The thing that annoys me the most about this is the whole "he's not being a jerk, he was just hurt before" crap. A bad past may be the reason why you have the impulse to do something but it does not excuse you from acting on that impulse. I've been yelled at by customers at work before but that wouldn't excuse me running them over with a car even if it would explain the thought coming into my mind.
I find it odd that her very first assumption is that he's a prostitute. I mean for all she knows it could have been an older relative that's giving him money to help him get through university. Also wouldn't it have been easier to just show ID to prove that he's only 20 instead of punching a guy? Oh, and everyone in that school who believes the rumour sucks.
What I get from this is he saw the blond at the bus stop and fell in love at first sight. The day that his brother tells him about the art gallery there's a body found in the snow which is probably related to why the blond was crying in the gallery. As there was a picture of the blond I assume that the photographer was his lover and he was the one who died. Then it fast forwards to later when the two have apparently become lovers. I'm guessing that later chapters will have more flashbacks to let us know what happened and show the present day and whatever drama is going on now.
Thank you so much for this explanation, you have no idea how confused I was - started to think the blonde guy was with the MC’s brother so I was flipping between pages and matching the clothes to see if it’s the brother or MC - basically I was extremely lost - I didn’t think there would be a time skip in the first chapter, caught me off guard
so refreshing to see a couple who actually talks about things before it becomes a major issue