Your review had me chuckling! I dropped this a while ago but read it to the end bc quarantine....
Anyway, you may have missed that the seme saved the uke's life when he was a child...so the uke felt indebted to him. Also the seme's personality deteriorated because he was poisoned and almost turned into a brutish monster completely, though he also felt betrayed by his servants for the actual poisoning. It's bc of that sickness that he is so rough with the uke when they meet years later. Not trying to make excuses for abuse, just stating the context btw. The uke just takes it all and somehow heals the seme and helps him to regain his humanity so he is able to treat the uke more lovingly. But you are right the mc is bland, the uke didn't have much development but I do like the mystery of his being a ticking time bomb. The other couple is much more interesting, though not as deeply explored as I'd like.
Yeah I understand that the uke was saved by the seme, but I don't think that's a valid reason to fell in love with someone, I mean: you don't know them, you don't know their personality, you don't know what kind of person they are. I can understand the fact that the uke felt indebted, and that's okay (more or less... Although killing zeros was literally the seme's job... But I can understand the feeling of "gratitude" the uke is feeling) that's perfectly reasonable. But I don't think it's related to love, what I'm trying to say is that if he maybe had been saved by the pinkhead now he would have been in love with him? That's pretty depressing, it could have been anyone. I can understand that the uke lived a pretty awful life since his parents died, but I think it's not "healthy" to cope with it by developing feelings for the one who saved him (also 1 the seme just saved him, he didn't even say something to the uke that could have been the starting point to develop a relationship 2 the seme didn't even remember it) I always hoped the two protagonists could develop through the story some sort of relationship, but I didn't see it, I just saw the seme being an asshole (and yeah, he was corrupted okay, but I don't think he raped every servant inside his mansion just because that reason. I personally think he's just cruel, crueler with the uke.) And the uke having almost no personality, that was just sad. Also I totally agree with you, the other couple was way more cute and interesting, it could have been developed a lot better, but I liked it way more than the main couple.
I don't know if you are new to yaoi but people fall in love for being saved as well as for little kindnesses. It is the most common reason-4-love trope after childhood friends imho. I still think seme was cruel because he was part zero---he was a much better man before those physical/mental/emotional changes kicked in after being poisoned. As for the rape...it happened so much I wondered if the uke signed up for that as a servant like if the possibility of sex with the master was standard even if the master only played with one or two favorites? This uke may have been picked bc he was so masochistic and submissive ---just a thought. This story is not worth re reading but I am glad I finished it. I'd like to see the author's work 5 years from now to see improvement on character development.
Lmao no don't worry, I am an hardcore fan of yaoi and BL , I think I read like >1000 yaoi lmao, and I very well know that this is a very common trope, but this story was SO infuriating, like I said before I just hated so much the MCs I hoped they would die somewhere along this story. I am judging it not by the "yaoi standards" but using the "common standards", I read a lot of interesting yaoi and shounen-ai, which depicted very well a lot of different relationships, cute ones, twisted ones... but, to me, this story can't even compare to them. About the uke, I don't think he signed up for sex but I just deduce that he was okay with it because it was the only way to get attentions from his master ((depressing)). As you said this is not worth a re-read.
Chapter 70.1 had the author explain it was their first webtoon they made and was unsure but still NDE it because they wanted to.
I literally dropped this series when it was being serialized on lezhin like... three years ago? Maybe four...? Well, I did it because this was so boring and frustrating. From chapter 1 to chapter... 30? All they do is having (abusive) sex. But I guess that's okay because the uke was like "yeah, no prob, he is hurting me but that's fine I'm happy just like this." That's exactly what they call "abusive relationship". But this is way worse. Because this is boring. I was literally hoping the main characters would just die and give me some interesting plot twist, but unfortunately the author decided that their relationship was perfectly fine and that they deserved an happy ending, oooooookay. The seme is just a selfish asshole, trust issues my ass. The uke fell in love with his ""master"" when he literally treated him like shit 24/7. What a wonderful love story that being said the ending of the long haired butler was so depressing, who gave them the rights to make him forget everything about the one who died? Also let me just say that they didn't solve anything, the bad guys weren't defeated and they didn't even find a cure for that poison that killed only the royal bloods... I mean.... what was the point of this story then...? Just letting us see the two protagonists having sex? Wow. Extraordinary.