Our heroine is determined to make her plan work and tries every method she can think of to create a spark between her and her disgruntled new love interest. But the gap between them may be larger than she anticipated, and her gloomy beau is determined to keep it that way. The closer she gets, the more he lashes out, testing her limits and shaking her resolve.
EPISODE 4
After Dong-kyung’s proclamation that she’ll love Myeol-mang, he asks if they should kiss. She scoffs at that and vows that she won’t forget what he did today and will make sure to pay him back in kind.
He wonders if she’s talking about him almost killing her or saving her. “Both,” she replies. Dong-kyung opens her door and tells him to come in. Or he can run away.
That night, Dong-kyung brings out her bedding and lays it out on the floor. She tells him they should start sleeping next to each other. Frustrated, Myeol-mang claims that humans can only want or resent him, but not love him. Dong-kyung promises she’ll prove him wrong “because I have to.”
Myeol-mang invites her into his room and tells her not to regret her decision. Dong-kyung says it doesn’t matter since she’s dying anyway. They lie back-to-back on his bed, and Dong-kyung asks what he’s thinking. He’s irritated that a “lowly” human is so arrogant. What about her?
Dong-kyung is thinking she’s crazy for throwing herself off the roof. She remembers how “cold and scary” Myeol-mang’s eyes were earlier. But still, his back is warm against hers.
Sometime in the night, Dong-kyung flips around so she’s facing Myeol-mang. He watches her sleep and goes to touch her face when her brow furrows. Myeol-mang pulls his hand back and thinks about what the goddess said about his sympathy.
Myeol-mang gets up and goes for a walk. He listens to all the petty thoughts of the humans who pass by and scoffs at the idea of feeling sympathy for any of them. The doom proselytizer is handing out fliers again, so Myeol-mang stops to chat.
Does she really want the world to end? The woman thinks to herself that it needs to end for her, the only chosen one, to live happily in her next life. Myeol-mang says she should’ve been more desperate so he could’ve picked her instead.
He shares that there is no next world, and with the world gone, those who “manage” it will disappear too. That’s what he’s betting on. Myeol-mang sees a news report about the trial of the stabber and vows he’ll never sympathize with humans.
Meanwhile, Dong-kyung gets to work early and starts researching how to fall in love. She ends up turning to Ji-na, the romance writer, for advice. Ji-na shares that for her, it was a single moment in a high school hallway when Hyun-kyu who smelled like soap smiled at her.
Dong-kyung wants to hurry the process along and asks if there’s a way to create one of those moments. Ji-na encourages her to confess to the guy since putting it out there grows the feelings. She credits Dong-kyung for getting her to confess to Hyun-kyu.
Ji-na had gone to Jeju on a school field trip and snuck over the wall to buy alcohol. She ran into Dong-kyung who happened to have her own private stash in her backpack. Ji-na bought some off her, got drunk, and went to confess to Hyun-kyu in front of the entire dormitory.
Dong-kyung calls her a straight-forward heroine and comments she only needs a runaway male lead to make it one of her stories. Ji-na asks if that’s how Dong-kyung sees her work, too. Dong-kyung understands that her dramatic first love would influence her and tells her not to listen to Joo-ik.
Ji-na grumbles that Joo-ik is even appearing in her dreams. That gives her an idea. She tells Dong-kyung to look at photos of the guy she’s pursuing before bed so she’ll dream of him. When Dong-kyung gratefully remarks Ji-na is saving her life, Ji-na wonders who this guy is to make Dong-kyung so dramatic.
Dong-kyung promises to tell her everything in three months in “perfect” condition. Ji-na jokes that she should be a mess since she’ll be in love. All this talk of love lives reminds Ji-na that she met the mystery guy who was her first kiss: Joo-ik.
At work, Dong-kyung weirds Joo-ik out with all her staring. She doesn’t mention Ji-na, but she does ask if he’s ever loved someone he first disliked. Joo-ik hasn’t, but he has kissed someone he disliked. He disliked her because he pitied her which led to kissing her.
Joo-ik drily asks if he answered whatever question she was asking. Ha. She very audibly criticizes him until he sends her home. Once she leaves, Joo-ik heads upstairs.
He ends up sharing an elevator with Hyun-kyu, although they don’t acknowledge each other. They step off the elevator and Hyun-kyu turns to Joo-ik. “What’s for dinner tonight?” Joo-ik says it’s not his turn to cook.
At home, Hyun-kyu whines and guilts Joo-ik into lending him his car for the upcoming reunion. They bicker like real siblings, and Joo-ik wonders how he got stuck with Hyun-kyu. Joo-ik was Hyun-kyu’s high school tutor – Hyun-kyu blames his failing the college entrance exam on Joo-ik – and his own tuition was paid by Hyun-kyu’s father.
Joo-ik asks what’s up with this reunion. Is Hyun-kyu’s first love going to be there? Hyun-kyu claims he barely remembers her, but his face says otherwise. When Hyun-kyu shows Joo-ik a photo of a girl he’s currently interested in, Joo-ik thinks of Ji-na.
On the crowded subway, Dong-kyung gets pushed around until someone grabs her hand. Myeol-mang smiles at her and holds her steady. As they walk home, Dong-kyung grows tired and out of breath, so Myeol-mang offers to hold her hand.
Dong-kyung is weirded out by his kindness, but he acts like it’s normal. He says he went around listening to people’s thoughts today and confirmed for himself that humans don’t deserve anything. Myeol-mang is all in for her plan. “I want to see you throw away everything because you’re crazy about me.”
At home, Dong-kyung watches Tale of the Nine Tailed for inspiration on how to love a “special being.” Her conclusion? He’s got to be hot. Pfft. She shakes her head at Myeol-mang like he doesn’t meet her standards, but he’s not about to let her forget her first impression of his looks.
Switching gears, Dong-kyung tells him to enter her dreams. They end up at that beach again, and Dong-kyung is surprised to hear her subconscious chose it. She has him construct all these detailed scenarios heavy on romance tropes, but nothing from the swoony sunbae to the cold-seeming chaebol works.
Dong-kyung is disheartened but tries another angle. To love someone, you need to know them. She wants to see Myeol-mang’s world. He agrees to show her but warns that he’s not human, so it won’t be what she expects.
They stand outside of a house with a lovely garden on the edge of the woods. “This is my world,” Myeol-mang declares and begins to walk. With every step, the plants wither and the world greys.
Dong-kyung watches “the god of everything that disappears” with sympathy in her eyes, narrating that it must be lonely to “love things that will disappear when you touch them.” She understands why it’d make you not want to love at all.
She walks toward Myeol-mang, and everything she passes blooms and regains color. Dong-kyung hesitantly grabs his hand. All the grey disappears. Myeol-mang looks around in surprise and stares into her sympathetic eyes. He rips his hand out of her grip before waking her up.
The next morning, Myeol-mang brings up the dream and gapes when Dong-kyung magnanimously declares she’s decided to forgive him. Love springs from forgiveness. Myeol-mang later complains to the goddess who says love more often springs from hatred anyway, although that does require forgiveness.
Myeol-mang clarifies that he doesn’t forgive the goddess. She understands; they’ve only got each other to talk to. The goddess smiles when Myeol-mang sighs that Dong-kyung is becoming more bothersome. Meanwhile, Dong-kyung keeps thinking about that dream and smiles that Ji-na was right.
Sun-kyung drops by Dong-kyung’s place and unsurprisingly asks to borrow money. He wants to go to an academy to be a “personal colorist” this time. Dong-kyung is sure this’ll be like all the other times she sent him to various schools to learn trades he never used. Is he going to keep living like this even after she dies?
Sun-kyung says that someone without any dreams wouldn’t get it. Dong-kyung accuses that she can’t afford dreams since she needs money to clean all his messes. He refuses to take the blame since he never asked her to do that.
He doesn’t see how they’ll ever understand each other. “I’d rather die than live like you.” That makes Dong-kyung truly angry, and she grabs his sleeve. Sun-kyung falls to the ground when he tries to shake her off and won’t let her help him up. Dong-kyung watches him walk away and holds back tears.
Myeol-mang watches from across the roof and offers unsolicited that Sun-kyung meant everything he said. Dong-kyung is in no mood for his games, but Myeol-mang keeps pushing her buttons, making snide comments about her niceness.
He goes too far when he asks if she’d forgive him if he were to kill Sun-kyung. Could she still love him? Dong-kyung demands he take it back, fury in her eyes.
Myeol-mang scoffs at her insignificant life and states she was simply the most convenient tool at his disposal in that moment. “I wish you would die,” Dong-kyung says. “If you could experience death, then you’d know how I feel.”
“If that’s your wish,” he says with a smile. They’re now in the woods, and he puts a loaded gun in her hands. She shakes with anger, but she doesn’t raise the gun. Myeol-mang grabs it and tries to shoot himself, but nothing happens when he pulls the trigger.
If he could, Myeol-mang would’ve killed himself long ago. Dong-kyung vows to at least make his life miserable. He tells her go give it her best shot but makes a point to remind her that he can make her miserable by simply refusing to hold her hand.
Dong-kyung blinks, and she’s back in her apartment which is entirely her own again. Dong-kyung tries to tamp down her fury and accepts that this is her responsibility – her own actions led her here. Her whole life has been comprised of staying still. Now, she wishes she hadn’t attempted either sympathy or love.
Myeol-mang walks down the street causing accidents a little more frequently than usual. He tells himself that Dong-kyung is as insignificant as the rest and heads to the stabber’s trial. When his life imprisonment sentence is announced, the man flips out and screams for execution. He locks eyes with Myeol-mang in the gallery and begs him to kill him.
While Dong-kyung crosses out her plan to love Myeol-mang in her notebook, she gets a call from the hospital about Sun-kyung. She panics, taken back to receiving the call about her parents as a child.
At the prison, the stabber is still flipping out, ranting and raving that he’s going to kill Myeol-mang. He fights with two guards, and in the scuffle, he falls and hits his head.
On the hospital roof, Doctor Jung spots Myeol-mang smoking on the ledge and panics, thinking he’s suicidal. Since Myeol-mang is wearing a white coat, Doctor Jung assumes he must be a fellow doctor. He guesses Myeol-mang lost a patient and tries to talk him down.
Doctor Jung understands how he feels, having lost patients himself. Myeol-mang wonders if he too continues to watch over the being he’s responsible for killing. Doctor Jung goes with it, trying to get Myeol-mang off the ledge. When he tells him to come down, Myeol-mang says sure … and steps off the building.
Shocked, Doctor Jung screams and runs to look over the ledge, but there’s no body on the ground. He sees Myeol-mang’s cigarette still on the ledge, though. Doctor Jung spots Dong-kyung running inside the hospital and heads down.
Dong-kyung rushes in and sees her brother with a scrape on his knee, laughing on the phone with his friend that his sister will surely come running and give him the money now. Sun-kyung turns to see Dong-kyung glaring and chases after her. Doctor Jung intercepts him to ask if he’s Dong-kyung’s family.
Outside the hospital entrance, Dong-kyung runs into Myeol-mang. The ambulance carrying the stabber pulls up, and as soon as the doors open, he swipes a scalpel and rushes Myeol-mang. On instinct, Dong-kyung throws herself in front of Myeol-mang to protect him.
Inside, Sun-kyung sobs his way through the hospital, having learned about Dong-kyung’s diagnosis from Doctor Jung. Outside, Myeol-mang’s hand drips blood as he grips the scalpel blade. He turns Dong-kyung’s head toward his chest and instructs her not to look.
With a glare, Myeol-mang tells the man he’ll now return what he took. The man involuntarily slices his own throat, splattering Myeol-mang and Dong-kyung with his blood.
Dong-kyung pulls back to look at Myeol-mang who reiterates that it’s impossible to love him. He looks away as he says people either resent or want him. “Or fear me,” he says as he looks into her eyes.
COMMENTS
Myeol-mang was really trying my patience this episode with his need to prove that he’s unlovable. It felt like he was testing Dong-kyung by being his most awful self, showing her what he’s capable of and daring her to love him anyway. He’s been telling himself humans are terrible and that he’s impossible to love for so long, and he’s terrified Dong-kyung is going to destroy that protection. Although he’s been adamant that she can’t truly care about him, he looked nervous and vulnerable in that last scene when he expected her to be afraid of him. Myeol-mang keeps desperately trying to convince himself that Dong-kyung is just another human, even though it’s obvious he doesn’t feel that way. He’s just scared of loving and being loved which was most obvious when he balked at the moment of real connection between the two of them in his subconscious. He can’t handle the idea that someone might truly get to know him.
Despite all the ways he lashed out at Dong-kyung to the point of making her hate him at times, Dong-kyung still instinctively protected him when she thought he was in danger. She’s not going to be easy to push away, but I love that she also doesn’t let him off the hook for his cruelty or disrespect. Dong-kyung is self-respecting and unwilling to let Myeol-mang call all the shots even if he’s basically a god. The more terrible he acts, the more he brings out her fighting spirit that’s lain dormant for too long. Just because she’s empathetic and forgiving doesn’t mean she has no limits and won’t push back when he crosses the line.
After all this, I’m going to need Myeol-mang to put in the work to earn her trust and love once he gets over himself. She deserves someone who isn’t going to be yet another person who puts their needs above hers and expects her to accommodate. This romance is an extreme version of the hate-turned-to-love trope, which I’m not always a fan of, but I like how it fits with the drama’s perspective. Rather than seeing opposites like light and dark (or hate and love) as forces in opposition to each other, they’re simply two ends of a continuum that form a balanced whole. Everything is interconnected and messy without clear lines of demarcation.
This really was the episode of men trying my patience. Sun-kyung was such a selfish brat, expecting his sister to just hand him money because he asked. Then, he had the nerve to critique her for being responsible and not “having dreams.” But the real kicker was how he manipulated Dong-kyung to come to the hospital. After what happened to their parents, how could he do that to her? From the way he was sobbing his heart out after learning Dong-kyung is dying, I think he’s just immature and selfish rather than completely uncaring. Maybe Dong-kyung’s situation will make him grow up a little and stop acting so entitled.
All the elements of this drama feel cohesive except for Hyun-kyu who doesn’t quite gel yet. He feels isolated from the main story, although I’m guessing this upcoming reunion will bring him into the fold. Besides his connection to Ji-na and Joo-ik, I have no idea how he fits into the plot. It looks like there could be a love triangle shaping up with the three of them, but I kind of hope not. The guys are already only tangentially connected to Dong-kyung and having them in their own little side story might make them feel even more isolated. Of course, Hyun-kyu has barely had any screen time, so it’s impossible to say anything for sure yet. One thing I’ve appreciated so far is that nothing is rushed. We’ve had time to get to know our characters and their worlds bit by bit without being overloaded with information. With how self-assured and intentional these first four episodes have seemed, I’m inclined to be optimistic and believe this is a drama that knows exactly what story it wants to tell. Let’s hope the drama proves me right.