@here4this lol sorry this was totally wrong. there's another reason for the Korean name entirely haha my bad 😅

@Lwqvrslia Not a rereader. This was just a guess. Although I have since finished this series and could now at least confirm that they are, indeed, soulmates (but there's a better explanation for chef's GHB name).

@Always on bl manhwa youre an angel for this. Just got back from there and confirm it's 🔥🍑🌶

We really have an open ending no matter which way we go as there is simply no way of knowing for sure if Ilmo died or managed to live somehow. The answer will, therefore, be different for everyone, with the question now being: what would you prefer it to be? which, in turn, is just another way of asking: what kind of person are you? Well, for me, I like to think Ilmo is alive for the following reasons: (1) Chekhov's gun ("If in Act One you have a pistol hanging on the wall, then it must fire in the last act."). Pay off. If the bottle in the harbor did not mean anything, why bother drawing it in? and (2) Because of everything we know about Seo Il Mo, particularly that he is always one step ahead of everyone, that his orchestrations are always elaborate and masterfully executed, that he thinks on his feet and is as slippery as an eel, and there is simply no way that he would go down just like that as that would not only contradict everything we know about this character but also everything we know about this author as far as their work on this story is concerned, and these count a lot in my contextualisation of these final chapters.

But even here we still cannot say for sure that Ilmo really died. Even if it was Myeong Jung who was with Ah In in the end, so what? That does not necessarily mean Ilmo's dead. What if he just hasn't shown up again yet? Ilmo for sure knew he was being poisoned (judging from the way he looked at the bottle suspiciously and how he noticed Ah In trembling). As for the bottle left at the harbor, we could say Ilmo replaced Ah In's poisoned wine with an entirely good bottle, but then it is also possible that that was simply a red herring (again, no conclusive proof which is true). And why bother dragging the body off the boat considering the urgency of the escape? Well, if the body was Jae Beom's, then, to conceal the fact that Ilmo was alive, of course; or if the body was Ilmo's, then, to ensure that he would really die in case a single bullet would not finish the job, considering Ilmo's history of being seemingly invincible (again, no conclusive proof which interpretation is correct).

But, on the other hand, and for now I am more partial of this interpretation: that the story as presented to us (from the author/artist to the reader) is the straightforward, independent and objective truth (and not just what Ah In believed to have happened), which is that Ilmo really was shot and his body was dragged and dropped into the water; that Jae Beom got away; that Ah In, whether because of grief or denial, still holds on to the possibility that it was Jae Beom who was killed and that it was Ilmo who dove into the water and swam away; that it was Myeong Jung who took his hand and walked him back to the car (the green sleeves); and that the last panel showing Il Mo is just a visualisation of Ah In's feelings (he is coming to terms with the the possibility that Ilmo might actually be dead now, although there remains a stubborn hope in his heart that that might not be, but he will need time, which he suspects would take forever or that his love would last forever (like how you never stop loving people who have passed on, how they remain in your heart forever)).