The problem with secrets is that they can only be kept for so long, and the longer it is before the truth comes out, the worse the betrayal will feel. Nobody in this situation is intentionally keeping secrets, but that doesn’t lessen the impact. The question now is, what to do with the truth?
EPISODE 13
Sitting outside their tent at the campsite, Do-hee tells Hae-kyung that she wants to stop being dinner mates because she’s crossed a line. She tells him that he saw a part of her life she didn’t want him to see. He says he doesn’t care about that, but Do-hee says she can’t stop thinking… then she awkwardly blurts out that she loves writer Lee Moon-jung. LOL, what?
Confused, Hae-kyung asks if she’s saying she doesn’t think about him. Do-hee asks incredulously why on earth she would think about him, then escapes to the tent to die of embarrassment. She screams into her pillow, which startles Hae-kyung, so Do-hee says she saw a snake in the tent… then freaks out when Hae-kyung points out the sign warning that there really are snakes here, hee.
Do-hee’s phone buzzes again and Hae-kyung tells her to take the call, but when she steps away for privacy, he looks a little insecure about it. It’s Jae-hyuk, and when he starts asking a lot of invasive questions like where she is and who she’s with, Do-hee tells him it’s none of his business and hangs up on him. Good for her.
Do-hee rejoins Hae-kyung and thanks him for coming here today. He says they’re friends who can talk about things they can’t tell other people, because it’s easier to speak their minds since they don’t really know each other. He invites her to talk about it if that call was from the ex she mentioned before, so she confesses that yes, it was the guy who left with no warning and wants to get back together.
She says she doesn’t know how to act around Jae-hyuk sometimes, and that she has conflicted feelings about her past. She laments that she spent the brightest days of her youth with him, so if she wipes out her memories of the guy, her memories of her twenties will disappear, too.
But Hae-kyung counters that she would have shined brightly even if she weren’t with Jae-hyuk, so he probably wasn’t there for some of her brightest moments. Do-hee jokes that sometimes she feels like she’s talking to a therapist with him, and Hae-kyung says vaguely that he’s learned from experience, which Do-hee interprets to mean that he’s dated a lot.
On the drive back to the city, Hae-kyung catches Do-hee staring at him. Since she’s talked so much about herself, she breaks their rule about not asking questions, and she asks Hae-kyung to share whatever is troubling him. He tells her that writer Lee Moon-jung is his mother, and that his first love who’s trying to get him back is his only relationship.
He says he doesn’t want to linger on it or repeat it, because all relationships end eventually, so he’d rather not even start. He jokes that he’s very future-oriented, but Do-hee doesn’t laugh with him.
When he pulls up to Do-hee’s building, she tells him that instead of shutting himself off, he should think positively. She heads inside, and Hae-kyung says after she’s gone, “Some people might think you’re the doctor.”
Jae-hyuk has been waiting for Do-hee, and he confronts her, saying that he was worried about her. She snaps angrily that he’s out of line by waiting outside her house like this, and she tells him clearly that she has no feelings for him. He grabs her arm when she turns her back on him, but Hae-kyung is suddenly there, calmly ordering Jae-hyuk to let Do-hee go.
Jae-hyuk recognizes Hae-kyung from Geon-woo’s social media picture, who he said was is his first love. Do-hee gasps in pain as she wrenches her wrist from Jae-hyuk’s grasp, and Hae-kyung hurries to her, worried. Jae-hyuk puffs up at Hae-kyung, demanding to know who he is, but it’s Do-hee who answers, “He’s my boyfriend.”
Hae-kyung looks at her but doesn’t deny it, and when Jae-hyuk tries to move close to Do-hee again, Hae-kyung gets between them and warns Jae-hyuk away from her. He takes Do-hee by the hand and leads her away, leaving Jae-hyuk standing alone.
They go to the convenience store, and Hae-kyung holds his cold drink on the red spot on Do-hee’s wrist. He says they’re even now that they’ve both used each other as a cover, and adds that he knows it’s not his place, but he warns Do-hee to be careful around Jae-hyuk.
In the morning, Do-hee tells So-ra dramatically that she crossed a line last night and started a fire. So-ra squeals and demands all the details, but Jae-hyuk walks in and completely kills the mood. In private, he gives Do-hee a wedding invitation from some old friends of theirs but she flatly refuses to be his date. He asks if Hae-kyung is really her boyfriend, and she says yes.
Hae-kyung goes back to Jeju to see Geun-hee, but she doesn’t show up for their lunch. He calls her and says he’s glad if she doesn’t need him anymore, but that he’ll come again if she just wants to share a meal. She thanks him, but there’s a tragic quality to her voice that worries me.
Since he’s there, Hae-kyung decides to read a book. He imagines himself as the protagonist and Do-hee as his love interest, and she tells him that she couldn’t forget him before he twirls her into his arms. He leans down to kiss her… then slams the book closed and calls it a crappy story, hee.
Ah-young enters a cafe and sees that the coffee of the day is the same high-quality “Panama la Esmerelda Geisha” that Ajusshi gave to her the other day, so she orders a cup. Her enjoyment of the coffee is ruined by Jae-hyuk, who asks her if Do-hee is seeing anyone. Ah-young’s surprised response is all the answer he needs.
We see Ajusshi standing outside Hae-kyung’s clinic, looking clean-cut and wearing a nice suit. A hand drops a coffee mug and it shatters, then Ajusshi is outside the convenience store again, staring fearfully at Jae-hyuk. He steels himself and walks into the clinic, but when he asks to see Hae-kyung, Byung-jin tells him that he’s out of town.
At 2N Box, Do-hee assembles her team for No-eul’s show. None of them are keen on her ideas, especially Jin-kyu, who says he’s a professional who can separate his personal feeling from his work — then practically drools on No-eul when she joins the meeting and sits next to him.
After dark, Ah-young lurks around the convenience store looking for Ajusshi, and she doesn’t recognize him when he walks right in front of her in his suit and nice haircut.
After their meeting, Jae-hyuk offers to buy chicken and beer for the team. No-eul leaves claiming an appointment, and Do-hee also declines. But when she leaves the building later she finds No-eul waiting to invite her to dinner.
They end up at a pizza place, sitting near an openly happy couple that reminds Do-hee of her mother witnessing her father with his mistress. She tells No-eul vaguely that she was thinking of someone she hates, and No-eul guesses that it’s Jae-hyuk, ha. Do-hee insists that it’s not him, and suggests they order.
They pick the same thing, and grin at each other for having identical taste. No-eul thanks Do-hee for trusting in her and asks if she can call Do-hee “Unni” when it’s just the two of them. Do-hee agrees, calling her “No-eul-dongsaeng” in turn, and they toast to their new, closer relationship.
Do-hee asks No-eul how she knows Dr. Kim Hae-kyung, so No-eul explains that he’s her ex-boyfriend. Alarmed that No-eul dated “that jerk,” Do-hee is incredulous that she would want to work with her ex, but No-eul points out that Do-hee is working with her ex, too.
No-eul asks if things are really over between Do-hee and Jae-hyuk, and Do-hee compares their relationship to a movie after the credits have rolled and the lights have come back up… so over. No-eul seems envious of Do-hee’s certainty, admitting that she’s having a hard time forgetting Hae-kyung.
Do-hee shares that it took her a long time to move on, and that No-eul is probably still has feelings for Hae-kyung. No-eul wonders if he still has feelings for her, too, and Do-hee assures her that if he can’t see her great she is, then he’s got issues.
No-eul’s phone buzzes, and she holds it up for Do-hee to see the photo of herself with Hae-kyung. Do-hee realizes to her horror that the man she’s been having all these dinners and talks with was THE Kim Hae-kyung, who is also No-eul’s ex-boyfriend. She tells herself that it’s okay because he still doesn’t know who she is, and she doesn’t have to see him again.
She gives herself this pep talk in the restroom, but when she emerges, Hae-kyung and Geon-woo are standing at the and table talking to No-eul. Apparently No-eul invited Geon-woo and told him to bring Hae-kyung, claiming that she wants to introduce him to PD Woo from 2N Box since he’ll be working with her.
Do-hee sneaks out behind a life-sized cardboard cutout of singer Yang Joon-il (and then apologizes to it, LOL), then calls Geon-woo and orders him to bring her purse outside. While he’s gone, Hae-kyung asks No-eul not to do this and walks away, but she grumbles petulantly to herself, “You will eventually do it.”
EPISODE 14
When Hae-kyung steps outside, Do-hee ducks behind the cutout again and makes a very conspicuous escape. Hae-kyung starts to follow her, but Geon-woo stops him because clearly that’s Yang Joon-il, not PD Woo, hee.
Do-hee walks home, barely noticing anything around her, while Geon-woo explains the situation to Hae-kyung. He says that PD Woo is still pushing the show despite No-eul’s scandal, and despite her original show being canceled because she couldn’t cast Hae-kyung. He tells Hae-kyung that he could help both PD Woo and No-eul by agreeing to be on the show.
Hae-kyung says that No-eul only wants him back because she wants to return to her former glorious self. But he believes that it’s bad for her to be so hung up on the past and that she needs to overcome her obstacles herself. He tells Geon-woo to stop getting in the middle and just be a friend to No-eul.
While Do-hee meditates, she goes over what she knows: Kim Hae-kyung and Jin No-eul used to be together. No-eul still has feelings for Hae-kyung, but Hae-kyung doesn’t seem to return her feelings. She tells herself that their relationship is simple, then whines that hers is too complicated.
She tells herself to focus on work, but she has to turn Penguin to the wall and put away Lee Moon-jung’s book to concentrate. Even then, she can’t stop thinking about Hae-kyung putting out the fire on her clothes and the two of them tumbling to the ground together, or the effortlessly swoony way he rescued her from Jae-hyuk later that night.
The next day, she’s still distracted as her team films a mukbang, so Ah-young pulls her aside to talk. Do-hee claims she’s just tired from working all night, but Ah-young growls that she knows her better than that. Ah-young is also worried about Ajusshi, since she hasn’t seen him in a while, and Do-hee realizes that she hasn’t, either.
Do-hee and the team listen to the radio while working, and the DJ quotes Lee Moon-jung’s book: “Just like love is about timing, breaking up is about timing as well… There are lovers who have to leave each other despite their love, and there are lovers who have to love each other even though they have to break up.”
Her words get to Do-hee, who finally texts Hae-kyung and asks him to meet. He asks if she means dinner, but she says no, she has something to say to him. Hae-kyung is trying a little too hard not to seem nervous when he arrives, but he drops the pretense when he sees Do-hee’s expression.
She tells him that she wanted to say this in person, then asks to stop being dinner mates. Hae-kyung asks why, so she says that she wasn’t herself when they met in Jeju (Hae-kyung: “I’m the one who had the head injury…”) and that he was there whenever something ridiculous happened, so she thought he was special.
But she says there’s nothing special about him — he’s just a stranger. Hae-kyung says that’s no reason they have to stop being dinner mates, but Do-hee counters that she sees no future for them and doesn’t want to waste her time anymore. She thanks him for everything, and leaves.
On her way home, Do-hee finds Ah-young sitting at the convenience store hoping to see Ajusshi. She asks if Ah-young likes him and Ah-young vehemently denies it, but Do-hee says that she should since he seems like a nice person. Ah-young snaps that you shouldn’t like someone just because they’re nice, then she’s horrified when Do-hee ducks her head and starts to cry.
Several bottles of soju into her sulk, Do-hee finally tells Ah-young that the man she’s been having dinner with is Kim Hae-kyung. Ah-young assumes he found out who Do-hee is and was mean, and she’s ready to go fight him, but Do-hee wails that he doesn’t know who she is.
She sobs that all they did was eat together, but that it was somehow more than that. Ah-young guesses that Do-hee likes him, and Do-hee sniffs that she doesn’t want to. All Ah-young can do is just hug her.
While Ah-young is walking home, she notices someone following her, so she takes off her shoe and wings it at their head. Awww, it’s just Ajusshi, who she didn’t recognize with his haircut. He picks up her shoe and puts it back on her foot (EEEE, that makes Ah-young so happy!), and she snaps at him to walk by her side if he thinks she’s scared. They’re so cute!!
After a long night of brooding, Do-hee gets a supportive text from Ah-young saying that there are lots of other men in the world. She replies that she doesn’t need men, then deletes all of her texts with Hae-kyung. When Hae-kyung tries to send her a message later, he sees that the conversation has been closed.
At the wedding (ha, Ryu Ji-kwang cameos as the MC), a friend tells Do-hee and Jae-hyuk that they look good together, and Do-hee fires back, “I look good by myself.” She declines an invitation to go out for drinks with all their old friends afterward, and she’s surprised when Ryu Ji-kwang approaches her to ask her out to dinner.
She thinks to herself, “It’s dinner again. This time, I know the man’s face, name, and even profession.” She recalls another time that Ah-young told her there are lots of men in the world — when Jae-hyuk disappeared. She’d been devastated, but she’d thought that it didn’t matter who many men there are when she only wanted to be with Jae-hyuk.
People had said it again when she caught Young-dong cheating, and then she’d thought that none of the men in the world are trustworthy. But then she met Hae-kyung, who knew nothing about her but saved her life, listened to her, and ate with her. She thinks, “It never started, but it ended already. Maybe I can move on if I try hard. Maybe it will be nothing if I pretend it is.”
She waits at the bus stop, but decides to walk instead. When she arrives at her building, Hae-kyung is standing across the street, looking directly at her. As he walks towards her, Do-hee thinks, “That’s when I realized that your efforts to deceive your heart come to nothing when you truly like someone.”
Hae-kyung offers Do-hee his business card and she takes it. He tells her, “My name is Kim Hae-kyung. From now on, when you want to reach me, contact this number.”
COMMENTS
What I love most about Do-hee and Hae-kyung’s relationship is that, by keeping things anonymous and on a dinner-mates-only level, they’ve actually gotten to know one another better than if they’d started out with more conventional dating patterns. The point was to keep things on a surface, impersonal level, but that’s backfired on them big-time. Not even knowing each other’s names has given them a false sense of security to share a lot of very personal information, kind of like posting online behind a handle. They don’t know any of the stuff that newly dating couples usually talk about right up front, like names, family, careers, etc, but what’s happened is that by taking all of the usual topics off the table, all there is left to talk about is the really personal stuff.
I’ll admit that I’m not exactly sure why learning Hae-kyung’s identity caused Do-hee to just break things off, because nothing he said or did when they were exchanging emails was any worse than what she said or did. They were both pretty horrible to each other, and Do-hee’s career hasn’t suffered from his refusal to be on her show. But now, Hae-kyung has told Do-hee his name (and his profession, by giving her his card), without knowing that she’s already figured out who he is. At first I thought he was changing the rules and wants a real relationship, but on further reflection, he told her to contact him at his business number, so I’m scared that he’s saying that she needs therapy. Whichever it is, neither one bodes well for the immediate future — there’s going to be a lot of downside to knowing each other’s identity, and I’m not looking forward to the loss of the (hopefully temporary) closeness they’ve fostered through their anonymity.
As for the exes, I’m no closer to understanding them than I was before. I do think that Hae-kyung is onto something with his theory that No-eul only wants him back because she’s stuck in the past, though I didn’t see any evidence that she was suffering personally or professionally until well after she approached him. Her whole way of thinking makes no sense to me, at all. I did, however, appreciate seeing her interacting with Do-hee, because it showed that she can be nice and friendly… except that it also makes it harder to understand why she’s sometimes haughty and self-entitled, because she doesn’t have to be.
As for Jae-hyuk, he lost any benefit of the doubt from me when he grabbed Do-hee and hurt her, and the way he got really aggressive with Hae-kyung incredibly fast. Even Ajusshi’s memories of Jae-hyuk seem violent. It makes me wonder what he’s hiding… like maybe a problem with a violent temper? If so, he was able to hide it for years when he was with Do-hee, but then it’s easy for someone like that to hide a dark side when everything is going their way. I think that we’re seeing Jae-hyuk’s true self now that he’s not easily getting what he wants from Do-hee. I’m starting to think that when he said he was “going abroad,” he was actually in jail (he may have been calling his parole officer that one time), which would explain why it happened so suddenly and why he wasn’t able to contact Do-hee in all this time. Regardless, I don’t think it was anything so innocent as going away to study, and that Jae-hyuk might be more than just annoying… he might be dangerous.