A lot of people are feeling sad for big bro. I am too. But people are arguing that he’s changed in this life but I don’t think that’s the case. I think he’s just learned what he can get away with and what he can’t. He’s learned that keeping Taehyuk captive only ends in disaster so he did whatever else he could to subtly keep them apart.
It’s damning that in one of his past lives, he collected all those dragon books just to destroy them, so that Taehyuk would have no way to learn more whenever he reincarnated. Also he was lowkey (but not forcefully) discouraging Taehyuk early on from continuing to associate with Hyo-un. He told Taehyuk to give up “pandering to the dragon” after things weren’t going well in the first few days. And when Taehyuk told Hyo-un that he wasn’t his mate (or so he though at the time) and upset him, big bro is the one who SUGGESTED finding Hyo-un’s “real mate” and got that ball rolling.
He doesn’t actually care about Taehyuk’s happiness, he only wants to maintain his slightly healthier relationship that he has with him in this life. I’m not sure if Taehyuk recognized the depth of his continued obsession but I can still see it; he’s only gotten better at reigning it in and recognizing the limits of how much you can successfully manipulate other human beings.
Time to change the name of this webtoon to “My Barista Is a Dragon??” or something
Loll love it!!