Reflections on Chapter 14
A flashback drenched in shadows opens Chapter 14. TJ negotiated with attorneys over Ian’s murder charge - a crime so ruthlessly precise that even he couldn’t spin it as self-defense. He pushed for a two-year prison sentence, coldly pragmatic. But the real tragedy here? Ian’s hollow aftermath. He kept asking himself if there was something he should feel - guilt, remorse, anything. But there was nothing. Just… numbness. He knew cold-blooded violence wasn’t right, wasn’t human. Yet Ian - oh, Ian - when suffering cracks a person’s soul, sometimes all that’s left is emptiness.
The scene shifts: Ian kneeled before Jason and TJ, still wearing that bloodstained white tee, pleading that he couldn’t do it anymore. Let me go. Even Jason, with his usual steel, admitted Ian’s heart was never in this work—he’d been a square peg in a bloody round hole from the start. Jason was ready to cut him loose, but TJ? TJ didn’t want to. He needed Ian anchored to the gang, to him. Then there’s the prison sentence. Was it truly the lightest sentence possible… or was TJ scheming to trap him? Jason’s furrowed brows and clipped silence speak skepticism. Reading between the lines: that two-year stint? A calculated play. Ian’s stacking debts: protection fees, compound interest - until Ian’s drowning in obligations even Jason calls suicidal. “He’ll kill himself trying to pay it back.”
So answer me, TJ: Is this how you prove love - by chaining someone to you with debt and guilt? Crushing their freedom under “protection” and moral duty? If you’re so confident he’d choose you, why the desperation? Why the Machiavellian strings? You’re such a monster, TJ.
TJ lingers over the photo Jo took of him during their fleeting balcony encounter - but wait. How did a shot from Jo’s phone end up in his possession? The answer comes with implication, especially since TJ’s quietly hoarded a photo of Jo in return. Does he sense the low-key connection pulling Jo and Ian together? He knows Ian’s track record of casual flings for sure, yet it’s Jo who catches his attention. Even Yangji admires Jo’s handsome looks, that he takes a picture of Jo on his phone, which, as revealed in next chapter, cast a shadow on Jo and his resentment to TJ.
The unspoken truth? TJ isn’t just watching. He’s curating. Every glance, every stolen image, a thread in the web he’s spinning. And when that photo resurfaces in the next chapter, it won’t just cast a shadow, it’ll ignite the war.
Jo’s meticulously planned stargazing trip collapses sadly when his beloved white SUV - the college-era clunker he’s clung to for five loyal years at least - gets stolen in broad daylight outside the camera shop. (Wait, is this New York or San Francisco? Since when do daylight car heists happen in New York?). ‘Cuz he is so upset, he vents to Ian, mourning the loss like it’s crybaby ((Jo’s deer mode materializes at this), while Ian bites back a smirk. Let’s be real: the car’s a rustbucket. But that’s the point. Jo doesn’t love things; he loves stories. Sentimental to a fault. That could hint something about Jo’s personality: he’s loyal to his beloved. The car must be so special to him, that when he is able to get a new one, it is still the same car.
Ian managed to make them a spot to do stargazing by dragging them to the rooftop of some crumbling building. He also prepared for the night so he can’t miss it again to have some privacy with Jo. Just the two of them. Just enough beer to blur the line between “friends” and… well, you know what I mean. When Ian suggested this is also a good place to have a beer, Jo is looking at him, and his heart starts to race, and you know this initiates the feeling of love in him. Probably the moment he knows he’s fallen for someone.
“Should I take some photos of you?” Jo blurts, face burning. I want to remember this. I want to remember you when you’re here with me.
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