This drama is not the love story of people who have feelings for each other, love each other and end up living happily ever after. This is a drama about what people can do to people who love them when they do not return their love feelings. So, the characters are most of the time cowardly, manipulative, pathetic, annoying and gesticulating in wrong situations. This happens in real life too as not all relationships are based on true and sincere love. This is what this drama is about. It has a realistic take on adults’ relationships. Adults who do not know their own feelings, ignore them, tone them down or pretend to have feelings… and make choices with their reason that their heart does not agree with.

1/ WHAT I LIKED:

- The story and the trajectory of the 5 main characters. None of them is perfect. They all have qualities and flaws that determine their choices. They are all relatable because they all look like human beings led into wrong choices by their human condition and trying to deal with their wrong choices and not the best way.
- The mature take on sex and love. It is not so common in romance kdramas. This drama is not shy about sex, and it tells that there is a difference between love and sex. Just like in real life.
- The cheating: 30% of women and 40% of men have cheated once in their life. No need to throw an anathema to them and pretend to be so much better. People have their own reasons for doing what they do. I did not want to judge them. I just agreed that in their situation, the cheating would happen, and it did happen like in real life. It was steamy and intense. People who can’t stomach cheating as a human emotional state and possible behavior should stay away from this drama.
- The rather realistic depiction of the workplace and colleagues. The friendly ones and the annoying ones who are always gossiping.
- The ending. There are two endings. One with ep15 with a sad unhappy ending but more consistent and logical with what happened during the whole drama. I have not read the novel but I felt like the ending with ep16 was especially cooked to give everyone a great situation like everything was bad that ends well. The two leads have an open ending with this ep but personally, I prefer the ending with ep15.

2/ WHAT I DID NOT LIKE:

- The early episodes were confusing and exhausting with the ML and FL acting unclear towards each other.
- Some draggy parts with too much gloomy faces and long contemplating moments
- The story between the ML and his mom could have been better. The mom looked a strong character, but she was quite underused for me.

3/ CHARACTERS/ACTORS:

- ML: The only one with real unconditional Love feelings. But he lacked courage and that drowned his chance. He grew into a more assured person and took responsibility of his feelings and his no-feelings in the end. Not very fond of the actor but he did a decent job looking gloomy and contrite and unable to bury his one-sided Love.
- FL: Self centered complicated person with sad circumstances and low self-esteem but she used them as an excuse to not face her own feelings and act upon them. This led her to make a wrong choice that she will try to assume despite obvious signs it is wrong. I liked Moon Ga young in this role. Different from what I used to see from her.
- SML: Student from a poor family who wanted to woo noona but when she chose him out of frustration for his kindness and for comfort, he suddenly had nothing more to offer her and became lousy and bland.
- SFL : Manipulative, possessive, scheming to always have gains from others. But I liked her bright, smart, and outgoing character. She was immature regarding Love and failed to be lovable and to love her partner. But she did not take it too badly. Of course, the ML was just a challenge and a trophy partner for her. Loved the actress who displayed lots of emotions.
- TML: Kyung Pil. This snake was a bad boyfriend, a bad friend and a bad person whispering bad ideas into the ears of the ML, SFL and FL based on his own sorry past that he chose himself. A dislikeable and pitiful person who slightly improved. The actor was great looking cunning, bitter, disillusioned and not proud of himself.

3/ OST:
Very good. I liked most of the songs and listened to them apart from the drama.

4/ REWATCHABLE VALUE:
It is slow paced and the story is realistic but sad, so I won’t rewatch it.

5/ OVERALL:

It’s a good drama if you can accept that humans are weak and make wrong choices and do wrong things that do not improve their situation on the contrary. Because they lack courage and confidence in themselves, their choice of reason is undermined by their heart’s choice, and it leads to messy situations. In the end, they still manage to put things in the right order and move on to a happier life after a time jump. Despite the contemplative and slow parts, I enjoyed watching these people I had pity and hopes for. Not so entertaining but a slice of life drama I enjoyed. 8/10.

Lesson of the drama: "If you have feelings for someone, take the courage to face your feelings honestly and act upon them. "