"Little hope is still hope." ― Hyun Cha
Hyun Cha is the main protagonist of Sweet Home.
He is currently infected with the monsterization virus, but is fighting back.
Background
Hyun had a rather happy childhood. Up until his high school years, he was the pride of his family.
However, in high school he was targeted by a rich bully who made sure that Hyun was socially excluded too. Eventually, even his own sister started excluding him by claiming that he wasn't her brother. His parents never took action either.
One time, the bully told a student that if he jumped in front of a car, the bully would pay for his mom's surgery. Seeing this, Hyun got angry and instead pushed the bully. Since Hyun's father worked in the bully's father's company, he was fired.
And the student who was supposed to jump in front of the car blamed Hyun for the death of his mom.
Eventually, Hyun refused to go to school anymore and started hating everyone around him, including his family. He fell into suicidal thoughts and has a history of self harm.
Appearance
Hyun has unkempt, short black hair. He usually wears sandals, jeans, a tee shirt, and a zip-up hoodie.
Personality
When first introduced, as a result of the trauma of bullying, Hyun initially is extremely anti-social and rude to everyone around him. He prefers his online life over the real world. He strongly resented everyone around him, including his own family. He is direct and blunt. He is a strong fan of anime and video games. Following the tragic death of his family, he begins to realize what he has lost and becomes suicidal. During the apocalypse, however, Hyun realizes he wants to live and slowly starts connecting with other people again. Hyun is perceptive and has a remarkably strong will, which helps him hold off the effects of complete monsterization. However, his Inner Monster is very persistent at getting Hyun to turn, and the constant stress and trauma and the Inner Monster's constant attempts appear to be slowly whittling away at Hyun, as it appears Hyun has to exert more effort each time the monster tries to take over to stay human.
Plot
Hyun is introduced as an extreme social recluse, shunning even a family vacation. Upon learning his family had died, Hyun attends the funeral, but only vents his bitterness. He later moves into Green Room Apartments where he resolves to live until October 25, which is when the final movie of his favorite anime comes out. After watching the movie he planned to take his life.
However, the monsterification apocalypse begins. His first encounter with a monster is with the Hungry Monster, who was formerly his next door neighbor. He went to check on her after he noticed his food was stolen, but was forced to run away when he noticed the bloody mess in her apartment. He accidentally attracts the monster's attention, and his encounter with it happens through the door camera. He witnesses the young lady slowly monsterfy, something that greatly terrifies him. He works up the courage to go and help his upstairs neighbor, but ends up running into Wook Pyeon. As a misunderstanding started to happen, Hyun experiences the first signs of monsterification and faints. He wakes up a few days later and uses the internet to check what is going on. He realizes, with horror, that he is turning into a monster himself. He also narrowly survives an encounter with the Blind Monster after making several blunders that attract its attention.
He tries to get in touch with his online friends and gets more information. He realizes that the friend he has been chatting with may live in the same apartment he does. He attempts to open a window to find the Eye Monster staring at him. He keeps his blinds closed for awhile out of fear. He opens up the blinds one day to find that a man was trying to climb down. He warns the man that the Eye Monster was right behind him, but this scares the man, causing him to lose his grip and fall to his death. Hyun decides to save the kids by throwing his keyboard at the eye monster, but this just provokes it into attacking Hyun. He is saved when Duzik severs Eye Monster's head, though he did not kill it.
Duzik invites Hyun to his room to help equip him to save the children. Hyun leaves, and is forced to fight and stun the Blind Monster. He makes it to the children's room, and after scaring the Slime Monster away, gets the children. However, almost immediately after leaving their room, they are forced to run away from the Steroid Monster. Hyun stays behind to hold it back, and is saved by Jisu and Jayhun. After explaining the situation to the two, Hyun and them try to catch up with the kids. They manage to distract the Steroid Monster long enough for the kids to get away. The Blind Monster then arrives due to the commotion, and attacks the Steroid Monster. Hyun is eventually forced to distract the Steroid Monster again, but the group manages to get the monster out of the building.
The children, a mother who lost her child, Jayhun, Hyun, and Jisu make it back to Duzik's apartment. It is there where Hyun admits he is infected and is in the process of turning into a monster himself. This creates some distrust in the group, particularly with Jisu, but they learn to put aside the feeling and start bonding.
After a few days, Jayhun, Jisu, and Hyun decide to leave the apartment in search of supplies and a safer hideaway. However, they are attacked by the Tentacle Monster, and Hyun becomes severely wounded in as a result. As Hyun loses consciousness, he hears a rescue party arrive. While unconscious, his Inner Monster attempts to create an utopian dream world to get Hyun to give in to his desires. However, Hyun notices several inconsistencies in the false reality and realizes it was a trick. He refuses the Inner Monster's offer and regains consciousness.
The rescue party has taken the group in, but is deeply mistrustful of Hyun due to him turning into a monster. Hyuk Lee organizes a vote, in which the majority lets him stay, but ask that he remain isolated from the main group, though now Jeop Sun joins him as he also started monsterification. Hyun is tasked with Wook Pyeon to go to the 14th floor to save Duzik, the lady, and the children. Unbeknownst to Hyun, the lady has already succumbed to monsterization and became the Infant Monster. Hyuk then secretly tells Hyun that the children should be treated as optional and should be abandoned if they need to save Duzik's life, infuriating Hyun.
As Wook and Hyun make their way up the stairs, they get sidetracked by Wook's goal to personally kill every monster he comes across. Hyun takes advantage of his advanced healing ability, "gifted" by his infection, to electrify the Hand Monster, giving Wook time to find and incinerate it. Hyun and Wook eventually re-encounter the Tentacle Monster. As the Tentacle Monster starts proving more than a match for the two, Mr. Ahn and Yuri Park arrive and save them. In the safety of Mr. Ahn's room, Mr. Ahn pranks Hyun by pretending to not want to be around someone who is monsterfying. The now group of four attempt to climb the stairs, but they accidentally wake up the Speed Monster. The Speed Monster manages to knock Yuri and Wook unconscious. Hyun has some success fighting it, and is eventually able to trap, stun, and incinerate the monster. They reach Duzik's apartment, where Hyun learns the sad fate of the woman.
Duzik is brought down to the lobby where he re-activates the elevator. However, Eun Lee notices someone else has used the elevator. Mr. Kim, the apartment security guard, emerges. While some bystanders are relieved and go up to greet him, Eun realizes he is no longer human. As Mr. Kim attacks, Hyun is forced to argue with Byeong as she refuses to remove the barricades to let Hyun and Jisu fight. After getting to the lobby, Hyun saves Mr. Ahn, but is horrified and depressed to discover Jayhung has been killed. Additionally, he begins losing hope as Mr. Kim's durability makes his attacks near ineffective. His Inner Monster attempts to turn him with the promise of more strength. Jisu, however, helped snap him back to his senses and encourage him to fight on with his own power. Hyun takes advantage of the Mouth Monster's attack to stick its tongue on to Mr. Kim, draining Mr. Kim of its organs and letting the survivors incinerate the remains.
After this attack, Dazik upgrades the cars, and Hyun is selected to go on a mission to retrieve food at a nearby grocery store. However, the party could not make it out of the parking lot before the Steroid Monster attacked. The monster managed to incapacitate most of the party, and was about to crush Hyun when Mr. Ahn shoved him out the way, sacrificing himself in Hyun's place. The Inner Monster attempted to take control again, but Byeong managed to save the day by comandeering a passing bus to help defeat the monster.
These feelings of joy were shortlived as Wook realized Byeong ended up taking a prison bus with a criminal gang inside. As the criminals took over, Joon Shin, the gang leader, attempts to coerce Hyun into joining him, but relents as he is not going to kill him while he is still useful. Following the Tentacle Monster's attack, Hyun tries to reason with the Slime Monster, but his actions are pointless when Joon Shin has his gang incinerate the monster.
As Hyun thinks over his ideals, he runs into the Face Monster. He soon realizes the monster is one of the survivors, causing him to hesitate killing it. However, he is forced to incinerate it as it turns hostile. This causes Hyun to lose faith in his ideas, and join up with the gang. His first assignment is to go with Ihyun Jo to destroy every other monster they can find. However, the two's opposing views on how to treat monsters cause an argument, and eventually a fight, when Ihyun discovers the Infant Monster, who has since turned into an egg.
Jisu eventually catches up to Hyun, worried about his emotional state. As the two wonder about the egg, Ihyun siezes the opportunity to incinerate the egg. This has the effect of attracting a horde of monsters. One monster, the Flying Monster, breaks into the window and nearly abducts Jisu, who was willing to sacrifice herself so that Hyun didn't have to rely on monsterification to save her. Hyun snapped back to his senses and used his electric spear to shock the monster into retreating, although he had to impale Jisu to do so.
The two make their way to the ground floor, but Jisu gets taken hostage by Joon Shin. Hyuk saves the two, but then Hyun needs to talk Hyuk out of killing Joon Shin. It is then Hyun notices Hyuk is turning into a monster. Hyun has to quickly snap Hyuk back to his senses, as a horde of monsters are beginning to break the barricades. Hyun and Jisu manage to get Eun and the kids and get to a higher floor. However, Hyun runs back to the garage when he learns Dazik is turning and is planning to sacrifice himself. When he reaches Dazik, he realizes he is too late, and mourns Dazik's death. As he does so, he is shocked to see a regular person approach him.
Upon making contact with the mysterious figure, Hyun falls unconscious and confronts his Inner Monster. The Inner Monster reveals that the cause of monsterification is actually a part of the human soul seeking to "save" humanity, Hyun denies this as a corruption. However, in the dream world, he hears his mom and is tempted to open the door. However, to his Soul's shock, Hyun declines, stating that he has people right now he needs to protect. As he snaps back into reality, he punches the mysterious man, but the man is completely unfazed. Hyun then realizes Duzik has turned into a monster. While mournful, he resists his soul's insistence to give in and prepares to fight the now monsterfied Duzik, but Wook Pyeon and Myeong-Il arrive and kill Duzik in his place.
Relationships
Parents
Prior to the series, Hyun was his parents' pride and joy. However, after severe bullying and his fathers' inaction,he grew to loathe his parents. He refused to even talk to them, instead sending messages via text. Immediately after, he was ungrateful towards his family at the funeral. It was only at the onset of the apocalypse that he realized how much his family meant to him.
Sua
Sua is Hyun's younger sister. The siblings shared good relations until Hyun started getting bullied and socially excluded. At that point, people started asking Sua if Hyun was her brother, which she constantly denied, as she was too embarrassed of her brother. In a conversation with a friend, she claimed that she didn't have a brother and was extremely angry at anyone who thought Hyun was related to her. That was the moment Hyun started to hate her.
Jisu
Jisu is Hyun's neighbor and lives directly above his apartment. At first, she was hostile toward him when she and the others realized that Hyun was starting to monsterize. Soon, she apologized and they grew close to each other. Jisu, in particular, is Hyun's strongest supporter and appears to put his safety and well being ahead of other people. Jisu also is able to reach Hyun's humanity and get him to snap back to his senses whenever he is about to monsterfy.
Jayhun
Wook Pyeon
Trivia
- His clothes have the word, Bastard, which is a reference to the webcomic Bastard by the same authors.