#this is so long sorryyyyyyy but the worst part is that i rlly think the actors could've done this!!!!!

[waitingforminjae]

would anybody like to hear my cutie pie rewrite? too bad here it is:

same initial premise - kuea's parents groomed him to be lian's child bride + forced lian into the engagement via their monetary power over lian and his family. as a result kuea would do literally anything for lian to love him back, but lian doesn't love him like that, and can't.

however, in my version, lian became woke to all this and unlearned a lot of that shit and saw it for what it was when he was in college, in part thanks to his friend's pointing out that being engaged to a 10 yr old was "fucking pedo shit". he's been working for years to get out from under the thumb of kuea's family, and harbors an immense amount of guilt and responsibility towards kuea for the part he played in kuea's grooming - which has severely fucked up kuea in incredibly damaging ways.

for kuea, he had his eyes opened by diao when they met in the uk, who was also like "um bestie u were fucking groomed holy shit". while in the uk, diao helps kuea find things that he likes (drumming, singing, motorcycles) and slowly kuea begins to build his real self and identity that isn't tied to lian's happiness/love. he doesn't trust lian, because he is still too young to understand that lian was forced into this - and as the minor who was groomed, he doesn't particularly care. lian was still an adult who hurt him.

lian and yi are involved in a batshit toxic friends w benefits situation that involves a lot of angry sex and frustrated blowjobs in bathrooms that everyone knows about but that both of them refuse to acknowledge. yi's been in love w lian since college but is too emotionally repressed to acknowledge it even tho everyone knows, including lian who still uses him for sex and knows that it's all fucked up and is absolutely gonna implode one day but it hasn't yet so they just kinda keep doing it.

yi is the one who introduced diao to motorbiking, and then diao got in a wreck and got a brain injury and lost his memories and yi, who liked the boy (platonically) even tho he'd never admit it, freaked out and felt guilty so now he's overprotective to the point of being abusive of diao, who is initially milder after his injury bc he's lost and confused bc yi won't fucking tell him anything. but he has a spine of steel and a temper and most importantly serves major cunt so he doesn't let yi push him around for long before he snaps. so they're having screaming matches all the time bc diao needs freedom and yi needs control and it's intense and (mutually) violent. yet, at the same time yi likes that diao is so bold and self-confident because he desperately wishes he was that way, but he's just a loser and he knows it. so he's jealous, too.

kuea and diao have a healthy college friends w benefits thing going on but mostly they're just dating in a way that just kinda happened naturally so neither of them are quiet aware of it. they mostly just go motorbiking, hanging out at that club where kuea performs, and studying/playing w their friends.

lian has been slowing transferring all of kuea's families assets to his own accounts, in addition to doing his best to separate his money and businesses from their influence. he's does all this under the guise of still being 100% locked into this engagement and pretending to be on their side - which further confuses kuea bc lian doesn't tell him his actual plans, even though he's also been secretly putting some of the money/assets into an account for kuea so he can be financially independent from his family. he also helps him w his music career. anything he can do to help and support kuea, to make up in some small way for what he allowed to happen to him.

at no point does the story let you forget that kuea was groomed, and lian was forced to be an accomplice in that grooming. they are both victims - and how they respond to that "engagement" and the trauma and life-long damage it has inflicted on their pysches and lives is what drives the characters and narrative. kuea's family are explicitly the antagonists.