edit 19/4/23:
so apparently the old catalogue item for this webtoon no longer meets goodreads guidelines or whatever so i can no longer change my review on there... i decided to stick it here, on the new version.

Look, it's BTS related. I was gonna read it. And I actually really enjoyed it, so, no regrets!!

Honestly, I need another series!! 'I'm Fine' maybe? (Heh iykyk).

This has got it all - time travel, morally-grey characters, plot twists, beautiful art, and 7 men that I'm vaguely obsessed with. How could I not like it?

It was so interesting and captivating. Might be the thing to get me into webtoons, who knows!

j’avais TELLEMENT entendu parler de ce webtoon depuis que je suis kpop stan, mais je n’avais jamais pris le temps de le lire. je l’ai enfin fait et je ne regrette absolument pas : ça m’a énormément secouée parce que le webtoon aborde des sujets extrêmement difficiles, comme les maladies mentales, le harcèlement, le suicide, le meurtre, etc. maintenant, je comprends enfin pourquoi les ARMY disent si souvent que HYYH est une era intrinsèquement triste…

Update: 5/9/2024

Reread because the Begins Youth drama based on the HYYH universe came out and I’ve been extremely dissatisfied with how little Namjoon’s character has gotten story wise. I know he has more in the Notes, but I’d forgotten the webtoon didn’t give him that much of a focus either. We get a little of what led him to prison and there’s more of his relationship with Tae and Jin here, so still more than the drama, but not as much as i would've hoped.


I hate to say it, I hope I don't sound ridiculous, but this BTS AU story is possibly the best webtoon I've ever read? Without any irony, I truly mean that this is the best webtoon I've ever read.

For some reason, Big Hit and BTS decided to write an AU version of the members that reads like the fanfic I used to read when I was a kid. When every writer gave members of bands like MCR and Fall Out Boy backstories that fell into 4 camps: abusive/neglectful parents, mental illness/hospitalization for mental illnesses, drug/alcohol abuse, or severe poverty. From what I've seen of the members, and I'm still a very, very new fan, these characters couldn't be further from the members' actual stories. So ,it's strange that they play these characters in a universe called BTS Universe, but no one thought to give them character names?

Anyway, this story is a Groundhog Day type of plot where Kim Seokjin keeps traveling back in time to save the members from their fates: Namjoon's incarceration, Taehyung's murder charge and subsequent incarceration; Hoseok's injury, Yoongi's death, Jimin's suicide, and Jungkook's death. He keeps having to relive the same day over and over as, the second he succeeds in saving one member, another dies. It's not a new story idea, but the execution (combined with the extensive Notes books and knowledge of the music videos) make this a moving story. I was invested and disappointed by how short it was. There's still a lot of unanswered questions and I've devoured just about everything written on the HYYH universe.

Namjoon is my bias, so I was most intrigued by his character and the character's relationship with Taehyung. From what I gathered in the Notes (most of his backstory is not featured in the MVs), he grew up in poverty, quit school when his parents lost their home, worked day and night to help support his family and father's medical bills, before guilt over a fellow workers' death led him to move back to Songju. His story seems centered around taking care of lost children, even when he himself needs someone taking care of him. Unfortunately, there's not much of a support system for him in the story

Spoiler

aside from Seokjin stopping him from going to jail.

I hope, if the group continues the story in 2025, we'll see a happy ending for him. Certainly happier than in the Notes. I hope we see more of his relationship with Taehyung, too. There's only so many times I can see that "Hyung, let's not die" quote before it starts to haunt me.

Also, I kinda wonder if, in the world Seokjin tried to erase, would Taehyung run into Namjoon in jail?