To hear his old classmates call raise him to the pedestal of monster, of demon, of devil, is nothing surprising. Yohan has long since stopped letting their words affect him; barely less than three days after starting at the school, and Yohan had realised the necessity of his walls, of skin thicker and thicker, to keep out that which he couldn’t, wouldn’t dare to hear. Sein doesn’t want to sit next to him, and his attempt to keep her safe from the bird too close to her only leaves him further ostracised and confused.
Kang Yohan is a sinnamon roll and a cinnamon roll..like yes he looks like he can kill anyone and he would kill anyone if need be.. but also I would protect him with everything I’ve got and wrap him in a blanket and feed him cake! you know what I mean?
Grief is a funny fickle thing. It manifests differently for people; in tears and pain and longing, in cold anger and a fire that burns icy hot, in silence that settles like a thick layer of dust over an empty room with plastic-covered furniture.
Yohan watches it manifest as Elijah grows up, in a lack of understanding, to clinging to all she has left of her parents, to refusing to talk about them. He watches her go from denial to depression to acceptance and he wonders, clinically, when he will reach a destination other than the cold anger that consumes him every time he thinks of the fire. It’s a calculated anger, a distant pang of his stomach to devour, to become the flame that devoured all he had. Even after ten years, there is nothing but the empty promise of revenge buried deep in the aches in his back and shoulders, the silent prayer of his name whispered across a burning floor.
Switzerland is beautiful, Yohan can’t help but think when they land, beautiful because it is a new place, without the people they lost. There is no grief to be buried under. It’s a new start, a place to start anew. Elijah blooms, blossoms, and Yohan watches her grow up before his eyes once again. She doesn’t hide from him; their house is small, small enough that they can’t lock themselves away in empty halls and avoid each other.
And yet, there’s something he can’t quite place, something just on the tip of his tongue, unfamiliar and bitter.
Gaon would like it here.
The words echo in the most inconvenient of times, in a voice that sounds far too much like Elijah’s than Yohan would care to admit, in the back of his head. Yohan wishes he could strangle that voice sometimes, the voice that has only started to exist since Kim Gaon made himself at home in their house, turning a house—their house— into a home—their home.
I could convince him, Yohan thinks sometimes in the silence of the living room, when Elijah is off in therapy or studying on calls with her classmates abroad. I could convince Gaon to come, if only I called him.
He always blinks into focus with his phone in his hand, Gaon’s contact open in front of him, his thumb hovering over the button. He never calls.
It takes him too long to place it; denial. Denial of his actions, of the consequences of his actions, of his place, or lack thereof, in Kim Gaon’s life now. K compared him once, offhandedly, to a season’s storm, dangerous in the present but forgotten quickly once blown through. Yohan wants to be remembered, for better or worse, by Kim Gaon.
The fog that settles soon after burns. He’s struggled with finding something fun to do for a while, with finding something outside of his one-player chess games that evolve until he is playing against himself in his head, keeping track of the pieces in some ridiculous mental imagery that leaves him staring blankly at walls for hours. Even that grows tiring, though, and Yohan finds himself without reasons to pull himself out of bed. He goes through the motions every day: waking up, going for a run, breakfast for himself and Elijah, driving Elijah where she needs to, smiling and teasing her in return, like clockwork, he functions. In the silence, he can hear the rust forming on the cogs of his clock, feels how tiring it is to keep going as though nothing is wrong.
He wakes from a nightmare in tears. It’s been a long time since he’s woken this upset, this exhausted, restless. Elijah’s concern is obvious but Yohan shakes it off, convincing her as badly as he convinces himself that it’s fine. That it’s all fine.
He’s fine.
You’re not fine, the voice that sounds like Gaon whispers in the darkness of his room. The room that masquerades as normal, filled with books and dirty clothes that have missed his attempts to toss them into the hamper from across the room, and the sheets pulled back, fussed, where he never sleeps but pretends to.
“You’re depressed, Yohan.” Elijah finally rolls her eyes and slams her hands down onto the table, startling him. He looks at her, brow furrowed, baffled, and Elijah crosses her arms over her chest. “You should see a therapist.”
“Absolutely not,” Yohan dismisses the thought before it’s even fully out of her mouth, shaking his head. He spends the day seated outside in the backyard, watching the world go by and wishing he knew his path in it.
Elijah jokingly suggests he should go back to school, and Yohan is desperate enough for something to do that he considers it. The thought of going back to school isn’t quite appealing, not in the slightest, but it gives him something to do. It’s still near impossible to drag himself out of bed before noon most days, and even the littlest things leave him exhausted. He pretends he doesn’t see Elijah’s concerned glances in his direction.
He gets sick the following winter. It’s a surprise he’s gone that long without getting sick; Yohan has been known to catch any illness that goes around, though he’s usually just as quick to check into a hospital to deal with the worst of it and pretend nothing is wrong the rest of the time. His fever is high, high enough that Yohan curls up in the bed he doesn’t sleep in, shirtless and curls into one of the cold pillows he hasn’t put his head on, struggling to keep from crying, from letting his breathing be anything but even. He barely sleeps; by the third day without sleep, Elijah takes pity on him and brings a handheld fan to his room, setting it up to blow directly on his face. The fan helps; Yohan drifts in and out of a haze, not quite asleep but not quite awake.
“How long has he been like this?” someone asks in that haze, in the fog of the room Yohan doesn’t want to look at. His brain, offhandedly, registers the words as Korean, and the language is like music to his ears, after so long struggling to match Elijah’s English.
“Almost a full week,” Elijah’s voice replies, and she’s speaking informally. Yohan can’t quite pull himself out of his sluggish state to think of who she might speak to so informally when a cool hand presses to his forehead and he, without any thinking, leans into the touch desperately.
“Hyungnim,” the voice murmurs, soft and melodic and beautiful; like a flower blooming in early spring, like the dew clinging to blades of grass in the morning. He doesn’t realize he’s spoken aloud until the voice chuckles, warm, and brushes his hair back from his forehead. “Go to sleep, hyungnim.”
His tongue feels heavy, dry, in his mouth, and he isn’t quite sure he’s coherent, but he replies regardless. Okay, Gaon-ah. For you.
Yohan wakes with his fever broken and aching, dizzy and with his head pounding. A cup of tea and a water bottle, unopened, are by his bedside, and the note written in Elijah’s familiar handwriting, tells him to drink, that he’s dehydrated, that she’s gone out but she’ll be home soon.
Elijah isn’t alone when she returns home, and Yohan is startled, in his hoodie only half-zipped up and sweatpants, looking young in his misery, to find that Kim Gaon is standing in the doorway of his house, kicking his shoes off and smiling.
Three years have gone by without word from Korea. Yohan hasn’t reached out. Neither has Gaon. The weather outside is cold but sunny. And Kim Gaon is standing in the doorway of his house, kicking off his shoes, and chatting with Elijah like nothing has happened. Like the axis on which Yohan’s world sits hasn’t shifted dramatically. Like Yohan isn’t stood staring at them.
“Hyungnim, you’re awake.” Gaon sees him first and gives him a smile and a wave. Yohan could live off of that smile, that warmth, that genuineness that flows like a creek in Gaon’s everything.
For the first time in a long time, Yohan takes a deep breath and feels like he isn’t lifting the weight of the world alone on his shoulders.
For the first time in a long time, Yohan returns the smile and doesn’t feel like he’s trying.
sir if he's your rival and you hate him with every inch of your body and you desire for him to experience the ultimate demise but would without a doubt jump in front and catch an incoming bullet for him to save his life and in return trust him with yours...that's not rivalry anymore sir i regret to inform you that's something else
I know I can't be the first person to touch on this (and please point me in the direction of the likely smarter person who's already dissected this scene), but I haven't seen anyone else address how Yohan actively tried to get Gaon to bring Soohyun onto their team. Yohan was never against Soohyun, he was just against the way she meddled. And that could have been easily fixed if Gaon had just been honest with her, like...even a little bit.
In ep10, there was this exchange between him and Gaon:
“But there is one cop who can catch [Bamboo Spear].”
“A cop?…Do you mean Soohyun?”
“The commissioner is protecting that yard, so she’ll have to go in alone without any backup.”
“It can’t be Soohyun.”
“Isn’t she already on the move?”
Yohan wasn't just being needlessly sassy here. He was making a point. He was (rightfully) pointing out how Soohyun had a tendency to be reckless and run into any situation where she could be the hero without backup. Especially if it's to "protect" Gaon. She's willing, she's already doing it, so why not? Why not let her do what she does best, in a way that actually helps, instead of getting in the way?
But more importantly, he was allowing Gaon the opportunity to bring in his own people. Yohan already had his team, which included Soohyun's chief. He already had the means (the Cop he needed) to get this little mission accomplished without her, but he decided to offer Gaon the opportunity to include her instead.
Yohan is suspicious of people, and he has a right to be. But Gaon trusts Soohyun, and she might honestly be beneficial to their operation, so why not bring her in. It would make Gaon happy to have her included, she could prove she was truly fighting for justice -- for the good of the public she claimed she wanted to protect so badly -- OR.....Yohan could prove she was a liability.
And honestly, he truly didn't care which way it went. Either way, he won. Either his plan succeeded because of her, and Gaon was happy with her on the team, or he could influence Gaon that she needed to be eliminated from the equation. Yohan's ultimatum was always "You're either with me, or you're not." If Soohyun proved she wasn't capable of being fully on their side, and Gaon wasn't willing to cut her off in favor of the plan (their plan, Gaon's plan of fighting against the injustice in the world), then so be it.
And it ultimately came down to this exact scenario, but a lot messier than Yohan intended (or wanted). If Gaon had just been honest with Soohyun and included her in on their plans, given her the backstory on Yohan and his goals, much of what followed could have been avoided.
But alas. They refused to communicate with each other. They lied to each other, they hid information, all under the guise of "protecting" the other from getting hurt or putting them in danger, but by doing so, it actively made the situation more dangerous for both of them. It was just messy all around, and I can't understand how we were ever meant to seriously root for them. There's no way.
Anyways, I just thought that was an interesting bit that stood out on my last rewatch, how Yohan was more than willing to allow Soohyun into their little circle.
this actually ties in so well with a conversation i was having with someone else about how yohan’s love versus soohyun’s love manifestation.
specifically, soohyun’s love and care is conditional. gaon kept her out, not just to keep her safe, but he knew she wouldn’t approve of the methods. he knew she’d be upset and mad at him, which is ultimately what happened when she found him after the minister’s suicide. she got hurt (because gaon did not live up to her expectations) and cut him off, and i feel like gaon’s spent a lot of his life living up to that kind of love just so he’d have it, and it wouldn’t leave.
soohyun kept gaon in the box she felt he needed to be in and who she wanted him to be, and i think the more he continued with yohan, the more gaon realized that — until everything came to a head and he chose her because it was comforting and routine and familiar.
but you are so right that yohan chose to give soohyun the benefit of the doubt first, so to speak. he did actively try to include her, but gaon pushed that notion out the window because again, wanting to keep her safe but also knowing she would never approve of what they were doing, even if it did end up with justice.
Gaon would claim what he was doing was for Soohyun’s safety. Trying to keep her on the sidelines for her own protection.
Soohyun would claim what she was doing was to protect Gaon. To fight the Big Bad so he didn’t have to.
But Gaon knew deep down she’d never approve of a single aspect of their plan. He knew she could never see the bigger picture through her narrow view of justice. And he was too scared to challenge that because she was all he had. Like you said, she was routine and comfort. She was all he knew and Gaon wasn’t ready to let go of that.
And Soohyun simply never saw Gaon outside of the moral box she put him in. She spent her life trying to keep him in line behind her, without ever allowing him what he truly needed. She was Gaon’s Isaac, and I think Yohan saw that. Soohyun cared for Gaon, but in a way a parent cares for and worries about their troublesome child. But her love wasn’t unconditional. Her love came with caveats and limitations and that much was clear when she stumbled onto the scene with Gyeonghui.
She said “What are you doing here, Gaon?” And when Gaon opened his mouth to speak she cut him off with “I said what are you doing here!” She never cared what he had to say. She never wanted to hear his explanation because it didn’t matter. She concluded what she wanted based on what she saw without ever stopping to acknowledge that there’s more to the story. Her worldview was black and white, and Gaon had stumbled too far into the gray for her.
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