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
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.
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.
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
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
this is truly just a worse version of the third ending i cannot believe it
i find it a little funny how during this entire manhwa thus far, all we have been seeing is how people make assumptions about and place expectations on jinhyeong, making it so that it's extremely difficult for him to open up to others, but for some reason, there's suddenly confusion when we see another character behaving similarly to others we've already met. i mean, the whole reason why his relationship with uyun is working and helping him grow is because uyun gave him the room he needed to open up and feel safe doing so. uyun never made assumptions about his character or talked about him behind his back or took other people's word for it in regards to who he was. he was patient and allowed jinhyeong to show him, and his acts of kindness and affection are unconditional and non-transactional because he acknowledges the weaknesses jinhyeong struggles with and tries to fill in the gaps.
all this to say that i can't blame his ex for feeling bitter--after all, i've been where she is, and the pain always lingers a little, even after a long time. you start wondering what it was about you that wasn't good enough. but regardless, she was never playing fair because we see her repeatedly hold the things she gave him over his head while simultaneously ignoring his words and his feelings about what she was doing. we don't see the entirety of their year-long relationship, but he expresses himself and communicates clearly about two key things that lead to the downfall of their relationship: he didn't care for her giving him test answers, and he didn't feel comfortable going to that party. in both cases, he still sacrifices his comfort and his boundaries in exchange for hers, and in both cases, she ignores what he says because she means well (and we even see her tell on herself a bit by saying he's "strong" and "[his] family is rich," implying that the problems he was having shouldn't have been such a big deal, though i do think her expression afterwards did indicate some level of regret for saying it].
could he have expressed himself better about these things, and likely many other things during the course of their relationship? absolutely, and he shows both now and even back then that he understands that his failure to do so caused significant harm to someone else. however, i'd say his ex still has some growing up to do herself (i haven't yet been provided a good reason for why her sudden change in reaction towards him being in a new relationship that's good for him but it's with a man is reasonable or justifiable but i digress), because it seems like she still doesn't seem to think that she did anything wrong or even understand what it was that she did wrong, and after five years at her age, i find it a little strange that she couldn't think of even one thing she could've done better in that situation. on the whole, these were two people who were never going to work out in a relationship because their methods of expressing themselves and their affection are just too different lol.
just fell to my knees in my bedroom.... one of the greatest to ever do it and it's already over .... IM GONNA KMS
mc has pebbles for brains i can't lie. like there's normal stupid and then there's "how are you still alive" stupid and he's the latter i fear.
ykw it definitely sucks major fuckin dookie that seolho has put everyone in a Situation but after some thought i'm blaming the boss for it as well tbh. he must know that the reason seolho is so desperate to be on the field is because he's eager to prove himself as an equal and an adult to him. and seolho is so caught up in thinking he can't expose how he feels directly that being of utmost use to the boss must be the ultimate way of expressing his feelings. i'm starting to feel like if the boss had just told him outright that he knows how seolho feels, then seolho wouldn't have gone to these lengths and would've started doing some real self-reflection instead.
so the question now is why hasn't the boss done that yet? even if seolho goes berserker about it, he could certainly handle himself against him, and he's already been shown to be the kind of person who doesn't beat around the bush about anything. i'm kinda wondering if the boss reciprocates seolho's feelings but can't allow himself to give into those feelings because it would only lead to more issues in his mind, but i'm not convinced of this stance yet since we don't actually know too much about him yet, not even his name LOL but this manhwa is genuinely too fucking good, puts a lot of other bl manhwas to shame really