First off, thank you so much for reading this story of mine. I really appreciate every view, every subscriber, and every upvote, so thank you. I love reading comments, so please don’t hesitate to leave your thoughts down below. I’d love to know how you reacted or what you thought about the scenes depicted in the story. This was largely inspired by events that transpired last year as well as the songs I by Taeyeon and Don’t Go by EXO. I want to stress that this is not a retelling; this is simply a fictional story that drew a lot from personal experiences.

So I’d like to delve into the characters and explain them a bit more, especially the side characters since they weren’t spotlighted very much. I thought about how to integrate them more into the story, but then I realized I would have to drastically change some parts to shoehorn in more scenes which I didn’t want to do as that would take away from the transitions I had set up to center around the main characters. So I’m writing these short analyses instead that will inform you of their back-stories and the reasons for some of their actions.

When writing twins, I find you can either make them extremely similar (especially with identical twins) or make them polar opposites. I decided to take the second option, although the Jo twins do have some slight similarities. They’re both chemical engineering majors, have a love for gaming, and take the exact same classes together. However, they chose to sleep in separate bedrooms during the school year since they’ve been stuck in the same room for most of their lives up until college. Youngmin is the older, more outgoing twin who usually takes command of the group of friends whereas Kwangmin is the younger, more introverted twin who can be very self-sacrificing and sensitive. Most of Youngmin’s friends are male while Kwangmin chooses to surround himself with female friends since he feels he’s able to empathize more easily with them. That’s also how he was able to get a girlfriend, despite the up-and-downs he’s currently experiencing with Soojung. Youngmin and Kwangmin are both selfish to a certain degree, Youngmin more obviously so than Kwangmin is since he’s had his entire life to get his younger twin to agree with him on virtually everything. So when Kwangmin is with his girlfriend, although he’s very caring and relatively selfless, he’s also able to unleash his repressed dominant side and his selfish characteristics become more visible around Soojung. They don’t have the healthiest relationship, but then again, not a lot of college-aged couples do since this is a time when young adults are trying to find themselves while balancing that thin line between reality and idealism. Kwangmin is also quite naturally flirtatious, whereas Youngmin is quite awkward around girls which he compensates for by being more commanding around his male friends. The younger twin’s flirting has gotten him in a few sticky situations, namely when he almost pursued something with Yuhwa’s roommate and whenever Soojung found out about the girls he unwittingly flirted with after their relationship began.

Donghyun is the “troll” of the group. Although all of the boys troll each other, Donghyun is the one who engages in teasing and tricks the most. His favorite target is Yuhwa, whom he treats like a little sister. He was the last one to meet her, but they became extremely close in a short amount of time. That was also due in part to Jinri becoming interested in Donghyun, who decided to reciprocate the budding feelings since he was quite lonely after many failed attempts at dating in high school. However, despite all of Donghyun’s efforts, Jinri made it very difficult for him to pursue her due to her own high standards. Even though Donghyun seems kind of rude to Yuhwa, he’s completely different when it comes to girls he wants to date. He’s the type of person to draw a definite line between female friends and girlfriends; he would never insultingly tease or gripe about someone he could potentially call his girlfriend in the way that he does with Yuhwa. However, Jinri never realized that and because Yuhwa felt bad for Donghyun, who was trying so hard to make it work between them, she tried to help him out. Jinri felt like the two were ganging up on her and a large argument ensued between the three. I didn’t add this into the story because TFE is centered around Yuhwa and Jeongmin’s relationship, not Donghyun and Jinri’s. But this is why Jinri was never the one to console Yuhwa during her breakdowns, even though the two were roommates for the entire year. Donghyun is typically very easygoing and just goes with flow, but Jinri had pushed him too far and he wasn’t going to allow himself to be tossed around like an unwanted toy any longer. Donghyun is a gentleman at heart, so even though he does insult and tease Yuhwa all of the time, he still cares about her and will be the one to take care of her whenever the group of friends is hanging out. That’s why Jeongmin feels somewhat threatened by him, since he knows that Donghyun is boyfriend material and a small part of him is afraid that Yuhwa will fall for him instead.

Hyunseong is basically the perfect person. As mentioned in the last chapter, he is smart and talented at everything he has tried his hand at. He is essentially the trophy child that every Asian parent would love to have. Hyunseong is incredibly nice, respectful, humble, and an overall friendly person to be around. He’s one of those people you know is going to be successful, no matter what he ultimately ends up doing. His only flaw is that he's too perfect and this image of perfection is what causes Yuhwa to have such a hard time, trying to live up to his legacy and match all of his achievements. Hyunseong feels incredibly guilty for being the indirect cause of Yuhwa’s depression and weak emotional state, which is why he treasures her like the most valuable jewel on the planet. He somewhat babies her at times whenever they’re together to compensate for the months when he’s studying overseas. He also gave Yuhwa the nickname “butterfly” because he believes that one day, she will morph into a beautiful person who will be more successful than he could ever be; he has that much faith in her, despite hearing for his entire life that he is the best. Yuhwa has never blamed her older brother for any of her troubles, and will always look up to him as her role model and her savior. He is the only one who will ever be most like her; not even future children will ever be as genetically similar to her as Hyunseong is and that bond of blood is undeniably powerful between this pair of siblings.

Minwoo was originally the mysterious character of the story. I had really wanted to write the scene between him and Yuhwa that I recently added, but I had to cut it from the original final draft since I was over my given word count. Since he’s just the secondary lead character, I decided to sacrifice Minwoo’s big moment in order to avoid cutting any of Jeongmin’s parts since he’s the main male character. But now, he is more of a character than just a plot device. He’s very similar to Hyunseong in that he is also the trophy firstborn son of his family. However, it was strange for him to realize that Yuhwa harbored feelings for him in the past. Especially since he hadn’t felt the same way, but he didn’t want to potentially lead her on. So he essentially cut himself out of her life and although he realized it was a cowardly act later on, he had never realized just how much of an impact his actions had on his childhood best friend until meeting her once again at his father’s funeral. He feels very apologetic to her, which is why he tries so hard to get her to open up to him when they’re outside of the church. He just didn’t want her to stay fixated on him, since there would be no future between them as a couple. But once Yuhwa makes it clear that she now only feels platonic love for him, Minwoo readily welcomes himself back into her life and continues checking up on her like he did before. In many ways, he acted in the same way that Yuhwa did about their relationship, but for different reasons. And Minwoo was a trigger for Yuhwa's attacks, because he was basically a reminder of how she was never really accepted by her parents and how she was never good enough. His silent rejection of her feelings made her feel more inadequate and worthless, although he never meant to inflict such pain on her. That's also why Yuhwa was so wary of accepting Jeongmin's feelings, because she didn't believe that she was good enough for someone to actually invest feelings in.

Now for our male protagonist. Jeongmin isn’t the most empathetic person on the planet. When it comes to deep, emotional interpersonal relationships, he’s quite awkward and doesn’t really know what to say. He’s not very familiar with romance either, which is a topic of turmoil for him over the course of the story as he tries to come to terms with his feelings for Yuhwa. These romantic feelings are completely alien to him and so, he initially tries to reject them. He’s essentially an immature college boy who doesn’t really understand girls. Jeongmin is perfectly content with being best friends with Yuhwa and doesn’t want to ruin what they already have together. But throughout the year, as he glimpses the parts of Yuhwa that he had never known about before during their four years of friendship, Jeongmin begins to realize that these feelings are nothing to shy away from. It’s difficult, because over the course of his life, he’s built up the image of a guy who scoffs at emotional attachments and romance. It would be too out of character for Jeongmin to suddenly get down on one knee and declare his everlasting love for Yuhwa; the other three boys would be quite confused and a bit skeptical (although very happy for Yuhwa) if he did so. Jeongmin struggles a lot internally over how he should treat Yuhwa. He doesn't know whether he should continue as he always had, even though he’d like to do more, or if he should start acting more like a boyfriend when there may be a chance that Yuhwa isn’t even interested in him in that way. There’s a lot of internal conflict going on in his head and when it gets to be too overwhelming for him, he ends up panicking and making rash decisions that he comes to regret later on. So when school finally ends and he’s back at home, he’s able to reflect on what he really wants out of this relationship. Jeongmin finally draws up the courage to take that leap of faith afterwards, since he realizes that he’s going to end up possibly hurting Yuhwa and destroying their friendship anyway if his childish actions continue. And hearing about Yuhwa’s struggles makes him realize how selfish he’s been acting, so he wants to change himself to be a better partner for her since he truly cares about her.

Our leading lady, Yuhwa, is someone who is very sensitive, caring, and idealistic. However, she is also very bitter, depressed, and bears a multitude of scars. I didn’t really spotlight her attraction to Jeongmin and chose to subtly express that through her actions instead. I hope I was successful, but I am also the one who created this character so what could have been obvious to me may not have been obvious to you guys. I wanted to focus on her fragile state of mind instead, since life isn’t always just about romance. In contrast to Jeongmin, Yuhwa is someone who heavily invests in other people and can get too attached to them in a way that can be unhealthy, as exhibited by her ties to Minwoo. This was developed in response to the lack of love given to her by her parents and Yuhwa grew up with a seed of resentment buried in her heart due to the treatment from her parents. Because she has grown up with the thoughts that she is essentially worthless, she puts forth more effort into others than she does in herself. She recognizes that she isn’t the most emotionally stable person, which is why she tries to initially dissuade Jeongmin from pursuing her in the last chapter. It wasn’t because she doesn’t like him, because she does. But she’s afraid of eventually being cast away for being burdensome and the lingering disappointment from Minwoo is still there in the back of her mind. Jeongmin could easily get tired of her and leave her sooner or later, a possible outcome that Yuhwa greatly fears. She’s also stubborn, which developed as another defense mechanism. She had never talked back to her parents when she was younger, but as she grew older, Yuhwa began to stubbornly stand her ground and shield herself. Her stubbornness is showcased at full throttle whenever she’s with Donghyun, because his teasing causes them to bicker over trivial things that they have opposing views on. These were scenes I ultimately decided not to add since they disrupted the flow of the story, but it is a refreshing side of Yuhwa amidst her crying episodes. Yuhwa’s been hurt a lot by people who are close to her, which is another reason why she and Jinri never properly reconciled. Yuhwa hates being accused for things that weren’t really her fault, a by-product of her parents ripping on her for failing to be Hyunseong’s carbon copy, so when Jinri began lashing out at her for siding with Donghyun, Yuhwa felt resentment because it wasn’t her fault that their potential relationship fell apart. Yuhwa may never forgive her parents for their physical, verbal, and psychological abuse and that’s okay. She doesn’t have to. While forgiving someone doesn't equate to weakness, it may do more harm to pressure someone to forgive when they aren't ready. Yuhwa isn't ready to forgive yet, which is completely okay. When she’s ready to move on, she will. The most important person for her to focus on is herself.

And there you have it. I hope these were fun little insights into the characters. I most likely will not be writing a continuation to this. I may come back to add more scenes, but the likelihood of that is quite low. After rereading this story these last few weeks, I realized that I really only needed to add the scene between Minwoo and Yuhwa in order to complete this tale. Everything else, like the originally planned late-night conversations by the fireplace between Donghyun and Yuhwa, Donghyun’s birthday dinner, and the other three boys speaking with Yuhwa about her feelings for Jeongmin, would just be extraneous fluff and I quite like my original transitions. Not to mention, this would quickly become a story about Yuhwa and Donghyun which isn’t supposed to happen, haha. Donghyun isn’t even the secondary lead character, but he has the most scenes, both inserted and planned, after the two main characters. But who knows? If there’s interest, I will think about writing these scenes either as a bonuses or I could rework the story to fit them in.

I hope this was interesting to read and I apologize if I seemed to be rambling. If you have any thoughts on the characters or the events of the story after reading this, please do leave a comment down below and I can either supplement their back-stories or clarify anything you may be confused about. If you decided to read this despite not being a fan of Boyfriend, then I thank you for giving me a chance and I hope I didn’t disappoint. If you’d like to check out my other works, you can find them all linked in the foreword or you can follow my stories by clicking the button on my profile to be notified of any future stories that I post. I would be very grateful for your continued support! And if you'd like to monetarily support my work, please join my crowdfund! Every bit of support helps keep me fueled as a writer and you'll also get special perks! Thank you!

Just know that you are loved. If any of you are having a hard time and need someone to talk/rant to, my wall and inbox are always open. I’ll support you even if the rest of the world turns its back on you. Once again, thank you so much and have a wonderful day!

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