You and Everything Else: Why Does Sang-yeon’s Brother Sang-hak Kill Himself?

You and Everything Else presents a central mystery that becomes the crux around which Ryu Eun-jung’s (Kim Go-eun) and Cheon Sang-yeon’s (Park Ji-hyun) lives revolve. This is about Sang-yeon’s sibling, Cheong Sang-hak (Kim Jae-won), who takes his life quite early in the series. The shocking reason behind his decision was that he wanted to be a girl and liked to dress up like one.

It’s never explicitly stated that he identifies as a transgender person, but Sang-yeon tells Eung-jung that she never had a brother, and instead had a sister. The show initially tells viewers that Sang-hak ended his life because his parents didn’t approve of the woman he was seeing. But that was just a red herring to throw people off the real reason.

The Tragic Circumstances That Led to Cheon Sang-hak’s Preventable Demise

Cheong Sang-hak loved dressing up as a girl and playing with dolls ever since his childhood. This is something his sister, Cheon Sang-yeon, realized after talking with the woman, who went by the name Dylan online. She was also the first person who accepted him for who he was.

However, their parents didn’t accept him. Their father beat him, and their mother told him that he couldn’t do what he was doing. The eldest son of a family pretending to be a woman in a society that believed in traditional gender roles would have brought deep shame on the family.

What exacerbated the situation was probably that Sang-hak wasn’t allowed to study the subject he loved- Photography, and he was getting forcibly enlisted in the military under pressure from his parents. The latter was probably being done in an effort to “cure” him.

None of this is explicitly said in the show, and it doesn’t need to. The dialogues, subtext, and songs of the drama make it clear what might have happened. We piece it together just as Sang-yeon does, and we understand what she went through.

Did Sang-yeon Accept Her Brother’s Truth When She Found Out Years Later

Yes, she did, and immediately when she knew why he ended his life. Cheon Sang-hak took his life when Sang-yeon was just a schoolgirl. All the years after his death, she wondered why he had taken such a sudden and drastic step that had upended their family’s lives.

However, when she finally discovered what it was, she was overwhelmed by sadness. His identity didn’t matter to her, and it wasn’t worth losing her brother over. She even gets angry at her mother and blames her for his death. She also feels no shame in who he was and tells her friend, Ryu Eun-jung, with whom she reconnected in college, and her friend/ crush, Kim Sang-hak, who he was.

Kim Sang-hak already knew his namesake’s secret and had already accepted him. Eun-jung initially seemed stunned to hear the reason, but she never reacted with hate or anger. Now, would kid Sang-yeon have reacted as maturely? Probably not. But that’s a question that doesn’t matter in the timeline of the story.

You and Everything Else K-drama is quite bold in tackling this issue and making it the central focus of its story. Here’s more information about it:

What did you think of this revelation about Cheon Sang-hak? Did you think it was done well? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

You and Everything Else is currently streaming on Netflix.