Jinu's family what are the stepfather and sibling like? What was his bio dad like? What does his mom feel about him?
I’ll start by saying that his stepdad (Mingyu, 민규) isn’t a bad guy. It’s not the “evil stepparent who wants to get rid of their stepchild” or anything. I actually think him and Jinu would get along, albeit it would be a bit of an awkward progression, if they ever got over the hurdle of Jinu’s self-isolation and Mingyu not really knowing how to approach him. Though, I don’t think Jinu really knows how to approach him either since he has the internalized idea that he’s the “stranger” or the outlier of the new family his mom has made.
Mingyu does genuinely love Dal-rae (달래), Jinu’s mom, and his daughter that he had with her (Seo-ah, 서아), and he wants them all to be a family. But stuff is complicated. Like always.
He is by all accounts an average guy, but he is also kind and hardworking and the type to make dad jokes. He can be a bit of a killjoy sometimes, and not really know what to do in every situation when it comes to parenting, but he means well.
And then there’s Seo-ah, Jinu’s sister (or technically his half-sister). She’s a very sweet and creative kid, and she adores her big brother. She wants to be close to him, and be in his life since she thinks he’s really cool. Though, of course being an idol and a demon hunter on top of everything else, makes it really hard for him to visit. I kind of imagine she once begged her parents to let her go to a concert in the city to see him, and they actually got to meet up and take a photo together.
She doesn’t fully understand why he is so distant sometimes, probably wondering if she did something wrong. But anytime they see each other, their interactions are very cute. I am planning to have Jinu work on getting closer to her post-canon, as he tries to stop self-isolating.
I kind of see her as being artistic and sketching/drawing a lot of what she sees. She definitely would give Jinu her own drawings as gifts.
I should also note that neither Mingyu nor Seo-ah know about demons or hunters, only Dal-rae does.
His bio dad (Chul, 철) was a Jeoseung Saja (a Korean grim reaper, or a psychopomp). He actually planning on taking Dal-rae’s soul when he first saw her, but that obviously fell through since he fell in love with her to the point that he had a child with her. I kind of imagine that he kept saying to himself that “today’s the day I take her soul!” only to get sidetracked and end up disguising himself as a human to spend time with her.
I picture Chul as being kind of like Jinu, he acts cool but he can be a real dork sometimes. But I also imagine him as being kind of a wraith of a person. He had kind of lost his love for life, and was going through the motions. A half-emptied shell of a person, still having remnants enough to have some humanity, but shards of himself were around him like a vase with missing pieces.
Dal-rae did actually love Chul and being with him, she did have a child with him of her own choice, though she wasn’t fully aware of his demon nature until he finally got the courage to tell her later on. And she was startled at first, but she did warm up to the realization and they continued their relationship. And then, they had Jinu together.
I kind of picture their relationship as someone falling back in love with life through their interactions with a person they come to enjoy being around. I wouldn’t say that Dal-rae fixed him or anything, more like she helped give him the courage to pick up the pieces of himself and glue them back together. He did that all on his own, but spending time with her helped him rediscover his will to live.
In current times, Dal-rae does still hold love for Chul, but it has been painted over with the hunter ideology of hating demons and not seeing them as beings worth saving or getting to know. I would say she is very conflicted about it, both viewing it as a mistake and wanting to move on from all of it, but at the same time not regretting it. It’s one of those complicated emotions where you both regret it but also don’t.