Our audacious writer and humble caretaker have been fascinated with each other from the get-go, and it only gets more intense from here. Our caretaker can’t deny that he feels a pull towards this particular woman, but he’s got other things — other people — to worry about. Little does he know, she’s already hooked him in and has no intentions of ever letting him go.
EPISODE 2: “The lady in red shoes”
At the publishing house, Kang-tae tells Moon-young that he came to see her eyes — they remind him of someone he liked. In flashback, we see that young Kang-tae had fallen through thin ice, into a lake. While he was struggling to stay afloat, Moon-young was standing by, plucking flower petals and thinking, “Help him or don’t help him?”
In the end, she did help him, and that started his intense interest in her. He followed her around, just like the boy in the premiere’s animation, until that one day when she tore apart the butterflies in front of him.
Seeing the glint in Moon-young’s eye, Kang-tae says, “Don’t jump to conclusions. I wouldn’t call them good memories.” Moon-young lightly touches his chest, saying bad memories usually stay in the heart longer. He swipes her hand away and asks that she tell her boss not to contact him again. Whiiiich is when said boss Sang-in walks in.
Art director Seung-jae reminds Kang-tae that he asked her for Moon-young’s autograph, and Moon-young smirks — he made that whole speech about her eyes when he just wanted her autograph?
Kang-tae tries to say that isn’t the case, but he gives up since he really does need that signature. He gives her his hyung’s name, and she signs her latest book Zombie Kid. With that, he walks out a little embarrassed.
Sang-in chases after Kang-tae, trying a little too hard to offer him a box of drinks. Of course, the box is actually full of cash and Kang-tae has no interest in it. Kang-tae leaves the building, and out on the balcony, Moon-young watches him.
“How pretty,” she coos. “I want him.” Then, she imagines herself being a giant and plucking him right off the street. (Not gonna lie, I do that sometimes too.) When Seung-jae comes in and interrupts her little fantasy, she asks that she do some digging on Kang-tae and keep it a secret from Sang-in.
On the bus home, Kang-tae opens the book to read the signature: “Sang-tae Oppa, I hope you can come to my book launch party. You can get my autograph and take pictures with me. Moon-young will be waiting for you~” Needless to say, when Sang-tae reads this, he’s excited to go to the big event.
Kang-tae is glad to see Sang-tae so happy, but he has other things to do, so he asks his friend Jae-soo if he can accompany his hyung tomorrow. Jae-soo agrees, and aw, is he getting ready to shut down his restaurant to move with the boys?
A customer enters Jae-soo’s restaurant, and he’s delighted to see that it’s nurse Joo-ri. We learn that Kang-tae, Jae-soo, and Joo-ri (and naturally, Moon-young) grew up in the same town. And please note that I made a mistake in the last recap — Joo-ri works at OK Hospital in their hometown, and Kang-tae was let go from a hospital in Seoul.
Jae-soo obviously has a crush on Joo-ri and Joo-ri obviously has a crush on Kang-tae. When Joo-ri asks about Kang-tae, Jae-soo tells her, “He’s doing well, getting the joy out of overworking himself.” And Kang-tae’s doing just that, working at a warehouse moving boxes and, unfortunately, aggravating the stitches on his hand.
Back at the publishing house, Sang-in and the editors’ team work through all of today’s issues, but Moon-young clearly has control over them and has the last say over everything. Mind you, she’s sitting on an actual throne like the queen she is.
Now knowing Kang-tae’s workplace, Joo-ri decides to pay him a visit after his shift. The two sit in the park to chat, a little awkward with each other. Joo-ri heard that Kang-tae is moving again, and she reveals that her hospital is looking for an experienced caregiver. Kang-tae thinks this is great news… until he realizes that the job is in his hometown. As Joo-ri continues talking, he falls into a memory.
When Kang-tae was young, his mother was killed and his hyung was the only witness. When questioned by the police, Sang-tae would repeat over and over, “The butterfly did it. The butterfly killed her.” A distraught Kang-tae shook him, demanding to know what the killer looked like, but Sang-tae burst into tears and said the butterfly threatened to kill him too if he said anything.
While waiting at the police station, Kang-tae overheard the officers saying they should send him to a children’s home and Sang-tae to a special needs center. Refusing to be separated, Kang-tae snuck them out and told Sang-tae they were going somewhere far away, where the butterfly couldn’t get to them.
Back in the present, Kang-tae walks Joo-ri over to her bus. Before getting on, Joo-ri turns back and shyly reveals that her building has an extra room. Y’know, in case he needs a place to stay. Though he appreciates the offer, he says he won’t be moving back home.
Joo-ri boards the bus, her forced smile falling as she remembers something Jae-soo said while drunk. He’d said that Kang-tae doesn’t bother with relationships because he knows he’ll be gone within a year. When Joo-ri asked why, Jae-soo slurred that it was because of the “damn butterfly.”
Moon-young picks out her outfit for tomorrow’s event, smiling at the thought of Kang-tae. We transition to Kang-tae (I love these transitions) looking for jobs online. Curious, he looks up OK Hospital and learns that it’s home to Korea’s number one PTSD expert.
The next morning, Kang-tae can’t reach Jae-soo (because the guy is hungover), so he has no choice but to attend the book event. The brothers walk through the city, and we get to see how bright and happy everything looks through Sang-tae’s eyes. Kang-tae beams at how alive he seems.
The boys make it to the bookstore where the event is taking place, and Kang-tae is shocked to see how packed it is. People are waving signs, wearing merchandise, and taking pictures with Moon-young like she’s a full-blown celebrity.
After getting Sang-tae in line, Kang-tae attempts to stay out of sight. But our queen’s got sharp eyes, and she notices him right away. In the detective fiction section, Sang-in checks out a series of books by an author named Do Hui-jae. He’s greeted by a famed book critic wearing an ascot, who notes that the queen of detective fiction was the mother to the queen of children’s books.
Kang-tae finally gets a call from Jae-soo and has to take it outside. Kang-tae tells Sang-tae to stay where he is, but once Kang-tae is gone, Sang-tae notices a kid wearing a dinosaur costume and gets googly-eyed. He approaches the kid and his parents, enthusiastically listing off dinosaur facts, and the kid’s dad demands to know what his deal is. When Sang-tae touches the kid’s costume, the dad blows up, shoving Sang-tae aside and then pulling him by the hair.
The hair-pulling triggers Sang-tae into another episode, and the crowd stands back in shock. Kang-tae hears the commotion and runs back inside, pulling his hoodie off and wrapping it around Sang-tae. He holds his hyung tightly, telling him that it’s okay and that he’s sorry.
Everyone’s crowded around them now, taking videos and photographs (ugh), with Moon-young stoicly watching from her seat. She taps her pen against the table, thinking, “Help him or don’t help him?”
Kang-tae gets up and stares down the kid’s dad. But before he can say anything, Moon-young comes down and urges the dad to apologize — for ruining her event. The dad starts to say it was Sang-tae’s fault, so Moon-young grabs him by the hair, making him cry out.
Moon-young points out that anyone would scream if their hair was pulled. The mom steps in to say that Sang-tae was rambling like a crazy person, and Moon-young throws back that she’s rambling as well, so she must be a crazy bitch.
Hearing Moon-young swear, the parents gasp and the photographers again go wild. But she’s too busy smirking at Kang-tae to care.
Later, Sang-tae is calming himself down in a storage room, still covered by the comfort of Kang-tae’s jacket. Kang-tae and Moon-young sit just outside, and Kang-tae mentions that Sang-tae’s usually okay after an hour… or a day or two.
Either way, Kang-tae tells her not to worry and to handle her current situation instead. “Worry?” she says. “Why would I worry?” She asks if Sang-tae is always sensitive about his hair, mimicking his screams, and Kang-tae jumps up to face her.
Satisfied her provoking has gotten him to look her in the eye, she leans in and snatches the cap off his head. “Don’t wear hats,” she tells him. “I can’t see your pretty face.”
The book critic Mr. Ascot appears, breaking the tension, and Moon-young gets a grim look on her face. Ascot proves to be a prick, telling her that she and her mom have a lot in common — they have the same frown, they’re both writers, and they’re both sexy.
Sensing Moon-young’s anger, Kang-tae holds her back. Ascot just continues that her successful parents ended up dead or in the hospital — what would happen to her? He warns Kang-tae that things won’t end well if he gets involved with her. Ascot goes on his merry way, and as Moon-young stalks after him, Kang-tae grabs her wrist.
Kang-tae tells her not to go, and she looks at him incredulously. She asks if he likes her and if he can really handle her. Otherwise, who does he think he is trying to stop her? She turns and leaves, following Ascot down the stairway. Kang-tae stays where he is, then in a snap decision, goes running after her.
Once Moon-young reaches Ascot, he smirks and says that she better not act up; he could ruin her career with just his pen. At that, Moon-young eyes the pen in his pocket. “A famous children’s book writer actually turned out to have antisocial personality disorder?” he muses. “What do you think will happen when people find out?”
Moon-young asks what Ascot wants, and he suggests he’d like a lot more than money. Moon-young steps forward and takes the pen from his pocket, saying that while that’s easy, she too can attack with a pen. She lunges it at him like a knife, stopping inches from his eye, and he teeters off balance.
With a “See ya,” Moon-young gives Ascot a nudge that sends him falling down the stairs. Kang-tae finally arrives, but he sees that the damage is already done. Later, as Ascot is carried into an ambulance and shrieking about his revenge, Moon-young grumbles that he should’ve just died.
Moon-young starts to walk away, as if ready to break something, so Kang-tae grabs her by the shoulders and tells her to take a deep breath. (Pfft, she takes the tiniest breath ever.) He then crosses her arms so that she’s touching her shoulders and says patting them should help her calm down.
Kang-tae calls the technique the Butterfly Hug Method, which is the same technique Sang-tae is using in the storage room. Moon-young spins around and pulls him reaaaal close, saying trauma is best dealt with face-to-face.
Kang-tae escapes from her hold to return to Sang-tae, and Moon-young yells at him to slow down. He tells her to use the technique if she feels like she’s going to explode, but she doesn’t believe that kind of stuff works. “I want you to be my safety pin,” she says. “Keep me under control so that I won’t explode.”
He’s confused since she told him to back off before, and she reminds him that he’s a caretaker meant to look after people. Still, he suggests she go find somebody else. And when she offers to pay him, he firmly states what he used to say to fully recovered patients: “Let’s not see each other again.”
The two stop at the elevator, and Moon-young points out that she’s not a patient. That’s right, Kang-tae says, she’s not. She was born this way, and people like her can’t be cured; they can only be avoided. When the elevator doors open and he steps inside, she accuses him of running away because he’s scared.
The last thing she says to him before the doors close is “Coward.” With that word, we get a flashback to the day she tore the butterfly and he ran off. Back then, as she watched him disappear into the fields, she also said “Coward.”
Kang-tae reunites with Sang-tae, who’s ready to go home. On the bus, Sang-tae is clutching his storybook, upset he didn’t get his autograph. Kang-tae surprises him with a dinosaur book, and just like that, hyung is happy again. Kang-tae asks who he likes more, him or Moon-young, but Sang-tae doesn’t answer.
Kang-tae opens the bus window for some air, taking off his hat. The action reminds him of what Moon-young said earlier, about her preferring him without the hat, so he puts it back on. Ha.
Jae-soo is waiting for the boys when they get home, looking like a guilty puppy. Though Kang-tae doesn’t seem mad anymore, he does think it’s about time Jae-soo stop moving around with them and start living his own life. Jae-soo refuses to do so, asking what’s gotten into him.
Kang-tae explains that he always thought they were running away because of Sang-tae, because of some butterflies that didn’t even exist. But after today, he’s beginning to wonder if it was because he wanted to run away. “When life is unbearably hard,” he says, “the easiest way out is to run.”
That night, while packing the last of their belongings, Kang-tae hesitantly brings up their hometown to Sang-tae. He asks if maybe they should move back, and he’s surprised when Sang-tae seems perfectly fine with it. He figures he must really be a coward. Sang-tae, being the darling he is, says that the younger brother is supposed to be a coward and that Kang-tae can count on him.
A few days later, Moon-young wakes up to a text from Seung-jae — the intel she requested. She learns of Kang-tae’s hometown and, remembering his speech about her familiar eyes, she grins. Meanwhile, at the publishing house, Sang-in is pretty close to having a nervous breakdown. With yesterday’s incident, the online community compiled all of Moon-young’s past scandals and officially, as the kids say, cancelled her.
Sang-in asks (more like cries) where Moon-young is, and Seung-jae reveals that she gave Moon-young info on Kang-tae and that she’s probably on her way to see him.
And whataya know, as they speak, Moon-young is speeding into her hometown of Seongjin City. There, we see that Kang-tae has already adjusted to his new job at OK Hospital, working alongside a very happy Joo-ri.
Moon-young answers a call from Sang-in, and instead of answering his questions, she asks if he knows “The Red Shoes” story by Hans Christian Andersen. She soon arrives at the hospital and steps out into the pouring rain, wearing some killer red heels.
“The little girl wore her red shoes everywhere she went, even to a God-fearing church. Once you wear those shoes, your feet start dancing on their own. And you can never stop dancing or take off those shoes. But even so, the little girl never gave up on those red shoes. In the end, the executioner had to cut off her feet. But the two feet that got cut off still continued to dance in those red shoes. Some things can’t be torn apart no matter how hard you try to do so. That is why obsession is noble and beautiful.”
Moon-young struts through the halls of OK Hospital, the lights flashing ominously. Seeing Kang-tae at the end of the hall, she smiles and thinks to herself that she’s finally found her red shoes. She appears before him and, stunned, he asks why she’s here. “Why do you think?” she teases. “I came because I missed you.”
COMMENTS
Oof, what a fantastic premiere week. Watching these two episodes, my mind was going a million miles an hour, but the second they ended, my mind just went blank. It’s like all I can think about writing is… Stunning. It’s just such a satisfying watch, with beautiful imagery, evocative music, and ah-mazing acting. Like, Seo Ye-ji and Kim Soo-hyun aren’t even here right now. These people are Go Moon-young and Moon Kang-tae. 100%
At the same time, I can already feel that this is going to be a challenging watch. We got a glimpse into Moon-young’s troubled past, and I just know that when fully unravelled, that is going to be crushing. Then, with this episode, we got a glimpse into Kang-tae and Sang-tae’s past, and it was far worse than I could’ve imagined. To think that these boys lost their mother in the worst way possible, but also that Sang-tae saw it with his own eyes. I’m wondering if his sensitivity to his hair has something to do with that day, like the killer grabbing him. And I’m also wondering what a “butterfly” could mean to Sang-tae. Does it represent something? Something the killer was wearing or holding? Something else entirely? I’m so interested in this storyline, but at the forefront, I’m just really hurting for the two brothers. Kang-tae barely looked twelve when they ran off on their own — way too young to be shouldering so much responsibility.
This is a minor thing, but I’m wondering who left Seongjin City first, Kang-tae or Moon-young. Did Kang-tae run away first, making Moon-young think he completely abandoned her? Did Moon-young get transferred first, and if so, did something terrible happen that Kang-tae happened to see? (See what I mean about my thoughts going a million miles an hour?) At the end of the first episode, I assumed that the couple remembered each other from childhood, but now I’m not so sure. Kang-tae obviously sees the girl he liked in Moon-young and Moon-young sees the boy who followed her in Kang-tae, but do they know? Now that I think about it, it’s possible they never learned each other’s names when they were young. So it could be that they don’t remember but are experiencing that strong pull to each other again. I’d say that it’s destiny, but I think she would’ve latched onto him, destiny or not.
I like that the drama confirmed that Moon-young has antisocial personality disorder and that Moon-young herself is aware. We’ve seen what makes her her, with the impulsiveness, the manipulation, and the lack of emotions. I’m trying to imagine what it would be like to be in Kang-tae’s shoes, interacting with Moon-young, and I think it would be equally enthralling and infuriating. She’s different, yes, but that’s her normal. In the same way that Sang-tae’s being different is his normal. So I can see why Kang-tae has the urge to grab her and stop her from doing anything rash, to help her breathe and regain control. Yet, there is something about her that is… I want to say scary, but not at all monster scary. More like I’m-genuinely-concerned-for-her scary. Like her habit of playing “Should I or Shouldn’t I” during serious situations. In the back of my mind, I’m thinking of how awful that is, and I have to remind myself that it’s not her fault. The important thing is that she chose to save Kang-tae. Twice.
Moon-young says she’s found her pair of red shoes, and I believe that she’s never going to let them go. In the fairy tale she mentioned, the little girl character was obsessed with these extravagant shoes, and because of this obsession, she essentially lived a miserable life until she was set free from them. It’s one of the most disturbing children’s stories I’ve ever read, and I find it interesting that Moon-young is using it to describe her growing obsession with Kang-tae. Does she truly see Kang-tae as a safety pin that can help her? Or is she just playing another one of her games?