I wrote this as a comment before but I decided to put it as a review too and see how my opinion changes after the drama ends.

It's painful to watch because Jun and Soohyun's story develops in such a much deeper way, they're literally always there for each other when they need someone the most - like they have said, they keep showing each other their worst and what they want to hide the most, both Jun and Soohyun have had outstanding character development thanks to each other, the time spent together and experiences lived. Sobin is sadly an accessory of the ML that literally doesn't contribute anything to his growth. She's surely done things for him and has helped him be more open, but most of his growth is thanks to what he's learned after spending time with Soohyun and growing together.

Soohyun's entire development is thanks to Jun and how Soohyun himself has become more open in front of him. I just really don't see how there's room for a het romance between Sobin and Jun when their relationship is absolutely shallow and simple.

It's also painful to see how dull and poorly written every female character is. Sobin had a backstory and something going on for her but ever since Jun helped her overcome her childhood trauma there is nothing else to make her an interesting character on her own. Like I said, every action of hers at this point simply leads to something related to Jun, showing she's nothing more than a plot accessory of the ML even though she is "the female lead."

Miju is completely shallow, not because of her personality but because everything they made about her is simply having a crush on Soohyun. She lacks any type of depth and character trait, all her screentime is just her having a ridiculous crush on a clearly uninterested guy that has way too much to deal with his life to be even thinking about a relationship.

Youngran is probably the most interesting female character only because she has a personality other than liking a guy, but her screentime is little and she doesn't do much either in the show. Still, her biggest trait is having a crush on her childhood friend too, so it's not like she's properly written or built either.

Chanki being on the drama poster is ridiculous since they don't even give him enough screentime or, again, other personality than being the FL's childhood friend who realizes a bit too late that he also liked his best friend back, which makes no sense anyway because even if you like someone you wouldn't be dating *that* much and doing your friend so dirty even after knowing she had a crush on you (this doesn't make any sense to me).

I can't say I'm not disappointed with the way this drama is developing because I really liked it at the beginning and sadly (and naively) hoped for a romance between the two male leads, but they keep simply bating us and making us believe they will develop something between them, even though their relationship is a lot more interesting than any other character or relationship in the whole drama.

I'm not even talking from a webtoon fan because I didn't read the webtoon (I did see some caps just to confirm it's actually BL), but from a viewer who has eyes and clearly knows that the story between Jun and Soohyun is much better than anything else. I'm not even getting into the fact that they completely stripped a the sexuality off a main character and how the erasure of LGBTQ+ in adapted dramas do a lot more damage than kdrama stans seem to think, I'm literally just complaining about the development of the drama itself as a story on its own.

I was excited at the beginning and liked it a lot, but this week's eps really showed a drop in quality.

-- UPDATE --

So I just finished it and confirmed that many things I wrote above were spot-on and pretty much predicted how this drama would make me feel: unfulfilled.

The way the conflict between the brothers resolved was the most boring and predictive thing in the drama. Jun is supposed to hate his brother because his memories tricked him into thinking that it was his brother who used to beat him up, but it was actually his father. Okay, I understand our memories can trick us and distort our past, affecting our present. That part totally makes sense and I wouldn't complain if they hadn't done Junwan's implication so lazy and mediocre. You're telling me a 10? 12? year old boy told his younger brother that he didn't have a family, traumatizing him forever, just to "protect" him? Wouldn't it have been easier if he just... protected his brother? He could've told him the same thing, that he didn't have a mother or father but he had a brother to rely on, the two of them would've been able to get through the abuse of their father and pressure of their mother in a much better way. This part alone didn't make any sense. On the other side. they left Junwan's story in the vast. Jun told him to live his life from then on so the writers took him off the show.

Jun's reactions were so weird too. The fact that he just kept screaming all the time and had a very scary and aggressive reaction all the time was a little bit off-putting. I can't say it's completely random because I understand that's completely part of someone's trauma, but it kind of put me off sometimes. Also, the fact that his mom never apologized to him or anything at all... Trash.

I don't really want to get into much detail but among the many things that bored me about this drama and made me feel like it was a waste of time was how poorly written the female characters were in this show. None of them had any depth whatsoever other than liking a boy. Sobin had some background story but once her boyfriend helped her overcome her childhood trauma, suddenly her little story disappeared and she became nothing more than The Male Lead's Girlfriend. Every one of her scenes was either with Jun or about Jun (after ep 7. sort of). The last 3 eps could've gone without her with no issue because the writers simply didn't care about her at all.

Also, the way they completely took Miju off the show as soon as she decided to get over her crush is so incredibly mediocre. She started liking Soohyun because she saw him ONCE working, he picked up something she dropped (as it was his job), saw him 4 times more, confessed, got rejected and suddenly her whole world came to pieces. The way she literally told Youngran he was "her everything" even though she new virtually nothing about him other than being a smart sunbae in the business department? That was soooo shallow and unnecessary. Her character was the worst and not because she was a bad person, but because the writers literally gave no fvcks about her after a while either. They based her whole personality in having a crush, so when she decided to get over the crush they plainly and simply took her off the screen. Outrageous.

As I said before, Youngran was the most interesting female character, but even so the only personality they gave her was Having a Crush on her long-time friend. At least they didn't completely remove her from the picture and actually gave her another friend (glad they didn't actually start dating but just stayed as friends) to get over her crush with and show some growth.

I will never stop complaining about how this drama did Jun and Soohyun so dirty. I get it, it's KBS, it's a major TV channel, it aired in prime time, Korea isn't so open to LGBTQ+ stories, the original webtoon doesn't develop a romantic relationship between the two, etc, etc. Yes, all those points are true, but it doesn't make it any less annoying that the whole show could've had more depth and been more interesting if they developed a romantic relationship between these two characters. I can settle with the fact that they were good friends and cared for each other fondly, helped each other grow and all that. I was a cute sight and I won't say I didn't enjoy their friendship. But it would've been so much better, interesting and definitely riskier if they went with a gay romance that wouldn't hurt anyone.

The only way I won't feel robbed and like I wasted 12 hours of my life in this is by thinking that Soohyun was implied to be gay. Wait, I have arguments! Well, first of all, he had two female love interests and chose none. Okay, it may mean he was just not interested, but it's kind of rare to find things like this in a kdrama. Second, Soohyun did admit he liked a person in that field trip. Although the question explicitly said "lower your finger if you like any *girl* here, he rejected the two girls he could be interested in (because he obviously was not into Sobin), so my conclusion is that he actually had a crush on Jun but would not act on it because 1) they're friends, 2) Jun has a girlfriend, 3) he's way too busy with his life to date - of course, this could also be applied to explain why he didn't accept either Miju or Youngran, but this is my coping mechanism and one must do what makes them happy. In my heart, Nam Soohyun is gay in the drama too.

Overall, this drama had great potential and it hooked me well with the first 5 eps, ep 6 was ok but from ep 7 onwards it just got more and more boring. I won't lie, I watched the last 3 eps in 1.5x because it was very lame and boring, especially since they resolved Jun's trauma in such a lazy way that made me simply not any more interested in the show. I fininshed because I love Bae Inhyuk, Park Jihoon's acting was pretty good, and I came this far and good or not, I got invested in the story. However, I will mark it completed here and hopefully forget about it because it was incredibly disappointing.