beta
This is perfectly realistic and communicated well. He shouldn't have lied but he probably still wanted to say that ml was taken. At the end of the day its not MC who would be at a major risk career wise but its ML. MC already is retiring he isn't going to be affected. You underestimate how homophobic most Asian countries are and in East Asia Korea arguably has the worst reputation out of all. Even if his friends were ready to accept him one person exposing him could ruin ML's career.