Jaekyung’s backstory

Alright guys, time for a theory. I have a friend who also analyzes Jinx and she thinks his parents are dead and that he fears close relationships because of some kind of more recent trauma that is harder for him to solve because it’s been all about mental health. Jaekyung is strong and rich, but his mental health is trash. He’s depressed, anxious, and full of self-loathing. He doesn’t expect anyone to like him, so he never tries to do better. Kim Dan’s trauma is almost entirely based upon the crushing debt and guilt he carried for so long. But Jaekyung frees him from that which forces him to change. Now, Kim Dan must focus inward, on himself, and his world has shrunk to where it’s just him, Jaekyung, and their feelings.
Jaekyung, finally having a confidante, wants the therapist with him all the time. He wants someone to talk to, even if he has to pay them to stay. He knows Dan won’t leave him, and the therapist promised that he would do his very best for Jaekyung. Furthermore, Park Namwook brought up Dan’s dedication to Jaekyung, making him believe Dan’s promises, hence he was pissed when Kim Dan didn’t go with him to the hospital that one time. He arrived to see Dan being assaulted and looked cold, almost as if Dan was just messing around purposefully.
In my opinion, he was going to take Dan away that night, regardless. Things were preventing the therapist from keeping his promises, so Jaekyung would just have to pull him out and take him away. If his strength isn’t enough, he adds money to conquer obstacles. However, after that, he just trained for 10 days without using Dan. Why? To keep his distance. He was so caught up in where the therapist was and what he was doing that it was a relief to confine him. Jaekyung feels most confident and strongest when he’s in complete control. Why? Probably trauma.
Back to his parents. Maybe they’re dead, maybe they don’t care about him. It doesn’t really matter because the end result is that he feels betrayed by his family. Why do I think it’s about his family? His birthday. He hates to celebrate it. It actually infuriates him for people to celebrate it. There are two possibilities of why exactly. Either it reminds him of his family and their betrayal (he’s alone in the world) or because it’s the one day people always pretend to like him.
Kim Dan is his confidante, even if he denies it. He talks all during sex, seeks the therapist out for his company constantly, and hates when anyone else talks to him. If Kim Dan is alone, Jaekyung has no competition.
And everything to Jaekyung is competition.
Why did I bring this up?
His tattoos. I was re-reading the previous chapter for good feelings and continued to the current chapter. I noticed that face on his left shoulder again, his dominant arm. I realized he doesn’t have tattoos anywhere but his arms: he got them to remind himself that those are his weapons. His left shoulder specifically had an intricate design of a malevolent-looking monster—a traditional tattoo linking to Korean folklore. Why would Jaekyung choose to get tattoos at all, much less something ancient?
Lack of a guardian. Jaekyung tattooed his arms, somewhat against his current dependence on modern medicine, to remind himself that he is his own guardian. His left arm is his protector, and the injury is a betrayal, so he internalizes the possibility that it could fail because that will mean there’s nothing and no one he can count on. His weakness is Kim Dan’s responsibility now and his care is insurance both medically and spiritually for Jaekyung’s strength.
Why was he so harsh to Dan, then?
I’ll remind you: Dan is his confidante and he doesn’t believe Dan actually likes him. He has moments where he feels like he can trust Dan, but Dan keeps reminding him that he cannot control thoughts or emotions of other people: he can only threaten, provoke, or bribe people to listen to him.
So he’s confused and upset when Dan leaves at night to do another job. Jaekyung didn’t question Dan personally, probably because he told himself not to care, as long as the therapist is working within the contract. But he was frustrated because there was some unknown things distracting Dan from him again. First it was loan sharks, then it was Heesung, now it’s something Dan is doing willingly. And he’s getting injured.
So when he wakes up to Dan in his bed and remembers how he let himself go the night before, his shoulder is facing upward, creating a shield around him. But his shield is fractured and weak, so he adds a robe when he goes to the kitchen and living room. The last time I remember that robe is on his day off. He was feeling a bit helpless that day too. But at that time, he drank his milk like normal. This time, he might have been rummaging for milk when the doorbell rang. That’s three interruptions to his daily routine.
1. Dan is in his bed, snuggling him. In the center of his bed.
2. He is pissed that he got drunk. He let go a lot that night, even eating cake, which he’s never eaten in our sight.
3. People are bombarding his private space, his unreachable tower at the top of the world, with their expressions of false love. He’s a minimalist. He didn’t want any of that. He wants real connections. He wants one person to care about HIM. Not out of adoration, or attraction, or profit. Kim Dan is breaking down his walls and making him believe he might actually care.
But then Dan presents Jaekyung with something he thinks Jaekyung wants. But Jaekyung, who’s used to voicing what he wants to Kim Dan, has never said he wanted objects. Things. Decorations are meaningless to him. Frivolous, fake. They cover up the reality of the bare walls, or tables, or keys. Kim Dan’s present was the only one he opened. He reached out and accepted it. He was not nauseous anymore but his head hurts. Is it actually from the alcohol? It’s probably more related to his helplessness. He can’t control his birthday, and he can’t stop people from giving him meaningless clutter. His head and his house are full of the clutter everyone forced on him and he never battles more than one thing at a time. It’s too much.
But Dan, the one person he thought got close enough to know him, gives him something similar. He didn’t take classes to make a cake for Jaekyung or come up with some kind of plan for Saturdays Jaekyung might like, nor did Dan include himself in Jaekyung’s gift. It had no warmth in it, no individuality. Once again, Jaekyung’s inner being is protected only by himself and his voice is lost to even those closest to him.
So he shuts it down. He didn’t want any of those touchy feely things, he tells himself. He doesn’t need them. He reverts back to his old ways: fight or die. He didn’t bring up the jinx or sex, but solely focused on their working relationship when he chewed Dan out. He’s distancing himself again because he perceives another betrayal. No one gets him, no one wants to. He only has one purpose and, as such, Dan also has one: fortify his shield. Brushing aside the fact that Jaekyung relies on spiritual strength to keep himself going, he tries to sterilize his weak feelings with talk of western medicine.
But this manhwa shows western medicine in a poor light. Doctors assault people, new drugs don’t work, and Jaekyung is cleared to fight by the other medics. If Kim Dan just regurgitates what the doctors tell Jaekyung, Jaekyung can’t help but feel that Dan isn’t trying. He’s not talking a different approach. He doesn’t care about Jaekyung.
Maybe you think that this is too deep for Jaekyung, but he’s given us many hints. He’s actually pretty chatty for a seme who silently fights all the time. For instance, when he went to visit Dan’s grandma he was respectful and spent time with her. She talked to him as a person, not knowing who he was. He could be anyone with her and she liked him. So it made him feel good. But then Dan made him feel like he didn’t belong there. “What, an I not allowed to be here?” He groused. He felt rejected.
Dan keeps throwing him mixed signals, so Jaekyung feels uneasy, off-kilter, and anxious. The fact that Dan got him something so… ordinary (to Jaekyung) and wasted his time doing so when the fighter just wanted his company felt similar to how his other partners perceived him as just a rich kid with a bad temper.
Jaekyung ditched the jinx talk at that moment because that aspect of their relationship has been spoiled for the moment. His emotions were unveiled to Dan the previous night, while he was out of control, and he saw evidence of his own spiritual weakness in the hickeys Dan sported. Perhaps he wasn’t ready to admit it even to himself yet. It was effectively like he put his heart on his sleeve, but it was on Dan’s neck instead. Even further out of his control. He was probably prepared to sulk about it but Dan offered a gift.
There’s something I’ve also been noticing about their hands. Dan’s hands are healing. Whenever anyone touches Jaekyung, it’s carries no warmth. But Dan is different. He holds his hands during sex, securing them so that Dan can’t touch anything else. When Dan touches him, he’s very obedient, and trusts that he will not be hurt. He lets Dan touch his face, his back, his arms. And when Dan pushes him away with his hands (not his words), Jaekyung’s own hands hang in the air, startled and empty.
When Dan hands him the bag, the focus is on the exchange between their hands. Jaekyung reaches out, but it’s like the doctor just gave him empty air again. He effectively pushed the fighter away and labeled Jaekyung a rich kid surrounded by cold, expensive objects bought online. When Jaekyung bought things online, he bought sex toys that they could use together. Things that would create warmth and softness (warmth of body and heart, and internal softness—doing it raw). Jaekyung secretly likes softness. He likes Dan’s embrace. He wants his hands to soothe him and reassure him. Dan running off without him left him cold, his sleeping during the day left Jaekyung alone, and the cold, metal keychain embodied all of those actions.
Jaekyung told Dan to focus on his physical health because he no longer trusts him with his mental health. Dealing with his jinx was becoming special to him. He enjoyed it. It probably felt like a bucket of cold water was dumped on him when Dan would rather treat Jaekyung like everyone else instead of coming up with something they could do together, like the board games. But Dan doesn’t know how to read people and he isn’t good at speaking his own mind as he’s just learning how to use it. That’s different from Jaekyung who is sharp and perceptive to the point where he won’t let anyone close without knowing that he has the upper hand. Imagine the story of the tortoise and the hare. Jaekyung figures he knows everything and sees Dan bumbling around, ignorant of the passing of time. To Jaekyung, time is everything, he’s always in a rush, always going. Dan slows him down, gets lost in the roses, and veers off track. Just when Jaekyung begins to enjoy the “roses” of life, reality reminds him that time is running out. He should just leave the turtle behind if he wants to win the race.

Sorry it was so long… um… thanks for listening to my TedTalk lol.