comeundid

On Netflix, even the Chinese subtitles doesn't match what they are saying at times.

So, the best answer is, watch on a few platforms to stitch together the most cogent understanding, or come to this forum to ask ... haha

I'm not sure if Ji Huanyu's orientation can be considered a spoiler now that we have seen his face in the show, and know that he appeared in THAT sex scene in the official trailer ... haha.

But correct me if I am wrong (since I did not read the novel). During JT's conversation with his mom, she didn't allude to JT's dad's sexual orientation at all. In fact, she attributes the failure of their marriage to poor conflict management, and her refusing to give in. She wished she had handled things better to keep the marriage together, and gave JT a happier childhood.

As such, I have a sense Ji Huanyu's orientation is a secret that only JT knows about.

Does it seem to you guys that JT has a more acute understanding of where they are emotionally in their relationship?

At the end of episode 7, SW shared the pickled mangos (nicknamed couple's fruit in Chinese) with JT without thinking too much about it. However, it seemed like JT understood it differently, perhaps due to the Chinese name of the fruit. He had some reservations, but after SW's pout, he looked around to see that no one was looking, and ate it quickly.

By contrast, SW was genuinely surprised when the discipline master implied that he was in love with someone.

Having seen room 501 now, I would think you are probably right, but what magic would they need to work into the script to write Gao Tian Yang and the other guy out of the dorm during this moment? Perhaps it was a weekend and the other two went home and these two stayed since their parents are overseas?

The 4-person dorm was probably the viable option for them as 16/17 year olds.

JT couldn't find it in his heart to consider their current house a home, due to his past hurts, and the fact that it was his mother's current boyfriend's house.

I thought this episode handled the struggle with their parents very well.

It is tough for working parents to be able to spend time with their young kids. Whatever the reasons - be it socio-economic circumstances or career ambitions, it is a fact that both parents were mostly absent from their sons' lives when they were growing up, and are both trying to make up for that lost time now when their sons are teenagers, which is really too late. They can't start over again. The intimacy that parents can have with their young children has a limited window of opportunity. What they have right now is already the best case scenario, which is both JT and SW understand why they made those choices, and don't let those things in the past bother them that much anymore.

The concept of "Home" doesn't only point to a place of accommodation. It also points to the feeling of family, having a sense of belonging. So the concepts of "home" and "family" are entwined here.

While you are right to say SW's dad is mostly away on business, and the latest arrangement was that only JT's mom was at home (not all the time as well), they had the house to themselves practically most of the time, and they could hence make a home out of this house, so the dorm wasn't really necessarily from a functionality perspective.

However, SW recognised that it was not possible for JT. After all, he had a pattern of moving from house to house, and now he moved into a house belonging to his mother's current boyfriend, which is even weirder for him. Moreover, with JT's emotional baggage, he could never see this current house as a place to make a permanent home, no matter how SW made him feel. SW felt that he needed to help JT break out of this cycle.

This is so moving because it is sacrificial love at play here. SW could make a home with JT in their current house. But he recognised that JT could not, and he chose to move out of his comfort zone, inconvenience himself in order to establish a home with JT, where both of them will have a sense of family.

And before that they ate "couple's fruit" - the pickled mangoes - together. JT looked a bit shy, and looked to make sure no one was around.

Do you guys think at this point it was his 3rd 🍆 ?

One could argue he woke up on the bed with Wang with an uprising, so to speak, and went to the toilet to "cool down".

The first time he returned to the room, his hands were uncannily in his pocket and he was standing a bit awkwardly. Then midway in that conversation, he looked down for a split second and ran out while Wang was looking elsewhere. I assume this would be his second uprising.

The second time he came into the room, he again had his hands in his pocket, and saw Wang's situation, and had his third uprising.

I think that bed scene from the show's trailer is the missing piece in the opening scene. I think they will flash back to it later, and then it will establish that they both already know where their relationship is, at this point, hence the signalling that they both don't want to be seen as just step-brothers. I mean, if they were just good friends at this point, they should be delighted with the notion of being step-brothers.

One could argue that Wang did confess in this episode, albeit tacitly.

He asked Tian to move into the dorm with him, so that the two of them can be a family (or home - in Chinese, the word carries both meanings). He is specifically not referring to their impending step-brotherhood here, because he is excluding their parents from the picture. In fact, he says "just the two of us" twice here, to be very clear. You can see that Tian was almost in tears in this scene, as we all should be :) After Tian accepts his proposal, Wang says they are "more than friends", that they are a "family".