Reunited Worlds: Episodes 19-20

by LollyPip

There’s a lot of cuteness and sweetness in this episode, and yet there’s also a feeling of urgency that’s beginning to follow Hae-sung as he accelerates his search for the truth. As much as I want him to unearth his killer and discover why he was framed for murder, I also want to tell him to slow down and take his time. The closer Hae-sung gets to clearing his name, the shorter his time back on Earth becomes, and I’m just not ready to watch those who love him face losing him a second time.

 
EPISODE 19 RECAP

At the Changho Foundation event, Hae-sung follows the pain in his chest to the VIP room, where he finds CEO Cha sitting alone. Knowing that he’s finally found his killer, he reminds CEO Cha who he is, then asks angrily, “Why did you kill me?!”

CEO Cha puffs up and goes on the offensive, asking why he would kill Hae-sung, but Hae-sung isn’t finished. He states what he’s sure is the truth: that CEO Cha was driving the car that killed him, then he made his chauffeur, Driver Hwang, take the blame.

It must be close to the truth, because CEO Cha freezes, and Hae-sung asks if he killed him in order to frame him for murder. CEO Cha just says that he has no evidence, so Hae-sung roars, “I am the evidence!” CEO Cha dares him to reveal himself and tell the police, but Hae-sung says that now that he knows the identity of his killer, it will be easy to find more proof.

CEO Cha is summoned to make his speech, but he only gets a few steps down the hall before he collapses. Tae-hoon, having followed Hae-sung, sees his father on the ground and hurries to his side, carrying him on his back to get help.

They take him to the hospital, where their friend Director Sohn tells Tae-hoon and his mother that he just had a bad shock and will be fine. CEO Cha starts to say something to Tae-hoon, but he changes his mind at the last second.

They leave him to get some rest, and CEO Cha mulls over his conversation with Driver Hwang’s wife, who’d told him that she’d been visited by a police officer at her husband’s funeral. He puts together his conversations with both Ho-bang and Hae-sung, worried that they’re all suspecting him.

Hae-sung drops by the police station to talk to Ho-bang, who is shocked to hear that Hae-sung pinpointed Tae-hoon’s father as his killer, and they decide not to say anything to Tae-hoon until they know more. Worried that they won’t be able to find good evidence after twelve years, they decide that Driver Hwang’s wife, Min-joon’s aunt, is their best potential source for more information about what happened that night.

Hae-sung had gone to Driver Hwang’s funeral and seen the man’s wife crying in front of her dead husband’s photograph. Thinking she was alone, she’d lamented that her husband couldn’t deny it when people called him a murderer; but when asked, she’d denied saying that. Ho-bang wonders if she’d tell him the truth if he asked again.

While waiting for the catering crew to return from the Changho event, Min-joon asks for help rearranging the furniture in his office. While moving a table, Min-joon accidentally bumps Jung-won with his rear and knocks her down. He doesn’t notice, but she gapes up at him, assuming he did it on purpose.

Later Jung-won complains about it to Jin-ju and Moon-shik. She thinks Min-joon is being petty because she rejected him, and she describes the incident to them in detail. HAHA, in her version he practically attacks her with his butt, then smirks as he pretends it was an accident.

Her friends think Jung-won is being silly, but they agree that Min-joon is a horrible, petty person for reacting that way. Jung-won whines that she can’t even quit because Hae-sung needs her support.

At home, she helps Hae-sung carry in a bunch of packages that he ordered. The first is a fancy set of knives that he brags can cut a phone book in half, but he’s stumped when Jung-won asks why he’d need to do that, hee.

Another box is a gift for Jung-won, a set of cups he got for her since she doesn’t have many at home. Jung-won cracks up when the cups turn out to be a teeny-tiny tea set (Hae-sung: “They looked big in the photo!”). She asks Hae-sung to check with her first the next time he wants to buy her something.

In the morning, CEO Cha gives his assistant the photos from the mall CCTV and tells him that Hae-sung works for the restaurant that catered the Chungho event. He orders him to find out everything he can about Hae-sung, then heads to Chungho for a board of directors meeting.

In Chungho, Hae-chul is busy supervising the placement of several banners asking for information on the hit-and-run accident from twelve years ago. He calls Ho-bang, wondering if they’ll learn anything new after so long. Ho-bang says that he’s trying whatever he can, since their best bet for information left the country.

Ho-bang decides to take a shower and starts undressing right in the middle of the living room. Jung-won lets herself in just as he’s about to pull down his boxers — they both scream bloody murder, and Jung-won runs outside and yells an apology through the door. PFFT.

While Ho-bang tries to recover from this trauma to his nerves, Hae-sung asks him not to say anything to Jung-won about their investigation. He says she worries about him enough as it is, and he doesn’t want to add to her problems.

Arriving in Chungho for his meeting, CEO Cha spots one of the banners asking for information about Hae-sung’s accident. He calls the phone number on the banner, and when Ho-bang answers, CEO Cha remembers meeting with him, and that Ho-bang is Tae-hoon’s friend. He makes a call and issues an order to have all of the banners taken down immediately.

At the hospital in Seoul, Soo-ji meets with her doctor, who tells her that he had a daughter her age who was also named Soo-ji, and who passed away. He reminds Soo-ji that they need to find an organ donor for her right away, urging her to speak to her family about it. He tells her to bring her guardian to meet with him next week.

Tae-hoon oh-so-casually drops by the shop in the mall where Young-in works. Since her manager is there, he makes little faces at Young-in, hinting for her to take a break and come talk to him.

But she doesn’t understand, so her manager translates for her, saying that he’s telling her to meet him at the staircase, lol. The manager takes a hint and leaves, and Tae-hoon gives Young-in a pair of movie tickets and tells her to meet him after work.

She agrees, but Soo-ji calls to ask if they can talk after she gets off work, and Young-in fibs that she’s working late. Soo-ji heads out of the hospital, and in a hallway, a hurried doctor collides with her and drops the stack of books he’s carrying.

She doesn’t recognize Young-joon, but he reads her name tag and realizes that this is his youngest sister, whom he hasn’t seen in years. He quickly collects his things and leaves.

He’s on his way to see CEO Cha, who mentions that it was just about twelve years ago that they met. He asks Young-joon to keep it a secret that he supported him through medical school, then says cryptically, “That could happen to anyone, it’s okay.”

Jung-won happens to be nearby when the two men leave the coffee shop together. She recognizes Young-joon, and she wonders why he’d be with Tae-hoon’s father.

Young-in and Tae-hoon meet up at the movie that evening (it looks like Park Seo-joon and Kang Ha-neul’s buddy-cop comedy Midnight Runner). Tae-hoon keeps shooting adorable glances at Young-in, and in the middle of the show, he reaches over to take her hand in his.

They’re still holding hands while he walks Young-in home, and as they linger at her door, Tae-hoon admits that he doesn’t remember a single thing about the movie (cute!).

Soo-ji comes around the corner just in time to see Tae-hoon give Young-in a long hug and wish her goodnight. She smiles to see her sister so happy.

Jung-won decides to confront Min-joon for his apparent upset at her rejection, so she goes to his office to ask him if they can talk after work. He’s in his office chair, his back to the room, so all Jung-won sees is the back of his head as he nods. After she leaves, Min-joon turns his chair around and we see that he’s got his earbuds in, watching a cooking show on his tablet, having missed seeing her entirely.

So when the restaurant closes that night, he invites Hae-sung to go to dinner, unaware that Jung-won is waiting for him. Hae-sung lies that he’s not hungry but his growling stomach gives him away, so Min-joon calls a sashimi restaurant he frequents to order a meal prepared for them.

When they arrive, the owner leads them to a table piled with enough food for ten people, and Hae-sung gawps at the sheer volume of dishes as Min-joon nods and says it pays to be a regular.

They do the food justice, plowing through it like a pair of starving men. Just as they’re polishing off the last of the sashimi, they both stop with their bites halfway to their mouths as they realize that a pair of giants are looming over them angrily.

Okay, so they aren’t giants, but they are huge. They ask why Min-joon and Hae-sung are eating their food, which is when the ajumma realizes that she got the tables switched. She points Min-joon and Hae-sung to a table with a much more appropriate amount of food laid out for them, hee.

But it’s too late, so they’re obligated to pay for what they ate. Poor Min-joon shells out the cash as Hae-sung looks appalled at how much their meal cost.

 
EPISODE 20 RECAP

Meanwhile, Jung-won realizes that Min-joon left the restaurant and gets even more peeved thinking he stood her up. It sparks another round of complaints to Jin-ju and Moon-shik, who still don’t think it’s that big of a deal, though Jin-ju has to teach Moon-shik a few things about being a supportive friend.

After dinner, Min-joon and Hae-sung pass a vendor selling jade bracelets that claim to bring lovers together. Min-joon says it’s a scam and heads to the restroom, but he sneaks a peek and sees Hae-sung buying one of the bracelets and guesses that Hae-sung likes someone. Then Hae-sun steps aside to the men’s room, and despite calling the bracelets silly, it’s Min-joon’s turn to be tempted to buy one.

Over coffee, Min-joon confesses that he told Jung-won about his feelings and got rejected. Hae-sung visibly relaxes, but Min-joon adds that he’s going to keep waiting. Hae-sung asks why he’s telling him this, and Min-joon says that he feels like he can tell him anything. Awww.

At home that night, Min-joon smiles at the bracelet that he bought after all.

Ho-bang and Hae-sung go to Jung-won’s place later to hang out, and she tells them about seeing Young-joon with CEO Cha. She says they seemed close, but the guys keep their thoughts to themselves.

Back at their place, Hae-sung frowns at the bracelet he bought. He’d gotten a broken one and gone back to exchange it, and had seen the seller telling some elderly customers that the bracelets were to relieve joint pain. He’d known he got scammed, and Ho-bang enters the room complaining of a sore knee, so Hae-sung gives him the bracelet, ha.

CEO Cha belatedly realizes that Hae-sung and Min-joon know each other when his assistant reports back with pictures and information. Paranoid, he wonders what kind of scheme they’re planning against him.

Min-joon gets a call from his aunt, who’s been having nightmares about his uncle. She asks Min-joon to visit his ashes just to make sure everything is okay. On the way, he passes Hae-chul setting up another banner and sees that they’re asking for information regarding the accident in Chungho twelve years ago.

At the same time, an old friend of Hae-chul’s recognizes him and stops to say hello. He says that someone has been looking for him but his number changed, and he directs Hae-chul how find out who it is.

It turns out to be Gong-ju’s birth mother, a young woman who seems happy to see Hae-chul, but he’s so uncomfortable that he can barely look at her. She tries to make small talk, but Hae-chul says that he didn’t know she was the one who wanted to see him, and he stands to leave.

She asks about Gong-ju, claiming that she misses her. Hae-chul is angry and incredulous, and he refuses to answer any questions about his daughter.

Later when he picks up Gong-ju from school, Hae-chul sees Gong-ju’s mother waiting outside the school. Gong-ju gives her a precocious little frown, and Hae-chul picks up Gong-ju and walks right past his ex without acknowledging her.

When he gets to his uncle’s resting place, Min-joon asks if he sent him here so that he’d see the banner. He remembers a day years ago when he’d visited his uncle in prison, and his uncle gave him the hair ribbon. Driver Hwang had said that the victim of the crash had it on him when he died, and he’d asked Min-joon to return it to the victim’s family.

Min-joon had meant to return the hair ribbon that very day, but he was on leave from army duty and got called back to the base early. After his discharge, he’d gone to the victim’s house but the family had moved. Now, he returns to the banner and calls the number.

Ho-bang visits Hae-sung at work to tell him that he’s meeting someone who may have information about his accident. He warns Hae-sung not to get his hopes up, though he’s surprised they got a call so soon.

Min-joon meets with Ho-bang and asks why he’s searching for information about a closed case from twelve years ago, so Ho-bang admits that the victim was his friend. Min-joon says regretfully that he didn’t witness the accident himself, but that Driver Hwang was his uncle.

Excited, Ho-bang asks if he’s still in contact with his aunt after her overseas move. Min-joon is surprised that Ho-bang knows about that, so Ho-bang discloses his suspicion that someone else was driving the car that killed Hae-sung.

Despite Min-joon’s keen interest, Ho-bang is reluctant to tell him any more, but Min-joon counters that he needs to know the real assailant in order to bring his aunt back to Korea, so Ho-bang says that he suspects CEO Cha. Min-joon reels to hear that his father is suspected of murder.

They’re unaware that Hae-sung followed Ho-bang to this meeting, and that he’s been listening to their conversation from a table around a corner. He’s shocked to learn that Min-joon’s uncle is the man who took the fall for his death.

Min-joon’s employees are concerned when he makes distracted mistakes all afternoon, so he decides to take the evening and the next day off. That night he sees the blue hair ribbon again and remembers his promise to his uncle. He takes the ribbon to Ho-bang the following day and tells him that the victim had it with him when he died, and asks Ho-bang to return it to the family.

Ho-bang gives the ribbon back to Hae-sung, excusing himself when Hae-sung begins to cry. Hae-sung remembers buying it on the night that he died, intending to give it to Jung-won. He goes to her place to give it to her right away, though he doesn’t tell her when he bought it.

Jung-won says that it looks like something he would buy, and smiles that it’s pretty. But when he asks her to put it on, she hesitates and clarifies that she thinks it’s pretty because the intention behind it was pretty. (HAHA, she doesn’t like it! That’s hilarious.) Hae-sung pouts and snatches the hair ribbon away, insisting on putting it on her himself. She smiles at him prettily, then reminds him again to check with her when he wants to buy her something.

Min-joon calls his aunt, and two days later, Hae-sung bursts into CEO Cha’s office to confront him. CEO Cha screams for his assistants, who limp into the office like they just received a minor beating from Hae-sung. Hae-sung says that he won’t be long so CEO Cha dismisses his assistants.

Hae-sung tells him that Driver Hwang’s wife is on her way here right now, and he ignores CEO Cha’s loud protestations. He tells CEO Cha that he may as well confess that he killed him.

Min-joon picks up his aunt at the airport, and she says that she’s more worried about him than herself, since CEO Cha is still his father. But Min-joon is determined, saying that he can’t forgive his father for what he did to his uncle.

But CEO Cha is already confessing to Hae-sung that he was the one driving the car that night. He admits that he hit and killed Hae-sung, then called his driver and made him take the blame.

Hae-sung asks how that connects to the bully’s murder at the school, which he was wrongfully blamed for, sure that the two events are related. CEO Cha says smugly that he knows that Hae-sung was innocent, and he tells Hae-sung that they need to discuss something privately before anyone else arrives.

Hae-sung asks why, and CEO Cha says again that he was falsely accused, but he denies that he framed Hae-sung. All of the evidence at the crime scene pointed to Hae-sung, and since he wasn’t alive to proclaim his innocence, he was just naturally blamed.

Stunned, Hae-sung asks him, “Then who was the culprit?” CEO Cha just smiles.

 
COMMENTS

Oh, this is getting good. I can’t wait to see what the boys have up their sleeves — whatever it is seems to scare the pants off CEO Cha, enough that he readily confessed to being the one driving the car when it hit Hae-sung. But apparently CEO Cha knows some things as well, things that are probably going to keep him off the hook for a while longer. I have a feeling that he’s going to say that someone Hae-sung loves killed the bully that night, and I still think that it’s probably Young-joon.

When CEO Cha told Young-joon that “that could happen to anyone,” it seems to me that he’s referring to Young-joon killing the bully accidentally. My theory is that Young-joon was defending himself against another attack, that he accidentally injured the bully then ran, and in his flight, he witnessed CEO Cha hit and kill Hae-sung. CEO Cha probably offered to put Young-joon through medical school, and in exchange both men would remain silent about what they knew. It would also explain why Young-joon cut himself off from his family — deep guilt and shame for letting Hae-sung take the blame for a murder he didn’t commit.

I just love all of the characters in this show so much, and I wish we had more time to spend with each of them. I particularly like Hae-chul, whose journey from a hotheaded thug to a responsible single father is so heartwarming and sweet that I kind of wish it were its own drama. I love stories about daddies and daughters, especially when the daughter, in essence, saves her father’s life simply by existing. Hae-chul is really growing up and maturing since Hae-sung returned, doing his best to be a law-abiding citizen and keep a job so that he can live full-time with Gong-ju. I was so proud of him when he walked right past Gong-ju’s mother and left her in their dust — she abandoned them, and she had no right to try to walk back into their lives with no consequences.

I really adore Tae-hoon and Young-in’s budding romance. They’re just so cute together, and I know Hae-sung would love it if his friend and his sister ended up together. But I also worry that there will be problems when Tae-hoon discovers that his father is the one who killed Hae-sung. They live in a society where a killer’s family members are considered culpable by association, which is why Hae-sung’s family has struggled in the wake of him being labeled a murderer. And Tae-hoon is such a strait-laced, moral guy that I fear that he’s going to take on a huge burden of blame for his father’s involvement and feel that he’s unworthy of Young-in. I’m anticipating that Tae-hoon and Young-in are going to have to fight if they want to stay together, once the truth of Hae-sung’s death comes to light.

The reluctant one-sided bromance between Min-joon and Hae-sung continued in this episodes, and I just think they’re the most adorable things ever. Min-joon loves playing the hyung and showing off to Hae-sung, even though it keeps getting him in trouble, and Hae-sung can’t help but relax and enjoy himself with Min-joon even while he’s grumpy knowing that Min-joon likes his girl. Seeing them eat their way through all that food was hilarious — where did they put it all? Mostly I just like how they fulfill a need in each other, even without realizing it. Min-joon gives Hae-sung the guidance and care he never got while acting as the head of his family at such a young age, and Hae-sung takes the place of the little brother whose name Min-joon was never even allowed to know. They’re just so good for each other.

I feel sort of bad now for suspecting Min-joon of being sinister or hiding something, because it seems clear in retrospect that he really is just that nice of a guy. It was so sweet and generous of him to give the hair ribbon back to the family of the accident victim after taking good care of it for so many years. He has no idea how that hair ribbon connects back to Jung-won and Hae-sung and their shared past — he just returned it out of the goodness of his heart.

But how adorable was it that after all those years, and all that angst, and the roundabout way the hair ribbon was finally returned to Hae-sung… after all that, Jung-won didn’t even like it! Hae-sung’s “You’ve got to be kidding me, lady,” face was hilarious. This show continually throws cute little reversals like that at us, and I love how Hae-sung and Jung-won are so honest with each other, even when they don’t like something. They really are meant for each other.

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