Our leads take their relationship to the next level this week with some friskiness as well as their first fight. But in between, our hagwon heroine suffers a crisis of confidence when her competitor makes an unexpected strategic move. Plus, an adorable side romance shows signs of blooming — just when I thought the love lines couldn’t get any cuter.
EPISODES 9-10
Tonally, this is a very grown-up drama. From the beginning, it’s had a gawky humanness that makes the characters and the settings seem genuine. Often this plays out in long conversation scenes and sequences that give the impression of real time. In matters of work, especially, the drama doesn’t shy away from complications. And this week, these elements are applied full force to the core relationship.
We begin with waiting and anticipation. Our leads are finally dating, and now they want to seal the deal. But in the way this story is told, the lead-up to the event becomes more crucial than the event itself. Once the idea is on the table, Hye-jin cleans her room, makes her bed, and holds up lingerie while fidgeting over what to wear. Jun-ho is stuck having drinks with a friend that he can’t turn down, but he promises to rush right back to Hye-jin as soon as possible. Time drags. He can’t get away. She reads a book. And there’s a sense that this thing just might not happen.
But then Jun-ho makes an executive decision, runs to her apartment, hugs her inside the door, and we hear kissing sounds in the dark. They converse about whether the light should be on or off, she wins, and the light goes out. Then we hear a thud and Jun-ho has been dumped on the floor. He’s nervous. “Did you change your mind?” No, she tells him, but he needs to stop calling her “teacher” while they’re in bed. Lol.
They laugh and he climbs back under the covers, but rather than playing it for comedy, it’s a very sweet moment that allows them to get closer together. When Jun-ho says, “I love you,” he also calls her by her name. By morning, when he has to get up early to leave, they’re at it again (this time kissing on the desk in her home office) and what’s implicit in all these shots matters much more than what’s on screen.
At work, they’re still trying to keep their love life under wraps, but are going to get caught if they continue with their eager excitement. From hugging and kissing in empty classrooms to giddy smiles when they receive each other’s texts, suddenly hagwon life is super thrilling. But with so much upward energy, we can practically feel a downward spike on its way.
It starts when the Chanyeong students get their exams back and many of them have perfect scores. The hagwon teachers are ecstatic, but the teachers at Chanyeong High School are not. The Chanyeong teachers are looking for ways to dock points so they can rank the students in order, and they feel they’ve been outdone by the hagwon teachers — who rightly guessed the direction of their exam.
In the middle of this mess is Sang-seob — the high school teacher we met back in Episode 1. We haven’t talked about him much since then, but he’s been around in the background, trying to beat the hagwons (specifically Hye-jin) by changing his curriculum so that their lessons no longer work for his tests. But now, he’s failed at that. And it’s just at this moment of weakness that the Gray Witch swoops in and snaps him up for the Vice Director position at Choisun. (You know, that job that Hye-jin turned down.)
Now, strategically, it makes sense why the Gray Witch would want him on her staff because he may be able to lure more Chanyeong students away from Daechi Chase. But this isn’t the thing that sets Hye-jin off on a serious crisis of confidence. Instead, when Sang-seob comes to visit Hye-jin and tell her that he resigned from his job to take a hagwon position, she takes it personally and feels incredibly guilty about his life path.
Sang-seob recounts their first meeting at Chanyeong High, when Hye-jin went there to argue with him about a test question. Afterward, he became obsessed with thinking about the hagwons. He felt humiliated as a teacher because his students were more interested in what Hye-jin had to teach them. He thinks that Hye-jin sabotaged his career, so that the students would think she was a hero. And now he’s resigned to join the world of the hagwon teachers — whom he once called “parasites.”
All the while that this twenty-minute-long conversation goes on, Hye-jin looks worried, scared, and maybe a little sick. And when Jun-ho hears what happened, it’s not evident to him (or me) what her actual problem is. Jun-ho sees this new development as a challenge that he’s excited to take on, but Hye-jin is angered by his reaction. So much so that she walks out of the room, saying they don’t see eye to eye, and then cancels afterwork plans with him.
So, our leads are having their first fight — and our hero doesn’t even know what it’s about. (Seems legit.) To get them moving back in the same direction, they have to go their separate ways for the evening. Jun-ho goes out for drinks with Chung-mi and his bestie, CHOI SEUNG-KYU (Shin Joo-hyup), where he becomes a pouty puppy looking for relationship advice. And Hye-jin takes her grievances to the Gray Witch.
In the power-play discussion that ensues, Hye-jin states that her real concern is about Sang-seob. She seems to think that the guy quit his calling because of her and she’s worried about him and his career. How will he survive the hagwon life after teaching in public schools for twenty years?
The Gray Witch finds Hye-jin self-righteous and hypocritical. She wasn’t so worried about Sang-seob when she went to his office and schooled him in front of his colleagues. If Hye-jin is truly concerned, she should be cheering him on.
Hye-jin leaves the meeting with her tail between her legs and finally responds to Jun-ho’s (many) texts. He runs through the streets to get to her and then apologizes as soon as he’s in her car. After talking to Chung-mi about the situation, he realized that while he told Hye-jin that he loved her, he was only seeing the side of her that he wanted to see. He’s sorry for that.
And so, they make up. But Hye-jin just can’t let her guilt go. She feels so bad about her role in Sang-seob’s torment that she wants to split her students with him. Jun-ho thinks she’s overreacting and tries to talk some sense into her, inviting her over to his place (where he will definitively not put the moves on her, according to him).
At home, they cuddle, and in the morning, Jun-ho’s mom calls. She’s stopped by unannounced and wants him to open his door right now. At that, Jun-ho jumps up and Hye-jin gets stowed in the closet behind the luggage — because I guess it’s not the best look to be in bed with your former teacher when your mom shows up.
Wow, every single shot with the leads together is bubbling with cuteness. Buuuut I really had trouble understanding Hye-jin’s side of things in these episodes. When the Gray Witch called her out on her actions, I found myself agreeing with the antagonist. I like Hye-jin — and her two-way behavior as both a cunning strategist and a moral person won’t make me dislike her. But it did feel a little off the mark that she was so concerned for Sang-seob, taking it on herself for ruining his career. It looks like Sang-seob is actually regaining control over his life through his decision to join the hagwon. And maybe that’s a good thing?
The best parts of these episodes, by far, are the love lines. First, introducing conflict between our OTP through differences at work is a very elegant way to approach the story. Their first fight isn’t over something superficial like a rumor at the office or being unable to keep their relationship a secret. It’s about their values and how they each see the world. So, ultimately it’s a way to move them closer together when they resolve it.
Second, that opening sequence where they prepare to sleep together (almost like a series of rituals) was so well done. It’s got the same understated tension that runs through the rest of the drama, and yet it comes off as totally hot too — maybe precisely because it’s an undercurrent and not explicit.
And lastly, our blossoming side romance between Chung-mi and Seung-kyu is my new favorite thing in the world. Seung-kyu is a graduate student and he and Chung-mi start out on opposite sides of an academic debate, but then begin to bond over scholarly talks and their love of studying. This is a romance for all the nerds out there (like me), who can’t pass up an intellectual discussion — especially if it comes with a couple of cutie-pie faces.