Plus Nine Boys: Episode 9

by girlfriday

Yay, we get an episode devoted entirely to the girls, and as a result, everyone’s love lives take big leaps forward. Not that I don’t love this drama’s unique take on life from the guys’ side of things, but when you’ve got three leading men who pretty much think women are capricious aliens, a trip to the other side is a welcome and illuminating detour.

 
SONG OF THE DAY

Noh Young-chae – “끝나지 않은 노래” (Neverending Song) [ Download ]

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Track 9: “The girls’ stories”

We begin the day with Su-ah, as she puts in a good deal of time to do her hair and makeup just so. A pair of glasses and some bedhead are certainly not enough to make her look any less pretty in her natural state—it’s just clear that she’s a girl who puts effort into looking this pretty every day.

She enjoys the head-turning looks she gets as she walks down the street, but her new boyfriend Min-gu is the only one frowning when he sees her. He declares that this is against the rules: “You’re too pretty!” Seriously, this boy is a whole new brand of cheese.

He pouts that everyone’s looking at her, which gets her to smile. But as she turns around, her face darkens. Caption: “21-year-old Han Su-ah: My 2-years-younger boyfriend doesn’t know my true image.”

Se-young watches Jin-gu leave the office while laughing with Go-eun, and wistfully thinks back to Jin-gu’s answer about taking her bus for the past year so that he could spend more time with her.

She walks out alone, but Jin-gu is standing outside waiting to run into her. He makes awkward small talk about the weather, and then asks if she isn’t bored on her bus—doesn’t she miss riding with him a little? She scoffs that she hardly even notices the difference, though he points out that it’s probably because she always falls asleep.

He pointedly tells her where he’s headed before saying goodbye, and they part ways with that same forced chipper tone they’ve been using with each other for weeks. Caption: “26-year-old Ma Se-young: The man I thought was awful… might actually be sincere.”

And as Da-in heads home with her daughter Eun-seo that night, she sighs to see Kwang-soo waiting by the door to casually run into her. He totally overdoes the faux-causal act: “Da-in? Is that YOU?” She just ignores him as always, and he waves at her cheerfully. Caption: “33-year-old Joo Da-in: The man in my painful memories… keeps appearing in front of me.”

Over quick flash-forwards of what’s to come, our three leading ladies narrate in turn. Su-ah: “Because a woman’s heart is like a reinforced iron wall…” Da-in: “Even we women don’t know what’s inside, and what can break that wall.” Se-young: “But even after being closed tightly for so long, like a lie, it can all come crashing down in one moment. That’s a woman’s heart.”

When Da-in hears about Jin-gu’s year-long bus detour, she tells Se-young that she approves, and nudges her to consider Jin-gu seriously. How different you are when you’re talking about someone else’s relationship. Se-young insists that they aren’t ever going to be more than friends, and that he’s interested in someone else right now.

Da-in persists, knowing that Se-young used to like Jin-gu in the past, but Se-young swears that it was because she was fooled, and that it was hard enough to become friends in the first place. Da-in lets it go for now, and reminds Se-young to come by tomorrow for some cake since it’s her birthday.

Da-in is all smiles with Se-young, but as soon as she leaves and Kwang-soo walks in the door, she’s back to her wall of impenetrable ice. He follows her around the café, chattering nonstop about happy memories and songs she used to like, and how cute she was when she didn’t know how to work an MP3 player or change a light bulb on her own.

This time he leaves her a book called The Difference Between Coolness and Passion, and inside she finds an inscription she wrote to Kwang-soo when she gifted it to him, asking him to read the last page.

She thinks to herself that Kwang-soo is the man she loved the most, but he’s also the man who hurt her the most. She flips through the book, wondering why he keeps trying to dig up those memories.

At work, Se-young feels a little awkward joining Jin-gu and Go-eun in the break room, but tells herself that nothing has changed. But they’re eagerly discussing Game of Thrones, which he started watching on Go-eun’s recommendation, and Se-young feels excluded when she tries to join in but has no idea what they’re talking about.

They’re so engrossed in the conversation that they hardly notice as she gets up to go, and then she sees Jin-gu give Go-eun a present—a little Brainy Smurf flash drive filled with his favorite American TV shows. Se-young can’t help but sigh dejectedly, convinced that Jin-gu has already moved on.

But her jealousy starts to get the better of her as the day wears on. Jin-gu leans on her chair as he discusses location scouting and dinner plans with Go-eun for the next day, mindlessly swiveling her chair back and forth. Se-young just yanks her seat away at just the right moment for Jin-gu to fall on his ass, HA, and snipes at him when he tries to joke around with her. She tells herself to get it together, wondering what’s gotten into her.

Su-ah goes makeup shopping with her friends before meeting Min-gu for a date, and they have to remind her to take off her nail polish if she wants to keep playing the part of a high-schooler. They wonder how long she can keep up the act, and tease her about how Min-gu’s mind would be blown if he learned her real age, her real name, and her secret. Whatever the last thing is, it’s enough to wipe the confident smile from Su-ah’s face.

On their date, Min-gu orders enough food to cover the entire table, bragging that he’s got Mom’s credit card tonight. He lays it on thick as always, but now Su-ah finds it all very cute.

When they go to pay, they’re asked to show their student IDs for a discount, which of course she doesn’t have. He just assumes she left it at home and doesn’t seem to care, but Su-ah lets it get to her, worrying that it’s just a matter of time before Min-gu finds out who she really is. To lift her spirits, he takes her to a noraebang to serenade her.

Da-in comes home and answers the door to find an envelope with tickets to a Loveholic concert. Included is a note asking if she remembers, and if she’ll come, with a picture of Kwang-soo and Da-in at a Loveholic concert when they were dating.

Their song “If I Only Have You” plays as she contemplates the tickets, and then we see that downstairs, Kwang-soo is blaring the song and holding a speaker out of an open window. Hahaha, is this his Say Anything moment?

Even funnier is the fact that he’s straining to try and make the song heard upstairs… and then sees Da-in walking away in the street down below. He turns around to go catch up to her, but Dong-gu thinks this is a great time to lock Uncle Kwang-soo out on the balcony, and taunts him through the glass.

Eventually Kwang-soo catches up to Da-in at the market, and pretends yet again to be shocked to run into her. He rides his cart through the store just stalking her up and down every aisle, mindlessly picking up groceries and waving them at her (like a pack of pads, which he can’t possibly need in his house).

He buys her a headband and throws it in her car when she doesn’t accept it, and she finally breaks her silence to ask in exasperation, “Why are you doing this, oppa? Is this fun for you?” But he only fixates on the “oppa” and hears nothing else, and reminds her cheerily about the concert tomorrow, promising to wait for her.

Min-gu gets overly protective of Su-ah as they ride the bus home, and acts like her bodyguard whenever another man comes anywhere near her. She wonders if she should tell him the truth and start with her real name, but then when three loud schoolgirls with thick country accents get on the bus, Min-gu finds them unappealing, and she shrinks back nervously.

He laments having to get off the bus one stop early instead of seeing her home, but she reminds him that it’s the last bus and insists that he gets off first. He pouts in all seriousness, as if his world is ending, “But what if I miss you?”

She practically has to shove him off the bus, but then a second later, he’s running alongside it just to see her a little longer. He runs all the way to her stop, and holds out a wish bracelet that he forgot to give her. He tells her to make a wish and that it’ll come true once the bracelet comes undone on its own. She smiles up at him and wonders to herself if he’ll still like her this much if he finds out everything about her.

Though Soo-ah remains a mystery, it turns out that Se-young is a country girl—her accent comes out when she gets a birthday call from her mom, who promises to send up some food.

At work, Go-eun gives her a birthday gift box full of makeup, and puts a bright pink lipstick on her, swearing that it makes her look like Gong Hyo-jin. Aw, she’s a good friend. Of course, Jin-gu ruins her moment by asking if she ate spicy food and joking that Go-eun has quite the overactive imagination to call Se-young prettier than Gong Hyo-jin.

Se-young asks if he doesn’t have a birthday present for her today, and he tells her to hold out her hand. She smiles in anticipation and holds her hand out over their cubicle divider… and he grabs it to pull her close so that he can give her noogies. Pfft, boys are so dumb sometimes. Now it’s Se-young’s turn to keep stealing forlorn glances his way, which he doesn’t notice.

Da-in’s friend comes by her café and is surprised to hear that Kwang-soo is back in her life. The friend eggs her on to date him, thinking it sweet that he’s trying to win her over again after all this time. Da-in says she doesn’t want to go through all that again just to get hurt, but her friend insists that she shouldn’t be giving up on love at 33, and that she won’t know the outcome until she tries.

Se-young’s face falls when Jin-gu texts to say that his day is running long and they’ll have to do birthday drinks a different night. Jae-bum asks her to dinner just the two of them, and admits that he already made reservations.

He takes her to a fancy restaurant where he surprises her by going into the kitchen and making dinner himself. The place is totally empty, so she asks hesitantly if he rented out the whole restaurant, but he says his friend owns it and there are hardly any customers.

She enjoys the meal, but when Jae-bum mentions that things seem to be going well between Jin-gu and Go-eun, her mood darkens considerably. And when they pass by a couple on a bus on their way home, it just makes her think of Jin-gu more.

Jae-bum drops her off and puts a necklace around her neck before saying goodnight, and she admits that this kind of gift is burdensome to her.

He swears it’s just a friendly gift and that she shouldn’t think anything of it, asking to be allowed to do at least this much for her. She concedes and starts to say, “But…” and he cuts her off before she can say the words to let him down.

She watches him go and thinks to herself that maybe the one who was being the least sincere among all of them was her.

She gets one last call from Go-eun wishing her a happy birthday, and Se-young deflates a little to hear that Go-eun spent the entire day with Jin-gu, complete with dinner, coffee, and wine. She collapses in bed feeling even more disappointed than before, but then perks up when Jin-gu calls.

She pretends not to care at all and even lies that she’s out having fun with her friends, but he calls her a liar because he can see that her light is on. Surprised, she goes to her window and sees him standing down below. Swoon.

The look on her face when she turns around says it all—she beams for the first time all day.

Da-in’s friend even offers to babysit for her so that she can go to the concert tonight, but she still hesitates. She picks up the book Kwang-soo left her and flips it open to the page that’s bookmarked, and finds a line underlined. It reads: “If you ask me when I decided that you would come here tonight, I can only answer that it was 10 years ago.”

Kwang-soo waits outside the concert venue eagerly, but as more time passes, he grows nervous that Da-in might not come. He tries calling and she doesn’t pick up, and he looks more and more disheartened with every expectant glance toward the door.

But to his shock—and mine, frankly—Da-in walks in the door. He lights up instantly, and she tells us in voiceover that she doesn’t really know the reason herself, but she just couldn’t handle the longing she felt for him.

They take turns stealing little looks at each other throughout the concert, remembering being in this exact place together ten years ago.

Min-gu and Su-ah spend the evening studying in the library, writing cute little love notes to each other and playing peekaboo through the book stacks like they’re in a music video. Su-ah adorably gets jealous when another girl gives Min-gu a juice drink, and while he’s dozing off, she sticks a post-it to his forehead: “Has an owner!!”

When he wakes up and goes looking for her, he sees her whispering with an older guy—she’s telling him that she doesn’t want to go clubbing anymore, while he says everyone’s always asking for her. Min-gu asks the guy what he wants with his girlfriend and chases him off, just assuming that he was trying to pick her up because she’s pretty.

He decides that she should be the one wearing the post-it on her forehead, and ties her hoodie strings around her chin to pull her close… and gives her a kiss. Okay, that’s adorable.

Outside Se-young’s apartment, Jin-gu teases her for spending her birthday at home, so she brags that she ate steak and was given gifts, and he guesses that she had dinner with Jae-bum. He hands her his gift and says it’s not expensive, and she tries to give it back, joking that she won’t take it if it’s cheap.

He grouses that she’s not even his girlfriend so she doesn’t warrant an expensive gift, and then tells her to hurry inside because it’s late and she might scare other people. HA.

She takes the gift upstairs and opens it to find a thermos and a lunchbox, and a card complaining that she’s so picky that he spent the entire day going all over Seoul to find her favorite kind of seaweed (birthday) soup. Awwwwww.

She looks down at the soup and has a sudden seaweed-inspired epiphany, and races out the door. Go! Run!

She runs down the street and catches up to Jin-gu, who turns around in surprise, wondering what’s wrong. She gulps and starts, “Oppa…” But then his phone rings at that exact moment, and he says it’s Go-eun calling. He asks her to wait a sec and turns to answer the call, but then Se-young suddenly blurts, “Don’t answer it.” Omo.

He freezes with his thumb hovering over the screen, as she says it a second time: “Don’t answer that call.”

As Jin-gu and Se-young stand frozen in that spot, Da-in and Kwang-soo enjoy the concert, and Min-gu and Su-ah coo at each other at the bus stop, not wanting to be the first to let go of the other’s hand.

The girls close out the episode in voicever. Se-young: “There’s no special reason why a woman opens her heart to a man.” Da-in: “Even without speaking, without expressing it, there’s a sincerity you can feel with your whole body.” Su-ah: “That’s the only key to unlock a woman’s heart.”

And a short epilogue: As Su-ah leaves her tutoring academy, a teacher calls her back by her real name, Bong-sook (an old-fashioned country girl sort of name). She steps out and stops cold to see Min-gu standing there looking aghast. Min-gu: “Han Bong-sook?”

 
COMMENTS

Ha, I seriously doubt that smitten kitten Min-gu would break up with Su-ah over her real name, though I do wonder about her other secret. I don’t think it’s overly scandalous if her secret is that she’s a reformed party girl, but the problem might be that it’s not so much her past, but her present. I expected her to wreak a little more havoc on Min-gu’s heart, but she seems just as invested in the relationship as he is, and I find them adorable together. It’s a sweet simplistic relationship, and in keeping with their ages, they’re all about the goosebump-inducing declarations of undying affection right out of the gate.

It’s such a vast difference from the twentysomethings, who play everything close to the vest and talk instead in circles, saying the opposite of everything they mean. You’re so ugly! Riiight. I don’t even WANT a present from you! Uh-huh. (Hey, I didn’t say it was more mature, just more guarded.) And the thirtysomethings are downright cryptic, as if even speaking about a thing might be too much emotional confrontation for them, so that they’re reduced to silent looks and hidden messages lined in books. I like that each couple is portrayed as communicating in a totally different way, as opposed to simply giving them varied concerns due to being 19, 29, or 39. Though admittedly, sometimes Min-gu’s corny lines make my hands curl up, and I want to shake Kwang-soo and Da-in until words spill out.

Theirs is the only relationship that still confuses me, because we got an entire episode from the girls’ perspective today, but I still don’t actually know what Da-in is thinking. I feel like I experienced Su-ah’s change of heart towards Min-gu and Se-young has had me in her corner from the start, but even after this episode I’m not sure that Da-in likes Kwang-soo back. She must, if she showed up at the concert, but where was the moment of transformation? If it hasn’t happened yet, maybe she’s just giving him a chance to see where this leads; if it’s supposed to have happened in this episode, I’ll cry foul because I didn’t see it. I get that she’s supposed to be an enigma, but it’s pretty extreme if she had a change of heart and has started to see Kwang-soo differently now, because I missed that light bulb moment. I believe that she loved him in the past; I have yet to see that she has feelings for him in the present. For poor Kwang-soo’s sake, I hope that changes.

I appreciate that the theme of the episode is that there’s no such thing as a magical formula to unlock a woman’s heart and that it’s really just about sincerity showing through and being felt. In that respect, it’s all about the little things and the sum of their parts, not one grand gesture or one cool speech. It’s best represented in Jin-gu and Se-young, and the way she starts to see him differently when she finds out about him taking her bus for a year. I know it’s nothing grand, but it’s the consistency that matters, and the fact that he does it solely because he wants to. And of course the birthday soup just takes the cake. Jae-bum can rent out whole restaurants and cook her gourmet meals and buy her shiny things, but Jin-gu will spend his day scouring the city for the one kind of seaweed soup that reminds her of home. It’s the best kind of little thing there is—it’s sincerity, straight from the heart, for her and her alone.

 
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