#debut or die: testar's journey to get into momdae's heart

[nestofthorns]

thinking about Cheongryeo and Moondae dynamic and the reasons I can't help but love it is because Moondae is too responsible, so an ambiguous frenemy like Cheongryeo is the only one he will be frank to and show his distastes without caring about the other person's feelings.

moondae sees himself as older than the rest of these guys — not just because of his mental age but also because he's been independent for way longer than them. so he takes care of them and hides his real feelings to not burden them, making sure they get all the care while neglecting his own care because he's used to worse (because back then he was alone and nobody would even ask after him).

and the other guys struggle to get past his defenses to take care of him! because moondae truly doesn't believe he needs help, so he sees their help as obstacles to work around. same with his own emotions and difficulties.

they eventually manage to — but it's so different from the rawness of his interactions with cheongryeo. He can't treat cheongryeo as an outsider the way he does most people because cheongryeo knows too much, but cheongryeo isn't someone he likes either. cheongryeo's ambiguous position allows him to slide in between moondae's defenses and get all his raw bluntness. this is more apparent at the climax of THAT arc — where cheongryeo completely crosses the line but at the same time moondae gains a huge understanding of cheongryeo. This was when moondae really started being more honest around him, while still disliking him a lot.

but Moondae is a softie so even with cheongryeo he eventually starts caring for him but funnily enough cheongryeo is such a big jerk with foot in mouth disease that he'll never enter moondae's mamabear protection circle so moondae will always treat him as an equal.

keunse (big sejin) early dynamic with moondae was like this too (he was the only one moondae was rude to!) but then moondae saw him vulnerable and went "must protecc" and bro isn't getting out of the mama bear protection circle until another few hundred chapters RIP.

other than that there is chungwoo but he's got a different dynamic from them, and ahyeon too way later on but that's getting into heavy spoilers territory so i shall refrain.