This series deserves all the flack it gets. Yes it's fiction, but there is so much romantization of stalking, SA, and very loose definition of consent. IF they had even addressed that yes! stalking is bad! forcing someone to pay you back with their body is bad! Then I might have liked it slightly more. Not only did they not discuss this, they actually romanticized it.

You'd think that the first couple was problemating with some grooming themes with the sudden (non-sexual) spanking scene that came out of nowhere, the older dude saying shit like "I don't like boys who use bad language", and just literal weird parental dynamics. But I'd argue that the second coupling is even worse, and the bar was already in hell.

At least with Phayu and Rain, they actually started out with a very strong meet cute and very strong attraction even from Rain's end. Like that boy was lusting after Phayu before he even knew that he likes men. Like yes, Phayu did initiate sexual contact without clear consent when he brought Rain back to his room but I can believe that it was a misread signal. I would also thought Rain was hitting on me if his car breaks down the second time in my vicinity after him spending his dinner literally ogling at me. Yes, he should have stopped the moment Rain says no the first time, I am not justifying that. But him giving Rain a proper out by clarifying that he's not going to try anything anymore and that he's not in the mood anymore is better than what Pai did for Sky. For me things really only started getting problematic after Phayu implicating that he wants Rain to pay back the car servicing with his body. That couple went straight to hell after that but became kinda cute again after Rain starts feeling more comfortable in that relationship.

The same thing can't be said for the second couple. With Sky and Pai, the way they started out was already dodgy as it was literally presented to Sky as a "fuck or die" type of situation. Noone would see his reaction after and think "oh, this person just had a consensual sexual encounter." Then this Pai dude went on to just straight up stalk him - and you can literally see that Sky was so distressed in the beginning about this, and then Stockholm syndrome kicked in and he started giving this psycho stalker a chance. And what did this psycho do? Create a copy to Sky's room key and intentionally spread the rumor that they're dating when they were not. He did a couple of decent things like took care of him when he was sick, be a little bit romantic, and then Sky, who already had such a low bar in relationships due to his previous history of dating an abuser, ended up falling in love with him.

I'm sorry but I'd rather watch eat dog shit than watch this hot mess ever again. Yes, the sexual chemistry is there, but if I wanted that I'd just watch porn. At least I can filter out non-consensual contents. I honestly regret this as much as I regretted watching tharntype and dark blue kiss.