At what point do repeated coincidences add up to a sign of something more? That’s the question our mismatched diners are faced with as they find themselves running into each other over and over, despite having agreed that their connection was just temporary. They’re also being confronted with their past traumas at exactly the same time, which makes them wonder — is there more to their meetings than simple happenstance?
EPISODE 5
Both Do-hee and Hae-kyung show up at the fish market when trot singer Tae Jin-ah’s song tops the charts, due to a hacker with a grudge against Kpop idols. They’re happy to see each other, but when Hae-kyung admits that he didn’t actually think this would happen, it annoys Do-hee so much that she refuses to treat him to the sea urchin he’s craving. Instead, she takes him to a cheap rice bowl food cart, HA.
At 2N Box, Ah-young is still reeling at how good-looking the mysterious Dr. Kim Hae-kyung turned out to be. She tells Jung-hwan to find out if Do-hee is meeting with Hae-kyung like she’s supposed to be, then drags So-ra into her office. She’s worried by Do-hee’s traumatic breakup (“What if she loses it like when Jae-hyuk left her?”) and orders So-ra to let her know if there’s anything going on.
Hae-kyung and Do-hee order their food and sneak up to a rooftop to eat… well, Do-hee sneaks, Hae-kyung just rolls his eyes and saunters past the guard station. While Hae-kyung eats, Do-hee reads (then ignores) Ah-young’s increasingly aggressive texts. She does send So-ra a message saying that she failed to meet up with Dr. Kim, and she texts Jung-hwan that she’s on a date with “a granny.”
When she’s done, she notices that Hae-kyung has wolfed down his rice bowl like a starving person. He pretends the food was only okay, but he tricks Do-hee into wishing on a nonexistent shooting star, and while her eyes are closed, he finishes off her dinner, too. LOL, he’s so cute.
Do-hee relents and takes Hae-kyung to a restaurant she knows, where the owner is from Jeju and only makes sea urchin for her regulars. He pretends he’s not impressed, but when he tries the sea urchin, his eyes fly open in surprise. Do-hee gives him a hard time for criticizing the restaurant’s humble appearance, but Hae-kyung mumbles with a full mouth that they can discuss it next time.
When Do-hee squeaks, “Next time?!” they both look shocked at his casual assumption that there will be a next time. Hae-kyung takes back control by asking if the man who took Do-hee to that roof also used to take her here, having deduced that both places are cheap and comfortable for long-term couples.
Further, he’d noticed that she didn’t think twice about bringing someone new, so he says it must have been someone she dated before Young-dong. Do-hee asks incredulously how he figured all that out, but Hae-kyung doesn’t tell her it’s his job, he just says he’s observant.
Do-hee confesses that Hae-kyung is right that it was a guy she dated before Young-dong. She says he was her first love, and that they had dated for six years and were planning to get married when he suddenly sent her a text message saying “I’m going abroad,” and that was it.
A man walks the same path Do-hee and Hae-kyung took tonight — through the fish market and past the rice bowl cart, up to the roof. He remembers doing these things with Do-hee… this is her ex, JUNG JAE-HYUK (Lee Ji-hoon). He tosses his empty bowl in the trash, and he pauses for a second when he realizes there’s already trash from the rice bowl cart in the receptacle.
Hae-kyung tries to tease Do-hee for being left by multiple guys, but she pouts that he makes her sound like a victim. Hae-kyung says that his first love story is also a tragedy, and Do-hee curses, only to quickly say that she’s talking about their exes, not him.
Jae-hyuk heads down to the neighborhood restaurant, and as soon as he greets the owner, Do-hee recognizes his voice and freezes. She imagines the owner pointing her out, but Jae-hyuk sits without seeing her. Confused, Hae-kyung asks if Do-hee knows that guy, but she says she doesn’t.
She goes to pay for dinner while Hae-kyung waits outside. She belatedly realizes that she doesn’t have her credit card, so she aegyos the owner into letting her pay later. She leaves her business card on the bulletin board, and of course Jae-hyuk sees it when he’s finished eating. He pays Do-hee’s tab and takes her card with him.
Do-hee tells Hae-kyung that she’s glad she was able to repay him with dinner and freely speak her mind a little, even though neither of them expected this to happen. Do-hee says, “Do you think we can…” and Hae-kyung looks a bit excited, only for her to finish, “… never see each other again?” HAHA, ouch.
He agrees that it ends here, and Do-hee moves slowly, as if reluctant to actually leave. Hae-kyung lets her go, and although he watches her wistfully for a long time, he doesn’t follow her.
Do-hee oversleeps the next morning, and when she gets to work, she pretends to be super sick for sympathy. Ah-young shocks Do-hee by hugging her and sobbing that she must be having a hard time (because of her breakup). Do-hee is angry at So-ra for tattling, but So-ra fires back that it saved Do-hee’s butt today.
So-ra is still twitterpated over the handsome Dr. Kim Hae-kyung coming by their office, but Do-hee brandishes a fist and vows to smash him today. Meanwhile, Hae-kyung is reminded of his ex-girlfriend, No-eul, when a new patient’s chart says she’s overcome with guilt after breaking up with a guy.
No-eul is a well-known internet fitness guru, who even owns her own gym. It’s obvious that a lot of her male customers are only there to ogle her, though she doesn’t seem to mind as she struts around the gym floor.
An employee points out a new customer who paid for an entire year in advance. He asks No-eul to have dinner with him and she turns him down flat. But he’s handsome and he’s friends with the building’s owner, so she changes her mind and agrees to lunch. LOL, he goes back to his machine and makes a big deal out of lifting one tiny weight.
Do-hee is determined to catch Dr. Kim today, and on the way out of the building she runs into GEON-WOO (Lee Hyun-jin), the stylist for their on-camera talent. Geon-woo gives Do-hee a voucher for a meal at a fancy restaurant, and she fusses at him for not giving it to her yesterday, ha.
EPISODE 6
No-eul has lunch with the new gym guy, but right up front he tells her that he has a girlfriend and is looking for a friend with benefits. No-eul tells him to come back to the gym tomorrow for his full refund, then walks away grumbling that she only wanted a business contact.
Do-hee arrives back at Hae-kyung’s clinic just moments after he leaves. Byung-jin tells her that Hae-kyung is gone, impervious to her weird brand of aegyo. He gets a call from Hae-kyung just then, who left behind the address where he’s supposed to meet his new patient.
Byung-jin smacks a hand over the note, but Do-hee sees the name of the restaurant, “Moon River.” She looks up the restaurant, but there are two locations and they’re on opposite sides of the city.
While Do-hee is out, Jae-hyuk comes by the 2N Box offices looking for her. Ah-young pulls Jae-hyuk into her office, where he tells her that he wants to get back together with Do-hee. Ah-young asks who he thinks he is after what he did to Do-hee, but he only says that they’re each other’s first loves.
Ah-young gets so angry that she can’t even think of strong enough curse words. She informs Jae-hyuk that what he is, is the guy who dumped Do-hee in a three-word text then left the country: “What a sweet first love, indeed!” Jae-hyuk says that he’s realized he was wrong and wants to be better this time, but she kicks him out of her office.
He leaves his business card (he’s a medical journalist), telling Ah-young condescendingly to call him if she needs help. Ah-young warns So-ra, Jung-hwan, and Jin-kyu not to tell Do-hee about Jae-hyuk stopping by on pain of death.
The restaurant where Hae-kyung is supposed to meet his new patient turns out to be the same one where No-eul broke up with him. He’s haunted by the painful memories as he’s seated at the exact same table, remembering how he was planning to propose but No-eul turned him down.
She’d said he was boring because he never got jealous or argued with her. Hae-kyung had said he was trying to be understanding and respectful, but No-eul had complained that she didn’t feel like he loved her. He had insisted that he did, but she’d said that he didn’t make her heart flutter anymore.
Hae-kyung’s musings are broken by No-eul’s voice… she’s sitting right in front of him. She admits that she booked a session with him under a fake name since she knew he wouldn’t see her otherwise, and tells him without preamble that she wants to get back together.
He sits, stunned, for ten full minutes before No-eul prompts him to say something. Hae-kyung challenges each of the cruel things she said when she broke up with him, but No-eul replies that she was young and didn’t know what love was, and that when she said she didn’t have feelings for him anymore, that was normal considering how long they’d dated.
Do-hee plays eeny meeny miney mo to decide which restaurant to look for Dr. Kim…. and picks wrong. She goes all the way across town to the right restaurant, and she sees Hae-kyung getting up to go collect his wits in the men’s room, but she shrugs it off.
The waitress leads her to another table, but she passes by No-eul, since their table is reserved under the fake patient name. Do-hee recognizes her and thinks how pretty she is, then flips her hair confidently and keeps going because she’s a badass like that.
Coincidentally, there is someone in the restaurant named Kim Hae-kyung, but it’s a woman who swears she’s not the famous psychiatrist. On her way out, Hae-kyung spots her and thinks that she looks familiar from behind, but he doesn’t pursue her.
He sits back down, and No-eul asks him if he’s seeing anyone. Hae-kyung says he is, so No-eul orders him to break things off right away because she doesn’t want him seeing anyone else. Wow, she’s making so many assumptions, Hae-kyung is rendered speechless.
Meanwhile, Do-hee’s mother lets herself into Do-hee’s apartment uninvited. Do-hee stops by the convenience store, where she runs into the homeless guy again. He tells her that her mother is at her place, which he knows because she was at the store earlier and he heard her say she was going there. Do-hee accuses him of being a stalker, but he says laconically that he just has good hearing, hee.
She calls her mom, who flips from laughing at a TV show to loud sobs, wailing that Do-hee’s father is cheating on her again. Do-hee tells her to knock it off, and Mom easily cuts off the waterworks. Although Do-hee is starving, she refuses to go home and gives the homeless man the convenience store dinner she just bought.
She’s sitting in her car trying to decide where to go when he knocks on her window to give her the triangle kimbap, but she turns it down. Another knock sets her off, but this time it’s Jae-hyuk, who’s finally tracked her down.
She’s not interested in whatever he wants to say, but he keeps following her until she asks why he broke up with her that way. Jae-hyuk says he thought it was for the best, but Do-hee says he should have told her he was studying abroad and asked her to wait for him.
Jae-hyuk says he couldn’t, but Do-hee corrects that he didn’t, because he has no respect for others. Do-hee is incredulous that Jae-hyuk doesn’t even say he’s sorry, and he asks if she’d even accept an apology from him.
He promises it will never happen again, but she refuses Jae-hyuk’s request for a second chance. She yells that he can’t just pick her up and put her down like an object, and when he says he loves her, Do-hee puts a hand on his chest and tells him, “I don’t want that love anymore.”
When Hae-kyung gets home, he finds his mother sitting in his dark apartment. He’s not at all happy to see her, and he tells her not to drop by like this again. She says she’s sick and asks Hae-kyung to go to the doctor with her, but he tells her to go by herself.
Mom says she’s scared, and Hae-kyung says he was scared when his father died, but she wasn’t there for him. She says she might be terminally ill, and that does make Hae-kyung hesitate for a moment, but he hardens and replies that his father was so scared the night before his surgery that he held Hae-kyung and sobbed for three hours. He leaves, and his mother hangs her head.
No-eul is at a photo shoot, with Geon-woo working as her stylist. He gets a call from someone he only calls “hyung,” and agrees to meet him after the shoot is over.
Still hungry, Do-hee remembers the meal voucher that Geon-woo gave her and decides to cash it in. She gets stuck in traffic, and by now she’s so frustrated and hangry that she just pulls over and runs the rest of the way. She crashes into the restaurant, only to be told that they’re booked for the evening.
A tap on her shoulder startles Do-hee, but not as much as the sight of Hae-kyung standing there. He plucks the cherry blossom from her hair (lol) and says he’s meeting someone here for dinner. Do-hee says she was planning to eat alone, and Hae-kyung is called to his table, so they part awkwardly.
Hae-kyung watches as Do-hee slinks out of the restaurant and the sign is flipped to “closed.” Do-hee is mostly upset that he saw her looking so disheveled, hee.
When No-eul’s photo shoot is over, Geon-woo tells her that he has an appointment. But she reminds him that she has an interview with a medical journalist after this, so she needs him, and he sheepishly admits that he forgot.
Do-hee walks slowly away from the restaurant, but she doesn’t get far before Hae-kyung takes her by the elbow. We see that he texted Geon-woo, who was his original dinner companion, and canceled their meeting. Do-hee thinks about how, earlier in the day, she’d thought that if she ever saw her Jeju man again it wouldn’t be a miracle, but destiny.
Hae-kyung looks simultaneously nervous and hopeful as he asks Do-hee, “If it’s okay, would you like to have dinner with me?” Do-hee smiles, and Hae-kyung’s answering smile is too sweet for words.
COMMENTS
I love that Hae-kyung went after Do-hee again, because this time it’s not coincidence or repayment or an accident, but a conscious choice to spend time together. I think he’s definitely developing feelings for her despite himself. His expression as he asked her to have dinner with him the first time, back in Jeju, was adorable, but it was mostly because he felt weird asking a stranger to hang out when they didn’t really know each other. Now he’s asking because he does know Do-hee and wants to spend more time with her, so the stakes are higher, and you can see that all over his face. I’m so happy, because they’re so adorable together. They’re prickly and they rub each other the wrong way most of the time, but they’re also comfortable and honest with each other, so it’s going ot be extra fun when they discover that they’re already penpal enemies.
Do-hee is quickly making a case to become one of my favorite drama heroines… I just love her sass and quirkiness and absolute confidence. She’s developing a little thing for her Jeju man, but that doesn’t mean she’s not willing to give him a verbal smackdown when he’s being haughty or know-it-all, and she’s the same way at work with her willingness to fight to do things her way. And when it comes to Jae-hyuk, Do-hee didn’t even hesitate, she just told him to take his so-called love and get lost.
This episode really made my heart break for Hae-kyung, now that we’ve seen more of No-eul and how she treated him. He loved her, but she called his love boring, when he was only trying to be a good partner. We don’t know enough about No-eul to really judge her yet, but right now she comes across as one of those people who thrive on conflict, because she actually wanted Hae-kyung to act jealous and fight with her. I sort of understand the logic behind the idea that not showing strong emotions can be read as not feeling strong emotions, but I don’t necessarily agree with it. Everyone is different, and just because someone isn’t outwardly jealous or angry or whatever, doesn’t mean they don’t care.
I don’t think that No-eul was necessarily wrong to break up with Hae-kyung, but she lost my respect with how she did it. She made Hae-kyung feel like there was something wrong with him because he didn’t express himself in the ways she wanted. And then to trick Hae-kyung into seeing her by making a fake appointment because she knew he wouldn’t want to see her? How about respecting his right not to see her if he doesn’t want to? Nope, she wants it, so the ends justify the means. Then she made it even worse by saying she wanted to get back together without even an apology or explanation (until ten minutes later when he finally had to ask), as if all she has to do is crook a finger and he’ll come running. So yeah, I’m not impressed with No-eul’s lack of maturity or her entitlement.
Not that Jae-hyuk is any better — in fact, I think what he did to Do-hee was even worse. After six years together and making marriage plans, he just ups and leaves the country with a vague three-word message? If you ask me, Do-hee isn’t angry enough about what Jae-hyuk did. At least No-eul broke up with Hae-kyung face-to-face and gave him a (crappy) reason, but Jae-hyuk may as well have disappeared off the face of the earth. It makes me incandescent with rage on Do-hee’s behalf that Jae-hyuk thinks he can just pop back up with no apology and say he loves her. Sorry sir, but a man who loves a woman doesn’t do what you did to Do-hee.
I don’t like the second leads, is what I’m saying. On first glance, Jae-hyuk and No-eul come off as selfish, entitled, and thoughtless, not to mention ballsy as hell for just assuming they can toy with people’s emotions without being held accountable. It really bothers me that neither No-eul nor Jae-hyuk seem sorry about how they hurt someone they were supposed to love, and in fact give off condescending vibes as if they think Hae-kyung and Do-hee are just being silly for not jumping back into their arms. But as a viewer, there’s something to be said for second leads who you love to hate, and I’m going to love to hate both of them. So I hope you don’t mind lots of ranting in my Comments sections as the show goes forward.