“I learned today that when someone likes someone, it looks beautiful.”
Reading taboo romances is an exhilarating and also formidable challenge. For innately, you know it's innately wrong - a forbidden thirst. But if the author's powerful storytelling convinces you otherwise - proving how right it is for these two broken, beating hearts to belong together - then that is certainly an admirable feat. 🥺
And this is not me justifying or even attempting to excuse it. But it leaves such a strange, surreal feeling of understanding that it compels you to believe what they share together is so very real, so very true, and meant to be. 😢 Circumstances certainly play a part, perhaps even slightly manipulating emotions - painful and agonizing. But how deeply repentant 22yo Joonwon was for craving his 18yo brother Joonyoung for so many years, even to the point of self-harm to prevent those lustful thoughts, definitely played a part. 💔
“Then my heart drops, and I lose my words.” “Hyung…” “I can’t help but love you.”
Or it could be Joonyoung's own jealousy at the mere thought that his beloved brother could be spending time with someone else - his anger at not being able to understand why he felt so strongly against it - till he yields to Joonwon's forcefully filthy, unspeakable actions. It is, but with the promise that for a month if he could experience this Madly, Beautiful longing he has for him - then maybe it would be enough to heal his fractured mental state as a victim and an accomplice. 😟
The translation was well done: smooth, heart-wrenching, and visceral. 🤌🏻 Joonyoung's palpable frustration, his agitation, his vexation at seeing Joonwon's self-imposed injuries, the dark regret and fear of doing something forbidden, the terrifying realization of its irreversibility, but not bearing to see him hurt anymore - because of his unattainable longing for him. That even under the pretense of study sessions for college preparations, the moment when it is no longer unrequited love is visible and tangible. ❤️🩹
“The permission to live was in that breath. It was okay to live. It was okay to love.”
From chasing after him for his attention and adoration after their mother's death when they were both very young, to now wanting to touch and crave him with a heady, intoxicated, indecent desire far beyond the norm of brotherly affection. 🥹 It was an inevitable trajectory that heightened and deepened when he realized why he felt such resentment towards two of his fellow classmates - Juho and Kyungmin (P.S - author-nim, any chance for their full-length story?) - in a relationship; was how he longed to share that same connection with someone he loved, who just happened to be his brother. 😞
And how the author tackled those emotions - Joonwon's heartbreaking distress and pain for hurting him further for his abnormal... dark and depraved sinful thoughts - it was a choice that only with Joonyoung's acceptance and forgiveness could they find an attainable happiness. 🤍 'Every one of these is proof you love me.' A love stronger because it was blood - two hearts estranged, only to be reunited when want of kinship outweighs all else. 🌅