Also its not like Jihyun can't be redeemed, he just needs to be redeemed outside of Chiwoo's life. Not every relationship needs to continue. Sometimes you just need to accept that people are in your life for a fleeting moment and for your self-care and mental health, you need to let them go.
THANK YOU! I know this is "just" a webtoon, that people can get a redemption or idk what, but this isn't it and I've seen so many problematic comments here, defending Jihyun and worst, blaming Chiwoo for his behavior. When Jihyun is nothing less than an abuser. I'm sure that if it was a story about a girl and a man, and that the man acted the way Jihyun acted, everyone would see how abusive was this kind of behavior. But here, everyone are suddenly blind about that, because people love seeing story with "friends to lovers" trope? Or I don't know. Anyway, thank you for saying all of this. #TeamChiwoo
Agreed. He also preyed on these troubled students. He knows exactly what he’s doing, he’s calculating. Knowing if he did the deed himself, he’ll get in trouble and probably expelled so he roped in these students and offered to pay them money to do the dirty work. No care what so ever that this would probably ruin their life, getting expelled from school. He’s just terrible, and extremely selfish. He needs to just go far away from everyone, especially Chiwoo.
I loved you comment
What Jihyun said in ch. 37 about Chiwoo always forgiving him no matter what he did is clear foreshadowing. Chiwoo isn't going to forgive him this time around and while it sucks for him, it's necessary. No matter how you look at it, this is a story of abuse and not redemption. Maybe redemption in that Chiwoo can finally move on and accept that Jihyun is who he is , and for Jihyun letting go of Chiwoo and accepting that he hasn't been a great person and finally grow up. This needs to happen while they're away from each other and maybe they can meet 10 years later as friends or never meet again, it is what it is.
I say abuse because outside of the physical abuse, Jihyun literally meets all the requirements of a textbook abuser:
1) he uses his strength as a way to intimidate anyone around Chiwoo, either by "stealing" away his girlfriends or beating up the guys that want anything to do with him.
2) in doing this, he essentially isolates Chiwoo from others, making it so that he only has Jihyun in his life and no one else.
3) When Chiwoo finally calls him out on something, instead of taking blame, he manipulates the situation and makes it so that Chiwoo feels guilty for being upset and so Chiwoo doesnt stay as mad, when he should be. He does this by basically minimizing all the fycked up shyt he's done.
4) Even the way Chiwoo stood by Jihyun after getting severely beaten up and saying "Jihyun isn't like that" is abuse victim 101.
If they had actually dated, who knows how much worse it couldve gotten. All in all to the people that read this, please watch out for signs of abuse be it in your life or in the lives of your friends and family. It is not always physical.