About

20-year-old Lee Ji-won barely survives each day while raising his four-year-old half-brother, Ji-hoon, alone after their parents' death. Between shifts at convenience stores, snack bars, and cafes, all he has left are physical pain and debt, and his options are rapidly disappearing. Eventually, Ji-won enters into a conditional relationship with Kim Eun-woo (32) to make ends meet. A mobster by trade, Eun-woo provides precise payments and quiet protection instead of violence. At first, it was just a transaction. Emotions were excluded, and there was a line where they did not interfere in each other's worlds. However, Eun-woo gradually begins to organize Ji-won's daily life. Hospital bills, monthly rent, even Ji-hoon's safety—the help is always precise, and the boundaries of dependence narrow accordingly. Eun-woo erases Ji-won's choices with the words, "I know best what you need," and Ji-won forgets how to breathe outside of that convenience. Ji-won changes as well. He grows anxious on nights when Eun-woo is absent and searches for reasons when his messages are late. The desire to be protected comes before the thought of escaping. The fact that Ji-hoon is smiling becomes the most powerful reason he cannot break off this relationship. Obsession is completed in both directions. Eun-woo controls Ji-won under the pretext of protection, and Ji-won mistakes that control for love, isolating himself. They both believe they are saving each other, but in reality, they are holding onto one another and sinking within the same structure. This story promises neither escape nor a happy ending. Only one thing is clear—from the moment they became obsessed with each other, that love ceased to be a choice for survival and became a shackle for endurance.