Author's Notes + My Thoughts

I actually meant to write this a LONG time ago, but as you can see that it’s very long which is why I kept procrastinating. Anyway, below are the (two) notes the author wrote concerning the relationship between the Chairman and Mookyul. Hopefully this clears up the confusion some of the readers have.

By the way, I actually don’t know if this is considered copyright infringement which is another reason why it took me so long to post this. I do not own any part of the “Totally Captivated” series. It all belongs to Yoo Ha Jin. The first author’s note can be found on page 113 of “Diary of Sangchul and the second can be found on 125. You have to buy the book in order to read this.

“About the Secret Door:

This story isn’t about a secret door, rather it’s about Mookyul and the Chairman. Since the Secret Door publication has been canceled, I realize some of the scenes in ‘Diary of Sangchul’ may cause confusion now. So, I feel the need to five a little explanation, albeit insufficient, regarding their relationship.

First, allow me to answer the question many of you are probably the most curious about. Do they have lots of wild sex? Not really. Mookyul is 17 years-old when they first sleep together. I’ll give you the juicy details later. Chairman Lee isn’t actually gay at first. When he and Mookyul finally sleep together, they suffer all the awkwardness and unpleasantness you might imagine between first-timers. Mr. Lee eventually takes a sadistic joy in forcing various sexual favors from Mookyul, mostly oral in nature.

Naturally, some of you might be thinking, ‘Doesn’t frequent oral sex still count as lots of sex?’ Not according to Mookyul’s point-of-view. Think fellatio as largely the extent of the two men’s intimacy in the story.

If you ask Mookyul’s opinion, there’s no sex without penetration. He also believes if a couple doesn’t have sex, they can’t be considered lovers. Mookyul’s intimacy with the Chairman is his way of finding connection with his elderly mentor. Although he can survive on his own, Mookyul endures all of Chairman Lee’s abuse for this same reason. This is also why he keeps referring to his mentor as “old man” in front of others. All these choices stem from the same desire.

Mookyul predominately feels respect for the Chairman. To a young boy barely surviving as a bottom-feeder on society, the Chairman seems an extraordinary figure. Think of him as a medieval aristocrat or monk who lives strictly by his own rules. Even at home, the old man displays perfect manners, wears a tie, and dresses impeccably. He never acts outside the boundaries of his own code of conduct and aesthetics. When the jaded Mookyul realizes this behaviour isn’t an act, the revelation hits him like a culture shock. Despite being a flawed human being, the Chairman genuinely strives for an honor that Mookyul grows to admire and accept. The following pages explains how they first meet.”

Then there’s a little snippet of when Mookyul first meets the Chairman and how he tried to pickpocket him.

Not that it really matters, but from what the author says above, Mookyul and the Chairman never had penetrative sex. Mookyul does not even consider what they do as sex; it was an “activity” done to better understand the man he admires and respect. WE, the readers, and Ewon know that it is sex, but Mookyul has a twisted pov of this. Obviously this is due to his past and the influence the Chairman had on him.

Then there’s another author’s not after the snippet of their first meeting that further expands on how this twisted relationship came to be:

“Here’s the question. How does their initially heartwarming relationship end up changing so drastically? To be honest, Chairman Lee doesn’t reflect too deeply on the question. His attraction to Mookyul is a compulsion; the first time he ever wants something without weighing the pros and cons. He believes destiny bought the child to him. After their first meeting, the Chairman names the boy Mookyul Eun and gives him a home. Then, he educates his young protégé on a vast array of subjects.

Mookyul suffers some difficulties adjusting. He doesn’t want to disappoint the Chairman’s expectations, but he’s a child accustomed to living on the streets in total freedom. The young boy possesses a great passion for his education and begins displaying executive talents. As the child’s vast potential grows ever brighter, Chairman Lee learns to feel love for the first time. Despite being a strict disciplinarian in business, the old man starts creating excuses to leave work early. The two develop a very healthy relationship. These years become their happiest times together.

However, Mookyul starts feeling lonely. The Chairman isn’t marries and he knows nothing about raising children. He only has his own business-savvy father as a role model. This becomes a critical lack. Mookyul grows up without a mother, a kind maid, friends, brothers, or even distant relatives. He lives in a huge house now, but it’s still empty. He doesn’t attend school because he takes his lessons at home. There simply exists no one for Mookyul to get close to besides Mr. Lee, but even he must squeeze the boy in and out of a busy work schedule. Blind to Mookyul’s pain, the elderly man feels satisfied over the parental job he’s doing.

One day, the Chairman decides to arrange Mookyul’s marriage to an upper-class girl to establish the young boy as his heir. To this end, he introduces Mookyul to his vast social circle as a distant relative. This critical juncture is where their relationship starts to rupture.

When sent to a party to make friends, Mookyul beats up all the kids his age and comes home. Instead of scolding him, Mr. Lee asks Mookyul for an explanation. The young boy gives him a shocking answer, ‘I was almost raped.’ From that moment on, the Chairman realizes that Mookyul has a strange effect on people. When they see him, their eyes become full of desire. Suddenly, he turns overprotective.

The benevolent patriarch steadily descends down a spiral of obsession. He forbids Mookyul from having a social life. He changes all the tutors to men to prevent women from flirting. When that action proves ineffective, the Chairman fires all the tutors. He becomes extreme and places Mookyul on a lockdown, so that the boy can’t even step one foot outside the manor. Hiding the boy from the outside world, Mr. Lee eventually realizes that he himself might be seeing Mookyul in a darker light. No other person has ever made him feel such intense jealousy as Mookyul does. Frightened by his own shameful desires, even the Chairman avoids the boy.

As fate would have it, Mookyul begins puberty and starts rebelling. Attempts at parenting fail disastrously and the chasm between the two men grows wider. With impure feelings tormenting him, Mr. Lee postpones time and again announcing Mookyul as his heir. Psychologically exhausted, he receives a marriage proposal. This throws Mookyul into rage and shock. Feeling bitter over not being made a ‘Lee,’ it becomes the final straw. (Of course, Mookyul doesn’t know that the old man has no intention of following through on the marriage.)

Believing himself abandoned, Mookyul goes fully astray. He angers the Chairman by having an affair with one of the man’s close confidants. He harasses the bride-to-be. The two men eventually reach a tipping point on their emotional cliff. Their relationship falls off into a dark place they never should have gone.

They sexually cross the line. From this point on, Mookyul becomes an object of lustful desire for the Chairman, someone capable of plunging him against his will down into depravity. He considers casting everything aside and taking Mookyul as his lover, but the age difference feels too great. Miserable beyond compare, Mr. Lee helplessly watches Mookyul grow into a strong and powerful man. Meanwhile, he wastes away with age.

Up to this point, torment and insecurity have never touched the Chairman’s life. Now they do, and it’s almost too much for him to bear. He makes heroic attempts to maintain his composure, but in the end he falls prey to obsession and jealousy.

Now, it’s Mookyul’s turn to be clueless about his mentor’s feelings. He just doesn’t understand insecurity as an idea. He lacks nothing and feels no weakness. Therefore, he doesn’t care whether or not other people experience lack. People can feel pitiful just by being around him. For any person with feelings for Mookyul, love can be a tortured experience. And so, the longer the two men remain together, the more they hurt each other.

Finally the Chairman sends Mookyul to the Gangdong district office. The young man starts at the bottom and quickly rises to the top on his own merit. He meets Killer Bear and solidifies his hold on the district without the old man’s assistance. The physical distance deteriorates their relationship further into something strange. They aren’t lovers, nor are they father and son. Mookyul accepts and makes peace with this new reality. But, Mr. Lee can’t. He remains lost in a tempest of dark emotions. Unknown to Mookyul, his mentor finally reaches a psychological breaking point through various stresses.

One day, the Chairman sends a mysterious gun to Mookyul. Unaware of the gun’s true purpose, Mookyul believes it to be a gift. Suddenly, the Chairman arrives and inflicts great physical and psychological upon Mookyul. Then, as shown at the beginning of Volume 6 of “Totally Captivated,” Mookyul cries out, ‘Why on earth are you doing this to me?’ Mookyul finally realizes the purpose of the weapon and shoots the Chairman with it.

Chairman Lee wishes to die by Mookyul’s hand, but the bullet misses a vital area and he survives. The old man sighs at his unfortunate fate. He’s not even allowed to end his life in the desired manner. Mr. Lee seeks his protégé out again. Believing he had killed his only mentor, Mookyul secludes himself in sorrow. In a final act of separation, Mr. Lee splits off the Gangnam branch and gives it to Mookyul.

Mookyul is 20 years-old at this point in the story. Here’s where Mookyul says, ‘…I’ll be your obedient dog until I turn 30. But afterwards, I might turn around and rip out your throat as well,’ as seen in Volume 1. The story continues from here in ‘Dairy of Sangchul.’”

Basically Mookyul’s timeline:
• 13: meets Ewon and the Chairman (There’s a couple of months in-between the
two meetings. Also Ewon would be 10 when he met Mookyul because there’s a 3
year difference between them.)
• 15: never forgot about Ewon, but starts to desire him in a romantic way now
(Mookyul says to Ewon that he has been waiting 10 years to be with him.)
• 17: sleeps with the Chairman
• 17-19: gets sent to the Gangdong district office and meets Killer Bear (Remember
when the guys were gushing about how great a fighter Mookyul was and said
that Mookyul wasn’t even 20 when he fought Killer Bear.)
• 20: becomes in charge of Gangnam branch and this is where “Diary of Sangchul”
begins

You can’t really tell, but the “Diary of Sangchul” happens over a 5-6 year period. Mookyul is 25 years old when he meets Ewon again (confirmed by both the author in the character profiles and Sangchul in the story: Mookyul is 20 when Sangchul starts to work for him and says that he’s been with Mookyul for 5-6 years. Ewon is present for Mookyul’s 26th birthday (the ring).)

I was wondering the other day why I keep coming back to the “Totally Captivated” series because while the art is beautiful, I prefer other types more. I realized it’s because the characters are multidimensional and fascinating: both Mookyul and Ewon have so many issues that probably won’t be solved (at least not without therapy) and it’s so realistic considering what they both went through. Furthermore, the readers get to see why both characters are the way are; we get an in depth background for both. So while their relationship may be dysfunctional at times (co-dependent, possessive, etc.), it’s understandable and on the whole, as healthy of a relationship as it can be considering their current mentality.

Mookyul blurs the lines between love for a parent/authority figure and a lover, and finds nothing wrong with it. The Chairman falls between the two because although Mookyul wants parental love, he can never really have it considering the Chairman has more than platonic feelings for him. Mookyul just accepts the sexual part of their relationship, but he doesn’t consider it sex either, for it's more of trying to understand his mentor than anything else. Plus, he's unbearably lonely. Why I find their relationship so fascinating is because the only person Mookyul has ever truly loved (romantically) is Ewon and I love this so much, in a twisted way. No wonder why it would be a torturous experience for anyone in love with Mookyul.

Quite a few people did not understand or agree with how Ewon handled the situation with his sister. Sure, he probably could have done more (call child protective services or something), but I think him leaving her was probably the smartest decision he could have made. Ewon was projecting onto his little sister which should not have been the reason for wanting to raise her. He thought he could pretty much raise “himself” again and give “himself” the family he was deprived of, however he could not have provided a healthy environment for her. His sister wanted him to live with her and their mother, the woman who left him for dead. She literally abandoned him in a shack and did not care whether he lived or not. Even after all this, she practically guilted him to look after his sister after not speaking to each other for years. As long as the sister is a minor, she will have be with their mother which means Ewon will still have to interact with her even if he lives separately from them. This is not a healthy situation for any of the three to be in. Ewon made sure his sister will be taken care of financially, but he’s still not in a healthy of mentality to raise her. But the biggest reason why he left his sister is because of Mookyul. Considering all that he’s been through, Ewon deserves a little happiness which just so happens to be Mookyul so I can handle with him being selfish in this instance. He’s already suffered for 23 years and almost came very close to death, only surviving by luck. Any interaction with his family, at the moment, would be torturous.

They’re both so messed up, but when they’re together, they act like almost children and I find it beautiful that two broken children would find love with each other.