
Everything was going OK in this one until
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the uke pulls the gun on the seme, saying "date me or I'm going to kill myself". That's such a sleazy tactic, one usually used by abusers in a relationship. I get that the uke has mental issues. But this is the sort of thing that requires therapy and meds, not a boyfriend.
After this situation happens, I felt pretty uncomfortable reading the rest of it without them mentioning anything about this again. I don't think these two could ever be in a stable relationship without the uke getting some professional help at some point. This is not something that can just be solved by ignoring it.
(The whole gun thing was weird and creepy in general, and it's unclear, but I guess this takes place in the US, given the character names and easy access to guns.)

Ahhhh, I can't wait to see this whole thing core dump in a spectacular way next season!
I like that I cannot tell at all where the author is going to go with this comic. Is it gonna be a 3P (not likely, given Joowon's jealousy)? Is Taku's appearance in their lives merely going to be the catalyst to finally get Joowon and Haesoo officially together (after Joowon goes through a major character arc to clean up his act, obviously)? Is Haesoo finally going to be motivated to push Joowon away and choose Taku? Is Haesoo going to just end up alone after acting too bratty?
Ahhh, it could really be anything!
Also, I like Haesoo and Taku's relationship right now. They seem pretty into each other, respectful of each other, talk about deep things, try to help each other figure things out. The only thing I wonder is if this is what Haesoo really wants? He may just straight-up be a masochist, and secretly enjoy being treated like dogshyyt by Joowon.
Hmmm... give me more, Yeongha-sensei!! (๑•ㅂ•)و✧

Wow, the writing in this manga is spectacular; it gave me chills, and I couldn't stop reading it. I sat there several minutes after finishing it, shell-shocked.
I can see why there's so much controversy, and why it does make people feel uncomfortable. But this is very real, including the ending. It was never supposed to end well, if it was going to remain true to the characters and the story it was trying to tell. It sucks, but it is what it is.
Shockingly, I have no criticisms for this one. 5-stars, no hesitation.

Given the mixed opinions on this one, I'm surprised to find that it was so good!
It was a nice slow burn with a great ending. None of it felt rushed or draggy. The leads were such foolish and flawed people at the beginning of the story, I am so happy with their character growth by the end, to where it is extremely clear they are making efforts towards being better to each other and better people in general. I even like that by the end of the story I felt kinda sorry for Haejoon, despite all of the crappy things he did. Like Tom said, he is pitiful.
Points of note:
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I like how the story had Jaemin push the sex too far a couple of times at the beginning of the story, to the point of assault, which he acknowledges is wrong and that he shouldn't be doing it, and then by the end of the story he has become so much more considerate, pretty much asking permission before anything he does, and stopping immediately if Tom expresses any dislike, discomfort, or reservations. It was such a good arc for Jaemin.
I like how, when Haejoon attempts to rape Tom, he can't actually do it right/can't get it in, because he doesn't actually know anything about having anal sex, and hasn't bothered to research it thoroughly enough. You know, like anyone inexperienced in this would be. It's a nice detail that ought to be recognized.
I like how the tired-ass trope of "lack of communication" was Tom's character flaw, but how it wasn't just used for misunderstanding-of-the-week, but as his character arc, and that by the end of the story you see him making the effort, as hard as it may be for him, to convey his feelings properly. (comms issues are so often leaned on for melodrama in yaoi and then dismissed immediately once the misunderstanding is resolved, I must give an author who uses it correctly extra kudos)
I like the supportive megane-san friend who gives them crap for their melodrama but is 100% there for them every time they need him.
I like how the sociopath Haejoon has a cat that he is capable of adequately caring for despite alllllll of his psychological and intimacy issues.

This one bugs me a lot because there were numerous opportunities for this series to do right by dem changin' yaoi times but just failed to manage it every single time.
Just because this is a comic, a webtoon, and yaoi, does not excuse this series for failing at storytelling 101 by not writing into the narrative well-thought-out themes. If there needs to be a storyline in the gay pr0n0 comic, then it should be something with a little care put into it. Otherwise it's just crappy wank material with too much talky bits and not enough censored glowsticks.
Both the seme and the uke make bad decisions constantly, and the theme of story up to and including chapt 18 is that "if you make bad decisions, you'll eventually be rewarded". Is this really the idea that the author wants to convey in this comic? I could've been okay with something like this if the comic had a grittier feel, with lots of mental illness and dark, tragic backstories, while the characters reveled in their crappy choices. Buuuuut, instead it's just written with the tone of a straight-shooting, semi-lighthearted romance drama. All of these incongruent things are at odds with each other and it just makes the whole thing uncomfortable to read, in the end.
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The biggest missed opportunity was that seme had numerous chances to do right by the homophobe uke, and I kept reading to see if he would finally make the right choice (by the end of chapt 18, he still has not). Every single opportunity he was given he squandered. Right from the beginning he was given the chance to find the lenders for the uke without laying a hand on him, thus putting him on the moral high ground wrt the uke. When he failed to make the right choice here, I groaned but plodded along to see if he'd figure it out eventually. Buuuuut, he failed to make the right choice every single time the uke was dragged into forced sex, to the point where even if the uke had been a gay guy and in love with him, it would've still been considered rape because of the way he was forced into violent sex when the seme was furious, or like, another time when the uke was injured. And then finally, to top it all off, at the end of chapt 18 we get a cliche and tired yaoi trope of yesteryear when the uke finally shows up at the seme's condo voluntarily for sex, and thus the bad-person seme receives the ultimate reward for his trash behavior.
This shoddy behavior by no means gives the uke a pass on his homophobia and crummy lack of consideration of the seme's feelings. The seme was the same person before and after the uke found out he was gay, and at some point the actions of the seme should've shown the uke how stupid he was for thinking that anything changed other than the uke having a small extra bit of unrelated personal information about the seme. Plus the uke's inconsiderate actions around the whole 'date' sub-arc were just suuuuuper cringy. I was grinding my teeth through that whole section.
This whole story was set up on the framework of having the seme force a change onto the uke wrt his homophobia by showing the uke that a gay person is just a person and sexuality doesn't matter, and thus the seme would be rewarded with the uke's sweet, sweet yaoi hole. But now the seme's getting the uke's yaoi hole voluntarily when he's done absolutely nothing to earn it, and I just want to beat my head on the desk. It could've been so much better with this setup. Oh well. I guess not everyone is Youngha.

Instead of correcting homophobia, what does he do: prove what homophobes think that gays just want sex and are oversexed and rape. So, really, the seme was just ingraining bad thoughts about gay men instead of raising awareness. So, actually, in real life, the sexual harassing/rape would have INGRAINED more homophobia....in yaoi fiction: abuse/rape equals love, tho.

I shouldn't like this story given how the story starts out, but... I guess this may be the first forced-bite w/o any knowledge of the Alpha that I've read so far. I was interested to see where it would go.
Well, it ended up being pretty standard fare, with the Alpha turning out to be a typical obsessive/possessive yaoi top/seme, but it was also kinda funny, with a good sense of humor about all the terrible decisions everyone in the story was making. I just couldn't take it seriously enough to get mad at it for its unfortunate opening arc. Ymmv ofc.
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Here's my laundry-list of what I want to see in an Omegaverse story:
* An omega who is able to fight off all of his attackers, including his eventual alpha boo, even during heat, throughout the whole story. Alpha is forced to actually step off and properly woo the omega.
* Rich, powerful omega / poor, weak alpha (basically flip the standard seme/uke social dynamics and give the uke all the power, riches, etc)
* An omega who is bite-bonded but his partner has died. How does he cope?
* A female Alpha daddy and a male Omega mommy. I'm pretty sure this is possible.
* A story that explores the Omega drugs and addiction and side effects and is a pitiful story and extremely sad.
* A relationship b/w two omegas who have to desperately fend off alpha suitors to stay together. Possibly with fated pairing trope to make it extra difficult.
* An alt-omegaverse where omegas' personhood is fiercely protected by law, and people are wary of mistreating (or even interacting with them) them due to fear of legal repercussions. Omegas would have elite omega-only schools, and be easily able to have good jobs, and the heat medications would be so advanced from extensive research funds that the omega heats could be completely controlled, with few-to-no side effects. Alpha rut suppressors would not be so advanced, however. Omegas acquiring partners in this setting would be as much a business agreement as it is anything else. Bite bonds would be rare and require the signing of legal documents. Fated pairs would be the biggest kink in the whole system because those can't be controlled, and could be interesting to explore. There might be a whole underground subculture where some omegas might choose to be huge thots, letting their heats run wild, having orgies and all that.

This series takes the dark, ugly side of the Omegaverse setting that's hardly ever explored in doujinshi/comics and makes excellent use of it to tell a heart-rending story of two pairs of people who just couldn't quite connect on the level that they wanted to, but still managed to find something meaningful in their lives despite it.
There is rape involved in the storyline early on, but it is used in a meaningful way in the plot, so take that as you will.
Also of interest - Kaoru is a flat arc character, and the only one whose ideals never change throughout the story. With a character like this as one of the leads, you kind of get an idea of how the story will turn out by the end. Also, I had no idea the story was going to give the second arc to Taiga; I'd thought he was just gonna be an arc 1 villain. But, I can appreciate a good redemption arc, and Taiga had a lot of room to grow from what a trash person he was in arc 1. I really appreciate the effort the author went to to get him into an end state where the reader no longer had to hate him anymore.
That said... Yuka's arc 2 plot needed a little more screen time to really sell his changed perspective. But it was still overall pretty good. I am satisfied with the ending, and am definitely on board with everyone else wanting to see the babisessesessseseses.
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I'd just like to comment on a couple of things.
1) I'm not totally sure that Taiga was Yuka's fated partner. Some of the characters seemed to believe this to be true, but I found it to be ambiguous given the information provided. (just because characters in the setting think something is true doesn't mean it's actually true) Yuka may've gone into a premature heat, but Kaoru also went into Rut mode whenever Yuka was around even when Yuka wasn't in heat. Rather than Taiga being Yuka's fated partner which was causing him to go into heat early, it may've been Kaoru's Rut pheremones forcing Yuka into heat, even though they're not fated partners. Because Taiga never reacted back then to Yuka's heat by going into Rut (like Kaoru did), it makes me think that Taiga and Yuka are not really fated partners at all either. Honestly it's hard to tell, and I think the author intended it to be ambiguous since the moral of the story is to make your own fate.
2) I do think Rin was Kaoru's fated partner; enough context was provided by the story for this to be pretty much confirmed.
So, that said, I do think that Kaoru was the correct partner for Yuka despite not being Yuka's fated partner. Yuka was on a quick path to suicide even if he hadn't been assaulted on the roof of the school, and likely would've killed himself before the year was out regardless. He was having severe 'gender' dysphoria after discovering he was an omega -- the complete opposite of what he'd always thought he was -- and seemed to have no one willing to support him through it. Even Kaoru, who certainly would've if he could've, was avoiding him because he was having Rut issues around Yuka and didn't want to hurt him.
Furthermore, even if Taiga was actually Yuka's fated partner, he was far too immature and selfish at the time to take on the responsibility for helping a suicidal lover through his ordeal. The reality of the omegaverse fated pairing is that you aren't guaranteed to get someone who is a good person as your fated partner, and depending on the situation, the whole thing may end up being worse for you than no fated pairing at all.
Anyway, because Kaoru's pretty much loved Yuka since adolescence, and was by far the most mature and considerate and thoughtful of all the characters, he was really what Yuka needed beside him to get him through those rough times, even if they hadn't been forced to pair-bond in such a rushed and haphazard way. Fortunately, Kaoru was such a great person that Yuka effectively got everything he needed, even if he wasn't really that attracted (?) to Kaoru in a romantic way. The unwavering and unconditional support and devotion provided by Kaoru allowed Yuka to survive adolescence.
Following the incident in middle school that ended up with Yuka being bonded to Kaoru, the three of Yuka, Kaoru, and Taiga ended up in kind of a stasis that none of them could break out of. Yuka was reaping the benefits of Kaoru's magnanimous-ness for years, just living his life however he wanted without really understanding just how damn lucky he was to have Kaoru supporting him unconditionally. Kaoru was making good on his promise to take care of Yuka forever even though he gained nothing from the relationship but Yuka's body only when it was convenient for Yuka because Yuka just wasn't interested in him beyond keeping his heats under control. How sad.
Meanwhile Taiga remained adrift, looking for a fated partner that was never going to materialize - either because he didn't have one, couldn't meet them because maybe they lived in Iceland, or because his fated partner was already bonded to another Alpha. (Keep in mind that 20% of the population are Alphas and only 10% are Omegas, meaning there's a huge chunk of Alphas who won't have fated partners).
Rin was thrown into the story to be the catalyst to break all these characters out of their holding patterns. He may've been vaguely annoying, but his specific personality and presence was necessary for the two immature characters, Yuka and Taiga, to finally realize how wrong they'd been and shameful they'd been acting for the past howevermany years.
Anyway, when Taiga met Rin, he probably felt bad for him because he saw himself reflected in Rin -- they were two people who were desperately looking for their fated partners so they could have a relationship they felt guaranteed them stability and happiness without realizing that the fated pairing was no guarantee of either. They were both letting life pass them by in the process, never moving forward, never changing, never taking any action on their own behalves.
So, when it turned out that Rin's fated partner was Kaoru, for Taiga, it was like holding a mirror to what happened b/w Taiga and Yuka in middle school, and ripped open all those old wounds, which is why Taiga pushed Rin away so hard when Rin started pursuing Kaoru relentlessly while simultaneously pulling away from Taiga. Taiga started to realize his own wrong-headed thinking about fated pairings, about how they were no guarantee of anything, and that if he wanted a real, meaningful relationship, he'd have to put in the time and effort with someone who he was compatible with, just like Kaoru had. Rin hadn't gone through all these experiences yet that Taiga had, and so couldn't see how completely screwed he was being a fated pair with someone who would never accept him. Taiga finally decided to step up and act like an adult, which, as it turned out, was what he'd needed to do to get everything he'd ever wanted in life.

the afterword really made sense tho, we in real life also want to believe in such 'pre-destined fate' which actually doesn't exits and so many people are driven by in-the-moment and just do -like fuck, be in a relationship ,marry etc.
this actually reflects real life how we can't get what we wish and a lot depends o compromise.
Yes , life is unfair and we need adjust and crave out our own destiny.
also I would like to highlight that everything said and all these motivation and advice makes sense but it when YOU actually apply these principles into real life then only you can see the results.
this goes for cuz i know a lot of stuff and how to lead ur life but implementation in real life is what matters.
Did someone go and add all the sex scenes back into this comic as it is uploaded here? I've seen various comments that imply this may be the case, or it may be just the newer uploaded chapters have them, but I can't tell for sure.