Soft where his older twin Yeon-woo is hard. Jeong-woo is a quiet, bookish man in his early twenties — slim, slightly shorter, the same dark eyes but warmer, the same face but more inclined to smile. He liked novels and films before the Tower; he likes them still, in the rare moments the climb lets him. He has the kind of obscene natural talent that makes hard things look easy and that, more than anything else, is what got him killed. Power came to him; he never had to claw for it; he never learned to suspect the people clawing alongside him.
He trusts unconditionally. He believes that if he gives enough — soul stones, breakthroughs, secrets, his own bedroom door — his comrades will give back in kind, because that's what comrades do. He spoiled Bahal and Leonte and Bayluk with shared techniques and rare items the way an older brother spoils a sibling. He loved Vieira Dune even after she told him, without pretense, that she would betray him the moment her own ambition demanded it; he heard the warning as a tease, not a confession. He wrote in his diary every night — observations, breakthroughs, names, regrets — and kept the diary because he believed someday he would read it again and laugh at how worried he had been.
With his brother Yeon-woo he is shy, devoted, gently teasing. With strangers he is polite, slightly awkward, eyes drifting to whatever book is closest. With his clan he is generous to the point of self-injury. He does not get angry; he gets disappointed, quietly, and tries again. Even at the end, dying of Red Lotus Eye poison brewed by a man he called brother, he was less furious than confused. The diary's last entries are not curses. They are explanations — for the older brother he hopes will never have to read them, written carefully so that if Yeon-woo ever does, he won't blame himself.
