
so sad to see this shelved just as the plot was accelerating. i hope the author's health improves and that potentially they could revisit this story one day. it's rare to find slow burns like this one. also, cliff and ed both remind me of xie lian from TGCF in a way—the dynamic is basically martyr x martyr and i realized i actually don't see that in fiction much.

sometimes "i love you" can sound like "i will be the one to retrieve your remains." that line knocked the wind out of me. i really liked the way this story questioned what is romantic love—and the tangled threads of affection, shared history, loyalty, and responsibility that constitute it—or seem to. that it's often never as clear cut as we want it to be, and love alone isn't enough to build a life on. there is a wider world out there, something greater than ourselves. there always is. secondary to the love story, this was a lovely homage to the passion and sacrifice of journalists around the world, who do what they do at great personal risk. i thought the author handled all of this with great sensitivity and compassion. there was never a point where i disliked any of the characters, who are all trying their best in their own way to deal with grief and uncertainty. unlike some manhwa where there are reductive roles of damsel and villain, etc., here they are very human.

i'm aro ace and i've also had.. complicated relationships with social expectations and love and desire. and i've also had a stalker who was obsessed with me for 8 years and delivered crazed love letters to my house accusing me of being heartless. and threatened to kill himself. anyway that's in the past now but man is this triggering all those painful little buttons. hurt people tend to hurt themselves (and those around them) all the more. i was pleasantly surprised to find such a realistic and emotionally raw portrayal of rape trauma, depression, and even asexuality and aromanticism (though the aromanticism was brought under the umbrella of asexuality—i don't know how these concepts are viewed in korea's lgbtqa community). a fantastic but heavy and dark read.
i hope this is one of those where the aggressor seems like the fucked up one at first glance, but it's the victim (enoch) who is really twisted inside. that would be interesting..