I had really high hopes for this story, as I love angst and the premise promised a really strong heaping of it, albeit I was a bit apprehensive since three-way relationships aren't my thing. Despite such a strong description, I was worried that it'd fall into the traps that most love triangle & 3-person relationship stories do.
And sadly it does. Like super fucking quickly.
To explain what my issues are, I'll first give a brief explanation of the plot and character dynamics; Woo Hyung gets held captive for ten days by his step-brother, where he is repeatedly raped until he's able to eventually escape. After escaping, his life quickly goes to shit—his wife divorces him due to his excessive clinginess, he gets mocked by his peers in the workforce, and he falls into alcohol addiction & hypersexual behaviors. His trauma shadows everything.
Gang Boguk is Woo's coworker, a lower rank police officer who begins the story by being the one tasked with taking Woo home after one of his drunken nights. From there they become drinking buddies, as Boguk thinks it's better for him to not be alone while in such states. He's kind, compassionate, nurturing, and eventually a source of love for Woo when he feels like he lacks it—to Woo, Boguk is a chance for him to make up for what he lost with his ex-wife, to try and repair it within his mind and treat Boguk as a substitute for the relationship and stability he had lost.
Heo Sujo is essentially the opposite of Boguk; he's cold, a man who's initially just merely looking for a body to connect with for a night. He met Woo by chance after Woo ended up going to a gay club, and they have a rough night together. Usually Sujo just does one-night stands but there's something about Woo that pulled him in—to Woo, Sujo is a chance for him to express and experience the new shameful and repressed desires he now has after his assault.
I have a lot of issues. I'll say straight off the bat, it never felt like Woo's relationship with the two men ever really properly developed. To the end, Boguk felt like a substitute for his wife and Sujo just felt like what's essentially a fuck buddy. This is especially frustrating as the feelings of the two men did one hundred percent feel real. You could feel just how badly they wanted him, that they ended up loving him with their entire being, but throughout the whole story it just never felt truly reciprocated. When I saw the last panel and it alluded to the two men being with him on the countryside, I was honestly shocked—so I'm assuming either Woo was written to have meant to love them both back, which in this case the author failed spectacularly, or they're merely putting up the unreciprocated love . . . Which honestly, is quite pathetic.
Being pathetic is one thing I think comes up a lot in this story, too, from the two love interests. They're pathetic because to be entirely frank, Woo is a fucking cunt. He's a whore who doesn't really seem to care nor have the capacity to care for their feelings, and they constantly just accept that. I know he's traumatized, and I know they're willing to help him try and overcome his trauma . . . But do they not have a limit to the bullshit they're willing to go through and put up with? If I were either of them, but especially Boguk, I would've been gone so fucking quickly because of the way Woo acts.
Another large issue I have is the fact that the relationships don't feel balanced. The relationships don't feel like they both received the same amount of development or care; I know I said I didn't feel Woo really loved any of the love interests, but if I were forced to choose who I'd expect to really get his love, it would undoubtedly be Boguk. I guess it inherently comes with the fact that Boguk was treated as a substitute for Woo's wife and the failings he believed he had, but at least Boguk had Woo saying "I love you." They had an emotional connection that I could possibly see, if I squint, as having crossed beyond merely just Woo seeing him as an expy for his shortcomings. With Sujo, their relationship is almost purely physical. They do share some tender & vulnerable moments, as I believe Soju's the only one who actually has a direct conversation with Woo where Woo directly opens up about what happened to him . . . But it felt like a conversation between friends. Their relationship is almost entirely just based around sex and I never felt it grow beyond that.
For a minor issue I have, as it's not really present within the story—which in and of itself is the issue—is the way Woo's bisexuality is handled. I just find it really odd, if not outright uncomfortable, that the story basically says, possibly two times if I remember right, that Hyung's possibly only bisexual because of the assault. I feel like if you're going to bring up such a topic like that, it should have a pretty big focus, or at least bigger than the focus it had here. It's just odd to me that it's basically brushed over because this story otherwise handles his trauma really well, yet his sexuality is seemingly what's the most impacted from it and these short comments kind of shadow the entire story. The fact that he might not actually be bisexual and could just be acting this way due to his trauma affecting the way he handles relationships could possibly be why his relationship with Boguk and Soju feels the way it does, either because it's intentional or because the knowledge of it is in the back of my head and recontextualizing their interactions. It's honestly just kind of poor writing.
Speaking of poor writing, the final chapters are just not good. I don't care. They're shit. This felt like such a grounded, realistic story, especially when it was explicitly tackling Woo's trauma, that the ending was just so tonally abrupt. Having Woo's rapist stepbrother come back and the whole deal with Woo being missing and the stepbrother being kidnapped just felt extremely melodramatic. I get the point it was trying to make, and I even can appreciate the theme of how a victim might run back to their abuser and how they can still love and hold care for their abuser as it is something so extremely taboo to shine a light on despite being kind of normal and important to discuss, but it didn't fit in this story. At all. Woo is a complex-enough character as it is, he didn't need this added on top of it. Eventually it just feels silly. Like seriously, his step-sister and two love interests kidnapping that rapist and tying him up was just so, so fucking stupid. So dumb.
To end on a positive note, I did love the art. It's very unique. I don't really know how to explain it, but the art feels very "direct." It's not simple, and it's very appealing, but it doesn't look like it's all that complex of a style. It kind of just has a direct look to it, if that makes sense.
And as mentioned, I thought Woo's trauma was mostly handled really well. There's one scene that feels like it'll be one that sticks with you, where Woo is anally masturbating. After the assault he craves that feeling now, so he ends up getting a few toys from Boguk and there's one time where while playing with one, the exact moment it starts to feel good, he ends up triggering himself and gets flashbacks to the times he was raped. As he's getting these horrific flashbacks, he can't help but moan and feel good from the feeling he's getting from the toy, and those two things being muddled together like that terrifies him. To feel aroused while he thinks of his assault terrifies him. And I thought that was a phenomenal scene, especially considering how short it was. It was short but packed such a punch.
