Why did Dohoe abandon Juyeong?
It becomes clearer in episodes 5 and 6 that these characters have deeply misunderstood each other.
There is Dohoe, who has lived with constant physical and emotional abuse from his alcoholic father. He lives with an eye to the future, merely enduring the present and waiting until he can escape. It’s not until Juyeong arrives that he expresses any real joy and lives for the now. Even then there is this specter of dread from his father’s presence. Never has a ringing phone been this oppressive.
Then there is Juyeong, the sweet sunshine boy, who was tossed out by his “loving” parents. There is little doubt that his home life is a disaster, too, but in a very different way. He may not get physical abuse, but one can assume that love and affection are withheld or used as a different sort of rod to beat him down. My guess is that he is told over and over again that he is a disappointment, until he finally internalizes this broken sense of self. Dohoe is probably the first person in forever who instinctively took his side.
This brings us to the critical moment where Dohoe almost stabs his father. It’s a gut wrenching moment, and there are a few layers to what might be going through Dohoe’s head after that.
The obvious is that he fears becoming like his dad. This is perhaps the most abhorrent thing to him.
Another layer ot that is the fear of what his love for Juyeong has driven him to contemplate. He’s never fought back against his father when he was the victim, but for the sake of Juyeong, he picked up a knife with not just an intent to hurt. I could imagine that he fears himself, because of how intense his feelings for Juyeong are. Juyeong has made him lose control.
Then there is the issue brought up in episode 5, that Juyeong fought back. Dohoe has often said that he can’t imagine why anyone would want to hit another person and now here was evidence that Juyeong didn’t take the beating but attacked back. Similar to Dohoe picking up the knife, I don’t think Juyeong did this for himself, but because he was trying to protect Dohoe.
The teens are torn apart, each weighed down by separate guilt. We have Dohoe and his guilt for having this shit father who beat Juyeong, something he knew and pretended not to so that he could keep this little island of joy with Juyeong for as long as possible.
Then Juyeong and his guilt for having ruined Dohoe’s entrance exam, when all he wanted to do was protect him. Both of them have internalized so much guilt about how they wronged the other. Dohoe takes that and runs away. Juyeong searches for him to confess and apologize. Much like their fighing styles, Juyeong attacks directly and Dohoe misdirects and avoids the fight.
Perhaps the biggest betrayal is that Juyeong returns to Dohoe’s father and becomes almost like a son to him. This is something incomprehensible to Dohoe. For Juyeong, the abuse may have been an acceptable price to pay for the chance to find Dohoe again, and an acceptable price if his family threw him out (no guarantee yet that that is what happened). There is so much about this story that is endurance in the hope of something better. Juyeong endured 12 years of waiting in a menial job in a sad lonely existence in the hope of seeing Dohoe again. For him it's not the future that is bright, but a brief moment in the past.
Part of the problem they face in the present is that Dohoe refuses to look back at the past. He keeps running and running from it. If he could take the past and torch it all, he would.
Juyeong wants to bring it up, so they can lance the wound and let it heal. They are currently at an unfortunate impasse. Juyeong rightly points out that without examining the past, Dohoe could repeat it over again.
I do love how Dohoe kisses Juyeong while the past overwhelms him. I think he tried locking it all away so tightly he has no coping mechanisms for feelings and events he never processed properly. He wants Juyeong, he’s always wanted that boy, now man, who can make him smile. Juyeong brings a lightness to his life.
Dohoe and Juyeong need to share the past, so they can understand who they are. I do wonder if that young student, Gwangho, won’t create some striking parallels that enable those two to cope with their past.
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