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 Silent Friend in the Blue Light and The Hidden Predators (part 1)
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.
Why Two Wolves?
In the first part, I mentioned both Perrault and Grimm not because the stories differ superficially, but because their shared surface—the famous bed scene—hides radically different logics of danger. If one remembers only the dialogue (“What big eyes you have!”), the two versions appear nearly identical. A wolf deceives a girl; she is eaten. Yet the decisive differences lie not in the dialogue but in the structure surrounding it.
In Grimm’s version, the moral is embedded in the ending. The girl disobeys her mother by leaving the path.
One morning, her mother said, “Come, Little Red Riding Hood, here’s a piece of cake and a bottle of wine. Take them to your grandmother—she’s sick and weak, and this will do her good. Go before it gets too hot, and remember to walk carefully. Don’t stray from the path, or you might fall and break the bottle. And when you arrive, don’t forget to say good morning before you peek around her room.” Quoted from https://americanliterature.com/childrens-stories/little-red-riding-hood
Because of her disobedience, she is swallowed, but she is rescued. The huntsman cuts open the wolf’s belly; order is restored; the wolf is killed through a trick. The lesson is corrective and communal: authority intervenes, discipline saves, error can be redeemed. Red Riding Hood learns. She does not stray again. The world remains morally structured.
Perrault’s ending, by contrast, is final. There is no huntsman, no rescue, no second chance. The girl is eaten and remains eaten. One might wonder why. The answer lies not only in the conclusion but in the construction of the encounter itself. In Perrault’s original French text, the wolf is introduced as “Compère le loup”. The word compère does not designate a stranger. It implies familiarity — a companion, an acquaintance, even a friendly associate. From the beginning, the wolf is socially positioned, not alien. Hence the forest in this version is not associated with danger or wildness. The woods are seen as a prolongation of the civilization and society. The predator belongs to the same communicative world as the girl. The danger is therefore not external intrusion but internal misrecognition.
This familiarity is reinforced in the bed scene. When the girl arrives, the wolf does not immediately attack. He instructs her to place the cake and butter aside and then tells her to come into bed with him. Perrault explicitly writes that she removes her clothes before getting in. The intimacy is staged. Closeness precedes violence. The scene imitates adult seduction before revealing predation. The girl is not seized; she participates in the proximity. That participation is precisely what makes the ending irreversible in Perrault’s social universe. Thus the old French expression “avoir vu le loup” (to have met the wolf) means to have lost virginity or have gained sexual experience. Under this light, one might understand why the wolf as Joo Jaekyung’s personality fits so well. 
(chapter 3) The latter became responsible for the hamster’s sexual education.
In Grimm’s version, this dimension disappears. The wolf does not construct a prolonged intimacy. After the dialogue, he simply springs from the bed and devours her. There is no undressing, no extended staging of physical closeness. Violence interrupts; it does not grow from apparent consent. Grimm transforms the libertine into a beast. The danger becomes physical appetite rather than social seduction.
Striking is that at the end of the story, Perrault articulates the moral explicitly:
“Children, especially attractive, well-bred young ladies, should never talk to strangers, for if they should do so, they may well provide dinner for a wolf. I say ‘wolf,’ but there are various kinds of wolves. There are also those who are charming, quiet, polite, unassuming, complacent, and sweet, who pursue young women at home and in the streets. And unfortunately, it is these gentle wolves who are the most dangerous ones of all.” Quoted from https://sites.pitt.edu/~dash/perrault02.html
The ending is the moral. There is no reversal because social damage, in Perrault’s world, is irreversible. The wolf represents not wild nature but libertine society. He does not attack in the forest because woodcutters—witnesses—are nearby. He waits until he can move the girl into a private domestic space. He speaks politely. He proposes a race so that he can reach the grandmother’s house sooner. He performs civility. Once in the house, the girl observes inconsistencies, but she accepts the animal’s explanations. Her failure is not merely disobedience; it is misjudgment.
That distinction is why both versions were necessary. Grimm teaches obedience within a moral universe that restores balance. Perrault teaches discernment within a social universe that does not. He is promoting critical thinking.
And Jinx unfolds more in the latter.
The Director: An Anaconda or a Wolf?
At first glance, the hospital director resembles Perrault’s wolf. 
(chapter 90) He is not impulsive. He is not openly violent. He operates within institutions, within offices, within controlled environments. He isolates rather than attacks. He frames rather than forces. Like Compère le loup, he is not a stranger; he is part of the social order. He belongs to the system. That belonging is precisely what grants him access.
His resentment 
(chapter 90) reveals that his true wound is territorial. He can no longer find his targets within the hospital. He lost control. He lost narrative dominance. This explicates why the predator retaliated against Kim Dan by badmouthing him. 
(chapter 1) He made sure that the protagonist was economically and socially “ruined”. However, at the restaurant, what did he discover? A happy man with a companion! Despite his “revenge” for the loss of his territory, the physical therapist’s life had not been ruined. Thus he tried to slander the physical therapist, he was just a slut. 
(chapter 90) The problem is that the champion did not react like expected. He got angry at the “client” and not at the “prostitute”. He never thought that the main lead would side with such a person. Thus the hospital director voiced a menace: 
(chapter 90) His threat is not confession; it is defensive strategy. It reveals what he fears most: exposure. Not moral reckoning, but visibility. The predator who once operated in sealed rooms now imagines himself dragged into the open. And that possibility terrifies him.
In Perrault’s logic, harm succeeds because it occurs without witnesses. The wolf avoids the woodcutters. Thus he relocates the act into a private domestic space. But one might wonder about the identity of the woodcutters in the Korean Manhwa. In the architecture of a scandal, the “Woodcutter” represents the Bystander Effect woven into the fabric of an organization. In the fairy tale, the woodcutters are physically present but functionally absent; their focus on their “job” creates a peripheral noise that masks the wolf’s approach.
(chapter 91)
When an institution like Saero-An Hospital 
(chapter 90) prioritizes its “output” (reputation, profit, or clinical operations) over the safety of its staff, it adopts the woodcutter’s axe. By focusing only on the work at hand, the institution effectively grants the predator a “sealed room.” The wolf doesn’t need to hide from the woodcutters; he only needs them to keep their heads down. What makes him powerful is not brute force but the absence of eyes. The director functioned the same way. His authority depended on institutional insulation — doors closed, hierarchy unquestioned, narratives controlled. As long as no one looked too closely, he remained Compère — familiar, respectable, legitimate.
However, visibility destroys that structure. It is no coincidence that the name of the institution is not revealed. It is strategic, it is about containment and damage control. (chapter 91) “Director of X General Hospital.” The letter X replaces identity. The institution remains faceless, protected, intact. Only the individual is exposed. He becomes the “black sheep,” the aberration, the singular deviant whose removal restores the illusion of purity. This means the system has not truly fractured. It has absorbed the shock. The management is shielded. The hospital’s reputation survives. The corruption is reframed as personal misconduct rather than structural tolerance. And that explains why the director initially felt safe. It is because he knew the “Mother” (the institution) and the “Woodcutters” (the staff/administration) were more invested in the “Big Hospital” image than in the safety of the “daughters” (the employees). And this is precisely where Perrault’s logic returns — not only through the wolf, but through the adults. In Perrault’s version, one might ask: where are the parents? The mother sends the girl into the forest without any warning. The grandmother only thinks how lovely her grandchild is, hence she is not talking about the dangers. None of them prepare her to recognize manipulation. Neither the mother nor the grandmother teaches her to question charm. She is well-bred, polite, obedient — but not trained to distrust sweetness.
Perrault’s moral seems directed at the girl, but indirectly it exposes society. A culture that values politeness over discernment produces vulnerability. The wolf thrives not only because he is cunning, but because the girl was raised to comply. The blame, therefore, is not purely individual.
The same mechanism appears in the hospital scandal. By omitting the hospital’s name, the article preserves the illusion that corruption was singular. But the panel in which Kim Dan reflects (chapter 1) disrupts the illusion that this was ever an isolated deviation. It reveals that shielding authority at the expense of subordinates was already the hospital’s modus operandi. The management’s instinct was not investigation, but preservation. Not accountability, but hierarchy.
This is crucial. Before the scandal became public, the hospital had already demonstrated where its loyalties lay. The director was protected. The subordinate was expendable. Dan lost his position; the director remained secure. That earlier incident establishes a pattern: institutional cohesion prioritized over justice. Now compare this to the anonymous article. (chapter 91) The article does not expose the forest. It exposes one wolf. Hence the hospital name remains concealed, while the man’s face is “revealed”. The director’s license is suspended. Publicly, the system appears decisive. But structurally, the logic remains the same: protect the institution, isolate the individual. The difference is only in scale. Previously, Dan was sacrificed to shield the director. Now the director is sacrificed to shield the hospital.
The mechanism is identical. This is where Perrault’s tale deepens the analogy. In the fairy tale, the mother sends the girl into danger unprepared. The adults create conditions in which charm is not interrogated. When the wolf succeeds, the girl bears the consequence. Society remains unexamined. Hence in Perrault’s tale, there is no huntsman because society itself is implicated. The wolf is not defeated because the environment that produced him remains untouched.
Likewise, the hospital’s earlier response shows that vulnerability was institutionalized. Victims were isolated. Complaints were contained. Authority was insulated. The forest was never safe; it was simply unacknowledged. The article does not expose the forest. It exposes one wolf.
And that is the most disturbing parallel: predators thrive where institutions prefer appearance over introspection. And now, let me ask you this question: what about MFC as institution then?
Perrault’s warning is therefore double-edged. It cautions young women about gentle wolves, but it also exposes a society that raises daughters to be agreeable rather than analytical. In both cases, the danger is not only the wolf. It is the world that allows him to pass as familiar.
That is why his language is not remorseful but retaliatory. (chapter 90) “If I fall, he’s going down with me” translates into: If I am exposed, I will contaminate the narrative. I will ensure that no one stands clean beside me. The threat is not about truth; it is about mutual ruin. This is Perrault’s mechanism inverted: when privacy collapses, the wolf attempts to drag the girl into public disgrace so that exposure harms both equally. If he cannot remain hidden, he will ensure that the victim appears complicit. What the director fears most is not prison, nor even moral judgment. It is losing control of the story.
And this leads me to the following observation: (chapter 90) The director claimed that doc Dan ruined his life, though the article makes it clear that it happened because of the collaboration of different victims. (chapter 90) The moment he got caught by the nurse in the office, gossips started circulating, and previous victims recognized that they were not the only ones. The man could no longer escape the gaze from the staff. Hence he had to seek his “targets” elsewhere. The restaurant scene clarifies his new method. He is sitting with a man in a curated adult space—low light, alcohol, controlled proximity. 
(chapter 90) It resembles the wolf’s preferred setting: intimacy that appears voluntary. What caught my attention is that he complained about his partners. (chapter 90) That line exposes the structural wound. “Pandering” implies performance. It implies negotiation. It implies mutuality. It implies that he must now ask rather than take. In the hospital, he did not have to pander. Authority substituted for charm. Hierarchy substituted for consent. Privacy substituted for persuasion.
Outside that territory, he is reduced to the marketplace of mutual agreement, — dating apps, casual meetings, drinks that require conversation rather than compliance. And he resents it. I came to think about dating apps, because the perverted hospital director did not meet the man at the XY club 
(chapter 33), but at the restaurant. If he had known such a club, he could have met the green haired-guy or the “uke” from episode 55. Thus I deduce that the sexual predator is actually hiding his “homosexuality”, he had been living a double life in the end, like the wolf in Perrault. That’s why he targets “virgins”. Since he used the expression “pandering… get by”, Mingwa implies that this man must have told the men (“all kinds of people”) he met, he was looking for a boyfriend to justify his action. 
(chapter 90) However, this lie was quickly caught by the unknown companion, as the perverted director paid no attention to him. (chapter 89) This exposes that the sexual predator hadn’t dropped his old mind-set, selfishness and entitlement. When the man abruptly stands and leaves, the director is surprised. 
(chapter 90) That surprise matters. It suggests expectation of compliance, of silent agreement, of recognition of coded signals. The man likely does not belong to the director’s ecosystem; he does not recognize the invitation as opportunity but as lack of respect. Thus he exits. 
(chapter 90) The fact that the wolf tried to talk him out of it indicates that their relationship was not only superficial, but also more equal. Humiliation is crucial. Predators who rely on social camouflage depend on territory. When territory collapses, strategy must change.
This is where the transformation begins. Until he meets Doc Dan, the director functions like an anaconda: silent constriction, gradual suffocation, no visible struggle. The anaconda does not bite first; it coils. It removes oxygen slowly. The hospital setting enabled precisely that kind of predation—isolated rooms, professional hierarchy, reputational shields. After the loss of his territory, we could say that he becomes acting like a “wolf” from Perrault’s version. He has many relationships (all kinds of people to get by). Perrault’s wolf survives because he is charming and unmarked. He passes as “Compère.” Yet, the moment the champion crosses his path, the director transforms one more time: 
(chapter 90) This is where Grimm enters. His true nature got exposed, he is socially identified as predator.
Thus I initially deduced that the perverted hospital director would retaliate against the famous champion. (chapter 90) Jaekyung represents exposure. He is public, visible, media-facing. He has sponsors, contracts, a name that circulates. Reputation is capital in MMA. A scandal can destabilize a career faster than defeat in the ring.
But the new development alters this trajectory. (chapter 91) The director has already been exposed. His license is suspended. His name circulates in headlines. Even if the hospital remains anonymous, he does not. His face may be blurred, but within professional and social circles, recognition is inevitable.
This changes the mechanics of revenge. Previously, he could have weaponized narrative. Now, narrative cannot be weaponized — because he lacks credibility. Any accusation coming from him would be read as retaliation. He is already stigmatized as the wolf.
And stigma has consequences beyond reputation. He complains that he must “pander to all kinds of people just to get by.” (chapter 90) That line once indicated resentment toward consent. Now it reveals something deeper: he may no longer even succeed in pandering. Who would willingly meet a man publicly accused of harassment? (chapter 91) Even if strangers do not immediately recognize him, someone eventually will. His social ecosystem contracts.
He becomes even more isolated than before. This is where the transformation accelerates. And when charm is no longer viable and narrative manipulation is no longer credible, only one option remains: force without pretense.
This is where Grimm’s wolf enters fully. In Grimm’s version, the wolf does not maintain prolonged civility. He springs. 
(chapter 90) He devours. 
(chapter 90) There is no sustained camouflage. Violence becomes explicit.
The director’s inner monologue already reveals this potential pivot: (chapter 90) That sentence reframes restraint as error. It converts missed coercion into regret.
Now add stigmatization. If he cannot find partners, if he cannot reclaim status, if he cannot control narrative, if he has nothing left to lose, then the probability of retaliation and desperate reassertion increases. Not because he desires intimacy. But because he desires dominance. And dominance without insulation becomes assault.
The restaurant rejection already wounded his ego. Besides, his behavior at the restaurant could be seen as intrusion. 
(chapter 90) Hence he ran away. The exposure destroyed his credibility. The public article marked him. His ecosystem collapses. He is no longer hidden wolf. He is identified predator.
Predators who lose camouflage often escalate rather than retreat. Thus the revenge element shifts from narrative contamination to bodily assertion. Not scandal against Jaekyung. Not media manipulation. But an attempt to reclaim asymmetry through direct coercion. This does not guarantee success.
But it increases probability. The fairy-tale logic therefore completes itself:
Perrault shows the wolf who hides behind civility. Grimm shows the wolf who leaps when civility fails.
In Jinx, we may be witnessing the precise moment where camouflage is no longer possible — and where the predator, stripped of territory and credibility, risks becoming the brute he once avoided being. The resentment we see in his thoughts suggests precisely that possibility. When he sees Kim Dan thriving elsewhere, when he frames him as “whoring himself out,” he begins to rewrite the narrative: if Dan is already a “whore,” then coercion becomes transaction. In that logic, force becomes justified. And remember how Heo Manwook reacted, when he imagined that doc Dan was selling himself: 
(chapter 16)
This is the most dangerous pivot. Perrault’s wolf survives through civility. Grimm’s wolf initially survives through brutality, until he is caught (the huntsman = police). The director initially belonged to the first category. After losing territory, he risks evolving into the second. To conclude, the shift from anaconda to wolf is not a metaphorical flourish; it is psychological escalation. Camouflaged predators who lose control often intensify behavior rather than retreat.
And now, you are probably wondering why I included the actor Choi Heesung in the illustration of “predators”, though he is a second lead.
The False Mirror: Choi Heesung and The Gentle Wolf
At first glance, Choi Heesung stands disturbingly close to Perrault’s wolf. Not only he appears as polite and gentle 
(chapter 30), but also as selfless. 
(chapter 30) Yet, he is a libertine, though he claims to be pure by stating that he is looking for his soulmate. 
(chapter 33) Hence no one is suspecting the darkness in his heart. Even the champion believed in his words, when he claimed that he had some feelings for doc Dan. 
(chapter 58) The resemblance is deliberate. He is discreet. He avoids public scrutiny. He hides his intimacy with Potato. 
(chapter 43) Therefore the latter was not present at the champion’s birthday party. The actor operates in private spaces 
(special episode 2) and prefers silence over visibility. Like Perrault’s Compère le loup, he does not appear monstrous. He appears socially legible — even charming. He navigates controlled environments. He is careful about who sees what.
On the surface, the symmetry is unsettling. Perrault’s wolf does not attack in the forest. He speaks politely and seduces next to the Woodcutters. 
(chapter 35) He proposes a “race”to the little girl, in Jinx it’s a meal (ramen in Korean, an allusion to sex)
(chapter 35) He softens his voice. He invites the girl into bed. 
(special episode 1) He constructs intimacy before violence. He depends on civility as camouflage.
But what distinguishes a “libertine” is the absence of responsibility in their actions and words. Once the “Little Red Riding Hood” loses their virginity, the culprit is not blamed, but the victim. That’s why Perrault warns young women. The latter have to take the responsibility for the wolf’s behavior. Therefore it is not astonishing that the actor agrees that the chow chow becomes “responsible” for him. 
(special episode 1)
Because Heesung, too, prefers the private over the public, he exists in the gray zone where discretion and desire intersect.
But resemblance is not structure.
The decisive difference lies in how secrecy is used. Perrault’s wolf hides in order to extract. Civility functions as access. Privacy ensures there are no woodcutters. Sweetness precedes consumption. The wolf’s politeness is not restraint — it is strategy. Heesung’s secrecy functions differently. It is not just defensive, he still wants his partner to have fun. 
(special episode 1) It is not about power display, but fun. He hides not to isolate his partner, but to shield himself from exposure. His discretion protects his own public image, not his access to another’s body. The imbalance exists — it cannot be denied — but it is not systematically mobilized to erode consent. The latter comes from their initial contract: Potato is at his beck and call.
The wolf uses secrecy to manufacture vulnerability. Heesung uses secrecy to simply avoid visibility and responsibility. This distinction becomes clearer in their relation to inexperience.
For Perrault’s wolf, virginity is not intimacy. It is resistance waiting to be broken. (chapter 90) The girl’s naivety is eroticized precisely because it promises asymmetry. The invitation into bed is staged. Her undressing is narrated. Closeness is prolonged. The violence emerges from intimacy.
Control is primary. Desire is secondary. Heesung’s response to inexperience produces discomfort rather than appetite. 
(special episode 1) He has been avoiding “virgins” for one reason. He knows how a “virgin” would react to his dream ” to find his soulmate”. They would take his “words” seriously and imagine him as someone serious and reliable. But by selecting partners with sexual experience, he can claim that he made a mistake, they were no soulmate. 
(special episode 1) But this panel exposes even better why the actor is so different from Perrault’s wolf. Youth symbolizes “vulnerability and innocence” and that’s something he has been avoiding. The reason is simple. That way, he can avoid accountability. That’s why he panics, when he hears the age. He realizes his mistake! This reveals that though Heesung is a libertine, he is different from the hospital warden. He is not seeking pleasure in asymmetry, fear, shame and power. He is not targeting “virgins” to exploit their vulnerability. He has been avoiding “virgins”, as he knew that he would have to take responsibility. In reality, he has always feared attachment. Where the wolf eroticizes vulnerability, Heesung is destabilized by it.
What complicates the contrast with Choi Heesung is not that with his smiles, he resembles 
(chapter 34) the predator by accident (chapter 90), but that he resembles him convincingly enough to be confused with him.
In the first part, we wrote: “Something walks close, warm and familiar — speaking softly, until trust opens the way.” That description applied to the wolf. But it also applies to the fox. Heesung’s true animal is not the wolf. It is the fox 
(chapter 89) — clever, adaptable, socially fluid. The fox does not devour. It maneuvers and as such plays tricks.
And yet the fox can be mistaken for a wolf. Heesung repeatedly uses proximity through work to create intimacy. 
(chapter 32) He first approaches Kim Dan through professional contact. Later, he suggests a gig to Potato (special episode 1) or uses training space to remain near Potato. 
(chapter 88) Even in the gym, he casually asks Yoo-Gu to hold mitts — reorganizing the work structure in ways that subtly serve his private interest. Work becomes the bridge. The boundary blurs.
And here lies the dangerous resemblance. He reproaches Joo Jaekyung: 
(chapter 89) The accusation implies that Jaekyung contaminates professional space with sex. Yet Heesung himself collapses that boundary. He initiates intimacy with Potato after drinking. He knows the other is intoxicated. He proceeds anyway.
This is not predatory orchestration. But it is negligence toward asymmetry. This is where the question becomes unavoidable: when is it consent, and when is it coercion?
Is consent present simply because no explicit “no” was spoken? Is coercion present only when force is visible?
Or does the line lie elsewhere — in power, in context, in intention? Mingwa gave us the answer: 
(chapter 90) It is when one makes a clear decision and accepts the consequences. Yet, Heesung violated this rule, for he knew Potato was drunk. He did not stop. He did not insist on postponement. He allowed desire to override clarity. That choice introduces asymmetry. Alcohol clouds agency. Youth complicates balance. Professional proximity blurs roles. Secondly, he is rejecting accountability. Finally, he never tried to correct Potato’s error and false belief. He took advantage of his ignorance. So his behavior could be perceived as manipulative and coercive.
From the outside, the structure resembles the predator’s method: work proximity, private space, imbalance, intoxication. But coercion is not defined by imbalance alone. It is defined by how imbalance is used. The hospital director manufactures dependence. (chapter 90) He isolates. He rewrites refusal. He eroticizes resistance. He regrets restraint. His desire intensifies when asymmetry is greatest. Heesung does not erode consent systematically. He does not isolate Potato over time. He does not rewrite refusal as invitation. But he does blur boundaries. He does allow alcohol to intervene. He does prioritize desire over clarity.
From the outside, that distinction may not be visible. And that is where misrecognition becomes dangerous.
Heesung does not publicly acknowledge the relationship. 
(special episode 1) He hides it, though he tried to reveal it to doc Dan 
(chapter 58). If the truth were exposed — an actor secretly sleeping with a younger, inexperienced partner whom he approached through work — the narrative could easily frame him as exploitative. He could be accused of sexual harassment.
He would appear as a predator. Not because he functions like the hospital director — but because the structure resembles it. Fox mistaken for wolf.
The key distinction lies in aftermath. When Jaekyung reflects 
(chapter 91) the emotion is internalized. He experiences remorse not because he was exposed, but because he crossed a boundary. He separates work from intimacy afterward. He becomes rigid about consent, alcohol, and clarity. Therefore imagine his reaction, when he discovers the true nature of the relationship between Choi Heesung and Potato. He can only be shocked and angry.
This is why Jinx constructs the resemblance so carefully. Surface similarity forces the reader to confront how easily desire, secrecy, and proximity can resemble coercion. The difference lies not in discretion, nor in imbalance, nor even in sexual contact under imperfect conditions. It lies in how power is processed before and afterward. At the same time, it gives an answer how to read the first night between the main couple. It was no sexual harassment.
The wolf converts vulnerability into entitlement. The fox risks vulnerability through miscalculation.
And yet — in a world quick to judge by appearances — the fox may be labeled as a wolf. That is the uncomfortable tension Mingwa builds. Because the story is not only about identifying predators. It is about learning to distinguish between domination and error, between strategy and immaturity, between systematic coercion and boundary failure.
If Choi Heesung’s relationship with Potato were to become public, how would it be read? Would he be framed as a predator — the older actor who used work proximity and intoxication to seduce an inexperienced partner? Would he become the new “black sheep,” sacrificed to protect the image of the entertainment agency?
(chapter 33) Or would attention shift to the structure that allowed blurred boundaries to exist in the first place?
This question is not hypothetical. It repeats a pattern already established. Observe how Joo Jaekyung sued a hospital for leaking information, though the lawyer and the institution put the blame an individual. 
(chapter 36) When the hospital scandal broke, the institution remained unnamed. (chapter 91) The director was isolated as the deviant. The system survived. Corruption was reframed as personal misconduct. Structural tolerance became invisible.
If Heesung were exposed, would the narrative follow the same logic? Would he be condemned as an individual aberration? Or would the agency be questioned for cultivating environments where professional and private hierarchies overlap, where young trainees depend on seniors, where silence protects image?
The fox can easily be mistaken for the wolf. But the forest still matters. And this brings us to a larger structural mirror: MFC.
When schemes unfolded inside the fighting world — manipulated matches, concealed injuries, silent complicity — who bears responsibility? The CEO? The manager? The doctors who testified selectively? 
(chapter 41) The security guards who enforced silence? 
(chapter 40) The sports reporters who repeated the official version? The referees? The moderators? The corrupted director of the gym Choi Gilseok? Or the institution itself?
If one fighter becomes the scapegoat 
(chapter 52), does the structure remain untouched?
If one CEO falls, does the culture disappear? 
(chapter 47)
If one predator is exposed, does the ecosystem dissolve? 
(chapter 48) As you can see, I have the feeling that the pharmaceutical company might become the topic of the next scandal.
Perrault’s tale quietly asks the same question. The wolf is blamed. But who raised the girl to trust sweetness without discernment? Who allowed her to walk alone? Who normalized obedience over critical thought? The fairy tale ends with the wolf devouring the girl — and society intact. Grimm adds a huntsman, but the forest remains.
So when the next scandal erupts — whether in the hospital, in the agency, or in MFC — the real question will not be merely who acted wrongly.
It will be: who benefited?
Who remained silent?
Who enforced the hierarchy?
Who preferred reputation over accountability?
And perhaps the most uncomfortable question of all: Will another wolf be sacrificed — while the forest survives once again?
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(chapter 89) Episode 89 does not rely on spectacle, confrontation, or confession. Instead, it performs something far more unsettling. It turns back toward the beginning 
(chapter 89) and begins to unravel what was once deliberately sealed.
(chapter 1) We knew there was a witness. We knew that what happened was not ambiguous in moral terms.
(chapter 1) is not a revelation of new information. It is the resurfacing of a figure who once proved that truth alone was insufficient. His reappearance signals that what was buried at the beginning of the story—harassment, witness, cover-up, professional erasure—is no longer content to remain inert. The silence that once protected the hospital director is beginning to fray, unwinding slowly, like a gift ribbon pulled loose thread by thread. What was known but unspeakable is approaching exposure not through confession, but through loss of insulation.
(chapter 89) Instead, the narrative offers a bird’s-eye view of the hospice Light of Hope as Joo Jaekyung’s car leaves the parking lot. The implication is unmistakable. Her death is imminent. But just as importantly, she is transitioning from presence to spectral force—no longer intervening, no longer negotiating, but lingering over the narrative as memory and obligation.
(chapter 1) Readers did not meet the grandmother until Episode 5. 
(chapter 5) Before that, her existence was inferred rather than seen: through debt, through responsibility, through the ruined house Kim Dan inhabited. Absence structured the story before presence ever did. The grandmother was a force long before she was a character.
(chapter 89) When Joo Jaekyung speaks of “the way home,” 
(chapter 89) and Kim Dan repeats the phrase without hesitation, the shift is unmistakable. Home has been reassigned. It is no longer the place where Kim Dan endures obligation or where his grandmother is 
(chapter 56), but the place where he lives in the present: the penthouse. The grandmother’s influence has not vanished; yet it has been reduced to a short visit, while he spends time with his fated partner a long time on the road. Her absence no longer anchors him to a life of quiet survival. He is now enjoying life, hence he is seen smiling and talking informal to the athlete. 
(chapter 89)
(chapter 1), unseen decisions made about Kim Dan without his consent 
(chapter 89) Debts have been paid. Contracts are finite. A witness exists, though he doesn’t believe in the “angel”. 
(chapter 89) Kim Dan is no longer isolated in his knowledge, nor alone in bearing its consequences. Joo Jaekyung detected the presence of a “predator”. 
(chapter 89) 
(chapter 1) The readers never saw what caused the unknown therapist’s departure. Instead, the incident is relayed second-hand, through Park Namwook’s narration—an account that reduces the event to temperament, friction, and inevitability. The physical therapist is said to have “rubbed him the wrong way.” An incident occurred and the athlete was exposed as the problem. The job was framed as undesirable. The departure was normalized. 
(chapter 1), but he did not question the narrative offered to him. He never tried to justify his own action either. Park Namwook, as manager, occupied the position of authority: the one who explained, interpreted, and closed the case. He never checked the facts, like for example “rubbing him the wrong way”. He acted as the prosecutor, judge and lawyer at the same time. What happened before remained unseen, and therefore unexamined. The truth did not need to be falsified; it only needed to be summarized. 
(chapter 1), the reluctance of applicants, and the need to recruit Kim Dan through informal channels all suggested that something else had already been circulating: a reputation formed in absence, not through evidence.
(chapter 9), explanations, and silence. Only after the “hamster’s arrival”, the athlete is gradually exposed to gossip, badmouthing 
(chapter 47) and exclusion. This reached its peak with the famous slap at the hospital. 
(chapter 52) It shows that like doc Dan, the celebrity bears the effects of a narrative he did not author, one that no longer requires verification and questioning because it has already been administratively settled. 
(chapter 88) The kiss does not erase what preceded it; it merely interrupts it. Kim Dan’s explanation is therefore neither wholly true nor wholly false. It is a partial truth, shaped by shyness, by a desire to protect, and by shame. Hence he is sweating, when he explains his presence to Potato. 
(chapter 30), as the latter is quiet, self-effacing. selfless, attentive, humble and absorbs blame instead of projecting it. Kim Dan initially fits the fantasy of the perfect lover — someone who would not disrupt Heesung’s self-image. Hence he doesn’t need to do anything. 
(chapter 31) By siding with doc Dan and acting as the angel’s advocate 
(chapter 89), the comedian can appear as a saint. 
(chapter 89) and generalization. Because he saw one thing, he believes he knows everything. Because he believes he already knows Joo Jaekyung —his temper, his reputation, his past, his belief 
(chapter 32)— he believes that he can judge the celebrity. However, he does not consider that something else might have happened before the moment he witnessed. The kiss becomes totalizing. Training is retroactively erased. 
(chapter 52) nor Heesung exercises this control. Both act from positions of perceived authority, and both mistake emotional coherence for factual accuracy. Their confidence does not only arise from what they know, but also from how strongly they feel. The strength of conviction replaces the labor of verification.
(chapter 58) He imagines a simple narrative: Kim Dan must have left because of Joo Jaekyung’s temper, his rudeness, his violence, probably due to the “defeat”. A quarrel, therefore, naturally leads to separation. From this assumption follows a paternalistic conclusion: the “hamster” must be hidden from the athlete for his own good. Protection becomes justification; concealment becomes virtue. 
(chapter 89) while smoking—a detail the episode insists on repeating, and one that should not be aestheticized. The cigarette does not merely accompany his words; it alters the air in which they are spoken. 
(chapter 89) Smoke replaces oxygen. What should be a space for clarification becomes a polluted environment where nothing clean can circulate. His speech is not only corrosive; it is toxic, dispersing blame without responsibility and judgment without accountability.
(chapter 58), he reinterprets the kiss as “fuck” and not as the expression of love and tenderness. In other words, he is witnessing “true love”, but he rejects it. This exposes that he has no true notion of real love. In his mind, Joo Jaekyung abused his position as “employer”. 
(chapter 89) But this distinction is hollow. Harm does not require raised fists. It can be inflicted through trick, insinuation, through speaking about someone rather than to them, through occupying the role of moral arbiter while denying the other person a voice. 
(chapter 89) His comment “You’re not ….” implies the expectation of a confirmation. Both are not dating. What Joo Jaekyung is actually doing exceeds the category Heesung understands. This is not casual dating. It is not secrecy. It is not consumption. It is preparation. Continuity. A future. Symbolically, Joo Jaekyung is already a step beyond “dating”: he is moving toward marriage — toward public, accountable union. He is closer to commitment than the cursed “Romeo”. That’s the reason why the author included such a reference at the store: 
(chapter 89). 
(chapter 89) 
(chapter 56) As long as Kim Dan remained unseen, power could continue to “know” without ever needing to verify.
(chapter 89) rather than exposed guilt. His posture is upright, leaning in. His hand rests on Kim Dan’s shoulder without hesitation—uninvited yet unchallenged. His face shows satisfaction, not doubt. He smiles while Kim Dan sweats and is attempting to stop him. 
(chapter 89)
(chapter 89) They do not require shadows, isolation, or ambiguity to touch. Their closeness does not depend on secrecy or hierarchy. Where the director’s former power depended on institutional opacity, hierarchical distance, and Kim Dan’s vulnerability, Joo Jaekyung’s present intimacy depends on none of these. And no one seems to pay attention to the “main couple” at all. 
(chapter 89)
(chapter 42) This raises the following question: was the wolf suing the hospital where doc Dan got his first “gig”,? 
(chapter 89) Wine is relational. It opens, breathes, changes with time. It is meant to be shared, discussed, returned to. It presupposes duration. Where whisky seals, wine circulates.
(chapter 89) But more importantly, he doesn’t hide his affection and attraction to doc Dan, while the other did it behind closed doors. Finally, thanks to doc Dan, Joo Jaekyung is learning to pay attention to his surrounding. That’s how he sensed the gaze from the perverted hospital director. 
(chapter 89) not as a plea for permission, but as an invitation into a shared future. The pause of the older man watching him echoes a different kind of professionalism: not predatory authority, not performative control, but quiet recognition. Furthermore the doctor’s suit reminded me of the doctor in episode 13, Cheolmin (pattern, colors). 
(chapter 13) The visual resemblance to Cheolmin is not accidental. It aligns Kim Dan’s future not with power that operates through secrecy, but with practice grounded in fun, care and responsibility. Earlier, suits belonged to those who decided outcomes behind closed doors 
(chapter 89) Bought by Joo Jaekyung but chosen by Kim Dan, it marks the return of agency. What was once a symbol of exclusion now signals continuity. Kim Dan is no longer preparing to survive. He is preparing to live. Hence his birthday is approaching. 
(chapter 88), and the final panel hinting at an imminent confrontation with Choi Heesung. 
(chapter 88) Discussions largely revolved around physical proximity, discipline, and anticipation — around bodies in motion and the promise of conflict to come. At first glance, the episode seemed to oscillate between intimacy and tension 
(chapter 88), between preparation 
(chapter 88).
(chapter 88) are structured around restraint 
(chapter 88), delayed, or redirected. Words are measured, authority is redistributed, and decisions are deferred 
(chapter 88) rather than imposed. What initially appears as physical intensity and narrative suspense begins to reveal a deeper reconfiguration of roles, responsibility, and choice.
(chapter 70)—most likely in November— in late autumn. 
(chapter 88) This temporal setting is visually reinforced by the environment itself: in the opening sequence marked “a few weeks later,” the tree is already bare, its leaves gone. Nature offers no spontaneous image of growth or renewal. If a flower were to appear in this chapter, it couldn’t belong to the season. It must be cultivated, protected, and sustained in a green house—something that emerges not from natural abundance, but from deliberate care. So where does this idea of a flower come from?
: a closed circuit which we could witness once again in the training room: 
(chapter 88) There are once again sparks between them. The number 8 is not just related to doc Dan [for more read 
(chapter 58) Two trajectories —long separated, repeatedly missing one another—intersect at last. When two eights overlap, they form neither a loop nor a knot, but a new shape: a flower-like figure, suggestive of opening rather than closure. This crossing does not resolve everything; instead, it creates the conditions for growth for all the characters. 
(chapter 88), white 
(chapter 88) purple 
(chapter 88), blue, gray, 
, (chapter 88) red 
(chapter 88) Pink frames tenderness and mutual awkwardness; purple marks embarrassment and heightened awareness; red signals suppressed anger and looming confrontation; black absorbs fear, silence, and unresolved tension.
(chapter 88) are dressed in green 
(chapter 19), where green and floral elements once functioned as a silent language of care and containment. The repetition is not accidental. By wearing a similar tone in the present, Kim Dan does not merely revisit the past; he carries it forward. 
(chapter 35), which tend to assert a singular message (love, passion, beauty), hydrangeas communicate multiplicity and emotional ambivalence; they speak in clusters rather than declarations. This visual language mirrors Kim Dan’s inner world at the time 
(chapter 31). Here, the symbolism shifts. Pink roses convey affection and admiration, while baby’s breath suggests innocence and fragility. Yet the arrangement is excessive, overwhelming, and mismatched to its recipient. The bouquet does not listen; it speaks at Kim Dan rather than with him. Significantly, Heesung comes to associate Kim Dan himself with the flower—something delicate, beautiful, and deserving of protection, but also something to be handled, displayed, and possessed. 
(chapter 88) Kim Dan’s green training clothes—visually echoing the green shirt he wore in the photograph with his grandmother—signal continuity rather than regression. This is not a retreat into childhood dependency, but the reappearance of an inner child now disentangled from obligation and fear. The flower that reemerges here is not gifted, not arranged, not imposed—it grows. In this sense, episode 88 introduces a missing element in the dynamic between the two protagonists: not desire, not care, but communication. And it is here that Choi Heesung becomes central—not as a rival or antagonist, but as a structural bridge, as in reality he represents the rose, “La vie en rose” 
. He embodies speech, playfulness, and visibility, yet also reveals their limits when they are severed from responsibility and respect. I will elaborate about this more below.
(chapter 88), but the moment in which the conditions for happiness are finally put into place. And now let me ask you this. What is the symbol of happiness? Smiles and laughs. During the training session, Kim Dan smiles. These moments are brief 
(chapter 88) and goes unnoticed by him 
(chapter 83) What is striking is that neither of them recognizes this fulfillment. 
(chapter 31)
(chapter 88) What appears at first glance as coercion 
(chapter 88) or discipline is in fact a negotiation shaped by habit, fear of burdening the other, and an inability—on both sides—to articulate desire outside professional roles.
(chapter 88), a space that is never neutral in Jinx. A car has one driver, one direction, one authority. By placing the conversation there, Mingwa signals that the relationship is still structurally asymmetrical at this point: Joo Jaekyung leads, Kim Dan follows.
(chapter 88) Secondly, such a training suggests that the athlete is gradually remembering this scene of the almost-rape. 
(chapter 17) Therefore it is not surprising that instead of asking permission or explaining concern, he imposes the idea—because that is how he has learned to act as a captain, a fighter, and later a manager. Authority precedes dialogue. 
(chapter 88) In other words, the request from Joo Jaekyung appears as a memory from the physical therapist. Why? 
(chapter 88) Because Mingwa refuses the “clean” sequence in which an order is issued and immediately executed. The narration inserts a gap—an interval of off-panel time that we are forced to reconstruct from Kim Dan’s recall. 
(chapter 88) Instead Kim Dan no longer insists on his own sufficiency. He no longer says “I can manage., but doc Dan admits not only his own lacking. 
(chapter 88), but also his own desire. He finally expresses his desire to improve, to learn more. 
(chapter 88) creates a temporal bridge that enables this recognition. Only once change is named from the outside can Kim Dan cautiously acknowledge it from within.
(chapter 88) The problem is that his form of care was influenced by his own mindset and emotions: his physical limitations.
(chapter 88)
(chapter 88). He teases. 
(chapter 88)
(chapter 88), not rest. Thus the doctor mistakes the embrace for a technique and not the expression of love. 
(chapter 88) And observe that the athlete still refuses to express the true meaning of his hug. His explanation still remains technical, defensive, and strategically framed:
(chapter 88) This sentence is crucial. It reduces contact to function. The closeness of bodies, the pressure of weight, the proximity of breath are translated into instruction. What could be acknowledged as reassurance or care is instead displaced into pedagogy. Joo Jaekyung does not deny intimacy; he relabels it. 
(chapter 88) of breath held too long, of proximity charged with something unnamed. The technical explanation arrives after that awareness, not before it. This confirms that the instructional language functions as a shield — not against intimacy itself, but against having to speak it.
(chapter 88) Directly after warning against lowering one’s guard, Joo Jaekyung kisses him.
(chapter 26) Back then, Doc Dan had accepted the challenge due to Potato, though deep down he desired to have the champion as his teacher. 
(chapter 25) That’s how it dawned on me that doc Dan has gradually taken over Yoon-Gu’s previous place at the gym. He is an “unofficial member” of Team Black. Thus he mops the floor and Yoon-Gu is not there to stop him or reclaim this position. 
(chapter 88) Yoon-Gu’s position within the gym has improved. He is now considered as a real fighter. 
(chapter 88) 
(chapter 87) For him, this trip was related to work, while in reality it was a date in disguise. 
(Chapter 88) The answer restores hierarchy without acknowledging the transformation that has already occurred. Secondly, the answer closes the future by appealing to a supposedly objective limit. Yoon-Gu can never be his sparring partner. The best he can do is hold the mitts and nothing more. The fox is using his seniority and body to have the final say. 
(chapter 88) Under that framework, Yoon-Gu is not disqualified; he is qualified. He has trained. He belongs. So technically, Yoon-Gu could indeed beat the actor, as the “puppy” has trained for a long time at Team Black. 
(chapter 33) He knows what he does not want. His language is saturated with judgment shaped by past experiences: lovers who become “too clingy,” attachments that turn inconvenient, people who should remain “better off” elsewhere 
(chapter 33) Heesung’s orientation is never toward what is unfolding, but toward what might be better elsewhere—another partner, another configuration, another future. His repeated invocation of a “soulmate” is revealing: it displaces intimacy into a hypothetical horizon. By looking at the grass, he is overlooking the flower. Love, for him, is something to be found later, once the conditions are ideal. What exists now is always provisional, always lacking, always subject to replacement. He needs the “perfect” lover, and in his eyes, Potato doesn’t meet his conditions: too innocent and too young. 
(special episode 1) This explicates why the young fighter is only considered as “fuck buddy”. 
(special episode 1), he is present, available, even emotionally invested—but he is never treated as sufficient. He is smaller 
(chapter 31) He denies the existence of feelings and attachment. 
(special episode 1) or humiliate the other. 
(chapter 34) Heesung, by contrast, is fluent. He can name, joke, insinuate. What he lacks is restraint and responsibility. His ease with words does not signal emotional intelligence; it signals control.
(chapter 34) Heesung enters fully aware of what he is likely to witness. He is not naïve, nor totally surprised. Hence he doesn’t flee right away. Yet instead of acknowledging the reality before him, Doc Dan is not someone the fighter fucks, until he passes out, 
(chapter 34) Joo Jaekyung becomes the problem, the one who “deserves to suffer.” 
(chapter 25), accepts deferral. Later, he is displaced entirely. Unlike Kim Dan, who gradually moves from imposed participation to earned agency, Potato is never given a space where effort leads to recognition. 
(chapter 85) However, this panel implies that the young man has already been able to enter competition. Striking is that his promise at the seaside sounds like commitment 
(chapter 59), but the reality diverges. It only binds doc Dan. If the latter returns to Seoul, he has to promise to train with Potato. The reason is simple. He is already committed to the actor, he is already at his beck and call. Potato’s promise echoes the earlier promise forced upon Kim Dan by his grandmother: a future-oriented vow that justifies present sacrifice while guaranteeing nothing in return. 
(chapter 11)
(chapter 78), he didn’t remind doc Dan of his promise. At the same time, observe that none of the fighters apologized or promised something. When they hugged the doctor, they didn’t pay attention to the physical therapist’s reaction: his passivity and silence. The “laugh” lacked genuineness and felt wrong at the time. 
(chapter 78) 
(Chapter 88) This is how it dawned on me why Mingwa recreated such a situation for Heesung. Observe his reaction, when he opened the door. He never answered the question to Potato. In fact, he slammed the door and kept his thoughts to himself. 
(chapter 32), Yoon-Gu now provides unpaid labor and institutional access under the guise of familiarity and generosity 
(chapter 35). In both cases, Heesung benefits from proximity without assuming responsibility for the other person’s risk. Silence, here, is not neutral—it is the mechanism by which that asymmetry is maintained.
(chapter 88) Forgiveness, responsibility, and mutual recognition—central to the arc unfolding elsewhere—are entirely absent from his conduct. Where Joo Jaekyung begins to redistribute choice and accountability, Heesung consolidates control by refusing to speak.
(chapter 52) about the switched spray, but he only reported one thing: Kim Dan is innocent. So while insight is present, responsibility is systematically deferred. Without responsibility, respect cannot follow. And without respect, what appears as connection is merely use, quietly sustained by silence.
(chapter 88) The irony is that the actor didn’t realize this. He had the impression to be exposed to a similar scene than in the penthouse. 
(chapter 35) And now, pay attention to the logo on the doctor’s t- shirt. 
(chapter 88) First, it appears on the left side, positioned close to the hamster’s heart. Moreover, it looks like an orange eye. Orange is not only the color of Heesung the fox 
(chapter 34), but also of friendship and social communication and interaction. 
(chapter 79) Besides, it is the same logo than when Yoon-Gu was spying behind the closed door.
(chapter 23) That’s the moment Potato realized the truth about the couple: they were intimate. That’s the reason why I am convinced that Heesung will play the role of the messenger and mediator between the wolf and the hamster.
(chapter 87) 
(chapter 87) The intimacy of the gesture 
(chapter 87) and an entire match took place, readers were largely talking about the introduction alone. 그나저나 이번화 나름 ㅂㅈㅁ도 나오고 경기도 했는데 다들 맨앞 도입부만 얘기하셔서 너무나 커엽군요,, (손잡았어 웅성웅성) Mimicking the collective reaction with a playful “They held hands!”, she described this selective focus as 커엽군요—not reproachful, but gently teasing.
(chapter 84) and the progression of their relationship, attuning readers to intimacy 
(chapter 85), care, and emotional release. When the chapter opens with a tactile, reassuring gesture, it naturally confirms that reading mode. The squeeze feels like a culmination.
(chapter 87), where a very different gesture unfolds. 
(chapter 87) There, Baek Junmin rejects restraint, pushes away guidance, and verbalizes a resolve shaped not by trust or release, but by anger and revenge. 
(chapter 87) This sentence marks a limit. It is not indifference, but acceptance. The champion has just registered the doctor’s surprise 
(chapter 87) — the slight jolt, the hesitation—and he responds by stopping. The restraint is not automatic; it is chosen. He does not ask for more reassurance, more certainty, or more support, even though he clearly desires it. Instead, he recognizes sufficiency.
(chapter 87) So the doctor’s support was indeed limited in time. So the stop of the champion ‘s squeeze 
(chapter 87) Nothing mediates the gesture. There is no object, no talisman, no substitute. Meaning is produced entirely through contact. 
(chapter 87) The opening scene unfolds in a space that feels inhabited and shared, composed in softer shades that emphasize stillness and presence. The final scene is colder, darker, sharper. 
(chapter 87) Motion replaces quiet. An object enters the frame, absorbing force and redirecting it away from human contact. Where the first scene restores continuity—between bodies, between effort and outcome, between present and future 
(chapter 87) —the second collapses time inward. Baek Junmin does not act toward what is coming; he reacts toward what has already been. His violence is not exploratory but recursive. 
(chapter 87) It invokes the past as a template, attempting to reinstate an earlier hierarchy in which domination was secure and uncontested.
(chapter 87)—the very surface on which images circulate, words are fixed, and visibility is regulated. The screen does not reveal truth; it organizes perception. It is where victories are staged, reputations stabilized 
(chapter 46), and statements acquire permanence through broadcast. 
(chapter 87)
(chapter 87), then the pause; then Kim Dan’s tentative tap 
(chapter 49) When Joo Jaekyung addresses him with open disrespect, the breach of seniority provokes immediate outrage. 
(chapter 49) Intervention follows quickly. The insult is not tolerated 
(chapter 49) because it threatens hierarchy itself. Choi’s anger is genuine in that moment and it reveals what he truly guards: status, order, and the visibility of respect.
(chapter 87), and continues escalating without repercussion 
(chapter 78) Both continue to perceive Joo Jaekyung as nothing more than a fighter 
(chapter 87) This assumption governs how they speak to him, how they threaten him 
(chapter 46) His presence creates a convenient fiction: those around the table come to believe that he is the owner, or at least the one who truly governs the gym. Joo Jaekyung’s absence is interpreted not as autonomy, but as immaturity or dependence. Authority, once again, attaches itself to performance rather than reality.
(chapter 46) Even after boundaries are formally stated, Park Namwook continues to rely on seniority to address the champion 
(chapter 46) as if he were a child or an employee—someone to be corrected, instructed, and disciplined. The warning does not alter behavior because it does not challenge the underlying assumption: that Joo Jaekyung’s place is below them.
(chapter 87)
(chapter 87) What Baek attempts to destroy is not the object, but what it represents: the irreversibility of public speech, the collapse of secrecy, the loss of narrative control.
(chapter 49), handshakes, and private humiliation 
(chapter 49), the gesture becomes clearer still. He is accustomed to violence without witnesses, to domination shielded by proximity and secrecy. He was always the man in the shadow. The live broadcast deprives him of that refuge. 
(chapter 87) also unfold under the sign of privacy. 
(chapter 87) He is announcing a shift of identity.
(chapter 74) seeking legitimacy, and the underground enforcer shaped by violence, order and debts 
(chapter 47). The broken screen already signaled that he no longer cares about how he is seen. 
(Chapter 2). Here, strength is no longer something he takes. It is something he receives. 
(chapter 87) Kim Dan sleeping openly, showing his face, remaining there without fear—this is read by the champion as tacit trust. That trust becomes energy. In other words, this scene serves as the positive reflection of the argument in the locker room: 
(chapter 51)
(chapter 75) —showering, cologne, self-regulation before a match. Here, that sequence is conspicuously absent.
(chapter 87) The profanity is not recklessness—it is evidence that image management has lost its hold. The champion does not stop caring about how he is seen; he narrows the field of recognition. Public perception no longer governs him 
(chapter 87)
(chapter 69), recognition, and above all visibility. Yet this visibility is curiously incomplete. Despite his victory, Baek Junmin is not immediately present as a public figure. He appears as a result 
(chapter 52) —his name, his win—but not yet as a narrative subject.
(chapter 77) does the story formally reveal his identity as champion. Until that moment, he remains strangely undefined, as if held back from full exposure. This delay is not incidental. It reflects a controlled form of recognition: Baek Junmin is allowed to win, but not yet to be seen. It already exposes that his success or victory is not clean. 
(chapter 87)
(chapter 69) to carry him forward: sanctioned fights, official narratives, public status. Crimes may occur along the way, but they remain hidden, delegated, or absorbed by others. Power, for him, is something that must appear legitimate, even when it is not.
(chapter 50), they remain structurally hidden, absorbed by intermediaries, or misattributed. 
(chapter 69) Violence is laundered through legitimacy. The system continues to present him as a contender, even as it quietly tolerates sabotage and manipulation. Importantly, Baek Junmin does not need to know every detail for this economy to function; it protects him by design.
(chapter 47) Where the legal economy requires patience and exposure, the illicit one promises certainty and silence.
(chapter 52) In practice, hierarchy barely functions. Authority exists without discipline, protection without accountability. Baek Junmin is not positioned among other fighters, nor anchored in a collective. Thus he is not truly celebrated at the restaurant after the tie. Thus the fighters mentioned the director Choi Gilseok’s financial success or the odd behavior of Joo JAekyung. 
(chapter 52) Besides, he watches the match alone 
(chapter 51) where proximity forced acknowledgment and power was renegotiated face-to-face. 
(chapter 86), it does not close the night through narrative resolution. There is no statement, no promise, no verbal seal. And yet, for many Jinx-philes, the final panel refuses to let the scene dissolve. What remains is not heat, not tension, not even tenderness — but circulation.
(chapter 21), overload 
(chapter 33), short circuit 
(chapter 53) reset. And once that lens is adopted, it becomes impossible to limit the consequences of episode 86 to the couple alone. Because a closed circuit does not only affect those directly connected to it. It alters the surrounding system. 
(chapter 86). This section will explore how acknowledging change without denying past harm opens a new ethical position — one that prevents memory from being weaponized, while still preserving responsibility. Third, the analysis will turn to conversion, revisiting earlier nights marked by failure, asymmetry, and isolation. Rather than cancelling them, episode 86 absorbs and transforms them. This is where forgiveness, reflection, and the first true encounter with consequence quietly enter the narrative. Finally, a new section will widen the lens further by examining shared experience and memory 
(chapter 53), particularly through Kim Dan’s relationship with his grandmother. Here, the focus will not be accusation, but contrast: between memories carried alone and memories held together; between cycles of repetition and moments of presence; between a worldview structured around endurance and one shaped by circulation. The Paris night does not only affect how Kim Dan sees Joo Jaekyung 
(chapter 86) carries such weight, we must return to the origin of kissing itself in Jinx. Because surprise, in this story, is not an abstract theme. It has a history. And that history begins with a body being caught off guard.
(chapter 14) There is no warning, no verbal cue, no time to prepare. The kiss arrives as interruption. It is not negotiated; it is imposed. Hence the author focused on the champion’s hand just before the smooch. 
This moment matters far more than it initially appears, because it establishes the template through which Kim Dan first encounters intimacy. 
(chapter 15) Affection does not emerge gradually. It breaks in.
(chapter 15) He needs preparation. He needs time to brace himself emotionally. This request reveals two aspects. First, he connects a kiss with love. On the other hand, the request is not really about romance; it is rather about survival. Surprise, for Kim Dan, has already been coded as something that overwhelms the body before the mind can intervene.
(chapter 39), he violates his own request.
(chapter 39) They are unannounced, often landing on unusual places (cheek or ear) 
(chapter 44). They often take place under asymmetrical conditions — when one of them is intoxicated, confused, or emotionally exposed. Sometimes they occur without full consent, sometimes without clarity. In chapters 39 and 44, kisses surface precisely when language fails or consciousness fractures. It is as if Kim Dan has internalized a rule he never chose: a kiss must be sudden. Observe how the champion replies to the doctor’s smile and laugh: he kissed him, as if he was jealous of his happiness. 
(chapter 44) That’s how I came to realize that the kiss in the Manhwa is strongly intertwined with “surprise”. This is the missing link.
(chapter 2), he comes to reproduce interruption as intimacy. He knows that surprise destabilizes him — that is why he asked for warning — but he has no other model. What overwhelms him also becomes what he reaches for. Surprise is both threat and language.
(chapter 3): the sudden call from the athlete, 
(chapter 1), the offer of sex in exchange for money 
(chapter 6), the switched spray 
(chapter 49), the sudden changes in rules. These moments strip Kim Dan of anticipation and agency. His body reacts before his will can engage. Surprise equals exposure.
(chapter 1) His life is governed by “always”: always working, always returning, always responsible. He lives for his grandmother. Nothing unexpected is allowed to happen, because nothing unexpected can be afforded. This is safety through stasis. Presence without experience.
(chapter 5) 
(chapter 1) They shattered routine rather than enriching it. Surprise, in that context, did not open possibility; it threatened survival. It meant debt, coercion, fear. And precisely because of that, it could not be integrated into memory as experience — only repressed as trauma.
(chapter 2) but in a fundamentally different form.
(chapter 11)
(chapter 11) His appearances are sudden, his demands non-discussable, his violence immediate. He does not ask; he enforces. Surprise, under his rule, eliminates speech. It leaves no space for argument, no room for clarification, no possibility of consent. One endures, or one is punished.
(chapter 6) Even when power is asymmetrical, even when the terms are coercive, speech is required. Conditions are stated. Rules are articulated. Kim Dan is forced to listen, to answer, to argue, to object. He must speak.
(chapter 17) The two figures cannot coexist because they represent mutually exclusive regimes of surprise: one that annihilates speech, and one that forces it into being. In other words, only one allows experience to be lived rather than survived.
(chapter 27) Experiences accumulate instead of disappearing. They demand response, speech, negotiation. Life no longer consists in enduring impact, but in processing it.
(chapter 65) and as such neutralization: suffering must be absorbed, pain must be justified, disruption must be folded back into endurance. There is no place for charge there — only for dissipation. What Kim Dan lives through with Joo Jaekyung follows a different logic altogether: not sacrifice, but circulation; not repetition, but conversion.
(chapter 41) not despite surprise, but through it. Not because dominance is romanticized, but because surprise is the first force that treats him as someone to whom things can happen. And don’t forget that for him, a kiss symbolizes affection. Even negative experiences generate subjectivity. They prove that he exists beyond function.
(chapter 85) Kim Dan either endures it or reproduces it under unstable conditions. Agency is partial. Meaning collapses afterward.
(chapter 39), irony 
(chapter 41) or rejection 
(chapter 55). He does not retreat into his habitual “it’s nothing” or “never mind.” He does not reinterpret the gesture as convenience or reflex. 
(chapter 86) He kisses back while looking tenderly at his partner. He holds Kim Dan’s head gently. He can only see such a gesture as a positive answer to his request: acceptance and even desire. Surprise is not punished. It is received.
(Chapter 45) This time, the athlete not only accepts the present (the kiss), but but also expresses “gratitude” by kissing back actively. 
(chapter 65) In her eyes, she has never changed, just like her grandson. 
(chapter 57), and foreclose change. The champion’s violence is explained through reputation. 
(chapter 65) If the past is absolute, it can be endlessly invoked to invalidate the present. We have a perfect example on the beach. 
(chapter 65) 
(chapter 65) They are evaluated exclusively through a moral lens. Smoking and drinking are not responses; they are flaws. And because they are framed as flaws, they retroactively define his character rather than his situation. This is where agency collapses.
(chapter 65) Her behavior does not contradict her claim that she wants Kim Dan to “live his own life.” 
(chapter 65) It reveals how she understands such a life should be arranged. She sees herself as superior, as if she had never done any mistake, as if she had lived as a saint.
(chapter 78)
(chapter 86) Once again, the “hamster” is given the opportunity not only to decide, but also to follow his heart. Where the Paris night allows difference to coexist with memory, Shin Okja’s framework collapses difference back into judgment. Where electricity requires polarity, her logic insists on sameness. Under this new light, it becomes comprehensible how doc Dan came to neglect himself. Self-care is inseparable from choice — from the belief that one’s decisions can meaningfully alter the present. If change is denied, care loses its purpose. Attending to oneself becomes optional, even suspect, because it implies a future different from the one already prescribed. 
(chapter 44) The one who remembers bears the – alone, while the other continues forward unmarked. That imbalance is corrosive. It distorts perception. It turns even good memories sour.
(chapter 65), but she remembers it in a way that flattens time. Pain becomes proof of virtue. Sacrifice becomes identity. 
(chapter 65) Change is allowed only insofar as it returns to the same point. Electrically speaking, her system is grounded — all charge dissipates into endurance. There is no polarity, only repetition.
(chapter 65) Even though the word jinx is never spoken during the Paris night, its logic quietly collapses there. 
(chapter 75) In chapter 75, it is explicitly framed as a way to “clear the head”: an act designed to release pressure and return the system to zero. Partners were interchangeable. Feelings were excluded. Electricity existed only as a spark — brief, violent, and self-extinguishing. Energy was expelled, not circulated. That is the true mechanics of the jinx: power without continuity, intensity without consequence.
(chapter 85) Desires matter, not the match the next morning. Besides, the identity of the partner matters — not just romantically, but also structurally. Current requires two poles. It requires response. It cannot flow through an object, only between 2 subjects.
(chapter 39) and chapter 44 
(chapter 11), the care – even if he had hurt himself – 
(chapter 47), the shared smiles 
(chapter 47). Thus this photograph 
(chapter 65) becomes a talisman — not a record of reality, but a distilled image of safety. Painful dimensions are filtered out. Conflict, coercion, and silent pressure recede into the background. Memory protects him by idealizing. Because of this picture, he projected himself in the future, making unrealistic plans. 
(chapter 47) It was, as if he only had good times with his grandmother. 
(chapter 21) 
(chapter 47) and memories. 
(chapter 21) 
(chapter 65). While sleeping, memories come to the surface. 
(chapter 85) I believe that its appearance does not function as decoration. Its imagery — figures suspended among clouds, bodies neither falling nor grounded — introduces a different register of time. Not urgency. Not performance. Not spectacle. Stillness. Interval. A space where movement pauses without collapsing. Under this new light, the reference is Morpheus.
(chapter 75) Until now, rest had been replaced by discharge: sex as erasure, violence as exhaustion, ritual as compulsion. The Paris night does not abolish wakefulness through collapse; it introduces the conditions under which sleep might finally be possible. 
(Chapter 78) Here, he reduced it to the absence of sex, but I am sure that deep down, he would have been satisfied, if the “hamster” had given him a good night kiss. 
(chapter 86) The charge redistributes. Memory ceases to isolate and begins to circulate. Hence it creates a new memory. 
(chapter 86) was a reflection of the picture. 
(chapter 86) No one is erased or reduced to an object. Nothing is overlooked or forgotten. But repetition loses its hold. And from here, the story can no longer proceed as before.
(chapter 84), the fireworks erupt, and Kim Dan turns his head too late. 
(chapter 84) Readers have replayed the blurred panel again and again, straining to decipher the muffled shapes of his mouth. Some are convinced that this is the confession, the moment the wolf finally says aloud what his body has been whispering for months. One Jinx-phile, 
just enough to match the Korean 좋아해 김단 (jo-a-hae Kim Dan)—“I like you, Kim Dan.”
(chapter 84) —especially Japanese summer festivals where boys and girls, dressed in yukata, confess beneath crackling skies. Fireworks symbolize joy, romance, fleeting courage. It is no wonder many readers assumed that Mingwa was drawing on this cultural grammar: purple night sky, glowing lights, two lonely figures suspended above the world. A confession seems almost inevitable. And if it truly was a love declaration, then the champion’s refusal to repeat himself 
(chapter 84) would make perfect narrative sense—confession lost, moment gone, courage spent.
(chapter 62) 
(chapter 77) Why does Joo Jaekyung speak exactly when the fireworks begin, as if choosing the one moment when he is guaranteed to be drowned out? 
(chapter 84) Was he truly confessing love—or was he trying to verbalize something far more raw, far more primitive, far more difficult?
(chapter 76) and 79 
(chapter 79), where he “speaks” only when the other man cannot truly hear him. At the hostel, the mumbling was barely audible: yet according to my observation and deduction, doc Dan seems to have caught something. as later we discover this scene from the champion’s memory: 
(chapter 77) He already knew that the athlete was standing next to him. However, observe that this vision focused on the doctor’s gaze was accompanied with silence. This means, doc Dan acted, as if he had heard nothing. So if he heard, what did the physical therapist catch exactly in the kitchen? “I lost…”, but it was devoid of any context. Doc Dan had no idea what the director Hwang Byungchul had advised to his former student. 
(chapter 75) He could not know that “I lost” referred to something far more intimate: Jaekyung losing control over his own emotional detachment, he was totally vulnerable in front of doc Dan. His heart was stronger than his “mind and fists”. Naturally, if Kim Dan interpreted the phrase at all, he would connect it to the only “loss” he understood: the tie with Baek Junmin. A humiliating defeat. A source of shame. This misinterpretation perfectly explains why in the cabin, the hamster immediately assumes that the champion is once again determined to regain his title: 
(chapter 84) He is taking the champion’s words at face-value. 
(chapter 84) A deadline designed to keep Kim Dan close without revealing the depth of the emotional dependency underneath. Finally, before we even analyze posture or timing, we must acknowledge the ghost that is sitting inside the cabin with them — Jaekyung’s own admission of dishonesty. Just minutes earlier, the narrative revealed again a thought he had never dared to voice aloud: 
(chapter 84) For the first time, he admits wrongdoing without deflecting, without rage, without pride. This apology is not strategic; it is confessional. A tone we have never heard from him before. It is no coincidence that just before, he employed this expression: 
(chapter 84) This is the language of surrender — not to defeat, but to vulnerability and selflessness. The champion who once insisted on keeping Kim Dan “one way or another” (chapter 84) now articulates the opposite impulse: the willingness to release him, to give him a choice. 
(chapter 84) Thus for me, in the cabin the champion became, for a moment, the boy with no mother’s gaze, no father’s protection, no safe place to rest. He must have said something cheesy, something a young person would say. Purity returns before experience does. Honesty returns before articulation. And in that moment inside the cabin, Mingwa makes a decisive artistic choice: we do not see Jaekyung’s eyes. 
(chapter 84) This pigment stands for innocence, purity, new beginnings and even equity. 
(chapter 84) Because they were not yet meant to be received, only meant to be released. The fireworks allow him to finally attempt a more honest sentence, but in conditions where it cannot reach its target.
(chapter 81) Yet this is also the limit of what he can say.
(chapter 79) Thus he could see the athlete’s mouth moving and hear sound. Nevertheless, observe that the moment the wolf reached to the doctor’s words, he bowed his head and looked down. From this 
(chapter 79) to this 
(chapter 79) However, he doesn’t fear coldness, but ridicule and mockery, the father’s gaze: 
(chapter 73) Under this light, people can grasp why Joo Jaekyung was not facing doc Dan directly in the cabin. To conclude, the mechanism is identical, but amplified. 
(Chapter 44) 
(chapter 73) Besides, the head of her position is indicating that she was not looking at her son, the boy was hiding his face from Joo Jaewoong and his mother. Then his father mocked him, degraded him, and used resemblance as an insult: “
(chapter 74) or his mother (a poor but good mother), he was not seen for whom he was: a child, a boy. Jinx consistently links sight with recognition, and recognition with love. 
(chapter 53) Jaekyung has never been granted either. 
(Chapter 45) Thus when he got upset with the present, he indirectly expressed the wish to be « looked at ». Moreover, in his visions or memories, this is what he keeps seeing: 
(chapter 54) 
(chapter 75) Doc Dan’s gaze!
(chapter 51) His breath catches; his eyes widen. It is the moment he realizes his mistake. He never thought that doc Dan had been trusting him. That moment marks the first rupture in his emotional armor, not only because it hurt, but because it revealed. He realizes with terror that he wants to be seen by Kim Dan, but when he faced such a gaze, he could only feel guilty and bad. Thus it is not surprising that later, his nightmare let transpire his guilty conscience. 
(chapter 82), as the champion has always used his surroundings as a source of inspiration. 
(Chapter 29) It would also fit with 5 syllabes in Korean. And it would be cheesy too. Yet, I have my doubts about this theory which I will explain further below. Nevertheless, one thing is sure. The champion loves the doctor’s eyes and they have the power to move not only his heart but also his mouth. He is encouraged to verbalize his emotions. 
(chapter 84) The gaze under the fireworks triggers emotions in him. Thus he blurted out something. But for me, he does not know how to say “I love you.” He cannot even say “I like you.” Those sentences belong to someone who has matured emotionally — someone who can identify feelings properly, but so far he keeps saying: “to stay by his side” and his « affection declarations » were all linked to negativity.. Thus my idea was that Joo Jaekyung could have said this: “I want to hold you!” (안고 싶어 너). Let’s not forget that so far, the champion had never expressed such a longing before; a warm embrace. He would always follow his instincts: 
(chapter 4) 
(chapter 43) 
(chapter 69) The hug represents a metaphor for “staying by his side, for home and to be seen”. Moreover, in French embrasser can mean kiss and hug. And strangely, I noticed that the protagonists were never looking at each other during an embrace. 
(chapter 84) Here, the doctor looks sad and wounded. His eyes are unfocused — he is not seeing the present. The water running down his eyelashes gives the impression of tears, even though he is not crying. His gaze is distant, fixed on something internal. His mouth looks tense, almost trembling. The mouth especially is a clue: Kim Dan’s emotions always gather there when something from the past resurfaces.This is the expression of someone thrown into an involuntary flashback. He is inside a memory. This explicates why this scene is similar to the champion’s shower after the latter had met Baek Junmin: 
(chapter 49) 
(chapter 49) Both scenes show a man pulled violently into a buried memory. Thus, my assumption is simple: the champion said something that pierced straight into Kim Dan’s oldest wound and brought his trauma to the surface. And this brings me to my next observation. Inside the cabin, there are not two people — there are three: the champion, the therapist, and the Teddy Bear. 
(chapter 84) Furthermore, we have a window. We have a phone (dead, but present). We have a childlike toy — symbol of stolen innocence.
(chapter 84) And now, look again at episode 19: 
(chapter 19) A window with no view. Three figures: halmoni, the boy, and the phone placed between them like a knife. And the sound structure is identical, but reversed:
(chapter 84) It is not a fashion choice. It marks the moment when innocence collapses and the past reopens.
(chapter 84) However, observe that doc Dan is holding, even squeezing the teddy bear’s hand, a sign that he is rekindling with his lost childhood. We are getting closer to the revelation behind the photograph — the day doc Dan has never willingly shown to Joo Jaekyung.
(chapter 79) on the night table. 
(chapter 21) and 
(chapter 82) will happen linked to the protagonists’ past (recent and childhood). Let’s not forget that doc Dan still has no idea what Joo Jaekyung went through after his departure: the slap, the drinking, the headache and the indifference of Team Black, just like the athlete has no idea about the blacklisting and bullying in the physical therapist’s past. 
(chapter 84) So by wearing black, doc Dan indicates that he is gradually becoming responsible for Team Blackand Joo Jaekyung the athlete. 
(chapter 83) mirroring the contrast of their clothes and their personalities — and the champion even leans in to lick a smear of ice cream from the therapist’s finger, an image so intimate that any passerby would mistake them for lovers. And yet, not quite. The physical therapist approaches the outing as part of his job, a therapeutic break meant to soothe his patient’s nerves 
(chapter 83), while the athlete approaches the day with a far more personal hope. He stages the rides strategically, intending to appear strong and reliable so that his companion might grow frightened and instinctively reach for him 
(chapter 83) — just as he once did in the swimming pool. 
(chapter 80) Beneath the surface, what looks like a date is a carefully orchestrated attempt to recreate closeness without naming it. To conclude, whereas the episode flirts with the aesthetics of a date, the intentions behind it remain mismatched, unspoken, and unresolved. It is not an official date, yet it does not behave like a simple work-related excursion either, and we as readers are left suspended in that tantalizing in-between space — as if the very moment were hanging weightless above the ground, waiting for someone to name what it truly is.
(chapter 83), charged with a warmth that seasoned Jinxphiles will recognize immediately: a tension between joy and tension, duty and desire, wind and water. And then we see him — the usually anxious physical therapist — smiling with his eyes closed, arms raised, as if offering himself to the sky and joining his “companions”, the clouds. In this panel, his hands — so often clenched, overworked, or trembling from exhaustion, fear or anger — are finally resting, suspended in a gesture of pure lightness and ease.
wheel: a circular motion that builds toward a quiet crescendo. And what might strike you — almost instinctively — is how naturally the lyrics seem to align with the chapter’s emotional beats, as if each verse echoed a panel. 
(chapter 45) reality collided with unspoken longing. The tension between dream 
(chapter 83) and waking life, quietly present in the lyrics themselves, resurfaces at the park amusement as well — though its meaning will become clearer as we look deeper. In season 1, the boundaries between the celebrity fighter and his therapist were blurred in ways neither of them understood: professional on the surface, intimate in practice, yet undefined in essence. Physical closeness existed, but emotional clarity did not. Now, in the bright openness of this amusement-park afternoon and evening, we are invited to look again. What exactly is their relationship here? A supervised rest day? A moment of companionship? The first fragile step toward something tenderer that neither man is ready to articulate?
(chapter 83) or a family laughing together 
(chapter 83), something in him shifts so quietly that one might miss it at first glance: he smiles. 
(chapter 83) Not out of politeness, not to reassure someone else, not through exhaustion or habit. He smiles because he witnesses joy — and for once, it does not make him feel smaller. It does not activate the reflexes of deprivation or fear that shaped his life from childhood to early adulthood. On the other hand, the smile he gives in that moment is not radiant, not wide, not unguarded. It is a grin, a restrained upward curve that reveals both warmth and hesitation. His joy is present — unmistakably so — but it is still contained, as if his body has not yet learned how to express happiness without caution. This small, hesitant grin shows us a man who is beginning to open, yet still holds himself back, afraid of wanting too much.
(chapter 1) reminded him of responsibility , every sight 
(chapter 83), his gaze is finally unshackled. He looks outward and takes in the warmth of strangers’ affection without translating it into loss or longing. 
(chapter 83), though an accident could actually occur there. This contrasts so much to his thoughts in episode 1. 
(chapter 1) The amusement park becomes a place in which love exists openly, visibly, harmlessly. The lyrics capture this awakening beautifully: “And I don’t know if I’m being foolish… but it’s something that I must believe in.” 
(chapter 83) — the man who seems invincible and superior in every domain — has never been to an amusement park, a spark ignites inside him. 
(chapter 83) His heart, which moments earlier beat quietly in observation, begins to race with excitement. For the first time, he is equal to the athlete. At the same time, for the first time, he is the one with experience or power. 😲 How so? For the first time, age becomes real 
(chapter 83): the physical therapist is twenty-nine, the athlete twenty-six.
(chapter 83) He suddenly steps into a role he has never been allowed to inhabit before: that of the knowledgeable one, the guide, the hyung. 
(chapter 78) Dan’s lifetime of passivity did not come from lack of intelligence or lack of will; it came from conditioning. He was raised by a guardian who loved him, yes, but who also unintentionally infantilized him. He was not allowed to question her words and decisions. His grandmother, who was not just older but twice his senior in authority, experience, and certainty, occupied every position of knowledge in his life. She decided what was dangerous, what was sensible, what was allowed, and what was forbidden. Her worldview dominated so completely that Dan’s own judgment never had room to form. His grandmother’s authority was absolute — not malicious, but unquestioned — and Dan learned very early that his role in the household was not to decide but to obey.
(chapter 7) As if a twenty-nine-year-old man — a working professional — were incapable of making a responsible financial decision. Dan’s “Of course not!” is instinctive, defensive, almost childlike, exposing the emotional hierarchy between them. In her eyes, he is not an adult with agency, but a boy who must be corrected, cautioned, overridden.
(chapter 17) Legally, financially, the burden is his. But emotionally, symbolically, he was never allowed to own that responsibility; it was neither recognized nor validated. Instead, his grandmother continued to treat him as a child incapable of navigating the world on his own — even though he was the one saving them both.
(chapter 77) and asking for his opinion
(chapter 83), Joo Jaekyung is liberating his fated partner. 
(chapter 83) The toy from his childhood had vanished, probably thrown away because it had lost its role and doc Dan had no longer the time to play. At the same time, we should question ourselves who had offered it to doc Dan. 
(chapter 83) He accepts the fighter’s generosity without guilt 
(chapter 83), yet offers his own in return — buying the drinks, fetching the ice cream, participating in the flow of giving rather than shrinking from it. 
(chapter 83) No one questions cost; no one frames affection as financial burden. This reciprocity is gentle, natural, unspoken. It stands in stark contrast to Heesung 
(chapter 32), who immediately reduced generosity to calculation. He implied that doc Dan couldn’t afford it. His smile was a lure; his kindness, a transaction. 
(chapter 83) Someone who can choose.
(chapter 83) That’s the reason why Mingwa placed a boy with his father between the couple in this image. At the same time, she also insinuated that Joo Jaekyung was acting not only as a father, but also as a “boy”. That’s why love is in the air… they come to accept their true self. The two protagonists are both adults and kids!
(chapter 83), and respected enough to lead. And in that rare space, something long dormant begins to bloom, the return of the little boy’s innocence and smile! 
(chapter 83) The second half of the verse — “in the thunder of the sea” — finds its embodiment not in waves or ocean spray, but in a wooden flying boat swinging high above an amusement park. 
(chapter 83) It is here, of all places, that the façade of the undefeated champion bends, flickers, and reveals the frightened boy hiding beneath the man. 
(chapter 83)
(chapter 83), although the knowledge is borrowed, second-hand, quoted from “the guys at the gym.” He buys cute headbands 
(chapter 83), selects a giant teddy bear as a prize. He tries to perform adulthood, to appear experienced, reliable, worldly — the one who leads. That’s why his reaction after the ride on the boat resembles a lot to the father: scared of rides 
(chapter 83) Because the truth is that Jaekyung, too, is both an adult and a child. Thus the author used many “chibi” in this chapter: 
(chapter 83) He is the warrior who never loses, but also the boy who becomes jealous of a rollercoaster because it made Dan smile. 
(chapter 83) When he sees Dan laughing with the wind in his hair, he is first moved. 
(chapter 83) For the first time, he truly notices the doctor’s joy and happiness. However, later his thoughts tighten into a childish pout: 
(chapter 72)— even those that fall short of a diagnosable concussion — accumulate inside the inner ear like invisible fractures. The system responsible for balance, spatial orientation, and visual stabilization becomes worn, over-calibrated to impact but under-prepared for fluctuation. A man can be conditioned to withstand punches that would floor an ordinary person, yet still falter when the world tilts beneath him.
(chapter 72) The body he trained into steel was built upon a nervous system shaped by violence. Let’s not forget that before his father died, the latter hit his head with a bottle once again. 
(chapter 73) Finally, he started fighting at such a young age, 
(chapter 72), actually boxing at such a young age is limited to non-contact activities like footwork drills, shadowboxing, jump rope, basic strength & coordination, bag work with very light gloves. So there is no sparring, no head contact. 
(chapter 72) 
(chapter 83), thus they try other rides. It is important, because it implies that Joo Jaekyung is gradually leaving the water! This explicates why later something extraordinary happens. 
(chapter 83),when Joo Jaekyung is stripped of his armor. The amusement park returns him to something raw, trembling, unfinished. But instead of shame, there is warmth. Instead of anger, there is gratitude. 
(chapter 83) Instead of retreat, there is reaching — a quiet but unmistakable reaching toward the man beside him. The problem is that he is still too scared to voice his thoughts in front of the physical therapist. 
, (chapter 29) a swarm of predators waiting for him to slow down. His career was an ocean of teeth and waves — constant motion, constant danger. Thus I detected a progression. In episode 69, he jumped onto the boat 
(chapter 69), then at the amusement park, the boat was in the air 
(chapter 83), he rises into air — the first air he has breathed without fear.
(chapter 44) followed by a false dawn. Chapter 44 unfolds in artificial night — neon 
(chapter 44) and night lamp 
(chapter 44) someone who is not present, rather drunk. But getting to know someone means communication. It is precisely the illusion captured in the song’s confession: I don’t know if I’m just dreaming… I don’t know if I see it true… And he wasn’t seeing it true; he was dreaming alone. 
(chapter 45) Morning light becomes a scalpel. There is no magic left, no gentleness, no room for misunderstanding. Jaekyung’s bluntness 
(chapter 45) annihilates the illusion Dan had constructed the night before. This is not heartbreak; it is disenchantment, the almost physical pain of realizing a moment meant nothing to the other person involved. Chapter 44 was the dream, and Chapter 45 was its punishment. Together they show a relationship out of sync, two people whose desires never touch at the same time. One wishes for home and attention, while the other has no idea that he is loved. So far, he has never heard this: “I love you”. One tries to reach out emotionally, while the other remains absent. However, when they are both lucid, none of them are totally honest, as they are self confused. Thus they are in two different worlds.
(chapter 83) This scene confirmed my previous interpretation about the symbolism of the blue/golden hour. 
(chapter 45) Neither can pretend not to feel. Neither can avoid the other’s gaze. They must see each other as they are, in that moment. And miraculously, neither flinches. There is no denial, no deflection, no cruelty. Only two men who finally dare to look. Whereas Chapter 44 let them hide behind darkness and drunkenness, and Chapter 45 forced them into cold exposure, Chapter 83 holds them in a gentle, suspended in-between: the space where dream and reality finally meet.
(chapter 84) and holding the bear’s hand. 
(chapter 84) The bear contains the view, the sunset, the air, the honesty — everything that neither of them can run away from now.
(chapter 84) 
(chapter 84), but wise enough to regret immediately. 
(chapter 45) 
(chapter 46) 
(chapter 46) The champion also played “dumb”. Thus the pillow got punched later. 
(chapter 81) The plane soars not only above the Alps, but also above a vast river (probably the Rhône)— two landscapes that silently echo the dual composition of breath itself. Breath is made of air and water: oxygen and vapor, wind and moisture. 
(chapter 82) In that sense, the clouds surrounding the aircraft are not mere weather; they are the perfect union of the two elements that sustain life.
(chapter 82) That’s why, when Potato offers him a bottle of Evian, he doesn’t even look. He doesn’t need the water from the mountain and as such the world; he needs the water of the body — the intimacy, the shared moisture that reconnects him to life itself. What he truly longs for is Kim Dan’s saliva, the living trace of water transformed into affection, into care, into exchange. 
(chapter 81) He is longing for his lips and as such a kiss.
(chapter 15)
(chapter 82) Many attractions — the Ferris wheel, the fountain rides, the water park zones — combine air and water, height and spray, just like breath itself. And now, you understand why the champion got wounded with the spray 
(chapter 49) It corresponds to the negative version of the “breath”. 
(epilogue), because doc Dan wants to ensure that the drink or the ice cream is okay. 
(chapter 82) When Jaekyung and Dan enter the funfair, they’re not simply having fun; they’re reliving the chemistry of respiration and affection — the inhalation of joy, the exhalation of fear, the splash of renewal. The park becomes an externalized lung, a circular world of rides where water and air, play and life, are finally reconciled. 
(chapter 15) The arena that once fed on pain, blood, and hierarchy gives way to a landscape of shared laughter, circular motion, and renewal. Here, entertainment is not built upon the exhaustion of bodies but upon their liberation. The crowd no longer watches to see who will fall; they rise and descend together. 
(chapter 82) People are more focused on their own emotions and experiences. 
I placed the doctor’s birthday. And that’s how I remembered here the boy’s huge smile and joy. 
(chapter 11) And now, pay attention to the number of the next episode: 83! The two numbers combined together make 11! As you can see, the amusement park is the most natural setting for a smile and kiss. Joo Jaekyung could even speak about his first kiss, an intimate secret that even Kim Dan doesn’t know. Confessing it there would align his personal myth with the fairy-tale architecture around him. This would make doc Dan realize that he is special contrary to the green-haired ex-lover. 
(chapter 42). But there’s more to it. In episode 81, Doc Dan rejects the champion’s advance — he turns his head away
(chapter 81) letting the lips slip past him like water. Yet, in the very same scene, he allows a kiss on the neck, a place where breath, warmth, and pulse converge. 
(chapter 81) He never pushes him back. The doctor resists with the face — with speech, with identity — but not with the body. 
(chapter 81) Why? Because the lips are not mere flesh; for Doc Dan, they are the visible border between desire and love. Jinx-lovers will remember his quiet request in the locker room (chapter 15): he links the lips to the heart — and through it, to the notion of consent. 
(chapter 81) The water envelops them both — fluid, intimate — yet the final element is still missing: agreement, the meeting of air and will. Until Jaekyung learns to ask, to replace taking with invitation, the kiss will remain suspended, like a breath held underwater, waiting to surface into love. And now, you comprehend why he couldn’t achieve his goal in the swimming pool. It was, as if he was trying to recreate the situation in season 1. In other words, I deduce that there will be a confession before a kiss happens!!
(chapter 17) and the one in front of the amusement park: 
(chapter 82) The two scenes mirror each other like opposite poles of Joo Jaekyung’s evolution. In both, he is dressed in black — a color that once signified anonymity and danger, but later becomes the mark of calm confidence.
(chapter 17) When he intervenes to save Kim Dan from the loan sharks, he is first mistaken for one of them — a predator among predators. The irony is sharp: the man who comes to rescue looks indistinguishable from those who harm. The fighters’ world has taught him that power and fame must be hidden; he was encouraged to hide, as if the fans would attack him. He chose anonymity, unaware that this would not only isolate him but also make him appear as a thug. And don’t forget how the manager called him initially: 
(chapter 75) He is a monster. It was, as if the manager wanted to hide the “wolf” from people out of fear that he might attack people randomly. But the problem is that by dressing like that, he was no different from Heo Manwook. Therefore his heroism passes unnoticed, interpreted as violence and intrusion. 
(chapter 18) Like Batman, he moves in secrecy, protecting without ever being thanked. The outfit explains why his good deed leaves no trace of gratitude — the savior looks like the aggressor.
(chapter 82) He still wears black, but the darkness no longer hides him. The cap now sits higher, revealing his eyes and mouth — the organs of emotion and speech. A necklace gleams at his throat, a quiet emblem of openness. He walks beside Kim Dan in daylight, not to fight but to share joy. The man who once lurked in alleys now stands beneath the sky of the amusement park, where black absorbs light rather than extinguishes it.
(chapter 17) A princeling! He was mocking him, because he knew that the fights were actually rigged. That’s why he called him fake. 
(chapter 17) This new connection reinforces my theory that the schemers are anticipating the Emperor’s demise. 
(chapter 56) He doesn’t yet see the storm and suffering beneath.
(chapter 82) But in such a place, it is, as if time was stopped. Thanks to the many emotions and sensations, his body and heart will be revived. Through fun, the duck will change. As Kim Dan ascends from floating duck to swimmer and to a flying duck, he moves from hidden suffering to open breath. Thus the Ferris Wheel will have definitely an impact on him. Both arcs revolve around air and water — the two elements that make up breath and emotion. Don’t forget that the doctor embodies the clouds as well, while the athlete stands for steam.
(chapter 82) scattered on the table, one displays the Eiffel Tower — the obvious choice, symbol of mastery and control. Built for the Exposition Universelle of 1889, it was meant to celebrate France’s industrial power and the centenary of the Revolution — proof that bourgeoisie and steel, not kings and nobility, now ruled the sky and ground. It was even supposed to be dismantled after twenty years, yet it remained, and has since become the symbol of Paris and of France. A monument to progress, modernity, freedom, national pride and endurance. 
(chapter 38) Hence in the States he is here turning his back to the window and his only connection to others was through the cellphone. The cities he visited were backdrops, not experiences. He was always alone. And yet, here, something changes in Paris. 
(chapter 82) His hotel room opens onto a broad window and a balcony — an invitation to look out. Secondly, observe that he only proposed this activity after the other members had fallen sick. When doc Dan barged in his room, the champion was doing a one-handed handstand, holding his entire weight as if defying gravity itself 
(chapter 82) and proving his recovery. The posture seemed like control, yet it was closer to self-punishment — an immobility that devoured strength. Blood rushed to his heart and head, but his lungs stayed empty. It was, unconsciously, his way of treating his breathlessness. This also shows that he had no real expectation about the “rest” his manager had suggested 
(chapter 82) — the drinking, the empty and aimless trip (“check out the area”). For the wolf, such a downtime could only mean endurance, not release and excitement. By the way, such a suggestion from Park Namwook borders on stupidity and blindness. How could he propose drinking, when he had seen his “boy” indulged in alcohol before?
(chapter 54) I guess, he must have taken the celebrity’s words at face-value. But let’s return our attention to the panel with the brochures selected by the champion. If you look carefully, you will detect the presence of 4 stars. 
(chapter 82) How do I come to this interpretation? We have seen these stars before, during Kim Dan’s Summer Night’s Dream: the same glittering symbols of softness and excitement.
(chapter 44) Yet, this time, the little “stars” belong to the celebrity. 
(chapter 82) His choice of the amusement park is not really about himself and his desires— it is an act of care, a wish to give happiness to someone else.
, Sleeping Beauty 
).Hence there is the castle on the brochure. 
(chapter 65) So yes, this may look like a simple date. Yet beneath its playful surface lies the quietest revolution of all: the man who once ignored every view now opens the window, looks outward, and chooses wonder and fun over war.
(chapter 81): the rising smoke, the suggestion of a light already suffocated. The higher they bring him, the closer he moves to extinction. Besides, the higher he climbs, the harder the fall. In other words, they are trying to break him — to make him fall — something the athlete has already sensed. 
(chapter 82) 
(chapter 82) — a creature of heights and thin air, born to dominate the skies where others can barely breathe. The metaphor could not be clearer: altitude is his arena, but also his undoing. 
(chapter 81) The air remains clear and generous, the sky washed in blue as if nothing could go wrong. Yet the trees, touched by the first copper tones, announce the slow turn of the year. It is a calm, lucid atmosphere, the kind of weather that hides transition inside serenity. The unseen Seine glides through the city like a long breath, steady and effortless.
(chapter 82), to build joy outside the ring 
(chapter 82) 
(chapter 81) A single breath — huu — escapes, white against the air. It looks like calm, but it isn’t. It’s the sound of a man forcing his body to obey. The clenched fist that follows betrays him: anxiety condensed into muscle. 
(chapter 81) The champion has descended, yet the altitude still lives inside him.
(chapter 14), but his lungs and heart. Yet at the airport, the sportsman doesn’t realize it 
and makes the following resolution: 
(chapter 69) Back then, he feared for doc Dan’s life and ran as if his own heart depended on it. His breathlessness wasn’t exhaustion but panic: the instinctive terror of losing the person who keeps him alive. Thus when he saw him alive on the dock, he could start breathing properly: 
(chapter 69) From HUFF to HAA… exhale versus inhale.
(chapter 82) His brain and heart remember that night at the dock; every harsh inhale during practice echoes that same dread of separation.
(chapter 82) He became the wolf again, not out of jealousy, but out of survival reflex—his body screaming its panic in place of words. In that instant, he was reminded that he could lose doc Dan as a partner, that the bond he relies on might not belong to him forever.. The roar emptied his chest; his lungs gave out before his pride did. There was no air left in his body… thus the heart and lung couldn’t work properly. 
(chapter 82) He is now a tamed wolf following his master’s suggestions! 
(chapter 82) Thus the coach is now facing the couple. And now, my avid readers can understand why the champion seems almost radiant when he finds himself alone with doc Dan at the amusement park. It is not mere joy or freedom; it is the relief of finally acting from desire instead of duty 
(chapter 55) 
(chapter 79) The scene functions as both mirror and revelation: it forces the fighter to face the truth he has avoided all his life. In the past, he had never truly fallen. His defeats were painful, but never fatal; his failures never signified the end of a life. He could always stand up again — until now. Watching Kim Dan lean over the edge forces him to confront the difference between metaphor and mortality.
(chapter 73) – surrounded by bottles and syringes (chapter 73). Addiction, gambling, and intoxication: all ways of trying to rise above reality, to feel high, if only for a moment. Joo Jaewoong quite literally died from altitude, from chasing a false form of air. His father had tried to climb the social ladder through sport, to escape the poverty that trapped them, but he had failed. Those words 
(chapter 73), thrown like stones by the father at his son, buried themselves in the boy like shards.. They echoed like a curse — a prophecy Joo Jaekyung would spend his whole life disproving.
(chapter 72) 
(chapter 72), yet she made no attempt to build an independent life. Her survival had always depended on his success — and when his career crumbled, she vanished with it. That’s the reason why the trash remained uncollected — a visual proof of abandonment 
(chapter 72) But the little boy failed to notice it, because he was suffering from the father’s abuse. Before leaving, she gave her son a phone number, as if absence were only temporary, as if love could be reached through a dial tone. That small gesture sustained an illusion: that she would come back if he became strong enough, rich enough, worthy enough. That illusion became the foundation of his life.
(chapter 72) His first fight was not about trophies — it was an act of filial negotiation: a promise to buy her return. But of course, 300 dollars could not rebuild a family. His first fall became the confirmation of her silence. This explicates why he recalls his first tournament and considers it as “fall”. He had not been able to win, thus the mother could not return. He doesn’t fight for glory or passion; he fights to avoid being discarded again. So, when he says “I won’t fall again,” what he really means is “I won’t let myself be unloved again.” 
(chapter 72) But the problem is that when he was finally able to reach his mother, the latter answered that Joo Jaekyung was too late. The mother’s words sealed the curse. He was “already grown up now” 
(chapter 74), hence he no longer needed her — as if maturity meant he no longer needed love. She actually implied that she had been all this time by his side. 
(chapter 74), while in reality, she had long abandoned him. Her departure turned growth into punishment, and independence into exile. This explicates why as an adult, he used money to buy people and turn them into toys. This could only make appear as a spoiled brat. 
(chapter 79) Even Park Namwook himself, only days earlier, had described the French match as 
(chapter 81) “a breeze” — a fight so effortless that it would bring some fresh air into the champion’s career. But that metaphor betrays its irony: what was supposed to refresh him is now suffocating him. The “breeze” promised by his manager has turned into lack of air.
(chapter 70) — a detail no one around him ever learned. This simple fact overturns their interpretation. 
(chapter 70) The breathlessness they see now is not a decline in performance, but the residue of transformation. His body, once trained to suppress every weakness, had finally surrendered to nature.
(chapter 46), whose clash with the champion exposes two different forms of frustration.
(chapter 46) He reproaches Seonho for using his title and image to promote himself, for bragging about their sparring sessions to boost his career. From his perspective, Seonho lacks both endurance and authenticity — he performs strength rather than living it. 
(chapter 46) For Jaekyung, such behavior is intolerable because it cheapens everything he has sacrificed to achieve.
(chapter 46) He turns on Jaekyung and accuses him of arrogance — of using his champion title to look down on others. What Seonho perceives as disdain is, in truth, the athlete’s defense mechanism. The star’s detachment is not born from pride but from obligation and trauma (abandonment issues). 
(chapter 46) His perfection is not freedom; it is captivity.
(chapter 52) tried to recruit Potato, the youngest member from Team Black. He wanted to become the new idol of Hwang Yoon-Gu. He imagined that he could replace the main lead and Potato would be happy to become the new sparring partner of Seonho. 
(chapter 82) — a beauty that glides but never lands. Like Seonho, Gabriel thrives on appearance — on surfaces polished by attention. His beauty, elegance, and social charisma are his weapons. He lives in the air of visibility, relying on wind — the shifting currents of social media 
(chapter 81) 
(chapter 82) and press coverage — to lift his name higher. That’s why Mingwa made sure to show him at the press conference. 
(chapter 82) Every post, every camera flash, every headline serves as borrowed oxygen. 
(chapter 82) The grin that follows is one of self-satisfaction and superficiality, not connection. It’s the smile of a man admiring his own reflection in another’s confusion — proof that he controls both the scene and the gaze. This shows that he had no intention to make the protagonist jealous. And it is clear that he never saw the wolf’s rage afterwards. 
(chapter 82) That way, his “vulnerability” would be masked. No one would question the champion’s health. And this brings me to my next observation. 
(chapter 70). Both men embody the same cruelty disguised as professionalism — one in the ring, the other from the shadows. They blame the champion for the new match, none of them question the system. 
(chapter 36) or the media’s harsh verdicts after defeat 
(chapter 54), when analysts accused Jaekyung of recklessness for returning to the ring too soon, though he had problems with his shoulder. Gabriel’s fame soars above such storms — sustained by admiration, not endurance. Hence he is posting selfies.
(chapter 82) He is now seen signing autographs 
(chapter 82), whereas in the past, he was only seen in company of reporters in a secluded area. 
(chapter 40) 
Here the athlete has only one goal: talk to doc Dan and clean the air. He has no intention to truly rekindle with him 
Thus he is still stuck in a traffic jam. 
Here, there is a progression, because he can switch the lane. However, he is still driving in one direction, not looking out of the window. He is not taking his time either. These scenes illustrate the champion’s psychological confinement and mirror doc Dan’s mindset as well.
(chapter 75)
(chapter 27) 
(chapter 80) He has not grasped that he can make the champion happy. In fact, this day would represent a real break and rest, as they would learn nothing, only make new experiences so that life can appear colorful again. Here, we can see two balloons in the form of heart: green and yellow. 
(chapter 74) Joo Jaekyung would have achieved his goal: even vulnerable or childish, he is still lovable. 
(chapter 41) They were destined to be together and lived happily. 
(chapter 55)
(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?
(chapter 65) Let’s not forget that the last poster of chapter 81 
(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 75), perfume 
(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) 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.
(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.
(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.
(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. 
(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 45) 
(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.
(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.
(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 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!! 
(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 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.
(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 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) 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.
(chapter 54) couldn’t nourish him. Hence he replaced it with wine for a while.
(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.
(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 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.
(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.
(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.
(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 81)
(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.
(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) 
(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 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.
(chapter 37). So when the manager says this, 
(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.
(chapter 80) And here, I had imagined that the mother had offered this t-shirt as a birthday present. 
(chapter 29) which reminds us of breastfeeding. And now, look at the embrace in the swimming pool: 
(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 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)
(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. 
(chapter 37)
(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.
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.
(chapter 72) 
(chapter 53), yet she kept her distance. Observe that she only talked about one time experience. She sensed its danger and built her life on the solid ground of caution, duty, and control. In other words, she belongs to the world of the shore 
(chapter 28) and learn that not everything can be postponed or entrusted to someone else. Water, in this sense, rejects fatalism. It calls for motion, for risk, for personal responsibility.
(chapter 80) And that intuition resurfaced and was confirmed in episode 80, when another day off brings the couple back to the pool. This time, the doctor steps into the water willingly. 
(chapter 80) He is no longer the man waiting to be rescued; he is the man learning how to swim. The champion’s words 
(chapter 80) distill the new doctrine: don’t wait for salvation 
(chapter 80), create your own buoyancy. Between the first swim 
(chapter 27) and this second lies the true point of no return—where superficial judgment turns into reflection, dependency into self-trust 
(chapter 80) and the rejection of powerlessness, 
(chapter 28) into the first stirrings of love 
(chapter 53) Safety lay in patience and dependence. Even when she later spoke with the champion by the sea, she avoided mentioning the ocean —as if to deny that any movement beyond her control could exist.
(chapter 65) 
(chapter 80) Yet her absence from the pool scene is precisely what reveals her theology of avoidance. The pool was never her domain because her life revolves around work, not pleasure. She has no notion of rest without guilt, no concept of joy detached from utility. For her, swimming would appear frivolous—something “unnecessary” as long as one stays on solid ground. Jinx-philes should keep in mind that she never gave such a task to Joo Jaekyung. Her instructions to him were always practical, delegating care outward: take him back to Seoul, bring him to a big hospital and make sure he’s safe. 
(chapter 65) When she sees them together, her first reaction is not pride or relief but mild reproach— doc Dan should have left already. 
(chapter 80) It was her graduation gift, yet it had nothing to do with his new profession or status. In contrast, the first episode already shows Kim Dan in a blue therapist’s uniform, name tag neatly pinned — a garment he must have purchased himself. 
(chapter 1) Traditionally, a graduation present helps the recipient embark on a career — like for example, a watch, a suit, or even a briefcase — symbols of adult entry into the job market. By offering him a hoodie instead, she unconsciously devalued her grandson’s professional worth. The garment belongs to the domestic sphere, not the workplace; it wraps him in comfort rather than readiness. In a moment meant to celebrate his arrival into public life, she reinscribes him into the private one — the house, the caretaker role, the obedient child. He doesn’t look like someone who went to university. 
(chapter 65)
(chapter 41) While dying, she reduces love to an equation of productivity: “Dan, it’s important to give back as much as you take.” The verb do anchors her worldview — love must be measurable, visible, earned through action. To do good by someone means to labor for them, not to rest beside them. What caught my attention is that neither doctor 
(chapter 27) nor the champion employs the expression “vacation” or “break”. 
(chapter 80) Why? It is because they never experienced a break. We have to envision that the “hamster” must have followed his grandmother, when he was not busy studying or working. Both main leads never experienced a real vacation. They say a day off, as if the day itself didn’t really exist, as if it were a temporary pause between “real” time. In their inherited logic, only work gives time its value; everything else evaporates. The grandmother’s way of loving has turned rest into an absence, something unworthy of being named. However, observe that there’s a gradual change in doc Dan’s vocabulary: 
(chapter 80) The problem is that for the hamster, only the athlete is worthy of getting his rest. It still doesn’t belong to his world.
(chapter 5) the focus remains mechanical. Eating is fuel; sleep is maintenance. But rest, in the sense of surrender, stillness, or joy, is foreign to her lexicon.
(chapter 30) — she watched The Fine Line, the very drama that made Choi Heesung famous. The detail seems trivial, yet it exposes everything: she had leisure 
(chapter 30), she simply refused to call it that. Watching television was permitted because it was passive, solitary, and could be rationalized as recuperation, not pleasure. In contrast, genuine rest — time shared, chosen, or joyful — never existed in her vocabulary. What she denied was not the existence of rest but the act of resting with him. She kept her downtime to herself, as if peace were a private possession. For her, love meant providing, not accompanying. Yet true care requires presence — sharing is caring, as the saying goes. [For more read this essay: 
(chapter 65) displays that she perceives her grandson’s exhaustion not as suffering but as malfunction, as if the human were a device that could be recalibrated through work and pills. That’s why her favors revolves about living conditions, but not about his “happiness”. Perhaps she genuinely hoped that the drugs and the stability of a “regular job” with the champion would realign him, as though routine alone could fix what grief and deprivation had unbalanced.
(chapter 11), scarf tied under her chin, carrying a single sweet bun. She doesn’t need to say she “went out of her way”—her action already proclaims it. The effort is the gift. 
(chapter 11) That simple walk to the store becomes a moral event, proof of affection through fatigue. 
(chapter 53) —perhaps the signing of the loan. “You’re a doctor now; you’ll pay it off quickly.” 
(chapter 80) In her eyes, generosity always justified expectation. The flowers were for display; the hoodie was the contract.
(chapter 41) When Dan gifts his grandmother an expensive scarf, he hides its true price — “I got it for a bargain” — repeating her own pattern of disguised generosity. She sees through the lie, teasing him for “spoiling” her, yet she accepts the luxury without feeling guilty. The scarf becomes her version of the hoodie: a fabric trophy of moral worth. But its later disappearance is revealing. In season two, she wears it 
(chapter 56) shortly after her arrival at the hospice, never again. When she greets Joo Jaekyung, the scarf is gone 
(chapter 61). Why? One might reply that the scarf lost its value, especially since she is living next to the director’s room. I doubt that such men would pay attention to such an object. Another possibility is that she fears its brightness might betray her neglect, for the champion has lived with her grandson for a while. How could she display silk while her grandson owns almost nothing? 
(chapter 80) The gesture that once symbolized love now feels like pain and loss. The signification of the gift has changed. What once wrapped him in safety now weighs like absence — the fabric retains the shape of someone who is about to vanish. His silence is not understanding but hurt, a wordless awareness that affection can curdle into memory. The audience, not the character, perceives that with the grandmother’s approaching death, her ledger is about to close. The gray fabric, once proof of her sacrifice, will lose its moral weight; her “gesture” will expire with her. Yet Kim Dan may not yet realize that this very ending could one day free him. The book-keeping dies with the bookkeeper.
(chapter 31) and tries to refuse it. 
(chapter 31) 
(chapter 67), loses sleep, or pays a price. He interprets Joo Jaekyung’s concern as “trouble,” Heesung’s gifts as “too much.” In his mind, affection is inseparable from cost:
(chapter 80) “I’ll stay in the background.” His self-worth depends on not burdening others. His words let transpire that he has never been Shin Okja’s first priority in the end. The hoodie reinforces that psychology—it is not a professional outfit like a suit or briefcase would have been, but a teenager’s garment, meant for the domestic space rather than the adult world. It literally arrests his growth, keeping him in the house and under her logic. Thus it is not surprising that after receiving his diploma, he still took part-time jobs. 
(chapter 80) is the site of its quiet destruction. His act of giving reverses every law the grandmother ever taught. First, he does not “go out of his way.” The clothes are delivered effortlessly, without fanfare or moral accounting. 
(chapter 80) There is no speech about sacrifice, no self-congratulation. 
(chapter 80) By erasing the gesture of “effort,” he removes the emotional price tag that once accompanied every gift.
(chapter 80) If the grandmother’s motto was “I went through so much for you,” the champion’s is “It’s no big deal.” Generosity becomes invisible, unburdened, and therefore trustworthy.
(chapter 80) The row of garments invites choice — a concept absent from Shin Okja’s universe, where love came in single doses and with strings attached. Here, the doctor is asked to select what he likes, to exercise taste, to inhabit preference. The abundance of options grants him agency, dignity, and the right to refuse.
(chapter 22) 
(chapter 30) becomes unexpectedly true here. The wardrobe bridges the distance that the grandmother’s gifts had always created.
(chapter 80) This is why his hesitant and embarrassed gratitude, framed against a background of dissolving gray waves, feels so transformative. The air behind him ripples as if washing away the residue of his old faith.
(chapter 80); they mark the passing of days, the return of seasons, the rediscovery that not every morning has to look the same. Variety itself becomes a form of freedom. When the wolf once complained that all his shirts looked identical, he was unknowingly naming what both of them lacked: differentiation, spontaneity, change. Through this act, he restores color not only to the doctor’s wardrobe but to his emotional world — a quiet resurrection through fabric.
(chapter 80) The “hamster” had instinctively turned to the only person who had ever offered him help without cost.
— the luminous, wish-granting jewel said to contain both wisdom and life energy. The dragon’s power is not innate; it is completed and elevated by the jewel. Without the yeouiju, it cannot ascend to the heavens — strength without meaning, force without direction.
(chapter 75), the imagined smell, or cleanse his skin of battle; he is held and, therefore, purified. Through Dan’s arms, he rediscovers his value and humanity—the dragon touched and not destroyed. He is worth of being embraced, even if he is already so old! 
(chapter 79) This is one part of the new circle. Jealousy is the residue of imbalance — the echo of the 7 within the 8. In the numerology of Jinx, the 7-chapters, like for example episode 7 
(chapter 7), episode 18, where the champion had sex because of this statement 
(chapter 18),episode 34 with Choi Heesung 
(chapter 34) or episode 52, where the former members of Team Black and expressed their disdain and jealousy toward the main lead 
(chapter 52)
(chapter 47) and 8 lies that invisible hinge: the death of the old economy of love and the birth of a new one.
(chapter 61) and Heesung’s residual rivalry and resent. Each acts as a different face of control: the woman binds through guilt, the manager through hierarchy acting as the owner of the athlete’s time, the actor through charm and deceptions. Together they form the triad that tries to reopen the circle closed in the pool. Let’s not forget that the athlete chose to take a day off on his own accord 
(chapter 80), but he had just returned to the gym. It is no longer the same training and routine.
(chapter 78) Their noisy excitement — hugs, wishes, smiles, jokes, even talk of meat — gave the impression of a long-awaited reunion. Yet the suggestion was cut short by Jaekyung, who rejected it like this: 
(chapter 9) in episode 9, the champion’s birthday dinner 
(chapter 43) in episode 43, the talk of hospital get-togethers 
(chapter 61), or the festive tone of fighters after director Choi Gilseok’s victory 
(chapter 41) Why did they not organize a party in Seoul to celebrate his victory in the States? Dan devotes himself to work, but his departures are marked by silence 
(chapter 53) rather than farewell. 
(chapter 78) always miss their mark, either hollow in substance or unseen by the very people who should be honored.
. (Chapter 43) Even the “dragon’s” birthday, supposedly a day of personal celebration, is reduced to an awkward dinner at his expense, with a cake arriving a day too early 
(chapter 43) or gifts from sponsors and fans he never wanted. 
(Chapter 41) In Germany, it is considered as a bad omen to celebrate a birthday too soon. Rituals that should affirm intimacy instead expose distance and lack of respect.
(chapter 56) However, this is just an illusion. What caught my attention is that the nurses wondered themselves why such a skilled therapist would come to a small-town hospital.
(chapter 56) They speak about him, as though he had no reason to stay there, as if he were a stranger passing through. Right from the beginning, he was treated unconsciously as temporary, someone whose presence required explanation rather than welcome. Finally, no party was held for him, no ritual of inclusion was offered. His distance and their detachment mirrored each other, producing the silence that would later define his departure. 
(chapter 78)
(chapter 5) It ends either in the car or in the locker room. 
(chapter 15) The high peak of his celebrated victories takes place at the gym where Park Namwook gather the fighters in front of the Emperor congratulating himself for his “good work” and the spectators for belonging to a winning team. 
(chapter 53) For him, the physical therapists were just tools and as such replaceable.
(chapter 45) By keeping Dan in the dark about the “surprise,” the fighters created another problem. Their silence pushed him to offer his own present on the same day as the gifts from sponsors and fans — exactly the kind of attention Jaekyung resented. He had already said he did not want those presents, and now Dan’s sincere gesture was placed in the same category, indistinguishable from the flood of unwanted offerings. What could have been a private, meaningful moment was absorbed into the hollow ritual of the group. Hence the champion never got to read his card! 
(Chapter 50) Then later the athlete questioned the physical therapist’s actions and told him this 
(chapter 51) out of fear and pain, the physical therapist thought, he was fired. Once again, he left in silence, unacknowledged. No one stood up for him, no one tried to reintegrate him, no farewell was offered. 
(chapter 74) The silence of his grandmother on this point suggests that even the most basic ritual of mourning was denied him.
(Chapter 59) Only Dan and the landlord marked the event with a quiet burial. Since no one knew about it, it left the ritual incomplete. For Dan, the small act was meaningful, but its invisibility to the larger community echoed his own life: recognition always hidden, always partial, never public.
(Chapter 78) To them, departure is not tragedy but play, a noisy farewell parade. Their barking and chasing become a spontaneous party, a joyous ritual of attachment. 
(Chapter 78) Striking is that here, doc Dan is making a promise to Boksoon and her puppies, but the latter have no idea. Therefore imagine this. On the weekend, the moment the car approaches the landlord’s house, the puppies will recognize them and celebrate their return! And this time, both characters will witness this welcome party: 
(chapter 78)
(Chapter 78) He doesn’t limit the number of matches, only that he will focus on the “wolf”. So for them, his return is not limited in time. Nevertheless, his paleness and dark circles speak louder than their words: he is exhausted, fragile, still haunted.
(Chapter 78) They are more worried about another possible departure than about his condition, as though his leaving again would be a greater tragedy than his ongoing suffering. This exposes that the members are not totally oblivious and their reunion is not a repetition of the past. On the other hand, warm words and a noisy welcome are enough for them. They take his generosity for granted, just as they always have. Therefore they ask for his magic hands. 
(chapter 9), and abstaining from drink often means being excluded from group belonging. Yet Dan, on medication, cannot drink. His doctor’s recommendation makes it impossible for him to participate in such “public” rituals. Even the customary sharing of a huge bowl — a symbol of intimacy and unity — must be avoided. For Jaekyung, who once used alcohol to dull his own struggles, 
(Chapter 78) Hence the latter has no interest to organize a welcome party and even maintain the ritual with the bowl!! What might appear to others as grumpiness or stinginess is in fact a form of protection.
(chapter 9) 
(chapter 26), or allowed whether welcome parties or surprise celebrations or pre-match meals 
(chapter 22). These events were never about genuine recognition but about maintaining power and appearances, boosting morale, or reminding the fighters of their dependence on the team structure he managed. The “surprise” birthday party in chapter 43 bore his fingerprints, 
(chapter 43) This absence is revealing: Namwook preferred to avoid direct conflict with Jaekyung’s visible displeasure, leaving the awkward burden of paying and performing to the champion himself to Yosep. In other words, his parties were tools of control, not gifts of belonging. By chapter 78, however, the balance has shifted. 
(chapter 78) Standing in the back, Namwook watches as Dan returns and is embraced by the fighters. He notices a “different vibe” between the two leads, but fails to grasp what it means. Doc Dan is actually free and has the upper hand in their relationship. Hence he can no longer ask this from doc Dan: 
(chapter 36) Doc Dan should put up with everything. What he cannot admit is that Dan is no longer replaceable. 
(chapter 69) Yet unlike all the hollow celebrations that came before, this missed event would finally have meaning. It would not be absence through neglect, but absence as recognition: proof that Dan’s life matters more than ritual, profit, or performance.
(chapter 78) This delay suggests a split loyalty: while the team is already celebrating, Potato is likely still tied to Heesung, perhaps even speaking to him on the phone. His tardiness betrays how his heart is pulled in two directions — caught between the actor’s orbit and the gym’s renewed center around Dan. Yet the embrace of the fighter, and his tearful reaction at seeing Dan again, show that his real place lies with Team Black.
(chapter 60), which he took on the day one of them died! 
(chapter 58), and his presence ties alcohol directly to the champion’s vulnerability. At the same time, Potato’s loyalty is beginning to shift. He once orbited Heesung like a hidden lover, but Dan’s return rekindles his attachment to the gym and as such will affect his relationship with the gumiho. 
(chapter 78) Sitting stiffly in his hospital bed, he waves away any possibility of affection. His body language, arms crossed, his words reduced to commands about training, erase the emotional bond that might have connected him to Jaekyung. Where halmoni’s silence is passive, Byungchul’s is active — he refuses intimacy, replacing it with obligation. For both figures, farewell becomes an empty form, stripped of the recognition that makes partings bearable. In these moments, the absence of a hug, the denial of tenderness, is more devastating than the loudest rejection. It is a party that never begins, a rite of passage left unspoken.
(chapter 22) 
(chapter 13) a breakfast in silence 
(chapter 68), the embraces in the dark 
(chapter 66) (the wordless recognition of suffering) — these become the true celebrations of Jinx. They lack alcohol, noise, or spectacle, but they carry sincerity. They reveal that belonging can be built not through grand gestures but through repetition, through the transformation of fleeting kindness into ritual. This implies the existence of conscious and choice. And yet, these moments remain fragile. After their return to the penthouse, there is no shared meal, no laughter, only nostalgia and sadness. 
(chapter 78) Even Jaekyung is troubled by the reminder that Dan’s stay is temporary, as if the very walls of the penthouse resist turning into a home.
(chapter 78) In other words, the wolf’s task is no longer to win battles in the ring but to protect these fragile celebrations — to make Dan feel at home, to turn missed hugs into embraces, missed parties into warm meals, missed gestures into habits of care. Only then can the cycle of exclusion be broken. Only then can “The Missed Party” become, at last, a real one.
(chapter 68), the shared meal 
(chapter 78). For me, it is no coincidence that the senior followed them to the street and waved at them! 
(chapter 78) He expressed not only his genuine feelings, but also his longing: he hoped to see them soon. He had come to appreciate their presence which is not related to their work. The Missed Party becomes not a single absence, but the haunting rhythm of the entire narrative: recognition always arriving too late, always seen by the wrong eyes. And perhaps the story’s promise lies here — that one day, the real party will finally be held, not in karaoke bars or gym halls, but in the unbreakable bond of two men who learn what true friendship and belonging mean. This means, the more the champion and his fated partner develop new routines, the more it will affect the gym and as such Park Namwook, which can only feel more and more excluded.
(chapter 78)
(chapter 75), the perfume 
chapter 75) that suddenly appeared on his body 
(chapter 75), for example, were left unmentioned — proof that silence still surrounds him.
(chapter 75) Why fight as though every match were a matter of life and death? Why keep repeating the same acts, long after survival was secured? 
.(chapter 75) They are the product of a long chain of humiliations, betrayals, and systemic exploitation, each layering onto the next until a young man’s raw talent was encased in a carapace of compulsions. To understand the jinx is to understand how the protagonist’s life collapsed around the word loser, and how the fighting industry transformed his private shame into public myth.
(chapter 72) Even before stepping into a professional cage, his life had been a series of trials to prove he was not worthless. 
(chapter 74) Hunger, poverty, bullying, insults— each branded his body with a language of violence. Among them came his father’s words, spat like a curse: loser. 
(chapter 75)
(chapter 69)
(chapter 75) — a boy who fought with the desperation of someone who had nothing else. Victory after victory gave him the illusion that he had escaped his father’s shadow. As long as he was winning, he could suppress the pain, bury the insult loser, and silence the memory of that cursed night when his father died and his mother abandoned him. Triumph became his shield, proof that he was not what he had said he was.
(chapter 75) 
(chapter 75) To them, a fighter’s struggles had only one explanation: weakness. Park Namwook and the other coach dismissed his losses as nerves 
(chapter 75), as if the only measure of worth were what happened under the spotlight. They never thought to ask what kind of weight he was carrying, what kind of nights he was surviving before he entered the cage. While the other fighters were well aware of the champion’s insomnia 
(chapter 75), Park Namwook still has no idea of the champion’s struggles. This shows how disconnected he is from his “boy”.
(chapter 74) bodies to be tested, pushed, and discarded if they broke. Where Jaekyung’s defeat cracked open childhood trauma, they saw only performance failure. What he lived as suffocation and despair 
(chapter 75) Even before his first loss, Jaekyung fought like a cornered animal, pouring every ounce of strength into proving he could not be beaten. That’s why he rose so fast. But why? The reason is that all his opponents were reflections of his “father”. 
(chapter 75) Consequently, his matches always looked like life-and-death struggles. He wasn’t strategizing against a specific fighter; he was exorcising a ghost. That’s why he never refused a challenge. His opponent never mattered. Besides, as long as he could win, it didn’t matter. 
(chapter 75), the more the cracks showed — and the ghosts of his father and mother made every fight feel like a replay of abandonment and accusation. The five losses 
(chapter 75) were not just setbacks in his career; they were the repeated reopening of a wound that would never heal. Each one confirmed his father’s curse. Each one reinforced the sense that he was marked, that no matter how high he climbed, he would always be dragged down again.
(chapter 73) To the boy, it was a cry for pain and survival — an instinctive urge to escape despair and criticism. To the father, it was betrayal. Already emasculated by failure and drink, he was reminded of his wife’s discontent, the specter of another abandonment. He lashed out the only way he knew: 
(chapter 73), and that the man’s final judgment on him would never be undone. Love and hatred, longing and guilt fused in that moment. He loved his father despite the abuse. And yet he would forever wonder if leaving — even just threatening to leave — had killed him. Worse, because death came so suddenly, there was no time left. 
(chapter 66) — speaking not with fists or insults but with tears and an embrace. 
(chapter 66) His sleepwalking reacting to a simple touch 
(chapter 65), his dissociative pleas 
(chapter 66) give Jaekyung the words his father could not say. Where the father’s unconscious leaked out in aggression, Dan’s unconscious offers gentleness and honesty. Both men speak from a place deeper than reason; one chained Jaekyung to guilt, the other opens the possibility of release. In Dan’s trembling body, Jaekyung sees the tender reflection of his father’s hidden plea 
(chapter 74) With no parents, no siblings, and eventually no wife, he had nothing to fall back on and saw in the criminal world another form of “family”. The family he created became his one fragile shelter — and when that shelter cracked, there was nothing left to hold him.
(chapter 57) Violence and insult became his only idiom. “Loser” was not simply an accusation, but the displaced confession of his own defeat: I was abandoned. I failed. I have nothing.
(chapter 73) The boy’s boxing talent was a source of pride — proof of strength — but also a threat. Strength meant escape. Escape meant abandonment. The father, who had already lost his wife and his dignity, projected onto his son the terror of losing everything once again. His resentment was not born of disappointment alone but of recognition (unconsciously): you are me, and you will leave me too.
(chapter 74) His father may have been an orphan, just like his mother too. Therefore the latter was emotionally unavailable, and so he inherited not only trauma but also silence. By contrast, Dan has at least one surviving figure — flawed as she is — who keeps the family thread intact. That contrast makes Jaekyung’s bond with Dan all the more significant: it is not just romance, but an attempt to build a family line that never existed before him.
(chapter 73), while keeping Jaewoong’s own origins shrouded. Hwang had someone by his side — gentle, quiet, but present — while Jaewoong had no one, as according to me, the mother was counting on her “husband”‘s success and dream. The director’s stability, however fragile, was rooted in that maternal figure. Jaewoong had no such guide, and without it, he simply made the wrong choice.
(chapter 74), she never once spoke to her son about it, never asked what he felt. She did not grieve with him, nor allow him to grieve. Besides, the main lead’s words were ambiguous: Was the father dead or had he abandoned his son too? The fact that she never asked exposes that it didn’t matter to her. She was not interested in the truth, her only concern was herself — her new life, her fear of losing it. Where the father left him branded, the mother left him erased. 
(chapter 73); every triumph, by the echo of rejection
(chapter 73). To win was to prove his father wrong, but to stand alone in victory was to prove his mother right. Success and emptiness became inseparable.
(chapter 73) mirrors what the director later whispers to Jaekyung: 
(chapter 75) If ritual could bend fate, he would build his own. But where the Bible fighter had a single, unifying story — scripture, God, fellowship — Jaekyung had nothing to draw on. No faith to lean on, no parental blessing to inherit, no safe home to return to. Instead, he began to stitch together a mosaic of rituals, each one disguising a different childhood wound. To outsiders it looked obsessive, neurotic, almost superstitious. To him, it was survival. Each gesture was both repression and remembrance, a scar disguised as armor. And this is the paradox: the rituals made him strong enough to survive, but too broken to live. 
(chapter 27) , self-punishment, the willingness to suffer endlessly for the cage. He didn’t fear pain. Their sudden appearance 
(chapter 75), a reminder that he had entered a machine in motion, a system that swallowed fighters whole and spat out statistics. From that point, the acceleration was merciless: by April, he was in the 272nd bout against Randy Booker 
(chapter 14); by June, the 293rd against Dominic Hill 
(chapter 50) 
(chapter 75), he had not merely “built” a career, he had been consumed by one. There was no time to recover from injuries, no space to process victory, no room to integrate defeat. No wonder why his shoulders were in bad shape. 
(chapter 75) Every fight blurred into the next, every opponent older, stronger, more experienced. And yet Jaekyung fought them all with the same desperate, survival-driven ferocity.
(chapter 71) and Dr. Lee 
(chapter 27) still called him an athlete — someone whose body required balance, protection, recovery. But MFC and KO-FC never did. For them, the main lead or his colleagues were addressed as 
(chapter 14) “The Emperor”, “a crazy bastard”
(chapter 40), “my boy”, 
(chapter 47). Thus only doctors are allowed to do them officially. But Jaekyung’s rise shifted that meaning. As “The Emperor,” he normalized tattoos for the new generation of fighters, transforming what once marked marginality into a badge of visibility. This is why even Oh Daehyun, one of his admirers and members of Team Black, now carries one: 
(chapter 8) The celebrity’s suffering literally redefined the aesthetic of the sport. His body, turned billboard, became part of the league’s branding.
(chapter 14) ripping open the scar of his father’s “loser” and his mother’s absence and silent parentification. Not long after, an article exposed his shoulder injury 
(chapter 35), reducing years of discipline to a liability on the page. Later came the suspension narrative 
(chapter 54), his temper framed not as the product of exploitation and scheme but as proof of unfitness, as if his rage were a crime instead of a symptom. 
(chapter 5) the name Seo Gichan appeared here for the first time… a faceless name!
(chapter 69) The danger lay in the very identity of his next challenger. If they pitted him against a newcomer who had rocketed through the ranks as quickly as Baek Junmin once did 
(chapter 47), questioning the selection of Baek Junmin, is so crucial. It shows that the manipulation of opponents was no accident — it was systemic. Matches were not about fair combat but about narrative management: making sure the emperor’s story served the company’s balance sheet.
(chapter 51) On paper, it was a draw. In practice, it was soon reframed as a loss 
(chapter 57). By late August, Jaekyung had slipped to third place. 
(chapter 75) Here, it looks like a mirror, but naturally it is a fake one. It was not earned with fists alone; it could be stripped, reassigned, reshaped at will. One tie, one whisper, one adjustment in the rankings, and the Night Emperor was dethroned without ceremony.
(chapter 75), not for intimacy but to clear his head and stave off loneliness, emptiness and his abandonment issues.
(chapter 75) must be read in this light. It is not a relapse into the system’s treadmill, nor a blind return to the pitfall laid before him. Notice that he does not say he will fight in the fall, nor does he mention the upcoming match that everyone else is waiting for. 
(chapter 71) Instead, he frames his goal with a word that changes everything: reclaim.
(chapter 73), but he lost his father and his mother abandoned him. 
(chapter 61) He was acknowledging the main lead as a real physical therapist. 
(chapter 62)— and even to those closest to his body — it looks like nothing more than sex. That was all the uke from chapter 2 saw, and it was enough for him to sneer:
(chapter 2) The insult landed with devastating familiarity, not as a new wound but as an echo of his father’s curse: “loser.” Both words reduced Jaekyung to nothing — not a man, not an athlete, just a fraud kept alive by crutches.
(chapter 2) In slamming his former partner against the wall, he was not merely silencing a lover’s cruelty. He was fighting the ghost of his father, the voice that had branded him weak, cursed, unworthy. The jinx that kept him alive was being twisted into proof of his failure, and he could not bear it. 
(chapter 2)
(chapter 62), Dan recoiled. 
(chapter 62) To him, “jinx” meant objectification, a reduction of their bond to sex. 
(chapter 62) but as a therapist he trusted. His words about wanting to return to the “usual pre-match routine” 
(chapter 62) were, in his mind, a way of saying: I need you to bring back wholeness, to help me steady myself again. But because Dan only knew fragments of the jinx, the message landed with devastating distortion. 
(chapter 41) but not the others. He had never seen how layered and fragmented Jaekyung’s survival system truly was: the shower and perfume, the milk, the tattoos, the obsessive fight schedule. Thus, when Jaekyung invoked the jinx, Dan heard only objectification: you want me for my body. However, this is not what the “wolf” meant. Thus he got surprised by such a statement. 
(chapter 62) For Jaekyung, the plea was about coherence; for Dan, it sounded like reduction.
(chapter 22) He cooks breakfast for Jaekyung, offering something warm, homemade, human — a substitute for the cold, industrial glass of milk. 
(chapter 54) throws the plate away 
(chapter 54) But when Dan cooks, Jaekyung is surprised, even touched. For once, nourishment is not consumption but connection. The milk was always a disguised memory of deprivation; Dan’s meal becomes the antidote — food as presence. So for him, the prematch-routine was also referring to the meals prepared by his fated partner. And I feel the need to bring another aspect. Since there was no “family” in the athlete’s life, he never got the chance to discover the joy of the table. 
(chapter 22) Hence it is not surprising that he looked at his phone, while the others were eating and discussing. He never had a real conversation with a family member around the table. 
(chapter 45), whispering that he misses Jaekyung’s warmth, reveals that the champion’s natural scent is already enough. He never gets to see this — Jaekyung doesn’t know how deeply Dan treasures his smell.
(chapter 40) Here he turned around and placed his lover in the middle of the bed. He even let him rest. 
(chapter 2), and not the other rituals? Because to admit the rest would be to expose the origin of the jinx: the father’s insult, the mother’s abandonment, the hunger, the bullying. Sex was the only ritual that could be spoken without directly dragging the past into the room. It was the “safe” shorthand — though tragically, it became the most dangerous. Homosexuality is definitely a stigma among boxers and MMA fighters.
(chapter 68) In his own way, he was showing him that he did care! He was more than just a body… or even a physical therapist!!
(chapter 35) It is the steady mirror of Kim Dan.
(chapter 13) — helpless, cornered, often pleading. Thus the champion taught the doctor to overcome his fear and fight back: 
(chapter 26) This imbalance was no accident. It replayed Jaekyung’s own childhood roles: he became what his father had been to him (the better version naturally, for he is the mirror of truth), and forced Dan into the position he had once held himself. Through Dan, Jaekyung unconsciously re-enacted his trauma, reversing their positions as if to master what had once mastered him. That way, he was pushed to mature emotionally! That’s why he could connect with the main lead unconsciously. His trembling words in Chapter 51 
(chapter 71) He believes to know the truth, while he is ignorant. He is insecure, extreme in his behavior (drinking)
(chapter 71), but also selfish and questioning, still fragile yet capable of protest. He is struggling with his own emotions and thoughts. 
(chapter 71) How can he trust the athlete, when he doubts himself so much? From my point of view, he is on the verge of become “mature mentally” and as such “responsible”. At the same time, Jaekyung is revealed as the adult in crisis. His exhaustion 
(chapter 70)
(chapter 74) It is because thanks to the director’s confession, the “hamster” is able to see the champion as a “a kindred spirit“, an orphan and as such as the younger “boy”. 
(chapter 7) 
(chapter 26), because it is play, because it is chosen.
(chapter 69) It is not about treatment or jinx, but about presence. This hug reframes the meaning of strength. True strength is not the ability to fight endlessly, but the ability to hold and be held, to mirror” is like touching oneself! Let’s not forget that the mirror represents the reflection of a person. Respecting the physical therapist signifies respecting oneself!
(chapter 36) He can retaliate differently. With his money and power, he can prove to them, he is no loser! 
(chapter 26) They have watched his fights 
(chapter 23), memorized his moves and titles, and repeated the anecdotes told in gyms and on TV. They’ve heard how he was “saved” by sports from a darker path, and cheered for him as the “Emperor” — the handsomest fighter, the man who broke the arcade’s punching machine 
(chapter 26), the champion who stands above the rest. But if the champion’s life is already an open book, why did Mingwa wait so long to reveal his childhood and family? The answer is simple. It is because Joo Jaekyung has been called the Emperor till his fight against Baek Junmin! These public portraits — the friendly banter in the gym, the theatrical ring intros — show us the merchandise, not the man. They are the carefully polished surface presented to fans and fellow fighters alike, repeated so often that even those closest to him believe them. Yet behind this image 
(chapter 30) lies a past left unspoken, a silence so complete that his own history became an empty space others could fill as they wished. This essay brings these two “stories” together — the Emperor and the boy. And now, you may be wondering how I came to connect the champion’s trauma to his future career as an MMA fighter. The answer lies in Joo Jaekyung’s own voice. 😮
(chapter 69) It was as if the main lead, backed by his team, had personally approached MFC to request the match — an illusion strengthened by the opening line, “MFC’s former champion Joo Jaekyung will be returning to the ring this fall after serving his suspension.” This way, if the decision draws criticism, the CEO can retreat behind the fighter and his team, like they did in the past. 
(chapter 67) That’s the reason why this suggestion from the CEO appeared the very next day. 
(chapter 61), it was paired with a recommendation for rehabilitation — not an immediate return to competition. This was actually a condition for his total recovery. On the other hand, the doctor imagined or suggested that his patient wished to return to the ring so soon. No medical professional ever signed off on an autumn fight. Yet the date is already set, and the headlines frames it as a confident comeback without any medical backup. The Emperor’s name is splashed everywhere, but none of the words belong to him.
(chapter 57) with one of his close associates — a man whose face was hidden, speaking as though he were the athlete’s voice. That interview was accompanied by a familiar victory image 
(chapter 41), while the image released with the fall match announcement was the one from when he first won his champion title. 
(chapter 17) He was blamed for his popularity. The man inside the crown does not act or speak freely; his words are filtered, scripted, or replaced entirely.
(chapter 12), never mind that he hardly drinks. The gesture fits the fantasy they’ve built around him, not the reality of a man who rejects alcohol due to his addicted father, a reminder that even the tokens of admiration are shaped by the image, not the truth. So who is this so-called close associate or “Joo Jaekyung’s team” exactly that decides for him, speaks for him, and hides behind his title? Besides, why did the journalist change from “one of his close associates” to “Joo Jaekyung’s team”?
(chapter 57) The nickname, played for entertainment value, was another way of turning the champion into a caricature — a marketable, amusing persona instead of a man with a past and agency. It is quite telling that Park Namwook’s interview aired immediately after the anchor referred to Jaekyung as “Mama Joo Jaekyung Fighter.” This was not the lofty “Emperor” title repeated in gyms and ring intros — it was more a mocking nickname, a deliberate jab meant to provoke. In that moment, the Emperor was verbally pulled down from his pedestal, yet the images shown alongside the segment told a different story: carefully chosen shots of him as a champion, a visual echo of his marketable persona. The dissonance was striking.
. (chapter 54) In my opinion, the man is trying to return to the past, thinking that his “popularity” can come back, not realizing that he is being manipulated himself. On the contrary, he stepped into the role of spokesperson without hesitation, speaking as if he were Jaekyung’s voice while keeping his own face and name hidden. He only speaks, when he feels safe. He can not be responsible for the champion’s recovery. 
(Chapter 52) This framing lets him claim the prestige of leadership while leaving himself room to withdraw if things go wrong. Yosep was the one notifying MFC and reporting the incident to the police, Potato explaining his discovery to Joo Jaekyung and blaming the star. 
(chapter 31) when punished. In this light, Park Namwook embodies the very dynamic the article warns against: a figure who benefits from another’s compliance, maintaining control not through open dialogue, but through unspoken rules and the threat of exclusion.
(chapter 73), by becoming a boxer, the champion wouldn’t make a lot of money. With this comment, he implied that boxing in South Korea had been losing popularity 10 years ago. This explicates why gradually, the members from Hwang Byungchul left the studio. And it was likely the same in the illegal fighting circuit. 
(chapter 73) The popularity of MMA in the States gave them the opportunity to revive fighting sports, a figure who could draw crowds and sponsors, making such events fashionable again.
(chapter 72) instead of “hard-working,” a man who “chose sports over a dark path.” Yet if you look closely, this celebrated “ascension” 
(chapter 72) isn’t tied to the director’s boxing studio at all — it’s linked to the arcade’s punching machine incident. 
(chapter 72), the scars of his family history, and the years of survival before the cage. This is history rewritten, his boxing past and family erased. Why? His origins could expose the ugly verity: the link between criminality and boxing (as such fighting sports). Secondly, because his real story, though moving, lacked the glamorous allure needed to market him. His real story would have revealed that to rise to the top, you need relentless work, not a miraculous moment. That version was never going to sell as well as the “genius” myth.
(chapter 46) And, like any product, once it was seen as damaged, its value plummeted. The moment he “lost” his title and suffered injury (chapter 52), the dream began to unravel. 
(chapter 52) For the first time, the main lead had voiced his own thoughts and emotions. He had used his real “voice”, revealed his unwell-being: 
(chapter 52) To this outburst, Park Namwook slapped Jaekyung in front of others (chapter 52). 
(chapter 52) He chose silence, and later avoidance, staying away from the gym. That silence was not weakness, but choice: he would listen less and less to his hyung. 
(chapter 36) All he needed to do was to fight: 
(chapter 36)
(chapter 72) We don’t know how many times he called, but each time we see him do it, his face is injured. 
(chapter 72) The phone calls are therefore intertwined with the boxing studio, as though pain itself pushed him toward her. At ten, he picked up the receiver and let it ring only a few times before hanging up. The next time, in the dead of winter, he finally spoke, promising that if she returned, he would protect her from his father and make enough money to keep her safe. 
(chapter 55) 
(chapter 27), spent time with him, asks questions, confronts, and refuses to be reduced to a body in the room. He breaks the rule of silence. With him, Jaekyung can no longer hide behind the physical alone; he is forced to speak, to explain, to voice desires and fears. He pushes Jaekyung to engage in ways he’s spent years avoiding. In this way, Kim Dan becomes the first real threat to the system the champion built after those two curses — and possibly the first person who could prove that words can be safe again. And now, you comprehend why Joo Jaekyung was moved by the birthday card
(chapter 62) To most, it might look like a simple gesture, but for him, it was a rare and precious thing — a voice that had taken the time to shape itself into words just for him. 
(chapter 55) The “spell” to break it is not some grand external event, but the simple, sustained act of honest communication — something that has been denied to him since childhood.
. In this way, the curse that began when his voice was silenced and his hands were weaponized will only be broken when those same hands learn to speak tenderness. Look how doc Dan reacted to his public embrace: 
Until now, the design’s images have played a secondary role, yet the answer lies in a single scene from chapter 41. 
(chapter 41) Under the bright sunlight, Kim Dan reached out toward the leaves, his hand open and unguarded, as he silently thought of the man he loved. This gesture, so simple yet so revealing, became the unspoken confession that marked the start of a different kind of freedom—the freedom to feel. 
(chapter 55) 
(chapter 73) reveals why that reading was correct: the penthouse window is not just a symbolic device of the present — it is the direct heir of a far older image burned into his memory. Here, as a teenager, he stands before a small barred window in the room where his father’s corpse lies. The resemblance is not visual coincidence but emotional continuity. Both windows let in light without granting escape; both present the outside world as something visible yet forever out of reach.
(chapter 71)
(chapter 70) the night can also be alive, communicative, protective. In that moment, the moon becomes more than a distant light in the sky: it is a patient witness, a calm listener in the stillness, reflecting the truth he has yet to voice. 
(chapter 70) Its soft glow contrasts with the blinding glare of the cage lights, suggesting that under the moon, there is space for gentleness, for hearing one’s own heartbeat and another’s words. Just as the moon guides travelers through darkness, it can guide him toward a night that does not suffocate him with loss, but offers orientation and connection.
(chapter 60) they were his own form of therapy. In saving someone else in the night, 
(chapter 65) he could prove to himself he was not powerless, he was valuable, capable of protecting what mattered. 
(chapter 13) Observe that this name is a combination between Hwang Byungchul and Baek Junmin! Under this light, my avid readers can grasp why the athlete kept his existence in the dark for so long! It is because the latter belongs to his past and knows the truth behind the Emperor! He was aware of his suffering. For him, he is not just a fighter, but someone who needed FUN in his life! 
(chapter 1) If Hwang Byungchul gave Jaekyung the tools to fight, Baek Junmin gave him the reason to fight like a bloodthirsty tyrant. He did not simply scar the soul — he engraved rage into the champion’s core. The tragedy is that Joo Jaekyung never even learned his name. Thus he didn’t react to his name, only to his face and his smile. 
(chapter 47) And yet, Baek Junmin reappears, not as a stranger, but as the remnant of a past that refuses to stay buried. Additionally, he appears only through the narration of others (fighter) 
(chapter 73) — a gesture here, a line there 
(chapter 73) — before vanishing again. To understand him, we have to read between the panels, compare the boy we meet in episode 73 
(chapter 73) to the man who resurfaces much later. 
(chapter 49) Jaekyung’s ears mark him as a champion who faced real opponents in real matches, many of them brutal. His injuries are the price of transparency, visibility, and legitimacy. They are scars earned in the light, while Baek Junmin is supposed to be a novice. 
(chapter 47)
(chapter 49) His cheeks have sunk, his jaw stands out more sharply, and his features seem carved by something deeper than age. This is not the look of someone forced to cut weight for competition, 
(chapter 37), for the new rising star is already much smaller and thinner than the protagonist. 
(chapter 49) It’s more likely the result of long-term stress, emotional corrosion, or drug use.
(chapter 73) This line is telling. It reveals not only the normalization of drug use among these teenagers, but also how intimately it’s tied to fighting. Juho isn’t offering an escape—he’s offering a tool. For him, drugs aren’t about rebellion or recreation; they are a performance enhancer. They’re marketed as part of the fighter’s toolkit.
(chapter 44) His skin is clearer, his features softer, and his face shows fewer signs of internal collapse. This is the effect of healthy food, structured discipline, clean training, and perhaps even emotional restraint. While Junmin’s face has been thinned by chaos, Jaekyung’s has been preserved by control. Under this light, it becomes comprehensible why the athlete fell in love with doc Dan at first sight. Despite being older, 
(chapter 7) the “hamster” still carries a baby face: a visual marker of youth, innocence, and gentleness. He embodies everything the Shotgun does not: vulnerability without corruption, softness without vice. If Baek Junmin stands for a corrupted adulthood — weapons (The Shotgun), shadows, and counterfeit gold — then Kim Dan, by contrast, becomes the sanctuary of all that was lost: the child, the smile, the safe bed.
(chapter 49) reveals that anonymity was never his desire. It was his sentence.
(chapter 18) criminals don’t want attention. They avoid the law. They train their subordinates to vanish, to move through shadows, to speak only when spoken to. Baek Junmin wasn’t just playing a role —he was surviving a system that required him to erase himself. His hoodie was not simply clothing; it was a muzzle, a shadow he had to wear. That’s why the protagonist has not made a connection between his nemesis Baek Junmin and a Korean gang yet.
(chapter 73) he blends in by choice. Black is not a neutral here; it is a decision to recede, to be part of the backdrop. The fabric pools around his hands, hiding the skin, while the hood hangs like an unspoken “no comment.” Even when he speaks, it is without volume or force. 
(chapter 52) Note that Director Choi Gilseok doesn’t express concern for Baek Junmin, his attention is on the Emperor! 
(chapter 49), there must have been at least a second — brief, sharp, and wounding enough to carve itself into Baek Junmin’s memory while leaving no conscious trace in Joo Jaekyung’s. The difference is telling: what the champion repressed, the Shotgun carried it like a scar. It means Baek Junmin knows more about him than the reverse, and every glare, every barb he throws later is sharpened by a history Joo Jaekyung couldn’t anticipate they share
(chapter 73) lit only in patches, with more shadow than clarity. In this kind of setting, the black hoodie becomes something more than clothing — it is camouflage. He is not merely wearing the dark; he is using it, letting the folds of fabric and the absence of light blur his edges. It is as if he intends to merge with the scenery, to be just another shadow leaning against the wall. This double concealment — in time and in space — ensures that, for now, he remains invisible to the one person whose attention he will one day crave. He began in the shadows not just by circumstance but by mandate. Yet as the boy in the hoodie fades into memory, a new figure will eventually emerge from those shadows—not to hide, but to strike. And he will no longer wear a hood. He will wear scars.
(chapter 72) 
(chapter 73) in the present timeline, but an assault there can happen any time.
(chapter 17) And what did the loan shark tell him before provoking him? 
(chapter 17), it appears when a fight is already lost. It is not a weapon of open combat, but of pride and desperation — a way to cheat fate when skill is not enough. Moreover, he was particularly vicious here. He attacked the champion from behind, a treacherous move. As you can see, the knife is strongly intertwined with the underworld, deception and cowardice.
(chapter 73) 
(chapter 17), a head injury 
(chapter 73), insults and provocations 
(chapter 17) and finally an allusion to the “maker”, god versus father. 
(chapter 73) Over time, the champion chose protective symbols— clouds and a dragon-like mask—tattoos designed not to intimidate but to shield. 
(chapter 1) 
(chapter 17) They represent protection, not aggression. Where Baek Junmin’s tattoos speak of death and destruction, Jaekyung’s express escape, survival and resilience. Even in their body art, the two boys tell opposing stories: one driven by resentment and darkness, the other by endurance and self-preservation. 
(chapter 73) No… he is copying others and in particular Joo Jaekyung whom he resents. Thus their attitude in the ring is similar (ruthless), yet both act that way for different reasons: pain and seriousness 
(chapter 15) versus fun and schadenfreude 
(chapter 47). His new persona feels exaggerated, theatrical, hollow. He wanted to become unforgettable, but ended up being another disposable fighter in a system that only remembers champions. Now, his face is ruined: he lost teeth and has a broken nose. 
(chapter 57) Hence the nurse felt sympathy for him. At the health center, he received his long due punishment. Baek Junmin learned through the hard way what it means fighting without rules. He got deceived himself, thinking that his “hyung” would have his back.
(chapter 54) These words imply that the outcome was predicted… That’s the reason why Joo Jaekyung needs to remember the past. There lies the truth: they are “rigging the games because of bets! 
(chapter 54) and Joo Jaekyung’s father, Joo Jaewoong. 
(chapter 47) 
(chapter 54), the father with his fading trophy, Baek Junmin with his own unspoken history in the underground ring and the ghost’s words linked to the champion’s hands. Together, they symbolize the toxic underbelly of combat sports, the place where dreams are sold and consumed.
(chapter 73) He had a past worth remembering—something he even clung to in his ruined apartment, preserving his medal and document like a relic. Baek Junmin, by contrast, never belonged to the gym. He wasn’t trained. He never received formal recognition. He fought in shadows, kept to the margins, and remained a “legend” only in the backrooms of Gangwon’s illegal rings because he trusted his “hyung”.
(chapter 49). he desired to have a real title and admiration. 
(chapter 51) all along—a spectacle, not a coronation. Hence director Choi was overjoyed when he heard the verdict.
(chapter 72) This explicates why Hwang Byungchul condemned the man and sided with the mother. But while Joo Jaewoong and Baek Junmin tried to escape through the sport, they both ended up in the criminal network. And neither made it out.
(chapter 27) Where and how did he learn swimming? Moreover, observe that he connected it to relaxation and fun. “This feels good”. This contrasts so much to the interaction between Hwang Byungchul and the little boy with the teddy bear. 
(Chapter 72) The man doesn’t know that the athlete can swim, he only knows the boxer, as he was only able to see him on TV. 
(chapter 71) Interesting is that Jinxphiles followed Kim Dan’s school career 
(chapter 47) 
(chapter 47), yet the latter can not swim! 
(Chapter 47) 
(Chapter 72) Nevertheless, with this panel, Mingwa indicates that the protagonist was visiting the Elementary school. The neighborhood he grew up in — as described by Hwang Byungchul — was “cutthroat.” 
(Chapter 60) These aren’t casual skills. They’re not the product of school curriculum or street wisdom, especially not in a neighborhood described as “cutthroat.” These are taught skills — and not by someone who saw Jaekyung merely as a fighter. Swimming and first aid reflect something else entirely: a commitment to preparedness, not just for survival, but for helping others.
(Chapter 27) That Jaekyung carries this knowledge — and uses it without hesitation — reveals a deeper emotional structure. 
(Chapter 13) His vocabulary revolves around water: “pond”, “fish”! Besides, I have already connected to him Poseidon, the god of the ocean. Moreover, this man is strongly intertwined with fun, a notion that doesn’t belong in Hwang Byungchul’s world! And now, you understand why this man could touch Joo Jaekyung’s shoulder 
(Chapter 13) He knew about the existence of the Teddy Bear inside the champion. And is it a coincidence that both men have the same name “Chul=Cheol”, though the order diverges: Cheolmin versus Byungchul? And both are connected to the color “green”. 
(chapter 72)
(chapter 60) There was no witness, no coast guard, no institutional figure involved in his rescue. He was alone, only saved by one person. His generation was expected to take responsibility — to succeed, to repay debts, to endure hardship — but they were given no tools to survive when crisis struck. They were neither protected nor prepared.
(chapter 14) This fight took place in April… the same month than the Sewol ferry tragedy. And the color of the poster is once again green. Is it a coincidence? I have my doubt here. And what did Randy Booker say to his opponent? He called him a baby 
(chapter 14) That’s how I realized that water is an element linked to childhood and as such motherhood! 
(chapter 45) And this brings me to my final thought: Kim Dan had to meet Hwang Byungchul for an important reason: to learn how to survive on his own, as he is still depressive. He is lectured how to become independent and how to find a real goal in his life. By confessing the terrible youth about the Emperor, the physical therapist gets to hear that he wasn’t the only one abandoned and in pain!! 
(chapter 72) —and not with fists, but with fabric. 
(chapter 66): a source of comfort, loyalty, and belonging. To follow the teddy bear is to trace this emotional path—from abandonment to connection, from injury to intimacy, from being held once to being held again. 
(chapter 47), and then claimed, just like his teddy bear. The fate of doc Dan’s toy bear reflects the boy’s. The former was pushed outside the embrace and bed before disappearing. 
(chapter 72) The shirts are not only outgrown 
(chapter 72) but also replaced with t-shirts without any design alluding to the vanishing of their identity and forced maturity. 
(chapter 57) For Jaekyung, the beanie-wearing bear with its wounded arm and wise glasses is the last trace of comfort before reality hardens. What remains is not the child, but the instinct to survive. From the moment the bear vanishes, a new figure begins to emerge—not one held, but one who fights. The boy with the teddy bear becomes the man who can’t rest, who equates existence with usefulness, and usefulness with victory.
(chapter 7) The cliché used by Park Namwook in chapter 7 is revealed to be not only ignorant, but cruel. Jaekyung had no home, no real guardian, no one to defend or guide him. He didn’t grow up in the wild—he grew up alone, navigating between violence (abuse and bullying), hunger, and neglect without true protection. This reframes the champion’s identity: not as someone untamable, but as someone who was never tamed because no one cared enough to try. What we witness is not savagery, but simple survival. Thus he had no friend. 
(chapter 71), performative masculinity and high expectations of Park Namwook, and the explosive violence of his father. 
(chapter 5) His behaviors—his hot temper, cold demeanor, blunt speech, and instrumental approach to others—were not innate traits. They were learned strategies, adapted from men who had likewise buried their vulnerability beneath strength or stoicism or brutality. Hence he brought no present to the patient at the hospice. 
(chapter 71) He became a wolf because he was surrounded by wolves—but deep down, his true nature is closer to a cat’s. This contrast becomes visible in Chapter 72, where his external persona appears as a shy, quiet, more sensitive self. 
(Chapter 72) Much earlier, in the summer night’s dream (Chapter 44), Kim Dan sensed that hidden nature: not the predator, but the man longing to be held.
(Chapter 44) Doc Dan had sensed the real person behind the legend.
(chapter 45) and respects boundaries. He listens. 
(chapter 29) And so, like a child learning a new language, Jaekyung begins to mimic him too. 
(chapter 62) The change is gradual but visible: helping the townspeople, accepting rest, asking to stay close, even touching and speaking more gently. 
(chapter 71) With Kim Dan, the fighter who once only mirrored power begins to echo tenderness.
(chapter 62) 
(chapter 68). These are not just words—they’re the building blocks of intimacy, borrowed from the only person who ever saw through his armor. From mimicking strength, Jaekyung has begun to mimic care. 
(chapter 72) So he fed him. But he never saw the deeper hunger: the absence of love, of being wanted. The coach assumed the problem was solved with food—because he had never gone without care. 
(chapter 72) He lived with his mother. He was never truly alone. And so he projected stability onto the boy’s silence.
(Chapter 72) Instead, he redirects the situation: 
(chapter 22) There is no joy in eating, no comfort at the table. His body becomes a tool, and pain becomes the currency he pays to keep it running.
(Chapter 72) This explicates why Hwang Byungchul never confronted the father or called the cops or the social services. The fact that he asked the little boy 
(chapter 72) The expression (“But reality was like a punch to the gut”) suggests that even the coach himself was struck by how wrong or harsh the outcome turned out to be, but that realization came too late. Yet he blamed the young boy instead of convincing the young boy to postpone the fight. This scene shows that the man’s form of “help” was not rooted in empathy or protection—it was rooted in opportunity and perhaps even short-sighted hope for glory through the boy’s talent. He turned pain into performance.
(chapter 71) why Joo Jaekyung never visited him or expressed his gratitude towards the boxing coach more openly. 
(Chapter 71) He became successful thanks to his own hard work. It was, as if he had followed the advice to the letter—make it on your own. I am suspecting that the charity event is linked to poor neighborhoods and children, so he didn’t totally erase the man from his memory, he just repressed him. However, it is not astonishing why the director is resentful and even bitter towards Joo Jaekyung. It was, as if he had never helped him. While he blames the man, the coach never recognized his own shortcomings. He didn’t see that his assistance was actually conditional. 
(chapter 72) They are all rivals. But from my perspective, there exists another reason why the main lead didn’t keep in touch with Hwang Byungchul exposing the director’s blindness. The adult Joo Jaekyung admits that seeing the director’s face brings back “old memories”—not of comfort, but of trauma. 
(Chapter 71) The implication is unmistakable: Hwang Byungchul reminds him of his father and the abuse. And the latter is strongly intertwined with the mother’s abandonment.
(chapter 72) The other is Jaekyung himself. How can we tell? Because the scene of the phone call contains no narration, no framing voice. 
(chapter 72) 
(Chapter 71) But here, doc Dan was making a huge mistake: he was just projecting his own feelings and relationship with him onto theirs. But he was behaving exactly like the former director: simplification. 
(chapter 65) Then someone stronger should carry him. That “someone” becomes Jaekyung. The doctor should take pills and that’s it.
(chapter 72) is invisible to her. She sees a man who has succeeded—and assumes that means he is thriving.
(chapter 57) This line, though comforting on the surface, is an act of simplification. She makes herself the sole solution to Dan’s complex emotional wounds. Her message: You don’t need justice, friends, or understanding. You need me. That’s how doc Dan was taught not to argue and not to fight back. He just needed to accept the situation.
(chapter 65) she doesn’t know anything about his life. That’s the price of simplification: you get a clean answer, but not the truth.
(chapter 70) He judges him without knowing the circumstances. This projection is not new. In the past, he blamed the father, 
(chapter 17), it becomes clear that there exists a recurring link between athletic decline and criminal paths. The man fails to notice this connection. He sees these outcomes as individual moral failings, not systemic failures. 
(chapter 40) Kim Dan saw the result and got fascinated. And what we’re left with now is a man whose pain and exhaustion are almost unseen 
(chapter 64) He reproached him about being used and abandoned. But he was forgetting his own actions. He had also used the athlete, he had also left the bed in a hurry the next morning. Yes, he, too, simplified Jaekyung. That night, he said nothing. And in doing so, he confirmed the belief Jaekyung had internalized: I’m not someone who gets cared for. I’m someone who is tolerated, used, replaced. Like mentioned above, his mind-set was strongly influenced by Shin Okja. On the other hand, I noticed that the protagonist embodies complexity. How so? On the surface, he appears simple: obedient, quiet, weak, submissive, passive. 
(chapter 70) But beneath that surface lies a dense emotional world— love, grief, guilt, exhaustion, intelligence, empathy and moral clarity — that few characters in Jinx truly perceive. He stands for the heart! And everyone knows that “the heart has its reasons, of which reason knows nothing.” (Blaise Pascal) Because he acts from a place that defies the cold logic of power, hierarchy, and survival, he operates on emotional intelligence 
(chapter 71) —unspoken understanding, silent resistance, instinctive empathy. It’s no coincidence that his presence disrupts every system he enters: the gym, the hospital, the champion’s life.
(chapter 70), and starts being a person. The racing heart… which has already happened. And this observation leads me to this scene: 
(chapter 58) Kim Dan was erasing this memory, he wanted to forget the star The Emperor. This act of forgetting wasn’t an escape from pain; it’s an active rejection of a myth that was keeping him emotionally paralyzed. As long as Jaekyung remained “The Emperor,” he could not be touched, questioned, or truly known. By forcing himself to forget that image, Kim Dan was making space for something more vulnerable and human to emerge. To conclude, thanks to this painful decision, he was able to perceive Joo Jaekyung the man. That’s why he acted so fiercely in front of him later. So by meeting the director, doc Dan is now able to see the child or the “cat” in his fated partner. That’s how it dawned on me why Mingwa let doc Dan suffer from addiction, depression and insomnia. Because these afflictions defy simplification. They resist instant solutions (pills). They demand patience, presence, and a refusal to look away.
(chapter 72), his bruises 
(chapter 72) and asked for his name. This exposes his priorities and his blindness. He didn’t truly perceive the child in him, he was seeing him through the lenses of a boxer and director. Hence he underestimated the absence and abandonment of the mother. 
(chapter 53) He is a physical therapist. He had also arranged his books together: 
(chapter 53) And what did the hamster think while gathering his belongings? 
(chapter 53) So I deduce that the woman left them behind because she didn’t need them, she had enough or she no longer cared. But there is more to it!
(chapter 27) There are no toys, no supplies for a child—just quiet evidence of a woman focused on herself, her escape perhaps already underway.
(chapter 53) The jacket… Because of these parallels, I come to develop the following theory. Joo Jaekyung knew his age, because he had just celebrated his birthday. This scene definitely took place in the summer. 
(chapter 53) must have triggered the champion’s abandonment issues. He had the impression to relive the past. The mother had left him behind in the dark unexpectedly.
(chapter 45) And now, you comprehend why I wrote above that I was not giving up on the idea that the champion could belong to a different world too. She was not accustomed to take care of a household. She wasn’t used to cook either. She would order food, hence we have the empty bowls. 
(chapter 72) Remember how the champion reacted, when he tasted his cooking for the first time? 
(chapter 72). In other words, the mother was already emotionally absent long before she physically vanished. The bandaged bear thus becomes a silent accusation: you saw, and you left. Therefore it is not astonishing that Joo Jaekyung made such a mistake: 
(chapter 44) before he was abandoned. Jaekyung was never treated properly before. He was not claimed at all. It is important because the champion mentioned the word “home” 
(chapter 43) And it is linked to his birthday. This resembles a lot to this scene: 
(chapter 49) Is it the mother or someone acting as an invisible guardian who knows the champion’s past? What do you think?
(chapter 72) Joo Jaewoong—whose name literally evokes the bear (웅, 雄 or 熊)—was not a gentle protector, but a violent alcoholic and drug addicted, a man who “strayed from the straight and narrow” 
(chapter 54) —Team Black—bears symbolic weight. Unlike other athletes who proudly attach their names to their legacy, Joo Jaekyung avoids personal branding. He doesn’t call it “Jaekyung’s Gym” or “Joo Athletics.” Instead, he opts for anonymity, for darkness. It’s as if he’s building a fortress rather than a legacy, a space that offers power and protection, but no trace of where he came from.
(chapter 71) I am quite certain that her vanishing must have pained him. She embodies the only good motherly role model in his life which explains why Joo JAekyung has a soft heart for Shin Okja. He knew to speak prettily and gently because of her. It is clear that the director influenced his dream, creating a gym where his mother would be part of it. 
(chapter 70), the other a former “boxing” coach and Jaekyung’s ghostly mentor figure, now terminally ill and confined to a shared room.
(chapter 71)These two older men mirror different systems of power: the current director, a seemingly kind authority figure who represents institutional control masked as care; and the former coach, a fallen patriarch whose past decisions shaped Jaekyung’s identity and pain. This part of the essay focuses first on the hospice director, and how his interaction with Kim Dan reveals the young man’s invisible burden and social isolation. In the final section, we will turn to the old coach, now reduced to a ghost in his own story, and explore how the symbolism of owls, coots, and crickets illuminates his emerging relationship with Kim Dan. 
(Chapter 70) But look closely: he notes that Dan has never used a sick day, and yet deliberately avoids recommending one now. Instead, he offers the less costly alternative: a personal day off, unpaid.
(Chapter 70) The director doesn’t say, “We’ll adjust your schedule,” or, “Let me talk to HR.” He simply tells Dan to take a day off 
(Chapter 59) This reinforces the idea that Dan is not covered by the same protections, and that he operates outside the stable framework of regular employment.
(chapter 66) to visit a sleep specialist, where Dan received a diagnosis and first treatment for his “sleepwalking” condition. The two spent the night in Seoul. Upon returning to the seaside town, Jaekyung received a call 
(chapter 69) and left again the next morning for Seoul in order to meet the CEO, marking a separation between the two after their return.
(chapter 71) and night hours 
(chapter 71), suggesting his ongoing pattern of overworking. In episode 71, Kim Dan is seen walking alone through the hospice hallway—unaccompanied, unnoticed. This quiet image stands in stark contrast to the earlier scene when, after nearly drowning, he was carried in by Joo Jaekyung and immediately met by a nurse and the hospice director, both actively working together that night. 
(chapter 60) Back then, his suffering was visible, his crisis institutionalized. Striking is that after that night, the hospital director never asked doc Dan to take a sick leave or to a day off. In fact, it took some time before making such a suggestion. Moreover, as if a single day off would make a huge difference. But now, despite his clear exhaustion and illness, doc Dan moves through the same space in silence 
(Chapter 57) his grandmother would worry about him. Yet, during that night, Shin Okja doesn’t seem to be plagued by worries for her own grandson’s health. She sleeps peacefully.
(chapter 70) only after the Seoul trip. This must mean that his conversation with the hospice director—where he was urged to rest—took place between his return from Seoul and the announced day off. We also know that 
(chapter 69) the champion came back from Seoul in the evening and found footprints near the house, suspecting Dan had wandered to the ocean while drunk. These prints were left that same day 
(chapter 70), when Kim Dan chased the puppies that had stolen the shoes. Based on the shadows and the position of the sun
(chapter 70), I am deducing that this scene took place during the afternoon. I used these images as a contrast, where the author made it clear that these scenes took place in the morning. 
(Chapter 65) 
(chapter 57) We can determine the time based on the position of the sun and the shadows.
(Chapter 13) But when Kim Dan drops a patient Dan by mistake 
(chapter 59), the director acts immediately—not because of concern for the elderly man, 
(chapter 59) but because he fears that the patient’s family might sue the hospice. The elderly man’s condition was formally assessed, documented, and protected. This scene exposes that they can act in an emergency (taking tests). In contrast, Kim Dan—who is visibly unwell—is not offered even a basic check-up. His illness is reduced to tired eyes and missed sleep, framed as personal negligence rather than systemic failure. He is looked at, not truly seen. While the patient is treated as a legal liability, Dan is treated as disposable labor—an expendable worker whose wellbeing doesn’t justify institutional resources. Thus in my opinion, the director of the hospice suggested that doc Dan took a day off in order to ensure that he had done his duty, taking care of his employee.
(Chapter 70) His distinct appearance—bald with tufts of grey hair—makes him easily recognizable. What stands out this time is not the accident, but the aftermath of it. 
(Chapter 70) When Kim Dan, again lost in thought, almost bypasses his room, it is this very patient who gently brings him back to reality with the teasing words, “Earth to Doc Dan.” His tone is not accusatory. On the contrary, it’s forgiving—light-hearted even.
(chapter 62) However, the main lead was still working, thus the athlete concluded that he had made a mistake. He probably assumed that he had the afternoon shift. Hence Joo Jaekyung only returned to the landlord’s house at sunset! So during that day, he must have worked for the morning and afternoon shift. Even here, the doctor was suggested to give a special treatment to the star. 
(Chapter 62) Then in episode 71, we see him working in both afternoon 
(Chapter 71) Therefore we see him in company of different nurses. 
(Chapter 57) He moves between teams, unanchored and isolated. This also explicates why the nurses still have no name. To conclude, his contract implies that Dan is paid by the hour or per shift, without salary-based benefits. I am suspecting, the regular nurses likely operate under different contracts, which could include fixed shifts, team integration, and better protections. 
(Chapter 57) Finally, we shouldn’t overlook that his job is strongly intertwined with his grandmother’s situation. He needed to get a job there, hence he couldn’t negotiate his contract. As long as he had a job as physical therapist, he could only be “happy”.
(Chapter 71) in a room designed for six patients—indicated by the six plastic protections outside the door. 
(chapter 65), while the former coach shares a room with three others and lacks personal care. 
(Chapter 71) Shin Okja lives like a VIP. Yes, the new version of this situation: 
(chapter 52) That’s the reason why Mingwa made another allusion to this particular scene (chapter 52) in episode 71: 
(chapter 65), and he has now a cold.
(Chapter 70) For the first time, someone spoke on the physical therapist’s behalf. He should make sure not to be taken advantage of. Secondly, when he pointed out 
(chapter 70) that the star was staying there because of him, he was already implying that doc Dan had power over the athlete. He should voice his own opinion and thoughts to ensure to protect his own interests. From my point of view, this “former fighter” will definitely side with the young man and protect him.
(Chapter 71) He even asks him to stay by his side, not noticing his dark circles and paleness. 
(Chapter 71) In German, he would be an “alter Kauz”—an eccentric owl. But this metaphor reaches deeper than mere strangeness or aging. 
(chapter 65) Dan was found wandering the night in his sleep, pulled by unconscious fears. 
(Chapter 65) These moments mirror the owl’s behavior: navigating darkness, moving alone, and being misunderstood. Thus, the owl becomes a powerful symbol not only of the former coach but of Kim Dan himself—both are creatures of the night, shaped by what they see and endure in silence. In contrast to the chattering coot, the owl watches and remembers. And perhaps, the presence of both birds suggests that the coach, once a loud and reckless coot, is beginning to see with the quiet eyes of the owl—finally noticing the suffering he once overlooked. Their shared nocturnality ties them together: one hoots and curses, the other drifts wordlessly—but both are left behind by the daylight world.Doc Dan’s nightly behavior made me think of an owl. 
(quoted from 
and socially awkward birds—notorious for their harsh, repetitive calls that sound more like chiding than song. Unlike the poetic silence often associated with owls, the coot communicates through blunt, raspy cries. This parallels the coach’s incessant chatter and verbal outbursts. Kim Dan even refers to him as a “chatterbox,” a man who yells, curses, and grumbles without reserve. And yet, strangely, Dan is not repulsed. On the contrary—he appears comforted by the company. For perhaps the first time, someone talks to him without judgment or restraint. 
(chapter 71) suggests that communication doesn’t always have to be soft to be sincere. It is precisely the coach’s lack of elegance that makes him relatable to Dan. 
(Chapter 71) This dynamic becomes especially meaningful when we recall that Kim Dan’s symbolic animal is the duck—a creature often seen as passive or domesticated, gliding over water while paddling furiously underneath. As discussed above, the duck stands for Dan’s silent endurance, his ability to move between unstable emotional terrains without ever making a splash.
(chapter 22).
(chapter 71), a joke. But there’s another side to the owl—the side that watches the night, that sees what others do not. And in this hospice, maybe for the first time, the former coach becomes something more: a witness who is no longer silent. An old man who still has eyes.
(Chapter 71) The latter didn’t receive proper treatment for his woundsAnd this brings me to my final interpretation, the absence of a physical therapist or doctor in the director’s world and life! His body got broken so many times, indicating that he never had a doctor by his side! . 
(Chapter 70)He never had a companion or friend in his life, which is also mirrored in the picture. 
(Chapter 71) The other carries bitterness and the guilt of watching too long without speaking. In this dim hallway of illness and endurance, their connection becomes a muted call for dignity. 
(Chapter 69) from the physical therapist is more than a startled greeting — it marks a critical shift in the psychological and emotional trajectory of both Kim Dan and Joo Jaekyung. Standing at the dock, doc Dan, still recovering from his depression and trauma of the switched spray incident, sees the champion not as an invincible athlete, but as someone equally unmoored. He is surprised and confused by such a behavior. Why would he act that way? Hence the author added right after this image: 
(chapter 69) Striking is that the champion has a similar reaction. He never expected that he had misjudged his fated partner. Both characters are forced to face their own prejudices and bias. 
(chapter 57) that go unnoticed to dealing with the emotional numbness of detachment, Kim Dan begins to resemble the article’s description of someone silently breaking down. 
(Chapter 59) Although he didn’t face difficult patients at the hospice
(chapter 57), he approaches his work like a robot, emotionally disconnected from those in his care. The burnout is not only shaped by the hospital environment — it’s also deeply tied to his role with Joo Jaekyung. The champion became, in many ways, his most demanding patient 
(Chapter 14), with unrealistic expectations 
(chapter 56) and isolates himself emotionally. Therefore he doesn’t engage in a conversation with the nurses. 
(chapter 49), or that in the aftermath of the suspicious match, he blames him 
(chapter 19) and relational isolation all echo the article’s diagnosis:
(chapter 59) — and any deviation from it is interpreted as personal failure. Here, it’s important that the hospice took advantage from the overworked protagonist. No one paid attention to the double shift. (Naturally, I am not saying that the main lead is blameless either). For Kim Dan, the patient’s fall in episode 59 
(chapter 59) and the sabotage incident destroyed his self-perception as “doctor” and “helper”. 
(Chapter 59) This is reflected in the image where the author zoomed on the “main lead’s” hands or when he is holding the dead puppy. 
(Chapter 59) The hands have become the symbol of his powerlessness. For the wolf, the tie in his last match is perceived not as resilience, but as loss. 
(Chapter 51) Neither of them has been taught to see difficulty as an invitation to adapt. They both cling to a fixed mindset — until crisis breaks the pattern.
(Chapter 60) Though Dan has long suffered from low self-esteem, he has never questioned his sacrificial identity. It is as if he were destined — or conditioned — to care for others without regard for himself. 
(Chapter 29) He sees selflessness not as a virtue but as a default mode of survival. This explicates why he blames himself for the puppy’s death. Observe how Mingwa implied the relevance of the doctor’s hands while he was holding the poor puppy. 
(Chapter 1) — a way to repay debts. And it is the same, when he accepts his contract with the wolf. 
(Chapter 6) His grandmother reinforces this belief by reducing his worth to his earning capacity. This mindset is plainly illustrated in two key moments. In the first, she expresses her gratitude to the champion, because he gave him “a roof over his head and a salary.” 
(Chapter 65) These words reveal what truly matters to her: material provision and financial compensation. She does not seem to register the emotional toll the job may be taking on Dan, nor does she question the ethics of the contract or his living conditions. What she values is that her grandson is being paid and housed — signs of visible, quantifiable success.
(chapter 62) the athlete’s success gave him a sense of purpose. No wonder why he took everything so personally. 
(chapter 60), functions as a form of emotional absolution, though doc Dan is not aware of it. This job offer is an indirect proof that he is still seen as competent and trustworthy. 
(Chapter 62) If Jaekyung had not come himself, it would have confirmed Dan’s worst fears: that he was to blame, that he was discarded. The first crack in his fixed mindset comes from this gesture — an external acknowledgment that the so-called “sin” may not have been his at all. This explicates why Kim Dan can give him the cold shoulder and even ignore him. 
(Chapter 61) It helps him to boost his strength and confidence. From that moment on, he is capable to express his own thoughts and as such criticize the star. 
(Chapter 69) His stunned reaction — “
(Chapter 69) Dan’s very presence communicates something new: emotional steadiness, however tentative. And for the first time, Jaekyung doesn’t respond with control, but with vulnerability. 
(Chapter 65) — yet she changes nothing. How so? She could have talked to the nurse, and the latter would have brought up the possibility of “burnout”. She frames her grandson as a victim 
(chapter 61) , and approaches Dan not as a star reclaiming property, but as a person reaching out.
(Chapter 67) Meanwhile, Jaekyung drops his script of invincibility and openly acknowledges his need for Dan. Neither of them says the perfect thing — but they are no longer using self-talk to punish themselves.
(Chapter 68) Dan, who once viewed care as something he must earn, 
(Chapter 69) begins to receive it. It is not a grand declaration, but a quiet shift: you can fail or cause a ruckus, and still be loved. Hence he doesn’t push away the wolf on the dock. 
(chapter 69), the star begins to extend that care inward. Each gesture of empathy toward Dan becomes a step closer to self-compassion. In learning to protect someone else without demanding perfection, the wolf is learning, perhaps for the first time, that he too deserves kindness — not just from others, but from himself. He models what the article calls a true “growth mindset” — one that sees failure not as final, but as a catalyst for relational and emotional evolution.
, released in anticipation of Chapter 70, is more than a promotional teaser. It is a moment frozen in time, yet brimming with motion—emotional, symbolic, and narrative. We see Joo Jaekyung embracing Kim Dan with both arms, pressing him tightly against his chest. There is no resistance, no distance, no tension in the frame. The palette moves from gray and brown fading into violet and pink, blooming into soft light. There is vapor, there is breath, an allusion to life. And most strikingly, there is stillness.
(chapter 11), every glare, and every awkward silence 
(chapter 67) between these two, this hug feels monumental. 
(chapter 68) and the public hug on the dock in Chapter 69. 
(chapter 68) He rests his chin not on Dan, but on his own hand, his arm propped on the edge of the bathtub. This detail is telling: even in a moment of supposed closeness, Jaekyung relies on himself for support, not on Dan. He is physically near but emotionally braced—still holding himself apart. His thoughts are private, tender, and possessive. In a rare moment of introspection, he confesses that 
(chapter 69) The illusion of control dissipates, revealing that his earlier vow, however heartfelt, was not yet unshakable. 
(chapter 69) that Jaekyung is wearing it, the change in angle—viewing the hug from behind—deliberately conceals it. 
(chapter 55) In the new illustration, the hamster’s back is no longer representing anonymity and indifference, but visibility and care, for the champion is now facing his fated partner. In other words, doc Dan’s back in the teaser stands for uniqueness and high value. He can not be replaced. Moreover, doc Dan is not walking away, nor is he asleep. 
(chapter 21) Dan became fluent in a silent, physical language of care. She often asked him not to cry 
(chapter 47) and composed embraces—gestures repeated with calm precision. These touches were predictable, rhythmic, and soothing, but they also suppressed genuine emotional exchange, the symbol of toxic positivity.
(chapter 57) the momentary pause of a hand
(chapter 5) never still—giving the impression of involvement, of care in action. But this motion avoided vulnerability and responsibility in reality. She never clung, never trembled. Her gestures conveyed comfort but not surrender, presence but not change, and not support either. They were not truly emotionally together. 
(chapter 47) to hold her hand, to initiate closeness 
(chapter 47) 
(chapter 57); I’ll come back home, once I am all better”
(chapter 47), to stabilize the person meant to support him. Now, he is receiving without shame or hesitation. The Emperor’s silent desperation, his refusal to hide behind ritual or false strength, creates the space for Dan to feel treasured—not pitied, but wanted.
(chapter 65) or stand-ins 
(chapter 29), ignoring Dan’s presence and concern. His rejection of the doctor’s offer of comfort or companionship underscores not only his emotional detachment but also the absence of true support from his supposed team. The manager, Park Namwook, is nowhere to be seen, 
(chapter 42) or offered silence in return. He had no teamwork ability in the end contrary to the hamster who “assisted” his grandmother. But it is not surprising, since Park Namwook has always relied on his boy. 
(chapter 66) or use violence to “tame the wolf”. That’s the reason why he is accepting the offer from the CEO of MFC. He is pushing the Emperor to return to the ring, but the problem is now that doc Dan was officially recognized as a member from Black Team. 
(chapter 69)
(chapter 66) the moment the Emperor carried away doc Dan. This looks like an “embrace”. 
Bebebisous33s' analyses in K-Dramaland and Manhwas 