Characters. Sehun (EXO) and Nara (OC)
Status. Completed
Description. At seven, Oh Sehun swore he'd treat his love like a princess once he was older. He didn't want to turn out like his father - constantly abusing the one he supposedly loved. Even the word 'hate' wouldn't fully cover how he felt towards his father. Despite that, his father served as his reminder to shower his future girlfriend with love and care.

At fourteen, Oh Sehun told himself he'd give her all the attention she deserved and protect her like that of a bodyguard. Not a single tear should fall from her eyes, he said. He was going to give her his everything; his love, his hugs, his kisses.

Years passed and Oh Sehun did all but keep his promises.
 

The title fits with the storyline very well, and you can already see the link right after reading the description. However, the title didn’t really capture my attention, most likely because it reminds me of something that’s revolved around partying and the sort. But nonetheless, it’s a good title for the story.
 

I absolutely love this line: "Be the guy that ruins her lipstick, not her mascara." I actually love it so much you don’t understand! This line immediately drew me to your story and it got me wanting to read more. Your description is not too long, but it does its job very well. You’ve told your potential readers enough to turn them into readers, including myself, and it’s a pleasant surprised after seeing the not-so-appealing title (in my opinion).

Your foreword is very effective, and it definitely got me wanting to continue reading. The way you’ve structured it like a mini Q&A is really nice, and the way you’ve left the ending open is also a good way of getting your readers to click that next button.

The tags are perfectly fine for me!
 

The poster is very nicely made, so well done to your graphics designer! However, I don’t really like the font of the title. It’s a little too… bubbly and cute? It’s not what I expected to see on a poster for a story with a theme such as this.

The general display of your story is very simple and clean, something that I really like, so well done!
 

For a story as short as this one, it’s very difficult to develop characters fully, but I think you’ve done quite a nice job in this department. There are only two characters in this story (the rest are too minor to even try and analyse) so there was plenty of room for you to write about them.

In Nara’s case, I honestly feel sorry for the girl. It’s a wonder how she can still be this strong after finding out her boyfriend cheated on her. It’s nice how you’ve portrayed her like this, but I do have to say there’s something missing from her that differentiates her from other main characters in other stories. I understand it’s hard to create a character that’s completely different from others, but for Nara, I feel like there should be something more to her character that adds more depth into the story.

For Sehun, I can’t really put my finger on it, but the sudden change in personality doesn’t really sit well with me. You’ve told your readers why he wants to break up with Nara, but I don’t see how he can’t trust himself to do better than his father and fight for his love. Perhaps it’s because he’s weak in the sense that he’s not confident in himself, but I would have thought that he was stronger than that; after all, he’s been with Nara for years.

Anyhow, overall, I think you’ve done a good job in writing about your characters. From beginning until the end of the story, they’ve stayed consistent and in character, which is a major plus-point for you.
 

If I may be so blunt, and I apologise in advance, I think your storyline is rather plain. The storyline is rather realistic, I would say, because things like this do happen in reality and it’s a sad fact. I like the way you portrayed the situation with Sehun’s parents, because although you didn’t write much about them, their lives have greatly changed Sehun’s, which led him onto how he treated Nara.

You have a nice beginning, middle and end, but there wasn’t much that got me excited or worked up over. The only part that got me thinking: ‘ah, this is the ’ was the part where you said it was the last straw for Sehun, because I thought he was going to drop his stupid thoughts and turn around to Nara and tell her that he still loves her. Even though the twist didn’t happen, you ended the story on a nice note, which is enough closure for me as a reader, though I would have thought you’d have a flashback for each of the questions she asked (which I think will give your story more depth into their backgrounds).

One thing I didn’t really like was the way Sehun kept everything to himself, and that Nara didn’t figure out what Sehun was acting this way. Since Nara was there to see Sehun’s parents fighting all the time (and possibly when Sehun found out that his mother had been cheating on his father all along), shouldn’t she have a clue as to why Sehun was acting that way?
 

The flow of the story is very nice, and although you inserted a few flashbacks, you didn’t confuse your readers with the way you’ve embedded them - well done!
 

Since English is your first language, it’s expected that there are very little to no mistakes to your writing, which is true in your case. There are no major issues that hinders your readers from understanding your story.

However, one thing I did find that really annoyed me is how you didn’t start a new line whenever another person speaks. A new paragraph should be started when a new speaker says something to avoid confusion. The way you didn’t do this confused me as to who was speaking because you would expect the same person to be speaking in the same paragraph, not two people. I would say you need to fix this.

Also, the line “It was on a day away from Nara's birthday.” doesn’t make sense. Maybe you’re missing a word, or you’ve misworded it. Perhaps you mean one of the following sentences:

“It was one day away from Nara's birthday.”
“It was a day away from Nara's birthday.”

Another thing, when you wrote “She looked so cute yet pretty.”, you should replace ‘yet’ with ‘and’. Usually when you use the word ‘yet’ it’s to link two things that someone contradicts with each other such as ‘dirty yet cute’ or ‘tired yet happy’. In your case, cute and pretty doesn’t clash with each other, so using ‘yet’ is a little out of place.

Other than the mentioned points, there wasn’t anything that you need to be concerned about, but you should read through your work once more because there are a few cases of missing words scattered around.
 

I quite like your writing style. The words you used aren’t too complicated, so your story is easy to read and understand. I like how you’ve embedded the flashbacks into the main story without making it too confusing. Well done!
 

Like I’ve mentioned before, you need to start a new line with a new speaker, but other than that, the structure of your story is fine.
 

You have a nice number of subscribers and upvotes. Although the number of comments you have isn’t massive, it’s very nice to see that you’ve replied to every single one of them! And seeing that a lot of your readers are asking for a sequel, maybe you’ll be granting their wish in the future?

One thought - you made your story limited to subscribers only, but what if readers that don’t have an account or don’t want to subscribe want to read your story? This is a thought that I usually put out to those who have their stories limited to subscribers only because in a way, you are limiting the number of people who can read your story. Of course, this is only a thought of mine and therefore will not affect your score.
 

Firstly, I’d like to apologise if my words are too harsh and direct, but I feel like there’s no need to sugarcoat things in reviews. But secondly, thank you for giving me this opportunity to read your story! It’s a nice little read, and since it’s been a while since I’ve last read something with Sehun, this serves as a cute reminder of the maknae (even though the story didn’t end with a happy ending). Anyhow, I think you’ve done great with this story!

P.S. I really, really love this line: "Be the guy that ruins her lipstick, not her mascara."!!!
 

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