea it's natural to spend Christmas with someone you like or love.
So yeah, that's what happened, lol
This was sooool good, incredible. I was honestly prepared for a sad ending so the ending was really comforting. One thing I didn’t really underhand is why Sho was locked up, he needed treatments but why was even looking out a window not allowed? I know Midori said it was to protect him, but I didn’t really catch up on what her plan for him was. To just live there forever? To become her successor (which seems contrary to what’s revealed about her last)? I know she planned for Yonghyun to inherit everything, was that planned from the very beginning and the sole reason why he was chosen as the friend? Also, why did she have to kill that old man instead of just letting him quit and live out his last years in peace? For Sho it was a test, but I don’t think that was the case for the old man.
(lol sorry if im replying months late, i just finished reading this masterpiece)
I also have the same question, like why did Midori prevent Sho from going outside? Is it because she wanted Sho to live like Ao? Cause Ao was imprisoned and isolated as well, but it doesn't make sense if Midori wanted to break free away from the Hasegawa family, cause she's doing the same thing to Sho as what they did (tho she's less harsh and a little more humane)
As for Yonghyun being chosen as the one to inherit from the start, I am not 100% sure but I think Midori wanted Sho to have someone as a friend at first. Because spirits like them get lonely so they find a human to be with them. Since Sho got attached to Yonghyun, maybe Midori got the idea to make him the successor, but Yonghyun still needed to pass some sort of test, and their escape was the test itself.
As for Itami (the old man), I believe that Midori didn't kill him exactly, but he volunteered to offer his life (in ch 61). As per the Hasegawa tradition, they needed a sacrifice to transfer the ownership from Midori to Yonghyun. That ritual has been followed closely through generations in the family. Since Midori does not want to do the rule of the successor killing the predecessor, Itami offered his life instead.
Though Midori theorized that maybe they didn't need to do all that since the pledge that Yonghyun made with Sho was not because of the Hasegawa tradition so they didn't need to follow their process to transfer the oath. Sho was a new spirit and Yonghyun was the first to make a pledge with him so their contract was something different.
Feel free to correct me, but that's what I understood from the story
Thanks for the reply! I love characters like Midori who’s portrayed as the ”villan” at the start who you think nothing could ever make you like them but then you get their backstory and understand them better. I think we were all rooting for her in the end, I’m still not completely sure why she needed Ao to live isolated to the extent he did (not even being allowed to look out a window). The whole sect thing with the meeting was really creepy. A lot of confusion is probably due to the magical uncanny touch that the story has where some things will always remain a mystery. I forgot about the need of a sacrifice, thank you for pointing that out it makes a lot of sense. I’ve found a stronger sense of closure regarding this work just by time passing and I hope you do to! Overall a very good story where you dive in way deeper than you can even imagine when you start reading it.
*Sho not Ao
This about to be like demon slayer where the demons have tragic backstories that makes you feel really bad for them just before they get slayed out of existence
Fr
I know this is an unpopular opinion, it’s tagged both ”yaoi” and ”smut” after all, but since when did slow-burn go from ”developing a strong bond that transcends to romantic love over time and ends up in confession” into ”building up tension and waiting for them to smash”. Referring to the comments btw. I might be alone in this, but I’m here because of the ”beauty in found family and finding a new type of support and someone to lean on which they never had chance to do before they met because life sucks” and not ”this kinda feel like a parent-child relationship so I can’t wait for the time-skip so they can get freaky”. Romance his dead, but it doesn’t have to be that deep I guess.