Kim Hyang-gi turns her teachers into BL leads in the Absolute Value of Romance
by solstices
An amusing teaser is out for Coupang Play’s original youth drama Absolute Value of Romance, featuring the adorable Kim Hyang-gi (Cashero) with an oddball haircut as she navigates school, stories, and swooning over potential boys’ love pairings.
High school student by day, web novel writer by night, Yeo Eui-joo (Kim Hyang-gi) types away on her trusty keyboard. After years of producing nothing but boring, bland works, a flash of inspiration strikes in a stroke of unbelievably good luck. Excitement is abuzz at her all-girls’ school, because there are four new teaching hires — and every one of them has dazzling looks worthy of being a flower boy.
Naturally, that means Eui-joo takes a leaf out of Shi-won’s book, turning her idols teachers into muses for her romantic tales. Every fleeting touch and lingering gaze between the handsome men gets turned into BL fuel, with the names swapped out and the chemistry played up. And so, Eui-joo’s latest novel is born.
First, there’s the bespectacled math teacher Ga Woo-soo, played by VIXX’s Cha Hak-yeon (You and Everything Else). With his sharp gaze, cold demeanor, and affinity for the piano, it’s no wonder that Woo-soo is prime protagonist material. Next to him is the affable English teacher Noh Da-joo, played by N.Flying’s Kim Jae-hyun (Half-Fifty). A chatterbox who falls in love quickly and gets dumped just as fast, Da-joo is the exact opposite of Woo-soo. Oh, and they’ve been friends since elementary school. Surely you see the tropes weaving themselves into a story already. The title of Eui-joo’s BL novel? “We Used To Be Friends.”
Rounding out the flower boy quartet are Sohn Jung-hyuk (Love.exe), also known by his musician stage name Demian, and Kim Dong-kyu (Moon River). Of course, that means Eui-joo’s creative liberty has the former pinning the latter against the blackboard. Judging by their uniforms, it seems Eui-joo has transformed them from teachers to students… but we’re also given glimpses of them in various outfits and diverse locations, so perhaps the only way to find out is by turning the pages of her story.
To Eui-joo’s astonishment, her readership skyrockets overnight with just the first chapter, sending her web novel to the very top of the BL rankings. Bolstered by the outpour of praise, support, and excitement in her comments section, Eui-joo soon finds herself on a roll, typing out scenario after scenario. But will this newfound success catapult her to literary stardom, or will her fantasies dissolve into fleeting stardust?
With directors Lee Tae-gon (Bora! Deborah) and Kim Jun-hyung at the helm, the drama’s scripts were penned by the O’PEN 2021 award winner Lee Min-joo. Co-produced with Singapore’s national broadcasting network Mediacorp, Coupang Play’s Absolute Value of Romance is slated for an April 17 premiere.
Poster tagline: Regular high school girl by day, romance novelist by night
Via Mediacorp, Sports DongA, Newsis
RELATED POSTS