Domestic violence

Domestic violence is a formative state in Jungkook’s life, rooted in his father’s assaults and the danger he witnessed at home. It drives him to protect his mother as a child, contributes to his flight from the family home at sixteen, and continues to shape how he understands anger, safety, and the possibility of becoming unlike his father.

Family Violence and Childhood

A flashback to the family home in Gangnam, Seoul, shows Jungkook at eight years old trying to intervene in his parents’ argument. His older brother, Ye-jun, holds him back because he fears the child will put himself in danger by going downstairs. Jungkook breaks free as the shouting grows louder and confronts his father, insisting that he leave his mother alone. His defiance is an attempt to protect her, but it places him directly in the path of the violence.

His father answers with physical abuse. After laughing, he finishes his drink and throws the glass across the room; a shard strikes Jungkook in the face. Before the boy can react, his father grabs him by the shirt and slaps him repeatedly, hard enough to leave marks for days or even weeks. When the blows stop, the fear and rage remain tangled together. The episode establishes a pattern in which Jungkook’s efforts to resist his father do not end the danger, but expose him to it.

The abuse remains hidden from people beyond the household for years. Sunmi remembers Jungkook as a quiet, calm child until he arrived at her home with his face badly injured. He claimed he had been in a school fight and that Namjoon had rescued him before matters grew worse; she believed him. Only after Jungkook ran away from home at sixteen and sought refuge with her did the broader situation become clear. His father showed no interest in finding him, while Sunmi immediately welcomed him into her home. Jungkook was grateful for her protection, and that gratitude continued into adulthood.

Secrecy, Flight, and Failed Protection

Jungkook’s abuse remained concealed not simply because he lied about his injuries, but because the adults around him had little power to make the truth safe to tell. After he appeared at Sunmi’s home visibly hurt, she tried to bring the matter to the police. They did not act. Jungkook later asked her not to tell his mother, afraid that his father would find out; Sunmi was reluctant, but kept her promise. She feared for Jungkook, while his mother avoided the subject altogether. Protection thus took the form of refuge and silence: Sunmi could give him a home, but neither she nor the authorities had stopped the violence inside his family.

That history resurfaces when Jungkook reunites with his mother. Seeing her wedding ring, he fears that she may have married another cruel man and that her apparent restfulness is only a façade. Min-ha reassures him that Frank is not like his father: he does not hit her, and he has tried to find Jungkook. She and Frank had even encountered Ye-jun, who did not know where his brother was, but she would not ask Jungkook’s father for help. Her new marriage therefore marks a contrast with the violence she escaped, not a repetition of it.

Jungkook responds with relief, embraces his mother, and breaks down in tears. He apologizes for leaving her alone with his father and says he should have stayed or taken her with him. Min-ha does not blame him: she understands why he fled and admits that, had she possessed the same courage, she would have left too, taking both Jungkook and Ye-jun. Their exchange gives the flight a painful double meaning. It saved Jungkook, but he carries it as a failure to rescue his mother; her response recognizes his departure as an act of survival rather than betrayal.

The Violence Revisited and the Fear of Repeating It

The past returns in Jungkook’s adult life not only as memory but as a conflict he still answers with his body. When he tells Min-ha that Dong-hyun has come to Ellensburg, he admits they fought. Jungkook says his father ended up in the hospital after their previous clash and filed a complaint, which Shelby persuaded him to withdraw. Min-ha is horrified, but recognizes the familiar collision: Dong-hyun provokes, while Jungkook, unwilling to back down, meets him with anger. The confrontation exposes how the child who once ran toward his mother to stop the violence has grown into a son who can still be pulled into its physical logic.

Jungkook also recognizes the danger of carrying that logic into his relationship with Shelby. After she fears that he might strike her, he insists that he would never lay a hand on her or do what his father did. Her fear follows a moment of anger and disappointment, rather than evidence that Jungkook has hit her; nevertheless, the possibility is enough to bring the inherited violence into the present. His horrified response shows how urgently he distinguishes himself from Dong-hyun, while the episode makes clear that a promise cannot erase the fear produced by abuse.

The novel sets that fear beside scenes in which touch must be approached with care. During Shelby’s panic at an art class, Cassiopée’s hands on her shoulders make her recoil and cry out; she remains curled up, clearly refusing further contact. Later, when Jungkook finds her crying in a shower at the boxing venue, he switches off the water, crouches beside her, and waits without knowing what to do until she calms. When she breaks down after seeing her injuries in a mirror, he rests a hand on her knees as she seeks comfort. These encounters distinguish support from control through their circumstances: Shelby’s distress and boundaries matter, and comfort is not treated as something another person can demand.

That distinction becomes especially visible during another panic attack, when Madison tells Jungkook that Shelby is frightened and he hurries to her. Shelby recognizes his familiar spring-like scent, puts her arms around his neck, and rests her face against his shoulder; only then does he hold and soothe her until her breathing returns to normal. The contrast with the earlier unwanted touch makes the moment’s chosen closeness significant. Jungkook’s attentiveness does not undo Shelby’s trauma, but the scene presents safety as a response shaped by her recognition and participation rather than force.

Jungkook’s own account links his efforts to change with the image of the demons that have occupied his thoughts since childhood. He admits that trying to learn how to love Shelby did not drive them away, and that the pull of vice overcame him when he returned to the Ares Garden ring. He regrets the choice when he sees Shelby’s tear-streaked face. His struggle therefore extends beyond a simple declaration that he will not become his father: the narrative repeatedly tests that intention against anger, violence, and self-destructive impulses, while placing it alongside moments of restraint, accountability, and care.

From Inherited Violence to Accountability

Jungkook’s history of being hurt by his father also sharpens his response when he sees violence directed at others. In confronting Robert Jefferson, he challenges the man’s claim that he has done nothing, invoking Shelby and Jefferson’s daughter Madison as witnesses to his abuse and rejecting the idea that money can protect him indefinitely. Jungkook says he wants the women Jefferson traumatized to know that he is behind bars. The scene does not erase Jungkook’s own recourse to physical confrontation, but it places his anger in a different frame: against a perpetrator’s impunity and toward accountability, rather than submission to the violence that governed his childhood.