I have mixed feelings about how Mincheol is being portrayed and how he’s being RECEIVED because let me explain:
The author is doing a real good job at making the audience like Mincheol for how he was in the past BUT I personally can’t help but feel that he was rotten then AND now. how he was in the past and present was pre-orchestrated.
1. first of all, we all know he’s a terrible person for what he’s done to Haesoo in the present that you think how could a person change so much but… is it all that surprising?
if we take a look at things he’s said about Haesoo in his mind, it’s things like “to me, na haesoo is like a flower that I picked carelessly when I was young… one that no longer knows how to set its thorns” (that shows he thinks haesoo would never object to much since she doesn’t know how to) “na haesoo, the symbol of my youthful misery” (youthful misery is an interesting set of words, makes you think about how he feels about her and their past together) it seems like from even back then, he only picked to date Haesoo for his own selfish reasonings that we just don’t know yet. if that’s what he thinks to himself now, isn’t that what he thought back then as well? we know his backstory of how in his youth, he had no one to rely on because his parents and grandparents died and maybe he wanted someone who he knew was weaker than him to obsess over him so that no matter what, he would never be alone because she would always come crawling back to her “knight in shining armour”. We know of course she was abused by her father but living on the same street as each other, he definitely knew that as well. It also didn’t help that she always had wounds in every flashback meaning she’d show up to school like that as well, clearly visible for him to see so it definitely wasn’t hard for him to pick someone “weaker”.
2. We know he’s a wicked good manipulator, what he said to Ari to make her forgive him was beyond good, I won’t even lie like thinking about it I would even fall for that but he said that BECAUSE he knew she’d forgive him. it’s not a coincidence that he did that and she forgave him.
If we take a look back at some of Haesoo’s memories, I feel like he did that to her even back before he started to show his real self. He used Haesoo’s name to take a loan out and it backfired on them. When she recalls that memory, he says specifically “I was trying to cheer you up but it didn’t work out” cheer her up from?…. possibly from her finding out she can’t have children or possibly from them not getting married, either way something bad enough where the thought that he would go out of his way to cheer her up would make her happy despite of course it being something bad. he knew she’d forgive him anyways. that’s manipulation tactic 1.
In that same timeline through a flashback Haesoo has later on, we see loan sharks presumably, trashing her home and she yells to them “I’ll pay you back stop!” and after they leave, Mincheol is hugging her saying “I’m sorry. If you pay this debt, we’ll definitely remarry”. Thinking back at his words he used specifically YOU. not WE. If YOU pay this debt…. he’s putting the problem on her and then “rewarding” her with something afterwards. Another form of manipulation. He put the loan under her name and then used her afterwards to pay back HIS debt but to manipulate her into doing it, he pretends to give her a reward, something he knows she wants so it’ll work. and what she wanted was to get remarried. He even says after, “let’s make sure to live happily ever after then” That’s manipulation tactic 2.
Manipulation tactic 3 is an easy one to spot. Every time he’s nice to her and asks for something, he touches her. This makes her equate his touch to feelings of love. He’s nice every time he touches her so she’ll start to remember his touches = his love. But while he does that, he always reinforces her mind at the same time. In chapter 4, he gets angry at her for sewing up a worn out shirt and for being a “pitiful woman where men won’t like her” but then he hugs her and says “without me, who else will love you. After all, I’m the only one, right?” and she responds with yes. He can insult her all he wants but his reinforcement of touching her and saying nice things at the same time, warms her heart.
3. To talk about his character more, it’s not yet known why they divorced in the first place. We see them get their marriage registration and what they plan to do later but we never see them divorce and the reasoning for it. My hunch is that it was because Haesoo can’t have children. When Ari asks Mincheol what his ideas of marriage are, he imagines him and Haesoo with a child and he says “a cute child who resembles us.” when Ari asks if he wants to be a dad, he says “yeah. I did.” He then thinks about how it would’ve been a luxury to have children anyway, and that makes me think his bitter feelings of one, not having a child and two, not having any money for children anyway makes him “hate” Haesoo more. The imagery he has when Ari asks him that question makes me puzzled a bit. He imagined him and Haesoo with a child. I understand why, but I wonder if he understands it. He, remarkably so, does love haesoo. It’s a very very toxic relationship and he doesn’t love her like any normal person but he himself doesn’t know just to what extent he loves her. More than once, he’s also asked if she’s jealous. He thinks by her being jealous, she’s still in love with him. (Proof being when he says to himself “Does Haesoo really love me? She’s always so cold, without any cuteness. It’s frustrating, no matter what I do, she just stands there like an emotionless doll…. [recalling the memories of her being jealous] I got angry but actually, I felt a little good. Even you, who’s always so cold, makes that kind of face because of me.”) He wants her to be weak, to love him no matter what. That’s how he’s always thought of her. Someone without thorns, who would be okay with anything. And that’s just going to make the revenge all more sweet. He thinks he’s so okay without her, that he can come back to that house and she’ll be waiting for him no matter what (proof being that in one scene where Ari asks if she can visit his home and he starts to think “if I lived with a women like this [life would be easier] but then, what about na haesoo? [she] will still be in that place even if I leave her. Keeping that miserable home waiting for me to come back, Na Haesoo”) but he doesn’t even know himself that he’s the one that will fall apart without her. (PROOF AGAIN BEING, when Ari came to his home and was shivering, he thought back to a time Haesoo was shivering during the night. He wanted to comfort her and hold her but the reminder of her rejecting him before when he tried to have sex with her stopped him from doing so. He wouldn’t have thought to do it at all had he not loved her. In that same memory, he says to himself “[Having sex with Ari] in the place where Na Haesoo always stayed.” He said where HAESOO, specifically using her name instead of saying in a place WE both stayed. This shows he equates the reluctance to how she would feel, by only using her name and thinking about only her. He also says “At some point, it became familiar to me seeing you sleep with your back to me. As if engraving a permanent scar, I keep getting broken and broken again, we keep breaking and getting broken, and it continues. Strangling love with poverty and misfortune.” He’s thought to himself already that he’s hurt by her coldness towards him. Which entices him to cheat, with a woman who “is willing to walk into this hell on her own”. A person cheats because they are lonely. He’s the one lonely without her, and he doesn’t even know it) To touch on that last statement he makes as well, “strangling love with poverty and misfortune”, he equates their relationship with poverty. How he’s always bringing up their shabby and rundown home, how she’s always in that cold and miserable place. He hates that they live there. But he’s never once thought about how he hates living there with HER. He’s already built this idea within himself that she’s his. But once he loses her, all the emotions he doesn’t even know he has for her will come flooding in.
If you’ve read this all, thank you very much for your time. If you didn’t, thank you for clicking anyways.
Here I go writing think pieces again.
I know this is a short story and I like reading it back every now and then because I like it but I was reading this time and I decided to look too far into details that may not mean anything.
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Ultimately, everyone's relationship in this manga except for Ohno and Mahiro's is surface level. I think that's what's so interesting to me.
For starters, I know this is a short light story about unrequited love and such but I find it interesting that we never find out Chiho's full name. This could just be because she's only important to push Mahiro and Sousuke together. Of course the characters know each others full names, but I find it interesting that the reader isn't told her full name because WHO she is as a person really isn't important in the story.
Mahiro thinks about Chiho but it only seems to come up when she's feeling bad about pinning on Sousuke. On the other hand, we've seen Chiho think of Mahiro when she wonders what her opinion would be about one of her outfits for the school festival. We never really see Chiho and Mahiro hang out that much, and the times that we do they're studying and it seems they usually go to Chiho's house. That makes me wonder if Chiho is usually the one to reach out so they can hang out. We don't really see them hanging out outside of studying or maybe that one scene where they watch a movie together. It makes me wonder if they're even really close enough to call each other best friends or friends bc it seems like they're just acquaintances at most.
2) Speaking of Mahiro, I know it was basically love at first sight but I can't help but think her attraction was heightened because she wanted the relationship that Sousuke and Chiho had. She moved three times in one year, and seems to never be rooted in one place. That can be a very traumatic experience for kids to go through so it's no wonder that she's not great at making friends. Also, in chapter 3 when she thinks "I don't have room to get in-between them." I know she tried to shake that train of thinking off but I just kept wondering if she actually "liked" Sousuke, or if she liked the relationship that he and Chiho had and wanted that for herself. I think this goes into the instability in her life with moving so much because of her dads job, she wishes she had a close friend and what that would be like. She sees the stable friendship that Sousuke and Chiho have from the outside and wants that for herself. I can't blame her for seeing a stable relationship and wanting to experience it to.
With her "considerate" attitude, I can't blame her for it too much because she's probably been told her whole life to think of how her dad or others felt, "oh this is just how it is and it's very hard for all of us including your dad, it's just how it is." She even gave her bigger room to her sister so she wouldn't throw a tantrum. No one thinks of how she feels lol.
Speaking of this, her dad just needs to be a working man on the road while the family lives in one spot or he needs to find another job because it's very irresponsible to keep uprooting your family like that. From what Mahiro has said, they've been consistently moving a lot since she was a kid, they need to rest.
3) Moving on to Sousuke, I couldn't help but wonder if he likes the fact that Mahiro is a push-over. I know he said that she's considerate, but let's keep it real... she's a push-over. "I can't seem to leave you alone," Alright...
I think this also goes into Sousuke's dynamics with his friends, peers, and family. His dad doesn't seem to be home very much, if he's even in the picture, which would lead Sousuke to becoming the main masculine figure in the house. I say this because his mother doesn't seem to whine about getting tickets to the school festival for her, the dad, and the younger brother.. Just her and the younger brother. I know he was in the third chapter in the flashback (cut off but we still see him) but we don't really see him afterwards. He could be working elsewhere tbh but he doesn't seem to be very present from what we can tell.
Being relied on by his mom and younger brother probably gives him a lot of validation but over time that can turn into resentment especially since his mom doesn't seem too strict or mature. We already see that Chiho relies on him sometimes, but I think as they grew older she relied on him less because she stood up on her own. I wonder if this is a reason he doesn't like her romantically because she doesn't "need" him.
Then there's something about Sousuke saying to Mahiro, "when you smile it makes me like myself." In the last chapter that doesn't quite sit right with me. I thought it was cute the first time I read it but as I've continued to come back and re-read, I'm now rubbing my chin about this.
4) Does Chiho actually like Sousuke or does she like the feeling of superiority she gets with being around him? It's the latter, she said it herself. He's good at sports, popular, and sought after and because she's closest to him and everyone wants to be her because of that then it means she's special. She gets validation just by being with him, she gets to be "not like other girls." I think she has a valid reason for liking him as they've always been together, and he's been a comforting piler in her life but I think it's just puppy love tbh.
That being said, when she confronts him if he's thinking about Mahiro because she's "her" friend or if she's Mahiro. I thought that was interesting choice of words tbh. I think she also worries being or feeling left out (symbolism with the popsicles) I wonder if her saying Mahiro was "her" friend was Chiho feeling possessive of her, or Chiho trying to jab Sousuke for making her feel cast aside. I wouldn't blame her if she felt that way since he went over to her house to ask Chiho to the bbq and to invite Mahiro, when they were at the festival he blurted out that he asked Mahiro to join then ran off when he saw her, then brought her up at the festival instead of giving her a proper answer to her confession.
I can't help but wonder if Sousuke was aware of Chiho's feelings this entire time and chose not to think about them just to make himself feel comfortable. But if he did know, bringing up Mahiro constantly would seem a bit cruel. Especially when he said, he said "we might be even closer than with you, Chiho!" Like... why would you say that??? (He's jealous and wants to be the closest one to Mahiro but still lmao)
If they "were" that close, we should have seen Sousuke and Chiho's goodbye just as we saw Mahiro and Chiho's because they've known each other longer. The ending made me wonder if they even kept in contact with Chiho after they started dating for a month because it seems like her and Mahiro didn't talk during that time... which is strange if they're besties?? That makes me also wonder if Chiho and Sousuke were talking.
I thought about why Chiho would run away to Australia but honestly, if my crush since childhood started dating and prancing around with my "best friend", I'd run away too
ngl. (￣∇￣")
5) But this goes into Sousuke and Mahiro's relationship being very surface level. We just don't have a lot of context in their relationship to fully understand why they like each other outside of attraction. Since they're still young that might not matter but I can't see them making it past first year of college if they even make it to that point in the first place. Her and Ohno have more in common than she does with Sousuke, because we were able to see that. We don't get to see her and Sousuke really hanging out to understand what their dynamic would be, or even why we should root for them. We know they both can't stand horror so they could bond over that, but what else...
I can already see the big communication issues they're going to have because of Mahiro's lack-of-confidence, and Sousuke's seeming lack-of-action. Speaking on this, if Mahiro is considerate to the point of being a push over, I can see Sousuke being inconsiderate to the point of being oblivious.
Honestly, this relationship might just crash and burn because Mahiro's family will probably pack up and move again, or they'll have communication issues... which won't really be resolved because... you guessed it-- Mahiro's family will pack up and move again.
But I think there might be something in Chiho being left out or "replaced." Idk I feel very sad for her, like where will she be in the friend group when she comes back... Like, she doesn't go to their school so meeting up would be hard, then she'd have to hang out with the two of them and they'd all be moving not to step on each others toes so it would just be awkward. The talk of romance would be thrown out the window unless Chiho gets a bf, even then if that happens and it gets to a point where they feel comfortable speaking about their relationship to Chiho then she'll just be in the middle. Esp if Mahiro and Sousuke fight, and if that happens I think Chiho would 100% defend Sousuke unless it was something definitively his fault.
so I think the friendship is def broken tbh ╮(￣▽￣)╭
Anyways, I wrote this instead of finishing my assignments that are due at midnight. If you read this far tell me what you think I guess lol !