This week is all about kisses — which usually signal the end of a fairy tale, but only get things started in this story. As our chaebol hero concocts a plan to turn his new hire into a real-life Cinderella, insecurity brews, male leads face off, and miscommunication abounds. But true feelings can’t stay concealed forever — at least not when you toss in a kidnapping to force them into the open.
EPISODES 5-6
Last week we concluded with Dan-ah slapping Cha-min across the face. He’d just come to Jae-rim’s rescue and helped her from the floor — and his fiancée was not happy about it. This week we see Dan-ah storm out, while Cha-min wraps Jae-rim in his blazer, takes her hand, and walks her out of the party. In his office, he asks why didn’t she stand up for herself, since he knows she’s fierce. She tells him she’s just an employee and that he should be more worried about Dan-ah.
Cha-min says Dan-ah is just a business partner and, right now, he’s worried about her. Then he gets up the courage to say she looks good in her outfit before walking out the door. And just so we know he means it about Dan-ah, he tracks her down and tells her that if she doesn’t want to see him looking out for Jae-rim, she probably shouldn’t stop by the club anymore. Because he’s going to keep doing it.
Afterward, Cha-min and Do-hong face off in the bathroom, where Do-hong acts disdainful that Cha-min stood up for his staff. He also adds, “Men like us should never date a woman like her.” But before we can get too huffy about his classist comment, we learn that Do-hong has a somewhat Great Gatsby-esque backstory. He’s a self-made man who was once on the other side of the class equation, and is trying very hard to fit in with the rich people around him.
Meanwhile, Jae-rim goes back to the soiree and apologizes to the guest who spilled a drink on her dress and knocked her on the floor. She’s met with insults and told to stay away from Do-hong. She walks away questioning her deservingness and thinking that her life will never change, and she’s holding back tears when Cha-min sees her. He wants to know what happened — he’s not paying her to hold back her anger. He’s ready to go tell off the guest, but Jae-rim stops him, feeling like the universe is just stomping her back into her rightful place in the social order. Maybe she’s dreaming too big.
At that, Cha-min decides he’ll help her change her life. He steps toward her and says, “If you want it, close your eyes.” (Wow, way to put the sensual in consensual.) She responds, “Do whatever you want” and places her arms over his shoulders. And so, with everyone in the VIP social club watching, he kisses her. (And omg, they can tell us it’s his first time, but nobody kisses like that on the first try.) It goes on and on, with both of them looking like they’re having a fantastic time.
So, here’s the plan. He kissed her in front of a crowd to turn her into a hot topic. Now that everyone has seen the CEO has a big ol’ crush on her, she’ll be garnering all kinds of love interests. Hearing this, Jae-rim acts haughty and blows him off as she scuttles toward a taxi. But once she’s in the backseat, she can’t contain her excitement. The problem is that her squees are for him, not for his plan to set her up with someone else. And then the insecurity kicks in: why did he kiss her if he doesn’t like her?
And since we already know our hero has been bitten by the insecurity monster, their interactions are nothing but bravado and half-truths from here on out. At work the next day, they can’t meet each other’s eyes and she admits she’s a little embarrassed. He plays cool and says it didn’t affect him and it shouldn’t affect her either. That changes her tune and she puts up a shield, acting like it meant nothing, while she’s actually swimming in uncertainty.
The humor comes from both of these self-doubting people feeling the same way, as each imagines that it’s one-sided. Cha-min envisions himself in a tux, ready for the altar, while a sassy Jae-rim tells him not to get clingy just because they kissed once. And Jae-rim believes Cha-min’s BS that the kiss didn’t matter to him. (Ugh, dating is so tough.)
When Do-hong comes back to the club and invites Jae-rim over to his studio, Cha-min assumes his plan worked. He’s increasingly flustered that he’s setting up the girl of his dreams with another man, but that doesn’t stop him from going forward with it and buying Jae-rim a bunch of new duds for her date. Of course, taking it this far has Jae-rim convinced that he’s not interested in her at all, and when she tries to kiss him again to test her hypothesis, he fails by backing away.
At Do-hong’s studio, he cooks her a meal and they chat about art. He knows her (other) dream is to draw and asks her to do the storyboards for his new script. He’s trying to put the moves on, but when he leans in to kiss her, she remembers Cha-min’s kiss and isn’t interested in Do-hong.
She’s saved from having to outright reject him, though, due to a really incomprehensible conversation with his brother, where she learns that Do-hong first made his fortune by writing a BL novel. Do-hong admits his shameful past, letting Jae-rim know their backgrounds are similar, but also pleading with her not to reveal his secret to anyone at the club. “They normally don’t accept people like us into their circle.”
And back at the club, Dan-ah tries to get under Jae-rim’s skin by telling her that she and Cha-min cooked up this plan together to get Jae-rim a husband — and that’s the only reason Cha-min kissed her that night. To regain some power, Jae-rim says she doesn’t feel bad about it because “he’s a good kisser.” (Knew it.)
But when she’s alone, Jae-rim is pissed thinking about how Cha-min is toying with her. When she confronts him, he retorts that he only wanted to help, and he wasn’t looking down on her. But she’s offended and tells him to stay out of her personal business from now on. This of course leads to our heroine getting kidnapped by some goons in Dan-ah’s family and Cha-min trying not to get involved.
Yeah, if you just did a double take, me too. But essentially, Dan-ah has a serious temper and all she does is go home and complain about Jae-rim seducing Cha-min. It’s so obstructive, that these thugs that hang out at Dan-ah’s house can’t take it anymore and want to make Jae-rim stop, so that Dan-ah will shut up.
They toss Jae-rim into a van and tie her up in a desolate factory, but when they leave the room for a minute, she’s able to make a call to a friend. It just so happens that the friend has gone looking for her at work because she didn’t show up for their meeting. And so, Cha-min is right there with the friend — trying to respect Jae-rim’s wishes and stay out of her business — when the phone rings. But when he hears she’s kidnapped, he snaps into action.
At the factory, Cha-min busts through the door and uses his hapkido training to take down the bad guys. Then he rushes over to the tied-up Jae-rim and hugs her. He gushes that he was worried about her. And the look on her face says that she got the grand gesture she needed to know his true feelings.
This show just lifts my spirits no matter how meh I feel before I start watching. The leads are so great together. They’re from different worlds but they mesh so well. I love it when characters meld long before they hit the romance and there’s just no question how great it’ll be when they finally get together. And for me, the male lead just gets better and better. This week we learned that his mom was a Cinderella story too — and she divorced his dad and left him devastated. So, of course the poor abandoned kid is reluctant to get attached to Jae-rim.
On the other side, Do-hong is not a real contender. I’m not sure what his true intentions are but something about him gives me the creepy vibes. Even though I like that the drama is giving him some complexity, I really thought he’d be eighty-sixed after his stunt last week. (Or, maybe I was just hoping?)
Admittedly, these episodes had some oddities with the kidnapping and Do-hong’s weird backstory about writing a book. The show is over the top, so strange things shouldn’t seem out of place, but these two events lacked the usual humor that makes it not only bearable but truly entertaining. Still, it didn’t detract from me craving more episodes. If this was a single-drop drama, I would have already binged the heck out of it.