we're only 18 chapters in, chill out?? it's so obv a slow burn
It's just my personal opinion that there's a cold and emotionally detached feeling to this manga which I don't enjoy. I'm not saying it's a bad story because of that, it's clearly deliberate on behalf of the author, and I'm glad you are enjoying it, it's just not my preference
Also it's not just the lack of romance, both of the characters feel extremely cold aside from that. Pyeong-hwa seems depressed and apparently feels nothing but vague lust and boredom, we aren't shown anything that he cares about. It's hinted that Incheol has some kind of dark history / attachment to the assemblywoman, but this is also depicted very coldly, he doesn't seem to actually care about her or anyone/anything else. I'm sure eventually more about the characters will be revealed, but I have a hard time getting invested in a story when the characters are presented with so little emotion, and at least to me 18 chapters is a long time to go without that
I really want to like this because masochistic tops are my favorite and unfortunately rare, but man this just feels so cold. There's no romantic attraction at all between the leads and mc doesn't even seem sexually attracted to the ml. I like messy toxic stuff as much as the next girl but there needs to be some kind of feelings involved