I wasn't expecting Stardew of all things to be an influence for this comic but wow. The more you know.

Alright just to refresh y'all, Gyuwon is being blackmailed by Chuck because his crazy behind is actively threatening Hwayoung and his entire family just to get Gyuwon to work with him again and in the previous chapter (even though it was like, a decade ago) we saw that Chuck is definitely dangerous enough to pose a genuine threat (given he's also a mercenary, this makes sense). 

TLDR it's the "I'm leaving you in order to protect you but I need to break your heart so you don't try to follow me" scenario. 

My prediction is that since Sungjoon (Blondie) was there when Chuck and his group actively attacked the club and saw what Gyuwon was dealing with firsthand, he'll be the one to tell Hwayoung what's going on, but I'm not sure what'll happen from there.

Either way fúck Chuck, all my homies hate Chuck.

We are gathered here today...to remember the life of that hole.... it's been through the greatest trials, and it's still got a few weeks to go.....
Rest in peace...

"Thanks to everyone who read on official sites"

Us:

So. Listen here.
We're gonna get that family pack of therapy. I'm gonna go get a coupon, we're all gonna go to the therapist.

That....
That's a lot of therapy. We may need therapists for the therapists...and some therapists for those therapists....

Following up my previous comment, Sihyeon's father was definitely the reason why Sihyeon's the way he is now. You don't make a child watch adult activities, much less watch as you're having an örgy, then fix your eyes on the child of a lady who thought you were in love with her? That isn't just abuse, that should be a jail sentence. 

It's a case of Sihyeon resenting his father for the way he was, only to do those behaviors himself. He may hate his father, but they're one in the same. Yes, his father traumatized and abused him, and now Sihyeon's taking that trauma and putting it on others. It's incredibly unfortunate, and it does make me feel awful (no one should have to grow up that way), but he's still got plenty he's responsible for. He knows he's hurting Dajeong, he knows his lüsting for Yi-Hyeok is inappropriate, he's well aware that what he's doing is very wrong, but he refuses to stop and had no remorse. Like I said last chapter, Dajeong needs somebody to intervene, but I don't know if he's got that support. The longer this goes, the less he'll be able to break free from it, and that's just a painful truth. 

This is sort of like Killing Stalking, in that this isn't romance, but a horror story that just so happens to have homoerotic scenes. This isn't red flag, this is black flag. Just because he's pretty does not mean you'd want him irl, because you've got a pretty good chance becoming Dajeong.

That being said, this is some very compelling writing. It's twisted the meaning of the title to take up a different meaning, where the first story (and second to a degree) leaned into their pre established friendships, but this one leans more into the fact that they're basically strangers who've crossed paths again after years. The author was building up to this being a story in the first one, so I can appreciate they put work into telling this.

Okay, there's a lot to unpack here.

I think Dajeong's mother said it best, both Sihyeon and his father are equal levels of horrible people. They shouldn't be allowed to interact with others- it's that bad. Sihyeon's father is a predator, and so is Sihyeon- there's no other way to put it. The only difference between the two is that his father was trying to make advances on anything and anyone, even if it meant harming a child for his own pleasure. Sihyeon himself is more violent in his approaches; he's said many times that he likes to hurt Dajeong for fun, has admitted to feeling homicidal towards him, yet can't finish the job because of this situation they're in now.

That doesn't mean Sihyeon isn't a predator like his dad is, though. We've seen him do everything he can to try to manipulate Yi-Hyeok into sleeping with him, DESPITE knowing he's in a new relationship, and the word "consent" does not appear in his vocabulary. Dajeong's just a stand in, but he's not the real thing, he never will be. 

Dajeong is basically a ragdoll to sc*** and abuse till Sihyeon feels satisfied, and that abuse has damaged him to the point that the lines are so blurred and he doesn't know what or how to think anymore. I still think Sihyeon had a hand in killing Dajeong's mother; if she was still alive, she might've been able to warn her son about the people who were once in their lives; remember, she died around the time Dajeong was just becoming an adult. 

I gotta do a part two...

It's all fun and games till you realize why Mokwha got so defensive about having somebody soap him up...


Poor man's been through way too much.

I feel like we're headed towards the end of the story. Thats kinda wild though, the tattoo wasn't just a clue, the tattoo *is* the password. Dad must've trusted Jung-Hae a LOT.

On the funnier side, while I was reading this, "Not Like Us" came on. No more explanation needed.

One brother's crashing out, the other's on the verge of (another) crash out, and the third one is low-key chilling, enjoying his loving relationship, having good communication... Man.

Side note, ma'am, I could treat you better than he ever could once I teleport into this manwha just you wait -

Personal thoughts:
- Perhaps Sihyeon inherited his violent tendencies from his father, though that still does little to even remotely forgive the terrible things he's done, in fact, this chapter put him in the negatives when it comes to chances for redemption.
- To everyone getting mad at Dajeong, remember that he's the victim of grooming (and before anyone says anything, grooming is a blanket term to describe tactics involving the intentional gaslighting, manipulation, abuse, and coercion of someone in order to make them dependent on the abuser). It isn't that he doesn't have self respect- Sihyeon quite literally says "I'm the one who made him hate being alone". He did this on purpose to take advantage of Dajeong's innocent nature (keep in mind Dajeong had never been in a relationship before and is years younger than Sihyeon) just to have someone to force himself onto whenever he gets mad not having Yi-Hyeok to himself. 

That doesn't mean that Dajeong can't overcome this and eventually break himself out of this cycle, but the biggest problem is that he has no support system. The person he was closest to was his mother, and she's dead. Sihyeon always says "Go hang out with your friends", but we rarely see his friends, especially recently. He's very isolated here, which is only going to make this even harder for him. Hopefully he does find someone he can trust or confide in.

Prediction that the dad changed the passcode before his death because he knew that someone might've taken advantage of the back tattoo 🤔 
Not sure how true it'll be, but the passcode that he thought it was didn't work, so perhaps there's more to it.
The plot thickens, but also, Jung-Won, you better be glad that it didn't work cause I don't think Jung-Hae is gonna be happy when he finds out you betrayed him via acting out of desperation.

Ah what a nice chapter, Gyuwon got Hwayoung a nice gift and his smile was so-
AUGH THE BOSS IS NAKED! HE'S DOING FOUL THINGS! POLICE!!! ARREST THIS MAN!!
[pepe:0]
Side note, if you want a premium quality green flag old man, check out Love for Sale. His name is Choe Si-Eon and he's beautifully written 

Interesting, interesting....
I'm still not sure what to figure of this guy but what I wanna know is ..

...which one of the Mugos was sucking his lips like that...? 😭 I know I wasn't the only one to see those Kylie Jenner lips

Alright , it appears as though we're dealing with some S-tier manipulation from Sihyeon and how it's began to really weigh on Dajeong emotionally.

In this case, Sihyeon began to withdraw giving attention to Dajeong, despite him knowing how the younger party felt, and then when Dajeong tried to discuss the situation, he essentially went "You're making this hard for me, you're the one who wanted this, I'm just doing what you want." Instead of being aggressive, he's playing like a victim of Dajeong's advances. This ends up making Dajeong do exactly what Sihyeon wants: he feels even worse and gives himself up to be the boss's stand in for Yi-Hyeok, if only to just be with him- note the smirk Sihyeon has after Dajeong gives himself up.

The cycle is now abuse, affection, abandon- Sihyeon uses Dajeong whenever he needs a fix (at this point in the main storyline, the boss' infatuation with Yi-Hyeok is getting stronger, but since the boss can't have him, Dajeong is the replacement), he tends to Dajeong's wounds after the fact, and then ignores him until the next time so Dajeong's always longing for him. 

On one hand, this is (partially) fulfilling Dajeong's want for attention, but on the other, because he's fully aware of Yi-Hyeok and Sihyeon's feelings towards him, we're seeing him become envious, despite likely being able to gather that Yi-Hyeok has no interest in the boss. 

We've still got some story to fill in before we reach that point where Yi-Hyeok catches them in the storage room, but dämn.

If you read this far, have a cookie 🍪 

Okay Wren you know what, you pulled the trigger. You didn't kill him, but you pulled the trigger and that's way more than I wanted to give you credit for so....consider yourself 45% forgiven. You still got a ways to go.

Now this twist- I figured Ethan would have some more constitution to him because of his genes, but I wasn't expecting him to die...or potentially die. I could probably see the Tristan being turned point but either way, excellent food.

Bonus points for Matias now being dead. Shocked that bro had the nerve to feel betrayed by Wren after all the shït he pulled, but at least he shouldn't ever come back. There's a lot of äss pull plot points but nobody ever comes back from getting free heart surgery.