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 Watery Point Of No Return and Behind The Emp’s Shadow

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.

It begins with smoke.
Not the scent of flowers or the sweetness of victory, but the cold breath of a machine crossing an unnamed sky. (chapter 81) No airport appears, no greeting, no applause — only movement, silent noise, and distance. The scene refuses arrival. It’s as if the air itself has become unwelcoming, unsure whether to receive or reject the traveler.

Below, the earth hides beneath a shroud of cloud, half revealing, half concealing its rivers and mountains. It is broad daylight, but only those inside the plane can see the sun. Its rays strike the cloud tops, scattering into pale reflections, almost unreachable from the world below. The light is real yet detached — dazzling, but emotionally cold. The illusion of motion comes not from the aircraft itself, which cuts the sky with mechanical steadiness, but from the slow drift of the countryside beneath — a glimmering landscape that seems to slide away on its own. The plane moves horizontally, neither ascending toward promise nor descending toward rest. It hovers in between — uncertain, as if trapped inside the very act of transition. The white smoke trailing behind is not visible, as if erased by the same sky that carried it — a trace that vanishes before it can mean anything.

How is this calm sky connected to the silence of a phone line from ten years ago? (chapter 74) What does it mean that a man who once reached for his mother’s voice is now suspended between clouds, unreachable himself? (chapter 74) Why does the same stillness that once followed a farewell now fill the air around his flight?

Both moments share the same structure of emptiness: movement without arrival, connection without recognition. Yet the meaning of that emptiness deepens when we remember that death itself is often framed as a journey. (chapter 65) Let’s not forget that the last poster of chapter 81 (chapter 81) echoes Joo Jaewoong’s burial in chapter 74. (chapter 74) In that earlier scene, the smoke rises from burning incense sticks which is linked to scent — the invisible bridge between the living and the dead. Here, it reappears as the airplane’s exhaust (chapter 81), the sterile modern echo of ritual fire. In both, the same element unites mourning and motion: smoke, a symbol that drifts, fades, and carries scent.

The father’s funeral and the champion’s flight belong to one continuous breath — the same air of transition. Each ascent, whether spiritual or mechanical, leaves behind a trace that cannot last. The scent of the jinx begins here: in this meeting of incense and engine, of devotion and pollution, where grief becomes a trail of vapor across the sky.

There is another layer to this scent. Mingwa chose the wolf to embody Joo Jaekyung — an animal torn between tenderness and hunger. In many cultures, the wolf carries the paradox of motherhood and ferocity: she nurses her young yet survives through the hunt. For such a creature, scent is language, memory, and map. It marks territory, reveals threat, and preserves kinship. Like a wolf, the champion used to live by following traces — the smell of victory, of fear, of money.

Now the trail has changed. For years, the wolf used rituals not to appease his hunger but to erase his senses — to make sure he would never taste, smell, or feel again, so that his hunger for warmth and belonging would vanish. Milk (chapter 75), perfume (chapter 75), sweat and sex (chapter 75) became instruments of anesthesia, each meant to silence the body that once betrayed him.That betrayal did not come from the body itself but from what it carried — his father’s shadow. (chapter 75) Every muscle, every breath, every instinct reminded him of the man he swore never to become. The body was a mirror of lineage, and lineage meant failure. In his dreams, that failure still reached for him: black hands emerging from the dark, the father who had lost everything. (chapter 75) The fighter calls it a “dream,” not a nightmare, because fighting was once his father’s dream — a dream of escape, of being seen, of proving that poverty was not fate. But for the son, that same dream turned into a curse. To fight was to repeat what had already destroyed the family.

Thus, he began to punish his own flesh for its resemblance to the dead. Every ritual — milk before a match, perfume after shower, sex before fighting — became an act of denial, a way to cut the bloodline out of himself. The body that once connected him to hunger and memory had to be silenced, sterilized, erased. Yet behind every gesture of control lay the same emptiness: a child’s thirst disguised as discipline. The milk that promised fulfillment was once the prize he had to steal (chapter 75), the forbidden comfort that ended in scolding. (chapter 72) When he finally received it, it was not from a mother but from the director — a man whose gift could fill the stomach but not the heart. From that day, nourishment and submission became one.

Each ritual since then has repeated that confusion. He learned to mistake obedience for care, power for affection, control for love. The milk before a match was not about luck; it was a way to silence the body that once trembled from hunger. The perfume on his neck, the sweat of victory, even the scent of sex — all were substitutes for what he never truly received: the warmth of being wanted and accepted. (chapter 72) And yet every attempt at purification only buried the rot more deeply. The more he washed, the more the stain spread inward — invisible, odorless, yet consuming.

The champion’s hickeys

Now the trail has changed. What he follows is no longer the fragrance of superstition, but the faint, human odor of the doctor. When Jaekyung presses his lips against Dan’s neck (chapter 81) — the same spot where he once sprayed his perfume (chapter 40) — it is more than desire: it is instinct, possession, and search. The gesture blurs the line between hunger and recognition, as if he were trying to inhale and keep what had always eluded him. The scent he once sought in bottles and rituals now breathes through another body, one that refuses to be contained. So when Jaekyung breathes against Dan’s skin, he is no longer trying to mask the stench of loss but to find the source of something living. The doctor’s scent does not erase hunger; it answers it. For the first time, the wolf eats without devouring.

Let’s not forget that during the Summer Night’s Dream, the wolf had already answered that silent call (chapter 44) — nuzzling the one destined to become his anchor. Jinx-philes can observe not only the presence of steam (which is similar to smoke), but also the effect of the scent. Back then, the champion had calmed down thanks to the hamster’s scent. (chapter 44) To conclude, that moment, half dream and half awakening, had already begun to rewrite the map of scent. There, the fragrance from doc Dan had triggered his appetite, hence he couldn’t restrain himself during that night. (chapter 45)

And because of that scent, the wolf will follow his loved one (chapter 65) He will make sure that doc Dan doesn’t smoke again and his scent remains pure. This signifies that the wolf will pursue its source through the smoke of deception, through the perfume of luxury and corruption. The doctor becomes both compass and contrast — the pure odor that exposes every false aroma around him. Through Dan’s scent he will breathe again—through that fragile, living fragrance the wolf begins to track the truth that stinks beneath luxury and lies.

The Plane and its Scent

In order to understand the meaning of this fleeting image (chapter 81) — a plane gliding through a noiseless sky — I had to return to an earlier flight. (chapter 36) When the champion left South Korea for the United States in episode 36, the plane glided through a void of light. There was no sky, no earth, no horizon — only a white expanse pierced by the sun’s glare. Even the boundaries of air and space seemed dissolved. The image radiated purity but felt sterile, stripped of texture. The machine was rising, not toward a destination but away from attachment itself.

That ascent not only announced the future victory, but also represented the Emperor’s ideal: perpetual motion without roots. He was a man of altitude, not of place. The whiteness surrounding the aircraft mirrored his own self-erasure — the body emptied through fasting (chapter 37), the heart disinfected of need. Hence the bed became an instrument of “torture”. The upward flight marked a beginning, yet it already smelled of exhaustion and futility. A life built on departure cannot land anywhere.

Episode 81 inverts everything. The plane is now seen from above, not below. (chapter 81) Clouds and land re-emerge, spreading like a map of memory. Gray veils hang overhead; far below, blue horizon and bright rivers glint in daylight. For the first time, the world has depth again. The point of view tells us two things immediately. First, this aircraft is descending: it is approaching foreign soil, France, a country framed by water and beautiful landscapes. Secondly, the inversion foretells the champion’s own descent — the fall of the myth into the realm of the human. It already implies the existence of a scheme and his anticipated “defeat”.

The earlier plane signified departure; this one signals arrival. What had been an escape from origin becomes a forced return to reality. The hero who once vanished into whiteness now re-enters color, gravity, and consequence. I therefore deduce that Joo Jaekyung’s past will resurface after arriving in France. (chapter 73) His origins—the father who once fought, gambled, and collapsed into addiction before dying of an overdose— will no longer remain hidden. The revelation will spread like a smell the public (Team Black) cannot ignore. Yet this descent is not disgrace alone; it is the beginning of embodiment. Exposure will give him weight. But what did the director say? (chapter 78) Through Hwang Byungchul’s blunt words, the Emperor finally realized that he possessed an identity of his own—one not confined by inheritance or shame. The insults that once defined him, (chapter 75) “smelly bastard,”dirty rat” have lost its power. What once clung to his name as odor now disperses into air. The fall will wash away the false scent of stigma and let the man emerge, bare but clean.

I come to the following deduction: the change of perspective is Mingwa’s quiet confession that the age of flight — of abstraction and denial — is over. The sky of episode 36 concealed both land and direction; the sky of episode 81 exposes them. (chapter 81) Beneath the clouds lie traces of the life he once ignored: the landlord who welcome him with toilet papers and invited him to dinner, the old coach who still mirrors his pain, the grandmother whose endurance defines family, and the doctor whose presence has become home itself. These human coordinates are his new geography.

The palette itself reinforces this shift. In America, everything dissolved into white, a color of anesthesia. Over France, tones mingle: gray above, blue below, gold reflected from the rivers. The air is alive, restless, and uncertain. Clouds thicken like unspoken doubts, yet the blue horizon opens a path. It dawned on me that Mingwa is painting the boundary between dream and danger. The gray warns of turbulence; the blue promises arrival. Between them hovers the aircraft, between illusion and embodiment — just like its passenger. The coexistence of colors and contrasts (light, cloud, turbulence) displays life! Life without pain, fear, struggles, is no life, but an illusion. At the same time, it implies the return of the protagonists’ agency. Their decisions will determine the outcome of this imminent match.

Time, too, changes nature. Both flights are bound to temporal formulas, but their logic diverges — and both are told through the doctor’s eyes. In episode 36, the line (chapter 36) emerges not from the champion’s mind but from Dan’s weary observation. It carries the cadence of someone watching life slip by from the margins, a spectator of discipline rather than its agent. The phrase, neutral on the surface, reveals quiet lethargy: days blending into one another, the monotony of service and the absence of urgency. This indicates the hamster’s distance and a certain emotional indifference toward his VIP patient. No wonder that, at the hostel, he chose the impersonal word “team” (chapter 36) instead of naming Joo Jaekyung himself. He might have stood beside the MMA fighter the entire time, yet he preferred to disappear behind collective language, as if the plural could shield him from personal involvement. It was a professional gesture, an attempt to efface the self, to stand beside the fighter without belonging to him. His role was service, not solidarity; his language confirmed distance. Thus his karma was that he got abandoned by the team after the match, while rescued by the celebrity himself!!

But in episode 81, the tone has changed. (chapter 81) The doctor’s narration “Eight days until his comeback” reveals far more than a schedule. Its tone pulses with nervous anticipation. Time, once something Dan merely endured, has regained texture. Back in chapter 36, he let the “days pass” like indistinguishable shadows — one more sign of his emotional detachment. Life moved, but he did not move with it. Now, every day counts. The number eight introduces tension, a sense of waiting and measure. He is not only aware of time; he feels it. The body trembles, breath shortens, nerves tighten. For the first time, Dan senses temporality the way athletes do: as pressure, as pulse, as future approaching.

His thought at the airport (chapter 81) translates that awareness into sensation. It’s no longer the passivity of a bystander but the heartbeat of someone invested. The count of days becomes a shared horizon between doctor and fighter, a bridge of feeling. (chapter 81) When Jaekyung exhales the same “huu,” their anxiety synchronizes, transforming fear into connection. The loop of repetition (“days passed”) has turned into a countdown of empathy (“eight days left”). Time itself has begun to belong to both of them. The same “team” has become real, but contrary to the past: there are only 2 members, Kim Dan and Joo Jaekyung. At the airport he wears the Team Black jacket, a subtle but deliberate signal that he has accepted inclusion. The jacket is not uniform; it is recognition. Both form 8, which is a symbol for balance and infinity.

Interesting is that this panel (chapter 81) looked like victory (due to the position of the plane) but smelled of vacancy. However, this trip was not, for the two protagonists, a symbol of rest — quite the opposite. Neither Jaekyung nor Dan ever got the chance to visit the city; the supposed journey abroad becomes another kind of confinement. (chapter 37) The others indulge in small pleasures — snacks, shopping, light rebellion — but the champion and his doctor remain trapped in routine, orbiting one another inside sterile rooms. I am suspecting that doc Dan must have bought the scarf at the airport, a small act of thoughtfulness before departure. (chapter 41) Yet the gesture, though sincere, carries a quiet irony. The scarf is printed with flowers, mostly roses, but as a piece of fabric it has neither scent nor warmth. It imitates life without containing it. What he gives her, in truth, is a copy of affection, not its essence — a bouquet that cannot breathe.

And now you may wonder how this connects to the scent of the jinx. (chapter 37) The answer lies in the contrast between the smell of life and the smell of emptiness. While others seek flavor in hot ramen or the sweetness of snacks, the champion’s room remains odorless, air-conditioned, antiseptic. Then, in the quiet of night, a faint aroma drifts toward him, the flavor of hot ramen. And now observe the progression of scents through Jinx.

Chapter 10	Chapter 22	Chapter 32

It traces the slow resurrection of a man who had unconsciously silenced his own senses. In chapter 10, the wolf first enters the doctor’s home and flinches even before inhaling. The moment his eyes register the dim light, the narrow hallway, the disorder, his hand rises to his nose — a movement so quick it feels primal. Only once in the room does he mutter, “It reeks in here. The overpowering stench of poverty.” He doesn’t smell first; he remembers first through visuals. The odor exists only because his past floods the scene. The sight of a modest room resurrects the atmosphere of his own childhood flat (chapter 72) — the garbage, the spoiled food, the stale air of neglect. What he truly covers is not his nose, but his fear of returning there. Later, in episode 22, when Dan cooks for him, the champion instinctively associates food with corruption: (chapter 22) Nevertheless, Jinx-philes should realize that for the first time, we had a reference to the ocean through the dishes: fish, seaweed soup. (chapter 22) Interesting is that here fish has a negative connotation: intrusion and thoughtlessness. This shows how detached the champion was from his true self: water and the ocean. Moreover, cooking, warmth, nourishment—all evoked garbage, the chaos of his first home.

The reason lies in his earliest environment. In that cramped room buried in trash, the boy who would become the Emperor once tried to survive on milk—an industrial liquid without smell or taste, the very opposite of maternal care. (chapter 72) His father’s addiction, the filth, the absence of real home made food—all merged into a single sensory nightmare. Odor became shame. Flavor became fear. So he began to build a life that denied every sense. And now, my avid readers can grasp the role of Kim Dan during season 1. It was not just to replace the sex ritual. Unaware, he had replaced the ritual with the glass of milk with his food. So at the beginning of season 2, Joo Jaekyung got to learn that his “glass of milk” (chapter 54) couldn’t nourish him. Hence he replaced it with wine for a while.

So he built a life that denied every sense. That’s why he hates flowers. However, there’s more to it. When the doctor innocently talks about a bouquet he received in episode 31 (chapter 31), Jaekyung’s reaction (chapter 31) reveals more than irritation. For him, floral scent is associated with loss. The fragrance belongs to death. The first time he truly smelled flowers was at his father’s funeral, when incense and blossoms mingled with grief. (chapter 74) Their fragrance became the perfume of loss. To his senses, flowers never meant beauty or love or nice smell; they mean burial and as such pain. Every petal recalls the suffocating smell of the funeral room, the smoke, the artificial but painful peace of goodbye.

And that is precisely where the scent of the jinx begins to unfold. The scarf’s floral pattern recalls everything artificial in both their worlds: Jaekyung’s deodorant, the perfume of fame, the grandmother’s rehearsed kindness. Each object is meant to replace something that once had a natural smell — milk, skin, sweat, breath. The airport gift thus mirrors the champion’s life of rituals: beautiful but airless, made of gestures without fragrance.

The Location And The Fall

In season 1, Mingwa already left clues about a connection between France and South Korea. (chapter 32) The blue tie contains 3 striped colors: red, white and blue, which are quite similar to French flag, though the order has been switched. Secondly, Choi Heesung purchased (chapter 32) Hermès’ item, a French company famous its bags, scarfs and perfumes. So I am quite certain that once Jinx-philes discovered the identity of the next fighter (chapter 81) and saw the plane, they must have jumped to the conclusion that the next fight will take place in Paris! But France is more just than the capital. This country is called the Hexagon due to its form, and this name stands in opposition to the MMA ring, which is an octagon! (chapter 40) Interesting is that the team at the airport is composed of 6 people. (chapter 81) So we could say that despite the disadvantage being in a foreign country, they are “equal”, 6 colors against the team from the Hexagon, the blue light from the MMA ring. But let’s return our attention to Paris. The latter is widely recognized as the symbol of love, the global center for fashion, art, and stardom. The city has a deep historical connection to these fields, being the birthplace of haute couture and home to many of the world’s leading fashion houses and luxury conglomerates. Its cultural scene is equally rich, with a long history as a hub for artists and a more recent reputation for being a center for music and film stars. However, the image with the landing plane is actually revealing the truth. (chapter 81) There are no mountain close to Paris, the river La Seine is much smaller… Finally, the airport doesn’t look like Airport Paris – Charles de Gaulle, (chapter 81) for the hallway is much smaller and it is not crowded.

Finally, observe the vocabulary of the manager: “breeze” (chapter 81) and “splash” (chapter 81). They let transpire the presence of wind and water suggesting the presence of the sea. Thus, I deduce that they landed near the sea. And if one looks again at the image of the plane (chapter 81), the blue at the horizon seems to confirm this intuition: the aircraft is gradually descending toward the coast, not the capital. So for me, the destination is not Paris — the city of revolution and political upheaval representing popular sovereignty, as the schemers are planning a counter-revolution. They stand for conservatism and money. My theory is that this plane is arriving in the South of France, most likely Cannes, where spectacle and wealth converge. But there exists another reason for this assumption. Do you remember where the physical therapist witnessed the match between the Emperor and Randy Booker? It was in Busan, a city situated in the South of South Korea, a city closed to the ocean. (chapter 14) Here, exactly like in the States, his trip to Busan never gave him the opportunity to visit the city and the beach, exactly like the athlete. The next airport to Cannes is Nice- Côte d’Azur and it looks more like the one in the Manhwa. Furthermore, the South of France has a milder climate in the fall, hence it is still possible to swim in September. Besides, in my last essay, I had connected the champion to Bruce Lee and water: Finally, Naturally, here I could be wrong with Cannes. Nevertheless, Cannes, with its glittering shorelines and film festival glamour, symbolizes the marriage of money (millionaires, yachts) and illusion — the theater of appearances. It is where contracts are made, where bodies are displayed, traded, and consumed through the gaze, the very economy that has always governed the champion’s existence. The wolf, once born among garbage and hunger, now finds himself surrounded by luxury, in a world perfumed with artificial success. Yet beneath the surface of that “breeze” and “splash” lingers the scent of corruption. The coastal light hides what the smoke once revealed: exploitation, manipulation, and the unspoken violence of commerce.

And yet, the irony is striking. The Côte d’Azur, world-famous for its vivid palette and sensual abundance — the lavender fields, the herbs of Provence, the shimmer of olive trees, the salt air heavy with Mediterranean fragrance — stands in perfect contrast to the sterile, monochrome world the two protagonists once inhabited in the seaside town. There, the ocean had no scent (chapter 59); silence had replaced air; life was drained of flavor. None of them truly enjoyed the nature: the ocean or the mountain. The seaside town was strongly intertwined with work (chapter 77) or danger. Then, when they returned to that place, their time was limited to visit the grandmother and the landlord. (chapter 81) They had no time to walk through the woods or visit the hills. They had no time for themselves. Consequently, I believe that in The French Riviera, the two of them will discover “savoir vivre”. Everything breathes, glows, and stirs. It is a land overflowing with color, aroma, and taste — precisely the senses that the wolf had long sought to erase through ritual. Doc Dan had led a similar life too, dedicated to his grandmother and work. If they are close to the sea, they might decide to walk on the beach together.

And if my theory is correct, then the choice of Cannes would not be accidental but allegorical. While on one hand, it marks a return to the emperor’s original curse — being admired and used at the same time, it announces an imminent change: his emancipation, for the villains have planned to destroy him. The private match organized there recalls the old underground fights from the Shotgun arc, only now cloaked in legitimacy and wealth. The arena has changed, but the principle remains: rich spectators watching a man’s body perform until exhaustion, while those in charge profit from his pain. And because of his lineage, they could still look down on him. Despite his fame and fortune, the champion does not truly belong among them. To the powerful, he is entertainment — a body to be wagered upon, not an equal at the table.

Look again at this panel. First, you can detect behind the champion the reflection of water, another clue that the protagonist will shine next to the sea. Moreover, it also indicates that doc Dan’s dream is related to water. Furthermore it is not a costume he wears, but an image imagined for him (chapter 32) — the doctor’s vision of what the wolf could become. He doesn’t see the origins of the athlete, but his success: he is not only a self-made man but an artist, a star. The three-striped tie, reminiscent of American designer Thom Browne’s refined style, evokes order, discipline, and self-respect: qualities the doctor unconsciously longs to see replace the chaos of ritual and fight. In that imagined world, Jaekyung is not an object but a person, an artist, a real VIP — no longer the Emperor of violence, but a man capable of standing among other celebrities without fear or shame.

And here, I couldn’t help myself thinking of the movie The French Connection, the parallel deepens. The French Connection (1971) is a crime thriller directed by William Friedkin, inspired by real events. It follows two New York detectives, led by the obsessive Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle, as they uncover an international heroin-smuggling operation linking France and the United States. The film contrasts gritty realism with moral ambiguity, exposing how obsession and corruption blur the line between justice and criminality. That film, too, revolved around illusion and desire — the traffic between authenticity and disguise. The “connection” was both criminal and psychological, exposing how corruption travels unseen beneath surfaces of elegance. Here, the same word gains new meaning: the false connections built on money and fame will give way to a human one, forged through care, scent, and trust.

And now, the reason for setting the match in France becomes clearer. The CEO could no longer exploit the United States (chapter 69); the scandal there had linked the previous incident to the infiltration of a Korean gang. The American branch was compromised, its credibility tainted. France, on the other hand, offers a mask of neutrality — refinement, culture, and distance from scandal. By choosing it, they manufacture the illusion of glamour and innocence, pretending that Baek Junmin and his former hyungs have nothing to do with the coming event.

But the choice of France also hides a darker lineage. One only has to look back to Thailand (chapter 69), where Baek Junmin once fought for the championship belt. Thailand in Jinx is not a paradise but a mirror of corruption — the place where victory turns into prostitution, where the body becomes currency. There, the Shotgun won a crown but not respect; his triumph was drenched in manipulation, spectacle, and moral decay. He was admired by no one, celebrated by ghosts.

Thailand thus stands as the antithesis of recognition. It is the kingdom of false applause, the shadow-market of sport where the price of glory is humiliation. If France embodies elegance masking corruption, Thailand embodies corruption stripped of its mask. Both belong to the same chain of deceit — one refined, the other raw. Between them stretches the moral geography of Jinx: America (illusion of success), Thailand (the sale of the body), and now France (the stage of reckoning). Baek Junmin, out of jealousy, wants Joo Jaekyung to make a worse experience, to be exploited, humiliated,, discarded and forgotten, just as he once was. His wish is not for justice but for repetition: the recycling of pain. Despite his title in Thailand, he still feels unrecognized. He now wants the Emperor to taste the same degradation under the polished surface of France. What he endured in the raw heat of corruption, Jaekyung must suffer in the refined chill of sophistication. He needs to be reminded of his true origins.

Junmin’s resentment is not born merely from defeat but from invisibility. His triumph brought no admiration, no genuine acknowledgment. The crowd that watched him fight was faceless, bought, indifferent. Hence he is not named as “champion” at the restaurant. (chapter 69) He was crowned, yet unseen. In his bitterness, he mistakes vengeance for validation. If Jaekyung falls publicly, perhaps the Shotgun’s own shame will finally be understood. Thus, France becomes his stage of revenge — not through direct confrontation, but through orchestration. The game he once lost in Thailand, he now rewrites from the shadows.

But this repetition will not go as he imagines. The irony of the French Connection lies precisely there: the traffickers think they control the route, unaware that the real transformation is happening within the travelers themselves. The wolf, who once lived by rituals of survival, will now breathe a different air — one that carries both danger and redemption.

While the schemers imagine they are about to succeed and ruin the champion for good, I am expecting the opposite, as they form now a team. Immersed in an environment so rich in colors, fragrances, and tastes (which would be similar to Thailand), Joo Jaekyung and doc Dan may come to enjoy the very senses they both buried to survive. The air of the Riviera — fragrant, tangible, and alive — could become the breath that finally releases him from his gilded cage and fulfills, at last, the doctor’s unspoken vision.

The Airport as threshold

In episode 36 (chapter 36), the transition from flight to arrival unfolds with seamless precision: no airport, no customs, no luggage — only the honk of city traffic and the flags fluttering over a hotel entrance. Everything about that journey screams logistics. It was a corporate trip, arranged, timed, and contained. The athletes passed through invisible gates, their movement stripped of individuality. The champion, like cargo, was transported rather than welcomed. His arrival, though triumphant (chapter 36), was sterile — as if success itself had been reduced to a schedule.

By contrast, episode 81 opens the gates. The author deliberately inserts an airport scene (chapter 81). Airports are spaces of suspension, places where one stands between departure and arrival, past and future. They symbolize journeys, transitions, and connections, representing not only physical travel but also the passage between inner states of being. They are gateways to new experiences, opportunities, and, at times, spiritual awakenings.

That is precisely why we find the champion pausing in quiet reflection. (chapter 81) For a brief moment, he seems to meditate — neither fighter nor celebrity, simply a man caught in the stillness of transition. The gesture of breathing, the soft “Huu,” carries profound significance. It evokes purification, the act of expelling the stale air of superstition, trauma, and fear. What leaves his lungs are not only bad thoughts but remnants of the “jinx” itself — the invisible poison that once ruled his life.

The absence of his gaze does not denote blindness but introspection. His closed eyes signal a shift from vigilance to awareness, from the need to control to the capacity to feel. For the first time, the Emperor does not seek omens outside himself; he listens inwardly, acknowledging uncertainty, fragility, and the quiet pulse of change. In that single exhale, the wolf begins to shed his curse — not through combat or conquest, but through the simplest act of all: breathing. That’s why he looks so determined after this short break. (chapter 81)

And amid that uncertainty, one sound cuts through the sterile air: rattle.

(chapter 81) The suitcase becomes the true protagonist of this threshold. In that small vibration lies all the instability the white air once denied. It is his portable home, his compressed past, the fragile proof that he finally has something to lose. In the earlier arc, he could have vanished mid-flight and no one would have noticed; now, if the suitcase disappears, another heart will break. That difference measures his evolution. Yet it also marks new vulnerability: any hand can touch what he carries.

Like the wardrobe (chapter 41) and the wedding cabinet (chapter 80) before it, the suitcase belongs to the same symbolic lineage. It is the container of intimacy — filled with clothes, precious items like pictures or books, with the silent evidence of presence. But unlike its predecessors, it moves. The wardrobe once stood still, rooted in the domestic; the wedding cabinet invited intrusion within a private world, as it was once discarded. The suitcase, however, carries that vulnerability into the public realm. It is exposure on wheels — the private made portable. (chapter 81)

The object that symbolizes belonging also invites trespass. It holds what makes a person recognizable — garments, scents, textures — yet it can be opened, inspected, or stolen. That possibility haunts the scene. The suitcase is both protection and temptation, security and risk. Its rattle echoes the heartbeat of transition itself: the trembling awareness that what is finally one’s own can still be taken away. And here comes my next question: Whose suitcase is it? One might say, the champion’s naturally. If so, this signifies that in the suitcase, he placed the birthday card and the key chain (chapter 81) (chapter 81) and Kim Dan has still no idea that the athlete has kept them like cherished relics. He might have placed the notebook from Hwang Byungchul as well. However, the person carrying the suitcase is the manager: (chapter 81), while Yosep is pushing a card with the other luggage. By separating one suitcase from the others, the beholder can detect that Park Namwook is separating not only himself from the team, but also his “boy”, if he is indeed carrying his suitcase.

In that sense, the airport does not replace the hotel as a site of intrusion but extends it. If the manager were to open the suitcase by mistake and discover the physical therapist’s birthday card (chapter 55), where he expressed his desire to work for Joo Jaekyung for a long time. What would be the manager’s reaction, when he recalls this incident with the switched spray and Doc Dan’s sudden departure? Moreover, we have here “erased words”: to be ho… The timing of the discovery is really important. This could generate some tension and confrontation between the manager and the physical therapist. Besides, such a birthday card could generate negative feelings (like jealousy), Kim Dan is gradually taking more and more place in the athlete’s life. The violation that once occurred behind closed doors (the penthouse) now could happen in plain sight. The line between private and public collapses, just as the boundary between success and loss blurs.

Secondly, the scene at the airport could actually announces that the team will have some trouble at the hotel… Let’s not forget that in the States, Joo Jaekyung had to argue with one of the local coaches, probably because they needed a place to train: (chapter 37). So when the manager says this, (chapter 81), he is thinking, everything has been well planned and prepared. He has nothing to do, he can relax… and as such he is on “vacation” like in the States. Thus I deduce that the airport has a different signification for the manager: he is about to get confronted with reality.

The Birth of New Rituals

Until now, the champion’s rituals had been prisons disguised as protection. Each one — milk, perfume, sweat, sex — served to silence what his senses once knew. They were mechanical repetitions of comfort that had long since lost their source. But episode 81 quietly introduces a new vocabulary of intimacy: paper, metal, ink, and touch. The birthday card and the key chain, two small, ordinary gifts, begin to form a new scripture (chapter 81) — a Bible of another kind, not written in divine authority but in human handwriting. They contain no promise of victory, only the trace of another person’s care. His words represent now his motivation to win doc Dan’s heart.

The card is a voice materialized, the first object that speaks about dreams and wishes without demanding. IT is not about making history. When he opens it, he does not perform a ritual; he reads. And that simple act of reading — eyes moving line by line across words written for him — marks a profound shift. For the first time, his energy moves inward, not outward. Reading requires stillness, patience, trust that meaning will come. It is an act of surrender disguised as concentration. What once was sweat and breath now becomes quiet and language.

And this scene reminded me of the hyung’s comment: (chapter 75) While he was sick, he could recall this scene. (chapter 75) where the fighter could stay focused, though he was surrounded by noise and people. The advice had seemed trivial, when first given. Now it re-emerges as revelation. The emperor, once incapable of rest, now reads (chapter 81) beside someone who represents safety. The book becomes a bridge between wakefulness and sleep, a ritual that does not erase consciousness but calms it. Where his earlier practices sought to block sensation, this one restores it.

The birthday card and key chain together form a new kind of talisman. They do not protect him through superstition but through memory. One he carries near his heart; the other, in his hand. The materials themselves — paper and metal — symbolize fragility and endurance. (chapter 81) The paper bends, absorbs scent, bears traces of fingers and warmth; the metal resists, reflects light, carries weight. Together they represent the balance between tenderness and strength — precisely what his life has lacked. In contrast to the mechanical milk and odorless perfume, these objects are human, imperfect, touchable.

It dawned on me that these small tokens might become the new Bible for Joo Jaekyung. A Bible not of laws but of gestures, recording moments of real connection. Every page, every object carries a commandment: Breathe. Dream. Gratitude. Trust. Through them, the wolf learns to replace fear with curiosity, repetition with attention.

What makes this transformation more poignant is that it grows in the shadow of the oldest absence — the mother. For years, the wolf’s hunger had another name: longing for a touch that never truly existed. The embrace of the mother (chapter 73), which should have offered nourishment, attention and peace, had been replaced by absence and deceit. Her warmth was an illusion, a posture mimicked but never felt.

That embrace — the promise of milk, scent, warmth and safety — is the first lie he ever believed. The hug is strongly linked to the breast and breastfeeding. I doubt, his mother ever did such a thing. Thus it is no coincidence that later he had to steal milk to feed himself. Later, the director’s milk replaced hers: tasteless, industrial, stripped of scent. It filled the stomach but not the soul. From that moment on, he learned that comfort was conditional and care transactional. He mistook control for love because that was all love had ever resembled.

Joo Jaekyung doesn’t even remember his mother has ever bought clothes for him. (chapter 80) And here, I had imagined that the mother had offered this t-shirt as a birthday present.

Behind the father’s ghost, therefore, hides the true phantom — the mother. Her absence shaped his rage more than her presence ever could have. Let’s not forget that Joo Jaewoong’s resent and mockery toward the champion were triggered by the betrayal of the wife. Secondly, when the father died, she showed no feelings or concerns for Joo Jaekyung. He was the only one who was forced to carry the memory of his father and family. With her abandonment, she pushed him to never “forget” the father. However, since Joo Jaewoong had always been harsh and resentful toward his son, the latter could only repress him. The mother had withdrawn not only her body but also her sincerity. She had long cut off ties with Joo Jaekyung, but deceived him by giving him a phone number. Her last gesture was a symbol of infinite delay — a connection that could ring but never answer. (chapter 72) Each call was a prayer cast into emptiness, the sound of longing echoing against the wall of indifference. She taught him to expect nothing from tenderness. she had implied that she was weak, a victim of the husband’s tyranny, while she pushed the young boy to become a parent: cleaning the house, working, earning money. Her “warmth” had been performance; her concern, deception.

I come to the following deduction: she never gave him a teddy bear or any toy. The reason is not poverty but intention. The child himself had become her only comfort, her shield and excuse against the husband’s failure and disillusion. Instead of protecting her little boy, she used his body as a barrier, turning him into both witness and defense. This explains why, in his later memories, the room contains no bed of his own, no trace of play, not even a corner that belongs to him. (chapter 72) He did not sleep like a child but like an object kept near for safety. The woman lying beside him was a mother in name only — emotionally distant, physically present. No stroke, no kiss, hence the boy had to clinch onto her. (chapter 73) Her warmth was strategic, not maternal.The child might have slept next to her in the same room, she was like a stranger to him, similar to this: (chapter 78), without the good night! That missing intimacy was not a void but a distortion — a tenderness twisted into survival. The mother’s touch, meant to console, existed only to protect herself. She kept the child close not out of affection but out of anxieties and resent, turning him into a living barrier between her and the man she resented. What he experienced as warmth was, in truth, defense and rejection; what seemed like closeness was the choreography of avoidance. Hence she never looked at her child. The body that should have been cradled for its own sake was held as cover, its value defined by its usefulness.

From that confusion emerged the adult’s crisis: he could no longer tell care from control. The gestures of intimacy, once poisoned by self-interest, became impossible to trust. Every caress felt like potential deceit, every act of closeness a prelude to betrayal. This is why, later, the man built his life upon rituals — not to find comfort, but to contain danger. Each ritual became a kind of armor, repeating the same logic his mother had taught him: proximity without safety, touch without love.

Now, for the first time, another presence enters that space. That’s doc Dan. He had to replace not only the father, but the mother. Thus the champion sucked his nipples: (chapter 29) which reminds us of breastfeeding. And now, look at the embrace in the swimming pool: (chapter 80). The hamster was imitating the behavior of the little Jaekyung in the past, clinching onto the “parent” like his life depended on him. But how did the athlete react to this embrace? He looked at his fated partner (chapter 80) and got all warm and fuzzy by looking at him: (chapter 81) A sign that the mother had never reacted the way her son is doing now, the feel to kiss the loved one! The problem is that in the swimming pool, the doctor’s scent and taste are covered by chlorine. (chapter 81) The doctor’s nearness on the couch recreates the missing scene — not through erotic intensity but through quiet continuity. (chapter 81) The wolf falls asleep next to someone, not on top of or apart from them. That small preposition — next to — carries the weight of redemption. The couch, once a site of violation (chapter 61) or solitude, becomes again what it was meant to be: a place of rest and tenderness. Thus he touches his fated partner’s legs over the cover, showing his care and respect. (chapter 81)

By acting like a responsible adult and mother full of gentleness and attention (chapter 81), he can recognize the false nature of his mother’s affection. What she offered was conditional, deceptive and self-centered; what the doctor gives is ordinary and consistent. No grand gestures, no promises — only presence. The doctor does not rehearse concern; he lives it through routine. And this ordinariness, paradoxically, becomes sacred. It was, as if the athlete was treating his own inner child through the physical therapist.

Touch, once an instrument of domination, turns back into a language of reassurance. The warmth of proximity (chapter 81) reactivates a sensory world the fighter had buried: the rustle of sheets, the rhythm of another person’s breathing, the faint scent of human skin. All the senses that the old rituals sought to erase now return — not as overwhelming floods but as quiet reminders that he is alive and no longer alone.

The breathing motif continues here. The earlier “Huu” (chapter 81) that marked his introspection at the airport now finds completion in shared respiration. (chapter 81) Two lungs exhale into the same night; the air that once poisoned him becomes communal. The act of breathing, once an attempt to purge, turns into a sign of harmony.

From this point on, every ritual he creates will carry an echo of this night. (chapter 81) — of reading, of calm, of nearness. The objects (card, keychain, book) become extensions of that experience. They are reminders that comfort does not depend on superstition but on memory and connection. They mark the rebirth of ritual as choice, not compulsion. Moreover, the couch becomes a place for rest and intimacy, the opposite to this scene: (chapter 37)

And this brings me back to the nameless and faceless mother. In a bitter twist, Joo Jaewoong was right in one aspect: (chapter 73): she thought she could become somebody else, but she never truly left. The woman may have escaped the home physically and socially, but she remains chained to it in spirit. How so? Because she cannot erase the child who once called her eomma. No matter how far she runs, Joo Jaekyung’s existence anchors her to the very life she tried to abandon.

Every denial she utters — every silence, every unanswered call — only deepens that chain. Hence she made this request: (chapter 74) At this moment, the page itself turns black, veined with smoky whorls of gray — as though her words had burned into the air rather than spoken. “I can’t live with you… please understand… let’s just go our separate ways.” The sentences rise like vapors, leaving behind the faint residue of a scent that refuses to vanish. This visual texture — half smoke, half ink — captures her true condition: she dissolves herself with every attempt at escape.

The mother’s rejection does not erase her presence; it transforms it into something atmospheric — invisible, invasive, impossible to contain. She becomes the ghost that still clings to the son’s breath, the odor that lingers in every space he enters. In that sense, her words are not final but volatile: they fill the air like perfume and smoke, leaving behind confusion between comfort and suffocation. The same element that once linked incense to mourning now binds her denial to memory. Her refusal to recognize him is not freedom but recoil; it keeps her frozen in the same emotional geography as the husband she despised. By cutting ties, she believed she could reinvent herself, but her disappearance became another form of captivity — the captivity of guilt, of fear, of unresolved motherhood. Under this light, you comprehend why I added a woman with clothes in the illustration. France itself mirrors her — beautiful, perfumed, wrapped in silk and secrecy. She definitely climbed the social ladders through her second marriage, hence she could offer toys to her second son. The nation of couture and fragrance becomes the stage for the mother’s unmasking. Once the name of Joo Jaewoong rises again, questions about her will inevitably follow. And here, she can no longer hide behind silence or excuses. The myth of refinement — both hers and France’s — collapses under the weight of exposure.

The woman who once fled to preserve her image (a victim of abuse, who couldn’t accept her husband’s choices) will now confront the reflection she abandoned: the son who embodies everything she tried to forget. France, the country of elegance, is also the country of appearances. In the 18th Century, the king and the nobility barely took baths, they relied on scent to mask their dirtiness. It is the perfect mirror for her story — beauty masking decay, luxury concealing guilt. The garbage left in the home is a heritage from the mother (chapter 72)

She carries Joo Jaekyung’s name in absence. The facelessness that once belonged to the child now belongs to her. In that reversal, the curse continues: both are trapped by the same invisibility, mother and son reflecting each other’s wounds across distance. And when he next confronts the ghost of his mother, the recognition will be complete. He will finally understand that the real betrayal was not abandonment alone, but false love — the performance of care without its substance. Thanks to his fated partner, he is learning to understand his feelings better and to improve his vocabulary. So he will be able to call things by its true name. Moreover, I am suspecting that doc Dan’s mother will serve as a counter-example. In discovering this truth, Joo Jaekyung will be able to free himself from this so-called love. He will no longer chase the illusion of her warmth; he will cease mistaking submission for affection. The warmth he sought was never hers to give. He will be able to move on and create his own home.

Doc Dan’s presence redefines it. His calm attention, his patience, his refusal to dramatize care — all these form a new maternal rhythm, one that heals without pretending to. Through the doctor, the wolf experiences what the mother only feigned: the safety of reciprocity. (chapter 73) And in that exchange, the jinx finally begins to dissolve.

Thus, new rituals are born — quiet, tangible, human. They don’t require smoke, nor scent, nor spectacle. Only the soft flick of a page, the weight of a key chain, the memory of someone’s voice and embrace. In those gestures, Joo Jaekyung rediscovers the senses his trauma had silenced. He no longer erases the world; he learns to breathe it in.

PS: Since the match takes place in 8 days (chapter 81) , it signifies that doc Dan and Joo Jaekyung won’t be able to visit the landlord and the halmoni like they did in the past. Moreover, I am expecting a new incident. All this could affect the grandmother’s health.

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