God, thank you for writing this. I just don't understand how it could be interpreted any other way. After all, the memories of the manager—and the emotional trauma associated with him—actually make the Professor more human; they caused him genuine, involuntary pain. If it had been the other way around—if he had consciously sought out and projected all that love—it would have been meaningless and only made the situation worse.
yes! the way I saw it is that every-time the manager was brought up; it was less of the remembrance of manager as a person (couldn’t even remember the face…but we shall see if Heejae’s growth as a person will uncover this) but more so serving as a symbol of the pain and suffering that Heejae is capable of feeling and once felt. The way I saw it is that everytime the manager appeared, it shows how garam is able to bring out these emotions from him even though he repeatedly tells himself that he isn’t human.
I believe that the once constant appearances of the manager ‘haunting’ Heejae wasn’t because Heejae was still in love with him (in the arc where he kept appearing and appearing - even then I never considered the idea that Heejae was in love with him at that point of time but rather grieving belatedly) but rather: it is because the manager is someone whom he associates with the whole imagery of the knife. The very prime example of him hurting someone he cared about. It’s not because the ML projects him onto the MC; it’s because the manager has become the symbol of his negative thoughts and deep fear that he will be that very ‘knife’ to the MC
You’re talking about the discussion under my post, right? But no one said Heejae is still in love with the manager, though. We’re all on the same page that Heejae right now does love Garam for who he is.
It’s just that everything that happened between Garam and Heejae was tied to the manager’s ghost way too many times. So I think it’s more than fair to think that the manager presence unconsciously influenced their relationship to a significant degree in the early stages. Half the reason behind heejae ‘hidden gem’ mission was quite literally to fill the emptiness left by the grief he couldn’t handle. And it’s normal that all of this would lead to questions about whether Heejae was sincere or not. (You know he is now, but we’re not talking about the present—we’re talking more about pre-timeskip.)
Back then, someone told me I was hallucinating for assuming that Garam would have a dilemma over whether Heejae loved him for his music rather than for who he is, and look where we are now. So I’m gonna trust my intuition and interpretation this time too, hahah
I’ve read your interpretation and i liked it! but this was a comment I’ve made on another site (where there were a lot of people saying that Heejae was in love with the manager and that garam was a replacement) so I just thought I would bring it over and share it here!! my post isn’t to reply to yours…your post is simply what made me get reminded of the situation of the manager! sorry if it made you offended in any way lol it was just me adding on to people’s interpretations and not dismissing it!!!
also in my comment I don’t think I’ve ever explicitly said that Heejae still loves the manager so I’m a bit confused! if anything I agreed with how Heejae is firmly in love with garam now
Oh, my bad hahaha. But considering the timing of it all, I guess it’s not that weird for me to make that assumption. Not offended ofc but like the person who replied to you and agreed with you was the same person who denied my interpretation back then too (I’ve been shouting into the echo chamber about this topic multiple times.) So I was like, damn, it’s strict around here, you can’t even have a thought without someone telling you you’re wrong
i def weren’t saying you were wrong if i were to refute your words I would’ve responded directly! again i was really just adding onto the conversation…there are multiple ways to look at a piece of work and i will be happy to accept whatever the author writes! my bad too if i wasn’t clear enough! but yea this is a forum and everybody’s going to have their individual thoughts and opinions which isn’t wrong at all but there has to be respect ofc for everyone’s interpretations
It seems to me that you are being a bit insincere. If you read through our thread again, you’ll see that I agreed with you on many points—just not on how it should be presented in the story.
My bad oppar
It’s all good
sometimes people use different words but are talking about the same thing
The comment you quoted was supposed to be read sarcastically tbf but sure great let’s wrap this up goodbye <3
I’ve seen some people discussing this and here’s my interpretation of the situation! yes, Heejae probably did love the manager to some extent, but I believe that it has been established that heejae does not remember his old manager’s face. The way I see it is that he had only started having memories of the manager dredged up because of garam. Not necessarily because he’s projecting the manager onto garam but because he remembers the same emotion of love through garam. perhaps there were similarities at the start that Heejae couldn’t help but compare garam to the manager, but I think it’s because of his unresolved grief he never tried to tackle.
Heejae never had the chance to process his grief, guilt, scars and old affections, and now that he has opened his soul and art to the MC, he starts to remember the old emotions he has buried. I think it’s beautiful, in a twisted way, that the MC is able to seemingly slice the ML’s heart open and to air out his old unpleasant memories. A subtle showing of how much Garam has changed Heejae. As of now, Heejae definitely loves MC for who he is, not of what he reminds him of. I do hope for the manager to at least be somewhat brought up as a means for closure, but I recall that in some of the previous chapters it was seen how the manager slowly faded away? And I know he appeared once more in one of the recent chapters, but to me, Heejae’s words of “focusing on the present” was not so much brushing the manager under the rug but instead an admittance that he is only going to focus on Garam from on. I personally interpreted that as growth, but again I could be wrong and it’s still super possible that heejae needs to fully address his thoughts of the manager