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ok this shit is emotionally concussing me. i went into it completely blind, stopped reading for a while because i was genuinely horrified by how bizarre and depraved it got, and then, against my better judgment, kept coming back. i'm just way too fascinated by juyeon as a character because, despite everything, i don't think his obsession with jiwook can be explained by revenge alone. sure, revenge explains the cruelty. it explains the humiliation, the desire for power, and the need to reclaim control after experiencing something so horrific at the hands of someone you once craved. there is even something almost cathartic about watching him pursue a form of justice(?) that many victims never get. yeah, his methods are monstrous, but they emerge from a wound that was never going to scab over. what revenge doesn't explain, though, is the fixation.
i'm starting to think this was never really about revenge, but about the target of that revenge: jiwook. honestly, the more i've thought about it, i realized that juyeon practically tells us this himself. he has admitted, in one form or another (in the novel), that he wanted to charm jiwook. he delayed his revenge because he wanted to continue living that life with him. he became furious when jiwook ran away, not because a plan had failed, but because he felt personally rejected. his anger often reads less like vengeance and more like wounded attachment. because after all, if revenge was all he wanted, why spend so much time trying to reshape jiwook instead of simply destroying him? i don't think juyeon is satisfied with punishment alone. he wants possession. he wants exclusivity. more than anything, he wants to become the person jiwook chooses. that's why so much of his behavior revolves around creating dependence, intimacy, and a sense of uniqueness between them. the point is never just suffering. the point is making himself indispensable to jiwook.
that's also why i've never fully agreed with the interpretation that frames the story as entirely loveless, even if this is definitely not my idea of love. because beneath juyeon's condescension, there are constant signs of admiration, fascination, and desire. he compares himself to a moth drawn to a flame. he recognizes jiwook's ability to captivate people. even while degrading him, he assigns him value, calling him a "hundred-million-won toy." there is obvious contempt there, but there is also a weird fucked up reverence???
also to me, juyeon's need to dominate jiwook comes from the fact that he cannot bear the alternative. if he doesn't control those feelings, they will control him. for him power becomes a substitute for vulnerability. possession becomes a substitute for confession. which is why i think the story is ultimately less interested in revenge than it is in what happens when love and resentment become impossible to separate. not because juyeon stops hating jiwook, but because his hatred becomes tangled up with desire. yes the grievance remains, but the person becomes more important than the grudge.
anyways, i’ll shut up soon, but my point is that what makes juyeon feel so tragically grotesque to me isn't just his cruelty or his willingness to perpetuate harm. it's the way his obsession slowly transforms him. in pursuing jiwook, he starts adopting parts of jiwook's worldview whenever it serves his own repressed desires. he bends his morality around the object of his fixation until the line between revenge and devotion almost disappears. i mean, is it ever worth wanting someone so badly that you reshape yourself around them? that you become a reflection of the very thing that wounded you in the first place?
yes i know this shit is probably pure goonery for the author (are they ok) and i probably shouldn’t be putting this much thought into it but i’m unemployed rn so it’s ok !
EDIT: when it comes to jiwook being subjected to the same kind of sexual violence involving multiple perpetrators that juyeon once experienced at jiwook’s hands, the intent on each side is fundamentally different imo. for jiwook, it functions as a way of dispersing blame, almost externalizing his own discomfort with his queerness and redirecting it through the humiliation of juyeon. for juyeon, it isn’t the mimicking of the trauma inflicted on him/revenge in the simple sense. it’s possession with the goal of isolating jiwook. juyeon never truly becomes “just another participant” in these acts. he positions himself outside the act while still controlling its structure, making sure that even when others are involved, he remains the only consistent presence within it. everything destabilizes around jiwook, but juyeon stays fixed. over time, that contrast begins to define their dynamic. because instability exists everywhere except where juyeon is, and that difference is manufactured by juyeon. without realizing it, jiwook is gradually conditioned to associate relief, safety, coherence, and even pleasure with juyeon alone. what looks like degradation meant to humiliate and break jiwook’s will to most people, is actually a slow narrowing of his world, until juyeon becomes the only place the experience ever resolves. they’re doomed together, and that’s their eternal punishment in this lifetime. ok i’m done fr now bye.
This is a really good analysis imo. it hits a lot of things i’ve had trouble putting into words, especially regarding how and where the story ends. I think that even though it’s in the ‘no love’ genre and we’re supposed to not really see them as being ‘in love’ with each other, I think it’s impossible to genuinely deny that juyeon has feelings for jiwook that resemble some kind of, albeit twisted, love, even if love isn’t exactly the right word for it.
Juyeon is genuinely unraveled by the idea of Jiwook killing himself or dying. It’s not because he wants his revenge scheme to continue, his emotions aren’t of that or of fearing the consequences of a suicide. The idea of Jiwook dying is genuinely upsetting to him. He basically wants to play house with Jiwook in the earlier chapters, even.
this is so good i read the whole thing, i also read the novel and honestly yeh i agree wit the points you made
I want to read this but I feel so unmotivated cuz the long paragraph, English not my first language and when I see long thread like this I have headache, will save this to read later but just know I think juyeon obsession over jiwook come more from a fear he want to conquer, he used to be afraid/intimidate by jiwook that why he did whatever he told him in past but then now his obsession more of hate that turned into addiction.
This analysis is so sexy. It’s so awesome when people have media literacy. All jokes aside though, I think you did a great job breaking down Juyeon’s complex psyche and motivations!
I think part of it stems from his initial feelings for the Jiwook. They were warped and mutated and twisted beyond all recognition but if he hadn’t had the initial crush, even if the Jiwook still did as he initially did and sa’d him with others as a teen, he may not have reacted the same way.
I am not saying that Juyeon still has any positive feelings towards Jiwook nor likes him. I’m simply saying that his crush was an important factor and without it, he may not have done what he did.
Heck, yeah! I coudn’t agree more!
Okay so in summary juhyeon is just a black flag.
huuuundred percent agree. i love these kinds of stories so bad they're always so interesting and create such compelling characters u can't decide if u pity or hate. thanks 4 the analysis
so is jiwook! this is definitely a case of black flag meeting black flag. jiwook, with his trail of multiple victims, undoubtedly forged the monster that juyeon has become. yet juyeon is the only anomaly among them, he’s the sole victim capable of hunting the architect of his victimhood to the very edge of the earth. there’s a part of me that thinks juyeon actually relishes this dynamic, finding a grim pleasure in possessing jiwook, even if he’d never confess to it. it begs the question of whether this stems from a psyche permanently warped by experiencing his first love betray him so horrifically during his formative years, or if that darkness was always quietly latent within him. so for me, while the ending is devastating for both characters, it feels entirely inevitable. by refusing to break the cycle, juyeon has permanently tethered himself to the very victimhood jiwook inflicted upon him. it’s far from a happy ending, it’s a life sentence. they are, in the most literal sense, each other's karmic bond! this is a horror story.
further YAP:
just to clarify my analysis, i don’t subscribe to the idea that this is a mutual abuse relationship, because it's not. "mutual abuse" is largely a fallacy, in almost every toxic dynamic, there is a primary aggressor holding the power, while the victim's actions are actually just defensive, reactive survival mechanisms. jiwook is the sole architect of juyeons trauma! he held the original power and created the damage. juyeon’s toxicity, no matter how monstrous or obsessive it looks now, is a warped reaction to what was done to him. it’s reactive, not a symmetrical partnership in abuse. controversial opinion maybe idk: jiwooks amnesia doesn’t erase his consequences!
bro i saw your comment from may 16 because again, i’m unemployed but bro, back up. what do you mean juyeon “gets a high-paying job, picks all of Jiwook’s clothes because he wants to make him look like an idol, and the animal that represents him is a porcupine”??? this shit is profoundly deranged this author genuinely fascinates and terrifies me in equal measure, it’s completely my fault for even getting invested in this psychological warfare though, i brought this on myself
You and me both, twin. Glad my random ass trivia was helpful in deepening someone’s brainrot.
Imma bust all over the place. You’re exactly right. THIS is the story the author wanted to tell (along with some excessive goonery). I don’t have the link with me but they actually did a couples checklist with Juji and they concluded that they wouldn’t want to find each other in another life. They’ve ruined each other’s lives and at the same time can’t live without each other. The very epitome of “may this love never find you”.
im still here. grieving the absence of the first couple they lured me in with