It wouldn't be grooming if he didn't have any feelings towards the kid. He could've developed romantic feelings later after Yeongwoon is all grown up
If that's what you think then the bar is soo low
This is not what grooming is
" Sexual grooming is the action or behavior used to establish an emotional connection with a vulnerable person – generally a minor under the age of consent and sometimes the victim's family,to lower their inhibitions with the objective of sexual abuse "
And let's not forget to mention that he literally owes him a shit ton of money so the power balance is completely screwed up from so many angles
And you forgot to mention how evertime current time taegu thinks of yeongwoon he usually thinks of his younger self so your argument is not really valid since he really does recognize the age gap between them and thinks fondly of taegu'14 year old self
Did you read this or you just copied and pasted it? If you actually read the manhwa, you'll know that Taegu isn't even trying to build an emotional connection with younger Yeongwoon. In fact, he actually avoids getting any closer to him because, as he said, "between the two of us, not even a shred of sympathy was allowed to exist". If he developed feelings towards Yeongwoon after he's all grown up, that's not grooming, but it is still weird. You can call out something weird without misusing certain words
Right? This might be a case of "that one friend that's too woke"
Or it might be a case of " that one friend who's all bark and no brain "
So let's make a hypothetical situation, if your father's friend knows you since your 14 and comes to your house occasionally and plays with you eats with you jokes with you etc.., and suddenly when you're 25 he tells you that he's in love with you and wants a relationship you would be okay with that ?
Hey, I understand what you're trying to say. You're trying to call out Taegu's actions for having romantic feelings to someone he met as a kid because it is weird, we get that. But you're using the wrong terms. We're just trying to correct you here because you're throwing words around without seeming to know their true meaning
Anyone who ships yeongwoon and taegu after this chapter is simply a blind or an idiot ,, if anything romantic happens between them it would be a text book case of grooming and y'all are not ready for that conversation!