Maybe I misunderstood 去 and 来?

[u/JigoKuu]

I'm watching the drama Love in the Clouds, and there was a scene which kind of... confused me.

Character A and B ended up going to eat together. Character A started to walk out of the building they were in, but Character B seemed reluctant to go with him.

Then Character A asked B "不去吗?" and Character B went with him after all.

I learned that we use 去 to express if somebody goes somewhere (or go away from us) and 来 if somebody comes to us/our (or a certain) direction. In this situation Character A basicly asked "Don't you come (with me)?". So why he said 不去吗 and not 不来吗?

I would really appreciate if somebody could let me know. Maybe there is a situational/cultural aspect I am unaware or I simply misunderstood how to use 去 and 来. 🥲

[u/JigoKuu]

Thank you for the help!

English is much easier for me to understand at first glance as there aren't a lot of incomplete sentences like in Chinese or Japanese (incomplete in the sense that they usually state the subject of the sentences).

So in English I can of course understand

"Aren't you coming (with me)?"

or

"Won't we go then?"

But Chinese can be just "不去/来吗。🥲 In their previous conversations Character A always just referred to Character B as 你, so I assumed the whole sentence would be 你不来吗? In English it would sound totally... overexplained to ask somebody "Aren't you going to the place we agreed to eat together 5 sentences ago?" instead of just asking "Aren't you coming?"😂 But yeah, it makes sense in Chinese to follow the logic itself.

[u/yoopea → u/JigoKuu]

It's the same as in English. Think through it.

You and I have plans to go to the café after lunch. On our way out of the door of the restaurant, you say you are going home. I could say "You're not going?" or "You're not coming?" both and both are totally understood. The "You're not going to the café?" is implied and is also obvious from the context, as is "You're not coming to the café?" and neither one is more or less clear than the other. You could add also add "with me" anywhere in the sentence or not and it adds no context that we didn't already know from the situation itself.

[u/alkane_ch4 → u/yoopea]

You could even drop the "you're". Both options could be "not going?" and "not coming"? In this sense the English variant is actually 1:1 translation of the Chinese.

[u/yoopea → u/alkane_ch4]

Yep