Tjian has got to be one of the most disgusting endgames in history. The only reason they were able to work things out is because Ian is still ignorant of all the fucked up things TJ did behind his back. They’re basically living in a bubble that could burst at any moment. The author never addressed the past for a reason.
Poor Ian he’s nothing but a fool. He’s still in love with that version of TJ who saved him from his drug addiction when they were 18. He doesn’t know that TJ is the same guy who made him deliver drugs after he left the gang, because he wanted him to relapse. TJ deliberately tried to temp Ian to take drugs again so he would rely on him again and play the savior.
Ian doesn’t know that it was TJ who sent him to jail and put him in massive debt, making it nearly impossible for him to find a clean job. That way, Ian would have no choice but to crawl back to TJ and the gang to make money. If Ian had known, he wouldn’t have worked his ass off while TJ was in jail just to build a house for him, when TJ was the very person who did anything in his power to make it hard for Ian to make money through a clean job.
Ian also doesn’t know that TJ lied about his reasons for joining the gang, and that it was never Ian’s fault that TJ killed Mr Jang. Killing Mr Jang was a mission given by Jason so TJ could join the gang, saving Ian was just a pure coincidence.
He doesn’t know about TJ’s inferiority complex toward David Kim. TJ wanted power and money to own Ian, because David Kim was a man who had once “owned” Ian.
And don’t say TJ joined the gang to protect Ian, that makes no sense. How is putting Ian, who is openly gay, into an environment full of rapists and homophobes considered protection??? Ever since Ian joined the gang, his life became hell. He was constantly in survival mode, nearly killed and raped multiple times, and TJ was nowhere to protect him. Thankfully, Ian knew how to fight and defend himself, but eventually he became suicidal and couldn’t take it anymore, so he decided to leave.
If TJ truly wanted to protect Ian, he would have joined the gang alone, not dragged Ian into it and prevented him from leaving and ruined his chances at a decent life. But TJ never cared about Ian’s safety or mental health. He watched Ian suffer, begging on his knees to be freed, yet showed no empathy. Instead, he plotted how to pull him back in.
TJ is the type of person who only acted nice to gain something in return, because when they were teenagers, Ian wasn’t “his” But the moment they slept together, TJ realized that Ian is "his" now, as he said “Now you’re mine” From that point on, TJ stopped caring about Ian because he got what he wanted, because he believes Ian wouldn’t be able to leave, since he can chain him through guilt and manipulation.
Ian blames himself for TJ joining the gang. He can’t move on as long as TJ is still in it, knowing TJ could die at any moment. He believes he ruined him, so he feels responsible for saving him. He wants TJ to live a normal life. He already felt too guilty for leaving the gang because he believes that he betrayed TJ who was patient and stayed by his side during his drug addiction days. But he doesn’t know that TJ joined the gang willingly just to control him.
To this day, Ian believes Jason was behind the cruel treatment he received after leaving the gang, when in reality it was TJ. The only things Ian knows about are the scar and the leg injury, things that are easier to forgive.
I don’t believe Ian and TJ could work out if Ian found out the truth. It would destroy the idealized image Ian has of TJ, the caring, patient person who saved him from addiction. That’s the version of TJ Ian fell in love with.
When TJ said “I’m scared of you, Youngwoo” it only reinforced Ian’s belief that TJ is his victim. That’s why Ian chose to leave, to heal himself and become a better man for TJ. But in reality, TJ should have been the one to confess everything, apologize, and leave to redeem himself.
Instead, TJ used Ian’s guilt again and made him feel like he’s the problem.
Too bad Ian is so ignorant and a fool, It’s too late for him to realize what kind of man TJ is, and that he should move on without ever caring about how TJ feels, because TJ never felt the same way about him. TJ has always only behaved selfishly and to gain something, he never genuinely cared for Ian the way Ian believes.
Well it does seem like TJ is the endgame. But my problem is how unrealistic the story and their relationship feel. The author basically downplayed all their problems and trauma and turned their relationship into “the gang is the problem, once TJ leaves, everything will work out” and “love conquers all” kind of cringe narrative. But love has never been enough to make a relationship work.
No matter how I look at it, a 20 year toxic relationship could never suddenly become healthy. Toxic relationships don’t just get better. In real life, when a relationship is toxic for that long, it usually gets worse over time until it finally ends. There’s no magical saving a relationship that’s been unhealthy for 20 years. It’s not just two or three years. And now we’re supposed to believe it will simply work out and turn healthy just because TJ left the gang???
From a narrative standpoint, if TJ and Ian were meant to be endgame from the start, then the author did a horrible job executing their story and development. I’ve never seen an endgame couple whose interactions in the present timeline are 90% sex chapters. Then they didn’t interact for an entire season (Season 2) because the author was giving Jo and Ian space to develop.
Even if I wanted TJ and Ian to be endgame, I can’t even be happy about it because of how badly their relationship was handled throughout the story. Their interactions were limited to smut and flashbacks. And the worst part is that the potential of their story was wasted by adding a third main character who ended up being irrelevant. If they were always meant to be endgame, the story should have been TJ and Ian’s story only from the beginning.
Another problem with this kind of ending is how the author clearly romanticized and eroticized Ian’s trauma. She seemed to lack empathy for him while constantly babying TJ. If TJ is the endgame, I really wish she had made him suffer so I could actually feel sorry for him and accept the ending. But no, he was selfish, hypocritical, and manipulative. He was still willing to drag Ian back into the gang.
People always bring up TJ saving Ian from drug addiction. Yes, he was a good friend to Ian before they joined the gang. But he changed so much after they joined. The moment he said, “Now you’re mine” you could see the shift. He stopped caring about Ian’s mental health and constantly looked down on him for leaving the gang and not being able to endure it, as if Ian didn’t become suicidal because of it, and as if he wasn’t constantly harassed for being openly gay.
I just can’t accept TJ having Ian so easily just because he finally asked for it. He wasted so much time and lacked empathy for years. And now they’ll end up together because Ian is too mentally damaged and spineless. I hate how TJ never truly suffered or experienced truly losing Ian, because Ian will always accept him if he just chases him. It was easy for him to leave the gang, and now it’s easy for him to get Ian back, and he will even avoid jail basically, he got away with everything bad he has done, and never faced any consequences.
It feels so unrealistic that someone could waste 20 years being selfish and a coward and still end up so lucky, finding the person he loves still waiting for him and accepting him after all that time.
I also think the message of the story is depressing. It feels like the author kept punishing Ian for daring to leave TJ and try to build a life with civilians away from him. Ian formed a friendship with Toby, and she lost her baby because of her involvement with him. He tried to have a relationship with Jo, and Jo almost lost his humanity trying to save him. It’s like any relationship Ian tries to build outside the gang only brings guilt, fear and misfortune.
The message seems to be that he should never try to be around “normal” people because of his past. The only friend, family, and lover he’s allowed to have is TJ, someone just as tainted as he is. It feels like the story punishes him for being hopeful and trying something new, as if it’s telling him that TJ was always the only option, and that he should have just endured TJ’s greed and selfishness for longer until TJ finally decided to give him what he wanted.
TJ is clearly endgame. I used to think Joian was endgame because Jo has what Ian wanted, but when I reread the story, there isn’t any point where Ian stopped wanting TJ. Ian was forcing himself to move on because TJ didn’t give him what he wanted, he didn’t try to move on because he stopped loving TJ.
Ian never fell in love with Jo. At the beginning of season 2, Ian was ready to leave Jo just to be with TJ and fight next to him, but TJ rejected him and left him because he didn’t want Ian involved with the gang anymore. Throughout season 2, Ian was once again trying to force himself to move on, telling himself that TJ didn’t need him anymore and that TJ had truly let him go this time, and that this was most likely the end of them.
The little development Ian and Jo had in season 2 was only possible because TJ was out of the picture. If TJ hadn’t rejected Ian, Ian would have left Jo. Even though Ian tried to live a normal life with Jo, he still couldn’t be satisfied. He said it himself: he was miserable because TJ left him. He also ended up killing a man when it wasn’t even necessary, which shows that he is still mentally unstable, despite being around a good guy like Jo.
Then, when he met TJ again, he finally voiced what he wanted from him. He let all his frustration and fears out and cried in despair because of TJ’s rejection. Once again, he was ready to leave Jo if only TJ could be available.
Now TJ has finally had a wake-up call after seeing Ian cry because of him, and he has decided to leave the gang and be ready to give Ian what he wants. I don’t see any reason why Ian would reject TJ, especially since it was Ian who asked TJ to leave the gang a week ago. During that week, no real development happened between Jo and Ian, Ian was just following Jo because Jo was all he had left, so TJ is not in a situation where it's "Too late"
The huge difference between Tjian and Joian is that with Tjian, you can feel that they both truly want to be with each other. Ian is very expressive when it comes to TJ: he lets his frustration out, he shows insecurity, anger, fear, jealousy, and longing. He finally voiced what he truly wants from TJ, that he doesn’t just want a normal life, he wants a normal life specifically with TJ, or he will never be truly happy. He already tried a normal life with someone else, and he still couldn’t be happy.
But with Joian, their relationship is very unbalanced because Jo is the only one doing all the work. Jo is the only one actively investing in the relationship, while Ian shows almost no effort. He just follows what Jo wants and is very careful around him because he doesn’t want to hurt him. From the start, Jo was the one who pushed for a relationship, Ian only wanted a one-night stand, as he usually does with other guys. But seeing Jo being so clingy and openly expressing his desires and fears, he couldn’t help but keep him. I would even say that what he feels for Jo is more responsibility than love.
I also used to think that if you truly cared for Ian, you would want him to be with Jo because TJ doesn’t deserve him. But when I thought about it more deeply, I realized that most of us don’t really see things from Ian’s point of view. We tend to think that the top who worked hard for Ian or never hurt him is the one who should be rewarded, while completely neglecting what Ian truly wants.
If you look at it from Ian’s POV, he has endured so much to be with TJ. He joined the gang for him, and he stayed in a place that made him suicidal for years just to be with TJ. He even told TJ, “What else should I do for you?” This shows that he did everything in his power to be with him until he finally couldn’t take it anymore and decided to leave. Ian has invested so much in his relationship with TJ, emotionally and physically, and he definitely thinks it would be tragic if all his efforts went in vain.
I think it’s unfair to ask him to simply move on when he has invested so much in his relationship with TJ and desperately wants his efforts to pay off. It would be really sad if everything Ian endured to be with TJ went to waste, because he also deserves to see the person he truly loves finally prioritizing him and telling him that he loves him. After all, there is nothing he wants more than a normal life with the person he has loved since his teenage years, knowing that they have both been miserable for two decades.