I still have to finish this but, I'm happy to say that Ash was not as bad as I thought he would be!! I dropped this long ago before all the angst happened because I read the spoilers and got the idea that he was being a manipulative asshole deliberately playing with Karlyle's feelings for fun, and I picked it back up now that it's finished because I heard that there would be regret on Ash's part. But... TURNS OUT HE'S JUST DUMB LMAO, why would you think it's okay to openly tell to someone's face that you are NOTHING, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING without elaborating in any way what you actually meant, especially when it's someone you just decided you wanted to confirm the feelings of? Like, how else did you expect him to react if you clearly already suspected he fell in love with youuu Conclusion: he's not an asshole, he's just dumb. I saw a lot of people criticizing Karlyle rather than Ash for his miscommunication, but I actually think it couldn't have gone differently: he was clearly very inexperienced and Ash didn't help with his mixed signals (he treated him like somebody in love would since when he clearly still didn't care, and even afterwards continued drawing lines, of course he would think the worst, hell even Ash hadn't realized his own changing feelings at that point). If the way the artist depicted this manhwa adaptation was accurate, then I find it quite ridiculous that Ash never suspected anything up until that point when he's such an open book? I instead find it much more realistic how the inexperienced and naive Lyle found it difficult to keep up with the hot and cold behavior and eventually concluded he had to cut him off for his own sanity. So yeah, I don't hate Ash at all, but I think the whole 'Karlyle running away and Ash realizing he broke his heart and regretting it' was 100% necessary and most of all was what was needed for Ash to realize how precious Karlyle was to him. AND IT WAS SO SATISFYING!!
I still have to finish this but, I'm happy to say that Ash was not as bad as I thought he would be!! I dropped this long ago before all the angst happened because I read the spoilers and got the idea that he was being a manipulative asshole deliberately playing with Karlyle's feelings for fun, and I picked it back up now that it's finished because I heard that there would be regret on Ash's part. But... TURNS OUT HE'S JUST DUMB LMAO, why would you think it's okay to openly tell to someone's face that you are NOTHING, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING without elaborating in any way what you actually meant, especially when it's someone you just decided you wanted to confirm the feelings of? Like, how else did you expect him to react if you clearly already suspected he fell in love with youuu
Conclusion: he's not an asshole, he's just dumb.
I saw a lot of people criticizing Karlyle rather than Ash for his miscommunication, but I actually think it couldn't have gone differently: he was clearly very inexperienced and Ash didn't help with his mixed signals (he treated him like somebody in love would since when he clearly still didn't care, and even afterwards continued drawing lines, of course he would think the worst, hell even Ash hadn't realized his own changing feelings at that point). If the way the artist depicted this manhwa adaptation was accurate, then I find it quite ridiculous that Ash never suspected anything up until that point when he's such an open book? I instead find it much more realistic how the inexperienced and naive Lyle found it difficult to keep up with the hot and cold behavior and eventually concluded he had to cut him off for his own sanity.
So yeah, I don't hate Ash at all, but I think the whole 'Karlyle running away and Ash realizing he broke his heart and regretting it' was 100% necessary and most of all was what was needed for Ash to realize how precious Karlyle was to him. AND IT WAS SO SATISFYING!!