Phoenix

Okay novel reader here. The first thing I wanna say is that there is no redemption arc. Not for any of the three bastards.

I will address Seo Haeyoung as ML and Yoon Haewon as MC. Taegyeom will be referred as “black bastard” and hyunwoo as “brown bastard”.

The main thing about this novel is that the ML is not a normal person. You need to understand this first. It hasn’t been explicitly expressed in the novel but throughout novel there are many rare occasions when we get to know his thoughts.

First of all when ML and MC met, the ML had clear thoughts that MC was someone who was clearly dispensable. Whenever he will get bored of him, he will toss him side. And in these thoughts one week passed, two weeks passed, a month and then ten years. He clearly regards MC someone who has to obey and follow him and not do anything that contradicts with ML. So when MC had sex with taegyeom, his thoughts were that how dare MC did it behind his back without his knowledge. That’s why later he shared him with his friends as to control that he lent MC to them for a short while just like lending them his possession. He says he was feeling sad that’s why he did it but we clearly get the upper mentioned things in his thoughts. So his sadness was more like his anger at how MC did something without his knowledge.

Moreover he used to think that MC and ML were dating and MC went ahead and cheated on him. This is another clear indication that he is cuckoo in head.

Another thing we get from the thoughts of ML in the novel is that he deliberately made MC in a person who won’t be able to live without him neither able to stay alone. MC had a really difficult life with his father beating him when drunk and him working to earn money. When ML came into his life, ML showered him with good things for 10 years and made him depend on ML completely emotionally.

MC finally decides to end his life and jumps off a cliff in front of ML and black bastard. He comes to this decision when black bastard apologizes for what he did and even the brown bastard sent letters apologizing about what he did after he went abroad. But the ML doesn’t apologize. So MC asked him wasn’t he sorry. And ML just can’t understand why he should be sorry. Another pointer that he is clearly not a normal person. Once MC understands that ML is greatly selfish and not sorry, he decides to end his life to atleast somehow make the three bastards suffer at what they have done.

The reason ML changes in the later half of the book, that is no character development. Remember ML is mentally ill and in the novel, it clearly can be read that ML thinks his previous strategy of violence didn’t work well with MC as MC committed suicide and ML got to know how he can’t live without MC even if he want to. So when he meets him after the year gap of MC’s suicide, he decides to use a different strategy of being affectionate with MC once MC forgiven him.

The frustrating thing in the novel is that we get that ML has issues with his brain but the other two bastards can only be described as clearly two evil human beings that we all wish we would never meet in our lives.

For the black bastard, he wanted to go back to their old relationship of friendship like before after villa disaster. He would msg MC and later confront him as to why he won’t reply him back. The disturbing thing is that they have absolutely no qualms about ML hitting MC and abusing him. They are completely fine and even gets annoyed at MC when MC starts to suffer psychologically after the episode of bathroom in the villa. He is like “why act like a bitch after being hit a little”. Later he wants MC to have sex with him exclusively and not the others and says he did it wrong. It means SHARING him with others not FEELING SORRY for what they have done. At this point MC already has thoughts of killing them and has no more emotional (friendship) attachment to the two bastards. He is mentally broken and convinced that now nothing can be salvaged and nothing can be repaired. Black bastard says this of having sex only with him whole sexually assualting him in a room when Brown bastard is sleeping beside them. MC is psychological broken so after sex with black bastard he says he can do it with brown bastard too because brown bastard has already woken up. At this the black bastard gets angry (THE NERVE OF HIM) and gets out of the house leaving them alone where brown bastard continues to sexually assault the MC violently. As I mentioned that the black bastard want the MC to go back to being normal as if the villa thing wasn’t a big deal. But he slowly realizes that MC is getting psycologically ill. And when MC runs away, the ONLY apology we get from the black bastard is for a few minutes in a back alley having his head on the chest of MC because he supposedly regrets everything. ╮(￣▽￣)╭ For black bastard’s suffering, we only get a few words how how he starts to have guilt and regret at what he has done. And viola everything's good now. (︶︿︶)＝凸

For the brown bastard, he has a kink of violent sex and starts being happy that MC will slowly learn violent sex with him and they will hit it off. He regrets that he should have taken action earlier. Yeah you read that right Σ( ￣□￣||). Before he doesn’t like MC but he does think of doing it with him in his early teens. So after doing it with him in villa, he now wants MC and decides that MC should come with him to abroad. But MC stood him up at the airport because he clearly hates them now and is disgusted by them. For apology the brown bastard writes letters to MC from abroad about how he is sorry. Yeah and that’s it for his redemption. He even doesn’t have regret for what happened in villa because whenever he starts to have guilt he is like nothing can be done now ╮(￣▽￣)╭ so yeah a bastard through and through.

In all of these, I believe the truly scums are black and brown bastards because they are fine in the head but clearly are bad and evil human beings. Who have sometimes conscience that what they are doing is wrong but still do it. As for the ML we can clearly see that he is mentally ill. When MC asks him whether he is sorry for what have done because taegyeom and hyunwoo has said that they are sorry, the ML is unable to understand the apology that they are offering him. For him the apology will only have meaning when they suffer the same. For his apology he tries to ruin his own ear and hearing just like he ruined the MC’s one. Later when they meet after the year gap of MC’s suicide, he hurts himself in his hand deeply with knife to make himself suffer so that MC can forgive him. His mind works like that. For me digesting ML is easy because he is mentally ill but the black and brown bastard, I wanna cut off their dicks after a lot of beating.

In the last chapters, we get to see how MC is now happy and how ML is helping him to overcome all the bad things that happened in those previous 4 years time span. ML is also happy now because this strategy is a success as MC showers him with love and is with him now. For ML MC is someone he cannot live without. He is mentally ill so his love is also distorted. He gets really happy and cherishes MC’s things. Like the bracelet the MC gave him, MC’s pics, MC’s small letters (kind of) on the test papers. It kind of heals you somehow. ML even helps MC to get better with the help of psychologists and teaches him again as MC’s brain is totally damaged psychologically and he doesn’t remember much of his education. He build a bathroom for him which has no such corner that will be dark and remind MC of villa disaster. He does lose his control one time in the last chapters but controls himself at the last minute when MC starts to have a relapse. MC is so happy that he sometimes gets afraid that this is all just a dream and everything will fade away and return to bad things. But he starts to heal little by little.

This story is a truly disturbing work but not unique in its own sense because I literally have read a similar story like this here on mangago. It has the same kind of mentally ill ML. I had so much frustrations with this that even when I would wake up, my mind immediately go to the suffering of MC and the frustration of how the black and brown bastard didn’t suffer or received karma leaves a bad taste.

Okay so the miscommunication is just about to end. The orange one will confess right after he comes back on Monday and understands by the reaction of the ML that he really loves him and not just use as FWB. The story is just then their life as a couple with smut.