everyone saying "well, he means well and is just trying to protect him!" is completely off their damn rockers. for starters, being well-meaning has meant very little in the face of the actual outcome since the dawn of time itself. the road to hell is paved with good intentions, not to mention that his brother is acting like an uncivilized dickhead to a complete stranger. and second off, he's encroaching on seunghyun's agency and infantilizing him by telling him to start packing his things and that he's here to make things right, and that he "let" him live his life up until now.
now, is it likely he's overcompensating for his guilt over how his parents mistreated seunghyun in favor of him, and that he experienced an intense amount of pressure from their parents himself? yes, very. in fact, i'd be really shocked if this weren't the case. he's still an asshole and needs to move the fuck around, though. he's thinking that he's being a good brother by "taking care" of seunghyun, but at this rate, he won't be any better than their parents were if he doesn't start acting like he's got some sense.
anyway chaejun and seunghyun are sooooo cute, i've always loved how naturally they fell into step with each other. it's really sweet that chaejun prioritizes seunghyun and shows him that he cares. they're def one of those couples who would never break up
this is in the top 2 greatest bl manhwas ever and it is not #2 i can tell you that much. jibung where have you been this whole time when you were packing heat like this. nearly every manhwa i've read before this pales in comparison that it's embarrassing for some authors to have the audacity to call their manhwas stories, full shade. you get derived of well-written, heartfelt, funny, and in-depth stories in bl so frequently that one like this can feel like coming across in an oasis in a desert. jibung has studied the blade and mastered the sword arts because they actually gave a fuck. i sincerely hope this manhwa, when it receives official translations for these chapters (and huge huge HUGE thank you to the translators who picked this up and updated it so quickly), becomes so popular that it inspires other authors to stop making garbage and start writing real stories that are actually good
btw, this isn't to say i think everyone can write this well. writing is hard, and writing *well* is even harder. i just personally feel like if a story is what you want to tell, then you should at least try to tell a good one (once again, full shade). i will truly hate to see this one end when it does.
it's so fucked because for a moment, i was quite proud of jinhyeong for standing up for himself when songrik approached him in that alleyway, but he really just had to say something else..... now they really are both in the wrong. i'm personally quite vengeful and a strong believer in "an eye for an eye" rhetoric, but never when it's done like this. jinhyeong didn't even feel good about saying any of that and regretted it immediately once songrik started crying. genuinely how could he say that to him like god, it makes sense why he would want to because he thought it was fair but who or what did that even help. i am going to cross the ocean with my bare feet and the author better be ready for me when i show up at their door .
i feel like i am losing my goddamn mind seeing this comment section right now. what do you guys mean "they're both in the wrong"? am i in the twilight zone? god, yes, they are both children in extremely fucked up domestic circumstances, but are we truly going to keep acting like anything jinhyeong said or did held a candle to songrik's treatment of him here? songrik is suffering terribly from the abuse and abandonment he's endured, and he's emulating the same shitty behavior towards jinhyeong here, so now he's the same as jinhyeong's father despite insisting he's the better option.
i'm at the point where i simply don't care about what jinhyeong said, he didn't do anything so wrong to deserve this from him at all, and songrik has truly done nothing to warrant being defended this fiercely by people here. the same thing he's been doing this whole time (invalidating and making light of jinhyeong's abusive circumstances) is merely being amplified to the maximum right now. the moment jinhyeong did something he disagreed with or made some kind of mistake that triggered him, this would have always happened. in the end, the reality is that jinhyeong never abandoned him or turned his back on their plans to move in together, and once again, his words were ignored. even if he said something hurtful, songrik is a complete bastard for this, full stop. abused people can still be shitty people; them being abused is only an explanation, not absolution. feeling sorry for songrik is reasonable, but let's not pretend that what they did is on any kind of equal footing when it's not even close. if he and jinhyeong ever meet again (and i'm kind of hoping they don't), i truly hope songrik is a better person by then.
preach sista
like i truly cannot believe it. jinhyeong is literally being bullied because he told songrik he didn't want to move out right away because he knew they'd struggle (which was the correct assessment, mind you) and because he wanted to mend his relationship with his father. even if you take the "real family" line out of the equation, this is the gist of the reason behind why songrik thinks it makes sense for him to partake in psychologically torturing him at school. and i'm supposed to think his feelings of betrayal are just as meaningful. be serious.
NO LITERALLYYY i did not know their relationship would fall apart that badly and i cannot make any excuse for his songriks actions
none of us could have seen this coming like i knew it would be bad if they haven't spoken in a decade but i could have never guessed it would be THIS bad, holy shit.
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.
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.
dreading the next few chapters so so badly because what could have possibly happened to tear jinhyeong and songrik apart to the extent that they aren't even in contact with each other after a decade, despite promising to be each other's literal family. i almost don't want to find out i might kms
also this author's depiction of parental mental and emotional abuse/neglect is too real because leaving them behind and going somewhere they can never find you and making them regret it is all fun and games until they start loving you again and you think of all the times they weren't always a piece of shit to you lol
i'm guessing that once he got praised by his father he strayed away from rik's plan of abandoning his father and even defended his father and rik wasn't happy bcuz he was returning to his previous goody-two shoes self... and they prolly got into a huge fight abt their values and future life goals and split apart for the good im so scared too because their friendship is so wholesome and they genuinely wish the best for eachother
i'm guessing that this will be the case as well, or it'll at least have something to do with why they broke off from one another. from the beginning of jinhyeong recounting this part of his past, he says he's extremely vindictive and immature, that he will get back at whoever hurt him twice as badly, and that he had done so even to songrik. so i've got a very bad feel about this one but we'll just have to see
this is driving me to tears for real lmao, not just because i can relate to jinhyeong but also because the thought that his father could treat him like that when he was such a sweet boy is so beyond me. it's so upsetting. and i know songrik is also only a boy who doesn't know how to cope with the abuse he experienced so he really doesn't know any better, but it's so frustrating to watch people repeatedly invalidate jinhyeong's struggles just because they're less tangible. the people around him failed him constantly at nearly every possible turn. i honestly think it's a miracle that he met uyun and was capable of beginning recovery without completely losing his mind LOL
ugh i love them, they're gonna be together forever and ever
just..wait… and.. be..prepared..
what do you mean by this.....
..heh.
Omfg no I need spoilers tell me now I’m stressed