I would say the type of mentality Zhenya has, giving into Taekjoo's demands and giving him space and especially the relationship with his mother is pretty much redeeming himself...and WOWWW I found someone who also think Zhenya is wayy better than Ilay ughh I am so happy.
Um Taekjoo knows himself that he can't use Zhenya's 'brutal' acts (including the r*pe) to demand redemption from Zhenya since he himself also knows that all those kind of power imbalances, tortures, and physical and sexual humiliations are normally part of the underworldly acts for agents especially when he himself knows that he's in an enemies territory, although they did got together in the end part of the first novel but their relationship is actually just all transactional, and Taekjoo never gave Zhenya the kind of treatment that someone whose in a relationship would give to their partner, so it's obvious Taekjoo wouldn't need to demand for any redemptions since he knows their relationship wouldn't last anyway if Zhenya slowly loose his interest on him (unfortunately it didn't happened)
Like Ik this is fiction and I won't stop reading it anytime soon and I've already read the novel. But I still can't help but think about how a person can willingly forgive a person like zhenya and be with him when he never even TRIES to redeem himself. I would say at least he's better than ilay but still. Mind you, these boys never even EAT ASS OF THEIR UKE annoying mfers it's just their own dik for them