This week, the lines blur between enchantment and real feelings for our OTP. And as they will come to learn in their fight against fate, there’s only so far they can run from their destiny before it catches up with them.
EPISODES 5-6
While Shin-yu shamelessly flirts with Hong-jo, Na-yeon doubles her efforts to maintain their relationship. For starters, she learns from Shin-yu’s dad about his sickness. And with Dad’s encouragement to stay by Shin-yu’s side, Na-yeon plans a surprise proposal event. Shin-yu isn’t totally enthusiastic about the proposal, especially since her dad won’t approve of the marriage if he finds out about Shin-yu’s illness. But Na-yeon insists that it’s her marriage, not her dad’s, and the two get back together.
The couple go on a date to a historical site (a palace), and there, a woman in hanbok captures Shin-yu’s attention. Her face is shrouded by her head covering, but she bears a resemblance to Hong-jo. And whoever she is, she gives off suspicious vibes with the way she intentionally avoids Shin-yu as he chases after her. This whole scene with a confused-looking Shin-yu running around in a suit beside the milling tourists in hanbok looked like something out of a time-slip drama.
Shin-yu heads to Hong-jo’s house to confront her, but she denies being at the palace. Frustrated at the space Hong-jo occupies in his thoughts, Shin-yu lashes out. “I have a goddess-like girlfriend, so why would I like you when I have someone like her?” Oof! Of all the “I like you but I don’t like that I like you” denials, this one stings the most! Goddess-like girlfriend? Please! Na-yeon bullied Hong-jo into dropping out in high school. Hong-jo briefly wonders if she should reveal this side of Na-yeon to Shin-yu, but she decides against it in favor of him getting married to Na-yeon and suffering his whole life. Sounds like a plan, and I’m on board with this level of petty.
But as we see from Shin-yu’s flashback to their beach trip, a drunk Hong-jo already told him she dropped out of school. Back then, rather than scold her, Hong-jo’s dad said she could do whatever she wanted, so they both went on a fishing trip. Unfortunately, Dad passed away in the process of saving two kids who fell into the river, and Hong-jo couldn’t hold a proper funeral because they couldn’t retrieve his body. Now she blames herself for killing her dad. If only she had ignored the bullying and hadn’t dropped out…sigh. “If only” is a very sad phrase.
This reveal puts some of Hong-jo’s behavior into perspective. She’s eager to please because she wants to be liked, yet she allows her colleagues to walk over her since she’s used to being bullied. It’s probably also why she doesn’t like eating alone because as we see, Na-yeon bullied her during mealtimes at school — and she might have had to eat many a lunch on her own to avoid Na-yeon’s squad.
Speaking of eating, what do you do when your biggest crush becomes your neighbor? You snag an invite to his housewarming party and show up in matching outfits! So what if dinner is delayed because he forgot to press the button on the rice cooker? For Hong-jo, it doesn’t matter because she gets to spend more time in Jae-kyung’s habitat and laugh at his dry jokes. Can’t these two just end up together so that I can keep our needlessly tall and handsome male lead for myself? No? Okay.
Mr. Tall and Handsome doesn’t want me either, as he can’t seem to stay away from calling and texting Hong-jo much to her chagrin. But when Shin-yu eventually stops, Hong-jo claims to be excited about it even though she’s scrolling through her call logs with an almost wistful expression. Tsk. Next thing you know, a drunk Shin-yu shows up at Hong-jo’s house, and she’s all, “He’s so bothersome.” But that’s a smile I see on your face, sis.
It’s Shin-yu’s first time with alcohol (the men in his family don’t drink because of their sickness), and he’s wasted because Hong-jo won’t answer his calls. Jae-kyung doesn’t approve of the drunken visit — especially since Shin-yu has a girlfriend. But since this is all on Hong-jo and her love potion, she takes responsibility in driving Shin-yu back home.
The two-timing situation doesn’t sit well with Hong-jo either, and she suggests that they try a Disaster Nullification Spell to break the love spell. Shin-yu asks if Hong-jo never had feelings for him this whole time, and she says no. But her face instantly turns a guilty shade of pink. Ha! It must suck to be so transparent. Drunk Shin-yu leans in for a kiss, and Hong-jo closes her eyes…and we cut to a hungover Shin-yu in bed the next morning. “What happened?” he wonders, and I’m curious to know as well. Shin-yu imagines scenarios where Hong-jo rejected the kiss and where she accepted it, and it’s hilarious how both scenarios ended with her slapping him.
Na-yeon takes on a project at City Hall, and asks to meet up with Hong-jo — who’s a much better person than I am because I’d have declined the invitation. Na-yeon claims to have cried when she heard that Hong-jo’s dad died after she dropped out, and I don’t feel a trace of genuine repentance from this conversation. “You must have resented me a lot,” she says, and Hong-jo replies that it’s not Na-yeon’s fault that her dad died.
Na-yeon takes that to mean that her “misunderstanding” with Hong-jo is all settled, and soon she’s introducing Shin-yu and Hong-jo to each other as her fiancé and her best friend from high school, respectively. Best friend? Girl, please. You were the one who told Hong-jo back then that she was your maid, not your best friend, but okay.
It’s interesting how the girls’ friendship soured after Na-yeon’s high school crush struck up a conversation with Hong-jo. It makes me wonder how present day Na-yeon will react when she learns that her fiancé’s destiny is intertwined with Hong-jo’s. Especially since it’s no longer looking like Shin-yu is just under the influence of a spell. That man has caught genuine feelings for Hong-jo, and we can slowly see her falling for him, too.
We get some confirmation of Shin-yu’s real feelings from a flashback to the night Shin-yu got drunk… and fell asleep before he and Hong-jo could kiss. Heh. In his drunken confession afterwards, he admits that he doesn’t want the Disaster Nullification Spell. “My heart keeps beating fast when I see you… I’ve never spent the whole night awake thinking about someone. Do you know how much my heart ached when you talked about your dad? It’s so annoying you live with Jae-kyung. Still, I like you. Do you really think this is the spell’s doing?” he asks. No, sir, I do not. But Hong-jo is in denial, and she insists that it’s the spell.
Full moon comes around soon enough, and it’s time to cast the nullification spell. While Shin-yu doesn’t remember what happened after his blackout, he’s still reluctant to push through with the spell. But not even the distraction of a wolf under the full moon can deter Hong-jo from going ahead with it. (Just kidding, it was a friendly husky.) They end the ritual with Hong-jo writing a charm which Shin-yu is supposed to keep with him for a hundred days, and then they go their separate ways.
The next morning, Shin-yu wakes Hong-jo up with a call to inform her that he didn’t think of her at all overnight. Awesome! Yet the first thing he did was to call her at dawn? You’re not fooling anyone, sir. Still, it’s cheering news for Hong-jo, and to top it all, she gets a lift to work from her crush, and an invitation to visit a dog shelter together on the weekend. It’s such an exciting morning for her… until Shin-yu’s car splashes her with puddle water by the side of the road. LMAO! This is doubly hilarious since neither of them is aware of a victim or the perpetrator.
We conclude the week with Hong-jo getting splashed with a dose of reality this time. Turns out that she made the spelling mistake of writing the character for “flower” instead of “sacrifice” on the charm, and now the Disaster Nullification Spell is ruined. Ha! This is definitely not what Shin-yu intended when he called himself a flower last week.
Hong-jo defends herself by saying she was nervous due to Shin-yu’s intense stare during the ritual. “You said you never liked me so far,” he counters, and she replies that her unease stemmed from his love confession the other day. She says she won’t take it seriously since he was drunk, but Shin-yu clarifies that he wasn’t just saying nonsense.
In what is becoming a regular occurrence, Jae-kyung walks up to the duo with questions. Hong-jo told him everything between her and Shin-yu would be settled after the full moon, yet the full moon has passed and Shin-yu is outside their house. Jae-kyung expects Shin-yu to leave, but Shin-yu is not done yet. “Apparently, I love her. I love Hong-jo,” he declares. Whoa! But maybe next time leave out the “apparently,” and say it like you mean it.
The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced that the love spell doesn’t cause an attraction out of nothing. It only magnifies the already existing intention of the enchanted towards their enchanter. This is most definitely the case with garden owner, NA JOONG-BEOM (Ahn Sang-woo), who admitted to drinking from Hong-jo’s love potion tumbler because he “wanted to know what type of tea she drinks.”
Joong-beom has always been a little too friendly with Hong-jo, and my radar went up with his “There’s a lot of lunatics who appear perfectly fine on the outside,” comment this week. Add that to sending roses to her house, and being all aggressive when asking her out to dinner. He’s probably the stalker in her neighborhood, and the one who stole her favorite pajamas. As much as this Joong-beom arc doesn’t appeal to me, I like that Hong-jo’s love potion was consumed by everyone except the intended target. There are consequences for messing with fate, especially when you go behind other people’s backs to do it. Still, I’m almost sure Joong-beom would have pulled a Joong-beom regardless.
On the other hand, Mr. Gong’s attitude towards Hong-jo did a 180° not necessarily because he also drank the potion, but because he wants to be in Eun-young’s good graces. Mr. Gong and Eun-young’s arc continues to be one of the highlights of the show for me, and I enjoy the pettiness and protectiveness of their sibling-like relationship (please do not ruin it for me, Show).
Now that Shin-yu has voiced his feelings for Hong-jo (he’s not going to take it back next week, is he?) the most responsible and respectable thing to do is to properly end his relationship with Na-yeon. There’s no need to drag things out, and best of all, he’s got an ally in his mom SONG YOON-JOO (Jung Hye-young). Mom doesn’t seem to like Na-yeon very much — and that’s saying a lot considering how free-spirited and nice Mom is. She’s one of the sweetest male lead moms I’ve seen! That’s why I’m annoyed with Shin-yu’s dad for always putting her down and taking her for granted.
Honestly, I don’t think Na-yeon’s dad, YOON HAK-YOUNG (Song Young-kyu) will lose much sleep over the broken engagement. Mr. Mayor will probably transfer the potential son-in-lawship to the arrogant CEO Hyun-seo of Haum construction — who’s getting a little too chummy with the seat of power at City Hall.
In any case, it won’t be easy for our OTP to sort out their different entanglements because our second leads are as clingy as they come. Na-yeon doesn’t surprise me because at least she’s in a relationship with Shin-yu. But there were times where it felt like Jae-kyung was crossing the gentleman boundary and being a tad too overprotective of Hong-jo. Get a grip, Kwon Jae-kyung! If you like Hong-jo, speak now and officially join the race, or forever hold your peace.