📍 Working-Class Mr. Ahn’s Unscheduled Visits to Dr. Yeon’s Clinic continues…
⚠️ Just a casual warning – if you’re following along with Asuka and Jen’s fictional arc and delusion interior series, consider yourself warned. Everything under my fanfiction tab is totally fictional. There’s no need to get overly serious about any of it.
The Dark Seaweed Soup
Hi Jennie,
Alas good times end, but I hope the taste of soup lingers enough to block some bitterness of Monday. Tomorrow I’m working from home, so it’s much lighter than the usual horror of Sundays for me.
As a matter of fact, there is some consultation I need for the dark seaweed soup.
Given some of the things Mr Oh might do are rather illegal, would you think it is possibly quite easy for a politically very well-connected, upper society sort to get away with attempted *?
Or the threat of murder? Does this sort of thing still happen these days, or is accountability now all the rage in Korea?
Given the overwhelming popularity of shows where bullies get their just desserts, and the rather light sentences meted out for the Burning Sun scandal, I was thinking there’s still abuse of power and corrupt evasion of justice going on, but I might be having a very inaccurate grasp of the social situation in Korea.
Also, while Si-eun does have a soft spot for Beomseok, how soft is Beomseok’s heart for Si-eun? There’s probably a little I think, from how he tried to stop Yeong-bin from battering the little potato, but not enough, from how he chickened out. What do you think?
Of course, please only reply when you like, no hurries. This black weed soup is going to take a while, and will probably be released like a Nightmare before Christmas. I remember Si-eun telling Yeong-i it’s good to boil this stuff longer so it tastes better. He looked so earnest stirring the pot.
Speaking of that…Sigh… in the wake of Suho’s shocking coma, this is probably a small thing that I think isn’t mentioned a lot, but I always feel so frustrated and sad they never got to celebrate that party properly.
All the decor, all the intentions. All undone. How often did the two sigmas have parties in their lives? This must have been so, so precious to them. Dammit Beomseok!!
So I really like those behind-the-scenes photos of Si-Eun and Suho smiling happily at the party. They are my alternate reality comfort.
Asuka, slowly stirring my miyeok guk to tar
Hi Asuka,
The holiday’s over and it’s a rainy Monday, but surprisingly my workload isn’t going crazy heh
Maybe the rain clouds my brain too, haha
In between work, our deluluverse keeps creeping into my head – “ah, around now Suho must be wrapping up work, gathering his interior tools from the job site, right?”
Imagining some auntie, ajumma wistfully watching from afar as this young, handsome guy who exudes a certain handsome cuteness with sexy nuances and subtle vanilla notes finishes his work hahaha I had to laugh out loud at my desk.
My boss has sensed that some part of my sanity has been on vacation for months now, but as long as I keep my face and voice hidden on youtube, he’ll never figure out the cause hahaha
It’s Monday so you’re probably resting – hope you’re completely relaxed with a glass of single malt, watching your favourite works.
I’m honored you’re seeking local bricks for the dark miyeok-guk flavour!
(Suddenly imagining Asuka and Jennie wearing long, pointy black witch hats like Hermione would wear, stirring the miyeok-guk in a big cauldron with long ladles to brew a rich broth – I burst out laughing again)
My imagination knows no bounds hahaha
Premeditated Crimes
Of course, I can’t say the political corruption here is worse than some Latin American or Southeast Asian countries.
Like I mentioned before, I personally don’t have high expectations for this country, but still, I’d say the political sphere isn’t severely corrupt yet and the government is at least trying to do its job.
But at some point I stopped watching the news on TV – I only check it for stock market updates.
It became too hard to bear the cruel news, especially since literally every single day without fail, there’s news of a woman being murdered.
First, I don’t know if it’s the same in your culture, but in Korea the sentences for “premeditated crimes” are very high.
For example, if a wife who’s been abused her entire life plans and kills her husband, she’ll likely get life imprisonment – literally because she had the intent to kill and planned to murder someone. But on the flip side, if a husband drinks and in a fit of rage punches his wife to death? The sentence is incomparably lighter than life imprisonment.
While violence and murder can never be justified under any circumstances, considering the physical aspect – a woman who’s been abused her whole life can’t just punch her way out like a man could, right? So she’d have to plan for a long time… it’s somewhat contradictory, I’d say.
Especially for DUI or truly unspeakable crimes committed while drunk – they’re viewed as closer to accidents, so sentences are light, but from the victim’s perspective, it must be absolutely heartbreaking.
In reality, even if someone loses their life to a drunk driver, that DUI perpetrator won’t receive life imprisonment or any truly harsh, severe sentence. So only the dead person suffers the injustice.
In this context, looking at attempted * – especially since the chronic excuse of rapists is “I was drunk and in a state of diminished capacity, my judgment was impaired” and when they make this statement, it lowers the intentionality, so like your question, the sentence for attempted * becomes lighter or easier to evade.
If actual * occurred, even the politically well-connected upper class would have difficulty avoiding arrest. But if it remains “attempted” there’s a high possibility of receiving a non-custodial judgment.
Like anywhere, Korea has the saying “justice for the rich, guilt for the poor” – if you have money, you can easily slip through the legal net.
Mr Oh
So bringing this into the deluluverse…
If Mr Oh, as the son of a famous politician, decides to use his adoptive father’s power and wealth and becomes smart about it…
I think even if he commits quite illegal acts, he could get non-custodial indictment, or for example, if it turns out to be attempted * rather than *, evading the legal net would be a piece of cake.
Same with murder threats.
In the end, he didn’t commit murder, just made threats, so in reality, such cases might end in fines or be difficult to sentence at all.
And frustratingly in this country, sentences for * aren’t that high.
Even now, sentences for * crimes are ambiguous or not high.
Right now Korea has the world’s lowest birth rate, and while I can’t say women’s rights are lower than in Islamic cultures, for a country with some economic growth and cultural development, women’s rights are pathetically low – this is one reason for the insanely low birth rate, and not severely punishing crimes like * is definitely one of the causes.
No Asuka, you’ve grasped the Korean social situation very accurately.
The popularity of shows where perpetrators get their comeuppance, and also the popularity of individual detective youtubers due to the legal system’s inadequacy, channels where they act like “Dark Knights” – you can see this reflects this reality.
Ah, let me jump back into the deluluverse hahaha
Soft Spot
“Also, while Si-eun does have a soft spot for Beomseok, how soft is Beomseok’s heart for Si-eun?”
I asked myself this exact question when building a brick in a corner of the deluluverse.
From here on, I’m just talking about one brick, so you don’t have to put it in your cauldron for the dark arc if you don’t want to – think of it as just one brick lying around your vast and creative dark arc, okay?
During the holiday, I rewatched s2 e7 with a headache.
I rewatched the scene where Si-eun lets go of Beomseok’s hand and gets up on that pitch-black boxing ring.
In Director Yoo’s interview, he said Beomseok would be repentant in the Philippines and doing well even just to pay for Suho’s hospital bills, so I figured that sequence just visualised Si-eun’s guilt.
This warm kid thinks it’s ultimately because he “chose to get close” that both Suho and Beomseok ended up this way.
I never saw Si-eun as a kid with high self-esteem – even in this incident, he sees himself as the “original sin”…
If given the chance, I really want to hear Director Yoo’s commentary on why Beomseok looked at Si-eun so coldly in that dream saying “I didn’t say that to hear you’re sorry to me, did I?”
But watching that sequence, my personal delulu interpretation is…
Si-eun still sees Beomseok as another self, an emotional twin, right?
In the original, he says “I understand you” and ultimately doesn’t punch Oh Beom in the face – that means he understands Oh Beom’s family and social environment, just as unhappy and gloomy as his own, but in delulu interpretation, I saw it as “I understand that you love Suho as much as I do”
Si-eun instinctively understands that heart that loves Suho too much – that same intensity of feeling.
But like you said, Oh Beom is a kid who “needs to be understood on his own terms that he matters to Suho”
So while they both love Suho the same, they completely diverge in expecting to have that love returned by Suho.
Anyway, in terms of deep affection for Suho being the same, I always thought this harmless potato Si-eun’s soft spot for Oh Beom would be exactly that point.
And as the first friend he ever made in his life, even if it’s a different quality from what he feels for Suho – or a different texture – Beomseok is also Si-eun’s first love, and I think he has affection for him because they’re so similar. People naturally yearn for someone who can fully understand their emotions and instinctively feel attraction.
But the one who always matters is Oh Beom hahaha
Yeah, looking at just the original, I think Oh Beom liked Si-eun too.
Of course, it can’t compare to the love, admiration, and obsession this pitiful kid felt for Suho, but after the three became close, Si-eun was always warm to Beomseok, treated him as a friend, worried about him – this sensitive kid wouldn’t not notice.
Especially when Sieun said “It’s not your fault, you didn’t do anything wrong”
Oh Beom clearly choked up, and even in the script book it says “Beomseok chokes up at Sieun’s words”
Before, one subscriber said – when Si-eun was getting hit in the arm by Young-bin and Oh Beom pathetically fled that scene, right?
That subscriber interpreted it as “he couldn’t keep watching that scene that reminded him of his father’s violence, so he left”
But regardless, I saw that scene as perfectly portraying the rock-bottom self-esteem that the character Oh Beomseok has.
Hong Kyung really nailed that very teenage-boy-like acting of not being able to abandon those bully friends even though he knows they don’t genuinely care about him.
Like Young-i said, putting in this brick makes the soup boiling in the mini cauldron taste richer hahahaha
(By the way, watching Si-eun stir the pot – doesn’t it totally show how his whole body is already acting on his love for Suho even though he hasn’t consciously realised it? After the Gilsu incident, Suho fell for Si-eun, and Si-eun was already in the fever of first love. I love the behind-the-scenes photos so much too. So in the deluluverse, when Suho’s birthday comes around, I think Dr Yeon will take the day off. Close the clinic. To be together all day)
The feelings Oh Beom has for Si-eun are far from jealousy or hatred, aren’t they?
That’s what’s carved into the brick I’ve been working on heh
Really personal delulu
Sleeping Beauty
Of course, Oh Beom is a good kid who secretly visits Suho’s hospital bed on life support, holds Suho’s hand, cries his eyes out, regrets his past mistakes, and feels like he’ll go crazy with guilt toward Suho.
But on the other hand, staring at his sleeping pretty hyung, the beauty (that pretty face and pretty body lying there helplessly dependent on an oxygen machine, breathing quietly and gently)
(after already having shed tears),
Mr Oh suddenly unable to control the rising lust, making a milkshake and falling into uncontrollable self-loathing – he’s a complex, dangerous, unpredictable, multifaceted character swayed by instincts, right…
So on that summer night with drizzling rain when reunited Suho and Si-eun return to Suho’s two-story house, when Oh Beom waits under the yellow streetlight, he’s still restless with that hard-to-shake guilt toward Suho, running a hundred simulations of how Suho will react seeing him after 13 years, his mind entirely occupied with Suho.
Then when he reveals himself relying on the streetlight, Suho’s reaction – “protecting Si-eun and going into the house” – this reaction not in any simulation makes the guilt and remorse that just moments ago filled his heart and mind suddenly vanish.
The boogeyman that never died but stayed alive in this kid’s heart starts crawling out again, whispering bleakly in Beomseok’s ear:
“Look at that bastard… The wealth he quickly built after waking from the coma… The privileges he’s enjoying… It’s all the pumpkin carriage you made for him… He knows, doesn’t he? He’s just pretending not to know… Ungrateful bastard… Without your help, could that little shit be living this happily and comfortably?”
“That bastard still looks down on you, thinks you’re a lackey, despises you, doesn’t think you matter even as much as the dirt under his fingernails. Oh Beomseok, no matter how successful you become, it doesn’t matter. Suho won’t change”
The boogeyman would buzz in Oh Beom’s ear, raising its voice with these audacious accusations.
And then, suppressing the guilt toward Suho, that boogeyman grows bigger and bigger inside Oh Beom… until Beomseok goes to find the Yeon Clinic… as a 5 PM Friday appointment patient…
Still, coexisting in Oh Beom’s complex heart would be uncontrollable love and obsession for Suho.
He rationally knows more than enough that he committed an unforgivable sin, but he’s also “disappointed” by the cold reaction Suho showed after their reunion and how he protected Si-eun – isn’t that Oh Beom too? Even while knowing his own disappointment is absurd.
So if Oh Beom, stepping on these ambivalent feelings, becomes disappointed and indignant again, it wouldn’t stem from Si-eun at all, but solely, as always, from “Suho”
So like you said before, to kick “acknowledgement” into Suho’s skull, he’d intentionally approach Si-eun.
In this brick, Oh Beom has no personal jealousy or hatred toward Si-eun – rather, he still likes Si-eun as a friend when recalling their school days. But when his heart wavers regarding Suho, even that Si-eun can be sufficiently “used” as a tool – the boogeyman inside Beomseok runs so rampant that even Oh Beom himself can’t help it.
And on the other hand, I think for over 10 years, looking at photos his personal secretary took of Si-eun together with Suho, he’d masturbate while imagining various things without realising it.
Looking at Si-eun with Suho’s arm affectionately around his shoulder and superimposing his own face, or seeing secretly-taken photos of the two embracing and kissing in Suho’s two-story house and inserting himself in place of Si-eun being kissed by Suho…
So if he approaches Si-eun as a patient or goes further to gently (?) kidnap him, making Suho search desperately, or attempts something physical with Si-eun (asking Si-eun to hug/embrace him, stimulating Si-eun’s soft spot… provoking Si-eun’s insecurities), I think it would ultimately be to provoke or infuriate Suho.
So the boogeyman inside Oh Beom starts with Suho and reacts to everything because of Suho – it’s one of Oh Beom’s darkest instincts.
You can’t say Si-eun is his soft spot, but as much as he likes Si-eun, he can use him as a tool to provoke Suho, yet ultimately can’t do anything truly terrible to him – Oh Beom can’t.
I think it’ll end in attempt.
Wow, this got incredibly long! hahaha
Hope you really relax with a cocktail or glass of wine you like.
As always, no pressure for a quick reply!
On my way home from work, I’ll stop by the library to borrow Song of Achilles.
(I confirmed the library has the Korean translation)
Yours
Jen
P.S. I forgot to write this…
In a corner of this brick, this image of Oh Beom also flashed through – Beomseok acting like an immature child, being clingy toward Sieun…
“Sieun-ah, I’m still hurting… I’m unhappy… I wish you’d heal me… You’re a doctor, you can do it, right…?”
Beomseok drunk out of his mind, pulling Si-eun’s shoulder into an embrace, whining like a completely soaked towel – could that delicate Sieun push him away? hmmmmmm😈
Friend, on the train ride home I developed Oh Beom’s feelings toward Si-eun a bit deeper (the train has basically become my thinking space now, hahahaha)
Before, you said something like “Jennie, you’re a destroyer of boys’ love” and I laughed so hard hahaha
Remember when I talked about how Oh Beom would love to tightly hug Si-eun’s body that has Suho’s vanilla notes and inhale those remnants?
Tell me about Suho
Same context here – without Suho or Si-eun realising it, they become soulmates sharing souls, so while they don’t consciously notice it, they’d be incredibly similar…
Si-eun wouldn’t mimic Suho’s playfully flighty way of speaking, but I think one reason Si-eun’s social skills improved so much is because he unknowingly came to resemble Suho and “learned” from him too.
When Oh Beom becomes the Friday 5 PM patient and goes to find Si-eun at the Yeon Clinic, it’s initially to provoke Suho out of that absurd disappointment.
But once he’s actually sitting face-to-face with Si-eun, talking about this and that as doctor and patient, in Si-eun’s behaviour, speech patterns, expressions… every little gesture, wouldn’t he see Suho’s “face” overlapping?
The boogeyman inside Oh Beom wouldn’t be running rampant 24/7… Fundamentally, Oh Beom’s feelings toward Suho are based on love-hate, but looking at Si-eun and seeing Suho’s image, his heart would melt momentarily… Isn’t Oh Beom always swept around by these ambivalent feelings?
One day, invited to Beomseok’s house, the two get thoroughly drunk (Beomseok would’ve begged for it…), lying side by side in bed, looking at stars shining in the black darkness through the floor-to-ceiling windows installed across Beomseok’s spacious, high-ceilinged bedroom, I think Oh Beom would say this,
“Sieun-ah… tell me about Suho. Anything’s fine”
Normally he’d be sparing with words, but drunk Si-eun isn’t oblivious that Oh Beom loves Suho as much as he does, so with his mind loosened, he’d murmur on…
The guppy-like cluelessness of not understanding how to use a defibrillator no matter how many times he’s taught, or the innocent belief that he thinks Si-eun doesn’t know when he’s pretending to sleep… or despite his build, how he lets out sexy moans when you gently rub his nipples…
Hearing these small, detailed episodes about Suho, I think Beomseok would be genuinely smiling… (I’m really like a devil, hahahaha)
So, because Si-eun is closest to Suho and shares his soul, feeling Si-eun as Suho-like continues good feelings.
Like if Suho is the cold dad, then Si-eun is Suho’s mom version, you know – having a soft spot for him, being lenient with him… And already knowing well that Si-eun is weak when it comes to Beom, even the boogeyman inside Oh Beom wouldn’t incite bad feelings toward Si-eun.
Jen
Want to see where Scheherazade’s tale begins? → Click here to jump to Part 1
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