This review may contain spoilers
This started strong, but kind of fell flat as it went on. There’s a lot of things that didn’t really work for me in terms of relationship development for all the characters involved.
For the main couple, we know that Minwoo likes Yooha and we can see the progression of his feelings developing. It makes sense that Minwoo likes Yooha. He’s this clean, pristine, closed-off person, and Yooha brings something new and dynamic to his life. He cares and shows an interest in Minwoo that no one else ever has. But what exactly does Minwoo provide to Yooha? There’s not a lot of character development for Minwoo - he’s clean, pristine, and closed-off all the way to the end, except for maybe giving a few more closed-lip smiles. He’s not emotionally forthcoming, and we never see him do anything genuinely nice or caring for Yooha. The only thing he ever did was go looking for Yooha’s brother when he went missing, but after he found him, he didn’t even tell Yooha that he did. Instead, Yooha found out where he was when his brother’s co-conspirator came clean of her own volition. It’s a small thing, but that scene where Minwoo accidentally makes a coffee for Yooha with salt instead of sugar but then doubles down that it was on purpose and Yooha feels pressured into drinking the whole thing…I can’t help but feel like that could have been a pivotal scene where Minwoo could have shown a caring side by admitting he was wrong and fixing it. As it is, I don’t feel we ever got a pivotal moment. I never really got when Yooha fell for Minwoo or why.
The relationship build up started off well, though. The fake dating and Minwoo falling for Yooha were good. When Minwoo kisses Yooha and freaks out, apologizing and telling Yooha that he should have maintained the contractual terms of their relationship, that conflict should have been the focal turning point of their relationship. Instead, they don’t talk for days, Yooha terminates the contract to fake date someone else offering more money to save his brother’s bar, and they don’t really talk again until the end of the show. Minwoo turns up drunk, finds out Yooha’s brother is missing, locates said brother but does nothing with that information, then the brother returns home by himself, Minwoo confesses, and they live happily ever after. They don’t get together until midway through the final episode. The pacing just felt off. With all that time apart, I didn’t feel a proper emotional connection between them, and with them getting together so late, I felt the relationship was too new to feel stable enough for a true HEA.
Yooha and Taeha’s relationship didn’t make sense to me, from start to end. We’re told they’re “brothers,” but they’re not biologically related. And the way that Taeha acts, I can’t help but feel he has feelings for Yooha. He was so obsessively dependent on Yooha. He wanted Yooha with him by his side forever, and when Yooha wanted independence and left home, he went as far as faking his disappearance and the threat of the bar being auctioned off because he wanted Yooha to come running to him for help. Instead, Yooha was able to manage on his own, and Taeha fell apart even more. I don’t think it’s normal to be so emotionally dependent on your brother, or to have such a volatile reaction to the idea of him fake dating someone. Or to touch him, or caress his face, hair, or hand in that way. It was genuinely weird. Yooha and Taeha have matching “family” rings, except their family is just the two of them so it came across more like couple rings. I wanted Yooha to take his off already, but the show was going with the premise that these two have a normal brotherly relationship, so the rings stayed.
And the side couple should not have happened at all. Jaemin had feelings for Taeha for the entire show, but Taeha never once even noticed him beyond a bar employee. In the final episode, Taeha is crying over Yooha and saying he doesn’t know how he can live without him and Jaemin is comforting him, and then Taeha suddenly kisses Jaemin. It didn’t feel like a couple getting together or finally revealing feelings for each other. It was a man hopelessly in love with someone who would never love him back (in my mind anyways, the show thinks they’re brothers), crying over him, and then he kisses the closest person he can latch onto. All he’s doing there, brotherly feelings or not, is shifting his obsession to someone else. He never even noticed Jaemin before, let alone developed genuine feelings for him. He kisses Jaemin, pulls away and apologizes, and after Jaemin processes, he kisses Taeha. Except Taeha looked like he massively regretted that first kiss and didn’t want the second. So all in all, a messy, non-romantic situation and they would have been better off leaving both of them single.
Also, Suyeon made zero sense to me. I don’t know why she was let off scot free like she did nothing wrong at the end. She was Minwoo’s boss and she was in a relationship with a man that didn’t want to marry her. She finds out Yooha is only fake dating Minwoo and decides to hire him herself so that she can make her boyfriend jealous. Except I don’t know what she was trying to accomplish, because she breaks it off with him and when he shows up at the same cafe she’s at with Yooha, Yooha is confrontational, saying that he’s her boyfriend and he needs to leave her alone. I thought the goal was to make him jealous, not to get him to leave her alone, so that made no sense to me.
And then she claims that her ex is harassing her so she wants to hire Yooha longterm. I don’t know if that claim was true or not, but we never hear of it again and she turns out to be a serial liar, so I’m assuming it wasn’t. But to get Yooha to agree to that, she first lies to Yooha’s brother saying she’s Minwoo’s fiancee under the premise that both of them have been wronged and Yooha / Minwoo need to return back to where they belong. So they decide that the brother will disappear and they’ll fake the bar being put up for auction. The brother wanted Yooha to run to him when he’s in trouble, and Suyeon wanted to offer financial support for the bar to convince Yooha to fake date her. So Yooha agrees and ends the contract with Minwoo to fake date her.
Except she changes the terms, saying that she likes him and since she’s offering so much financial support, he should give some of himself to her too. That was really messed up, given the financial power dynamic and the fact that she made the money conditional on his reciprocation. Eventually Yooha breaks the contract with her, but then she’s suddenly portrayed as the good guy, because she lets him keep the money, tells him the truth about his brother’s whereabouts, and lets him cleanly cut ties, no drama. And in the end, but Minwoo and Yooha end up working under her. Like what? No consequences whatsoever?
Consent / boundary issues: Suyeon essentially coerces Yooha into putting forth something real even though their relationship is supposed to be entirely fake by making the money he needs to save his brother’s bar conditional on it. While it’s not necessarily romanticized, it’s also not properly acknowledged either, and Suyeon never faces any consequences. In the finale, Taeha surprise kisses Jaemin without giving him the opportunity to consent. Then when Jaemin processes, he kisses Taeha except Taeha looks like he regretted kissing Jaemin and didn’t want that second kiss.
Kisses: For the main couple, there’s a lip press kiss midway through the series, and 2 LONG intense kisses in the finale. For the side couple, there’s two wide-eyed lip presses in the finale (one kisses the other while they’re staring wide-eyed, and then that one kisses the first while they’re staring wide-eyed).
For the main couple, we know that Minwoo likes Yooha and we can see the progression of his feelings developing. It makes sense that Minwoo likes Yooha. He’s this clean, pristine, closed-off person, and Yooha brings something new and dynamic to his life. He cares and shows an interest in Minwoo that no one else ever has. But what exactly does Minwoo provide to Yooha? There’s not a lot of character development for Minwoo - he’s clean, pristine, and closed-off all the way to the end, except for maybe giving a few more closed-lip smiles. He’s not emotionally forthcoming, and we never see him do anything genuinely nice or caring for Yooha. The only thing he ever did was go looking for Yooha’s brother when he went missing, but after he found him, he didn’t even tell Yooha that he did. Instead, Yooha found out where he was when his brother’s co-conspirator came clean of her own volition. It’s a small thing, but that scene where Minwoo accidentally makes a coffee for Yooha with salt instead of sugar but then doubles down that it was on purpose and Yooha feels pressured into drinking the whole thing…I can’t help but feel like that could have been a pivotal scene where Minwoo could have shown a caring side by admitting he was wrong and fixing it. As it is, I don’t feel we ever got a pivotal moment. I never really got when Yooha fell for Minwoo or why.
The relationship build up started off well, though. The fake dating and Minwoo falling for Yooha were good. When Minwoo kisses Yooha and freaks out, apologizing and telling Yooha that he should have maintained the contractual terms of their relationship, that conflict should have been the focal turning point of their relationship. Instead, they don’t talk for days, Yooha terminates the contract to fake date someone else offering more money to save his brother’s bar, and they don’t really talk again until the end of the show. Minwoo turns up drunk, finds out Yooha’s brother is missing, locates said brother but does nothing with that information, then the brother returns home by himself, Minwoo confesses, and they live happily ever after. They don’t get together until midway through the final episode. The pacing just felt off. With all that time apart, I didn’t feel a proper emotional connection between them, and with them getting together so late, I felt the relationship was too new to feel stable enough for a true HEA.
Yooha and Taeha’s relationship didn’t make sense to me, from start to end. We’re told they’re “brothers,” but they’re not biologically related. And the way that Taeha acts, I can’t help but feel he has feelings for Yooha. He was so obsessively dependent on Yooha. He wanted Yooha with him by his side forever, and when Yooha wanted independence and left home, he went as far as faking his disappearance and the threat of the bar being auctioned off because he wanted Yooha to come running to him for help. Instead, Yooha was able to manage on his own, and Taeha fell apart even more. I don’t think it’s normal to be so emotionally dependent on your brother, or to have such a volatile reaction to the idea of him fake dating someone. Or to touch him, or caress his face, hair, or hand in that way. It was genuinely weird. Yooha and Taeha have matching “family” rings, except their family is just the two of them so it came across more like couple rings. I wanted Yooha to take his off already, but the show was going with the premise that these two have a normal brotherly relationship, so the rings stayed.
And the side couple should not have happened at all. Jaemin had feelings for Taeha for the entire show, but Taeha never once even noticed him beyond a bar employee. In the final episode, Taeha is crying over Yooha and saying he doesn’t know how he can live without him and Jaemin is comforting him, and then Taeha suddenly kisses Jaemin. It didn’t feel like a couple getting together or finally revealing feelings for each other. It was a man hopelessly in love with someone who would never love him back (in my mind anyways, the show thinks they’re brothers), crying over him, and then he kisses the closest person he can latch onto. All he’s doing there, brotherly feelings or not, is shifting his obsession to someone else. He never even noticed Jaemin before, let alone developed genuine feelings for him. He kisses Jaemin, pulls away and apologizes, and after Jaemin processes, he kisses Taeha. Except Taeha looked like he massively regretted that first kiss and didn’t want the second. So all in all, a messy, non-romantic situation and they would have been better off leaving both of them single.
Also, Suyeon made zero sense to me. I don’t know why she was let off scot free like she did nothing wrong at the end. She was Minwoo’s boss and she was in a relationship with a man that didn’t want to marry her. She finds out Yooha is only fake dating Minwoo and decides to hire him herself so that she can make her boyfriend jealous. Except I don’t know what she was trying to accomplish, because she breaks it off with him and when he shows up at the same cafe she’s at with Yooha, Yooha is confrontational, saying that he’s her boyfriend and he needs to leave her alone. I thought the goal was to make him jealous, not to get him to leave her alone, so that made no sense to me.
And then she claims that her ex is harassing her so she wants to hire Yooha longterm. I don’t know if that claim was true or not, but we never hear of it again and she turns out to be a serial liar, so I’m assuming it wasn’t. But to get Yooha to agree to that, she first lies to Yooha’s brother saying she’s Minwoo’s fiancee under the premise that both of them have been wronged and Yooha / Minwoo need to return back to where they belong. So they decide that the brother will disappear and they’ll fake the bar being put up for auction. The brother wanted Yooha to run to him when he’s in trouble, and Suyeon wanted to offer financial support for the bar to convince Yooha to fake date her. So Yooha agrees and ends the contract with Minwoo to fake date her.
Except she changes the terms, saying that she likes him and since she’s offering so much financial support, he should give some of himself to her too. That was really messed up, given the financial power dynamic and the fact that she made the money conditional on his reciprocation. Eventually Yooha breaks the contract with her, but then she’s suddenly portrayed as the good guy, because she lets him keep the money, tells him the truth about his brother’s whereabouts, and lets him cleanly cut ties, no drama. And in the end, but Minwoo and Yooha end up working under her. Like what? No consequences whatsoever?
Consent / boundary issues: Suyeon essentially coerces Yooha into putting forth something real even though their relationship is supposed to be entirely fake by making the money he needs to save his brother’s bar conditional on it. While it’s not necessarily romanticized, it’s also not properly acknowledged either, and Suyeon never faces any consequences. In the finale, Taeha surprise kisses Jaemin without giving him the opportunity to consent. Then when Jaemin processes, he kisses Taeha except Taeha looks like he regretted kissing Jaemin and didn’t want that second kiss.
Kisses: For the main couple, there’s a lip press kiss midway through the series, and 2 LONG intense kisses in the finale. For the side couple, there’s two wide-eyed lip presses in the finale (one kisses the other while they’re staring wide-eyed, and then that one kisses the first while they’re staring wide-eyed).
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