I doubt it. They’re Asians (kinda satire/ half not because many Asians culturally do not verbalise their apology, they show through actions and maybe some words, but not a full blown discussion).
Sure, but he apologised for everything else. He said he was sorry multiple times, but never about that specific incident. Which makes me wonder whether the author purposely glossed over it and his apologies were more geared to how the MC was treated in that old apartment they were staying in. And of course later about the debt forgiveness etc.
I think I remember him mentioning about something along the lines of forced down, but it wasn’t a discussion. And yes, he apologised but didn’t really specify to what he’s apologising for (or he did).
That’s the cultural part. Sometimes people won’t directly mention something due to guilt and shame, so I’m assuming that’s the case with Taeju.
As for the gloss over, unfortunately it happens a lot in BL and you’ll get shit for calling the author out.
I agree with your points.
Taking a slight tangent, personally I’d never call out the author. Like there’s all these weird people that call authors out on X/ Twitter etc - it’s so insane. Even attempting to cancel them.
I like to critique storyline, plot, characters behaviour, stereotypes, etc etc but I think it’s not always helpful to call out the authors, specifically BL authors. A lot of the time, they just write what sells/ what is “trendy” in the BL world.
I wonder if they’ll ever address the rape in the beginning of the story. Granted, the ML said in the redemption arc that he didn’t want to do anything the MC didn’t want anymore, but that specific incident with the bleeding etc? It was extremely callous and violent.