TL;DR : There are many reasons to not like Kawi, but his hesitancy towards sexual intimacy is NOT one of them.
I’m genuinely irritated by the hate Kawi has been getting since the release of EP.10.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I am never one to police how people feel about fictional characters. I, myself, have been a Kawi-hater for most of the series but I feel like the people hating on Kawi right now have simply misinterpreted his character (+ much of the plot).
I’ve seen a plethora of comments across various platforms going on about how Kawi is “too grown to be acting like this”, how much of a “brat” Kawi is, how Kawi is “using Pisaeng”, and how people are sick and tired of this “trope” (in reference to Kawi being “afraid of intimacy”).
I wasn’t going to post anything until I saw one outlandish take, i.e., “Kawi doesn’t care for Pisaeng because he’s so unwilling to give in to Pisaeng’s obvious desires”, that left me dumbfounded.
I am in no way saying that Be My Favorite (BMF) is faultless, I have my own gripes with EP.10 especially, but I think some people may need to rewatch earlier episodes because…
Are people forgetting that Kawi is a 30-year-old virgin? I don’t think this man was ever sexually attracted to anyone in the original timeline. He “fell in love” with Pear after she was nice to him once his freshman year (THAT’S IT!) and then proceeded to never like anyone else, even after she got with someone else. Kawi’s “love” for Pear was nothing more than gratitude for her kindness that he, in all his naivety and inexperience, mistook for something more and held onto for 12 GOODDMAN YEARS.
Are people also forgetting how socially inept Kawi is? In the original timeline, Max and his father were all Kawi had and he lost them both. After the death of his father, Kawi had no aspirations, nor was he motivated to achieve anything since he believed he no longer had anyone who would be proud of him. He isolated himself and lived miserably.
If you hadn’t forgotten either, then it should not surprise you how out of his depth Kawi is when it comes to relationships, both platonic and romantic, to the point that he has an existential crisis in EP.10.
Kawi being “too grown” to be this flustered over Pisaeng hitting on him so openly is, in my opinion, what the screenwriters are trying to highlight. Remember, Kawi is in his THIRTIES. We are led to believe that, in all those years, he’s never had any sexual encounters and has always been in love with Pear… and now suddenly he has a boyfriend in an alternate timeline. One who clearly wants to have an intimate relationship with him and Kawi, a man unfamiliar with intimacy, doesn’t know how to give him that because he’s never given anyone that in that capacity.
I’ve seen some speculate that “Kawi was obviously sleeping with Pear” but was he? Being sexually intimate with Not doesn’t automatically mean Pear was sexually intimate with Kawi also. All we are told is that Kawi could never commit to Pear the way she wanted, so she eventually got tired of waiting and left him for the first man who promised her what she wanted: stability & a family. We are not shown the extent of Pear & Kawi’s relationship nor are we given enough information to base our assumptions on. We are also not shown the extent of Kawi’s relationship with Pisaeng (was it only stolen drunk kisses?). All we truly know is that even in the timeline where he gets the girl of his dreams, whom he’s been pinning over for 12 years, he somehow ends up cheating on her with a man he allegedly has never had feelings for. Make of that what you will.
Also, look at how Kawi dances with that girl at the bar in EP.4. He’s awkward and shy and never touches her. He doesn’t know how to reciprocate her advances. I am not expecting Kawi to have the same response to Pisaeng as he did to that girl because Pisaeng isn’t some stranger, but I don’t think it should be this difficult to understand why Kawi is hesitant to jump off the preverbal deep end when it comes to having sex. I also think people shouldn’t be so quick to label his hesitancy as some form of internalised homophobia because Kawi clearly doesn’t know what to do with either sex.
While I agree that Kawi’s behaviour during their date was irritating (and I can see how some may have perceived it to be “brattish”)… I think Kawi was just so in his head about how to approach the idea of having sex that he inadvertently ruined the date by closing himself off.
The theme park date was honestly a great analogy for Kawi’s internal struggles with sex. The theme park is sex and Kawi has never had sex much like he’s never been to a theme park. He’s hesitant to get on any of the rides much like he’s hesitant to be sexually intimate with Pisaeng. But he tells Max that he isn’t afraid of having sex with Pisaeng and that he likes the idea of “lying beside Pisaeng and holding his hand forever”. He clearly isn’t against being intimate with Pisaeng in other ways (because intimacy is more than just sex).
It’s Kawi’s inability to comprehend how to approach something he knows holds a lot of significance in society, that he admittedly does not relate to, that is holding him back.
The theme park analogy also shows what role Pisaeng plays in all this. Unlike Kawi, Pisaeng isn’t hesitant about having sex. When he forces Kawi out of his chair and drags him to a ride, this is representative of Pisaeng’s forwardness. Much like his willingness to initiate intimacy with Kawi, Pisaeng is also willing to help Kawi face his fears. This bit of dialogue explains it best –
Kawi: This is too much. Not this ride.
Pisaeng: Come on. Let’s try it first.
Kawi: No. I don’t like it.
Pisaeng: You haven’t tried it yet. How do you know if you like it or not? You said you’d never been to a theme park? If you don’t try it, it’s the same as if you’ve never been here. If you’re scared, just hold on to my hand. Okay?
Pisaeng is willing to be the support Kawi needs to open himself up to new experiences. Unfortunately for him, the fear of the unknown is just too daunting for someone like Kawi. Someone who’s spent over a decade not taking a chance on himself, much less anyone else.
This is why I believe it’s not the same “overused trope” in BLs where one character is excessively against intimacy with their partner. With BMF, I think the scriptwriters have done a great job in setting up why Kawi would behave the way he does. The only thing they’ve failed at in this episode is not having Kawi communicate this. After how open Kawi was with Pisaeng in EP.9, I was a bit frustrated with Kawi’s inability to talk things out with Pisaeng. Yes, it’s a more sensitive topic, but Kawi didn’t say anything. From the dinner scene to them getting undressed, I just couldn’t follow along. I wish this was done better.
With regards to Kawi “using" Pisaeng… yes Kawi has used Pisaeng but, since his recent return to the past, he hasn’t done so after seeing the consequences of his actions. Kawi not “giving into Pisaeng’s desires” is not him using Pisaeng, nor him stringing Pisaeng along. And while we’re on the topic, as much as I am ride-or-die for Pisaeng, can we all take a minute to acknowledge that Pisaeng is not without fault in all of this? Yes, what Kawi does to him is not right, but Pisaeng chose to stick around for all those years, pinning after a man who was with someone else. Pisaeng in the alternate timeline of EP.7, much like Kawi in the original timeline, cannot let go of his first crush to the point it’s self-destructive.
Kawi was not meant to be a likeable character that we root for in the beginning. Kirst, himself, has repeatedly said he hates Kawi for being so self-centred and immature, and that he only becomes “good” in later episodes. It annoyed me that Kawi, of all people, was given this opportunity just for him to give a gift to some girl that may or may not reciprocate his feelings. He also never considers whether her life would be better or worse with him because he’s solely focused on his own happiness. I hated how slow he was to put any meaningful effort into helping his father because he’d prioritised impressing Pear. I also hated how quickly he took Pisaeng’s friendship for granted.
What I’m trying to get at is that there are many reasons to not like Kawi, but his hesitancy towards sexual intimacy is NOT one of them.
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