Please support the authors by reading Manhwas on the official websites. This is where you can read the Manhwa: Jinx  But be aware that the Manhwa is a mature Yaoi, which means, it is about homosexuality with explicit scenes. Here is the link of the table of contents about Jinx. Here is the link where you can find the table of contents of analyzed Manhwas. Here are the links, if you are interested in the first work from Mingwa, BJ Alex,  and the 2 previous essays about Jinx The missed Party and This has to change

It would be great if you could make some donations/sponsoring: Ko-fi.com/bebebisous33  That way, you can support me with “coffee” so that I have the energy to keep examining Manhwas. Besides, I need to cover up the expenses for this blog.

Introduction: The Return of the Smile

In the essay The Magic Of Numbers“ I established that Kim Dan’s number is 8. It is therefore no coincidence that the arc from chapter 80 to 89 should revolve around him—his body, his suffering, and ultimately his recovery. The number 8, often associated with balance, renewal, and continuity, here signals not only the doctor’s rebirth but also the gradual thawing of his frozen world. It marks the moment when the past can no longer remain buried, when the last remnants of family and unspoken pain begin to surface. The mystery behind this phone call will be soon revealed. (chapter 19)

But number 8 also carries the shape of infinity—two circles joined together, like mirrored reflections. That shape finds a narrative equivalent in the duality between chapter 26 and chapter 62, two episodes that mirror one another in tone and structure, each revolving around a match between the same pair of men, yet charged with opposite meanings.

In chapter 26, (chapter 26) the sparring between Joo Jaekyung and Kim Dan unfolds under the sign of fun and apparent joy, yet its origin lies in jealousy. The champion, unconsciously triggered by the doctor’s closeness with Potato (chapter 25), turns play into a contest—a way to reclaim attention. (chapter 25) The gym, usually a place of hierarchy, momentarily becomes a stage where both can laugh, but beneath that laughter runs an undercurrent of rivalry (with Potato). On the other hand, for the first time, the Manhwa allows both protagonists to exist outside the economy of debt and hierarchy. The gym, normally a place of discipline and work, transforms into a playground of laughter. The champion teases the doctor (chapter 26), and the latter, clumsy but determined, strikes back with surprising boldness. The crowd cheers, not for the fighter but for the therapist—the underdog, the one who usually stands in the shadow. The entire scene feels like a short-lived holiday, a suspension of order and pain. When Kim Dan smiles at the end of the match, the gesture radiates genuine lightness: he has momentarily escaped the burden of fear and experienced himself as a free, living body. (chapter 26) He believes he has accomplished something meaningful and feels, perhaps for the first time, proud of himself. He was taught that he could fight back and overcome his fear.

For Joo Jaekyung, that smile and the embrace are transformative — it increases his longing and jealousy. (chapter 26) He realizes that the hamster can beam at others, that such light has never been directed at him. In that instant, he no longer sees an employee but a companion whose gaze and embrace he covets, whose approval he unconsciously seeks.
The irony is that this entire moment of joy—cheered by the crowd and crowned by Dan’s smile—does not truly belong to either of them: it was sparked by insecurity and ends with displacement, since the prize is not for Dan but for Potato.
The apparent playfulness of chapter 26 thus conceals the second flicker of possessiveness, the growing not of harmony but of desire distorted by envy and insecurities. Under this new light, it dawned on me why the athlete came to accept the day-off shortly after. That way, he could get the doctor’s attention exclusively. The sparring also lets transpire the lack of reflection and communication between the two protagonists: both act on impulse, guided by prejudice and unconscious desire rather than understanding. Under this perspective, it becomes comprehensible why such a day was not renewed.

Its negative reflection emerges in chapter 62. (chapter 62) The atmosphere is brighter in color but colder in tone. There, Joo Jaekyung got to experience how Kim Dan has lived all this time, helping others, making them happy with his assistance. (chapter 62) Here, the protagonist was thinking all the time of his loved one: (chapter 62) Indirectly, he hoped to get the doctor’s attention, but he failed. In fact, none of the wolf’s good actions got noticed by his fated partner. Interesting is that though the characters engage in acts of performance and service—helping others, pleasing strangers— their smiles have turned into masks. (chapter 62) (chapter 62) Where chapter 26 radiated spontaneity, this one reveals calculation and fatigue. (chapter 62) Kim Dan’s expression, caught between mockery and shame, no longer conveys joy but self-devaluation. When he tells Joo Jaekyung that it would be “better to sleep with you and make ten grand more,” his forced smile becomes an act of resistance, an ironic declaration of power from someone who feels powerless. He speaks like a man who has accepted his own degradation, using cynicism to mask humiliation and resent.

To conclude, in episode 62, the positions are reversed—Joo Jaekyung becomes the one giving and laboring, and Kim Dan the one silently “observing” the other. The wolf now experiences what the hamster has long endured: the exhaustion of constant care and absence of true recognition. What had once been play has become obligation. Even the visual composition reinforces the shift—the closed gym of chapter 26 (a controlled microcosm of emotion) (chapter 26) is replaced by the open, sunlit town of chapter 62 (chapter 62), where exposure to others leaves both men strangely isolated. The happiness of the crowd no longer unites; it separates. The champion’s outfit, ridiculous and domestic (chapter 62), underlines this reversal: he has become what the doctor used to be—the invisible worker behind others’ comfort. It is in this time that he first feels something he cannot name—Kim Dan’s coldness. (chapter 62) which is actually his true nature. I will elaborate more further below. For the first time, the wolf looks at his companion and senses distance instead of warmth, as though the man he once touched so easily has withdrawn behind glass. His thought—“Has he always been this cold?”—marks the beginning of introspection, the moment when perception replaces instinct.

This opposition between the lightness of 26 and the heaviness of 62 charts their evolution from instinctive joy to emotional paralysis. It also prepares the ground for chapter 80, which opens under the sign of thin ice. The phrase crystallizes all that has been building: the recognition of distance, the fragility of contact, and the dawning understanding that what lies frozen between them is not hostility—but pain. (chapter 80) To “walk on thin ice” is to approach him gently, without force—a lesson the champion must learn if he wishes to thaw what has been frozen by years of duty and self-denial.

The presence of number 8 reinforces this cyclical motion. Its shape—two mirrored loops—suggests both reflection and reunion. The same way the sparring and seaside episodes mirror each other, the coming arc (80–89) promises to close the loop while opening a new beginning. In the first loop, Kim Dan smiled for the first time; in the second, he must learn to smile again, but this time from within. Likewise, Joo Jaekyung must learn to elicit that smile not through force or gifts, but through fun, patience, attention, and warmth. If the earlier arcs taught him that sex is not intimacy, the “thin ice” chapter teaches him that care is not control. (chapter 80) Hence he made this mistake: he threw the doctor’s clothes without the owner’s consent.

When chapter 80 was released, many readers described their relationship as a slow burn. Yet the expression misleads: to burn implies fire, but the episode’s dominant color is blue (chapter 80) (chapter 80), not red. The atmosphere is fluid, reflective, submerged. Water—not flame—governs this new stage. What we witness is not combustion but fusion—ice meeting water, solid meeting liquid, two states of the same element touching at last. Ice does not just melt under fire; but also in the presence of water. It softens when it recognizes itself in another form. In that sense, Joo Jaekyung’s tenderness doesn’t heat Kim Dan—it mirrors him. The thaw begins not through passion, but through likeness, through quiet recognition. This signifies that Joo Jaekyung is on his way to discover their similarities: they both suffered from bullying and abandonment issues and they love each other.

This new fluidity finds its first visual expression in their smiles. When Kim Dan floats in the pool, smiling (chapter 80) —his joy is spontaneous, detached from duty, born from play rather than service. It is his first genuine smile since the sparring match in chapter 26, but this time it arises not from competition, only from freedom. In the same chapter, Joo Jaekyung’s grin (chapter 80) at the board game table mirrors that moment: his smile is light, childlike, uncontaminated by dominance. Yet, tellingly, they do not smile together. Each glows in isolation, unaware of the other’s joy. Doc Dan has not realized it yet: he is the wolf’s source of happiness, he is the only one who can make him laugh and smile. (chapter 27) Thus I came to the following deduction. This is the emotional geometry of the arc 80–89: two smiles moving toward synchrony, two currents approaching convergence. Both need to experience that they make each other happy. Kim Dan on Thin Ice thus begins where the infinite loop of 8 converges—between warmth and coldness, joy and fatigue, play and labor. It is here, in this fragile equilibrium—where ice and water finally coexist—that both men begin, at last, to thaw. And the latter implies emancipation

The Gaze That Heals

While Jinx-philes were moved by the final scene (chapter 80), I have to admit that my favorite part was this one (chapter 80), as it exposes the real metamorphosis from the “wolf”. The night Joo Jaekyung watches Kim Dan sleep is not erotic; it is revolutionary. For once, his desire gives way to perception and attentiveness. The fighter who has conquered bodies now studies one that is quietly losing its battle. The body before him is not the sculpted strength he knows, but a map of deprivation: protruding collarbones (chapter 80), visible neck tendons, the knobby finger joints and his stiff fingers resting on the blanket as if holding the body together. (chapter 80) The pale, bluish hue of the skin—half light, half illness—tells him what no words ever have.

He sees, with a clarity that frightens him, that Kim Dan’s suffering is written into every small detail: the cracked lip that never healed (chapter 80), the faint opacity of the nails (chapter 80), the uneven pulse beneath thin skin. The dark circles under the eyes look like bruises from sleeplessness and neglect. (chapter 80) In the faint parting of the mouth he sees not seduction, but exhaustion—a man so depleted that even rest demands effort. (chapter 80) Each sign carries both a clinical and emotional meaning: anemia, malnutrition, overwork… but also silence, restriction, and the long habit of disappearing.

For the first time, the star understands that Kim Dan’s “coldness” is not rejection—it is the surface of survival. Like ice, it protects what lies beneath. The doctor’s body is a frozen landscape, and the champion feels its fragility in his own chest. He recognizes the paradox: endurance has become danger. Kim Dan lives, but on “thin ice,” sustained only by stillness, by refusing to move too fast or feel too deeply. From this recognition (“Kim Dan is a mess”) comes a subtle but decisive change: (chapter 80) he begins to treat rest not as weakness, but as reverence. (chapter 13) The fighter who once mocked stillness as laziness now finds meaning in it.

This realization quietly rewrites his routine. The very next day, he takes a day off (chapter 80) — not from exhaustion, but from understanding. The rhythm of his life starts to synchronize with the doctor’s vulnerability. Time, once his most tightly guarded possession, now bends around another person’s needs. Without noticing, he has allowed Kim Dan to become the owner of his hours — a quiet dethronement that signals love in its earliest, purest form. Moreover, Jinx-philes should realize that the moment the star made this decision, (chapter 80), it signifies that he will have to dedicate his time to the physical therapist! Hence his routine and training could get affected, just like their weekends. (chapter 78)

The contrast to their first nights together could not be sharper. Back then, he had stood over the bed with amused irony (chapter 13) Now, the same posture carries care instead of mockery. The body he once saw as an object of conquest has become a presence that dictates the pace of his own life. Watching over him no longer feels like indulgence; it feels necessary. Even his position in the room betrays the transformation.
In the beginning, he stood at the foot of the bed, gazing down—a posture of control, evaluation, and reproach. The man towering over the bed was a passive bystander, not a participant. But now, in episode 80, he takes a place by Kim Dan’s side. (chapter 80) The shift is quiet but momentous: he no longer guards from afar, he keeps vigil.

Standing beside the bed means stepping into the space once occupied by the caregiver (chapter 80) —the doctor (chapter 13), the family member (chapter 56), the one who stays close enough to touch if needed. (chapter 80) Without realizing it,the athlete has inherited that role. His nearness is no longer intrusive but protective. He has crossed the invisible threshold that separates obligation from affection. The fighter who once stood as an outsider in the doctor’s life now finds himself within its most intimate circle.

This spatial change mirrors his emotional movement: from detachment to empathy, from possession to presence. The body language of care replaces the body language of power. In sitting beside Kim Dan rather than standing above him, Joo Jaekyung becomes not the master of another’s body but the keeper of another’s rest.

Interesting is that though he didn’t sleep much, he doesn’t look exhausted and irritated. He seems serene and sharp. (chapter 80) Compare his facial expression to the hamster’s before their first day off together. (chapter 27) That way, Mingwa can outline the champion’s confidence and that the one who needed the rest is the physical therapist and not the champion.

The wolf’s gaze becomes the only warmth in the room. He does not reach out (chapter 80), though every muscle in his body aches to hold the hand (chapter 80) or touch the cracked lip (chapter 80), to convey his feelings. His affection, however, means nothing to the physical therapist’s rest and health. The doctor’s body, frail and still, does not respond to care or desire; it demands only caring silence. In that quiet, Jaekyung learns the hardest lesson of love: that sometimes the truest act of tenderness is restraint.

This moment also reveals something else—the doctor has truly become the apple of the wolf’s eye, the new version of this night. (chapter 69) Every flicker of light falls through The Emperor’s gaze and lands on Kim Dan’s form, transforming weariness into something sacred. (chapter 80) The fighter who once devoured the world with his eyes now looks with respect and affection. For the first time, his vision is not about conquest but about keeping another safe within its circle. His restriction is new. It is care learned through self-control, tenderness born from awe. His breath slows; his eyes soften. The man who once equated intimacy with possession now discovers that looking—truly looking—is the most intimate act of all.

The blue – lavender light surrounding them reinforces the metaphor. It is the color of water and sleep, of cold surfaces beginning to thaw. Kim Dan lies motionless, preserved like something precious yet endangered. The champion’s reflection flickers faintly in his eyes, merging the observer and the observed. For a heartbeat, they exist in a fragile equilibrium: one watching, one resting—both suspended between warmth and coldness, touch and distance.

This scene echoes the earlier moment of thin ice. (chapter 80) The same expression that once described Kim Dan’s emotional isolation now describes the celebrity’s transformation. His vision becomes both diagnosis and confession: he is seeing the cost of the doctor’s gentleness—and his own role in it. But unlike before, he does not panic. His calmness is the proof of change. The fighter who once solved everything through haste and impulvisity now heals through stillness and meditation.

And beneath that calmness, desire hums—not lust, but devotion and gentleness. The longing to touch remains, but it is tempered by something holier: the wish not to harm what is fragile. (chapter 80) His eyes linger on the hand, the mouth, the neck, the pulse, as if memorizing every scar. The desire to kiss or caress or hold becomes indistinguishable from the desire to protect. Watching thus becomes loving.

However, seeing and knowing are not enough. Observation without action leaves the sportsman powerless, and he senses this instinctively. Therefore he decides to become proactive. (chapter 80) This reminded me of his earlier words (chapter 68) in the bathtub (chapter 68) —“I’ll keep him right here in the palm of my hand”—echo now with quiet irony. To hold someone in one’s hand is, paradoxically, to immobilize them; it grants possession but denies agency. The same gesture that promises safety also enacts paralysis. His possessiveness, once mistaken for protection, now appears as helplessness.

In episode 68, the champion’s vow came from the fear of loss: he wanted to keep Kim Dan close, even “in his sorry state.” Yet that very desire to hold became a form of harm, preventing the other from moving, breathing, or healing. At the same time, it implies a certain arrogance, as he saw himself as superior. The scene at the dock taught him two important life lessons: his ignorance and his powerlessness. Therefore it is no coincidence that the couple remained distant despite the athlete’s resolution and desire. (chapter 80) Now, standing beside the bed, the MMA fighter begins to understand the futility of that grasp. He cannot hold Kim Dan; he can only stay by his side and help him to become stronger. (chapter 80) Thus he teaches him swimming. This gesture is not trivial: it marks the moment when care turns into collaboration and liberation, when watching becomes doing.

The champion is now surpassing the halmoni, who is characterized by helplessness and passivity. (chapter 78) She preferred sending her grandson away rather than witnessing his pain, and she delegated all responsibility to Joo Jaekyung and the doctors. Jaekyung, in contrast, remains. (chapter 80) He refuses to look away. His decision to act—to adjust his own schedule, to become the one who teaches and supports—stands as a quiet correction of the grandmother’s withdrawal. Where she turned distance into protection, he transforms proximity into healing.

What Joo Jaekyung experiences that night is not pity, but awakening and true love. The sight of Kim Dan’s frailty lifts the last veil between body and soul. The ice has not yet melted, but beneath it, water is stirring.

The Body on Thin Ice

The hamster’s sleeping posture reinforces the entire metaphor of fragility and restriction. (chapter 80) He lies flat, one hand pressed lightly over his abdomen, as if to hold himself together. The gesture reads as instinctive self-protection — the body sheltering its core. His other arm stretches outward, straight and tense, a symbolic bridge that never reaches. Even at rest, he remains poised between holding and fleeing.

The straightened legs and smooth blanket line betray control rather than rest. The bed looks like a stage where sleep must be performed properly — cautious, quiet, unwrinkled. His facial muscles and neck stay taut; his breathing shallow. It’s the posture of someone who fears danger and never truly stops bracing for impact.

Like Jinx-lovers might have noted, this state of vigilance doesn’t end when he wakes. Kim Dan often jolts (chapter 80) at his fated partner’s approach, flinching when a hand brushes too near and makes a loud sound (chapter 79), (chapter 80) shrinking back when confronted. The body remembers the threat long after the mind tries to forget. (chapter 79) He lives suspended between two survival reflexes: freezing or fleeing. Since the contract binds him to stay, he cannot physically run away; therefore, his body freezes instead. It is his way of obeying while still protecting himself. Exhaustion becomes his armor. And now, you comprehend why the celebrity could detect the coldness in the “hamster” in front of the hospice. (chapter 62) He had sensed that the physical therapist was just surviving. On the other hand, he had perceived a glimpse of the hamster’s true nature. Helping others had never been an act of love, rather the expression of belonging and low self-esteem. In reality, he was quite distant to people. Hence he never meddled with the nurses at the Light of Hope.

Yet, in chapter 79, the polarity inverted. The coldness that once protected Jaekyung — the cold gaze meant to conceal jealousy and insecurities (chapter 79) — now turned outward and wounded the one he wished to protect. (chapter 79) That icy look became a mirror: it froze Kim Dan’s small confidence, reinforcing his belief that he would always displease or fail others. Since his return to the gym, the doctor feared the emperor’s next outburst, walking on eggshells and suppressing every impulse to speak or move freely. (chapter 79) Thus he clinched onto routine to maintain a normal relationship. But once the champion voiced his dissatisfaction (masking his jealousy), the light in the doctor’s gaze vanished. (chapter 79)

This explains why during his dissociative state/sleep walking, he almost fell from the railing. (chapter 79) His unconscious was telling him to flee, as he feared the athlete. To conclude, he was always one step away from collapse. In symbolic terms, he had become ice itself — air and water solidified, transparent yet untouchable. Keep in mind that according to me, the clouds embody the physical therapist. (chapter 38) Born on December 26th, his very birthday ties him to winter, to the paradox of beauty that burns when touched. That’s why I can’t help myself thinking that the physical therapist is actually embodied by the snow. Ice and snow preserve, but they also isolate.

The traces of ice and snow had already been quietly planted before this moment. When the dark-haired little boy stood outside calling his mother in chapter 72 (chapter 72), snow was falling — a silent mirror of his loneliness, the frozen residue of a home that no longer existed. Later, in chapter 77, the motif returned as ice cream (chapter 77): a sweet that melts too quickly to be shared. Neither man truly appreciated it; both were too absorbed in their own thoughts to enjoy the fleeting pleasure. These missed opportunities — to taste, to feel, to be present — form the emotional prelude to the “thin ice” arc.

Now, by recognizing the frost in Kim Dan — his stillness, his cold hands, his distance — Jaekyung stars to grasp the nature of warmth itself. What he once read as indifference, he now perceives as endurance. The discovery transforms him: he starts to blush not out of victory or drunkenness, but out of attraction. (chapter 80) His smile is still too attached to victory. (chapter 80) His decision to teach Kim Dan how to swim grows naturally from this awakening. It’s no longer about strength or instruction, but about movement, fluidity, and shared rhythm — the passage from rigidity (ice) to flow (water), from surviving to living.

In this logic, Kim Dan becomes snow itself — transparent, pure, and painfully transient. Snow is beautiful precisely because it melts; it asks to be held gently, without possession. The author’s gradual introduction of ice, snow, and water thus maps the emotional chemistry between them. Ice was their misunderstanding, snow their revelation, and water will be their reconciliation.

The icy phase reached its climax during the scene in chapters 63–64, when the champion (chapter 63), desperate to restore closeness, mistook passion and pleasure (chapter 63) for repair. Believing that physical heat could melt emotional frost (chapter 64), he tried to burn away the distance through souvenirs (evoking the night in the States) and desire. Yet the more he tried to ignite fire, the more he fed the cold. (chapter 64) The physical act, rather than fusing them, exposed the truth he had refused to see — that his partner was already freezing from within. On the other hand, during this night, the athlete used “self-control” for the first time, his roughness in bed started vanishing. (chapter 64) The wolf’s attempt to “burn the bridge” between them became the very thing that broke it. His flame met ice (chapter 64), and the result was not warmth but steam — a brief illusion of intimacy that vanished as soon as Kim Dan pulled away. His rejection wasn’t cruelty but a cry of despair, disillusion and exhaustion (chapter 64): a body too cold to burn, a heart too tired to love and fight.

That night, Jaekyung finally learned that fire alone cannot sustain love. Real warmth demands attention, genuine selflessness, not possession. Only by recognizing Kim Dan’s fragility — his snow-like transparency, his quiet endurance — can he begin to love without wounding.

Through the act of teaching and learning to swim, Jaekyung will learn what he never knew before: that love isn’t about breaking or conquering (chapter 80), but about melting together, letting warmth and cold coexist without annihilating each other. To melt together does not mean to dissolve into sameness, but to trust that proximity will not destroy one’s shape. True intimacy begins when both accept that they can share warmth without losing form — when fire believes it can touch ice without turning it to steam, and ice trusts it can meet fire without vanishing.

This trust, fragile yet luminous, marks the next phase of their journey. For the first time, neither must perform strength or endurance. They can simply exist side by side — water meeting water — each reflecting the other’s light.

And ice burns — that is the cruel secret. (chapter 61) Touch it bare-handed, and you feel both heat and pain. The same holds true for Kim Dan’s presence: those who reach for him too quickly end up wounding both him and themselves. The sportsman’s early attempts at care followed that pattern — too forceful, too immediate, leaving frostbite where he intended warmth. (chapter 64)

What’s most tragic is that neither man understood this dynamic. The star’s coldness was not cruelty (chapter 79) but anxiety — fear of losing control, of not being seen (chapter 79), of not getting the doctor’s affection. Kim Dan’s coldness was not real rejection (chapter 80) but terror — the instinct to flee before being hurt again. Both used frost as armor, and both mistook it for strength and protection.

The subtle visual cue comes in the unopened board game labeled Ice Breaker (chapter 80). (chapter 80) They never played it — and that is no accident. The title encapsulates the temptation Jaekyung must resist: to treat intimacy as a contest, to imagine that trust can be won through tactics or timing. But hearts do not yield to strategies. The only way to melt the ice is not by “breaking” it, but by warming it, patiently, sincerely.

In other words, the champion must unlearn the fighter’s logic — victory, dominance, control — and replace it with what he has never trained for: honesty and vulnerability. Only by lowering his guard, by divulging his own thoughts and emotions (like for example fear of loss), can he truly reach Kim Dan. Breaking the ice would have meant shattering what little trust existed between them. To conclude, the true task is not to break but to thaw: to melt the distance gradually, to approach without force. Their story is not about smashing barriers but about learning warmth, rhythm, and coexistence.

But in chapter 80, the dynamic begins to thaw. Jaekyung takes the day off — the first visible sign that he now aligns his rhythm with Kim Dan’s. Rest, once equated with laziness, becomes an act of respect and knowledge. The fighter who lived in perpetual heat learns the value of stillness, while the doctor frozen in vigilance learns, little by little, to breathe.

Opening the Wardrobe: The Champion’s First Unscripted Gesture

If the Ice Breaker game represents the failure of strategy, this scene (chapter 80) marks its opposite — a spontaneous act free of calculation. I am not here talking about the purchase of the clothes. When Jaekyung brings new clothes for Kim Dan and places them in his own wardrobe, he is doing something that escapes his usual logic of control. For once, he doesn’t command or anticipate; he simply gives.

At first glance, it looks like another display of wealth — replacing the doctor’s worn shirts with finer fabrics. But the gesture carries a deeper subtext. By hanging the clothes in his closet, the champion symbolically opens the most private space of his home, the same place where he once left the birthday card and key chain. (chapter 66) And this is something the physical therapist could notice, if he enters the room again and pays more attention to his surroundings. This is not about ownership but about inclusion: an unspoken invitation to share a part of himself.

The humor of the series already hinted at this evolution back in chapter 30, when Jaekyung teased the blushing doctor(chapter 30). Even in that comic panel, the imbalance between physical familiarity and emotional distance was evident. Kim Dan’s embarrassment stood for boundaries not yet earned, and Jaekyung’s casual tone for a love not yet understood.

In that moment, (chapter 80) the room becomes more than a storage space — it becomes a threshold. Without realizing it, the wolf allows Kim Dan to enter his personal orbit, to dress and undress within the same walls, to coexist without performance. This is the opposite of strategy; it’s the vulnerability of someone who, for the first time, lowers his guard without noticing.

Through this gesture, Jaekyung experiences that love is not built by “winning over” but by making room. Now, by giving the doctor space in his closet, Jaekyung begins to earn what he once took for granted. Sharing the same room no longer means exposure or domination, but coexistence. Even if they never see each other naked again, Kim Dan can slowly grow accustomed to the champion’s presence — to exist beside him without fear.

In other words, the wardrobe becomes a new kind of training ground: not for fighting, but for trust. Besides, he practices something new — spontaneous care — the kind that arises not from guilt or desire, but from trust.

Mr. Mistake

Before he could learn to warm, Joo Jaekyung had to learn to err. (chapter 80) His first instinct, even when it came from care, was always control. In earlier days, he wanted Kim Dan within reach, in his line of sight — “even in his sorry state.” (chapter 68) That line, half tender and half possessive, reveals the paradox of his love: he equates nearness with protection, yet that same nearness suffocates. Keeping Kim Dan “in the palm of his hand” expresses both care and fear — the terror of losing what he cannot name.

When we see him later, in chapter 80, standing before the wardrobe with his eyes closed, (chapter 80) this gesture repeats the same pattern under a softer guise. Believing he is helping, he decides to discard the gray hoodie — the very object tied to Kim Dan’s past and his grandmother. (chapter 80) His closed eyes are telling: he acts without seeing. The intention is love; the effect is violation. By trying to cleanse Kim Dan’s life of its remnants, he unconsciously repeats the violence of erasure that the doctor has always endured. Keep in mind that the doctor’s teddy bear vanished. (chapter 47) One might say that he no longer needed it, yet this point could be refuted, if it was a present from the parents. Throwing it away is like erasing their existence and affection.

And yet, the champion’s mistake is necessary. It becomes the hinge between old and new love. For the first time, the champion feels the immediate consequence of his actions: Kim Dan’s resistance, his cry of protest, his refusal to be overwritten. (chapter 80) The scene is small but seismic. The camera places Jaekyung slightly behind, his fists curled and his shoulders tense — an instinctive gesture of self-restraint rather than dominance. He is no longer the one towering above, demanding or explaining; he is waiting, watching, enduring the discomfort of having gone too far. His silence here is not indifference but humility — the silence of someone learning, painfully, what boundaries mean.

In this still moment, the main lead looks less like a fighter and more like a chastened pupil. He follows the doctor like a puppy that has just realized his wrongdoing. We could compare his action to Boksoon and her puppies hiding the “shoes” from the landlord and doc Dan. (chapter 70) The athlete’s posture (chapter 80) that once signified control now reads as submission, but also as attention — he is, for once, truly focused on the other’s feelings instead of his own intentions.

This visual shift — from dominance to attentiveness — signals the slow birth of empathy. Love ceases to be possession and becomes recognition. What once would have provoked anger or dominance instead elicits reflection. The wolf no longer bites back; he listens. Through this failure, he begins to grasp the rhythm of mutual existence — one that requires missteps to create harmony. At the same time, this chapter announces the courting from the athlete. He will do anything to win doc Dan’s heart. But for that, he needs to capture his “gaze”. (chapter 80)

Calling him “Mr. Mistake” is not reproach but recognition. Each error brings him closer to awareness, to balance and improve himself. His earlier attempts to help — feeding (chapter 79), dressing, gifting (chapter 80) — were gestures of power. Now, through trial and correction, they evolve into gestures of reciprocity. Besides, to err is human. In learning how to respect and help, he learns how to love.

The irony is that his compassion for Kim Dan simultaneously becomes self-care. (chapter 80) By tending to another’s exhaustion, he faces his own. Each regret (chapter 79), each small act of patience, rewires the fighter’s inner world. If he controls his temper, then he might get closer to his fated companion. He begins to experience calm where there once was only anger or reaction. The man who lived on adrenaline now practices gentleness as a new form of endurance.

These “mistakes” form the second loop of the number 8 — the mirror that completes the first circle. If the earlier arc was defined by desire and misunderstanding, this new one is shaped by humility and correction. Every misstep is part of the dance toward balance, each error a necessary thawing of old reflexes. Through Kim Dan, the champion learns that healing, like love, is never achieved through perfection but through rhythm — through falling out of sync and learning, again and again, to move together.

The Body That Hurts

Kim Dan’s body has always been the battlefield of others’ desires. Even the tenderness he received from his grandmother was tied to expectations of endurance. In the hospital scene, she admires Jaekyung’s physique:
(chapter 21) Behind the warmth of her words lies a quiet wound: she loves her grandson, but she wishes him to be different — stronger, healthier, easier to care for. In his eyes, it’s an unreliable, burdensome shell — a vessel of weakness and sickness. Every protruding collarbone, every cracked lip or dark circle testifies to a deeper wound: the conviction that he is unworthy of care.

This single wish defines his lifelong struggle. He learns that to be loved, he must not burden anyone; to deserve affection, he must be self-sufficient. Strength becomes a moral duty, not a source of pride. The body, instead of being a home, becomes a site of constant correction — something to manage, hide, or silence.

So when his body weakens, he experiences it as failure. Every illness, every bruise, every shiver feels like proof that he is disappointing her again. His need to be strong “for her” transforms into self-punishment — the relentless drive to work, to endure, to never rest. He strives to cause less trouble, to take on more responsibility, to disappear behind service.

Yet the façade of dutiful obedience couldn’t hold forever. As the grandmother herself admits later, (chapter 65) These vices, which she lists as disappointments (chapter 65) are in fact the boy’s first attempts at self-assertion. In a life where every decision has been dictated by duty, poverty, and responsibility, destroying his own body becomes the only act that truly belongs to him. Each cigarette, each drink, is a tiny rebellion — a momentary claim over flesh that has always served others.

Ironically, this rebellion mirrors the very logic he inherited: he still treats his body as an object of control, only now he is the one inflicting harm. What looks like defiance is, in truth, despair dressed as freedom. It’s his way of saying, “If I can’t be loved through this body, at least I can decide what happens to it.”

Thus, long before Jaekyung ever entered the picture, Kim Dan had already split from himself. His body became both prison and protest, both burden and battlefield. So when he later tells Jaekyung in chapter 62, “ (chapter 62) the weight of that sentence stretches far beyond the bedroom. It carries the residue of every moral, familial, and physical contract that has reduced him to flesh. What the champion hears as accusation is, at its core, a confession of alienation — the echo of a man who has never learned to live inside himself. It’s not only a reproach but a confession. He hates his body because it has become the medium through which he is used, never loved.

This hatred turns cyclical: because he feels unloved, he neglects his body — and because his body weakens, he feels even less worthy of love. (chapter 80) His exhaustion, malnutrition, and chronic tension are not random; they are the physical imprint of a soul that punishes itself. Hurting his body becomes a form of control, a way to pre-empt rejection: “If I break myself first, no one else can hurt me.” And now, my avid readers can sense the hidden symmetry between the two men. Both have used their bodies as instruments of punishment — only in opposite directions.
For Kim Dan, the body collapses under visible exhaustion: pallor, thin hands, terrible nails, the fainting spells that betray a life of deprivation. For Joo Jaekyung, the punishment hides behind power, buried beneath muscle and bravado. His suffering is internal, detectable only through the cold precision of medical imaging — the X-ray that exposes the shoulder strain, the unseen stress beneath the skin. (chapter 27)

The scan becomes the counterpart to Kim Dan’s visible wounds: one man bleeds or bruises where everyone can see (chapter 61), the other where no one looks. Yet, the attitude of people is the same: no one pays attention to them. Both inhabit bodies that have forgotten the difference between endurance and pain. Both mistake self-destruction for strength.

The doctor’s body breaks from overgiving; the fighter’s, from overexerting. Is it a coincidence that the athlete employed this idiom in order to describe his partner’s life? (chapter 80) Naturally, no. In truth, they are two sides of the same fracture — men who were never allowed to rest, to be weak, or to be cared for.

And perhaps this is why the night of chapter 80 matters so deeply. When Jaekyung stands beside Kim Dan’s bed and simply watches, he unconsciously sees his own reflection: a man trapped in survival mode, burning from the inside out.

This silent revelation recalls an earlier moment — that night in front of the hospital (chapter 18) when Kim Dan, bruised, had seized his hand and expressed his concerns. Back then, the gesture had confused the wolf. His hands were made to strike, to defend, to dominate — not to be pitied or protected. He had pulled away instinctively, unsettled by the tenderness and the huge sense of responsibility behind the question. He felt criticized, as if his power was questioned.

Now, in the stillness of the room, he finally grasps its meaning. (chapter 80) Kim Dan wasn’t questioning his strength; he was acknowledging his humanity. He had seen the fighter’s hands not as weapons but as part of a fragile whole — hands that could bleed, hands that could tremble.

That memory quietly flows into the pool scene, where everything changes.

The Body That Learns to Float

In the swimming pool, the same hands complete their transformation. (chapter 80) What began as misunderstanding in episode 1, (chapter 1) and was maintained through the awkward hospital encounter in episode 18, now evolves into dialogue and genuine comprehension. In the beginning, Kim Dan’s touch had been accidental and defensive—a misreading of bodily proximity. When he grabbed the fighter in episode 1, he believed he had crossed a forbidden line, that his action would be seen as insolence or violation. The fear and shame that followed transformed touch into a territory of silence and self-censorship.

Meanwhile, the same gesture had awakened something entirely different in the champion. As revealed later (chapter 56), he had interpreted that touch not as mistake or violation, but as a spark of invitation—proof that the “hamster” might want him after all. His own longing twisted the scene into a fantasy of desire, into a private “game” he wanted to continue in the bedroom. One misunderstanding gave birth to another. By episode 18, the same reflex persisted: he reached out again, asking if Jaekyung was hurt, his hand trembling with the same mixture of care and fear. Once more, touch was misread—offered as comfort, received as intrusion. Thus their relationship began under crossed signals: one moved out of survival, the other out of projection or the reverse. It is no coincidence that their relationship in season 1 was doomed to fail. They never communicated properly, as their perception was influenced by their past and surroundings.

Back then, (chapter 18) Kim Dan’s fingers clung to Jaekyung’s hand out of fear; now they athlete is the one holding them. This panel oozes trust and communication. (chapter 80) The reversal is profound. Outside the hospital, the healer had worried about the fighter’s body; inside the pool, the fighter encourages the physical therapist to trust his own body. He worries about the healer’s soul. The hand that was once proof of power now becomes a bridge of tenderness and reassurance.

The water amplifies this transformation. Around them, the surface quivers like living glass, reflecting their movements in waves of trembling light. It is as though the memory of ice — of distance, fragility, restraint — has melted into fluid contact. Jaekyung’s hands, once hardened by habit, move now with the rhythm of care. They guide, not grab; they support without enclosing. (chapter 80)

When he lets go (chapter 80), Kim Dan panics, convinced that release equals abandonment. (chapter 80) He freezes once again. Yet the water holds him; he reaches onto the champion again — and this time, the embrace stays. What makes this moment remarkable is that the pool is shallow. (chapter 80) Kim Dan could easily stand on his own, but fear has eclipsed reason. His instinct is not to trust his feet, not to fight the water, but to cling to the man before him. (chapter 80) This reveals his low self-esteem and trapped soul.

This difference from chapter 27 is crucial. Back then, in a similar pool scene, the fighter’s reaction was brusque and teasing (chapter 27) His words carried an assertion of superiority, a lack of understanding. But here, silence replaces mockery. (chapter 80) The wolf doesn’t laugh or pull away. (chapter 80) He simply lets himself be held. Why? It is because he is enjoying the moment. For the first time, the physical therapist sought his closeness. (chapter 80) And this has nothing to do with his money and the gifts. This gesture exposes that the hamster does trust the athlete. For me, his passivity is strongly linked to his longing. (chapter 80) He is enjoying the embrace.

Besides, that quiet acceptance reveals more tenderness than any declaration could. The wolf no longer demands, instructs, or tests. He waits. His passivity and silence are an invitation — an acknowledgment that the next move must come from the physical therapist himself. (chapter 80)

For the first time, the champion receives affection without controlling it. He becomes the one who is touched, not the one who takes. His body, usually the tool of dominance, now learns receptivity. And the doctor, trembling yet aware, learns that reaching out will no longer earn him rejection. The gesture that once triggered shame now becomes a wordless dialogue of consent and curiosity.

This reversal implies that their old misunderstanding will dissolve completely. How so? It is because Kim Dan has long internalized touch as a form of communication. Words often failed him, but the body never lied — every gesture became a sentence, every embrace a confession. And perhaps this is where la glace (chapter 16) —that deceptively simple French word—finds its power. It means “ice,” but also “mirror” and “window.” When the champion looks through Kim Dan’s glace (chapter 80), he sees not coldness but transparency: the reflection of a pure soul.

Interesting, too, is that eating glace never burns (chapter 77), unlike the touch of ice. It softens, sweetens, dissolves slowly on the tongue. Likewise, the heat between them no longer needs to scorch; it can melt. And yet, the kiss — once their most volatile exchange — has fallen silent. (chapter 64) Kim Dan had to bite his own lips to make Jaekyung stop, and neither has ever truly spoken of it. Yet, during the night, the athlete could see the remains of that cold war. (chapter 80) In episode 16, the doctor still wondered why the champion had kissed him so suddenly, (chapter 16), just as the champion has never confessed that it was his first kiss. Moreover, during their first day off together, Joo Jaekyung had also initiated a kiss and back then, the doctor never wondered why. (chapter 27) Both men have been staring into the same mirror without realizing that the reflection was shared. They love each other. Joo Jaekyung needs to ponder on the signification of a kiss (chapter 13) and why doc Dan made such a request. (chapter 15) The kiss is more than just fun and pleasure. It is the expression of “love”. And now, you comprehend why I am expecting a huge change in the next episode.

Now, in the water, that glace has turned fluid. The swimming pool becomes both mirror and window — a space where communication finally flows. The embrace could awaken the memory of that second kiss (chapter 28) and urge Kim Dan to ask, at last, the question that remained frozen between them. In doing so, he would not only reopen the conversation but also reclaim the meaning of touch itself: not as misunderstanding or survival, but as curiosity and love.

As a first conclusion, the swimming pool stands for reconnection, communication and as such the vanishing of misunderstandings. What had begun as mockery in episode 27 and confusion in episode 1 transforms into equilibrium in episode 80. The pool, barely chest-deep, becomes a symbolic threshold — a space where both rediscover that safety doesn’t depend on distance or depth, but on trust. (chapter 80) A space where both discovers love, attraction and joy.

Another important detail is the zoom on doc Dan’s feet. (chapter 80) And it comes with a small but crucial instruction. In that single phrase, the MMA fighter encourages Kim Dan to discover his own power and strength without overexercising. His feet, which were once symbolically trapped in the nightly ice, now press against the water with intent during the day. For the first time, his body obeys him, not fear. His movements are neither frantic nor helpless but self-regulated, gentle and alive. That’s why the main lead becomes happy for a moment. (chapter 80)

This moment stands in direct opposition to his sleepwalking — that eerie, unconscious wandering born of repression. (chapter 79) At night, his body moved without will; it was the echo of unspoken pain, a form of survival detached from self. In daylight, under Jaekyung’s watch, he begins to reclaim control. Day replaces night, consciousness replaces compulsion. What was once an expression of emotional paralysis becomes the choreography of renewal.

The difference is elemental. In the dark, his steps wavered because no one was there to steady him; in the water, he finds equilibrium through connection. Fear and joy coexist: he moves forward not because he is unafraid, but because he is finally accompanied. Besides, I am suspecting that his strong desire for an embrace (chapter 21) comes from the early loss of his mother.

His smile (chapter 80), radiant and unguarded, seals this metamorphosis. The body that once betrayed him becomes his ally again — a source of movement, breath, and meaning. The swimming lesson thus becomes a form of therapy: a slow rehabilitation of trust through touch, rhythm, and control. At the same time, should he notice the blushing or the loving gaze from his room mate (chapter 80), he could realize that he means more to the Emperor than he has ever imagined it. Here, I feel the need to add that the athlete’s jealousy and insecurities would vanish (chapter 79), if he knew that the doctor has already loved him for a long time.

Jaekyung learns that release can lead to attachment (chapter 80), for the strength lies in trusting someone. On the other hand, Kim Dan learns that release is not the same as collapse. Between their hands, between the measured strokes and the gentle restraint of “not too hard,” the past softens, and two wounded bodies rediscover what it means to be at home in themselves.

This swimming lesson represents his first step to treasure his own body. Thus it becomes a cure enacted through touch. Both men rediscover the body as a site of reciprocity rather than domination. Consequently, I deduce that the swimming lesson becomes more than physical training — it’s a quiet rite of passage. The pool, shallow yet infinite, mirrors the boundaries of trust itself: one must risk sinking to learn to float. (chapter 80) One must trust in his own body skills. Each gesture between them — the clasp, the release, the fright — traces a movement from fear toward self-possession and emancipation.

And perhaps this is the true meaning hidden beneath the scene’s surface: once Kim Dan can swim on his own, he will no longer fear being left behind. (chapter 80) To swim is to move through the unknown without a hand to hold (chapter 80), yet without panic. It is the opposite of his lifelong reflex to cling.

In learning to swim, he is not merely mastering a skill; he is unlearning abandonment. And now, my avid readers can grasp why he panicked quickly. (chapter 80) The water that once threatened to swallow him becomes his ally — fluid, embracing, and alive. When that day comes, when he can glide freely across its surface, it will mean that the boy who once feared drowning has finally learned how to live.

And then, the title finds its quiet resolution. Kim Dan on Thin Ice was never just about danger or fragility — it was about transformation. The ice that once confined him to stillness has melted into water, and the fear that once froze his body has become motion. Where there was trembling, there is now flow; where there was isolation, there is connection.

He no longer stands on thin ice — he moves through it, guided by the warmth that thawed him. (chapter 80) To swim is to live, but also to trust that even what melts beneath you can carry you forward. In this newfound balance between cold and warmth, fear and courage, Kim Dan finally steps — or swims — into his own life. This means, doc Dan is about to become the owner of his time again. (chapter 80)

Feel free to comment. If you have any suggestion for topics or Manhwa, feel free to ask. If you enjoyed reading it, retweet it or push the button like. My Reddit-Instagram-Twitter-Tumblr account is: @bebebisous33. Thanks for reading and for the support, particularly, I would like to thank all the new followers and people recommending my blog.