For her book Life of the IMF Kids, humanities and social sciences researcher Ahn Eun-Byeol interviewed seven people who were teenagers at the time of the 1997 Asian financial crisis. The crisis “was not an end, but a beginning,” Ahn says in her book, “and is not some subject in retrospect, but an atmosphere that happened to be there with us without mediation throughout the era.” In tvN’s Twenty Five Twenty One, this era falls upon Na Hee-do (portrayed by Kim Taeri), the show’s main character, without mediation as well. It’s the summer of 1998. Unlike for the adults, who are losing their jobs and their livelihoods, the only thing that matters to Hee-do—a student who is “just 18, too young to lose anything” and dreams of becoming a fencer—is watching her idol, fencer Ko Yu-rim (Bona), and waiting for the next issue of the Full House comic book series. But in the aftermath of the financial crisis, the school’s budget shrinks and Hee-do’s fencing team is shut down, leading her to realize that, at times like these, her dreams could be snatched away from her. And it’s not only her dreams that the period pulls out from under her: Back Yi-jin (Nam Joo-hyuk) becomes separated from his family when his father’s company, a well-known conglomerate, goes bankrupt overnight, and the boy’s schooling and entire life are put on hold. “Let’s waste our time and energy a little,” he confidently boasted just a few years earlier. “After all, we have so much youth to spare.” But now, the boy who said that is gone. He is only 22 when he promises to a moneylender holding him by his collar, by way of apology, that he “will never be happy again.”

A peculiar friendship blossoms between Hee-do, as she dusts herself off out of the rubble of her broken dreams and jumps back up to pursue them again, and Yi-jin, who is trying to build his life back together brick by brick after he’s lost practically everything. Yi-jin was focused solely on what he had lost, but finds strength in watching Hee-do and her tendency to think only about what she has to gain in the future. Meanwhile, Hee-do—who grapples with her relationship with her close but unsupportive mother, and who only receives a snub in return for her love for Yu-rim—escapes her loneliness and gains confidence thanks to Yi-jin’s unconditional support. He tells her he plans to give up on happiness, crushed as he is under the weight of reality and his own guilt. “The times took everything from you,” she tells him. “You can’t give up on happiness. … When you hang out with me, you can be happy and keep it a secret.”

Hee-do and Yi-jin play savior to one another. There is a very symbolic scene involving a three-legged race, where the two of them, each slowed down by their own shortcomings, have to work to move forward one step at a time together. But what makes Twenty Five Twenty One such a compelling drama is that it deviates from the standard straight romance setup. As in writer Kwon Do-eun’s previous show, Search WWW, where the most heated and complex, but also deepest, emotions were shared entirely between women, young Hee-do’s greatest source of interest—and pain—is Yu-rim. Yi-jin—in contrast to Hee-do, who acts without thinking too much and relies on blind optimism to carry her forward—is kind and level-headed, and his character seems to come from a conscious decision to depict a kind of non-toxic masculinity that isn’t bogged down in self-pity. So when Yu-rim writes Yi-jin’s pager number on Hee-do’s wrist, we’re reminded of a late-nineties phone commercial where two women fight over one man, except this time it is a device to show how this three-way relationship is different. Feelings like envy, being conscious of what others are feeling, envy, moral support, fascination and acknowledgement overlap and change as they’re shared between Hee-do, Yi-jin and Yu-rim. It is a process of different people understanding and growing closer to each other, even while facing their differences, and one we like to call growth. It’s just like Yi-jin says to Hee-do: “You make other people do well, not just yourself.” And that’s the highest form of praise.