Teacher, It's Time to Pay Me Back

Delightfully toxic

This is definitely one of those shows where you have to fully ignore real life and just enjoy. The premise is very toxic – Kong Haein loans Beom Taeseok a lot of money, and then requires him to pay it back using his body. We soon learn that Taeseok, while a bit shocked by the request, isn’t really against it and later even enjoys a lot of the ways Haein “tortures” him.

This series tries to lean into kink and BDSM, featuring wax play, spanking, and humiliation play (though… there was actually not much humiliation in their play xD). This allows Taeseok a safe way to understand his desires and sexual needs, and we slowly see him come to terms that this is what he really wants. Towards the end (much after they should have if this were real life) they finally settle on a safe word, though we never actually see them use it in play.

While the series portrays a pretty toxic relationship, they do try to make it less toxic once Taeseok realizes that he actually loves being tortured and also loves Haein himself. While it’s questionable whether this relationship would succeed in real life, it’s very entertaining to watch and absolutely had me rooting for their happiness.

Due to this being a short series, we don’t get the pacing this show deserved. We do see Taeseok grow a bit, but I feel like we needed a lot more time to explore both that and Haein’s whole background. Ultimately though, it was really well done with the constraints they had, and if you enjoy slightly darker romance, this is the show for you.

Read More