Fated To Love You: Episode 14

by HeadsNo2

This episode takes not-so-long-distance shenanigans to a whole new level as our hero jumps through, over, and under various hoops to catch even a snippet of conversation from his favorite snail before she disappears forever/goes abroad. (Same thing, right?) I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t fun watching Gun squirm now that he finds himself chasing after Mi-young, and while the events that tore them apart are still fresh in our memories and never lost in theirs, this week goes to prove that while Fated To Love You has the power to break hearts, it may just have the power to mend them.

Ratings-wise, Fated slipped back into second place with 10.7% while Joseon Gunman returned to first with 11.0%. Competitor It’s Okay, It’s Love followed close behind with 10.2%. It’s tight this cycle, isn’t it?

SONG OF THE DAY

SPICA – “You Don’t Love Me” [ Download ]

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EPISODE 14 RECAP

After Mi-young and Gun unexpectedly fall into each other’s arms, Gun reacts with his trademark laugh at seeing Mi-young—but he thinks this is all a dream.

Mi-young’s expression is much different, and when Gun longingly reaches toward what he thinks is Dream Mi-young, Real Mi-young’s eyes fill with tears… right before Gun falls over, drunk.

After dragging him into her room, Mi-young sits by his side for a while, debating whether to touch him like she wants. In the end she doesn’t, and Gun wakes up the next morning alone with a note from her explaining what happened last night, along with the polite reminder that he should return to his room before she gets back. “It would be nice if we didn’t see each other again,” the note finishes.

Gun is flabbergasted when he reads it: “Last night wasn’t a dream?” Then he sighs that Mi-young doesn’t even want to see his face. But then he remarks to himself that she really isn’t a post-it girl anymore—she’s superglue.

Mi-young can’t help but think back to Gun being so happy to see her in his “dream” last night and thinks to herself that, unlike him, she didn’t ever want to see him in her dreams.

After accidentally witnessing Gun leaving Mi-young’s room, Daniel doesn’t directly reference it when he sees Mi-young. She feels a duty to be open about Gun’s unexpected visit last night, only for Daniel to stop her: “Is the person you met by chance yesterday so important that you need to tell me about him?”

She shakes her head no after realizing that Daniel knew about Gun already, and Daniel’s more than happy to switch subjects to the person who bought Mi-young’s prized painting.

But it becomes clear that he’s hiding how he feels about Gun from her, not just because of the serious looks he sneaks when she’s not watching, but because he literally confronts Gun as he’s checking out. Ha, did they go from one cafe scene just to go into another?

They share veiled pleasantries as they talk about “Ellie” (as Daniel only calls her), even though Daniel feels the need to assert his dominance when it comes to Gun by telling him that he’ll let the hotel incident slide this time, but never again. “I don’t play that role anymore. Me comforting her when you hurt her… I’ve played that role enough.”

Gun’s not interested in comparing weenie sizes though, and instead rises to his feet to give Daniel a respectful bow: “Then you must be better at it. The person who’s usually in that role tends to do it better. Thank you… for watching over Mi-young so well.” Daniel’s in a fightin’ mood, and returns his gesture by asking him whether he has the right to even say that.

“Let’s get something straight: I’m not looking after her. I’m by her side because she’s someone I like and who’s precious to me.” Daniel adds. Gun, again, doesn’t take the confrontational bait, but is put at ease with Daniel saying that since he claims he can read people very, very well.

Gun can only watch from his car as Mi-young greets people outside the art gallery, and wishes her a sincere congratulations she’ll never hear. It sounds more like a final goodbye, as he says aloud his hope that she’ll keep moving up in the world.

“But as for me… I liked seeing you,” he adds, right before he makes snail hands. D’aww.

Mama Yong is singing a different tune about Mi-young now that she’s in the news and is headed for artist stardom, but it’s still cute how Yong is still ever-supportive of his sister-in-law.

He even shows Mi-young’s news articles to Grandma Wang, who can’t contain her excitement when she realizes that Mi-young is officially back in Korea—but she can’t bring herself to tell Gun about it either, thinking he’s still in the dark.

Daniel gets some good news over the phone and unexpectedly backhugs Mi-young in joy: He thinks he’s finally found his sister. Mi-young is overjoyed at the news and hugs him in return, gladly accepting his offer for her to go with him to meet his prospective sister in Seoul.

Mi-young is excited to get a text from Young-ja/Gun, and I really like the way they’re handling their text exchanges by having Mi-young and Gun speak their written words. The split screen is made so that it looks like they’re sleeping in the same bed, and it’s extra cute how they react like they are in the same room. (And that Gun is wearing his couple pajamas, aw.)

Gun shies away when Mi-young asks if she can meet him regarding the painting, making up some excuse that he can’t meet her face to face because his “woman’s skin” is all broken out and unpresentable, ha. Mi-young, as always, is understanding.

But she still hopes to trade the painting he bought with one she promises to make from scratch, and in an effort to move him, she asks if he has a child—since out of all the paintings, he chose the one with a child as the subject.

“Yes, I do,” Gun replies to her question with a faraway look in his eyes. “A very pretty child.” Oof, my heart. It’s even worse when Mi-young says she’d like to meet his child, only for Gun to reply with a faraway look and a sigh that it would be amazing if they could. This is so, so sad. Beautiful, but sad.

As the text conversation ends, Gun turns in his bed like he’s looking at her and wishes her good night. The sad reality is that they’re both sleeping alone on the same sides of the bed they used to occupy when sleeping together, with Mi-young bravely fighting back the urge to cry.

Manager Tak gives Gun a good scolding for going off on a “business trip” without him, only for the tables to turn when he smells something fishy in the way Gun’s acting. Ah, so he’s the one who told Gun about Mi-young’s exhibition, and when he asks Gun whether he went, Gun tries hiding under his desk. Hah.

Mi-young gives Daniel moral support as he fidgets in nervousness while waiting to meet his sister. The private investigator brings a girl through the door who immediately throws herself into Daniel’s arms, crying, “Oppa!” Daniel’s eyes fill with tears as he tentatively returns her embrace. Has he finally found her?

The private investigator leaves once he’s satisfied that he’s reunited the right pair this time—all the DNA seems to match, and she has a scar on her back matching the description of Daniel’s sister. But the “sister” in question seems mightily discomfited by Mi-young’s presence… something tells me she’s got a hidden agenda.

When her students complain about being too tired to keep practicing, Se-ra proves that she’s not the hard-nosed teacher you’d think she would be by taking the girls out for ice cream. She gets the kind she once got with Gun, and sighs over a picture of them together, wishing he’d contact her once in a while.

Drinking out of a coffee cup with a baby drawn on brings back painful memories of the moment when Keddongie’s Cup shattered forever. Luckily, Daniel’s arrival shakes Mi-young out of her sad reverie, and his attention is drawn to drawing of a mother and child she’s making for Young-ja/Gun, so that she can get her original back in return.

As for Daniel, he’s just happy to have his sister back. Mi-young accepts his invitation for the three of them to go out to eat tomorrow before lightly protesting when Daniel insists it’s his right to watch her draw. She folds and plays along—after all, he is her teacher.

The painting is delivered to Gun, who marvels as he says to himself that this is what Keddongie would have looked like if she/he had ever been born. “Hi, Keddongie,” he addresses the picture. So sad.

Mi-young then texts him to say she’ll be returning to France soon, which only serves to make Gun upset since he wanted her to stay longer. He doesn’t return her text, leaving Mi-young wondering if he/Young-ja is upset. But as she gives up her seat to a new mother on the bus, she gets a call for an important company meeting.

Cut to: Gun having an important company meeting with Manager Tak and Yong about how to improve their image to increase sales among younger women.

They suggest using a prominent female artist to give their brand a revamp, but Yong’s push for Ellie Kim/Mi-young is shot down by Gun immediately on the basis that she’s not as popular domestically as she is internationally. Manager Tak was prepared for this and provides research to the contrary, leaving Gun with a conundrum—he knows they shouldn’t meet again, even if he wants to…

After Mi-young’s family tries all they can to convince her to stay and work in Korea instead of returning to France, she’s called away for a meeting with Yong. He makes it seem like they’re just catching up after a long separation, until he ushers someone else over: Gun.

Gun is just as surprised as Mi-young is by Yong’s matchmaking, even though Yong defends his actions as being for the company—it’s not right for Gun to reject Mi-young as an artist just because of their personal issues. He has no shame in leaving the two of them alone with no other avenue but to speak to each other.

She doesn’t seem keen on having a long conversation with Gun, since she cuts him off mid-explanation about the “misunderstanding” from the other night by saying that there was no misunderstanding. He was drunk and banging on her door, and while she could’ve acted like she didn’t know him, she didn’t. End of story.

Gun tries making small talk, only to get terse replies in return. When Mi-young asks if he’s been healthy, he responds that he has, which prompts her to politely say she’s relieved before she gets up to leave. But Gun stops her in an effort to have her hear him out on their possible collaboration.

She tries using the excuse that she’s too expensive (which of course doesn’t matter to him), before she decides on honesty: “And I think it’s best we don’t see each other in any way. I’m no longer the Kim Mi-young you knew back then. Just like how you’re not the Gunnie you were to me back then. Even if we can’t do anything about the past, let’s not make things uncomfortable for either of us here on out.”

Gun’s reply is to quickly backpedal. “You must be mistaken, Kim Mi-young. I’m not at all interested in you. At all. Well, at one time… at one time, I had hoped we could live happily together. But the thought of crossing paths and starting all over again? Don’t… don’t you worry about that!” Good thing he’s a CEO and not an actor, because he ain’t foolin’ nobody.

He looks uncomfortable and more than a little sad after she leaves, even as he notes to himself that she’s changed a lot. Then his face scrunches when the coffee he drinks isn’t sweet, harkening back to Mi-young’s adage about how people who like sweet things are people who want to be happy as Mi-young tries to convince herself that what she did and said was right.

Mi-young overhears Daniel’s “sister” making plans with the private investigator who found her—it turns out she’s a fake, and has been working with the private investigator to fool Daniel in order to tap into his considerable wealth.

It must be hard for her when she shares a meal with Daniel and Not Mi-young, since Daniel can’t stop talking about how happy he is to be with the two Mi-young’s he loves the most.

Even though Daniel buys Not Mi-young’s story about how she wants to get married but has no money (a ploy to get him to pay for everything), Mi-young confronts her on her lies when Daniel leaves the table. Not Mi-young is put in a bind when Mi-young gently but firmly asks if she’d be willing to re-do the DNA test, since both of them know she’d fail.

Mi-young tries to talk reason into the girl by explaining how long Daniel has been searching for his sister, and how he’s not the kind of person she’ll let be fooled or hurt so easily.

When Not Mi-young fights back with excuses, Mi-young tells her she’d be better off mugging Daniel at knifepoint. “Do you know what’s the worst thing in this world is? Manipulating someone’s sincerity. That’s something one person should never do to another person.”

Daniel ends up overhearing the truth with wide, disbelieving eyes as Not Mi-young is forced to turn tail and run. Needless to say, he’s devastated, as he tells Mi-young at the playground he frequents whenever he’s thinking of his sister. It was the last time they saw each other as children, and all because a young Daniel left to get his sister ice cream.

He carries that guilt to this day, firmly believing that he wouldn’t have lost his sister if he hadn’t left her then. Mi-young comforts him by putting her hand over his as she stresses that it wasn’t his fault, “You were at an age where you deserved someone’s love and care. That child who thought everything was his fault… please forgive him now.”

Daniel thanks her sincerely with tears in his eyes, but doesn’t cheer up when Mi-young offers to be his sister for the day, because he’s ready to stop searching for her—he wants to believe she’s living well somewhere and live his own life. But he looks pointedly at Mi-young when he says, “I want to make a real family of my own.”

Gun texts Mi-young (as Young-ja, of course), when she’s got a lot on her mind—Daniel wants to talk to her about something, and she seems to know what it’s about. Gun encourages her to open up using the excuse that he/she’s her number one fan and that they’re both women. Haha.

Mi-young, representing herself in text form, joins Gun at his house as she admits she’s worried that someone will confess his feelings soon, since he’d already told her he wanted to make a family. Gun is completely taken aback, but keeps it all in even as he pelts her with questions: Does this mean “that person” is going to propose? How does she feel about it?

He is fuh-reaking out about this, and it’s hilarious when Mi-young answers his question by saying, “In the past three years, I thought that if I were to make another family with someone, it would be with that person.” Gun deflates.

But when she says that she’s filled with conflicting thoughts now, Gun pumps his fists in relief and happiness. “The thing about decisions is, you have to spend a lot of time and think them over or else you’ll be seen as an easy woman,” Gun advises her through text. He goes on to say how marriage isn’t a joke and she can’t rush into things lest she be seen as an easy woman—you’d almost think Gun was trying to talk her out of it.

It’s really cute how he gets to move around Mi-young while he goes into this long, drawn-out explanation about decisions, because they’re both talking to each other without actually seeing each other. He’s hanging on every second, waiting to know what she’s decided… only for her to shut down the topic.

At least they agree to be on more familiar terms, since Gun calls himself her sunbae and Mi-young asks if she can call Young-ja the more informal “unni.” Ha, and is that a Chuno reference when he’s mulling over the word “unni?” (He and his gang, even though they were men, would say “unni” instead of the more modern “hyung.”)

Yong comes out to ask Gun to reconsider the collaboration with Mi-young, but Gun chases him back inside with his magical freezing powers, while Yong fights back with his magical fire powers. I love how Gun totally gets Yong’s fire powers because “yong” translates to “dragon.”

While Mi-young considers her options when Daniel sends her a text reminder of their date tonight, Gun tries to talk himself out of the way he’s been acting with her while staring at her picture. He knows he shouldn’t be talking to her AT ALL, and knows he should just wish for her happiness… but when she text him, he couldn’t grab his phone any faster.

In her text, Mi-young tells him that she’s leaving Korea tomorrow and won’t be able to meet him before she leaves—but she hopes he’ll take care of the painting. Gun can’t just let her leave, and gets her to disclose her current location with the promise that he’ll return her painting.

He speeds to the theater with the painting in the passenger seat while Mi-young goes inside to meet Daniel. Gun stops to think for only the briefest of moments before jumping out of the car…

…While inside, Mi-young sits in the empty theater as Daniel lights up the projector. He starts making her a picture from scratch using only sand, depicting a man and a woman holding hands on a hilltop. As he morphs and changes the picture to tell their story, we hear it in voiceover:

“A lonely man who lost his little sister met a lonely woman who lost her baby. Those two people decided to share in that loneliness together. Amazingly, even though it was hard bearing it alone, it wasn’t hard at all bearing it together. Like that, those two people will not tire until the end. They’ll build a strong house and live happily ever after.”

Mi-young’s eyes fill with unshed tears as she smiles. Daniel pulls a bouquet of flowers from the podium as he approaches her, both of them unaware Gun has been in the theater, watching everything.

Daniel kneels in front of Mi-young as he offers the flowers: “Mi-young… Will you become my real family?”

 
COMMENTS

It’s about time! Not that I’d be crazy enough to root for the second lead in a show where the outcome is literally written in the title, but Daniel’s been sitting on ice long enough. His time to shine was long overdue, not necessarily because he’s earned it (he’s great on paper, don’t get me wrong), but because he himself admitted that his role in Mi-young’s life has shifted. He no longer has to protect or save her from Gun, so as a character more so than a person, he had to adapt to survive.

Even as a kindly neighborhood oppa, Daniel was just sort of there, and aside from whisking Mi-young away to France to help her start a new life, I’m fairly convinced Mi-young could’ve weathered all the pain that came her way without him, just because she’s awesome like that. But I admit to being a little confused when it came to Daniel before The Accident, since he’d said he was going to be braver when it came to his feelings for Mi-young… and then he wasn’t. Which is okay, since we all would’ve hated him if he forced his feelings on Mi-young when she was in no place to accept them. And even now, after she’s had time move on and get to know Daniel more, her hesitation says a lot about how she feels. Oooorrr does it? We’ll find out next week, that’s for sure.

What’s interesting now about the changed dynamic when it comes to Gun and Mi-young’s not-a-relationship is that even though Mi-young might have questioned herself after telling Gun she never wanted to see him again, and even if she has lingering feelings for him, she’s the one who—at least on paper—has moved on. Gun has been the one keeping tabs on her over the years, he’s been the one following her around town and acting chummy with her mom, and now he’s resorted to using a false identity just to be able to talk to her. I wonder if Mi-young would have felt much of anything going back to France and severing all possible lines of communication with Gun again. Then again, what other options did he give her?

In that sense, I’m not quite sure what’s changed in these three years to bring Gun back from the brink, even though I’m happy as a clam to see him back to his old antics again. If it’s just a matter of him changing his mind about death, it kind of makes the whole rigmarole of him pushing her away moot, doesn’t it? There’s always the option that Gun, who’s proven himself to be quite the hypochondriac, convinced himself he had his family’s full-blown genetic disease even if he wasn’t sure. But if that’s the case and he’s just choosing to take things day by day, then nothing’s actually changed as far as the possibility of him succumbing to the illness in the future. Compared to that, Daniel’s third wheel interference is nothing—we’ve seen what Gun can do when he sets his mind to something.

But of course there’s the flip side to that, since Gun seems to be unable to control himself when it comes to being in the same city as his ex(?)-wife. I love that about him, even if I’m still making peace with his actions leading up to and following the loss of Keddongie. The ball is firmly in his court now, and has been ever since he pushed Mi-young away. Once he realizes that life doesn’t have to be filled with miserably cold showers and self-induced loneliness, the world will be his escargot. Go get ‘er, Gun—or at least hurry up and get back in line.

 
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