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 Between A Squeeze And A Crack – part 1 and Between A Squeeze And A Crack – part 2
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Where is a Flower in Episode 88?
Episode 88 of Jinx immediately drew readers’ attention to two moments in particular: the training session between Kim Dan and Joo Jaekyung 
(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) and interruption 
(chapter 88).
Only on closer reading does another layer emerge — one that does not oppose these moments, but reframes them. The training session is not merely about discipline or proximity, and the final panel is not only a promise of confrontation. Both scenes 
(chapter 88) are structured around restraint (chapter 88): what is held back 
(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.
At first glance, the title may seem paradoxical. The episode takes place a few weeks after October 
(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?
Closed Circuits and the Logic of the Number Eight
The title emerged from a visual and structural observation. Chapter 88 is built around the number eight: a chapter defined by two closed circuits that finally cross. Remember how I described the relationship of the main couple in the essay 
: 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 The Magic Of Numbers ] and his relationship with the athlete, but also to the other couple: Heesung and Yoon-Gu. This means, the latter represent the other closed circuit. Hence the other couple appeared in episode 35 and 58. 
(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. We could say that each closed circuit forms two petals so that their interaction with each other will affect them positively.
Color as Emotional Structure
The flower, however, is not only numerical or temporal. It is also chromatic. A flower is never defined by form alone, but by shading—by gradients, transitions, and the coexistence of multiple tones within a single structure. Thus in French certain flowers serve to define pigments: rose for pink, violet for purple. In this sense, episode 88 does not merely contain colors; it behaves like a flower unfolding through shades. Episode 88 is saturated with color: pink
(chapter 88), white 
(chapter 88) purple 
(chapter 88), blue, gray, 
, (chapter 88) red (chapter 88) and black 
(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.
White, notably associated with Park Namwook, carries a more ambivalent meaning. (chapter 88) It evokes innocence on the surface, but also ignorance—an unexamined moral comfort that allows him to retreat from responsibility while claiming authority. His lightness contrasts sharply with the weight of the decision he refused to make: visually underlined by the black-lined spiral hovering near his head—an emblem of irritation without accountability.
Blue and gray dominate the scene in which Joo Jaekyung announces his seemingly excessive training demands. (chapter 88) On the surface, the atmosphere feels cold and authoritarian. Yet the exaggeration itself reveals something else: the demand is deliberately absurd, almost teasing. Joo Jaekyung is testing resolve, not imposing punishment. The joke —visible thanks to the chibi and the brief spark within the athlete’s gaze— goes unnoticed. No one laughs. The room’s muted colors reflect this misrecognition—care and fun are present, but not yet legible to those receiving it.
At first glance, the setting itself seems to resist any floral reading. (chapter 88) The scene unfolds not in nature, but in a gym in Seoul—an urban, enclosed space associated with discipline, repetition, and control rather than growth or renewal. This tension may explain the readers’ initial surprise: a flower appears where one would expect only concrete, steel, and hierarchy. Yet in Jinx, the flower does not belong to nature as landscape, but to nature as process—to emergence, care, and relational change.
This process is not introduced through scenery, but through bodies marked by green. And the latter symbolizes nature. In episode 88, two characters 
(chapter 88) are dressed in green (chapter 88), a choice that appears unobtrusive—almost practical—yet is unmistakable within Mingwa’s chromatic language. Green here does not function as pure nature or renewal, but as transition: a sign of growth that is still constrained, negotiated, and incomplete. It is not a vivid, liberating green, but a muted one—ranging from green sheen to subdued olive—closer to endurance than vitality, to steadiness rather than expansion. Growth is present, but it has not yet broken free; it remains embedded in effort, restraint, and adaptation.
Crucially, this shorts’ shade recalls the photograph of Kim Dan with his grandmother 
(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 88) The color no longer signifies dependency or shelter alone, but continuity of self. It marks a return to an inner disposition that predates trauma—a self capable of care, persistence, and quiet resilience. This means that he is closer to his true self.
Placed within the gym’s dominant blues and grays, this green does not signal leisure or escape. It signals cultivation. Growth here is neither spontaneous nor decorative; it must be trained, maintained, and protected. The flower does not bloom despite the city—it blooms through care, discipline and recognition. What initially appears paradoxical becomes coherent: in Jinx, growth is not opposed to structure. It is shaped by it.
From Flower to Language: Communication Deferred
Crucially, the flower also functions as a metaphor for communication. (chapter 19) Flowers are not passive decorations; they carry meaning, intent, and symbolism. The background is composed of hydrangeas in blue, pink, and pale violet—colors traditionally associated with gratitude, tenderness, apology, and emotional nuance.
Unlike roses 
(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 19): affection entwined with dependency and sorrow, care mixed with silence, love present but unspoken.
This chromatic memory resurfaces later through a different floral gesture: the bouquet Choi Heesung offers Kim Dan —pink roses paired with baby’s breath 
(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.
Episode 88 reframes this logic entirely. The “birth of a flower” no longer refers to being perceived as fragile or decorative, but to a return to growth from within. 
(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.
The illustration accompanying this essay includes a fifth, shadowed petal inspired by the Mugunghwa—the Rose of Sharon, a national symbol of Korea often associated with endurance, justice, and continuity. This fifth petal does not yet fully bloom. It signals something incomplete, something still forming: a question of justice, choice, and mutual recognition that the narrative has only begun to articulate.
Finally, this essay reads episode 88 through the lens of Erich Fromm’s definition of love—care, responsibility, respect, and knowledge. For me, these 4 notions are represented by the 4 petals. In this chapter, Joo Jaekyung visibly embodies care, responsibility, and a growing respect for others’ autonomy. What remains absent is knowledge: a true understanding of Kim Dan’s inner life, just as Kim Dan himself has yet to fully understand Jaekyung beyond his role and past. The flower, then, is not the endpoint. It is the beginning of a process in which these missing elements may finally emerge.
What follows is not an analysis of victory or defeat, but of growth—quiet, fragile, and cultivated under constraint. This is not the celebration of happiness already achieved 
(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 88) and his fated partner, yet it directly answers what Joo Jaekyung has repeatedly expressed as his desire: to be the source for Kim Dan’s smile and to smile together. 
(chapter 83) What is striking is that neither of them recognizes this fulfillment. (chapter 88) Kim Dan does not register his own smile as happiness, and Joo Jaekyung does not realize that he is already producing what he seeks. As elsewhere in Jinx, happiness precedes awareness. It exists before it is acknowledged—by both sides.That’s why I selected the title: the flower embodies happiness, as its life is just as short as happiness. 
(chapter 31)
A. Joo Jaekyung × Kim Dan: The First two Petals
The training sequence in episode 88 cannot be read as a simple exercise scene, nor as a sudden moment of equality or mutual play. It is, instead, the continuation of a long-standing relational pattern in which care is expressed indirectly (chapter 88), asymmetrically, and through the only language both characters know how to use: work. 
(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.
1. How the training is suggested: care disguised as necessity
Crucially, the idea of training does not emerge in the gym itself. It is first introduced in the car 
(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.
Joo Jaekyung frames the proposal as a matter of stamina and work. (chapter 88) Training will help him in his career. This framing is not accidental. Joo Jaekyung does not yet know how to say: “I want to spend time with you“, or “I’m afraid you won’t be safe, once you leave my side“. He knows only how to justify closeness through usefulness. Training becomes a rational excuse for proximity, a legitimate reason to demand time without admitting emotional dependence.
At the same time, this proposal is deeply protective. Joo Jaekyung has seen Kim Dan collapse from exhaustion in the past. He knows his physical limits better than Kim Dan himself. 
(chapter 88) Secondly, such a training suggests that the athlete is gradually remembering this scene of the almost-rape. (chapter 88) In his subconscious, he knows that this was not prostitution. 
(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)
2. The first refusal: self-neglect disguised as strength
Kim Dan’s first response is immediate: (chapter 88) He refuses. This is not politeness. It is not consideration for Joo Jaekyung’s fatigue. It is a reflex rooted in long-standing self-erasure. Kim Dan genuinely believes he is strong enough. More importantly, he believes that needing care is illegitimate.
This refusal is governed by habit:
- the habit of minimizing himself,
- the habit of overestimating endurance,
- the habit of believing that receiving attention makes him a burden.
At this stage, Kim Dan is not yet protecting Joo Jaekyung; he is protecting the structure that allows him to remain useful and unobtrusive. Accepting training would mean admitting vulnerability—and worse, accepting time, effort, and concern directed at him.
The sportsman ignores this refusal. This moment is important because it reveals both the problem and the intention. Joo Jaekyung acts like a parental figure, not a partner. He overrides consent not out of cruelty, but out of conviction that he knows better. His care still takes the form of command. This explicates why the physical therapist’s agreement is accompanied with a drop of a sweat. “Okay” indicates more discomfort than joy and gratitude. He doesn’t feel indebted toward the athlete, rather embarrassed.
Thus the asymmetry is intact. The training is not born out of his own desire.
3. The pause: time passing, resistance softening
Striking is that this conversation is revealed, after the champion asked doc Dan to get changed. 
(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) The narrative does not jump immediately into physical training, because the temporal gap is supposed to mirror the time jump as well. There were other training sessions. This temporal gap matters. The doctor’s inner thoughts (chapter 88) “I guess we’re doing it today, too…” implies routine without inner desire and daily regularity. This means that the training sessions only took place, when the champion asked doc Dan to change his clothes. Doc Dan was not looking forward for the training sessions or reminded the athlete of his promise or request.
That pause changes the meaning of consent and compliance. If the scene were immediate, Kim Dan’s earlier refusal (“Oh no, thank you, I can manage—”) would read as a clear boundary and Joo Jaekyung’s “Just do as I say” as a straightforward override. (chapter 88) But because the chapter returns to the topic through memory, the refusal is not portrayed as a decisive line—rather, it becomes the first phase of a negotiation Kim Dan does not yet know how to conduct. His resistance softens not because he suddenly “wants” the training, but because habit takes over: he is used to accommodating authority, used to re-framing his own limits as irrelevant, used to translating pressure into “normal.” The break between the command and the actual session is precisely where that old reflex does its quiet work.
By the time they appear in the practice room, Kim Dan is showing no hesitation. He is training eagerly. 
(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.
This admission marks a decisive internal shift. In earlier chapters, “I can manage” functioned as a shield: a way to deny need and avoid dependence. Here, Kim Dan allows himself to recognize that improvement exists precisely because limits existed before. The champion’s explicit comparison with the past 
(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.
At the same time, this acknowledgment remains fragile. Kim Dan does not fully accept the implications of Joo Jaekyung’s praise. (chapter 88) His response — “I still have a lot to learn” — both accepts growth and reinscribes distance. He recognizes the fighter’s effort and dedication, yet still fears relying on the athlete’s benevolence. (chapter 88) This is why he immediately reframes the future in terms of independence: he will “keep up the training on [his] own.” Gratitude is present, but it remains incomplete, protective rather than connective. He still experiences himself as a potential burden. But why?
It’s because he tried to care for the athlete in his own way by suggesting a rest, but the champion denied it. 
(chapter 88) The problem is that his form of care was influenced by his own mindset and emotions: his physical limitations.
This attempt at care fails not because it is insincere, but because it is misaligned. Kim Dan does not ask whether Joo Jaekyung wants to rest; he assumes that rest must be what is needed, because that is what he himself would need in the same situation. His concern is genuine, yet it is filtered through his own bodily limits and emotional economy. Fatigue, for him, is something that must be managed cautiously, avoided, negotiated. When he encounters a body that does not obey those rules — a body that still has stamina, that refuses the logic of depletion — his offer of care is quietly rejected.
This rejection is decisive. It reveals a gap Kim Dan cannot yet bridge: the realization that Joo Jaekyung’s needs do not mirror his own. (chapter 88) The athlete does not require rest in the same way, and more importantly, he does not articulate his needs through physical exhaustion at all. What Kim Dan fails to perceive is that the training itself is Joo Jaekyung’s way of staying regulated, present, and emotionally grounded. It is also his source of joy. By denying the necessity of rest, the champion is not dismissing care; he is refusing a form of care that does not correspond to him.
Confronted with this mismatch, Kim Dan retreats. If his attempt to care is ineffective, then the safest response is to minimize his demands. This is where gratitude hardens into distance. He thanks Joo Jaekyung for his help with a smile, acknowledges his progress, and immediately insists on autonomy: he will continue alone. The logic is protective. If he does not rely, he cannot burden. If he does not ask, he cannot be refused again.
What emerges here is not self-confidence, but a familiar defense. Kim Dan is not asserting independence from strength; he is withdrawing from uncertainty. His insistence on training alone does not signal rejection of connection, but fear of asymmetry — fear that he cannot offer something equivalent in return. Because he interprets care primarily through physical effort and endurance, he cannot yet recognize that his presence, attention, and willingness to engage already matter.
In this sense, the moment exposes the limits of projection. Kim Dan’s care is sincere, but it remains anchored in his own survival strategies. Until he can decouple care from exhaustion, and need from weakness, he will continue to misread situations where what is required is not restraint, but accompaniment. The training, then, is not only about building strength. It is the first site where Kim Dan begins to confront the possibility that care does not always flow from managing limits — but sometimes from staying, even when one feels unnecessary.
This is significant. It shows that Kim Dan is beginning to speak, but still cannot speak for himself. His old habit remains: if something feels wrong, it must be because the other person needs rest, not because he is tired, scared, or overwhelmed. In other words, care is emerging—but it is displaced.
This is precisely why the gesture that follows (chapter 88) carries such weight. For the first time in this exchange, care is directed back at Kim Dan without condition. It is not framed as instruction, correction, or evaluation. It is neither command nor test. It is a simple, protective statement that mirrors Kim Dan’s earlier concern — but without projection. Joo Jaekyung does not deny Kim Dan’s limits. He acknowledges them. There is no reproach, only concern. 
(chapter 88)
Here, the asymmetry softens without disappearing. Joo Jaekyung remains physically dominant, emotionally inarticulate, and structurally in control of the situation. Yet the direction of care shifts. He does not accept Kim Dan’s attempt to exit the dynamic under the guise of independence. Instead, he counters it with responsibility: you matter enough to be protected. The pinky promise that visually accompanies this exchange reinforces the meaning. Promises in Jinx have often functioned as burdens or traps — obligations that freeze people in place. This one is different. It does not demand performance. It does not extract sacrifice. It asks only for self-preservation. (chapter 88)
This is where the flower begins to appear — not as harmony, not as symmetry, but as mutual misrecognition slowly correcting itself. Kim Dan still does not fully grasp that Joo Jaekyung’s desire to train him is also a desire to spend time with him. Joo Jaekyung, in turn, still cannot articulate that desire outside the language of work. (chapter 88) Training becomes the only acceptable medium through which closeness can occur. Pleasure and intimacy surface unintentionally — in teasing, in competition, in shared breath — but remain unnamed.
Crucially, this is not rigidity. It is habit. Both men operate within deeply ingrained routines shaped by survival rather than joy. Rest, breaks, and leisure have only ever been framed in relation to the champion’s career: recovery after injury, distraction after stress, sanctioned release after pressure. They know how to stop working; they do not know how to share fun. There is no vocabulary yet for casual togetherness — no restaurant, no cinema, no idle wandering. Training fills the gap because it is the only space where proximity feels justified.
Thus, the training is neither purely imposed nor fully shared. It begins as Joo Jaekyung’s initiative, shaped by authority and concern, but it gradually becomes a site where Kim Dan starts to renegotiate his self-image. By acknowledging both his limits and his desire to improve, Kim Dan takes a first step away from the logic of endurance alone. He still retreats into self-sufficiency, but the retreat is no longer absolute. He speaks more. He hesitates less. He accepts care, even if he cannot yet rely on it.
The flower here is not bloom, but formation. It is the slow emergence of a relationship that must unlearn the equation between care and burden, strength and isolation, desire and duty. Nothing is resolved. But something has shifted: care is no longer one-directional, even when it remains uneven. And for the first time, both characters participate — imperfectly, awkwardly, but genuinely — in sustaining it.
4. Where pleasure enters—and why it is unspoken
As the training progresses, something shifts subtly. Joo Jaekyung smiles 
(chapter 88). He teases. (chapter 88) He challenges. He praises: 
(chapter 88)
These are not neutral compliments. They are moments where discipline slips into enjoyment. Joo Jaekyung is no longer training only to prepare Kim Dan for a future without him; he is enjoying the present interaction. And yet, he cannot name this enjoyment.
Pleasure appears within work, not alongside it. Intimacy emerges through exertion 
(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.
What the image reinforces is not distance, but deferral. The focus on bodies — on interlocked legs, grounded feet, balanced weight — emphasizes control and stability rather than vulnerability. Affection is allowed to exist only when it can be defended as functional. The mount is maintained not because Joo Jaekyung wants to keep Kim Dan close, but because losing it would constitute failure.
And yet, the sequence immediately preceding this moment shows both characters acutely aware of their racing hearts,
(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.
Yet the narrative immediately undermines this technical framing. 
(chapter 88) Directly after warning against lowering one’s guard, Joo Jaekyung kisses him.
The kiss is not furtive, accidental, or one-sided. Both characters are fully present. They look at each other. Neither pulls away. The contradiction is deliberate: the body does what the language refuses to acknowledge. Vigilance and intimacy coexist in the same gesture. The warning about control does not prevent closeness; it becomes the pretext through which closeness is allowed.
This is the crucial correction: Joo Jaekyung is not simply disguising intimacy as technique. He is containing it. The kiss does not negate the instructional frame; it slips through it. Pleasure is permitted only insofar as it does not require verbal recognition. Love is enacted, but not named.
For Kim Dan, this ambiguity poses no immediate problem. He has been kissed before. Physical intimacy is not new to him, and he has learned — through prior encounters — not to interrogate its meaning unless forced to do so. He does not question whether the kiss signifies affection, reassurance, desire, or attachment. Instead, he relocates intimacy spatially rather than emotionally. His only objection is not that the kiss happens, but where: (chapter 88) This line is telling. Kim Dan does not resist closeness itself. He resists its placement. Intimacy, in his understanding, belongs elsewhere — to the penthouse, to private space, to moments already coded as sexual or domestic. What unsettles him is not the kiss, but the fact that it occurs inside the domain of work.
In other words, Kim Dan does not yet read intimacy as something that can coexist with discipline. He accepts affection when it appears in designated zones, but not when it disrupts functional categories. The gym is a place of training; therefore, what happens there must remain legible as training. Joo Jaekyung’s technical explanation gives him exactly that permission.
This is why Kim Dan accepts the justification without protest. He does not reinterpret the embrace as love because he does not yet need to. The structure remains intact: work is work, intimacy is intimacy, and when the two overlap, the overlap is attributed to technique rather than feeling.
In this sense, Joo Jaekyung’s restraint protects both of them. It protects Kim Dan from having to reinterpret the gesture emotionally, and it protects Joo Jaekyung from articulating feelings he has no vocabulary for outside the grammar of training. Care is real, but its meaning is postponed. Love is present, but encoded as vigilance.
This postponement explains why the “flower” has not yet opened. It exists, but inwardly folded. Growth is happening, but it is constrained by the only relational language both men currently share: effort, endurance, correction, control.
They know how to train together.
They know how to recover.
They know how to endure crisis.
They know obligation.
They do not yet know how to choose pleasure together — how to eat, rest, shop, watch a movie, or enjoy time without purpose. Even their earlier “break” at the amusement park existed because Joo Jaekyung needed rest, not because they mutually chose leisure. Fun, like intimacy, has always been instrumental.
What episode 88 reveals is not the absence of love, but its confinement. Pleasure appears — undeniably — yet remains untranslated. Sensation does not yet become knowledge. The flower is there, but it has not learned how to open outside the discipline that first allowed it to grow.
5. The slow reversal: from imposed care to accepted challenge
The most important moment comes when Kim Dan manages to reverse positions and pin Joo Jaekyung. (chapter 88) The shock and joy are mutual. Joo Jaekyung is genuinely surprised. Kim Dan is genuinely proud—though he barely allows himself to register it. (chapter 88) This is not equality yet. But it is the first time Kim Dan experiences himself as capable, not merely compliant. The training that began as imposed authority becomes a shared test and experience. Importantly, Kim Dan did not ask for this moment. It emerged because he stayed. This stands in opposition to the sparring in front of the fighters. 
(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.
6. Where the flower is
If the previous sections trace a movement, this final observation names its limit. To understand why the flower in episode 88 has only begun to appear, it is necessary to return to Erich Fromm’s definition of love, which rests on four inseparable elements: care, responsibility, respect, and knowledge. [For more read:“The Art Of Loving” (locked)] Love, in this framework, does not exist where only one or two of these are present. It requires all four to be active at once in order to become sustaining, conscious, and mutual.
Episode 88 makes one thing unmistakably clear: in the relationship between Joo Jaekyung and Kim Dan, three of these elements are already in place. One is not.
Care is not what this relationship lacks. (chapter 88) Joo Jaekyung’s care is visible throughout the episode, even when it is expressed awkwardly or through misdirection. His insistence on training, his attention to Kim Dan’s stamina, his refusal to let Kim Dan dismiss his own physical limits (chapter 88), and his final reminder to “take good care of yourself” all belong to the same logic. This care is protective and practical, but it is still delivered under the cover of training—phrased as guidance, risk-management, and performance maintenance rather than as attachment. He is capable of saying “take care,” but he still cannot say what the care ultimately means: I want you close; I worry about losing you; I don’t know how to keep you besides making you stronger. For someone like Jaekyung, whose life has been organized around performance and endurance, this is the only available language of concern. Kim Dan, too, expresses care, though in a displaced form. He worries about Jaekyung’s exhaustion, (chapter 88), minimizes his own needs and tries not to become a burden. Care moves in both directions, even if it rarely reaches its intended target.
Responsibility is equally present, and equally heavy. Jaekyung assumes responsibility for Kim Dan’s safety and future (chapter 88), particularly in light of his own awareness that their time together is limited. The training is not arbitrary; it is oriented toward what comes after him. Kim Dan, meanwhile, takes responsibility in another way: by insisting on self-sufficiency (chapter 88), by promising to continue training on his own, by framing improvement as something he must manage independently. What stands out is that responsibility exists on both sides, but it is carried separately. Each assumes it alone, without yet allowing it to become shared.
Respect, too, is not absent. Jaekyung respects Kim Dan’s capacity to grow. (chapter 88) He challenges him not because he sees him as weak, but because he believes resistance is possible. (chapter 88) His praise, rare and restrained, signals recognition rather than indulgence. Kim Dan, in turn, respects Jaekyung’s discipline and endurance, sometimes to the point of idealization. This respect remains asymmetrical, but it is real. It has begun to shift from hierarchy toward recognition.
What is missing, and what keeps the flower from fully appearing, is knowledge—not information, not memory, but Fromm’s sense of active understanding of the other as a subject with inner needs, fears, and desires. In The Art of Loving, knowledge means seeing the other as they are, which requires two things at once:
- Honesty toward oneself (recognizing one’s own needs, fears, and desires), and
- Articulation toward the other (making that inner reality available rather than acting it out indirectly).
This is why words matter so much. Without words, care can exist, responsibility can exist, and even respect can exist — but they remain opaque. Joo Jaekyung knows exactly what he wants: time, proximity, continuity. He is acutely aware that his time with Kim Dan is running out. 
(chapter 88)
What he lacks is not intention, but translation and even courage. He does not know how to express his desire outside the vocabulary of work, discipline, and physical instruction. He can insist, challenge, and protect, but he cannot yet name why he does so. He still thinks, it is not possible to be loved due to his huge flaws and past wrongdoings. Kim Dan, on the other hand, does not yet know how to read care when it is not framed as sacrifice or obligation. He interprets insistence as burden, closeness as technique, affection as something that must be relocated elsewhere—into private space, into the penthouse, into moments that feel safer and more legible.
Their misunderstanding does not stem from a lack of feeling. It stems from a lack of confidence and shared language. Love is enacted rather than understood. Care, responsibility, and respect circulate between them, but knowledge—the capacity to see and articulate the other’s inner reality—has not yet entered the relationship. The reason is that both underestimate themselves. Thus both don’t speak the truth. This is why the flower in episode 88 is real but incomplete. It exists in the slow shift from refusal to engagement, from habit-driven self-denial to cautious participation. It exists in the fact that Kim Dan accepts the training not because he must, but because he begins to recognize the results from Jaekyung’s effort and insistence. He gradually accepts that Joo Jaekyung is genuinely concerned about him. He is gradually enjoying this, thus he voices his desire to learn more. Another problem is that both still think, they know each other. They have not recognized the importance of “words” and “honesty” yet. Nevertheless until knowledge emerges—until what is enacted can also be spoken—the flower remains folded inward. Not absent. Not broken. Simply unfinished.
Heesung × Potato: The Other Two Petals — Knowledge Without Responsibility
If the bond between Joo Jaekyung and Kim Dan exposes a surplus of care constrained by poor articulation, the dynamic between Heesung and Potato reveals the opposite imbalance:: knowledge without responsibility, and therefore without respect. The actor is able to express his thoughts and emotions all the time, yet he is not taking Potato’s feelings and thoughts into consideration. Thus he simply asks Yoon-Gu to hold the mitts and not be his sparring partner. (chapter 88) The way the “gumiho” speaks to the chow-chow is quite telling. He expects an agreement. Striking is that the young fighter doesn’t agree to the actor’s request, he answers with another question: “You don’t need a sparring partner?”. This question reveals that Yoon-Gu had already imagined himself differently. He had pictured a future moment in which he would not merely assist the actor’s training, but share it. In other words, he had already crossed an internal threshold: from helper to potential partner. The question exposes a private projection — a hope — that had not yet been verbalized until this moment.
That is why this exchange marks Yoon-Gu’s transformation. That’s why he is wearing a olive green sweater. (chapter 88) Olive green is not the vivid green of aspiration or idealization, nor the cold institutional green associated with discipline and hierarchy. It is a grounded, muted green — a color of transition. Symbolically, it sits between admiration and autonomy. By wearing it at this moment, Yoon-Gu visually signals a shift away from the champion’s gravitational pull. He is no longer oriented upward, toward an untouchable figure, but sideways, toward a peer relationship he is beginning to imagine. The green does not announce arrival; it marks movement. Growth here is not explosive but cautious, uneven, and still uncertain.
Crucially, this transformation does not stem from insecurity. Yoon-Gu is not suffering from low self-esteem. On the contrary, he speaks easily, moves freely, and voices his expectations without hesitation. What he lacks is not confidence, but self-awareness. He does not yet understand the structure he is entering, nor the asymmetry embedded in it. He mistakes proximity for reciprocity, access for acknowledgment. And the chow chow’s lack of self-awareness is also present, when he imagined that he could have followed to the amusement park. 
(chapter 87) For him, this trip was related to work, while in reality it was a date in disguise.
This becomes clearer when contrasted with the main couple. Between Kim Dan and Joo Jaekyung, communication is constrained, indirect, and often misaligned, as both are suffering from a low self-esteem and their past traumas. Desires are hidden behind habit, duty, or technical language. By contrast, the dialogue between Yoon-Gu and Choi Heesung is strikingly explicit. Both second leads speak readily. They articulate preferences, make requests, and voice dissatisfaction without visible hesitation. The only difference is that Heesung allows misunderstanding to persist. Joo Jaekyung abruptly corrects it. Neither approach is emotionally generous—but only one produces shock rather than slow erosion.
To conclude, this apparent fluency masks a deeper problem. What is missing here is not expression, but reflection.
Earlier, Yoon-Gu’s actions were shaped by obligation, imitation, or conditional promises (cleaning the floor, holding equipment or a bottle, proving usefulness). Here, the initiative is internal. He is no longer reacting to instructions; he is testing the possibility of recognition. (chapter 88) The desire precedes permission.
The tragedy of the moment lies not in the refusal itself, but in how it is answered. Heesung does not respond to the desire embedded in the question. He bypasses it with a technical explanation — size difference — which neutralizes the emotional risk Yoon-Gu has taken. 
(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.
This is where Heesung’s pride in knowing turns into arrogance. His explanation contradicts the very logic that governs the gym itself. Joo Jaekyung has just demonstrated explicitly that technique outweighs physical size, that discipline and practice can reverse power relations. 
(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.
Yet Heesung’s knowledge is not grounded in the present conditions of Team Black. It is grounded on his past experience: he received special training from Joo Jaekyung. In other words, he is biased. Heesung prides himself on knowing. 
(special episode 1) He knows people’s patterns. 
(special episode 1) He knows how relationships fail. 
(chapter 33) 
(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 58). This knowledge is not neutral; it is retrospective and comparative. It is built from what has disappointed him before, and it governs how he evaluates others in the present. He views himself as superior to the champion morally.
This is where the symbolism of the “grass being greener on the other side” becomes essential. 
(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)
Potato exists precisely within this gap. Because he wanted to take responsibility. 
(special episode 1), he is present, available, even emotionally invested—but he is never treated as sufficient. He is smaller (chapter 88), younger and as such less experienced, he is positioned as someone who does not yet qualify as a sparring partner, or even less as a boyfriend. Observe how he presented his relationship to doc Dan. 
(chapter 58) Heesung’s use of the pronoun “we” is, on the surface, inclusive. Linguistically, it frames his relationship with Potato as mutual, shared, and consensual. But pragmatically, it does the opposite. The “we” is spoken over Potato’s head, not with him. Thus Potato is physically present but discursively absent. He does not confirm, nuance, or reciprocate the statement verbally. The pronoun thus becomes a rhetorical appropriation rather than a sign of partnership.
What makes the remark particularly uncomfortable is the context: Heesung is not speaking to Potato, but to Kim Dan. The sentence is not meant to communicate within the relationship; it is meant to display the relationship to a third party. In that sense, “we” functions as a prop. It allows Heesung to stage intimacy without assuming responsibility for how that staging affects the person he claims to include. He is not saying that he is dating Yoon-Gu either. In other words, he is behaving like Joo Jaekyung in season 1. 
(chapter 31) He denies the existence of feelings and attachment.
The embarrassment of Potato is not accidental. It is structurally produced by the asymmetry of the situation. Heesung controls the narrative, the tone, and the implication. By adding “in more ways than one,” he sexualizes the bond implicitly, while maintaining plausible deniability. Nothing explicit is said; everything is insinuated. This is knowledge without accountability. Heesung knows exactly how the line will land—on Kim Dan, and on Potato—but he does not take responsibility for either impact.
On the other hand, Heesung feels so comfortable around doc Dan, that he is willing to divulge more. He assumes Kim Dan will “understand” him. He is speaking in a coded register, relying on shared cultural assumptions: that closeness implies sexuality, that sexuality implies connection. In doing so, he treats Kim Dan as a potential ally in interpretation, not as a moral interlocutor. He expects recognition, perhaps even complicity, rather than reprimand or judgment.
This is where the contrast with Joo Jaekyung becomes sharp. Joo Jaekyung struggles to name intimacy and often hides it behind work or discipline—but he does not instrumentalize language to control 
(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.
Heesung does not call Yoon-Gu weak outright, but the hierarchy is unmistakable: Potato is handled (chapter 88), redirected 
(special episode 2), corrected. (chapter 88) Even when Heesung intervenes on his behalf, it is not through shared responsibility but through dismissal—deciding what is best for him without asking what he truly wants.
This lack of responsibility is crucial. Responsibility, in Fromm’s sense, is not obligation imposed from above; it is the willingness to respond to the other as a subject whose needs and presence matter now. Heesung does not assume this stance. He neither commits nor withdraws cleanly. Instead, he hovers—knowing enough to judge, but refusing the burden of staying.
This explains why Heesung reacts so strongly to the relationship between Kim Dan and Joo Jaekyung. He does not simply misunderstand it; he rejects it (chapter 31) because it violates his model of love. Doc Dan is not introduced or claimed as his boyfriend. For him, it is simply related to the athlete’s jinx. 
(chapter 32). It has no declared endpoint, no moral clarity (chapter 34), no soulmate label. Rather than engaging with what the relationship is doing —how it functions, how it transforms both participants—Heesung tries to name it away: a jinx, a mistake, a lack of feelings. Naming, here, becomes a defense against involvement.
The scene in the penthouse crystallizes this refusal. 
(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 33), he reframes the encounter as an accusation. The man is crazy. 
(chapter 34) Joo Jaekyung becomes the problem, the one who “deserves to suffer.” 
(chapter 58) This moral displacement allows Heesung to maintain distance: if Jaekyung is guilty, then no self-examination is required. Forgiveness—central to this arc (from 79 to 89)—is rendered impossible, because forgiveness would require recognizing shared vulnerability rather than assigning blame.
Potato, by contrast, is repeatedly asked to adapt. Earlier, he cleans, waits 
(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)
This is the structural tragedy of the Heesung–Potato dynamic. There is confidence and knowledge—sharp, observational, even insightful—but it is not paired with responsibility. And without responsibility, respect and care collapse into condescension. Potato is not met as an equal in becoming, but as someone perpetually not-yet-ready. While Yoon-Gu had been deeply affected by doc Dan’s departure. 
(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)
But let’s return our attention to the petals Heesung and Potato. Placed beside Joo Jaekyung and Kim Dan, the contrast is stark. Jaekyung lacks fluency, but not commitment. He does not know how to speak love, yet he stays. Heesung knows how to speak about dating and love, hence he offers a bouquet of roses. But he does not remain when love demands endurance rather than evaluation.
Secondly, Heesung embodies selfishness, which is also perceptible the way he appears at the gym. (Chapter 88) He had planned to use the gym without the champion’s consent and knowledge. And Potato was not expecting the presence of the main couple either. 
(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 88) As you can detect, he remained silent the whole time. It was, as though he was ignoring his lover.
What ultimately exposes the asymmetry in Heesung and Yoon-Gu’s relationship is not overt exploitation, but silence. Episode 88 stages this with remarkable precision. Heesung enters the gym without coordination (chapter 88), without consent from its owner, and without paying any visible cost. He does not announce himself as a guest, does not ask permission, and does not explain his presence. Instead, the intrusion is normalized through omission. Silence becomes the mechanism by which power circulates unnoticed.
Crucially, Yoon-Gu is excluded from the truth of the situation. Readers understand why Heesung is there; Yoon-Gu does not. The actor’s internal reaction (chapter 88) can be read as a moment of comic frustration. In fact, it reveals something far more consequential: this visit was never conceived as a shared activity with Yoon-Gu at all. The training session was not planned for him, nor with him. Yoon-Gu was not included as a subject in Heesung’s intention. He was a means.
This internal monologue exposes the logic of the intrusion. Heesung did not come to train with Yoon-Gu, nor to support him, nor to acknowledge his aspirations. He came to work off his own emotional agitation, to use the gym as a private outlet. Therefore it is not surprising that Yoon-Gu’s presence is reduced to him holding the mitts. His presence is incidental—useful, but not constitutive. When the situation threatens to escalate (chapter 88), Heesung does not think, What will happen to Yoon-Gu? He thinks only of himself: his inconvenience, his exposure, his embarrassment.
That omission is decisive. It confirms that Yoon-Gu is positioned not as a partner in training, but as an accessory to Heesung’s fitness and fun. He provides access, labor, and cover, yet remains excluded from knowledge and from choice. This mirrors an earlier pattern: just as Kim Dan once provided unpaid care under the guise of compensation
(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.
At the same time, this regret (chapter 88) confirms that Heesung knows he has crossed a boundary. Yet this awareness produces no corrective action. He does not warn Yoon-Gu, does not acknowledge the risk he is creating for him, and does not assume responsibility for the consequences of being discovered. His concern remains entirely self-directed: embarrassment, inconvenience, exposure. Yoon-Gu’s position is not considered.
The irony is that this silence is beneficial for the chow chow . (chapter 88) It actively conceals Yoon-Gu’s complicity while simultaneously depending on it. Heesung could not have accessed the gym without Yoon-Gu. The most plausible inference is that Yoon-Gu provided entry—either by unlocking the space or by lending legitimacy to Heesung’s presence. Yet when the moment of confrontation approaches, Heesung does not speak. (chapter 88) He does not answer Yoon-Gu’s question—“Is there someone in there?”—because answering would reveal responsibility. Another important detail is that though Yoon-Gu provided the access, he simply followed the actor. The latter is the one opening the door to PT Room and not the member of Team Black. It exposes that the fox is really the one committing the wrongdoing, and he can not blame the chow chow for it.
Silence, here, is not absence of speech but a strategy of avoidance. (special episode 1) Heesung does not negotiate, explain, or repair. He doesn’t give any excuse. He moves through spaces as though access were guaranteed and consequences optional. However, this time, his silence is used against him. 
(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.
This is why Heesung cannot embody forgiveness in this arc. Forgiveness requires acknowledgment; acknowledgment requires speech; speech requires responsibility. Heesung chooses none of these. Instead, he preserves his self-image by leaving others to absorb the impact of his actions. Yet, in episode 88, it is no longer possible.
In this sense, the flower associated with Heesung and Yoon-Gu never opens. Knowledge is present. While Heesung understands dynamics, motives, and outcomes, the chow chow heard all the information 
(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.
In the end, the other two petals do not fail because of ignorance. They fail because knowledge, when severed from responsibility, becomes a tool of avoidance. Love is postponed indefinitely—always imagined, never practiced. On the other hand, since he knows about the champion’s past sexual habits, it signifies that the actor became the witness of TRUE LOVE. Joo Jaekyung is kissing doc Dan. 
(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 88) It is important because with this knowledge, he can expose the truth to doc Dan: the athlete loves him. In the past, he could say this without explaining his statement. 
(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.
Orange Represents
Adventure and risk taking: Orange promotes physical confidence and enthusiasm – sportsmen and adventure-seekers relate well to orange.
Social communication and interaction: Orange stimulates two-way conversation between people – in a dining room when entertaining it stimulates conversation as well as appetite. Friendship: Group socializing, parties, the community – wherever people get together to have fun and socialize orange is a good choice.
Divorce: The optimism of the color orange helps people move on – it is forward thinking and outward thinking. https://www.empower-yourself-with-color-psychology.com/color-orange.html
That means, doc Dan is on the verge of having true friends. Joo Jaekyung will stop demanding exclusivity by isolating doc Dan from the others. 
(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.
To conclude, I perceive the actor as the bridge between the two main leads. He embodies language, knowledge, love as feeling, but more importantly he stands for friendship and fun, notions which don’t exist in the main couple’s world yet.
That’s it for the first part. In the second part, I will examine the final panel and the significance of the fighters’ return.
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(chapter 87), and the destruction of black glass under Baek Junmin’s foot. 
(chapter 87) Both moments operate under pressure, yet they belong to radically different economies. One gathers force inward to protect, contain, and care. The other expels force outward to fracture, dominate, and erase. The biggest difference is not intensity, but direction—and whether the other is held, or destroyed.
(chapter 87) He asks for strength and luck 
(chapter 87). Kim Dan answers with a gesture, the offered hand accompanied with a wish:
(chapter 87). Only then does the squeeze occur. Words initiate connection; the body confirms it. Speech and gesture align. Pressure becomes care.
(chapter 87) —but they are refused. Baek Junmin is denied any possibility of reply—no space to answer, to justify himself, or even to speak back. 
(chapter 87) The screen interposed between them 
(chapter 87) functions as both a physical and symbolic barrier: it delivers judgment without permitting response. Deprived of dialogue, Junmin is pushed out of language altogether. What remains available to him is not speech, but the body. His answer therefore does not come in words, but through the hand
(chapter 87) and then through the foot. 
(chapter 87) The violence is not misdirected; it is precisely directed at the medium that silences him. The screen is the site of exclusion, 
(chapter 87), before the challenge 
(chapter 87), the champion turns around.
(chapter 87) He looks—not at the crowd, not at the institution, but at Kim Dan. The gaze matters. It establishes a circuit. Like a phone call finally answered, it places both on the same wavelength. Only then does the question come. 
(chapter 87) Here again, language and body are aligned. 
(chapter 87) Kim Dan answers—first with a nod, then with words. The response is clear, immediate, and embodied. And what follows is decisive: the champion raises his arm. 
(chapter 87) 
(chapter 15) 
(chapter 40) 
(chapter 51), its meaning sharpens. For the first time, Kim Dan no longer occupies the position of fan or witness. He functions as judge and jury. 😮 And the champion acts accordingly. He declares himself the winner. 
(chapter 87) Joo Jaekyung is no longer a puppet or zombie, but a man with a heart and voice. 
(chapter 46) It regulates turn-taking, determines who may speak, in what order, and under which framing. As long as it remains in the moderator’s hand, speech is mediated, filtered, and contextualized. Questions lead; answers follow. Meaning circulates vertically.
(chapter 87) He no longer moderates; he reacts. He cannot redirect the statement, soften it, or translate it into spectacle. He can only acknowledge that something has escaped containment. The apology is not moral—it is procedural. It marks the moment the institution loses authorship. 
(chapter 57); he is narrating. He does not answer a question 
(chapter 14) Yet, CSPP 
appears more and more insistently 
(chapter 87), even in the cage
(chapter 87), contrary to before. 
(chapter 15) Either you only see the C or the name is placed out of the frame. 
(chapter 40) Yet it remains unexplained. What does it stand for in the world of Jinx? A sponsor? A broadcaster? The story never defines it explicitly—and that absence matters. What goes unnamed is often what exercises the most power. I will elaborate about it further.
(chapter 36) —depends on mediation. Delay. Scoring. Interpretation. The quiet redistribution of meaning after the fact. As long as nothing is said outright 
(chapter 69), control remains possible. Once speech becomes public, control becomes fragile.
(chapter 87), people in the seaside town, a public that exists before commentary can shape it.
(chapter 87) And the fight already answers the questions the system hopes to postpone. What we see in the cage is not merely a contest of strength, but a clash of communicative regimes. How one fights here is inseparable from how one speaks, evades, provokes, or withholds.
(chapter 87) His movement privileges distance, tempo 
(chapter 87) and visibility. That way he gives the impression that he is superior to the former champion. The middle kick appears not as a finishing tool 
(chapter 87), but as an instrument of disruption—enough to score, enough to interrupt rhythm, never enough to end the exchange. The rest of his offense follows the same logic: repeated punches to the face 
(chapter 87), the hands, the shoulder. Targets chosen not for collapse, but for points. Not to silence the opponent, but to keep him talking through damage. The choice of targets is not arbitrary. The hands and the shoulder are not neutral zones. They are sites of vulnerability that presuppose knowledge. Arnaud Gabriel does not fight, as if he were discovering his opponent in real time; he fights as if he were acting on prior information. 
(chapter 82) He anticipated a diminished MMA fighter at the end of his career who would train at the hotel gym. His punches repeatedly return to the same areas—not to finish, but to aggravate. Not to silence, but to extract fatigue.
(chapter 87) The shoulder carries the memory of surgery and recovery. The hands mediate both offense and defense; exhausting them degrades reach, timing, and confidence. And breathlessness 
(chapter 82)—noticed earlier during training—signals something even more fragile: limits that are physiological, not tactical.
(chapter 87) It aligns disturbingly well with what had already circulated outside the match: commentary about tension, exhaustion, time away from competition. Whether through media narratives, observation, or informal channels of intelligence, the opponent’s body has already been translated into information.
(chapter 47) Already discussed. Already framed. Gabriel’s reliance on point accumulation is inseparable from this logic. 
(chapter 87) He does not need to dominate the body; he needs to activate its known limits and let the scoring apparatus do the rest.
(chapter 87) —his decision to close distance, to counter decisively, to end the exchange rather than prolong it—appears less like impatience than resistance. He does not correct the narrative. He interrupts it.
(chapter 51) The fight is no longer about what happens between bodies, but about who controls evaluation. And that’s how they could rig the match between Baek Junmin and Joo Jaekyung. 
(chapter 70) acquires a different meaning. What he condemns as arrogance is not a moral failure, but a structural adaptation. These fighters have learned that they do not need to finish fights with a knockout. They only need to prolong them—to survive them—because the system will finish the sentence for them. Therefore, the moderator’s commentary during the match introducing the new Korean fighter takes on a clearer function. 
(chapter 71) He frames the rookie as someone “waiting for the right timing,” subtly suggesting a coming knockout rather than prolonged survival. The language is important: it reassures the audience that decisiveness still exists within the system, that power is merely deferred—not absent.
(chapter 71) The director is not persuaded. Hwang Byungchul reads the situation differently. He recognizes stiffness, fear, and overreliance on structure—not composure, not strategy. Where the moderator sees patience, the director sees hesitation. Where commentary insists on strategy, experience detects rigidity and lack of instincts.
(chapter 81) It is an assumption: that the outcome no longer requires athletic intervention. The champion is treated as a finished product, a celebrity whose role is to endure visibility, not to alter the terms of the fight itself.
(chapter 82) and inside the cage. 
(chapter 87) Publicly, he is courteous. Measured. Even complimentary. 
(chapter 82), gentle and polite gestures, and tactical distance— away from the spotlight, away from overt confrontation. His restraint is not humility, but alignment. He performs civility so that judgment, narration, and authority can be outsourced to the institution. That’s why for him, fighting is strongly intertwined with fun and he sees himself more as a star than as an athlete. He is definitely influenced by MFC. Hence we can say that his suit mirrors his mind-set. Gabriel’s suit does not soften his presence; it disciplines it. The patterned fabric signals rigidity rather than elegance—structure over fluidity. It mirrors his fighting style: calibrated, rule-bound, resistant to improvisation. Nothing about his appearance invites rupture. Everything is designed to hold form.
(chapter 52) He lets others speak, provoke, circulate images, manage money, create pressure. 
(chapter 54) His power does not come from direct address, but from displacement. When he does appear, it is rarely to argue. 
(chapter 49) It is to smirk, to whisper, to apply pressure obliquely. In both cases, the logic is identical: control is preserved by never being fully present.
(chapter 87) It is more observation. He allows the opponent to speak first—to reveal the structure of the exchange. 
(chapter 87) When it lands, it collapses distance. It forces the opponent inward. And crucially, it targets the center of the body—not the face that earns applause, but the core that sustains movement.
(chapter 87) and delivers an uppercut. 
(chapter 87) This is not escalation; it is completion. Where Gabriel sought to keep the fight open, Joo Jaekyung compresses it. He refuses the long exchange. He refuses circulation. He refuses to wait for judgment. His strategy is not to be evaluated later, but to be undeniable now. 
(chapter 87) This is not silence imposed from outside, but silence produced by gravity. Once the body crashes, breath cannot return, and speech has nowhere to perch. 
(chapter 87)
(chapter 74) 
(chapter 87) 
(chapter 2) While the jinx held, action could still occur, but speech could not carry consequence. Words dissipated, were deferred, or were absorbed by systems designed to neutralize them. Powerlessness expressed itself as speechlessness.
(chapter 87) His actions arrive before meaning can be reassigned. His words arrive where no answer is prepared. In this sense, episode 87 marks the moment Joo Jaekyung becomes fluent in his own discipline. Not merely competent, not merely dominant, but articulate. His movements surprise 
(chapter 5) which had surprised his manager Park Namwook. 
(chapter 5)
(chapter 69) , the switching, the method—the institution could have responded. Clarifications could be issued. Liability could be managed. But by speaking elliptically, by pointing to manipulation without anatomizing it, the champion places the burden of interpretation onto the audience. And MFC can not deny the existence of an incident in the locker room.
(chapter 62) They are not close enough to trust the system blindly.
(chapter 57)
(chapter 69), by allowing attention to cluster around foreign misconduct 
(chapter 69) and public embarrassment 
(chapter 74) Early incidents reframed as character. Let’s not forget that he was stigmatized as a thug by the members from Team Black too. 
(chapter 47) Nothing new needs to be invented. Only reassembled. They know about the dragon’s past, because they brought Baek Junmin, someone who resented the celebrity for his wealth and fame. 
(chapter 31) The system does not deny the champion’s words ; it reclassifies them. What was a refusal of manipulation becomes “anger issues.” What was naming becomes “acting out.”
(chapter 72) It only needs to repeat an already accepted story: abandonment as necessity, violence as justification, disappearance as victimhood. A story the system knows how to circulate. And Hwang Byungchul never questioned her decision so far. 
(chapter 78) Secondly, Kim Dan is now able to distinguish the past from the present. Finally, thanks to doc Dan 
(chapter 62), he did so many good deeds in the seaside town that the inhabitants and the patients from the hospice won’t accept such accusations. I believe that such people won’t see “motherfucker” as a problem at all, they will rather see it as a part of his role after the match. What will remain in their mind is rather the accusation and riddle he voiced: the stunt Baek Junmin played. 
(chapter 87), which already tells us that CSPP does not function as a simple broadcaster. My idea is that CSPP operates as an intermediary apparatus: a company that packages events, sells broadcasting rights, coordinates visibility, and transforms violence into consumable spectacle. In other words, CSPP does not show fights; it produces events. This explicates why CSPP was present right from the start 
(chapter 14), but barely visible. But the moment it caught my attention in Paris, I realized that its increasing visibility displays the success of MFC as company. Observe that when the champion faced Randy Booker, the weight-in took place on the same day than the fight and in the arena, not at a prestigious hotel like in Paris. Here, the champion held a conference many days before the weight-in, and the latter took place the night before the match with Arnaud Gabriel. Secondly, you can observe the success of MFC through the banners. In Busan, the website of MFC was posed in the background next to CSPP. 
(chapter 50), only MFC and CSPP. But in Paris, it is now totally different. 
(chapter 48), and distribution platforms, insulating each layer from direct responsibility. If something goes wrong, blame can always be displaced sideways.
(chapter 35), his suspension 
(chapter 57) 
(chapter 70) His matches are scheduled at hours accessible even to a Korean hospital 
(chapter 41) or hospice patients. 
(chapter 71) becomes intelligible. It is not a mark of anticipation, but of expendability. The match is placed where attention is thinnest, where failure or success carries minimal consequence. By contrast, Joo Jaekyung’s fights are positioned to be seen. The asymmetry exposes how dependent MFC’s visibility economy is on him—not as a competitor, but as the primary organizer of audience attention.
(chapter 47) His presence circulates through curated highlights and controlled conference footage rather than open broadcast. 
(chapter 47) His rise is engineered through selective visibility. 
(chapter 47) Weak opponents are chosen. 
(chapter 47) His image is inflated before he ever faces Joo Jaekyung. CSPP does not need to expose him fully; it needs only to prepare recognition. However, CSPP is an official company, they can not control rumors among fighters. 
(chapter 47) Thus the manager suggested this to his boss just before: 
(chapter 46) By mentioning the existence of spies, he incited the main lead to keep his distance from the doctor and the members so that the rumors about the underground fighting wouldn’t reach his ears.
(chapter 14), the United States, Paris—the fights are placed in high-visibility slots. Loss must be witnessed. Decline must be shared. By contrast, the fight between Baek Junmin and Joo Jaekyung takes place in the morning 
(chapter 49), a time of dispersed attention, private viewing, and reduced collective response. Visibility is not maximized; it is managed. 
(chapter 49) CSPP’s role, then, is not neutral mediation. It is temporal governance. It decides when exposure becomes dangerous and when it becomes profitable. It does not silence events; it times them.
(chapter 77) Once Joo Jaekyung does not contest the loss of his title—once he does not sue, demand more investigation, or interrupt the administrative process— MFC and CSPP no longer need to justify anything. Delay becomes normalization. Silence becomes confirmation.
(chapter 87) is dangerous not only for MFC, but for CSPP itself. If his connections to the underworld surface, CSPP is no longer a distributor of sport, but a conduit for illicit spectacle. Contracts dissolve not because violence occurred, but because violence escaped framing.
(chapter 49) Under normal medical protocol, this should have stopped the fight immediately. 
(chapter 41) No athlete should perform when injured. Yet MFC Medical remains silent, the staff simply treats the wound. The bout proceeds. Only later—after attention has shifted, after consequences have begun to circulate—does the same medical authority step forward to issue disciplinary sanctions and a suspension 
(chapter 52) There were cameras in the arena. What cannot be allowed to surface is proof of foreknowledge: that an injured athlete was permitted to fight under institutional supervision. Thus it raises the question if the match in the morning was broadcast on TV. 
(chapter 52) Structural complicity is translated into an individualized incident. What occurred in the cage is no longer the issue; what occurred afterward becomes the narrative.
(chapter 46) that began elsewhere—losses already acknowledged when Choi Gilseok brought him into the system in the first place. 
(chapter 30) This implies that he won’t remain passive and silent like in the past, relying on structure and institutions (Entertainment agency…) and accepting to become a scapegoat. 
(chapter 54) 
(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) 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) 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) —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 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 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 47). The broken screen already signaled that he no longer cares about how he is seen. 
(chapter 47) By rejecting visibility and embracing excess, he also rejects the last requirement that tied him to that system.
(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 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 50), they remain structurally hidden, absorbed by intermediaries, or misattributed. 
(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 85) Why care about the color of a carpet or the direction a door opens 
(chapter 85), when the real story unfolds between Joo Jaekyung and Kim Dan?
(chapter 82) Floors and patterns are not neutral decoration. They function as a parallel narrative system—one that tracks changes in status 
(chapter 85), exposes the actual situations in which the characters are placed 
(chapter 85), and helps us locate spaces and relationships within the hotel architecture itself. In other words, the floors do not merely frame the story; they add a spatial depth that sharpens our understanding of the “characters.”
(chapter 82)
(chapter 82) 
(chapter 82) One might think, the only information we get is that MFC had booked a conference room at the hotel where Team Black is staying. However, in the States, the carpet of the hallway at the hotel had a similar pattern. 
(chapter 37) This similarity and repetition caught my attention. It suggests continuity between public spectacle and private space, between what is shown and what is concealed. Following this thread led to a broader realization: the floors simultaneously signal elevation and confinement. They show who appears powerful—and who is, in fact, enclosed.
(chapter 37)
(chapter 37) It is in that hallway that Kim Dan collapses after drinking a drugged beverage. He literally falls onto the carpet, on his knees. The trap activates—but not on its intended target.
(chapter 46), not by MFC directly. The scheme exists, but it is imperfect. Joo Jaekyung is not truly “caught” in that moment, which explains why the plan ultimately fails. 
(chapter 69) As you can see, the pattern of the carpet could be seen as an evidence for a trap, and the “Emperor” is their target once again. Their plan is to end his career so that all the incidents and crimes from the past can be buried.
(chapter 82). The opponent stands on the surface that embodies order, hierarchy, and control, and behaves accordingly. He flirts, comments on the doctor’s eyes, and treats the moment as harmless. Then he turns his back. 
(chapter 82) He never steps onto, nor does he seem to register, the animal-patterned carpet nearby, as doc Dan was standing on a white-off carpet. In other words, Arnaud Gabriel interacts only with the space that reflects the institution’s worldview. 
(chapter 82) This is not the response of a neutralized Emperor, but the instinctive surge of a predator whose territory has been violated. The scene echoes an earlier, more intimate image from the bathroom in chapter 30, 
(chapter 30), where Joo Jaekyung appeared wearing leopard-patterned pajamas. The animal imagery was already present then, but dormant. Here, it reawakens.
(chapter 85) The champion is not alone inside the cage. He is supported, grounded, and no longer isolated. What MFC fails to see is that this support does not weaken the predator—it stabilizes him. And a stabilized predator is far more dangerous than a cornered one. For years, Joo Jaekyung’s violence was reactive, triggered by threat, humiliation, or loss of control. Such a fighter is powerful, but predictable. He can be provoked, exhausted, and manipulated.
(chapter 84) These visual cues distinguish floors, mark thresholds between zones, and separate different kinds of isolation. The hotel ceases to function as an abstract backdrop and instead reveals itself as a structured environment in which hierarchy is materially inscribed.
(chapter 85) 
(chapter 84) 
(chapter 85) The corridor seems to have white linoleum covered a dark brown carpet, similar to the one in his bedroom. However, observe that the manager’s entrance has the same tiles than in the hallway. 
(chapter 85) reminds us of the champion’s living room in the hotel. 
(chapter 82) This clearly exposes that doc Dan’s room is not a normal room. It exceeds that basic category. It is larger, brighter, and arranged for comfort. The interior layout is particularly revealing: the bathroom is located close to the bedroom 
(chapter 85) clearly separating living space from bedroom 
(chapter 82), and extending outward through more than one balcony. 
(chapter 82)
(chapter 82) And the moment I had this realization, architecture, once again, speaks first, my attention returned to the hotel in the States. 
(chapter 37)
(chapter 37) This detail is crucial. It explains why he can hear their laughter and smell the food they are eating. 
(chapter 37) Architecturally, he was not isolated. Despite his status, he remained embedded within the collective space of the team. 
(chapter 37) Besides, Episode 40 confirms that Joo Jaekyung did occupy an imperial suite: the interior layout includes a door separating the bedroom from another room 
(chapter 40), a feature characteristic of a suite rather than a standard hotel room. The issue, therefore, is not the absence of a suite, but how that suite was positioned and managed.
(chapter 37) Because the suite was embedded within a shared corridor, an intruder could approach the champion’s room without attracting attention. 
(chapter 37) intended for weight-cutting and post–weight-cut recovery. This detail exposes a managerial failure rather than a hotel failure. The environment was not curated around the champion’s physical needs. Discipline was demanded of his body, but not enforced in his space. Meanwhile, fighters and coaches purchased junk food behind the champion’s and Kim Dan’s back, reinforcing the gap between stated goals and actual practice.
(chapter 37) There is no visible keycard system, and no clear indication of an interior lock. 
(chapter 37) This absence is striking, especially when contrasted with the Paris hotel 
(chapter 85), where doors are equipped with keycards and locks on both sides 
(chapter 37) Access was not negotiated; it was simply taken. The architecture allowed it. The space did not protect its occupants.
(chapter 37) At first glance, this appears implausible. A suite, by definition, should insulate its occupant from such disturbances. His bedroom is not situated next to the corridor.
(chapter 7) Status was asserted rhetorically, but not enforced spatially, exactly with Joo Jaekyung.
(chapter 37), negotiating access with local coaches and nearly getting into a physical altercation before being allowed to use their facilities 
(chapter 37). Only after asserting himself does he gain permission to train. Even then, the gym he ultimately uses is unremarkable — functional, crowded, and indistinguishable from what any average fighter might access. There is nothing exceptional about it.
(chapter 82) The infrastructure finally aligns with the demands placed on his body. This shift is not a luxury; it is a correction. It reveals retroactively how deficient the American setup was — and how little institutional care surrounded the champion at the time.
(chapter 82) It is a generic fitness room intended for ordinary guests. There are no heavy bags, no proper equipment, no environment suited to the demands of a reigning champion. 
(chapter 37) This is precisely why his training must be adapted, restrained, and partially improvised.
(chapter 5) MMA is not baseball or soccer 
(chapter 54); it does not benefit from the same institutional prestige or resources. Earlier in his career, the champion was more likely trained to endure damage than to prevent it. What we see now is not the continuation of an elite system, but its gradual construction — one in which Kim Dan plays a central role. 
(chapter 81)
(chapter 49), rather restraining him and as such exposing him to danger.
(chapter 37) and the post–weight-cut recovery. 
(chapter 82) Kim Dan may indeed possess a keycard to Joo Jaekyung’s suite. If so, this is not a minor convenience. It constitutes a symbolic transfer of access. The physical therapist is granted proximity not merely to the champion’s body, but to his private space. Hence the athlete is not caught by surprise, he doesn’t even mind this intrusion or interruption.
(chapter 82) and support 
(chapter 85), he expects everyone to wake up on time and appear at seven sharp. He doesn’t see it as his “task” to wake up the champion. Once again, he is delegating responsibility onto others. However, it is clear that he expects Joo Jaekyung to be awake early like he did before. So if the champion doesn’t appear on time, the manager’s decision should be to call doc Dan or visit his room. In his eyes, he is the one responsible for the champion!! 
(chapter 80) for his contract is limited not only to Joo Jaekyung, but also in time. He was never a fighter, hence he is not part of MFC at all contrary to the other hyungs. 
(chapter 40) 
(chapter 82) These are managerial functions.
(chapter 40) Doc Dan is not one among others, but the BEST physical therapist. He is also a champion 
(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 1), if he doesn’t return home. Surprise, in its earlier form, is excised from the household. What remains is a world of repetition and endurance — safer, but lifeless. 
(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 52), justify behavior 
(chapter 1) Kim Dan’s endurance is explained through obedience and debt. The grandmother’s authority is explained through sacrifice. In every case, the same logic applies: this is how it has always been; therefore this is how it must remain.
(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 86), gentle, attentive 
(chapter 86) — asking questions instead of imposing answers 
(chapter 64). For Joo Jaekyung’s unconditional stans (and I count myself among them), such an attitude 
(chapter 86) can easily be read as proof that the protagonist’s good heart has always been existent, but it was barely visible. Compared to earlier chapters, the contrast is now undeniable. And yet, I would like to pause you right there.
(chapter 61), sometimes awkwardly 
(chapter 80), sometimes inconsistently 
. (chapter 83) Tenderness, concern, even a certain form of devotion had appeared earlier 
(chapter 18) misunderstood or poorly timed. This night 
(chapter 86) does not initiate his metamorphosis.
(chapter 86), sparks 
(chapter 86), and softness, many Jinx-philes might instinctively describe it as magical. The imagery invites such a reading. After all, we have seen similar nights before. The night in the States shimmered with illusion 
(chapter 41) The penthouse night echoed A Midsummer Night’s Dream 
(chapter 45). This raises an essential question. Is episode 86 
(chapter 4), in the return of light 
(chapter 66), in what remains once the sparks fade. A dream dissolves with daylight. Reality does not.
(chapter 86), sparks, that strange shimmer that seems to hang in the air 
(chapter 86). Why? It was, as if their dream had come true. However, is it correct? Is it not wishful thinking? What if this night is not magical at all? What if its true signature is not enchantment, but electricity—a current that interrupts, tests, and resets? 😮
(chapter 40) in Kim Dan’s perception: overwhelming, radiant, dominant, a heat-source that does not negotiate. 
(chapter 41) The sun can be admired, feared, and endured—but it cannot be questioned. 
(chapter 58) It simply shines, and the one who stands in its light adapts. This explicates why the physical therapist would choose silence and submission over communication. 
(chapter 48)
(chapter 83) 
(chapter 83) Every ride, every light, every scream suspended in midair depends on current: motors accelerating and braking, circuits opening and closing, energy stored, released, and cut off. 
(chapter 83) Roller coasters do not move by heat, charisma, or sheer physical force; they move because electricity flows through them. The Viking ship swings 
(chapter 83) because current allows it to swing. The Ferris wheel ascends 
(chapter 83) because circuits hold — and descends because they release.
(chapter 84) 
(chapter 84) explicitly names what had previously gone unspoken: the rides function only because current flows. When it disappears, the illusion of effortless motion collapses.
(chapter 84) The Ferris wheel has stopped. The current is gone. The carefully regulated system that lifted, rotated, and sustained them is no longer in control. Yet movement does not disappear entirely. It mutates. When the champion shifts his weight, grips the structure, reacts instinctively, the cabin begins to shake. Panels emphasize instability: creak, swish, ack. The motion is no longer generated by electricity but by the body itself.
(chapter 84) Stranded above ground, stripped of the park’s mechanical rhythm, he apologizes. 
(chapter 84) Not theatrically, not performatively, but awkwardly, haltingly. His body exposes his discomfort 
(chapter 84) and fears. He avoids the doctor’s gaze, crosses his arms 
(chapter 84) or squeezes his arm 
(chapter 84). The cessation of electrical motion coincides with a shift in his own mode of action. Where the park depended on current to keep things moving, he now moves without it. The absence of electricity forces something else to surface: responsibility, attention, presence. Additionally, this sequence anticipates what will later unfold more fully. Proactivity is no longer expressed through force or motion, but through articulation. Words stand for action and have weight. The champion’s future action is announced here, quietly: he will no longer push forward by shaking the structure. He will move by sharing thought, by naming feeling, by allowing himself to be affected. 
(chapter 86), 
(chapter 86) jolts, sudden contractions of the body 
(chapter 86). Kim Dan is repeatedly shown convulsing, gasping, losing linear thought, and it is the same for the MMA fighter. Panels insist on interruption: jolt, tingle, broken breath, aborted sentences. The doctor’s body behaves as if struck, especially in this image. 
(chapter 86) It is at this point that a phrase surfaced in my mind — instinctively, almost involuntarily. A phrase we use in French when something intangible yet decisive occurs between two people: Le courant passe. Literally, the current passes. Idiomatic meaning: they are on the same wavelength, something connects, communication flows. However, here, the current is not the product of civilization, but of nature. Two people interacting with each other. And it is precisely because of the unusually high frequency of sparks and jolts in the illustrations that a belated realization imposes itself: nature, too, produces electricity — through storms, through thunder.
(chapter 69) A storm was announced back then. And yet, upon closer inspection, no thunder was ever shown there. There was tension, there was excess, there were dark clouds 
(chapter 69) — but there was no strike, no discharge, no interruption. The imagery remained continuous, fluid, enclosed within the logic of escalation rather than rupture.
(chapter 83). In Roman terms, Thursday corresponds to dies Iovis — Jupiter’s day — the god of thunder. Both gods are strongly connected to thunder and as such current. 
-chapter 67-; for more read my analysis 
(chapter 34), the hammer gesture is not confrontational, for the machine is immobile. There is no opponent. 
(chapter 83) Too much energy released at once. The system registers it, but cannot contain it. This means, the record won’t be registered and as such “remembered”. In fact what mattered here was the prize, the teddy bear, and restored self-esteem of the athlete. He could offer a present to doc Dan which the latter accepted without any resistance. 
(chapter 86) Therefore it is not surprising that doc Dan starts looking at his fated lover. Imagine what it means for the athlete, when the “hamster” is staring at him, though he is a little embarrassed. Finally, he is truly looking at him. The champion loves his gaze. And now, you comprehend why the “wolf” listened to the “cute hamster” and stopped leaving marks.
(chapter 85), but this time, its nature has changed. It is no longer jealousy or anger, but love and desire. Hence the current is not colored in red, but white and pink. 
, but a thunder and as such it is still restrained and regulated.
(chapter 44) as emotionally charged, intense, even pivotal. Confessions were made. Bodies responded. Vulnerability appeared to surface. And yet, both nights collapsed almost immediately afterward. What was felt 
(chapter 40)
(chapter 86) In this panel, we should glimpse a reference to the night in the States as well, and not just to the night in the penthouse. 
(chapter 44) The setting is elevated, luxurious, almost theatrical. The doctor is brought into a space of power that is not his own. 
(chapter 44) By acting that way, the athlete created a false impression of himself, as if he was still rational and clear-minded. Again, desire unfolds. 
(chapter 44) 
(chapter 44) Again, closeness occurs. And again, the aftermath reveals the same fracture. 
(chapter 45) and later wants to even forget it. 
(chapter 45) and he can not deny his own involvement and actions. Hence the doctor is left alone. Only he can recall this “dream”. 
(chapter 44) But memory alone is not power. Remembering without the other’s participation transforms recollection into isolation. Kim Dan cannot confront, confirm, or renegotiate what happened, exactly like the champion did in the past. Meaning freezes instead of evolving. Striking is that he came to associate feelings with addiction. 
(chapter 46) No wonder why later doc Dan had no problem to reject the athlete. And for him, the next morning became a cruel reality, even a nightmare. It wounded doc Dan’s heart and soul so much that he learned the following lesson: to not get deceived by impressions. Hence in Paris, Doc Dan tries to explain the change of the champion’s attitude with drunkenness. 
(chapter 44) One participant is altered. The other must carry the weight of meaning alone. The night does not end in shared reflection, but in silence and absence.
(chapter 44) Words blur, vanish, or are forgotten. Even gestures go unnoticed: a kiss, an embrace or a patting. Memory fractures. The morning after is defined not by continuity but by confusion. The body has moved forward, but the narrative has not. 
(chapter 84)
(chapter 84) Speech bubbles lose clarity. Confessions are obscured. The reader is denied access to meaning. Fireworks, like drugs, produce intensity without duration.
(chapter 39) 
(chapter 44) It was as if these nights could only exist under altered states — as if clarity on either side would have made them impossible. 
(chapter 86) This is why, when electricity returns in episode 86, it does not revive heat. It interrupts it. 
(chapter 86) That’s the reason why the athlete stops for a moment and asks doc Dan, if he needs a break. 
(chapter 86) This question is important because doc Dan admits his confusion and ignorance. He confesses to himself that he “knows nothing” not only about himself, but also about his fated lover. 
(chapter 86) They function as temporal markers. A spark exists only now. It has no duration. It cannot be stored, recalled, or anticipated. It appears — and vanishes. In this sense, electricity becomes the perfect visual language for the present moment itself.
(chapter 10), statements blurred by drugs 
(chapter 43), sentences remembered by only one side. 
(chapter 44) and even laugh…. if only he could remember that night…
(chapter 79), the “never mind”, 
(chapter 84) or it is a mistake, the easy erasure that once dissolved meaning after the fact. The kiss interrupts that mechanism. It produces a pause that cannot be talked over. It forces reflection. 
(chapter 85) represents the positive reflection of this night 
(chapter 58), when the physical therapist chose to give up on the athlete and stop listening to his heart. Here, I am not only referring to the numerical symmetry but also to the doctor’s shifting vision of Joo Jaekyung.
(chapter 85), Jaekyung appears with a towel around his neck. This simple object evokes water and sweat, but in Jinx, these elements are never neutral. They are tied to one of the champion’s earliest traumas: the humiliation of being called “dirty” 
(chapter 75) and “smelly” as a child. This is why Jaekyung learned to perfuse his body with cologne after every shower 
(chapter 40) It was, as if the fear of smelling “wrong,” of being perceived as contaminated, was still dictating his movements. Hence he could only claim doc Dan as one of his own, but not as his “physical therapist” or even “family”. And interesting is that doc Dan copied his attitude. In the hallway, he maintained a certain distance from the athlete. 
(chapter 40) the moment he dried off 
(chapter 85) and trust — and perhaps even the moment when Dan chooses, for the first time, to be honest with his own body and heart. 
(chapter 85) 
(chapter 61) [I will elaborate it further later]. And perhaps this is why the moment feels so disarming: because the downfall is not tragic but tender, not humiliating but intimate. Sweet, even.
(chapter 85) Dan is lost in his thoughts — anticipating the night ahead with the champion — and has barely touched his food. Park Namwook notices this. One might think, such a remark displays the manager’s concern for the main lead’s well-being. However, the manager adds that the other members of the team are all almost finished. With such a remark, it becomes clear that the manager is urging the protagonist to finish his plate. Although Park Namwook addresses Dan as if showing concern, the content of his remark betrays his true priority: not Dan’s well-being, but the team’s schedule. By pointing out that ‘the rest of us are almost finished,’ he urges Dan to keep pace, treating him as staff who had to follow the group rather than someone with personal needs. As you can sense, schedule is essential for the manager. However, because doc Dan couldn’t reveal the true reason behind his behavior, he gives an excuse for his lack of appetite. 
(chapter 53) The manager’s words bring Joo Jaekyung back to reality and its uncomfortable truth that Dan’s presence now is still bound to a contract — temporary, contingent, never fully his. In other words, with his remarks, Park Namwook is reopening old wounds which shows his total blindness and lack of finesse and of empathy. He treats the last match, as if nothing bad had happened. The incident with the switched spray is simply erased.
(chapter 53) leaving without thinking; now, after Dan vanished from his life entirely, that earlier departure feels like a sign he failed to read. Park’s question brushes against this bruise, and Jaekyung’s lips reflect the discomfort.
(chapter 85) The younger fighter suddenly bursts into panic, declaring how nervous he would be in Jaekyung’s place, how his heart would be pounding out of his chest. His outburst is sincere, naïve, and completely focused on the champion — he never once considers Dan’s feelings. Yet these words strike deeper than he intends. At the mention of a pounding heart, Jaekyung’s eyes lift upward in a brief, involuntary movement. It is the smallest gesture, but it exposes everything he wishes to hide. Because his heart is pounding — but not for the match. It is because of doc Dan! 
(chapter 85) the need for reassurance, the wish to rewrite the pattern of the past, the quiet hope that Dan will not leave him again — not tonight and not afterwards.
(chapter 85), as soon as the athlete stands up right after his recommendation and announces he is now returning to his room. 
(chapter 54) 
(chapter 38) and Korea 
(chapter 48) before a big fight: watch his opponent’s videos, study their habits, rehearse counters. If we only looked at the clock, we might assume he spent the evening thinking about Arnaud Gabriel.
(chapter 85) He opens the door and immediately grabs him inside 
(chapter 85) This is not the controlled, casual emperor of old; it is someone who has been holding back for hours and refuses to risk even a second in which Dan might change his mind. 
(chapter 65) and the comment of the champion in front of this movie: 
(chapter 29) Moreover, I consider this scene 
(chapter 85) as a new version of Choi Heesung’s advice: Doc Dan just needs to sit back and enjoy!! 
(chapter 31) Joo Jaekyung is now doing everything, as deep down he wants to become the perfect lover! And how had I described the night in the States? 
Back then, the hamster Dan had become the champion’s perfect lover, especially because he had kissed his face, hugged him and confessed to him. 
(chapter 38) One might reply that the athlete desired to maintain appearances and as such to hide his suffering and anxiety. In other words, he was hiding his emotions behind routine, Jinx-sex would always start at 11 pm. However, this idea is not entirely satisfying because once doc Dan was in his room, the fighter was no longer hiding his emotions and desires. 
(chapter 72), when the latter would return late from his “work” and the death of his father 
(chapter 73). 
(chapter 85) This explains why his worried gaze followed his fated partner. 
(chapter 85) In other words, the text had a different meaning. It was not an order, but rather a wish…and it had nothing to do with his match against Arnaud Gabriel. During that night, Joo Jaekyung is not seeing a surrogate fighter in front of him or a sex toy, but his real partner, his future boyfriend. This means, this night stands in opposition to the one in the penthouse: 
(chapter 85) This is why he touches Dan’s face instead of flipping him over.
(chapter 85) — something he has never done before. This does not come from instinct. It comes from intention. It comes from effort. It comes from learning. He is indeed showering doc Dan with love and tenderness, therefore it is not surprising that the “hamster” is moved sensually and emotionally. Exactly like during the Summer Night’s Dream, he is reaching nirvana, hence Jinx-philes are constantly seeing stars,. 
(chapter 85) 
(chapter 85) — or the emotional slip that comes with resurfacing feelings: the therapist losing distance, falling back into intimacy. All of these readings sound plausible at first glance. 
(chapter 85) Styled up, hardened with gel 
(chapter 85) — but not the way adults or professionals usually do. 
(chapter 71) So doc Dan could recognize the little boy in the athlete, the more he sees the protagonist with his hair down. Furthermore, I noticed that contrary to season 1, Doc Dan has now more memories of the “wolf” facing him. 
(chapter 85) In the past, he would more look at him from behind: 
(chapter 35) 
(chapter 35) Seeing his face reflects not only the increasing care for each other, but also the improving communication between them. 
(chapter 85) more mature, more “masculine” in the traditional sense. This explicates why the stylists had to dress him up. 
(chapter 82) Yet such an intervention did more than prepare him for the cameras — it tightened the restrictions around his own image, reducing the fighter’s rights over how he appears to the world. With the suit, he appeared older and more powerful. The French fighter leans into age, while the Korean champion leans into youth — a symbolic inversion that reinforces the central tension in the Paris arc: Gabriel performs adulthood; Jaekyung rediscovers the adolescence he never lived. 
(chapter 85) But just as Jaekyung begins to slip into these youthful, softer identities, MFC reasserts control.
(chapter 85) hair up, face polished, a look engineered for posters and rankings. He becomes once again the Emperor — the man who must appear older, sharper, more intimidating, more manufactured.
(chapter 79) This is the boy from the childhood photograph.
In the rain, with his hair heavy and unstyled, his gaze dark and sensual, Jaekyung appears nothing like the commanding emperor. He looks free — freed by weather, freed by desire, freed from roles. It was foreshadowing, not just fanservice. It announces the end of the « jinx » in reality. 
(chapter 85) He is describing himself. His sweetness is the taste of freedom — freedom from performance, freedom from control, freedom from MFC, freedom from fear. He is enjoying this moment. Dan tastes sweet because Jaekyung is finally tasting the life he never allowed himself to want.
(chapter 21) The image of winged rescue and divine protection hangs over the very piece of furniture that, throughout the series, has functioned as Dan’s private sanctuary. This is not incidental. In Jinx, the couch is tied to his deepest memories of care and abandonment, and Mingwa activates this symbolism each time Dan gravitates to it.
(chapter 21) Why does he consistently feel safer on the couch than in a bed? 
(chapter 29) Why, after the second swimming lesson, did he refuse to return to the bed 
(chapter 81), even though he was exhausted? Why does he place the teddy bear 
(chapter 10) Secondly, at no moment, we ever witness the grandmother carrying the little boy to bed. Either she is rocking him to sleep outside the house 
(chapter 44), 
(chapter 44) traces from parents. And now, you comprehend why the hamster could never truly rest in the bed. The couch is therefore not an adult preference; it is a trauma imprint. Resting there feels safe because beds—large, empty, abandoned spaces—became reminders of whoever no longer carried him. Hence it is no longer surprising that he woke up, when he sensed the vanishing of warmth. 
(chapter 84): the bear stands in for a lost comforting presence. It also represents the main lead, Joo Jaekyung. The latter is gradually reentering in the physical therapist’s heart and life. Therefore it is not surprising that there, he squeezes the hand of the toy. It is also why Doc Dan curls around it like a child who deep down hopes to be chosen, lifted, and held. And it is why, even as an adult, his body still whispers the same yearning: someone, please carry me to bed again.
chapter 40, chapter 65, chapter 68, chapter 79)
(chapter 85) and he was still able to arrive on time in the arena. 
(chapter 40) For me, it is a clue that the manager would always request to meet around 7.00 am, when the match was at noon. But what should do the athlete do during all this time? He can only get nervous and feel pressured. 
(chapter 81) I noticed that in different scenes from season 2, the athlete started waking up later and even after doc Dan. 
(chapter 66) But the manager’s rigid schedule threatens even that. An early morning summons drains the fighter’s cortisol reserves before the match has even begun, creating a long, empty corridor of waiting — a period where tension, anxiety, fatigue, and irritation ferment in the body. Instead of resting, centering, and preparing, the champion would spend hours fighting against the clock imposed on him.
(chapter 54) , he might even jump to the wrong conclusion: that Jaekyung drank again — this time behind his back. 
(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 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) 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 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 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 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 56) In other words, wearing black is more than just a change of personality or mourning. It becomes the color of mystery, the beginning of descent into truth. 
(chapter 79) on the night table. 
(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.
(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) 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) 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) 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 is now a tamed wolf following his master’s suggestions! 
(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), 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 13) 
(chapter 48) — had mirrored faces, two bodies, two lights. This time, there is only one. The duel has vanished. What remains looks less like a fight and more like a myth in the making. 
(chapter 81) chosen to face the Emperor. According to Oh Daehyun, this man is fighting for the title of the hottest male athlete in the world. 
(chapter 14) Why is there this abbreviation? Why does the image proclaim a return while simultaneously concealing the full title? What does it signify? 
seems to be corroborated: this event doesn’t announce the glorious comeback it pretends to be, but a carefully staged trap. However, there is more to it. The longer I examine the composition 
(chapter 30) The latter had to learn fighting in order to play his role in the drama Extreme Worlds 
(chapter 29). 
(chapter 8) His eagle is spreading his wings in front of his god, the sun, attempting to fly closer to the sun. According to me, Joo Jaekyung is the sun. This explains the loyalty of this purple belt fighter toward the protagonist! 
(chapter 47) But that’s one possibility among others, one thing is sure. Oh Daehyun will play an important part during their stay in France.
(chapter 46) People would bet on him and win… they needed him to lose and break his “lucky streak”. In other words, the organization betrayed the body they once sold. They had prepared the fall long before the injury, the surgery, or the suspension. But their plan failed. Despite every setback, the wolf remained beloved at home. People still admired him, not for the trophies, but for his kindness 
and strength 
(chapter 62) In other words, what the champion did in the seaside town had a huge impact in his life and world. He lingered in the hearts of those he touched. He was not a fallen idol, nor a forgotten champion, but a living memory — proof that integrity leaves deeper marks than victory ever could. To conclude, his fame no longer comes from spectacle only but also from empathy and presence — from the very qualities the schemers and media system fail to grasp.
(chapter 81) The new battlefield is the face. Under this light, Jinx-philes will grasp why the agents from the Entertainment agency were so zealous in defending the star’s reputation. If he were to lose his good looks, they would lose one of their most profitable clients. 
(chapter 52), whose envy of beauty turned into a creed. Imagine this. Now he holds the championship belt, yet no one admires him. His ruined face became the excuse for his bitterness,
(chapter 52) and his rival the embodiment of everything he lost. He had to flee to Thailand to claim glory and admiration 
(chapter 52) In the past, his insult 
(chapter 74) merged anger with heat; now that very “hotness” materializes in the media and poster as smoke, an image of resentment turned into atmosphere. 
(chapter 74): the visible trace of a man who dares to rebel. He once watched the fighter smoke a plain cigarette and sneered at him for it, precisely because he knew it was not a joint. In Junmin’s world, violation meant courage and power intoxication. He assumed that fearlessness linked to drugs would bring admiration and success. Jaekyung’s refusal to accept their drug wasn’t prudence; it was, to him, an insult — a quiet act of superiority. The wolf’s restraint exposed his indifference and own dependency, and that humiliation still burns.
(chapter 74) The main lead was seen “wearing a black suit with three white strips” showing that he was the chief mourner. 
(chapter 74) Once you recognize this 
(chapter 73), hiding behind his hyungs, the mobsters who granted him borrowed strength and false belonging. Joo Jaekyung, by contrast, was raised in the ring — the gym shaped him as both a professional and a person.
(chapter 49) If you have read my previous essay, you’ll remember that I connected the arc of chapters 80 to 89 to the theme of jealousy. Baek Junmin embodies that poison completely. His words — “ 
(chapter 81) It is a subtle but telling detail: the physical separation mirrors the emotional boundary now forming within the team. The healer’s hands have been withdrawn. So the emperor’s empathy is incomplete, hence he is only EMP. It extends only toward his chosen one — the doctor — and not yet to the others around him. True empathy, however, cannot be selective; it must reach beyond intimacy to encompass even those who do not stand at the center of affection.
(chapter 1) He was a beast of destruction, someone who made sure to crush his opponents without mercy 
(chapter 15) Unstoppable in his rage, he moved like a man possessed — bloodthirsty, unrelenting, fighting not for glory but for survival. Each strike was a declaration: I will not die.
(chapter 36) One could think, the other members are not wearing it, for they don’t want to be associated with the champion. He has been stigmatized as a thug or a child losing his temper, the consequences of Park Namwook’s badmouthing. However, observe that even the star is not wearing it. 
(chapter 36) What once symbolized sponsorship and solidarity has quietly disappeared. The explanation seems obvious at first: the loss of commercial partners following scandal and suspension. 
(chapter 54) Yet the deeper implication is far more unsettling. The jacket was more than a uniform; it was a contract, a visible bond between fighter and system. Its absence signals abandonment. The champion may still fight under the MFC banner, but the federation no longer claims him with pride. He is now a free agent trapped in an invisible cage — tolerated, not trusted. He questioned MFC and their competence (see chapter 67 and 69).
(chapter 36) no cheering spectators — nothing recalls the hero’s welcomes of earlier arcs.
(chapter 74) but with a different public.
(chapter 16), the moment Heo Manwook thought that the “hamster” was working as an escort due to the name “Team Black”. 
(chapter 16) So because of the jacket Team Black, doc Dan could be mistaken for a prostitute. Naturally, Jinx-lovers will remember the great fight between Heo Manwook and his minions, when the athlete saved his fated partner. Back then, no one discovered his great action.
(chapter 47) In the past, they participated in the underground matches of Gangwon Province, where Baek Junmin reigned as a local legend — a thug made myth through blood and rumor. 
(chapter 46) But now, the same hunger for spectacle has simply migrated upward. What once belonged to the alleys has climbed into the penthouses. The illegal thrill of the poor has become the curated decadence of the rich. And they were invited to witness the death of the “emperor”, someone who tried to escape from his origins. Thus I deduced that this is only a match that the high rollers (I suppose, mostly people from the Occident, though expect some from South Korea) know about.
(chapter 81), breathing without bracing, learning that flow is strength. The author placed the swimming lessons here so we’d see him practice calm under pressure before he performs it in the ring. But observe that when he is in the swimming pool, he is expressing more and more his emotions. 
(chapter 81) In other words, during the swimming lessons, he was encouraged to find the right balance between instincts and control, which Bruce Lee recommended. It is no coincidence that he referred to the philosophy of yin and yang! 
(chapter 36) The pool inverts it. Laps replace lunges; rhythm and love replace revenge and hatred. Anger loses its grip because water refuses to hold it. And now, you can grasp why the athlete was calm during the meeting: 
(chapter 81) His fear and anger were no longer controlling his heart and mind. “One of the best lessons you can learn in life is to remain calm.” The swimmer learns it; the fighter must now prove it. Thanks to doc Dan, the athlete was incited not only to accept himself, but also to get self-knowledge.
(chapter 62), and you are in a state of constant learning. 
(chapter 80) The seaside town and doc Dan taught him kindness, the pool teaches him composure and precision, the poster’s smoke teaches him restraint: you don’t swat at vapor; you breathe and move through it. “It is far better to be alone than to be in bad company”—so he steps out of the schemers’ frame. “When you accept yourself, the whole world accepts you”—so he stops fighting the audience and starts speaking to one person who matters, then to many. In my opinion, Joo Jaekyung will use this bout to express his feelings for Doc Dan (“to me, martial arts means expressing yourself“) and the birthday card 
(chapter 17) And once the cloud (doc Dan) meets the steam 
(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) 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) When Heesung offers flowers “to get closer,” Kim Dan’s face mirrors the same unease: affection presented as transaction, intimacy disguised as generosity. What the actor calls closeness, the doctor feels as imbalance — the same emotional distance that Shin Okja’s presents once produced. Her gifts, meant to bind, isolated him instead; they built a hierarchy where gratitude replaced equality. Each present widened the gap between giver and receiver. To be cared for was to be indebted.
(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) 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.
I established that Kim Dan’s number is 8. It is therefore no coincidence that the arc from chapter 80 to 89 should revolve around him—his body, his suffering, and ultimately his recovery. The number 8, often associated with balance, renewal, and continuity, here signals not only the doctor’s rebirth but also the gradual thawing of his frozen world. It marks the moment when the past can no longer remain buried, when the last remnants of family and unspoken pain begin to surface. The mystery behind this phone call will be soon revealed. 
(chapter 26) the sparring between Joo Jaekyung and Kim Dan unfolds under the sign of fun and apparent joy, yet its origin lies in jealousy. The champion, unconsciously triggered by the doctor’s closeness with Potato 
(chapter 25), turns play into a contest—a way to reclaim attention. 
(chapter 25) The gym, usually a place of hierarchy, momentarily becomes a stage where both can laugh, but beneath that laughter runs an undercurrent of rivalry (with Potato). On the other hand, for the first time, the Manhwa allows both protagonists to exist outside the economy of debt and hierarchy. The gym, normally a place of discipline and work, transforms into a playground of laughter. The champion teases the doctor 
(chapter 26), and the latter, clumsy but determined, strikes back with surprising boldness. The crowd cheers, not for the fighter but for the therapist—the underdog, the one who usually stands in the shadow. The entire scene feels like a short-lived holiday, a suspension of order and pain. When Kim Dan smiles at the end of the match, the gesture radiates genuine lightness: he has momentarily escaped the burden of fear and experienced himself as a free, living body. 
(chapter 26) He believes he has accomplished something meaningful and feels, perhaps for the first time, proud of himself. He was taught that he could fight back and overcome his fear. 
(chapter 26) He realizes that the hamster can beam at others, that such light has never been directed at him. In that instant, he no longer sees an employee but a companion whose gaze and embrace he covets, whose approval he unconsciously seeks.
(chapter 62) 
(chapter 62) Where chapter 26 radiated spontaneity, this one reveals calculation and fatigue. 
(chapter 62), where exposure to others leaves both men strangely isolated. The happiness of the crowd no longer unites; it separates. The champion’s outfit, ridiculous and domestic 
(chapter 62) which is actually his true nature. I will elaborate more further below. For the first time, the wolf looks at his companion and senses distance instead of warmth, as though the man he once touched so easily has withdrawn behind glass. His thought—“Has he always been this cold?”—marks the beginning of introspection, the moment when perception replaces instinct.
(chapter 80) To “walk on thin ice” is to approach him gently, without force—a lesson the champion must learn if he wishes to thaw what has been frozen by years of duty and self-denial.
(chapter 80) 
(chapter 80), not red. The atmosphere is fluid, reflective, submerged. Water—not flame—governs this new stage. What we witness is not combustion but fusion—ice meeting water, solid meeting liquid, two states of the same element touching at last. Ice does not just melt under fire; but also in the presence of water. It softens when it recognizes itself in another form. In that sense, Joo Jaekyung’s tenderness doesn’t heat Kim Dan—it mirrors him. The thaw begins not through passion, but through likeness, through quiet recognition. This signifies that Joo Jaekyung is on his way to discover their similarities: they both suffered from bullying and abandonment issues and they love each other.
(chapter 27) Thus I came to the following deduction. This is the emotional geometry of the arc 80–89: two smiles moving toward synchrony, two currents approaching convergence. Both need to experience that they make each other happy. Kim Dan on Thin Ice thus begins where the infinite loop of 8 converges—between warmth and coldness, joy and fatigue, play and labor. It is here, in this fragile equilibrium—where ice and water finally coexist—that both men begin, at last, to thaw. And the latter implies emancipation
(chapter 80), as it exposes the real metamorphosis from the “wolf”. The night Joo Jaekyung watches Kim Dan sleep is not erotic; it is revolutionary. For once, his desire gives way to perception and attentiveness. The fighter who has conquered bodies now studies one that is quietly losing its battle. The body before him is not the sculpted strength he knows, but a map of deprivation: protruding collarbones 
(chapter 80), visible neck tendons, the knobby finger joints and his stiff fingers resting on the blanket as if holding the body together. 
(chapter 80) The pale, bluish hue of the skin—half light, half illness—tells him what no words ever have.
(chapter 80), the faint opacity of the nails 
(chapter 80) In the faint parting of the mouth he sees not seduction, but exhaustion—a man so depleted that even rest demands effort. 
(chapter 80) he begins to treat rest not as weakness, but as reverence.
(chapter 13) The fighter who once mocked stillness as laziness now finds meaning in it.
(chapter 80), it signifies that he will have to dedicate his time to the physical therapist! Hence his routine and training could get affected, just like their weekends. 
(chapter 80) —the doctor 
(chapter 13), the family member 
(chapter 56), the one who stays close enough to touch if needed. 
(chapter 80) Without realizing it,the athlete has inherited that role. His nearness is no longer intrusive but protective. He has crossed the invisible threshold that separates obligation from affection. The fighter who once stood as an outsider in the doctor’s life now finds himself within its most intimate circle.
(chapter 80) Compare his facial expression to the hamster’s before their first day off together. 
(chapter 27) That way, Mingwa can outline the champion’s confidence and that the one who needed the rest is the physical therapist and not the champion.
(chapter 69) Every flicker of light falls through The Emperor’s gaze and lands on Kim Dan’s form, transforming weariness into something sacred. 
(chapter 68) in the bathtub 
(chapter 68) —“I’ll keep him right here in the palm of my hand”—echo now with quiet irony. To hold someone in one’s hand is, paradoxically, to immobilize them; it grants possession but denies agency. The same gesture that promises safety also enacts paralysis. His possessiveness, once mistaken for protection, now appears as helplessness.
(chapter 79), 
(chapter 80) shrinking back when confronted. The body remembers the threat long after the mind tries to forget. 
(chapter 79) He lives suspended between two survival reflexes: freezing or fleeing. Since the contract binds him to stay, he cannot physically run away; therefore, his body freezes instead. It is his way of obeying while still protecting himself. Exhaustion becomes his armor. And now, you comprehend why the celebrity could detect the coldness in the “hamster” in front of the hospice. 
(chapter 79) — now turned outward and wounded the one he wished to protect. 
(chapter 79) Thus he clinched onto routine to maintain a normal relationship. But once the champion voiced his dissatisfaction (masking his jealousy), the light in the doctor’s gaze vanished. 
(chapter 79)
(chapter 79) His unconscious was telling him to flee, as he feared the athlete. To conclude, he was always one step away from collapse. In symbolic terms, he had become ice itself — air and water solidified, transparent yet untouchable. Keep in mind that according to me, the clouds embody the physical therapist. 
That’s why I can’t help myself thinking that the physical therapist is actually embodied by the snow. Ice and snow preserve, but they also isolate.
(chapter 63), desperate to restore closeness, mistook passion and pleasure 
(chapter 63) for repair. Believing that physical heat could melt emotional frost 
(chapter 64) The physical act, rather than fusing them, exposed the truth he had refused to see — that his partner was already freezing from within. On the other hand, during this night, the athlete used “self-control” for the first time, his roughness in bed started vanishing. 
(chapter 64) The wolf’s attempt to “burn the bridge” between them became the very thing that broke it. His flame met ice 
(chapter 64), and the result was not warmth but steam — a brief illusion of intimacy that vanished as soon as Kim Dan pulled away. His rejection wasn’t cruelty but a cry of despair, disillusion and exhaustion
(chapter 64): a body too cold to burn, a heart too tired to love and fight.
(chapter 80), but about melting together, letting warmth and cold coexist without annihilating each other. To melt together does not mean to dissolve into sameness, but to trust that proximity will not destroy one’s shape. True intimacy begins when both accept that they can share warmth without losing form — when fire believes it can touch ice without turning it to steam, and ice trusts it can meet fire without vanishing. 
(chapter 61) Touch it bare-handed, and you feel both heat and pain. The same holds true for Kim Dan’s presence: those who reach for him too quickly end up wounding both him and themselves. The sportsman’s early attempts at care followed that pattern — too forceful, too immediate, leaving frostbite where he intended warmth. 
(chapter 64) 
(chapter 80) They never played it — and that is no accident. The title encapsulates the temptation Jaekyung must resist: to treat intimacy as a contest, to imagine that trust can be won through tactics or timing. But hearts do not yield to strategies. The only way to melt the ice is not by “breaking” it, but by warming it, patiently, sincerely.
(chapter 66) And this is something the physical therapist could notice, if he enters the room again and pays more attention to his surroundings. This is not about ownership but about inclusion: an unspoken invitation to share a part of himself. 
(chapter 30). Even in that comic panel, the imbalance between physical familiarity and emotional distance was evident. Kim Dan’s embarrassment stood for boundaries not yet earned, and Jaekyung’s casual tone for a love not yet understood.
(chapter 70) The athlete’s posture 
(chapter 62) the weight of that sentence stretches far beyond the bedroom. It carries the residue of every moral, familial, and physical contract that has reduced him to flesh. What the champion hears as accusation is, at its core, a confession of alienation — the echo of a man who has never learned to live inside himself. It’s not only a reproach but a confession. He hates his body because it has become the medium through which he is used, never loved.
(chapter 27)
(chapter 61), the other where no one looks. Yet, the attitude of people is the same: no one pays attention to them. Both inhabit bodies that have forgotten the difference between endurance and pain. Both mistake self-destruction for strength. 
(chapter 18) when Kim Dan, bruised, had seized his hand and expressed his concerns. Back then, the gesture had confused the wolf. His hands were made to strike, to defend, to dominate — not to be pitied or protected. He had pulled away instinctively, unsettled by the tenderness and the huge sense of responsibility behind the question. He felt criticized, as if his power was questioned. 
(chapter 80) What began as misunderstanding in episode 1, 
(chapter 1) and was maintained through the awkward hospital encounter in episode 18, now evolves into dialogue and genuine comprehension. In the beginning, Kim Dan’s touch had been accidental and defensive—a misreading of bodily proximity. When he grabbed the fighter in episode 1, he believed he had crossed a forbidden line, that his action would be seen as insolence or violation. The fear and shame that followed transformed touch into a territory of silence and self-censorship.
(chapter 56), he had interpreted that touch not as mistake or violation, but as a spark of invitation—proof that the “hamster” might want him after all. His own longing twisted the scene into a fantasy of desire, into a private “game” he wanted to continue in the bedroom. One misunderstanding gave birth to another. By episode 18, the same reflex persisted: he reached out again, asking if Jaekyung was hurt, his hand trembling with the same mixture of care and fear. Once more, touch was misread—offered as comfort, received as intrusion. Thus their relationship began under crossed signals: one moved out of survival, the other out of projection or the reverse. It is no coincidence that their relationship in season 1 was doomed to fail. They never communicated properly, as their perception was influenced by their past and surroundings. 
(chapter 80), Kim Dan panics, convinced that release equals abandonment. 
(chapter 80) He freezes once again. Yet the water holds him; he reaches onto the champion again — and this time, the embrace stays. What makes this moment remarkable is that the pool is shallow. 
(chapter 80) Kim Dan could easily stand on his own, but fear has eclipsed reason. His instinct is not to trust his feet, not to fight the water, but to cling to the man before him. 
(chapter 16) —that deceptively simple French word—finds its power. It means “ice,” but also “mirror” and “window.” When the champion looks through Kim Dan’s glace 
(chapter 77), unlike the touch of ice. It softens, sweetens, dissolves slowly on the tongue. Likewise, the heat between them no longer needs to scorch; it can melt. And yet, the kiss — once their most volatile exchange — has fallen silent. 
(chapter 64) Kim Dan had to bite his own lips to make Jaekyung stop, and neither has ever truly spoken of it. Yet, during the night, the athlete could see the remains of that cold war. 
(chapter 16), just as the champion has never confessed that it was his first kiss. Moreover, during their first day off together, Joo Jaekyung had also initiated a kiss and back then, the doctor never wondered why. 
(chapter 13) and why doc Dan made such a request. 
(chapter 28) and urge Kim Dan to ask, at last, the question that remained frozen between them. In doing so, he would not only reopen the conversation but also reclaim the meaning of touch itself: not as misunderstanding or survival, but as curiosity and love.
(chapter 80) And it comes with a small but crucial instruction. In that single phrase, the MMA fighter encourages Kim Dan to discover his own power and strength without overexercising. His feet, which were once symbolically trapped in the nightly ice, now press against the water with intent during the day. For the first time, his body obeys him, not fear. His movements are neither frantic nor helpless but self-regulated, gentle and alive. That’s why the main lead becomes happy for a moment. 
(chapter 21) comes from the early loss of his mother. 
(chapter 79), if he knew that the doctor has already loved him for a long time.
Kim Dan on Thin Ice was never just about danger or fragility — it was about transformation. The ice that once confined him to stillness has melted into water, and the fear that once froze his body has become motion. Where there was trembling, there is now flow; where there was isolation, there is connection. 
(chapter 79) However, let me ask you this. What kind of circle ends in episode 79? Moreover, how is this ending different from the past? Interesting is that episode 79 of Jinx doesn’t end with conflict, but with an awakening. For the first time, Joo Jaekyung does not rise to fight, command, or perform — he wakes up to a realization: “This can’t go on.” In the Korean version, his words carry an unusual clarity. It is not fate that changes, but choice. The champion, who once lived as if enslaved by habit and haunted by ghosts, now chooses transformation. The circle that has defined his life — power, silence, guilt, and repression — finally begins to close.
(chapter 79) Until now, Jaekyung has moved through life as if carrying a curse — the belief that he is unworthy of care and love. 
(chapter 78) Every match, every order, every touch was an act of penance. Yet, in this episode, that belief dissolves. What vanishes in chapter 79 is not his strength, but the compulsion to suffer for it. Through the unconscious confession from Doc Dan, the wolf discovers that despite his wrongdoings, he is not hated by the “hamster”. 
(chapter 39) from the magical night in the States. Both moments unfold in half-darkness, both break through inhibition, and both blur the line between consciousness and surrender. The verbal difference hides a deeper sameness: 
(chapter 79) is not remorse alone — it is an act of love, an instinctive reaching-out toward the other’s pain.
(chapter 9), 29’s confession on the couch 
(chapter 29), 69’s first expression of feelings in the dark 
(chapter 69). In chapter 79, the circle closes once more. The night’s palette tells the story — deep blue softens into violet 
(chapter 64) 
(chapter 79), the color born from the fusion of blue (Dan’s sorrow) and red (Jaekyung’s intensity). For the first time, in the penthouse the color of their relationship is not pain but balance. And now, you comprehend why in the hallway, the purple had almost vanished: 
(chapter 66) 
(chapter 79) To restore it, he will have to speak, to act, and ultimately, to smile again.
(chapter 79) and fall 
(chapter 54) still equates vulnerability with humiliation. 
(chapter 79) The vision forces him to confront the origin of his shame. He realizes, instinctively, that the real Kim Dan would never smile at his pain — and through that recognition, he begins to separate present from past. He has already experienced a silent, but warm gaze 
(chapter 78) He has long recognized his wrongdoings — the pressure, the harshness, the selfishness 
(chapter 76) — but guilt without self-forgiveness remains sterile. What is the point of apologizing to someone when you cannot forgive yourself? His silence, then, is not arrogance but self-condemnation. Beneath his strength lies a man who believes that no apology can redeem him, because no one ever offered him one first. His father’s mockery, his coach’s reproaches 
(chapter 73) Every punch was an act of self-erasure, every victory a brief anesthesia against the echo of his own self-loathing and regrets. He mistook exhaustion for atonement. But when Kim Dan whispers 
(chapter 79) His vision of Kim Dan’s false grin is not a taunt from the other 
(chapter 79)— the breakfast scene 
(chapter 79) , the casual 
(chapter 78) That word revealed his blindness — the refusal to acknowledge pain that does not announce itself through wounds. The new incident at the railing shatters that illusion. It was never an accident, but the expression of mental illness
(chapter 77) 
(chapter 80) Each time, the physical therapist shows concerns for the athlete’s well-being. He perceives this change of behavior as the expression of unwell-being.
(chapter 69), and the balcony 
(chapter 37) Behind the champion, the Golden Gate Bridge stands as a silent witness — a place where many have ended their lives by leaping into the void between air and water. The bridge fuses both symbols: it is where drowning and falling meet. Moreover, the bridge embodies the connection of two worlds. This backdrop, unnoticed by the protagonists themselves, prefigures the later arcs. Joo Jaekyung is the one standing between the bridge and the physical therapist. It was, as if the author was already announcing the huge depression doc Dan would face in the future. At the same time, I came to wonder if the unconscious suicidal attempts from Doc Dan were actually revealing the biggest secret in his life: the suicide of his parents and their death could be linked to a bridge. Striking is that while the members of Team Black were partying
(chapter 73) before he discovered Joo Jaewoong’s corpse. The bridge thus becomes a metaphor for invisible grief: joy and pain occurring simultaneously, one masking the other. And keep in mind that according to my theory, the picture of Dan with his grandmother is hiding a tragedy. This would explain why doc Dan is so obsessed with this picture: 
(chapter 47) The smiles here are hiding the past reality. 
(chapter 79) — so unlike his real, exhausted self — is a vision of peace, of love unburdened by fear, while this grin exposes the truth. The dream, the realm of clouds, becomes a stage where the wolf shows and learns tenderness. The dream’s fear and indirect self-reproach 
(chapter 41) In other words, the dream is giving him clues as well how to behave: not only greeting, but also talking. What caught my attention is that during their two last breakfasts together 
(chapter 68), they didn’t talk at all 
(chapter 79) which contrasts to the star’s vision. 
(chapter 79) He does not kneel; he sits, his body settling softly against the floor as he catches Dan in his arms. The man once associated with dominance becomes a cushion, a pillow, a living anchor. His strength, once used to impose weight, now exists to absorb it. The fall is not toward repentance through pain, but toward tenderness through stillness.
(chapter 11) now becomes the one who receives the collapse. 
(chapter 66) 
(chapter 66) trembles out against Jaekyung’s chest; his 
(chapter 57), he could only confide while being physically comforted. The grandmother’s embrace in chapter 57 becomes the prototype of this pattern — the last instance of safety tied to voice. Yet, crucially, that embrace was conditional and silencing. She soothed him but redirected his pain: 
(chapter 80) When Jaekyung takes his hands in the swimming pool, the gesture revives this primal language of reassurance. For the first time, the touch is neither coercive nor desperate; it’s sustaining. The handhold reverses the earlier dynamic — instead of silencing him, it gives him permission to speak. Furthermore, the champion is pointing out that he can rely on two things, the champion’s hands and the kickboard belt. This stands in opposition to the fake promise of Shin Okja. 
(chapter 57) In other words, he is inciting the doctor to trust himself more and become independent. 
(chapter 28) 
(chapter 69) The wolf, who once relied on dominance and silence, is now allowing his fated partner to hug him. 
(chapter 59) His hand resting on Boksoon’s fur repeats the same motion — the pat once given to him, now returned to another being in pain. What he offers the animal is precisely what he has always longed for: warmth without judgment, touch without condition. 
(chapter 68); in the morning, Jaekyung acted as though nothing had happened. Then on the dock, Joo Jaekyung expressed his relief 
(chapter 65) 
(chapter 57). Everything evolved around his lack of sleep and his dependency on her. 
(chapter 65) However, in episode 79, for the first time, the champion notices it.
(chapter 79) It is important because very early on, the doctor Cheolmin had already detected his malnutrition: 
(chapter 13) In other words, the physical therapist’s depression and eating disorder were already existent before meeting the “wolf”. And what did the mysterious friend tell to the “wolf”? He shouldn’t wait out of fear that he might regret it later! 
(chapter 13) As you can see, “sorry” is the link between the two doctors and the celebrity. 
His metamorphosis will be complete with the birth of the kind and sweet Joo Jaekyung! 
(chapter 21) Imagine that I had written this part before the release of episode 80! 
(chapter 29) 
(chapter 79) Because the champion had come to the conclusion that his own bedchamber was linked to sex 
(chapter 78) And though he had another “accident”, the former is never bringing it up to doc Dan. There’s no blame or accusation. The athlete is keeping these accidents as secrets. However, pay attention that he is making sure that doc Dan is resting. 
(chapter 27) Striking is that the champion always chose the left side of the bed 
(chapter 79) He had the impression that he wouldn’t meet his “expectations”. Observe the parallels between the champion’s dream 
(chapter 57) We have the doctor’s fake smile which is strongly linked to rejection 
(chapter 57) and expectations. And what is the other common denominator? His self-loathing and immense guilt. He has the feeling that he is not lovable. In my opinion, doc Dan is suffering because no one is listening to him at all. So far, they all projected their own thoughts onto him. The reality is that doc Dan already had a hard time before moving to the seaside town, 
(chapter 11) yet she failed to notice it or refused to face his struggles, as they were related to their poverty. 
(chapter 5), he lost his voice and became a ghost. It is no coincidence that in this scene, doc Dan was silent despite the caress. He was avoiding any topic that could trouble his grandmother. He accepted to remain a little boy in her eyes. But thanks to the wolf, doc Dan is learning to become strong and independent so that he can decide about his life. The swimming lesson is pushing him to overcome his abandonment issues. 
(chapter 79). Yet as the doctor grows thinner and more exhausted, the wolf begins to understand what “starvation” truly means. 
(chapter 79) 
(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 1) The few rituals that do occur — a premature birthday cake, a noisy hug, puppies chasing after a car — 
(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 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 43) A birthday, especially in Korea, is typically a family-centered celebration, held at home or among close friends. Yet Jaekyung’s “party” takes place in a restaurant, under Yosep’s casual announcement that they would be having a “dinner party.” 
(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 1) His stay had been so brief as well. Besides, his absence was engineered to be total, as though he had never existed. The very ritual that should have affirmed his contributions instead became a ritual of erasure.
(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 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 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 77) One tree, one voice, one yard — and yet the chapter closes not with human speech, 
(chapter 77) but with this fragile chorus of sound: chirp, chirp, chirp, whoosh. The choice feels deliberate, unsettling. Why does Mingwa give the final word to nature? Why let the cicada and the tree, not the champion or the doctor, occupy the last panel? Why offer us a rhythm so fleeting, so fragile, instead of the solidity of spoken language? 
(chapter 77)
(chapter 77) defines the scene as much as sound does. Between the two men, honest words fail. One proposes deals, bargains, contracts 
(chapter 77) The cicada sings not out of calculation, but because it must. The summer is nearing its end. The branches of the tree move not with intention, but with rhythm due to the wind. 
(chapter 77) Are we witnessing growth, or a repetition with a new mask? Rhythm, or song?
(chapter 77). Yet the cicada’s song interrupts their exchange
(chapter 77), cutting through human words to remind us that time is not theirs to master. If nature is the true composer of this tale, then what are they but its creatures — a cicada on the trunk, a tree standing silently next to the characters?
(chapter 77) Observe that after each thought 
(chapter 77). He is the cicada, because he feels powerless in front of doc Dan. Or we could say, he is the cicada due to his self-loathing. Hence he feels so small. On the other hand, observe that he doesn’t expose his vulnerability to doc Dan. He appears strong, independent and determined in front of the physical therapist. 
(chapter 77)
(chapter 1) have always been temporary, rotated and replaced like disposable tools. 
(chapter 77) It is no wonder that his voice and the cicada’s noise blur into one rhythm — restless, repetitive, transient. 
(chapter 75), and now at twenty-six 
(chapter 75), like the cicada in its final molt, he sings louder than ever, defiant against the silence that waits for him. 
(chapter 69) Under the tree, the “fighter” is acting, as if he was strong and healthy again! 
(chapter 77) He has already accepted the fight in the fall 
(chapter 57), sacrificing joy for survival, laboring without song. But Mingwa overturns the moral. The grandmother embodies the ant’s labor 
(chapter 77), yet he diverges from Shin Okja, because he is aware of the importance of rest. Moreover, we see him working next to the two “kids”. On the other hand, note that doc Dan is working once again during his free time. 
(chapter 77) Shin Okja’s hoarding brought no music, no life which contrasts a little to the nameless farmer: 
(chapter 75) (bench-talk during the night under a street lamp 
“let’s make history” pitches), always angling the wolf toward the next blaze. Under that light, every human bond is recoded as use: therapists rotate, friends become assets, even pain becomes a publicity arc. The “spotlight” warms 
(chapter 41) 
(chapter 75) This shows that the athlete has not found the right answer yet. He only focused on this aspect: doc Dan 
(chapter 76) But the director had told him this: 
(chapter 77) At no moment, he is mentioning Hwang Byungchul or the landlord. He goes further—he defines himself as a shackle, an anchor weighing Dan down. The language is borrowed directly from Dan’s own vocabulary: 
(chapter 77). In a grim symmetry, both men come to see themselves as burdens, unworthy of being chosen, each convinced he is dragging the other down. Under this new perspective, my avid readers can understand why I perceived no deep change in the wolf, he is still defining himself as a fighter and champion, nothing more. 
(chapter 77) Each match will only bring him closer to separation. Whether he wins or loses, the outcome is the same: Dan will leave. 
– chapter 59- (the puppy’s burial seared death into his memory), he still cannot taste life. The sweetness of the moment melts as passively as he endures it. Yet it is also Jaekyung’s tragedy, because by calling himself a “shackle” (77), he steps into Dan’s shoes: burdened, unworthy, longing — and unheard. What was once Dan’s silent plea for companionship is now Jaekyung’s, but this time it is Dan who cannot perceive the truth, too focused on himself and his self-loathing.
(chapter 71) but voiceless. His attraction to Shin Okja’s wedding cabinet makes sense here. 
(chapter 19) The cabinet, crafted from dead wood and mother-of-pearl, is civilization’s tree: beautiful, heavy, but lifeless. It embodies control and permanence, much like the grandmother’s treatment of him — precious in appearance, mute in agency. When Dan strokes it longingly in chapter 19
(chapter 19), he projects himself onto it and his grandmother, identifying with its polished silence. By chapter 53, however, the tone shifts. 
(chapter 53) The cabinet becomes a burden, an inheritance of death and stasis that he must abandon, just as he begins to sense the need to step beyond his grandmother’s shadow.
(chapter 41) But life requires care: water, soil, and balance between sun 
(chapter 70). Thus I see Dan’s decline, his exhaustion, his silence at the bench in chapter 77, as a reflection of this reality: he is not being tended like the tree in the courtyard which contrasts to the way the chili peppers are treated. 
(chapter 41) That was the moment he realized he had caught feelings for Jaekyung. The tree embodies life, hence there is this expression: “The tree of life”. Under this new perspective, it becomes comprehensible why the main lead came to associate rest and companionship to a walk through the woods. 
(chapter 65) — through woods, past the grave of the nameless puppy — reveal his repressed longing: to mourn, to belong, to root himself in a place where companionship is natural, not demanded. He is indeed longing for recognition and care. 
(chapter 57), treating him as a cabinet to be left behind or a baggage to be passed on. 
(chapter 76) What he expressed in front of the champion was actually reflecting his own desires. But so far, no one is willing to stay by his side and take care of him, when he is sick. Exactly like the athlete, the main lead was not allowed to become “sick” in the end, as he had to support his grandmother.
(chapter 76) accompanied the ghostly illusion of Dan, a presence felt but no longer seen. As you can see, the sound exposes the doctor’s true life: he is a ghost, exactly like the tree in the corner of the yard. This means that we should expect doc Dan’s response to the champion’s offer in the next episode. However, this time, the physical therapist will make his own choice, not influenced by his grandmother, born from his true desire.
(chapter 77). One might think, he selected it, because he likes it and as such has already tasted it. However, I can refute this perception. 
(chapter 16) When doc Dan was looking for a new place, he was eating a red bean bread in front of a freezer at a convenience story. The little boy in the background was looking for a popsicle himself. This shows not only the malnutrition of doc Dan’s from the past, but also his choices were influenced by his grandmother and her taste. In episode 11, the grandmother offered him red bean bread for his birthday 
(chapter 77) is not referring to the popsicle, but to the good news from the celebrity. This disconnection exposes the doctor’s lack of appetite and listlessness. He is not living, he is withering. Hence the popsicle melts untouched, a confession without words: 
(chapter 77) or “sleepwalking” 
(chapter 77) and not depression! 
(chapter 77) sharp, hot, forged by survival. Chili peppers, introduced to Korea centuries ago, became a cornerstone of its cuisine — not only for flavor but as a sign of vitality and strength. They are hung in bundles outside homes to ward off bad luck, their fiery color a talisman of life-force. Doc Dan brings life into the champion’s life 
(chapter 77) He refuses the penthouse not because he dislikes it, but because he has already grown attached to it, to its inhabitant, and to the bond he fears to name. To admit this attachment would be to risk exposure — to risk being seen and rejected once again.
(chapter 77) Melon is not survival food, not inherited obligation. It is pure refreshment, fruit turned into summer sweetness. For once, he accepts it without protest, without remark, even tastes it. 
(chapter 43), presented on his birthday cake, but a quieter gesture of allowing sweetness into his body. Contrary to the past, he is now taking his time to eat it. 
(chapter 77)
(chapter 77) circling, playful, embodiments of innocence, pranks, and uncalculated joy. And yet, the champion does not see them. His gaze is elsewhere, fixed on Kim Dan and as such on promises, contracts and shackles, on the logic of debts and repayment. 
: a fighter guarding his jinx, a therapist financing his grandmother’s care. 
(chapter 48) It was no real bargain, but a devil’s deal: short-term relief in exchange for entrapment in illegality. 
(chapter 48) Dan, swayed by Shin Okja’s illness 
(chapter 48), hid the meeting from Jaekyung. The secrecy itself poisoned the bond, culminating in the locker-room explosion. There Jaekyung hurled his cruelest accusation 
(chapter 77) Worse still, he would relive the sting of mistrust 
(chapter 57), while she spent time with the champion on the beach. Xshe simply ignored his desire: 
(chapter 6) The reality is that this new offer doesn’t stand for equity and respect, rather servitude and submission. Something the doctor has already sensed: 
(chapter 77) He was already shocked how far the athlete was willing to go. Besides, he keeps wondering why the athlete would act this way: 
(chapter 77) In his mind, hatred is the imagined opposite of love — the binary hammered into him by his father. 
(chapter 75) To conclude, he is still acting, as if he could control time and as such life.
(chapter 59) For him, sweetness is fragile — a red bean bun, a fleeting popsicle — always on the verge of melting away. This is why silence overwhelms him on the bench: Jaekyung offers a contract, and as such the cicada calls, But Doc Dan’s own voice fails. Hence the wind answers 
(chapter 76) He misses that for Dan, they are a source of comfort, tiny sparks of smile 
(chapter 57) in a life otherwise muted by burden. The tragedy is that Jaekyung himself is the only one who could give Dan that genuine laughter — the kind we glimpsed once, briefly, in chapter 44 
(chapter 77) Yet, she is no longer his source of “comfort”. 
(chapter 22) But the grandmother doesn’t embody jokes and games, only obligations and duties. So helping the grandmother doesn’t signify assisting his fated partner. Without pranks, without jokes, without the unpredictable gift of play, their bond risks becoming another duty, another sterile shackle.
(chapter 22) — carefully measured meals from his nutritionist, even the doctor’s recent convalescent porridge of rice and chicken. 
(chapter 77) The male lead didn’t add abalone for example. But what if the athlete tasted something different? A hot, spiced dish, the kind that makes you laugh and cry at the same time? This is no abstract thought — Mingwa has already staged it in parallels. 
(chapter 37) In the States and in Seoul… After Heesung slept with Potato, he cooked him ramen studded with chili peppers. 
The gesture was not just breakfast but an intimate code, echoing the well-known phrase, “Do you want to eat ramen?” 
(chapter 35) — an invitation to closeness. Jaekyung might know the phrase, with his many partners before Dan, 
(special episode 1) but he has never truly eaten the ramen. Dan, ironically the virgin, has never received the invitation at all. The one ignorant of the metaphor has lived it 
(chapter 74) 
(chapter 76) For the first time, he uses the expression you’re right in front of his fated partner. He seems to concede with this idiom. Yet this apparent submission hides a deeper reversal. By admitting Jaekyung never asked for his help, he redirects the exchange toward his own truth: the loneliness of having no one to care for you. 
(chapter 9) 
(chapter 76) The kitchen scene closes one cycle and announces another. 
(Chapter 76) In this view, his fixation would be the product of ambition, pride, or ego: the expected cost of survival in a cage where only victory pays. 
(chapter 76), because the adults in his life cut them off before they could exist. Winning became his only mode of survival because every formative argument in his youth ended in defeat, and not the kind decided by a referee. With his father, mother, coach, and manager, words never led to recognition — only to insult, silence, utility, or obedience. He learned early that dialogue could not protect him; only victory could. His victories were not chosen freely, but forced into being by guardians who made him feel like a burden, until relationships themselves became burdens.
“(chapter 73). It was not just defiance; it was a vow that victory would silence abuse once and for all. When he returned with the trophy, he shouted triumphantly, 
(chapter 73) ready at last to claim, “I was right.” Yet reality betrayed him. His father’s death denied him the only acknowledgment he had sought. 
(chapter 74) At the funeral he remained dry-eyed, his face locked in shame (ch. 74). No one saw his guilt, but it consumed him: the one man he needed to hear “I was right” from could no longer answer. At the same time, his smile and laugh were also linked to misery. For Jaekyung, laughter was never the sound of joy, but the echo of mockery and rejection due to the father. Just as tears became tied to betrayal and abandonment through his mother, so too did his father twist laughter into a weapon 
(chapter 74) But when the calls went unanswered, her silence became the sharpest weapon of all. Her eventual reply 
(chapter 76) appears: the sight of tears recalls the moment he unconsciously realized that even his mother’s “you’re right” was a lie. At the same time, those tears function as a mirror. The champion projects onto Dan the very weakness he has always forbidden himself to show. 
(chapter 76), the boy he once was who longed to weep but had to swallow it down. At the same time, Jaekyung himself occupies the place of the “adult” — 
(chapter 74)
(chapter 76) His trembling hand upon waking 
(chapter 76) shows the yearning to be held, comforted, reassured — something he never received from either parent. He is not entirely responsible for the physical therapist’s suffering. And here lies the difference: Dan’s tears are not manipulative or hypocritical , like the ones Jaekyung suspects from his mother, but unfiltered honesty. He expressed his emotions, not just through tears, but also through body language! 
(chapter 74), whose quiet devotion and silence kept the gym alive, nor Jaekyung’s, whose absence he accepted without challenge. 
(chapter 74) Unlike Jaewoon’s domination or the mother’s evasive silence, Hwang cloaked his authority in the language of advice — yet beneath it lay a black-and-white dualism: winners and losers, villains and victims. Thus Joo Jaewoon was blamed for becoming a thug 
(chapter 74), while the wolf’s mother was a victim. He viewed her as a selfless and caring mother: 
(chapter 74)And observe how he provoked the main lead. 
(chapter 74) When Hwang sneers, “What, am I wrong? Come on, answer me!” he is not inviting dialogue — he is staging a trap. The question is rhetorical, a demand for submission. Let’s not forget that he had witnessed the phone call in front of the funeral hall, but back then he had done nothing. And when the boy hesitates 
(chapter 74), unable to answer, Hwang strikes him in the chest. 
(chapter 74)and justifies his action behind social norms. 
(chapter 74) In that instant, he takes the role of judge, referee, and executioner, collapsing “argument” into violence. The very words “Am I wrong?” contain the irony: the coach is less interested in truth than in reasserting his own authority. Silence is treated as guilt, hesitation as defeat.
(chapter 74), he effectively admitted “you’re right” to the coach. Yet this wasn’t simply genuine agreement — it was submission, respect mixed with survival. The director misread it as validation of his worldview. This only reinforced his certainty, encouraging him never to reconsider his role. 
(chapter 74) When the protagonist finally left, the director could declare with satisfaction: 
t(chapter 74). 
(chapter 70) Once again, Jaekyung is reduced to “that bastard” — a label, not a person — while Dan is framed as the pitiable victim. The old coot remains the righteous observer, untouched by guilt, protected by a rhetoric that always shifts responsibility elsewhere.
(chapter 71) 
(chapter 71) Only during the champion’s visit, did his words alter.On the rooftop of the hospice, he finally tells Jaekyung: 
(chapter 76) It is not too late. The question “Am I too late?” is the consequence of Hwang byungchul’s words and it gradually indicates the switch in the champion’s mentality. It is no longer about being right or wrong. However, the nightmare reveals another aspect: the world is not black and white, but grey. 
(chapter 76) Hence he remained silent and avoided his gaze. But like the director showed it, it is never too late: 
(chapter 76)
(chapter 31) in good 
(chapter 45) or in bad times. It goes so far, he does not take his silences seriously, and does not register his pain. This explicates why the manager saw in the champion’s silence at the restaurant as an agreement for a new fight! 
(chapter 69) His role is not to guide or protect, but to extract: money, victories, publicity. 
(chapter 75) In my opinion, he is fighting against oblivion through the star. This hidden disability explains why the coach can never truly connect with the champion. He listens instead to other voices – the CEO of MFC 
(chapter 46), the media 
(chapter 41), the spectators or “authorities”
(chapter 52) His question is not mere anger. It is a confession of position — an inadvertent acknowledgment that he knows he is the true backbone of the gym. He is the one responsible, the one carrying the burden that Namwook refuses to admit. These words crack the illusion: the fighter is not subordinate, but owner. The gym lives because of him.
(chapter 52) He acted as a child, faked “tears” in order to use empathy to his advantage. 
(chapter 71), hence he tried to help in his own way. On the other hand, Park Namwook shows clearly no sign to be interested in the private life of his boss. He is preferring ignorance over “knowledge and connection”. 
(chapter 66) Despite the incident, the manager hasn’t changed yet. He clinched onto the past, thinking that everything will be like before, as soon as the athlete enters the ring. He images a return to normality with the next match. 
(chapter 66) For years, he had accepted his manager’s judgments out of habit, mistaking silence for consent. But here, for the first time, the repetition feels deliberate — not resignation, but reflection (“though”). The phrase becomes a question more than an agreement: is he truly right? He is admitting this out of habit. 
(chapter 48) This scene was observed by Kwak Junbeom, so the latter could have reported it to the coach. If it truly happened, this would expose the coach’s deafness and cowardice. He chose passivity instead of confronting the doctor or the champion. That way, he avoided responsibility. And this brings me to my final conclusion concerning the deaf manager. His main way to contact the celebrity is the cellphone: 
(chapter 66) It is both his mask and his crutch — a tool for barking orders, never for dialogue. The moment the line goes dead, his authority collapses, for he has no other means of contact. His power depends on Jaekyung’s reception, not his own strength. In truth, the manager’s disability is exposed here: deaf to Jaekyung’s voice, he has trained himself to hear only the ring of a phone. A fragile authority built on silence, ready to crumble the instant Jaekyung decides to switch it off.
(chapter 76) must be read not as pride, but as a desperate shield against annihilation. In other words, in episode 76, the athlete is too harsh on himself, though I am not saying that he is innocent either. He only thought of himself because he had taught to behave that way. He was just mirroring the adults surrounding him who hid their weaknesses and wrongdoings behind “lies, social norms and hierarchy”. 
(chapter 70) Thus he accepts criticism with defending his own interest. He was not taught how to fight back or resist or even argue. 
(chapter 34) To conclude, before their fateful meeting, neither man had learned how to argue as equals. But in the kitchen in front of the stove, this changed: both are right and wrong! 
(chapter 76) He speaks like someone expecting rejection. Hence he keeps his distance. Yet the very fact that he says it at all signals change. Where once he would have doubled down — by barking an order, by firing Dan, by retreating into silence — he now admits defeat. The vocabulary of winning and losing, inherited from his father and reinforced by every adult in his life, collapses in the presence of Dan’s quiet honesty.
(chapter 76) — an acknowledgment that he can no longer keep his walls intact. He is now willing to rely on doc Dan exclusively.
(chapter 76). His confession reveals not strength but guilt. Kim Dan’s suffering was the price of his victories, and he knows it. “On the other hand, his mea culpa should be relativized, for both were the targets of a plot!
(chapter 76) These words expose both responsibility and shame: he had prioritized survival over connection, career over compassion. What boils under his skin is not pride but remorse.
(chapter 76) The star’s thoughts in the kitchen are actually mirroring the ones in the bathroom: 
(chapter 72) a place of solitary consumption rather than shared meals, the bed was the place where the little boy would drink his milk. 
(chapter 76) But the wolf didn’t understand the hamster’s intention and followed his “hyung” to the kitchen. That’s how a misunderstanding was born which is also reflected in this interaction:
(chapter 76) However, doc Dan agreed to this, he remained calm. 
(chapter 46) It was a place where others dictated terms, while Jaekyung’s silence was mistaken for consent. And now, you comprehend why the two main leads could get closer in front of the stove in the kitchen. This place stands for warmth, care and family. 
(chapter 13) a meal after his collapse. He refused to bring a meal to the bed, he asked him to join in the dining room and sit at the table. And what did they do there? The champion talked about his career, his fight etc… 
(chapter 13) the champion has long associated the table to business and not “care”. That’s why it is important for him to remember the significance of the bed in his childhood. It was the place where he could feel comfortable and safe, where he would eat! 
Bebebisous33s' analyses in K-Dramaland and Manhwas 