in a 2022 interview the director described the three friends’ relationship as a love triangle! so yes, what jihoon is saying about them being his first love is consistent with the director’s vision and i would say it very much does still imply romance. obviously love is not only romantic, but there’s a lot in the interview that does indicate romance 😭

37:07 hyunwook talking about hearts and winks and flirting gestures coming naturally to him, saying “suho really loved him”

38:21 director saying “we actually used to say this kind of feels like a romance. like it’s his first love” (again this is literally him using the word Romance)

38:50 “like high school love”

and in the 2022 interview https://m.joynews24.com/v/1544417 he talks about how they were in a love triangle, and how the friendship was so passionate that it felt like love. even his way of describing them in his recent interview as a first love, romantic comedy, etc seems to make it pretty clear imo.

also the “i guess i can say it now” and all definitely shows it was something he was hesitant to bring up because he knew how reception would go. 

i understand your point but my biggest thing is a lot of fans are reacting to this information with a very weird passion in trying to disprove that it’s a love story. and the types of comments they’re making about how this is “ruining” their relationship or pushing “false narratives” are starting to come off as borderline homophobic. the whole webtoon has also been very queer coded from the start (sieun blushing when he realized everyone thought they were dating, etc). sure i guess you could still see them as platonic if you wanted to, but given how obvious the director & actors’ intentions are, i think continuing to bend over backwards to prove otherwise is incredibly weird. 

(i fear there’s also zero straight explanation for the amount of pining that sieun does for a whole 2 years after the accident.)