Coffee Prince: Fifth Cup

by javabeans

What I like about Coffee Prince is that it’s good-natured and feel-good. The male-bonding scenes are fun and energetic, and despite not having some evil force lurking in the shadows, we have plenty of entertainment. Then again, we’re only five episodes in, so who knows what may change. I’ve noticed a lot of shows start off strong for the first two or three weeks, but around episode 6 or 7, they start to falter. And yet because I’m the eternal optimist (hidden in a cynic’s body), I always think, This one will be good all the way through. I hope this one is.

(Note: I’ll be replacing some of the grainy caps with better/clearer images if I manage to get the vastly better-quality MickeyBaby version of the episode, which isn’t available as quickly as the ones I get now.)

SONG OF THE DAY

Coffee Prince OST – “Mocha” by Casker. I really like Casker. You can listen to another of their songs, “Every Saturday,” posted here. [ zShare download ]

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

 
EPISODE 5 SUMMARY

Han Gyul awakens to see Eun Chan hovering right over him, but they’re interrupted by Ha Rim, who sleepily comes downstairs to ask what they’re up to, then teases them, asking if they’re dating. To which Eun Chan stammers that they’re not.

Han Gyul smiles as he reads the notes attached to the milk Eun Chan brought him:

(The note says: “This is a birthday present~ It’s three hours before its expiration date, so drink up quickly!”)

Ha Rim, Eun Chan, and Han Gyul go out for breakfast, where they wonder why Ha Rim’s sleeping at the store. He’s been kicked out from home because he doesn’t want to go into the family business. He mentions hating knives and blood, and Eun Chan perks up, asking if they’re butchers (everything’s meat-oriented with her, haha) — I wonder if maybe they’re doctors?

Seeing Eun Chan eyeing his food, Han Gyul laughingly gives up his kalbi (beef ribs) to her. Cute.

Eun Chan tells Ha Rim that Mr. Hong has a free room, so Ha Rim goes to see him, and they find that the cool, detached pretty boy Sun Ki’s also there. He heard a room was available and needs one too. Both guys enter in horror, however — if you thought Mr. Hong was filthy at work, that’s nothing compared to the squalor of his home. It’s disgusting.

At work, Eun Chan hears from Han Gyul that Min Yub quit suddenly. She berates Han Gyul for being so disinterested, not caring to ask what the matter was. Feeling sorry for his situation, Eun Chan finds Min Yub working at a pojangmacha (a streetside food stall).

She doesn’t understand why he’d quit the cafe to take over the pojangmacha for his friend, but Min Yub says the friend is a good guy who fed and housed him when Min Yub needed help. He’s returning the favor, temporarily taking over the food stand while his friend is sick. He didn’t want to quit the Coffee Prince (it’s the first time he’s ever done something for himself completely on his own), but things just happened that way.

Eun Chan helps him tend to customers (and drops the hint that Eun Sae loves to eat chicken feet).

At dawn, while Eun Chan’s out on her milk delivery, Han Sung waits by the gate with Terry (the dog) and wonders why she’s late. He gives her a call and says at first that Terry misses her, then amends it to: “No, I think I miss you more.”

Eun Chan tells him she’ll go over as soon as she’s done with her deliveries. He tells her he’ll be waiting, and Eun Chan happily pedals off, and sing-songs, “He’ll wait… he’ll wait… He says he’ll wait!”

Han Sung makes her breakfast, and afterward Eun Chan heads outside to play around on his decorative statues. He notes that she’s the first person who’s ever thought to sit on the horse — everyone else just looks at it.

Han Sung: “Isn’t it tiring, acting as a guy?”
Eun Chan: “No. I’m good at it. Don’t I seem like a boy to you too?”
Han Sung: “No. No matter how I see it, you’re a girl to me.”
Eun Chan: “On Valentine’s Day, I get lots of chocolates. But all from girls. And then I don’t get any on White Day.” [reverse V-Day] “I guess they can’t tell I’m not a guy.”
Han Sung: “How can they not recognize such a pretty girl? In my eyes, I only see you as pretty.”

Han Sung asks if she wants to go to a party with him, for the opening of an art show. She feels self-conscious about her appearance, figuring it’ll be a fancy event, and tells him that he’d be embarrassed to go with her. He tells her she’s great as she is, and she agrees to go — she’ll do her best to look pretty, to not embarrass him.

As she leaves, he calls out, “You know, you have the ability to make people feel really great.”

Min Yub prepares chicken feet for Eun Sae, and waits outside to give them to her… but then realizes with a shock that Eun Sae and Eun Chan are walking out of the women’s public bath together.

Ironically, one of Min Yub’s big grievances is having drunk-kissed Eun Chan (was he okay with that when he thought she was a guy? I suppose it could be an issue of his loyalty for Eun Sae, whom he really does seem to be infatuated with). Eun Chan begs him to keep it secret, dangling his affection for Eun Sae in front of him as incentive. She tells him she trusts him, and after all, he should be happy that she’s not Eun Sae’s boyfriend but her older sister — his rival has disappeared.

Yu Ju falls sick (fever and cold), and Han Gyul’s there to make her soup and tend to her. (When they spoke over the phone, he could tell from the way she said she was okay that she wasn’t really okay.) Wondering why Han Sung’s not there, he asks if they fought; she says she hasn’t heard from him for a few days, so it feels like they did fight.

Brief rundown of their relationship turns this episode: Han Sung reads a magazine article about Yu Ju, where she’s quoted as loving work more than anything and not wanting to marry. Later, as they dine with another couple, when asked if/when they plan to marry, Han Sung speaks up for Yu Ju and says she’s intent on remaining unmarried. Then, Han Sung watches as Yu Ju gives an interview, and overhears people mentioning how she’s still working with DK, even if they’ve broken up. So now, it’s been a few days and he hasn’t called her.

Anyway. Yu Ju looks at Han Gyul’s worried expression and wonders, “Were you always this handsome?” (I’ll just reiterate the “deliberately sending mixed signals” complaint and leave it there.) Han Gyul calls Han Sung to tell him Yu Ju’s sick; he should take care of her.

And so, Han Sung goes over to see Yu Ju, who pouts about how sick she really was, although he points out the obvious, asking why she’s drinking wine if she’s so sick. She asks why he hasn’t called, and he admits it’s still hard for him to realize she loves work more than him. Yu Ju says although what he said about her remaining single is true, it felt bad hearing him say that to the others. But for the moment their relationship is back on track.

Han Gyul shows up at the pojangmacha, where Eun Chan is helping Min Yub. He asks Min Yub if he’s going to quit Coffee Prince or not, and Min Yub says he’d like to continue, but they’re interrupted by a customer. Neither Eun Chan nor Min Yub know how to make an omelette, so Han Gyul steps in with a resigned sigh and cooks.

When a customer’s dog runs into the street, Eun Chan instinctively runs after it, and Han Gyul sees her running into oncoming traffic with alarm. He grabs her to avoid being hit by a car, and they fall to the ground.

Seeing Eun Chan’s bleeding hand, Han Gyul takes her to get it treated, as well as getting acupuncture for his injured shoulder. Eun Chan tells him a story of how when she was eight years old, she was playing around on the balcony and fell from the third story. (Han Gyul: “Ahh, so you fell and that’s how you became so weird.”) Her father caught her, but fell and broke his arm — but in his worry for her, he rushed her to the hospital not aware of his own injury. “That’s what I thought of. You were pretty cool today.”

Han Gyul asks why she keeps stepping in to help other people, like Min Yub and Ha Rim. Eun Chan cites a sense of loyalty and humanity between people, and when Han Gyul admits he doesn’t know that feeling, she points out that he came to see Min Yub: “You have loyalty. Why else would you save me? It’s not like you love me.” He tells her to sleep, and they do.

Taking advantage of the severe lack of business, the Coffee Princes convince Han Gyul to take them on an employee retreat, which Mr. Hong arranges.

When they get there, they find that Mr. Hong told his friend, the owner of an apple orchard, that the guys would help with the harvesting, and so they get roped into helping out. All in their special way: Min Yub shakes the apples out of the tree instead of plucking; Ha Rim takes photos; Sun Ki carves apple-o-lanterns; and Han Gyul gets talked into running the roadside stand.

Han Gyul gets a firsthand taste of how hard selling is, and gets really into doing a good job. He’s mighty proud of himself for selling off a huge amount of the inventory, until he finds out that he sold the prime merchandise for much less than their value. He feels awful, although the orchard owners are kind about it (it was the wife’s fault for leaving him there without instructions).

To make up for it, he helps with the apple-picking…

…and is there to catch Eun Chan when she falls off her ladder.

After a long day of work, the Coffee Princes cool off in the lake. Han Gyul apologizes to Mr. Hong for his mistake, and Mr. Hong shoves him into the lake (in fun), shouting to the Princes, “Hey! This guy says he’s sorry to you guys!”

Cutely, Min Yub now finds himself watching over Eun Chan, knowing she’s a girl and interfering whenever the other guys act ungentlemanly in her presence. It could be because he wants to make a good impression on Eun Sae, but actually I think it’s just Min Yub’s blockheaded attempts at chivalry. It’s adorable.

(Eun Chan asks Ha Rim about the girl Han Gyul likes, and Ha Rim says he’s been in love with her for nine years.)

That night, after the guys disperse and go to sleep, Eun Chan runs into Han Gyul outside, and they lie down to look at the stars together. Eun Chan, seeing everything as food, muses that she’d like to pluck the stars to eat them. Han Gyul asks how she’d eat the moon, and she answers, “Since it’s only a half-moon, I’d wait for it to fatten up, then steam it and eat it.”

Han Gyul gives her a little toy (looks like a Lego robot), and she says he must’ve had a hard time working today: “So if someone makes a mistake, understand them.”

He asks what her dream is, and she answers it’s to live well with her mother and sister: “I don’t know what my dream is exactly, but these days, I want to become a person who makes coffee well.” He says his dream is “To see only what I want, to not see what I don’t want, to live joyfully and happily.”

Eun Chan asks about his “habit” (Yu Ju): “When you were with her, you didn’t look very happy. What do you like about her?” He says there might be a million reasons to like her, but goes on: “There aren’t really a million reasons. I just do. Even if I try not to, it doesn’t work, so I can’t do anything about it.” Eun Chan says the phrase “not being able to do anything” is scary to her.

At home, Eun Chan talks with Eun Sae while playing with the toy given to her by Han Gyul, mulling over the phrases “habit” and “unable to do anything,” trying to make sense of them.

Preparing for her date with Han Sung (who tells her to dress just like she normally does), she gets help from Eun Sae and her mother… Oh man. Comparing her appearance as a made-up, dressed-up girly girl to her boyish behavior, there’s such a weird disconnect. (She reminds me of that Minho guy from High Kick, in the episode when Yunho draws lipstick on his face as a joke.)

You’d think Yoon Eun Hye finally getting to dress as a girl would produce prettier results, but thankfully (for the story) they’ve produced this awkward and horrible version of a girly Eun Chan, who looks like a manly hooker.

Han Sung reacts with good humor, but takes her to have her appearance handled a little more naturally… and even he’s amazed at the results.

Looking more like the real Yoon Eun Hye, he watches as she awkwardly makes her way down the staircase, and catches her as she stumbles in her heels.

 
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