he carefully and slowly acts on the non consensual sexual acts towards sooyoung (kissing, touching while he’s asleep/drunk, fapping onto him). he knows sooyoung already bats for the other team. and he knows very well what will happen if he just forces himself on sooyoung so he holds back (he tells lim gyujim that he just wants to bend sooyoung and fuck his shit) #-.-)
if i remember in the previous chapter /spoilers again/ their classmate has been in the same middle school as jihwan, telling sooyoung that him and jihwan never really had a conversation back then as he knew jihwan was a bad kid so he didn’t associate with him?? ヽ(`Д´)ノ i wonder if we will see more of jihwans childhood or sooyoung’s
Spoiler. Sorry for my broken Eng.
I think his birth mother took her all life because she can't take that any longer. That's when Jiwan knew that the whole 'debt-trapping, baby trapping, lock-up' thing would not work out. So he learnt from his father's mistakes and manipulates Sooyoung into loving him, chainning him up with the so-called love shackles instead of physically locking him up.
with reading the latest chapter yesterday i have a more preconceived idea about jihwan and his personality now.
spoilers warning - the chapter starts with jihwan as a kid (stated that he’s 7 years old attending preschool). he talks about his mother and how she hasn’t always liked him, how she always was locked up in the house and looked sick. always in the same room, with the same clothes and the same hairstyle every single day. it’s shown that he’s attentive to her (and her relationship with his father) as he brings her pills she has to “take”, probably every night. she shows her displeasure towards him everytime he does that and abuses him (strangles him). when she does that, he doesn’t react to her hurting him as he stays still. instead he just describes his mother as a very beautiful but withered flower.
when he’s at preschool, quietly reading a book a kid comes up and asks him if he’s okay and that he overheard the teacher saying his mother is very sick/has schizophrenia. he tries to cheer up jihwan but jihwan thinks he’s noisy. as he gets picked up later by his driver, jihwan says goodbye to his classmate, as he knows he’s a son of a X Company CEO. when they’re driving home he asks his driver to stop by a playground. he’s apparently taking care of a stray cat, ‘’ empathising’’ with the kitten as he thinks it was abondanded by the mom, saying he’s the same.
later, in the chapter, he gets up at night to the restroom but he sees his parents fighting yet again, he states they’ve been fighting every night, with his mom enraged and very tired of being locked up in the house and his father bringing up the “i picked u up when u were at ur lowest” shit card and hugging her to calm her down everytime. his father has imprisoned her and she can’t take it anymore. but this is where it gets interesting - jihwan understands his father’s intentions and he thinks to himself “that his dad is stupid and he can make her not leave by cutting her feet” and other shit. OR SO HE THOUGHT at that age. but looks like the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree. genes game is strong. i see he’s very intelligent as a kid too. he looks like to me that he’s on the antisocial spectrum. he isn’t empathetic to his mother, but he understands people. children start developing compassion and reading emotional cues at that age, developing emathy and all but he’s just there.. i don’t know, emotionally detached like his parents towards him. he’s taking some kind medicine in 1-2 chapters, i wonder what is it for. i assume he has a personality disorder and that’s what is it for. we see his intelligence at young age at how he picks up a book reading by himself, while other children are playing, how he purposely says goodbye to the son of that comapny’s chairman. how he thinks about his whole situation with his parents etc. when in high-school he isn’t socially intept, he’s very rich and people flock around him (stated in a chapter) BUT in these social events he’s just antisocial (lacks concern, regret, doesn’t care etc etc) his latest anger outbrust at the guy who tried to r***pe sooyoung proves it for me. he didn’t even BLINK at breaking his hand with a hammer and a nail, like what the f? when he first becomes aware of sooyoung, he’s instantly drawn to him, i pressume he sees how beautiful he is, maybe just like his mother. he might seem normal and with a high social status, with alot of friends, it’s very easy for him to befriend or get befriended as the laid back chill rich kid but he has no interest in them like he has with sooyoung - so when he tries to hit sooyoung up with the “hey whats ur number” he doesn’t seem so laid back to me. he gets cut off, and he never tries to talk or bump into him again, as he just watches him from afar. until he gets introducted to sooyoung. then he casually gets in a small conversations with him twice or thrice. by lending him his gym uniform or going up to him when sooyoung was crying alone. he couldn’t comfort him at that time so it still shows to me that he lacks that empathy. after that it turns out bad for him and his efforts to get close to sooyoung because sooyoung puts a distance between them, feeling uneasy around him. L my guy. until he manipulates the shit outta him to get closer using lim gyujin. thats my two takes on jihwan as a character. obsession GROWS really really fast and strong.