Choah was the only one who actually felt love

The damage of love withheld is a consistent theme, but out of all the characters, I feel that only Jisung and Choah felt genuine love for anyone. Both Yusaran and Mujin were raised in emotionally abusive environments and nobody modeled how to love either family or lovers to them.

Jisung did have lingering feelings for Choah, but interfered more out of concern than jealousy, and as we found out, rightly so. He accepted that they weren’t going to get back together and always tried to help Choah as a friend and mentor.

Choah genuinely loved, cared for, and supported both Jisung and Mujin when he was dating them respectively, and in terms of all the skeletons in Mujin’s closet, forgave and accepted far more than most would. The only time he wavers is when he learns about how Mujin killed his family, and even then he hesitates to truly end it.

Yusaran definitely felt strong affection and a certain degree of awe/reverence for Mujin, but was it love or emotional codependency? He knew that his feelings were unrequited through no fault of Mujin’s but was so enraged by his relationship that he violently interfered. He didn’t care about Mujin’s choices or emotions, he just wanted to sabotage a relationship he was jealous of.

Choah was assaulted by both Yusaran and the Baekrang, but things may have gone very differently if not for Mujin’s lies. He only complied with Yusaran’s abuse because he made threats on Mujin’s life, and at that point Choah was under the impression he was a strong, but average person, not a powerful and accomplished warrior. If he had known Yusaran couldn’t harm Mujin, he would have been able to refuse. The incidents with Baekrang involved him trying to take advantage of Choah while he was drunk or feeling the effects of opium, and later on a bit of coercion. If he had known Mujin’s identity and history, it’s unlikely he would have let his guard down.

Mujin never cared as much about Choah’s safety or happiness as he did for his own possessiveness. And that’s where it all went downhill. He murdered all of Choah’s loved ones seemingly for the purpose of preventing them from trying to separate them and told countless lies. His self centeredness is what drove him to the violence that ultimately destroyed their relationship. Even when Baekrang referenced that he and Choah had a sexual encounter, he didn’t even question it or ask Choah, he just assumed it was true, then left his lover alone at the mercy of a psychopath for days on end. He showed his true colors. He never loved Choah. He wanted to own him, and that’s what he did once the relationship fell apart.