When I first started this drama I thought it would be high school to college. It turns out, however, that the drama starts in college where everyone is split up and then flashes back to high school. And for some reason, that made all the difference. I know this is an element of personal preference here but for me it just meant that I constantly felt like I was waiting for the other shoe to drop and that every time someone had a line about "being together forever" it was like alarm bells.

I still really liked the innocence of high school and how it did what c-dramas do best — which is balance the different themes of studying motivation, following your dreams, family pressure, friendship, and first love — really well. Even though there were some parts where I disagreed with what the "message" turned out to be (in terms of parental subplots it was because I was raised in a more Western, more independent household, or there were also moments where I disagreed with the outcome of an argument between friends) I still really liked the growth and character development that the characters underwent.

The time jump and big lapse in miscommunication which I knew was coming was understandable but still not very enjoyable; it really made the FL turn into someone who just seemed to follow the ML around and not have her own thoughts — which was unfortunate because something I had previously appreciated about this drama during HS was that the FL was not a genius but she worked hard and had her own goals, despite falling victim to a very common thing in dramas — where the ML is a genius in one specific subject whereas the FL isn't great at school but has a bunch of small quirky things she's good at so she doesn't seem useless. Still, I appreciate that this was something they ended up addressing directly.

During the college days, I liked that the romance took a bigger role. It makes sense, because they'd grown up. But everything that I loved about the balance in the high school days seemed to fade away. In a new setting, the new roommates and friends that the leads made in no way matched up to the old characters we'd grown to love. And like I said, the plot of the FL making her life revolve around the ML, and then the ML being mean to her still, just all felt very frustrating.

I felt like they inserted some conflict into the second lead couple too, and while I thought this was necessary, I felt like the way they did it with a time jump instead of slowly showing their progression (because the story wasn't following them during college) felt kind of random and awkward and almost too similar to the way the main couple just randomly cut off ties.

Overall, I still think this was a fun watch and I really liked how there was really a sense of nostalgia and inspiration as we watched them grow up, but as much as I love romance I prefer it as a subplot in the earlier episodes.