In the popular manhwa Define the Relationship (DTR), a fictional painting called Lavender Fields becomes far more than a background prop. While most readers might focus on the evolving romance between Karlyle and Ash, I’ve found myself captivated by how this single object carries the emotional weight of both past and present love.
What makes a simple painting so powerful? The answer lies in how Lavender Fields serves as a silent character that evolves throughout the story, transforming from a symbol of unrequited love to a celebration of love fulfilled, while connecting generations through its journey and embodying the emotional core of the entire manhwa. In tracing the painting’s path from Philip to Sophia, to Karlyle, and finally to Ash, we witness the full spectrum of love’s possibilities—both painful and beautiful.
The Painting Through Ash’s Eyes
We’re first introduced to Lavender Fields when Karlyle and Ash unexpectedly run into each other outside the National Portrait Museum. Ash is on his way to an art exhibition in search of a particular painting by Michael Whitewood and invites Karlyle to go with him. While chatting, he explains that Michael’s father, Philip Whitewood, is also a painter, who only has two known sold works. One of those paintings holds deep, personal meaning for Ash.
Ash gives a description of the painting:
“A mixture of deep blues and purple, you see a vast, endless field of lavender where right in the middle, a person is standing. They have short hair and you see the androgynous silhouette of their back. The moon is shining so brightly and illuminating the wide field almost as if it were daytime. It seems like the person was caught in the action of turning around and in their side profile you can see the artist’s overflowing emotions, that forlorn and contemplating expression. Just seeing it conjures up a deep emotion like the feeling of falling in love.”
This description isn’t just aesthetic—it’s emotional. The painting somehow captures that specific moment of yearning, that space between hope and resignation where love often resides. And it’s this quality that makes it so meaningful to everyone who encounters it throughout the story.
It’s a painting that belonged to Ash’s mother once, but it vanished after her death. To Ash, the painting isn’t just art—it’s a piece of her. One that he regretfully may never see again.
The Search Begins
After the visit to the museum, Karlyle decides to find this painting. With his wealth and connections, it seems like the kind of gift only he could give. He enlists the help of his brother Kyle and his best friend Aiden in his search. Eventually, they discover the painting is in the possession of Marquess Hartford—Sir Philip Gordon.
Aiden arranges a meeting between Karlyle and Sir Gordon. The Marquess, intrigued by the request, agrees. When the two men come face-to-face, Sir Gordon asks Karlyle: What do you feel when you look at the painting?
Seeing the painting for the first time, Karlyle responds: “I feel that they were deeply loved. The artist must have really loved someone, and it resonates through the painting.”
Moved by his sincerity, Sir Gordon gifts Karlyle the painting, only asking for a favor in the future as payment. But Karlyle insists on paying for it. The Marquess declines. Instead, he asks Karlyle to tell him about the person he loves. Caught off guard, Karlyle gives Ash’s name and says simply: he’s a good person.
A slight pause. Was it hesitation? Was it disbelief? A simple glance seems to say so much with so little. Sir Gordon’s eyes flicker with an emotion that the reader cannot decipher—a momentary break in his aristocratic composure. At first, it appears insignificant, perhaps just the surprise of an older gentleman at young love’s candor. But like the painting itself, this moment holds a depth that only reveals itself later.
Intending to use the painting as a confession, Karlyle heads to Ash’s workplace. For him, Lavender Fields has become a symbol of his genuine feelings for Ash, an embodiment of hope—a sensation entirely foreign to him until now. In a life where expectations and duties have been his only compass, Karlyle has never before allowed himself to hope for anything that wasn’t already destined to be his. But Ash changed everything. Despite their rocky beginning, Karlyle now clings to the hope that his feelings are mutual, that this one precious thing might not be predetermined but chosen.
Love Unreturned
But before Karlyle can even approach Ash, he overhears a conversation. Ash tells his curious coworkers that he and Karlyle aren’t an item—they are nothing. The words hit Karlyle like a punch to the gut. It was the final confirmation, a painful realization that the feelings he believed were mutual were nothing more than a fantasy.
Trying to move on, Karlyle returns to his familiar loneliness. He gives the painting to his brother, Kyle—someone he trusts will understand its worth. Now, Lavender Fields symbolizes a love Karlyle never got the chance to confess, a hope quietly buried. What he doesn’t realize is that, in doing so, he’s unknowingly echoing the original artist himself—another man whose love, though openly declared, was never returned.
The Painting’s Origin Story
At this point in DTR, the narrative shifts. We see things from Ash’s perspective, and through that lens, we begin to understand not only Ash himself, but the full history of the painting.
In a flashback to Ash’s childhood, we witness a fight between his parents. Ash’s father, Shane, demands that Ash’s mother Sophia get rid of Lavender Fields. But Sophia refuses. She claims it was given to her as a gift after her mother died. Shane doesn’t buy it—he accuses her of holding onto it because it came from the man she truly loved.
And “that man” was none other than Philip Gordon—her friend and longtime admirer. Lavender Fields was his confession, a gift that carried all his feelings. But Sophia had already made her choice—her heart belonged to Shane.
As a young Ash stares at the painting, Sophia shares a secret with her son: she is that solitary figure in the painting, that moment capturing her lost in thought, excited about the life that she would live with Shane.
Let that sink in.
What Philip intended as a confession of his love became, instead, an unintentional portrait of Sophia falling in love with someone else. Rather than symbolizing his affection, the painting came to represent love unreturned—his unrequited feelings quietly immortalized in paint. And it didn’t end there. He had even chosen his pseudonym, Philip Whitewood, as a quiet tribute to the place where he and Sophia first met.
What makes Philip’s love for Sophia so tragically beautiful is that Sophia had already given her heart to Shane before the paint on Philip’s canvas had even dried. His masterpiece inadvertently captured not his own love being returned, but the very moment the woman he adored fell in love with someone else.
But that was just a part of the tragedy. Years later, he would even witness her death. The day Sophia and Ash happened to cross paths with Philip became their final meeting—a bittersweet, unknowing goodbye that neither could have anticipated. In that moment, did he still see in her as the same figure standing in that lavender field, forever turning away from him?
After her passing, the painting—this token of unrequited love—somehow finds its way back to him. Ash says that his father discarded it, but how? Did Shane discard it only for Philip to find it on his own? Did it return to Philip by pure happenstance? It’s a mystery left untold.
What we do know is that it didn’t sit forgotten in some dusty corner. It was kept on display, proudly and painfully, on Sir Gordon’s estate for all these years. To have that painting in his possession, year after year, what did he feel when he looked at it? And how did he feel when Karlyle came knocking on his door, asking for the painting that Sir Gordon’s held so dear, declaring to be in love with the son of the woman in that very painting?
The Painting Returns Home
Back in the present, Ash has had time to reflect on his own feelings and reaches out to Kyle and Nick in an attempt to reconnect with Karlyle. It’s during this meeting that Kyle reveals the gift Karlyle had intended to give Ash: Lavender Fields.
In that moment—when Ash finally cradles the painting he’s spent his life chasing, the last tangible piece of his mother—everything clicks into place. He sees, with perfect clarity, just how deeply Karlyle cared. This canvas, once a confession of Sir Gordon’s love for Sophia, has become Karlyle’s own declaration of love for Ash. Yet unlike Philip’s unreturned affection, Ash wants to give that love back in full.
Ash asks Kyle to keep the painting. If it was meant to be a gift from Karlyle, he wants to receive it from him. He’s willing to do whatever it takes to see Karlyle again, even if it means asking for a favor from Sir Gordon, someone he hasn’t spoken to in years.
And somehow, fate delivers. Ash and Karlyle run into each other again during a party at Sir Gordon’s mansion. They finally talk, finally confess what’s been buried under pride and misunderstanding and decide to be together.
But one major obstacle still stands in the way of their happy ending: Karlyle’s grandfather. His approval is crucial—and their meeting quickly begins to unravel. Tension runs high until Sir Gordon steps in, calming the situation with quiet authority. Thanks to him, Karlyle and Ash make it out of the encounter mostly intact. Just as they’re about to leave, Sir Gordon stops them and calls in the favor he once asked of Karlyle. Extending his hand to Karlyle, he says:
“I want you and the child of the woman whom I loved most to live a long and happy life together.”
All the love, the yearning, and that aching weight of a lifetime—distilled into just one line. Every single time I reach this scene, I have to pause. There’s something about Sir Gordon’s restrained anguish here that doesn’t merely tug at my heart; it rips it out completely. I clearly have a soft spot for characters haunted by lost love, because this moment hits me like a freight train. Every. Single. Time.
Sir Gordon loved Sophia then, and he still loves her now. Even after all these years. Even after marrying someone else, having a family, and raising a son (It’s easy to forget, but Ash and Karlyle were looking for a painting by Michael Whitewood, Philip’s son, at the beginning of the story). His love for Sophia never faded with time, even after her death. And yet, despite everything, he wants that love to live on through Karlyle and Ash.
Later, Karlyle finally gives Ash the painting himself. Ash never lets on that he already knew it was in Karlyle’s possession. He simply accepts the gift with joy, letting Karlyle have that moment, the satisfaction of giving something so meaningful. This gift was as much for Karlyle as it was for Ash.
Love Fulfilled
And near the end of the series, Ash takes Karlyle to a special exhibit at the Saatchi Gallery for his birthday—just the two of them. Upstairs, Karlyle finds a surprise. Every art piece on the wall captures a place they’ve visited together. In each one, a solitary figure stands with his back turned, face obscured, much like that solitary figure in Lavender Fields, but in these pieces, the silhouette is unmistakably Karlyle.
Then at the end of the exhibit, displayed with quiet reverence, hangs the final piece.
Unlike the others, this one is hand-painted. Oil on canvas. A sprawling field of lavender blooms beneath the glow of a full moon, bright and beautiful among fireworks bursting in the sky. This time, the figure isn’t alone. Two people stand at the center—Karlyle and Ash—face to face, locked in each other’s embrace.
This is their Lavender Fields.
This painting, this version, is no longer a painting about yearning. No longer about love left unanswered. Now, a portrait of love, no longer imagined or hoped for, but real. Mutual. Returned.
Some readers have speculated that it was Sir Gordon who painted the final piece. While I haven’t found definitive proof in the novel (although it does mention Sir Gordon has close ties with the gallery), I want that to be true—so badly. Because wouldn’t that be the most poetic full circle? A man who once lost the woman he loved painting the moment her son finds a love of his own. *chef’s kiss*
Why This Painting Matters
What draws me so deeply to this fictional painting is how it embodies the universal experience of love in its many forms—unrequited longing, painful loss, and eventual fulfillment. Many of us have stood in our own lavender fields at some point, either as the artist painting someone we can’t have, or as the figure in the distance, unaware of being so carefully observed. In DTR, this single object manages to carry the emotional history of multiple generations while evolving from a symbol of what could never be into a celebration of what finally is. It’s storytelling through an object—subtle, layered, and profoundly moving.
I want more of this story. The tangled history of Philip, Sophia, and Shane lingers just beneath the surface of DTR, and I need it unearthed. There is a prequel, Egg Benedict, but it focuses on Kyle and Nick. I’m sure it’s lovely. But please. Give me the messy, unresolved ache of that love triangle.
And the funny thing is—I usually hate love triangles. I tend to prefer romances where the obstacle isn’t another person but something bigger: status, timing, circumstance. Yet, this one has me hooked.
Did Sophia really never love Philip? Or did she choose not to, knowing what it means to love a nobleman? That tension lingers throughout DTR—how stark the divide is between nobility and everyone else. Karlyle worries about that very divide constantly, how others might treat Ash, how the weight of legacy and class could smother something as fragile as love. He even notes how his own father is still met with disdain by some in higher circles.
In the end, one truth stands unshaken: just as Ash and Karlyle love each other, Sir Gordon loved Sophia. He loved her then. He loves her still. And that love—quiet, steadfast, and unshaken by time—lives on in Lavender Fields. A painting that began as a confession, became a monument to loss, and ended as a tribute to love fulfilled.
This is why stories resonate beyond their endings. In the hands of a skilled storyteller, even a fictional painting can hold more emotional truth than many real-world masterpieces hanging in museums. Lavender Fields reminds us that love—even when unreturned—creates something beautiful that can outlast us all.
