Haha, Lee Min-ki is so weird! I love him and his fantastic, staccato deadpan already. There’s an extended teaser out for tvN’s upcoming rom-com Because This Life Is Our First, which gives us a good long look at the setup that ends with our leads Lee Min-ki (Shoot Me in the Heart) and Jung So-min (Father Is Strange) becoming roommates.
First, we have Jung So-min’s character, who has just “escaped” after slaving away for five years as an assistant writer. Her celebratory mood gets cut short, though, after catching her live-in boyfriend in bed with another woman, getting her loan application rejected, and finding less than ideal rental options in her price range. I did a laugh-cry for her when she drunkenly attempts to ask her parents to move back in, only to have her sister (-in-law?) beat her to the punch and announce her pregnancy. I would like to join her friends when they go, “What. The. Sh!#.” Well, it’s a good thing this is a rom-com for our officially homeless heroine, ‘cause the hero is, of course, looking for a roommate.
Said hero sounds like a handful: Some of his roommate contract stipulations include submitting receipts, attending neighborhood meetings, doing all the chores, and taking care of his cat when he has to do overtime. I kind of adore how attached he is to this cat, though, even refusing to stay late at the office because he needs to feed him. I can see why he’s not exactly popular at the office, being a blank-faced stickler for the rules who doesn’t budge even to his manager’s face. He does take a liking to his new roommate, though, and we see Jung So-min meticulously adhering to house rules, even scraping in between the tiles in the bathroom. Ew.
She must have moved in alone and somehow totally missed meeting her housemate, ‘cause they first unwittingly meet outside a restaurant and bond over a shared love of the Arsenal football team. He provides some comfort to her in his odd way—“To a cat, today is the most important, no matter if you’re thirty or forty”—and whether it’s due to her melancholy mood or the alcohol, she impulsively kisses him. Haha, what an awkward way to start a house-share. At least Lee Min-ki’s the type to address the elephant in the room. With absolutely no tact. It’s kind of like he’s a robot who tried and gave up on how to be human.
I can tell I’m going to really enjoy the other characters and what form of modern-day relationships they’ll show us, as well. Esom (Yes, Family) and Park Byung-eun (Mystery Queen) have quite the meet-cute when they bump into each other and he pauses at a condom as he picks up her dropped belongings. She’s a proponent of open dating and he’s a “direct, macho manly man,” though I did snort at the description when Park Byung-eun goes on and on about how he can’t believe she doesn’t remember him when they slept together.
And then, last but not least, Kim Ga-eun (Reunited Worlds) and Kim Min-seok (Age of Youth 2) play a couple that should make for some hilarious mix-ups. She’s described as a bit materialistic and focused on her partner’s job and house prospects, emphasizing to a store assistant that her boyfriend graduated from Seoul University. She might have her work cut out for her though, ‘cause Kim Min-seok doesn’t seem like the sharpest tool in the shed when it comes to human interactions. Aww, Park Byung-eun tries to get him to understand the nuance in his girlfriend’s texts, and calls him by his job title like it’s a dirty word, while all Kim Min-seok gets from this social lesson is that romance is handled, “not by your face, but with skills.” Oh, you’re cute, if a little dim.
I always love it when the hero is a sworn bachelor like Lee Min-ki is here—he calls marriage a restraint—because the loftier a man holds himself above romance, the harder he falls. Hehe, I’m getting evil giggles just thinking about it. Especially with that teaser’s ending, when Lee Min-ki dully asks whether Jung So-min would marry him, you know, if she has the time. We won’t have to wait long for her answer, either: Because This Life Is Our First will premiere next week on October 9 following Argon in tvN’s Monday-Tuesday slot. Let the roommate hijinks begin!
