Zhenya basically being Taekjoo's pet tiger with a diamond collar after A LOT of stuff. Once I learned how Zhenya was raised I wanted to beat his dad up. Zhenya was being taught how to kill people FROM FIVE YEARS OLD and instead of socializing him like a proper parent should, his dad sends off to an uninhabitated island to contain him. Then there was the kidnapping situation from when he was six and honestly, I'm 0% surprised he's as messed as he is after everything. His childhood is EXTREMELY messed up. Zhenya changes ONLY for Taekjoo. Taekjoo is his handler/lover and Taekjoo decides he's going to work on taming Zhenya. I think him and Leewon would exchange notes on weekends.
@Lily More spoilers for ye BRAVE souls! A LOT OF SPOILERS!
Spoiler!
Zhenya does do a lot of messed up things to Taekjoo, including keeping him captive on the same island for 2 reasons: one he's obsessed with Taekjoo and 2. he's keeping Taekjoo alive (unbeknowst to Taekjoo) since the island is ridiculously hard to get to and the government is doing everything to kill Taekjoo. It's both dark and interesting from a psychological perspective because Zhenya was essentially raised to be a weapon/humanoid attack animal. It's heavily implied his siblings didn't get the same treatment as him and thus don't understand him. His parents also made it VERY CLEAR that they saw him as disposable. He does a lot of bad things, but Taekjoo realizes that Zhenya literally couldn't comprehend what he was doing was wrong and he can't be changed to a normal human being because of what was done to him and accepts that he'll have to teach him. It's also super sad because it's implied Zhenya COULD have grown up into a relatively sane human being if he'd had grown up in a healthy and loving home. He does gain some semblance of normalcy with Taekjoo and Taekjoo's mom though (Zhenya is a big mama's boy and looks out for Taekjoo's mom when he's away) and fu** now I want to cry again.
@Lily I will admit it gets REALLY dark before the dawn, but yeah.
This season's going to have a lot of stuff going on if they follow the novel well. My spoiler doesn't even cover half the stuff that happens. If you can get a hold of a better translation than this or the official one, I'd highly recommend it. As much as I appreciate having the second season out, these translations don't do the story or the characters justice.
