That is what a lot of abusers do though. It's why so many people like Donghae stay in abusive relationships. They go through periods of treating their partners like trash, after they cross a line and it looks like they are about to lose their partner, they go full on apology tour. "I didn't mean it!","I love you so much", "Please don't leave me, I won't do it again."
Most abusive people aren't abusive 24/7. There are different types of abuse and abusers have varying reasons for why they are abusive. Some can change and they can get better. It can be included in stories without really forgiving the abuser. So just wait and see.
oh yeah because this character is totally a perfectly written abusive man with nuance and not just another example of ''hey lets redeem the abusive seme and make him an uke!'' trope. This story is way too trashy to even begin to think that the intention behind his change is showing actual abusers' mentality. You're not wrong, but you're giving them too much credit. Wait and see, he's gonna end up getting assaulted himself by his own friend or some shit like that
I'm so happy I find your comment because OMG YES I FUCKING HATE those kinds of trope...!!! Like in many many manga/manhwa/novels the author builds such a shitty person they treat the uke like a peace of trash (hit, rape, insult etc you name it) then somewhere along the way when the new seme and main uke starts to click the author just magically creates a new manly seme number 2 and make the shitty seme the new uke... And suddenly everything he has done up till now is forgiven?!! Readers going crazy over the new cp and find them 'wild' 'hot' 'satisfying' ... like that just make me wanna puke! Turning into an uke is not a proper way to change a person for good, and that never make up for what happened... Those scumbags should have gone on their knee begging for forgiveness, giving all of their property living like beggars miserable and all alone or better, going to jail! Some yaoi logics are just literally garbage
I really dislike how the abusive ex made a 180 just bc the author wants to make him more digestible to get her second pair. Maybe she hopes that if she ignores the thing long enough people will just forget or some shit. Well. I didn't forget, I don't give a shit about him, and frankly not about his dudebro either, I don't wanna see them plot nor fuck, just fucking keep your villain and yeet him out of the story when need be, without trying to make me empathize with the fucker because fuck...it's not happening