So yep, I really don't think this drama should be thought of a romance. But if we do see it that way, then yep — SECOND LEAD SYNDROME IS REAL. I've always been a bigger fan of the playful, comfortable, easy-to-talk relationship and how comfortable Baek Inho and Seol were with each other and how she made her laugh and how he actually had such good advice about how to live life...I LOVE him to death.

Everyone who says that the ending of this drama is a mess...they're pretty much right, but if we DON'T think of the drama as a romance, I actually loved all the characters on their own:

Yoo Jung: I've always wanted to see a main lead like Yoo Jung — cunning, resourceful, with a thirst for justice and yet he goes about it in the coldest, cruelest way. Slytherin to the core. Loved it, and honestly the end of the drama felt more about his way of thinking than anything else.

Seol: So relatable in how endlessly hardworking she was and I loved how chill she could be with her friends. It was frustrating to see who she had to deal with, but I felt like the ending scene with her in the office and seeing colleagues who mirrored her college classmates...it tied everything up nicely.

Baek Inho: I've already said I loved him and he's one of my fave character archetypes — the estranged bad boy with a temper who goes WAY soft for the girl. His character was way complex and the backstory was heartbreaking, and there was so much tension between all his emotional turmoil vs. the emotions he wore on his sleeve.

Baek Inha: If I knew someone like this in real life, I'd be endlessly frustrated with them and hate them, but in this drama she was both annoying and hilarious. I can't help but feel like her character development was way out-of-the-blue and she got the short end of the stick with how crazy the drama's plot went, but ultimately she was still interesting.

Bora + Euntaek: Loved them. I wish they got a little more screentime but they gave me the friends-to-lovers that I always crave.

With that being said, the plot definitely went crazy, but since I watched this years after it aired, I was mentally prepared for it and it turned out to not be as bad as I expected. As a romance, it was problematic because I don't think the leads were good for one another, even from the very start, but if we're looking at the characters individually, I felt like this drama had a lot there.