I Hear Your Voice: Episode 11

by girlfriday

Ready for another spin on the rollercoaster? It’s time for our hero to face the music, but it turns out there are more terrifying things than facing a jury when you may or may not have killed a man. Like the realization that you just might be all alone in the world… *whimper*

Ratings broke 20% today: Episode 11 recorded 22.1%, which in the current weekday drama climate is the first big hit in months. (Queen’s Classroom: 7.5%. Sword and Flower: 5.4%.)

 
SONG OF THE DAY

Shin Seung-hoon – “The Words You Can’t Hear” from the OST [ Download ]

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EPISODE 11: “I’m sorry I hate you”

We backtrack a little to the break in the trial, and Hye-sung comes in to tell Su-ha about the change in direction—they’re going to argue that Min Joon-gook is still alive. Meanwhile he’s still having searing headaches accompanied by visions of attacking Joon-gook, and is freaked out to high heaven that he might’ve really killed him.

He grabs Hye-sung’s arm and asks how she can trust him, more than he trusts himself. She simply says he promised her. Su-ha: “Just because of a promise?!”

She sets him straight about what a promise means to him—he searched for her for ten years to keep one little promise he made. That’s the kind of person he is, and that’s what promises mean to him.

The trial resumes and we catch up to the scene that ended the last episode, with Hye-sung arguing that Min Joon-gook could still be alive, and that he’s just as likely to be the culprit behind it all.

They’re forced to defend their stance without introducing any new evidence, but thankfully Hwang Dal-joong is already on the witness roll call. He’s the clincher in this argument, since the Left-Hand Murder was the case that sent him to prison, and he testifies that he told the story to his prison cellmate Min Joon-gook.

They argue that this case is a copycat one, where Min Joon-gook kills two birds with one stone (er, hand). He gets to disappear and be presumed dead, while Su-ha takes the fall. Now we’re talkin’.

The prosecution brings Nice Cop in to testify about Su-ha’s outburst in the station (that he’d kill Min Joon-gook himself if they didn’t do their jobs), and then when the defense cross-examines him about the time he falsely suspected Su-ha of stealing his gun, Hye-sung does this hilarious finger mime at him: Tell the truth or you die. I’m watching you.

Onto the knife: Su-ha’s fingerprints are all over it, but the defense argues that Min Joon-gook’s prints are on it too, and he’s the last person seen with the weapon, taken on the night he attacked Hye-sung and Su-ha.

So far so good, and the defense seems happy about the direction of the trial. Hye-sung and Kwan-woo even exchange a furtive high-five.

Meanwhile Pretty the Paralegal is still at the fruit stand talking to the ajumma who tipped off the cops, and he gets on her good side by buying two boxes of peaches before making chitchat with her about Park Su-ha being very pretty and glamorous. Ha.

She falls right for the trap and agrees that Su-ha is well-endowed (hahaha) and then Pretty points out that Park Su-ha isn’t a girl. She panics, thinking he’s here to reclaim the reward money, and shuts him out before he can ask how she reported a person she’s never even laid eyes on.

It’s time for closing arguments, and Do-yeon actually uses Mom’s murder case against them, speaking regretfully about how they let reasonable doubt keep a murderer out of jail when the facts were there in plain sight. She uses a puzzle metaphor, saying that with eighty pieces of an elephant puzzle, it doesn’t suddenly turn into a lion without those last twenty pieces.

Kwan-woo gets up to speak for the defense, but Hye-sung changes her mind and holds him back. She gets up and tells the jury that the case Do-yeon just spoke of was her mother’s murder, and back then she was the one who cursed the rules and the law, speaking frankly about how she thought it was all for the dogs.

She turns to face Kwan-woo as she says that it’s only now that she understands why these laws exist, and now here she is, the person who hated those rules more than anyone, arguing to protect someone with those same laws, and desperately at that.

She uses Do-yeon’s puzzle metaphor to say that sure, without those last twenty pieces, an elephant doesn’t become a lion. But those twenty pieces could be the difference between knowing whether that elephant is stepping on a person or a ball.

She reminds the jury that if two possibilities exist, then there’s reasonable doubt, and adds that putting someone away in the prime of his life is something that they can never take back. She says, voice trembling: “It’s the damned law that let my mother’s killer go free, but it’s also the final straw of the law that could save the defendant’s life.”

As the jury deliberates, Do-yeon catches up to Hye-sung outside the courtroom, and Kwan-woo overhears them. She asks if Hye-sung isn’t the least bit ashamed to her mother, for using Kwan-woo’s defense for Min Joon-gook like that.

With tears brimming in her eyes, Hye-sung says that she believes Kwan-woo did the best he could as a lawyer. Do-yeon scoffs in disbelief, adding that she actually feels sorry for Mom, who must be turning over in her grave.

Hye-sung: “No, she would tell me I’m right. She’d tell me I did a good job.” Oof, you can feel her willing it to be true even as she says it, and Kwan-woo starts to cry as he watches her walk away.

She goes to the bathroom and washes off all the notes she had written on her hand for her closing argument, and looks up at her reflection. She cries as she asks, “Mom, I was right, right? I did a good job, right?”

And then she breaks down in sobs, and it breaks my heart all over again. As she wails, Kwan-woo stands outside the bathroom, just listening and crying to himself silently.

Kwan-woo sits with Su-ha in the holding room as they wait hour upon hour for the verdict. Su-ha thanks him for everything today, and Kwan-woo says he’s the one who should be thanking Su-ha: “You don’t remember, but I owe you a big debt.”

He says that that debt was what kept him away from Hye-sung, but this trial is his chance to return to her. Su-ha notes that he must like her, and Kwan-woo says he does; a lot.

It’s time for the verdict: Judge Kim gives a recap of the case, and it’s a nail-biter to the finish, because you can just feel the whole room waiting and waiting and nearly bursting out with tell us the damn verdict already. Or is that just me?

The jury is split 5:4, but after all the arguments are laid out, reasonable doubt is the name of the game, and Su-ha is acquitted. HOORAAAAY!

Kwan-woo fist-pumps and Hye-sung buries her face in her hands, and Su-ha smiles for the first time in eons.

He stands outside in the hallway once the trial is over, wondering where to go from here. Hye-sung comes out and asks why he isn’t going home, and he has to point out that he’d like to, but doesn’t know where home is. She offers to take him there. But… what about your house?

Lawyer Shin finds Kwan-woo standing in the dark courtroom all alone and asks what he’s still doing here. Kwan-woo: “I want to remember it—today, this moment.” He explains that he’s storing it away so that it gives him strength when times are tough as a lawyer, and that he’ll use the memory of this trial to endure.

Hye-sung brings Su-ha to his door and leaves him there, which of course ends up with him pushing random numbers on the keypad lock like an amnesiac, ’cause of… the amnesia.

Thankfully she comes right back and calls the locksmith for him, and they sit in the hallway and wait. Or he could go to your house. Just sayin’.

He asks now if Min Joon-gook is still alive, then doesn’t that mean Hye-sung is in danger? Maybe she’d be better off if he killed him after all. I love that he’s still worried about her first, even without his memories.

She quickly puts a stop to that line of reasoning, and says that Min Joon-gook being alive is a hundred times better than Su-ha being a murderer. Agreed.

The hallway motion light keeps blinking off in intervals, and when Su-ha claps the lights back on, he sees that she’s nodding off to sleep. He sits down next to her with a smile and tucks her mouth closed and pulls her head onto his shoulder. Ohmygah, this, and you don’t even remember how much you actually love her.

He takes her hand, and notices the half-erased scrawl marks that she had written down furiously during the trial. He thinks back to it now, and lifts her hand up to his lips and kisses it softly. Kyaaaaa.

He clasps her hand in his and kisses it again as she sleeps. By the time Hye-sung wakes up, she’s lying on his couch, and he’s fallen asleep resting his head beside hers. She reaches over to touch his face and it looks like she might, for just a split second, but her hand lingers in the air and she pulls back.

She gets up to write a note, and as Su-ha sleeps, he has another memory flash: It’s nighttime and he’s running for his life, and gets hit by a truck on a dirt road. There’s an ajusshi behind the wheel, but it’s not Min Joon-gook, and he looks as frightened as anyone.

The memory startles him awake, and he finds that it’s morning and Hye-sung is gone. But on the fridge is a series of post-its, like a to-do list of things he needs to do.

Among them are practical things like checking his bank account and seeing a doctor, to taking a high school equivalency exam and preparing for college, to “make a girlfriend,” and “don’t call me anymore.” Boo. Hiss.

Do-yeon tells her parents about the case and the defense’s theory about Min Joon-gook copying Hwang Dal-joong’s murder, and Dad tenses up again at the name. Lawyer Shin goes to visit Dal-joong in jail, and Dal-joong surprises him with good news/bad news. He’s due for an early release, but it’s for medical reasons—there’s something in his brain and he doesn’t have much time to live.

Sung-bin comes by to do Hye-sung’s nails, and Hye-sung asks if she’s met up with Su-ha. You sure are curious for someone who told him never to call. Sung-bin’s due to meet him later today, and Hye-sung asks her for a favor.

Sung-bin meets Su-ha while he’s shopping for a new phone, and sticks to him like a giant magnet and wailing that she missed him terribly. He’s taken aback, and she swears that he liked her a lot and chased her around all the time. HA.

But Choong-ki arrives just behind her and yanks her away, with the warning not to trust anything she says. Hee, foiled.

He hands over Su-ha’s stuff including his journal, and Su-ha asks if they know Hye-sung’s phone number. Sung-bin does, but she says that Hye-sung made her promise not to give it to him. Aw, that was the favor? Boo again. Choong-ki sighs that the ajumma sure is playing hard to get.

Kwan-woo moves into a private office across the hall, intending to take cases until he can apply for the public defender’s office again. Lawyer Shin doesn’t know of ex-public defenders ever getting picked again, but Kwan-woo says he’ll just work extra hard.

Pretty the Paralegal helps him move into the new office happily, and then remembers (only NOW??) to tell Kwan-woo about the fruit stand ajumma who reported Su-ha, but didn’t even know that he wasn’t a girl.

So Kwan-woo marches over to Do-yeon’s office, where she’s busy applying for an appeal to a higher court. (Is there a loophole in double jeopardy?) He asks why she’s not looking for Min Joon-gook, while she thinks it’s a waste of time to look for a dead person. So he shares the suspicious story about the fruit stand ajumma, hoping that it gets her wondering.

Su-ha spends his days busily making his way through the post-it to-do list. He does it all with a smile on his face, that is until he gets to the girlfriend one, which he crumples up with a frown. Heh.

He takes a break from studying to read the journal again, and as he ponders the entry we saw him write in the first episode, he has a momentary flashback to a happy moment with Hye-sung, after they figured out how to win the grandpa case.

He repeats the last words of the entry aloud: “I miss you.”

He makes a decision and packs the journal in a bag and stops at the fridge. He’s down to his last one—the don’t call me post-it—and stops to have a staring contest with it.

At the office, Hye-sung jumps out of the way to avoid running into Kwan-woo, thinking of his not-a-proposal from before the trial. He waits to get the jump on her anyway, and doesn’t hesitate to ask her now if she’ll date him again, like he said he would.

She takes a deep breath… “I’m sorry. My answer now is the same as it was then.” His face falls, and he asks if she still hates him. She says with no animosity in her voice that she doesn’t hate him anymore. Kwan-woo: “Then can I ask the reason why?” She purses her lips and doesn’t answer.

We cut to Su-ha running down the street, searching desperately for her office, literally going up and down streets scanning every sign for a lawyer, and just asking random passersby if they know where Hye-sung works.

Luckily for him, he runs into Lawyer Shin and Pretty the Paralegal, who laugh at his question and escort him inside to their office. Nobody’s there, or at least it looks that way to everyone except Pretty the Paralegal, who spots Hye-sung hiding under her desk. Pffft.

Su-ha says disappointedly that he’ll try again tomorrow. Hye-sung comes out once he’s gone and gives the excuse that she just finds it annoying to have to deal with him now that the trial is over. Said the lying liar who lies!

She heads over to the courthouse for her next case, where she’s defending a con artist. An entire group of plaintiffs and victims are waiting to give her a piece of their minds and they attack, pulling her hair and throwing flour at her for defending scum of the earth like him.

Judge Kim comes upon the scene and screams to bring the group to a screeching halt, making it clear that Hye-sung is a public defender who doesn’t make money from the case. He walks her to the courthouse expecting a thank you, but she just nags him for publicly taking her side instead, as it might look bad in court.

Just as he’s gaping at her, she sees Su-ha waiting for her by the door, and literally hides behind the judge’s robes like it’s mommy’s skirt. HA. And then she orders him to walk ahead while tiptoeing behind him until they get past Su-ha. Who’s the child now?

Judge Kim points out that she didn’t say thank you for that either, and when he tells her that her skirt’s turned around, she just flips it right around and holds her head up high like nothing happened. I love her.

Kwan-woo’s ploy works like a charm, and Do-yeon finds herself curious about the things that don’t add up. She goes to the fruit stand to find out for herself, and when she threatens to take away the reward money if she doesn’t tell the truth, the ajumma admits that a man gave her the tip.

Do-yeon takes out three photos to ask if she recognizes any of them. Min Joon-gook’s photo is among them, and the ajumma gets shifty-eyed. She clearly recognizes one of them, but lies that she doesn’t, and Do-yeon stops her questions there.

The ajumma gives a nervous glance across the street, and then we see that someone’s watching her from a truck… and he has what looks like a prosthetic hand. Oh crud.

It’s Min Joon-gook, dressed like a fisherman and sporting a grizzly beard, and yup—he’s got a prosthetic hand. Great, they managed to find a way to make the creepy killer even creepier. Thanks for that.

Su-ha waits outside Hye-sung’s office and finally catches up to her in the revolving door. She goes for another spin to try and avoid him, but he traps her in until she agrees to talk to him.

She remains cold and distant, and asks what he wants to say. He fidgets nervously, saying that there’s so much. He starts by thanking her for the trial, and then asks why he can’t call her. She acts like she’s far too busy to bother.

He asks again if he really disliked her, and she sticks to her story—that he was rude and nagged her all the time. “What about you? Did you hate me?”

She hesitates, but then says that she didn’t just hate him; she hated him to a tiresome degree, with his banmal and acting like an adult. He asks why she defended him like that in court then, and she reminds him that it was all because of Min Joon-gook.

She says that she recovered her (admittedly miniscule) faith in the system through his case and learned what it means to be a lawyer. She gets up and says that she’s grateful for that, but that’s as far as it goes.

He runs up to grab onto her wrist and pleads, “I’m sorry… I’m really sorry… But even if you hate me, can’t you stay? I feel like every string that kept me connected to the world has been detached. If you let go of me too… I… ”

And then Kwan-woo picks that moment OF ALL MOMENTS to call her, having followed them there. He sees them inside and knocks on the window, urging her to pick up. He guesses that this is a situation she wants to get out of, and suggests she use a movie date with him as an excuse to leave.

She does just that. Gah, no. You can’t leave him there!

He watches them go and suddenly starts to panic with his hands pressed against the window: “Don’t go! Don’t go!” AUGH, how can you go like that?

He runs after them, but they get in a cab and leave him behind, still crying for her not to go. She turns back to look at him, which just hurts even more.

She thanks Kwan-woo for the rescue, and he insists on seeing her home. Su-ha sits outside the coffee shop and the moment actually brings back a memory of the time he saw Hye-sung and Kwan-woo together, when he felt that same pang in his heart. “There must’ve been another time just like this one.”

Hye-sung settles in for the night, but then it starts to rain, and she gazes out her window.

Kwan-woo stands at the bus stop with his briefcase over his head to shield the rain, and then sees Hye-sung running back out with an umbrella to catch a cab. Eeeee, is she going where I think she’s going?

He thinks back to their earlier conversation, when he’d asked the reason why she didn’t want to date him. We go from Kwan-woo at the bus stop, to Hye-sung in the cab, to Su-ha sitting on the stoop in the pouring rain.

We go back to her answer earlier that day, as she starts to say that it doesn’t make any sense at all, but…

Cut back to her arriving at her stop… It’s the coffee shop! It’s Su-ha!

Back to her answer: “That kid just keeps worrying me.” She walks over to him now in the rain, and he looks up with his puppy eyes, lighting up the second he sees her. She mutters aloud at him: “You drive me crazy.”

And then back again to finish her answer: “It doesn’t make any sense, but… I think I like that kid.” Eeeeeeee!

She crouches down in the rain and lets the umbrella fall out of her hands and asks what on earth she’s going to do with him. He just looks back at her with this smile… In flashback she tells Kwan-woo that she’s going to get over it—she has to, and she can.

Su-ha picks up the umbrella and holds it over her to shield her from the rain, not caring that he’s getting soaked. He just meets her troubled expression with a beaming smile, as if daring her to get over it.

I’m making a sound only dogs and bats can hear right now.

 
COMMENTS

This is So. Great. I actually didn’t expect her to come around this quickly. I knew we were in for a big fat vat of denial, but THIS. Her copping to her feelings sooner than I expected totally makes up for the episode of pain. Causing Su-ha’s heartbreak back when he had a one-sided crush and could read her mind was one thing, but the lies to keep him away when he’s powerless and adrift—that was killing me. I can never hate her, because she’s clearly doing all of it to deny her feelings. It’s just that the whole puppy in the rain thing is too much for my bleeding heart to handle.

Poor Kwan-woo finally got his answer, though the non-answer the first time he non-asked the question should’ve been a giveaway. I haven’t minded his mode of persistence so far, because it’s optimistic, not invasive. I certainly screamed at him for the first time ever when he called Hye-sung out of the coffee shop today, but given the reveal of her answer to him earlier, I can see why he’d think that’s what she wanted. And she’s the idiot who jumps at the chance to run off and thanks him for it, because she’s up to her eyeballs in denial. The thing I’m worried about is that he’s going to either become invasively persistent from here on out, or that Hye-sung will even use him to try and get over Su-ha. I can actually see the latter happening, which I hope isn’t the case, for Kwan-woo’s sake.

I was genuinely surprised that Hye-sung admitted her feelings so soon (to herself that is), and I love that she did so while Su-ha has amnesia, because it’s a way to fabricate the reversal—this time she loves him first, if only because he doesn’t remember how much he loves her. And it was a great use of the fact that he can’t read her mind anymore. She takes advantage of that and lies profusely to fuel her denial, and he can’t counter anything she says. But this time it isn’t Su-ha who calls her out on her lies, and there’s nothing better than the fact that she comes back for him on her own.

So far we’re using the amnesia in a great way—Su-ha’s reversal is even more poignant than Hye-sung’s, especially when he breaks down in the coffee shop. After a lifetime spent being a protector, when he pleads with her to stay by his side like she’s his lifeline, he seems more childlike than ever, and vulnerable and alone. And of course it’s all the sweeter because we actually get to see Su-ha fall in love like it’s the first time. There’s just something about the way he repeats similar actions without knowing it that really gets me in the heart—protecting her, being there for her to lean on, getting soaked to shield her. Like the memories are incidental, but the person is the same. It’s not so cut and dried, of course, but I like that romantic notion that even if everything else changed, he’d still be Su-ha and he’d still fall in love with her all over again.

 
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