I feel like I'm going to get flamed for this but I can somewhat relate to Jaeha's feelings...

As a person who has themselves been betrayed by their closest people and who goes through anxiety because of those incidents, I actually feel jaeha on a personal level. I have a very bad case of trust issues and have developed a defence mechanism which pushes away the people who try to get close to me despite knowing that they have good intentions just to protect myself. It sounds shitty and all but different people go through different circumstances and have different ways of dealing with their situations.
I won’t say that what Jaeha did to Eunho (the breakup) was correct but as a person who deals with anxiety, I can say that sometimes even I don’t realise that I have hurt someone until it’s too late. What matters the most is that he realised his mistake and is ready to own up to it and apologise.


(Sorry if my rant went a little too long)

Mhmm, I've been saying this and more since the moment Jaehas past was revealed. He was never truly the bad guy in the relationship. Just incredibly misunderstood....The ability to see a situation from multiple viewpoints is honestly a gift I don't think many people possess.

I relate to jaeha so much too

Your rant wasn't long, don't worry about it. The breakup... To be honest, it was the best solution Jaeha thought of, because he also wanted to protect Eunho. He felt incredibly guilty towards Eunho's family, and Eunho himself. But Eunho would never really understand because Jaeha is used to being cornered.

In my defense, I just started reading this Manhwa 2 days ago because its just been sitting in my Lezhin favourites since it came out... Lol.

I think most people take the easiest way out rather than try to put themselves in other people's shoes because its always easier to look at the surface rather than at the heart of people.

i can relate to Jaehea on a personal level as well. separated parents. check. blame falls to you for it, check. dad who all but tells you to get out of your life, check. betrayal by friends, check. betrayal of first love with a bunch of lies, all the checks. nightmares that keep you up, check. I too, do everything to protect my heart. I've been hurt so much I don't want to even bother anymore. I have anxiety and depression both. with all that pain on top, it's suffocating. and I feel like that's the point Jaehea had reached too.

if you look at it, people seem to forget the age difference. and the family background difference. we have Eunho who is a small child who believes in pure love where the world is bathed in pink. with a great, loving, welcoming family. and Jaehea who told him all his life, it's okay to like whoever you like. so he was accepted as normal.
Jaehea lost all that. he didn't get accepted. he still really hasn't (his sexuality.). Like, if someone, just told him the words back, "Nothing is wrong with you. it's okay to love who you love". like, I think that would just mean the world to him. his secondary family is Eunho's. he doesn't want to loose them, or make Eunho feel all that pain he did. Plus, he is older, much older. as the oldest one, he feels it's his responsibility to not scar Eunho with rejection, cold looks, and being with a guy.
The breakdown he had while they were together, and his mom and sister came by still breaks my heart. because I've been that fucked up over a similar situation too. It doesn't feel awesome.
(that got really long. oops.)

I can relate to Jaeha a lot on a personal level. My family life had fucking traumatised me (because more than half of them had antagonised me/viewed me as "the enemy" from childhood. I was the "enemy/vermin" in my own house.) for a while , which is why I developed a lot of sour and unbalanced relationships. Then I hurt a few loved ones very badly because I thought "the best" for them.
However, that is the reason why I "disliked" him so much. I do get that he was "trying to help Eunho in his own way" , but he reminded me of myself , and I still haven't forgiven my past actions.
Neither do I expect others to forgive me , so I don't blame anyone who hates Jaeha.
Our past doesn't excuse our actions , and I've come (am coming) to terms with it. I could understand his actions and feelings (because I've repeated them myself) , but that's why they looked even worse to me , more than to the normal person. I know why he did that , but that infuriates me even more. Maybe that's why I am probably his biggest critic ? Half the time I'm watching him and thinking "You fucking moron, this is not the correct way of doing thing" ,it's as if I'm viewing my past self.

I see. Wow. In my case, it's my personality that bears some semblance to Jaeha's, where I am so afraid of repercussions of opening my heart, i leave it closed and keep people at arm's length. I don't want to hurt people, but I also don't want to be hurt, so that makes me a coward like he is.

I agree with you on all of the above points that you've mentioned. That pain and darkness just swallows you right up and you juat don't want to deal with humans anymore due to the trauma. I understand. I may not have had all the experiences that you had, but I do know the feelings of being betrayal and the feeling of abandonment, and also the feeling that everything is your fault. It isn't.

soul sisters? lol. I was treated shitty by my dad and his side of his family my entire life. I mean people who flat out would tell a stranger, who was married for 70 years and lost her husband "What are you crying about?". They are that dead. and they all treat each of their children and grandchildren as such. my own grandmother sent me to my room for a week and starved me. (thankfully she didn't know I had packed snacks from home).
god, I just want to say i'm sorry you've had to experience that too. it's terrible and makes you feel all kinds of low. Not at first, right? but over the years, it piles up.
like you and Jaehea I still make stupid decisions with people in my life, and I regret it real quick.

this is so relatable, what you said. because it's how I feel a lot of days. like everyday i am drowning and everything I do is wrong, or hurts somebody. It's not a good feeling at all. (Probably way worse than Jaehea I was raised in a physically and mentally abusive home. the problem with that, is you grow up feeling unsafe. so you aren't really all that sure what "safe" even feels like.) Jaehea breaking up with Eunho, more like the reasons of because he was family, to his partners family, without them knowing that. I have been there myself. the guy who ended things with me last is that: all but family to my family. because they approved us two being around each other as family, but told us constantly dating was off limits. i don't thing either of us wanted to break our families heart. (and we were a guy and a girl. without the added burden of being gay.)

Yes , I do get what you're feeling. Also , I do hope that you can trust people at some point. Don't be too hard on yourself though , we are all cowards up in here. Just try to understand why you're doing what you're doing , and ask others (even professionals) if you can (and if ya want to).
:)
I may have done something similar during a certain phase (I think during my middle school years?) , and was kind of socially ostracized for a while by my peers. I think it added to my "fear of rejection" that my family life created , and I became a "people-pleaser". All humans are instinctively trying to please others (upto an extent) and find companions , but mine was almost at an unhealthy level then (since I wasn't that grown up/mature and my personality hadn't fully developed either). Even though I use to repeat "I don't give a fuck about what others say" ,I did. A lot.
It took a certain incident (life threatening) in my life to "knock some sense into my brain" [I hate this phrase tbh]. The shock that I got from that incident (which I still cannot fully even comprehend) , kind of woke me up ?
I realized then that the world isn't "trying to harm me" (that it's generally neutral/not as threatening) and that I didn't "need to work so hard" selfishly to be accepted.
I kind of became a nihilist (almost) since then ? I kind of live my life like nothing really matters ('cus at one point I'm going up in the sky anyways), do my best what is most "fun" for me , and just be honest now.

(( Sorry for adding my personal story again , the reply got kinda long because of it. Thanks for reading my rambling.~
XD ))

Lemme preface the reply by saying that what was done to you sounds absolutely terrifying. You had to grow up with terrible people, and I feel horrified that people (especially parents and grandparents) that evil exist, though I can completely empathise with what you went through. <3
No one (especially kids) should have to go through that , but the world is fucking unfair in a lot of cases. At one point I thought that some people don't even deserve to have kids , but we're happy and grateful to have you in this world (I know I sound sappy af , but I can't help it... Sap is in my soul). I hope that no such situation occurs to you or any other kid (because it is fucking exhausting. It's exhausting to constantly be "not normal" and making shit decisions because those experiences fucking scar you for life.) I hope you're living a bit better now though and can live a happier life in the future. Much love and empathy ,
- a stranger on mangago.

Oh , mine was the exact opposite... I was treated shitty by my mum's side. My mum and dad some problem , and because I didn't "my mum's side" during that time ( I had no reason to take any side. Both sides presented their arguments, and my dad's sounded much more rational and realistic. But I didn't take anyone's "side". They were my parents for for fuck's sake , how on earth is a kid supposed to choose between the two ! Then we discovered that she had mental problems , etc, etc.) , I was called a lot of mean shit and also treated like that by them. A lot of shit happened , and I avoid thinking about it as much as I can... Yep , I also "wasted" a lot of my life making those shit , immature decisions. Though stuff is still bad and I'm just trying to not make those stupid decisions again, all I can thank is the existence of therapists and some random ass incidents that made me realize some stuff about myself. I don't have the courage though , to give any advice , because it takes time and and different circumstances for each individuals to change. Just keep trying your best and don't be too hard on yourself (I was at some point , it didn't help change anything), I wish you the best.
:)

when i was younger i never believed my own situation was as bad as it actually was. because i bought into that crock about "There's always someone else who has it worse than you". and maybe i was scared they would pull me away from my mother, so i never spoke about it. My dad and his family are acid type people. i mean that in the sense that they will touch everything in your life with that acid; your other family relationships, your self-worth, your mental health, and everything else they can get to. and it's never, ever their fault, they play the victim. my dad even tried to kill himself to manipulate my brother and me. saying it was because of me that he did it. because i rejected a relationship with him. the shit storm all my family gave me for that one....
yes, i agree. some people shouldn't be allowed to have kids. or animals. i hate hearing an time that someone else has suffered all the crap i did. thank you for that. probably one of the few people in my life to say that in a very long time.no joke. they leave the nastiest scars and make you fill abnormal.
i have problems trusting in my case. and people being loud, fighting, or yelling, or getting physical. i will walk away. it sends me right back to all that shit in my childhood and i can't deal with it. i've barely ever even dealt with my own anger. because i hate that emotion. because for me it is tied in with violence.
i've been in therapy three times in my life, including right now. i'm at the point of "how much more unsolved problems are there?". lol.
i found myself in another screaming, yelling, and abuse type situation two years ago. with my niece, her parents, myself, and my mothers boyfriend. it dug it all back up and it's been a struggle ever since. i only recently started talking about these things.

God, you had the classic. why do we have to pick sides??? sounds familiar, avoiding things; triggers. it can be hard trying to make the right decisions. i get that. everyday can be a struggle for some of us. me too, therapists have my thanks. change will take a very long time. and being hardest on oneself is something complicated to change. (something i feel like a bunch of readers don't understand haha) i wish you all the best too. you seem to still be struggling with some things, while others you have changed. that's a good thing. and a will to live. that means more than you know