i like to think that for vincenzo, cha-young really is his first requited love. yes, he's a charmer, and it's fairly clear that he has some kind of experience with women. he can flirt, charm, court, seduce, cajole, and romance almost anyone. he's aware that he can do this, but his experience with such things in only counterfeit contexts is that there is no meaning to it. he hasn't, in his life, had the opportunity to meet someone that wants something out of it. he hasn't met someone who wears their heart on their sleeve—until cha-young. cha-young, at whose face, not long after meeting her the first time, he spat, and mouthed her off in italian. cha-young who's worked for the enemy. cha-young who needs no one to stand up for her. cha-young, whose fragile pride and earnestly transforming heart are no match for vincenzo's hardened shell of one. he may refuse to see her as a partner, knowing that she trusts him blindly and will only learn a morsel of what evil lives in his soul. and yet she is significant—and yet he depends on her—and yet he misses her presence and wants to protect her from himself, and more importantly, his past. she is genuine and strange and good.

but in each of their fumbling awkwardness, he loves her. he loves her because nothing is forced and nothing is transactional. he shouldn't love her because to love her is to endanger her. but he never claimed to be a good man, and he never asked for her to love him back.