Thank you for the spoiler bcs I know it would have bugged me for the unforeseeable future. Now I dont have to break my head about it! Crazy it isnt explained even at ch 201 but maybe its not as important who it is but what the trauma did to prof...
yeah i might‘ve not understood parts correctly bc i don‘t speak korean and had to depend on auto translate, so maybe someone might correct me in the comments. the figure just appeared again in the recent chapter 201, so we might be close to a full explanation hopefully
Didn't they say he was his first manager with Nympha? He then found out he was a talented piano player so he let him practice at his house. From what I understood he died in an accidental fire and no pictures were left of him because he was camera shy, so the professor doesn't remember his face despite still having clear memories of their time together.
Not sure if the reason why he left was revealed as I'm still at chapter 147 and reading with a translator, but Eva implies that Heejae's cold demeanor started to change the manager, making him colder, and Heejae tries to be kinder and more considerate to Garam after Eva mentions it again. Tbh it kind of bothers me that he told Garam he'd never shown his composition to anyone before him, when the manager got to play it before, and sometimes his image overlaps with Garam's even when they're having sex. He seems to act guilty when this happens too so I'm really hoping it's as you say and the manager is simply a symbol of his fear of abandonment because it's really bothering me rn that Garam knows nothing about it despite feeling that smth is wrong TT
might be a slight spoiler so I marked it as such, but the shadow figure is still not fully and clearly explained even in the current chapter 201 but it seems to be a person from the professor’s past (i think a former assistant, not a student, but i might be incorrect about that) that left him and (if i understood correctly) died (maybe accidentally but maybe not, the professor at some point thinks something along the lines of „i know the fire was an accident“).
i think the fact that the figure kinda looks like Garam without the scar makes me think that the professor does not remember the face of the person (he tried to find pictures but couldn’t find any) and projects his fear of abandonment on Garam so the memory of that person kind of melts into Garam.
when I first read it, I was so confused and kinda annoyed that the figure looks like Garam but I think it’s intentional by the author. but we have yet to find out who this person is exactly