**contains mild spoilers, read at ur own risk!**
note: this is a very messy, definitely biased, unedited review. i am by no means a professional writer or even a good writer at that, so forgive me for my messy train of thought and poor wording.

honestly, i don't think words will ever be able to express how i feel about this show. if i could give it more than ten stars based solely on my enjoyment and the impact it had on me, then i 100% would.
the cinematography resembles that of a film that exists solely for aesthetics, and i mean that in the best way possible. visually, it was such a nice contrast compared to other bl's, which are often bright and bold, as opposed to dark and pretty, like this one is. on top of the visuals, the story is incredibly heartbreaking. it touches on subjects such as depression, grief, trauma, suicide, and *slight* survivors guilt. each subject evokes an emotion in me that i can only describe as suffering. maybe it's because i can relate to it, or maybe it's because these topics were so well done that i couldn't help but feel what the characters were feeling. this drama reaches directly into the heart and pulls on it's strings.
despite all of this, it still manages to make a painfully sweet love story, that has a perfect balance of fluff and angst, making it feel much more real than any other drama i've watched. this drama truly goes above and beyond: no stereotypes, no cliché, just two people falling in love and saving each other. it's just real.

i really appreciate the use of music in this show. in contrast to many other kdramas, theres not much background music. in high tension, important scenes, theres almost always no added background sound. thinking about it now, i don't think there was music playing during ANY scene with dialogue, which personally, i like way better than too much background music. it makes it feel much more authentic, more vulnerable. additionally, having the turning point fold over because of a conan gray song is literally so real and the song choice was perfect for jihyun and jaewon's story. i also especially liked the song that played during the montage of their trip together, i can't lose it all by ben goldstein.

as for the story line, the reason of the -0.5 rating is because of the odd jumps and unresolved sections. most of these things are small, but i found it odd how they never talked about their very first kiss together, even if jaewon didn't remember it. it just seems like something that should've been mentioned. on top of that, they didn't talk about jaewon ghosting jihyun either. this could be blamed on the fact that jihyun understood why jaewon did that, but i feel that for complete viewership understanding, this should've been talked about or at least mentioned. because this review is based solely on my enjoyment throughout the show, i'm only removing 0.5 from the story because it didn't really affect my enjoyment of the show, just made me tilt my head a little!

i'm not going to write much about the acting, as i feel it was very well done and i was never cringing at how bad it was. i just wanted to add that i'm so impressed with oh juntaek! he absolutely killed this role and the fact that it's his very first acting gig is so impressive!

overall, i'd recommend this show to anybody and everybody. it's absolutely incredible. definitely going high on my list of favorite dramas.