This omfg. Jin didnt deserve this? All he did was get confused and also didnt wanna run away from his family? Rik didnt even tell him what his friends were saying to him like. He didnt even give him a chance
THIS
exactly. people are really telling on themselves here because this is straight up how abuse functions and continues to thrive. it is constantly an uphill battle get a victim to separate themselves from the source of the abuse because when the abuse is not ongoing, it gives them time to justify the mistreatment and think, "it's not that bad. i can fix this if i just work on it and then things will be okay." and this is just in a general sense--it's far more effective on a child who lacks any support outside of their abusive circumstances. i mean, even in present times at age 26, we still see jinhyeong grappling with the prospects of leaving his family behind completely because he still wants his father to love him. it's really not hard to figure out why jinhyeong, at high school age, would change his mind at the same time that his father suddenly decided to treat him a little well.
I think it's crazy that song rik did all this simply because JH didn't resent his father that much
yup, and even then, it's not even like jinhyeong has a pure affinity for his father either because we see him think about wishing his father would be strung up by his ankles and about how he wants to beat him parental abuse is so difficult to break away from when they psychologically abuse you because it's a lot easier to do mental gymnastics into justifying why you're the problem and how your relationship can surely be better if you only meet their expectations. when they don't cross the threshold of physical abuse, then all of sudden it's "not that bad" and "could be worse."
at the same time, i understand songrik's perspective, despite how twisted it is. abandoned by his mother and hated by his father in a manner more overt than what jinhyeong was experiencing (though their circumstances were extremely similar), he wanted to make it so he could bring jinhyeong down his depths of the ocean. only then would he truly make it so jinhyeong would have no one else but him. this can be seen in his rhetoric of jinhyeong "leaving" him and "choosing his father over [him]." after all, isolation is one of the most common tools in an abuser's toolbox. i think songrik learned this from his father, and it's likely he didn't realize he was using it against jinhyeong here because he saw it differently, as him just trying to get jinhyeong to "understand" his pain amd "understand" that he was the only one he could count on.
this is just the situation with noona all over again where people act like the fault lies solely with jinhyeong for some reason. i said from the beginning that jinhyeong had been failed by every single person in his life up until he met uyun and that songrik was invalidating jinhyeong's abuse, and i kept seeing people say that it wasn't like that which was already crazy. and to be clear, it's not like i think songrik is an evil person either; i think his behavior is a result of his abuse. jinhyeong is the only friend he's been able to make and trust, something like a lifeline, and for a child in an abusive home, that's a godsend. that's why they clung to each other and made such promises to run away together.
but people pretending that songrik did nothing wrong here is so bizarre?! yes, they are children, but this is an insane overreaction from songrik that is not justifiable in any way because jinhyeong never said he would abandon him and literally told him he would still move in together with him. songrik was trying to pressure him into doing what he wanted right then, and no matter the reason, that was unfair of him to demand of him. the reality is that if this is how he reacted to jinhyeong hurting his feelings, then he would have always done the same under different circumstances had they started living together when they planned to. their codependence would have turned toxic the moment they had no one but one another to rely on because they were both mentally weak due to the abuse they suffered. jinhyeong even tried to make it right after he said what he said (and he wasn't even wrong to be upset with him having shown up because he told songrik repeatedly about the kind of man his father was and how precarious his situation was at home, though i do think he went too far in saying "real family").
this isn't me saying jinhyeong did absolutely nothing wrong, but their mistakes absolutely do not weigh the same and it's kind of appalling to see people treat them like they do, or to even see people act like jinhyeong did something worse than songrik here. songrik participated and orchestrated bullying efforts against jinhyeong and exposed all of his insecurities to make him miserable because he said one thing that hurt him (and even with him doing this, jinhyeong continued to try to protect him by not taking action to get him expelled when he would have been within reason to do so, because he knew that he would make his domestic life worse if he did). no matter how you look at it, that is wrong. in the end, this is what jinhyeong meant when he said that he'll hurt someone twice as badly for hurting him--songrik was the same. they both needed help here desperately, but they were wrong (and naive) to seek that help from one another if the foundation was so unstable that jinhyeong wording one thing wrong would make songrik think the best response to that would be to start fucking bullying him lmao. idk i think people are really nasty to jinhyeong every time something like this happens which is kind of ironic in it's own way.