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We Best Love: Fighting Mr. 2nd — Five Years, One Slap, and a Love That Never Really Left
If "No. 1 For You" is about discovering first love, "Fighting Mr. 2nd" is about discovering what happens when love survives something the people inside it do not understand. The first season ended sweetly enough that the opening of Part 2 feels almost violent: five years have passed, Shu Yi walks into Shi De's workplace, sees the man he once loved and slaps him in front of everyone. My immediate reaction the first time was basically: "What the fuck happened?" That is exactly why the structure works. The drama does not immediately explain the missing years. It makes us experience the reunion before we know why Shu Yi is so furious, so the comfortable university romance from the first six episodes suddenly becomes an adult relationship poisoned by betrayal, resentment and information neither man possesses completely. The question is no longer whether they love each other. That is obvious from the amount of anger between them. The question is how two people who ended Part 1 believing in the same future managed to arrive five years later standing on opposite sides of a room as if one of them destroyed it.
The slow reconstruction of those missing years is probably my favourite piece of writing in the entire series. Shi De went to America expecting a temporary separation, circumstances disrupted their communication, Shu Yi saw something he misunderstood, and then Shu Yi's father entered the situation and turned emotional confusion into a five-year test. He demanded that Shi De prove he could become worthy of his son through professional success while staying away, believing that he was protecting Shu Yi and perhaps also testing whether this relationship could survive outside youthful emotion. I hated his interference while loving what it added to the drama. He is not simply an evil homophobic father inserted to create conflict. His problem is control, class, expectation and his conviction that loving his son gives him the right to decide what kind of future is good enough for him. The revelation transforms the five-year separation because neither Shi De nor Shu Yi simply stopped loving the other. Their lives were manipulated by pride, misunderstanding and a parent who thought he understood his son's happiness better than his son did. When Shu Yi finally learns what happened, the entire opening slap changes meaning without becoming meaningless. The anger was real because the love underneath it never disappeared.
Sam Lin and YU are even better in this half because the characters have aged emotionally even if only a short time separated the two productions. The softness of university has been replaced by suits, offices, alcohol, responsibility and years of resentment, and both actors understand that the same couple cannot simply behave exactly as they did before. YU gets some of his strongest material as Shu Yi because anger is constantly competing with the desire to believe Shi De again. Sam has the harder emotional position in some ways because Shi De knows more than Shu Yi but cannot simply repair everything by telling him one fact. He made choices too, including accepting the father's condition without giving Shu Yi the agency to decide whether he wanted that sacrifice. That keeps the reconciliation from becoming "father bad, lovers innocent". Shi De loved Shu Yi but still made decisions for him, and Shu Yi's pain cannot disappear simply because those decisions came from love. Their chemistry becomes less about first attraction and more about whether intimacy can survive disappointment. The drunken confrontation, the anger, the physical closeness and the eventual return of trust work because Sam and YU never play hatred as the opposite of love. Shu Yi's fury is evidence of exactly how much of that love remained.
The ensemble evolves just as intelligently. The heterosexual side romance involving Zheng Wen and Yu Xin has largely completed its purpose, so Part 2 does not artificially drag them back simply because they were present before. Instead, the adult world opens more space for the queer relationships already surrounding Shi De and Shu Yi. Bing Wei and Zhe Yu are now together, turning what had existed around the edges of Part 1 into an established relationship, while Pei Shou Yi and Yu Zhen Xuan become one of the strangest and most interesting secondary stories in the series. Shou Yi's difficulty experiencing and expressing emotional attachment collides with Zhen Xuan's intense fixation on him, creating a relationship that is deliberately uncomfortable and far more psychologically complicated than the main romance. Their story never feels as though it was inserted merely because a BL needs another couple. It grows from Shou Yi, who was already present in Part 1, and gradually reveals why this apparently detached man carries his own unresolved history. Bing Wei and Zhe Yu provide something lighter and more stable around them, eventually reaching a proposal, so the series manages to contain several very different versions of love without making the supporting couples feel like copies of Shi De and Shu Yi.
That ensemble chemistry became even more enjoyable because the actors themselves clearly developed a real bond during the project. Later in 2021, "WBL Boys' Vacation" brought Sam Lin, YU, Ray Chang, Shih Chih-tian, Richard Lee and Evan Luo together away from the scripted roles, and seeing them talk, play and open up about themselves made it easier to understand why the group scenes in "We Best Love" felt so comfortable. I normally dislike using actors' real personalities to explain fictional relationships, because good acting should stand on its own, but in this case the companion reality show simply confirmed something already visible: these people had become comfortable enough with each other that the ensemble never felt assembled only for the camera. For several of them, "We Best Love" would remain an unusual or even singular BL entry in their careers, and I actually like that. They were actors playing a queer story rather than performers who needed to build a permanent BL identity around it.
The workplace material is perhaps the least emotionally powerful part for me, but even that serves a purpose. The merger, Alpha project, corporate sabotage and professional rivalry allow the story to demonstrate that five years have actually passed. These are no longer students whose greatest immediate problems involve swimming competitions and university friendships. Shi De has built a company partly under the shadow of the promise he made to Shu Yi's father, while Shu Yi has entered his father's business and carries the expectation of eventually succeeding him. Their careers therefore become another battlefield created by the separation. The corporate plot occasionally feels more functional than fascinating, but it allows the romance to exist within adult responsibilities rather than simply repeating the first season in office clothes. More importantly, it gives Shu Yi's father something concrete against which to judge Shi De, so the professional success is tied directly to the emotional conflict instead of existing as filler.
Final Thoughts
Taken together, the two parts of "We Best Love" form one of my favourite BL stories because Part 2 does not simply give me more of something I already liked. It changes the question. Part 1 asks whether Shu Yi can recognise that his lifelong rival has always loved him; Part 2 asks whether recognising love once is enough to protect it from pride, distance, family interference and terrible communication. The opening slap works because it destroys the security of the first ending, while the gradual explanation of the five missing years makes the audience reconstruct the relationship alongside Shu Yi. Sam Lin and YU carry that transition beautifully, the supporting couples remain genuinely worth watching, and Shu Yi's father becomes one of those frustrating characters whose interference makes me angry while also making the story much better. I have returned to these twelve episodes again and again since 2021, and they still work because the romance is not the only thing holding them together; the characters, side stories and ensemble are just as easy to revisit.
First love made Shi De and Shu Yi choose each other; five lost years proved that choosing someone once is never the same as learning how to keep them.
The slow reconstruction of those missing years is probably my favourite piece of writing in the entire series. Shi De went to America expecting a temporary separation, circumstances disrupted their communication, Shu Yi saw something he misunderstood, and then Shu Yi's father entered the situation and turned emotional confusion into a five-year test. He demanded that Shi De prove he could become worthy of his son through professional success while staying away, believing that he was protecting Shu Yi and perhaps also testing whether this relationship could survive outside youthful emotion. I hated his interference while loving what it added to the drama. He is not simply an evil homophobic father inserted to create conflict. His problem is control, class, expectation and his conviction that loving his son gives him the right to decide what kind of future is good enough for him. The revelation transforms the five-year separation because neither Shi De nor Shu Yi simply stopped loving the other. Their lives were manipulated by pride, misunderstanding and a parent who thought he understood his son's happiness better than his son did. When Shu Yi finally learns what happened, the entire opening slap changes meaning without becoming meaningless. The anger was real because the love underneath it never disappeared.
Sam Lin and YU are even better in this half because the characters have aged emotionally even if only a short time separated the two productions. The softness of university has been replaced by suits, offices, alcohol, responsibility and years of resentment, and both actors understand that the same couple cannot simply behave exactly as they did before. YU gets some of his strongest material as Shu Yi because anger is constantly competing with the desire to believe Shi De again. Sam has the harder emotional position in some ways because Shi De knows more than Shu Yi but cannot simply repair everything by telling him one fact. He made choices too, including accepting the father's condition without giving Shu Yi the agency to decide whether he wanted that sacrifice. That keeps the reconciliation from becoming "father bad, lovers innocent". Shi De loved Shu Yi but still made decisions for him, and Shu Yi's pain cannot disappear simply because those decisions came from love. Their chemistry becomes less about first attraction and more about whether intimacy can survive disappointment. The drunken confrontation, the anger, the physical closeness and the eventual return of trust work because Sam and YU never play hatred as the opposite of love. Shu Yi's fury is evidence of exactly how much of that love remained.
The ensemble evolves just as intelligently. The heterosexual side romance involving Zheng Wen and Yu Xin has largely completed its purpose, so Part 2 does not artificially drag them back simply because they were present before. Instead, the adult world opens more space for the queer relationships already surrounding Shi De and Shu Yi. Bing Wei and Zhe Yu are now together, turning what had existed around the edges of Part 1 into an established relationship, while Pei Shou Yi and Yu Zhen Xuan become one of the strangest and most interesting secondary stories in the series. Shou Yi's difficulty experiencing and expressing emotional attachment collides with Zhen Xuan's intense fixation on him, creating a relationship that is deliberately uncomfortable and far more psychologically complicated than the main romance. Their story never feels as though it was inserted merely because a BL needs another couple. It grows from Shou Yi, who was already present in Part 1, and gradually reveals why this apparently detached man carries his own unresolved history. Bing Wei and Zhe Yu provide something lighter and more stable around them, eventually reaching a proposal, so the series manages to contain several very different versions of love without making the supporting couples feel like copies of Shi De and Shu Yi.
That ensemble chemistry became even more enjoyable because the actors themselves clearly developed a real bond during the project. Later in 2021, "WBL Boys' Vacation" brought Sam Lin, YU, Ray Chang, Shih Chih-tian, Richard Lee and Evan Luo together away from the scripted roles, and seeing them talk, play and open up about themselves made it easier to understand why the group scenes in "We Best Love" felt so comfortable. I normally dislike using actors' real personalities to explain fictional relationships, because good acting should stand on its own, but in this case the companion reality show simply confirmed something already visible: these people had become comfortable enough with each other that the ensemble never felt assembled only for the camera. For several of them, "We Best Love" would remain an unusual or even singular BL entry in their careers, and I actually like that. They were actors playing a queer story rather than performers who needed to build a permanent BL identity around it.
The workplace material is perhaps the least emotionally powerful part for me, but even that serves a purpose. The merger, Alpha project, corporate sabotage and professional rivalry allow the story to demonstrate that five years have actually passed. These are no longer students whose greatest immediate problems involve swimming competitions and university friendships. Shi De has built a company partly under the shadow of the promise he made to Shu Yi's father, while Shu Yi has entered his father's business and carries the expectation of eventually succeeding him. Their careers therefore become another battlefield created by the separation. The corporate plot occasionally feels more functional than fascinating, but it allows the romance to exist within adult responsibilities rather than simply repeating the first season in office clothes. More importantly, it gives Shu Yi's father something concrete against which to judge Shi De, so the professional success is tied directly to the emotional conflict instead of existing as filler.
Final Thoughts
Taken together, the two parts of "We Best Love" form one of my favourite BL stories because Part 2 does not simply give me more of something I already liked. It changes the question. Part 1 asks whether Shu Yi can recognise that his lifelong rival has always loved him; Part 2 asks whether recognising love once is enough to protect it from pride, distance, family interference and terrible communication. The opening slap works because it destroys the security of the first ending, while the gradual explanation of the five missing years makes the audience reconstruct the relationship alongside Shu Yi. Sam Lin and YU carry that transition beautifully, the supporting couples remain genuinely worth watching, and Shu Yi's father becomes one of those frustrating characters whose interference makes me angry while also making the story much better. I have returned to these twelve episodes again and again since 2021, and they still work because the romance is not the only thing holding them together; the characters, side stories and ensemble are just as easy to revisit.
First love made Shi De and Shu Yi choose each other; five lost years proved that choosing someone once is never the same as learning how to keep them.
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