After many delays that were completely my own fault, I have finally finished the much hyped KBL, Secret Relationships.
And I’ll tell you why there were delays on my end. I just really wasn’t feeling this one! Apparently, this KBL was getting a lot of hype leading up to its release, and I do think a lot of that has to do with how accurately the actors looked compared to the manhwa versions of them. From a really high level perspective, there were definitely some more problematic elements to this story, though I think with most BLs there are to some extent. With that being said, I think they handled those moments pretty well.
The story focuses on Daon, a hardworking businessman who has somehow managed to not attract just one, but three suitors! He has history with two of them, and a massive crush on one of them, but there are a whole host of other problems to go along with those relationships. Some of which confused the hell out of me. In fact, I’m still not totally sure I got it right. Either way, Daon has a massive crush on a grade school friend, Jaemin. They just appear to be really close friends, but it turns out that Jaemin is obsessed with Daon. To the point where he causes physical harm to both Daon and himself.
He’s orchestrated many moments in Daon’s life, including the exile of his other close grade school friend, Suhyeon. After witnessing a violent event, Daon is relieved when Suhyeon moves to the US, but now he’s back and is his boss! As it goes, Suhyeon also had a massive crush on Daon and his violent actions, while still a red flag, were actually admirable. He let Jaemin manipulate him in order to keep Daon’s life stable. I think. That was the one part I really couldn’t make any sense of. But as far as Daon is concerned, the sum of their past is too much to come back from.
And then if there isn’t the most green flag of them all, new employee Seonghyeon, at first butts heads with Daon, but soon finds that his feelings lean more towards love than anything else. Similarly, Daon takes a while to come around to his feelings for Seonghyeon, but he is so so overwhelmed by all of the other garbage going on with those two psychos that he almost totally ruins this good thing. Of course, I wasn’t too surprised that Daon got his happy ending, but I think he might have been better off just moving away from all of these nut jobs. Sorry, Seonghyeon, starting fresh would have been the best way.
As I said, I finally got through this one, but don’t count on seeing it listed in any of my “best of” lists at the end of the year.