i agree completely!!! He thinks he's doing fine n certainly wants to stay w how things r w garam (not becus he sees manager in him, he def does see garam as his own person). but time never healed heejae over his past, he only ignored it and became increasingly agitated, unstable n a state of constantly 'searching for smthing' to fill in tht feeling of loss.
now he's 'found' tht smthing (garam) ofc it'll be a similar shape of wat he had for the manager, hence all the memories resurfacing. but i don think tht necessarily means heejae's still in love w manager, rather i think he wants to bury be happy w how things r w garam n all, but the GRIEF man, he never came to resolution on it !!! do ppl expect it to just.. disappear w time... it's such an important aspect to heejae n a stark reminder of the not-so-happy consequences if he did act the same as his past self in his current rltsp (garam). it's lowkey wat's makin him be a bit kinder to garam so i don understand y ppl r so mad the grief n emotions he's going through aren't even in his control to begin w. i feel like ppl maybe shuldn villain-ize him sm in this regard
Yeah only in this regard tho, i can understand why people like to jump this man any chance they get, hes been a nasty asshole to garam most of the time theyve known eachother. But garam loves the man, heejae's also changing and growing as a person so we can remember hes a mess but also look at how far he has come. Im excited to see how much more he changes
yed ofc. it's honestly so amazing how smoothly the author's revealed the layers of his chara, n we still hvn fully seen all of it. also garam does love him but i hv to say i'm starting to get a bit worried since his rltsp w heejae seems to be impacting him in becoming 'colder' . tht part i'm not so exactly sure y? ppl seem to interpret it as heejae's personality influencing garam but i feel like tht's not all of it. it's still unclear but anyhow
i'm esp rly looking forward to how the story w the manager will unfold n wat changes tht'll bring to them as individuals n their rltsp too, be it a heartbreaking one or happy one i'd love it regardless cus the author writes so beautifully n i love every ch (tho hopefully, it's the latter)
Him becoming colder might just be cuz hes getting older but it might also be cuz when he used to be brighter he was met with a worse version of heejae, now heejae has changed but he still adjusts for the way heejae used to be with him in the past. I dont think even heejae himself knows this might be the issue cuz to himself, hes a changed man but to garam maybe hes just not been triggered since garam has stopped being as chidish/excitable for a long while now. I do wanna see how a more mature, put together garam would work out but he does just look plain depressed sometimes. That old man sucked the youth out of that guy
People are really trivialising someone's death and the effect it had on professor, he kept this grief in the back of his mind for so long and left it unprocessed, ofc hes gonna have trouble functioning now that he's finally thinking and confronting it all. He hasnt really put any burden on garam over it either idk why people are mad. If u wanna be with a silver fox u gotta get comfortable with the fact that they have had their fair share of partings with past lovers (even worse in this case cuz the affection was unrealised to its full extent)
This is the definition of grief being love with nowhere to go. If i was in garams position id much rather have the guy talk about it than be in pain by himself all the time.
Also the pond being a metaphor for heejae being unable to have the space to hold garams affections to its full extent simply because he never bothered to be deep enough with anyone in the past is so poetic.