When Beom-seok appeared in Si-eun’s dream in Season 2, standing in that boxing ring in his black sweater, my comments section went somewhere I wasn’t expecting.
One subscriber put it simply:
“Interpreting Beom-seok as a character is really difficult. When he said to Si-eun in the ring, ‘I didn’t want to hear you say sorry’ — my head just started spinning. Huh? Then what did you want, Beom-seok?”
That question is the entire problem with this scene. And three different subscriber theories each answer it in a completely different direction.
Theory One: Beom-seok Didn’t Make It Out of the Philippines
The argument: Beom-seok is trapped in that boxing ring because it’s the moment he became the worst version of himself — the moment he realised what he’d done to Su-ho. After being sent to the Philippines, he couldn’t carry that weight. He didn’t survive it.
The detail that makes this land: the black sweater. Same one he wore when he attacked Su-ho. The subscriber read this as deliberate symbolism — Beom-seok frozen in that specific moment of realization, unable to move past it.
And then this part…
Si-eun slept all day after his traffic accident because he was drowning in guilt, convinced everything was his fault. Beom-seok, in the dream, tried to pull him deeper into that guilt. But after their conversation, Si-eun woke up. He let go of what he didn’t need to carry.
Beom-seok couldn’t.
The subscriber extended this even further — Su-ho, protective to the end, felt sorry for Beom-seok and stayed longer in that liminal space. Which is why it took him so long to come back from the coma.
Theory Two: Beom-seok Is Alive and Paying for It
Not everyone went supernatural with this.
A second theory: Beom-seok behaved. Followed his adoptive father’s orders in the Philippines without causing trouble. And in doing so, he kept Su-ho’s hospital bills paid.
Think about what that coma actually cost. One year and nine months. Private room. Ventilator. Su-ho was practically his grandmother’s sole support. There’s no version of that getting covered without someone with money deciding to keep paying.
“If you want Su-ho to at least keep breathing, you’d better listen to the congressman.”
In this reading, Beom-seok is alive — but trapped in a different kind of ring. Still paying. Still trying to offset something that can’t be offset. The dream isn’t a ghost reaching out. It’s Si-eun’s unconscious understanding that Beom-seok is still out there somewhere, still suffering, still unable to let go.
Theory Three: It Was Never Really Beom-seok
The third theory reframes the entire scene.
What if the Beom-seok in that ring isn’t Beom-seok at all — but Si-eun’s own projection of him? Si-eun’s interpretation of who Beom-seok was, filtered through trauma and unresolved grief?
In this reading, the dream is Si-eun working through everything at once — the guilt, the anger, the confusion, and whatever remains of the care he once had for this person. The aggressive version of Beom-seok reflects Si-eun’s own unprocessed feelings about how it ended. By facing that projection and finally letting himself cry in the same direction as it — he released something. That’s what let him wake up.
What the Script Book Says
At the end, the actors wrote messages to each other in character — like a rolling paper between the three boys. Beom-seok’s messages:
To Su-ho: “I really admired you. I loved you so much. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. Su-hoya…”
To Si-eun: “Si-eunah… I’m sorry. I’m really sorry….”
I sat with those for a while.
Why the Ambiguity Works
The show could have told us clearly whether Beom-seok lived or died. It didn’t.
All three theories work because the scene was built to hold all of them. Dead, alive, or projection — the dream still does the same thing for Si-eun. He faces it, he cries, he wakes up. Whatever Beom-seok is in that ring, Si-eun finally moves.
Beom-seok, in every version of this theory, doesn’t.
Full breakdown of the boxing ring dream sequence: 👉 HERE
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