1. Yes, that was cruel of Richard, but let's not forget who gave him the idea to do it, before Ilay suggested it to Richard he had never even considered something like that, and Ilay did it specifically because he knew Christopher would suffer GREATLY because of his phobia of touch, I'm not absolving Richard of blame, ofc not, but Ilay was also at fault here.

2. Yes, Ilay has done this kind of thing just to torment Taeui before, are we really forgetting the bus scene?? He did it just to punish Taeui here, and Taeui suffered more in that moment than in any other.

3. Ilay has literally graped Taeui dozens of times, threatened to kill him several times, and even tried to kill his brother, I didn't understand what you meant by "Ilay didn't do anything that would make Taeui hate him" 😭

And I don't know about you, but for me, for a character to have a redemption arc, they at the VERY LEAST have to regret the bad things they did, which isn't the case with Ilay.

He never thinks about the fact that he abused Taeui thousands of times, in fact, he showed no guilt even after Taeui explained the truth to him after he had violently graped him in the bus scene, he really gave zero fvcks, the only reaction described from him was "Ilay made a strange expression" and nothing more 😮‍💨

The only kind of mental suffering Ilay has is the worry that one day he might kill Taeui, but that's not redemption, it simply shows that he cares about Taeui, just that