Comment by bibliophage on Monochrome Rumor - Chapter 127

He's quite literally blinded by love. Jaeha, meanwhile, never loved him; in fact, he quite literally hated Sihyeon. It was precisely because Sihyeon was like this that Jaeha was willing to manipulate Sihyeon's feelings, accept his confession, and pretend to be his boyfriend, because he doesn't have to coerce Sihyeon or do anything, and Sihyeon will do anything for him, even if it means being paraded like a s** slave to rich clients and being abused himself. To be fair, OG Sihyeon was at fault himself for continuing to follow the guy who clearly never liked him from the very beginning until his end, but it's just that he's too pitiful that no one around him could blame him. His level of devotion too Jaeha is abnormal and unhealthy. You see in this chapter that OG Sihyeon was originally well-liked in the group, but remember the cold atmosphere with OG Sihyeon we saw previously from the members' memory? Basically, the member basically begged Sihyeon to share his problems with them, but OG Sihyeon refused to involve his members.

At some point it became clear that OG Sihyeon has a sponsor (the members didn't know it's Jaeha or even the fake boyfriend relationship; they simply believed that there's a guy who's sponsoring Sihyeon's debt or someone's debt he's shouldering in exchange for "special services"—you know how beautiful Sihyeon is, right?). Even within the story, the member feeling changed from concern to frustration when Sihyeon continued this toxic relationship or business with no effort to change and even got angry at them for trying to help when it started to affect the group performance, image, and later even fandom. To be fair, OG Sihyeon is scared if his members learn he gives "special service for sponsorship" to a rich client for Jaeha's sake, they will find him disgusting. Until his death, he truly loved his member. The member's guilt is basically that they gave up trying to help him and left him alone as OG Sihyeon asked them. When they saw OG Sihyeon's dead body in the hospital bed, they thought they should have been more aggressive with him, even if it meant more fights and conflict with Sihyeon, if it meant helping Sihyeon.