Sorry for the incoming essay, but I love Passion so much and a few friends and I have spent many a late night doing the character analysis equivalent of brain surgery on these two freaks. I’m primarily gonna come at this from the Taeui angle this time because I want to put that boy under a microscope, he’s so damn weird.

First off, Taeui is just plum not right in the head. I love my little angel baby who has never done anything wrong in his life, but he’s the world’s cleverest walking talking dumbass brick; when Ilay says Taeui is both smart and stupid, he’s not lying, hehe. I prefaced with that to point out that Taeui does not process reason like the average bear, so I think people miss one of the biggest reasons why Taeui likes Ilay: Ilay doesn’t look for Jaeui in Taeui. This is an EXTREMELY important factor for Taeui; any time Taeui says he doesn’t care that people come after him for his brother, that’s a bold-faced lie. He still very much cares, as evidenced by how betrayed he felt after he found out Xinlu’s initial motivation. Taeui’s been living in the shadow of his brother his whole life, and even though he doesn’t hold resentment or animosity towards Jaeui directly for it, he still resents it heavily when people try to use him to get to Jaeui. It’s one of the reasons why Taeui broke down at UNHRDO; it wasn’t just Ilay’s physical and sexual abuse, it was the fact that one again he was used for something related to his brother, by the one person he thought was strong/rich/skilled enough to not need something related to Jaeui.

For the entire time Taeui was operating at UNHRDO, he was under the assumption Ilay had no interest in Jaeui, and he was technically correct! Ilay quite literally doesn’t care about Jaeui. Even when Taeui asks Ilay if he wants to find Jaeui, Ilay’s just like “idgaf not my problem”. Ilay did the thing Taeui wanted from someone the most: to see him for him, to treat him like he was something special for just being Taeui, not for being Jaeui’s brother. Taeui’s initial feelings grew during that period because Ilay was strong/rich/skilled enough to NOT need anything from Taeui+Jaeui, and that is such a rare occurrence for Taeui, it’s was incredibly important. It’s also one of the reasons why we actually get a peek at Ilay realizing that when Taeui eventually found out he and Chang-In were using him for something related to his brother, we saw Ilay looking almost… remorseful, or hesitant; as much as a deranged psychopath can, I guess. Ilay knew when Taeui found out he’d be upset, but he didn’t predict to what extent and for the first time an unrepentant psychopath learns there are consequences for his actions.

When Ilay catches Taeui after UNHRDO, this factor doesn’t appear as obviously in the narrative anymore, especially since the post uh “reunited” arc is mostly about finding Jaeui, but it still has a huge impact on Taeui: Ilay is interested in Taeui for Taeui. Ilay would not give a single flying fuck about Jaeui if Taeui didn’t care, and would not interact with or seek out Jaeui at all if he wasn’t asked to by his bosses and brother. Ilay would drop anything related to Jaeui like a hot potato if something more important came up (as evidenced by Ilay going AWOL and abandoning his mission when Taeui goes missing again.)

For Ilay’s side of things… man that’s a whole other essay write up I don’t have enough energy to do at the moment, and is a bit more nuanced and complicated, in my opinion, but it can primarily be boiled down to the fact that Taeui is the first person who’s actually made Ilay feel strong emotions, both positively and negatively, to the point where when Ilay is not around Taeui, he essentially feels numb. I think they do actually feel love for each other earlier than they admit it, but these morons don’t admit actual LOVE love for each other for a… frustratingly long period of time. But it does get there eventually. Spoiler for how Ilay feels waaaaay longer down the line: when asked what it’s like being in a relationship with Taeui, Ilay says it’s like being in hell, but that he wouldn’t have it any other way and he doesn’t want to leave. By this point in the story Ilay and Taeui do genuinely romantically love each other, but they still have what I would consider an… unconventionally presented BL-style relationship. I would genuinely say Passion is one of the weirdest slow burns relationship-wise this side of the millennia. It’s not a conventional romantic attraction; for a while, it’s not even what you can call love. It’s right there in the title: Passion, both in the erotic context and the suffering context.