The big secret’s out, but none of our lovestruck — or rather, lovesick — characters know what to do about it. Should they move on with their lives, or should they try to restore what was lost? As always, our heroine leans toward the former, while our hero leans toward the latter.
EPISODES 10-11 WEECAP
So, after our couple’s messy reunion, we only now see how much Jae-won meant to Eun-oh. Not only did she love him, but she was grateful to him for bringing out her real self. She beautifully states, “He built a house in [my heart] and became the owner.”
Having found Jae-won’s ring, she also wants her surfboard back. The man she gave it to is unwilling to return it, until she starts crying and rambling about why it’s important to her. Honestly, she should be saying all of this to Jae-won and not some stranger.
Director-nim asks Jae-won about Eun-oh, and Jae-won coldly says that he doesn’t want to hear her out. If she’d just embraced him out in the street, instead of trying to return his cameras, he would’ve accepted her. Which makes sense; for him, actions speak louder than words.
Director-nim sure likes toying with our characters — he eventually tells the others that Jae-won found his camera thief, and they’re all super curious to know what happened. Hearing her friends badmouth the thief, Eun-oh feels downright awful. But when she hears Jae-won’s video message (apologizing for yelling at her), she feels even worse.
The next few days are hard on Eun-oh, subsequently making them hard on her roomie Geon. She dances to loud music, she cries out of nowhere, and she curses herself in the mirror. Worried, Geon gives Eun-oh’s marketing proposals to Kyung-joon, thinking she just needs work. Oh boy, I see where this is going…
What I don’t see coming is the big blowup at Jae-won’s company. Jae-won and Kyung-joon have customers, with Rin-yi stopping by for lunch. But Kyung-joon and Rin-yi recognize the client as Eun-oh’s two-timing ex-fiance. They tear him apart, Rin-yi screaming that he made Eun-oh disappear for three months. Pfft, Jae-won’s face.
I’m glad we finally get some info about Eun-oh’s past, about why she was so desperate to leave her old self/life behind. It doesn’t excuse what she did to Jae-won, but it greatly explains her behavior throughout their relationship and breakup. We also get a breakthrough for Jae-won, who sees Eun-oh’s marketing business card and starts to put the pieces together. He calls her number, stunned to actually hear her voice, and then disappointed to hear a guy’s voice (Geon) in the background.
Even so, Jae-won can’t seem to let this go. He sits Kyung-joon down to ask about his friend that disappeared. And Kyung-joon tells him, and us, that Eun-oh and her fiance were supposed to move to Busan together, but that they mysteriously broke up. Eun-oh lost her Busan job, had nowhere to live, so she just up and left. But seeing Jae-won’s client with his wife and nine-month-old baby, Kyung-joon and Rin-yi realized he had to have gotten his now-wife pregnant while he was still engaged to Eun-oh.
We see Eun-oh pitching her marketing plan at another company, and the sight of all the interviewees reminds her of when she applied to her Busan job. She’d noticed a laidback girl sporting flowy clothes and highlights in her hair — and the nametag Yoon Sun-ah. So that explains where she got her inspiration for her alter ego.
Kyung-joon invites Jae-won to Eun-oh’s place, saying they’ll be camping on the roof. And hearing that Eun-oh lives with a friend and not a boyfriend, Jae-won gets this hopeful smile on his face. I don’t really understand what he’s trying to do, because when he arrives at the house, he acts as if he’s meeting Eun-oh for the first time.
When the couple shake hands, Kyung-joon notes that Jae-won isn’t wearing his wedding ring anymore. Looking at Eun-oh, Jae-won says he threw it away because everything about that woman was fake. Oof.
I’m torn because the devil on my shoulder wants Jae-won to totally mess with Eun-oh, while the angel (and much more logical one) just wants the damn truth out. I like Eun-oh and sympathize with her enough that I don’t want her friends or Jae-won to see her as a bad person.
The problem is, she’s trying to make herself the bad person and, frankly, succeeding. Despite her guilt and her obviously lingering love, she hasn’t done a single thing to fix her mistakes. She retrieved the ring and the surfboard, only to run and hide again. At least now, with the whole group (minus Sun-young) together, there’s nowhere to hide.
Time to face the music and put the “lovestruck” back in Lovestruck in the City.