Dating Agency Cyrano: Episode 4

by gummimochi

Playing Cupid is never easy when you throw emotions into the mix. The operation at hand becomes exponentially more difficult after a confession of love throws this ship off course. And though our eye mostly remains on Arang, we’re left with more questions than answers that leaves our characters shrouded in mystery.

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EPISODE 4 RECAP

Arang is rendered utterly speechless by Se-kyung’s unexpected confession of her feelings for him. We flashback to when she had first taken notice of him a year ago, and he had unintentionally been hit by a rogue puck that flew in her direction. His friendly concern for her had sent her swooning.

This is also the same memory that Ho-yeol recalled in the previous episode, and now we replay the scene through her eyes. She had been too busy staring out the window to catch a glimpse of Arang and considered it a bother to mend Ho-yeol’s cut.

So the other day, she had left during class in order to find Arang in the theater to tell him then. But Ho-yeol had walked in after her, and we know the rest.

When Arang stammers in response to search for the right words, Se-kyung interjects to tell him to take his time—he doesn’t have to give her an answer right away. She looks up expectantly when Arang rises from his seat. He’s ready with his answer now—it’s a no. She’s crushed.

Se-kyung hides the hurt of the rejection, thanking him instead for the warm, fuzzy feelings and for butterflies in her stomach she felt. He smiles warmly back at her, and they shake hands.

Once she’s outside, she gives into her tears. Aw sweetie, we’ve all been there.

On the other side of the door, Byung-hoon and Min-young scuttle away to a nearby stairwell to avoid getting caught. Min-young wonders what would be the appropriate thing to say in a time like this, and Byung-hoon tells her that it’s best not to mention it.

When Min-young says that it was cruel of Arang to dump the girl like that, Byung-hoon corrects her, saying that Arang did her a favor with his rejection. In that moment, Min-young realizes just how close they’ve been standing next to each other and silently pushes him away with her finger. Hahaha.

Later that night at the restaurant, Min-young collapses at the bar, tired and hungry from her grueling day at school. As Seung-pyo whips her up something to eat, Hye-ri admires Min-young’s uniform. However, that sense of nostalgia of her school days isn’t enough for her to go undercover in Min-young’s stead.

Unfortunately, there isn’t any time to chat or eat since Byung-hoon walks in to drag Min-young out to implement the next part of their operation. As the team heads out, Moo-jin and Hye-ri exchange silent greetings.

Elsewhere, as Arang daydreams about the times that Se-kyung was seemingly annoyed with him, he thinks to himself: “A reversal. I thought that she hated me.”

At the convenience store, Se-kyung sighs over her own rough day. She’s momentarily confused when Ho-yeol suddenly appears next to her and doesn’t buy his excuse that he was just “passing by.”

Thankfully, his delivery is far more natural now. He laughs, “You don’t think I followed you here, do you?” But it’s not long before they find themselves surrounded by a throng of crazed fangirls and Ho-yeol hastily hides his face.

In the van, Min-young wonders if their plan will actually work—their target already mentioned that she doesn’t like idols and someone like Arang is more her type. But Byung-hoon argues that it’s stranger for a teenage girl who doesn’t realize the magnitude of what it means for an idol star as an admirer.

As Ho-yeol gets chased by the screaming girls with Se-kyung’s hand in his, we see glimpses into Byung-hoon’s memories which depicts a similar situation with the girl in his past, who speaks this time: “I hear you’re looking for a Watson.”

Min-young is sharp enough to deduce that Byung-hoon must have used the same tactic on someone else. Who was it? A first love? She doesn’t let him off easy, and when he evades the question, she matter-of-factly replies that people don’t ever forget their first love.

She isn’t easily deterred when Byung-hoon reacts in his usual gruff manner and asks what happened with his first love. She finally drops the subject when he clams up again.

Meanwhile, Ho-yeol and Se-kyung struggle to catch their breaths as they hide in an alleyway. They both become aware of the close proximity and she quickly pulls her hand away from his.

A long minute passes before Ho-yeol gently tries to wipe away her sweat with a handkerchief. He doesn’t miss that she instinctively pulls back at his touch. He winces slightly with disappointment when she scurries off with an excuse.

Moo-jin has been in the vicinity to keep an eye on them. He hops down from his hiding place and offers Ho-yeol a lollipop to lift his spirits.

Back at headquarters, Min-young tsks over the irony of an idol star suffering from unrequited love. She guesses that Byung-hoon speaks from personal experience when he agrees that nothing else in the world matters when it’s not the one that matters.

So she attempts to ask about his first love again—did he confess his feelings and get rejected too? That strikes a nerve and Byung-hoon snaps back before dismissing her for the day.

But once he’s alone, he finds himself ruminating over Min-young’s words once more. Taking out his cell phone, he plays with the charm—a Sherlock Holmes figure.

We travel back again to Byung-hoon’s memories and see his teenage self staring at the sunset on the rooftop. Then a cheery voice calls out behind him: “I hear you’re looking for a Watson.”

The girl introduces herself as Yoon Yi-seul, an art student here to help out with the production, and Byung-hoon flushes with embarrassment when she calls him by his stage name. Yi-seul has a bright and outgoing personality and she suddenly takes him by the hand to join the others.

In the present, Byung-hoon searches through his contacts for Yi-seul’s number. He contemplates whether to call her or not for a moment before he decides against it.

Little does he know that Min-young has witnessed his moment of indecisiveness, having doubled back to the agency to retrieve her phone. She feels a distinctive wave of emotion but later dismisses it for hunger pangs. She does notice that the lights are off in Master’s restaurant and wonders where he’s gone off to.

Then we see that Seung-pyo is taking his frustrations out on a punching bag at the gym. With his shirt on. I know; I’m just as disappointed as you are. There’s nothing to see here, so we’ll move on, shall we?

The following morning, Min-young is immediately annoyed when Byung-hoon kicks his feet up in her car when she picks him up outside the agency. He tells her that she should be studying and tosses her prepared school ID card in her direction.

Min-young reels when she sees the awkward photo of her younger self wearing glasses. She asks where he got it from, and he answers: “Your national identification card. I was shocked too.” Ha.

She calls it an invasion of privacy, but he tells her to drive, claiming that he’s still in shock from her photo. Pfft.

At school, Ho-yeol asks why Arang wasn’t there the other day with the rest of the Cyrano team, and Arang answers that he was working at another part time job. He asks Ho-yeol what he likes about Se-kyung and gets the answer: “Everything.”

However, he raises a suspicious eyebrow at Arang’s sudden question—why does he ask? Then he jokingly warns Arang not to like his girl. Ooh, why do I get the feeling that his joke may not be far from the truth?

Se-kyung watches the two boys from a distance with Ho-yeol’s handkerchief, recalling the close encounter with Ho-yeol the previous night. Hmm, does our target like someone else now? And all the while, Byung-hoon observes the scene from a balcony.

Elsewhere, Min-young is determined to dig up some dirt on Byung-hoon’s past to crack that supposedly flawless armor of his. So she heads to the library and scours the aisles until she stumbles upon an old yearbook.

She recognizes Yi-seul as the girl from Byung-hoon’s old movies and wonders if she was Byung-hoon’s first love. She’s soon joined by Se-kyung and the girls relocate to search through the yearbook together.

Pleased that Se-kyung agrees that the girl in the photo must be Byung-hoon’s first love, Min-young tsks, “You can never hide the fact that you like someone.” Se-kyung’s face darkens at that—if liking someone is that obvious, then there’s no point to confess one’s feelings.

Min-young pauses before she answers that it’s true that keeping your feelings hidden makes things less likely to work out. And yet, the courage of that confession stirs the other person’s heart. She adds, “You have to like someone enough to overcome that fear of rejection, don’t you?”

Se-kyung asks her if it’s possible to like someone you already rejected. Min-young replies that it is, especially if she started to see that person in a different light.

Byung-hoon meets with Arang in secret to inform him that they’ll be moving ahead with the operation. Interestingly, he gives Arang the last chance for an out—there’s no turning back from this point on.

When Arang assures him that he’s fine and has no regrets, Byung-hoon calls their client with the greeting: “Hey, idol!”

Moo-jin is already on location on set, and he adds a few cue cards to the interview questions when the staff aren’t looking. His presence doesn’t go unnoticed by Ho-yeol’s CEO, who is impressed by his good looks.

She invites him to seek her out in case he’s looking for “the secret place where they make people into a star.” Huh, that catchphrase certainly sounds familiar.

So when the interviewer asks Ho-yeol if there’s anyone he currently likes, Ho-yeol quickly glances towards Byung-hoon before answering yes, but she doesn’t like him back.

His handlers panic from the sidelines—this question wasn’t included during rehearsals. Thankfully, after a few sympathetic words, the interviewer moves on. And in the crowd, Byung-hoon thinks aloud that the entertainment company should thank him for the free press.

The PR move achieves the intended effect and a group of fangirls protest outside the school the following morning. In the classroom, Min-young turns around to face Se-kyung, sighing that Ho-yeol’s crush is a lucky girl, whoever she may be.

Then she pointedly adds that if it were her, she wouldn’t reject a guy like that. Her comment adds the seed of emotion that the team is hoping for, but when Min-young looks towards Arang, she catches him mid-gaze in Se-kyung’s direction.

As the team keep watch of the same alleyway later that night, Min-young lifts one of Byung-hoon’s earmuffs to ask what they should do if Arang does like Se-kyung—shouldn’t they reconcentrate their efforts to get them together instead? Then she snaps the headphones back. Hehe.

It’s worth noting that Byung-hoon doesn’t deny the possibility (I’d even venture to say that he already knows that it’s the case) but tells her that teen love is fleeting since emotions are charged by hormones. In other words, Arang will soon forget how he feels about her.

Min-young counters, “Do you really mean that?” Byung-hoon: “Of course I do.” After she leaves, she calls Byung-hoon a liar under her breath.

When Min-young arrives at Master’s restaurant, she’s shocked to find the same gangsters who hustled Byung-hoon for money earlier sitting at the bar. We know that’s they’re just Master’s spies, but Min-young doesn’t.

So she pulls him over to whisper if he owes them money too. He whispers back: “A little.”

Seung-pyo smiles at her concern (“What’s wrong with everyone lately?!”), and he reassures her that it’s not much. But Min-young tells him that borrowing money from loan sharks is a slippery slope, and offers to bring in more customers in order to boost business. Aw.

Min-young runs into Arang outside the agency after dinner. She cautiously asks him if Se-kyung is weighing on his mind. His usually sunny disposition fades ever so slightly before he denies it in his typical happy-go-lucky manner. But dare I say, does the boy doth protest too much?

She replies that it’s a relief if that’s the case but reminds him of something that Byung-hoon once said that words can be extremely powerful. She gives an example of a swoon-worthy statement: “The moment you called my name, I became a flower.”

Then she blurts that Arang can’t feel the same way after he heard Se-kyung’s confession, which basically outs her for having overheard their conversation at the theater.

“So you knew about it too?” Arang smiles. Min-young sheepishly nods. But Arang sticks to his story that he’s unaffected because he heard plenty of those same confessions from his other admirers before.

Min-young slings an arm over Arang’s shoulder as they pass by the van. Then the camera pans over and we see Moo-jin sit up on the roof of the van, having overheard their conversation. He silently watches Hye-ri close up shop at the restaurant.

We get a nice musical interlude when Moo-jin returns to Cyrano a bit later. He stops to look at the puppet theater and ruffles the back of Arang’s hair. Then Byung-hoon tucks the broken marionette into a box.

Meanwhile in the restaurant, Seung-pyo rifles through his pictures from his visit to the high school, smiling at the photos of Min-young. Then he picks out a zoomed in photo of the mural in Arrow Theater. Hmm.

The situation with Ho-yeol has been weighing on Se-kyung’s mind lately, as evidenced in their previous run-in at the alleyway. So Se-kyung furrows her eyebrows in concern when Min-young deliberately sighs that it looks like Ho-yeol will drop out of school.

The lines are enough to prompt Se-kyung to rise from her seat and set off to the teachers lounge where Ho-yeol is already in talks with the principal. Min-young texts Arang that their target is on their way.

There’s no need to worry of course since in actuality, Ho-yeol is there to apologize for causing unnecessary trouble for the school. On cue, he steps out to the corridor and Arang lets out a sigh.

Things continue to go according to plan, and the two students arrive at the theater. Just then Byung-hoon notices an oddity on the monitor—reporters—and rushes out.

Meanwhile, Min-young hurries towards Arrow Theater when she suddenly notices the faded mural on the wall. A voice calls out behind her and she turns around to see a mysterious woman walk towards the wall.

At the same time, Arang runs into the theater to warn Ho-yeol that reporters are at school and on their way here. Ho-yeol runs out.

Se-kyung turns to leave too but Arang grabs her by the wrist to face him. He tells her: “Forgive me. Because I think this might be my last chance.” Omo.

Now it’s his turn to make a confession: “Min Se-kyung, I started to like you.” Before she can register the situation, he kisses her.

So it appears that it wasn’t the reporters that caught Byung-hoon’s attention as he bursts inside the mural room. The mysterious woman turns around (Kim Jung-hwa) and smiles.

Min-young watches carefully as Byung-hoon steps forward and recognizes her: “Yoon Yi-seul.”

COMMENTS

Before anything else, I’d like to say: AHHHHHH!! I feel better now, don’t you? Though I expected Arang to own up to his feelings all episode long, his confession still took me by surprise. From a narrative standpoint, it serves a wonderful purpose to bookend the episode as we see the full range of Se-kyung’s emotions (even if we can’t really tell by her expressions) from the hurtful rejection to an one-sided love being returned after all.

And yet, whenever love blossoms, there’s someone else left broken-hearted. I admit that I had a hard time feeling sympathetic towards Ho-yeol’s predicament when were initially introduced to his character. In fact, I feared that his enormous ego would prove a hindrance to the mission at hand and Arang seemed to be the better man by comparison. Because what could an idol wish for than thousands of adoring fans? And to this, I feel that Byung-hoon’s comment was so apropos for this situation: “Nothing else in this world matters when it’s not the one that matters.” Thus, like everyone else, I thought his love for Se-kyung was shallow and baseless and wondered why Byung-hoon chose to take the case. Because we’re not going to believe that he was just in it for the money.

Not only that, I’m honestly surprised to realize that I’m just as bothered with Cyrano’s tactics as Min-young is in these particular scenarios thus far. Though her idealistic arguments have been easily dismissed thus far, she brings up an important point that the agency is toying with the emotions of their matches. What happens when the foundation that you’ve built your relationship on is sustained by a web of fragmented lies created for a fleeting fantasy. In that sense, I’m worried for our very first pairing—how long will it be before the tower of lies come crashing down on them? Additionally, where do you draw the line between drawing two people together and denying someone’s heart to sway them in a different direction?

We’re beginning to see the Cyrano de Bergerac tie-ins to the drama with Arang’s growing feelings towards the girl he’s supposed to set up with his buddy. Yunno, with less of the large nose and more of the mega-watt smile that slays the masses. And though, Arang keeps his feelings at arm’s length and (mostly) hidden from everyone else, I love that when push comes to shove, he’s forthright about his feelings, client be damned.

And even though I know that that means that someone’s heart will be crushed and also possibly means the end to an adorable bromance (I know! *tear*), I want to root for Arang’s happiness no matter what.

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