Reunited Worlds: Episodes 29-30

by LollyPip

Each clue that Hae-sung collects regarding the night that he died seems to only lead to more questions, and his time is running short. He has so much that he wants to do and so little time in which to do it, and he’s beginning to feel the strain of carrying the entire emotional burden alone. Eventually, he’s going to need to tell someone the whole truth about himself, if only to give them the chance to say goodbye.

 
EPISODE 29 RECAP

After hearing that Teacher Hyun saw Kyung-chul going into the school with a boy in an arm cast on the night that he died, the friends look through an old yearbook to see if Jung-won recognizes anyone. She points out a boy named Park Dong-seok as the student who was wearing a cast at that time.

Ho-bang plans to look him up, guessing that he’s either the killer or a key witness. It’s a fantastic clue, but it makes Hae-sung wonder why CEO Cha told him that Young-joon was the bully’s killer.

Meanwhile, Soo-ji talks with Young-joon, and she offers to tell Young-in where he really was the night of Hae-sung’s accident. Young-joon says that he’s okay and that she should keep it to herself. He asks her why she was at the hospital when he saw her before, but Soo-ji just says breezily that she’s exhausted from studying.

Ho-bang takes Jin-ju to a fancy restaurant because he has something important to say. He has her put her hand on the table and look away, then he clamps a handcuff on her wrist and says, with extreme dramatic gravitas, that he’s going to arrest her heart. PFFT, this is hilarious.

He handcuffs himself with the other cuff and adds that he’s hers from now on. Jin-ju gasps a breathless, “Oppa…” which melts Ho-bang instantly — he’s been trying to get her to call him that for ages. He asks for an answer, and Jin-ju smiles, then shrieks, “Uncuff me, you crazy person!” HA.

Unfortunately, Ho-bang was so nervous that he left the key on his desk, so he and Jin-ju are forced to walk the entire way to the police station still handcuffed together.

The next day, Hae-sung brings lunch to Ho-bang at the station to get an update on Park Dong-seok. Ho-bang learned from classmates that Dong-seok moved to Canada right after graduation and that nobody has kept in touch with him. He says that the Immigration Bureau is looking into his current whereabouts.

At the art gallery, Grandmother finds some cartoons that Jung-won scribbled, depicting two cartoon dogs complaining about how she abuses her power. Jung-won walks in and cringes, and although she pretends that the cartoons aren’t about Grandmother, her boss isn’t convinced and invites her to bring it on.

Grandmother isn’t happy with Hae-sung either, who’s planning his own restaurant and refuses to tell her anything about it for fear that she’ll jump in and help. She browbeats him into running an errand for her, saying only that Jung-won knows where it is and that Hae-sung is to go there and cook.

Tae-hoon’s mother is worried about a rumor that Tae-hoon is dating a department store employee. She asks CEO Cha to look into it, so he walks the store looking for a likely culprit. When he sees Young-in at work, he recognizes her from the night that he saw her having dinner with Tae-hoon.

He looks up her employee file and discovers that she’s Hae-sung’s younger sister. Instantly furious, he orders Tae-hoon to his office immediately. He asks Tae-hoon how he could date Hae-sung’s sister, begging him to say he’s not serious about her. Tae-hoon says meekly that he is serious, and promises that he’ll take care of things. Interesting.

At the same time, Young-joon and Seo-won are on their way to see CEO Cha so that Seo-won can explain that she’s the reason Young-joon turned down his offer to work in the U.S. Young-joon approaches CEO Cha’s office in time to hear him yelling at Tae-hoon, asking if he thinks he supported Young-joon out of the goodness of his heart.

As Young-joon listens from the hall, CEO Cha tells Tae-hoon that he doesn’t like having Young-joon around, but that he supported him because Tae-hoon asked it of him. Stunned, Young-joon tells Seo-won that they should come back another time and rushes her away.

In the office, CEO Cha tells Tae-hoon that he will never approve of his seeing Young-in. He warns his son that if he disobeys, he’ll never forgive him. Tae-hoon leaves without a word and goes downstairs, looking heartbroken as he watches Young-in at work.

Jung-won leads Hae-sung to a tiny village in the countryside, where they find the workshop of a famous potter. They go inside to find Potter Ha at work at his pottery wheel, but when they tell him that Grandmother sent them, he shoos them away.

He vows that he’ll never agree to hold a show at Do Gallery, then threatens to throw clay at them if they don’t leave. They scuttle outside, where they realize that Grandmother sent Jung-won here as punishment for her cartoons.

Back at the gallery, Grandmother sits down with Min-joon to talk openly about Hae-sung being back from the dead. She tells him that her husband came back too, shocking Min-joon. She says that the potter she sent them to see is someone just like Min-joon, and she offers to trade a pasta dish for more information.

Grandmother tells Min-joon that she and Potter Ha studied art together in college, and that he developed feelings for her. But she fell in love and married her husband, so they remained only friends. Potter Ha was her main comfort after her husband died, then three years later, he proposed to her.

That was when her husband came back, so she didn’t accept Potter Ha’s proposal, and since he didn’t know about her husband’s return, he was terribly hurt. She says that he still doesn’t know, only that she rejected him, and that she still feels guilty but she can’t tell him the truth. It reminds Min-joon of Jung-won confessing to him that she likes someone else.

Jung-won and Hae-sung visit a local food market, where Hae-sung uses his supernatural sense of smell to pick the freshest ingredients for a special meal. Potter Ha finds them prepping the food outside his house and orders them away again, but when Hae-sung says that Grandmother sent him to cook for him, he just grumbles that they can do whatever they want.

When they bring in the meal they cooked, Potter Ha refuses to eat the food and passes on a message for Grandmother not to send her people to him anymore. Hae-sung and Jung-won leave, sorry that they didn’t get Potter Ha to agree to an exhibit but thankful that he didn’t throw clay at them, hee.

Inside, the scent of the food gets to Potter Ha, so he tries the rice. His eyes widen in surprise, and he tucks into the rest of the food eagerly. A few minutes later, Jung-won and Hae-sung run back to get Jung-won’s dropped cell phone, and when they notice that every bite of food is gone, Potter Ha just blinks up at them innocently.

Luckily, the meal softened him up, and he tells them it was the best meal he’s had in a decade. He says he should pay them for it, but he still refuses to hold an exhibit — instead he offers to share his special liquor with them.

After they polish off several bottles of liquor, Hae-sung tells Jung-won to ask again about the exhibit. He goes inside to find Potter Ha, but he finds the workshop empty and a note taped to the mirror. It says that Potter Ha went to a friend’s house, but that he agrees to hold the exhibit.

Excited, Hae-sung reaches out to grab the note to take it to Jung-won. But suddenly his hand begins to fade, then the rest of him goes shimmery and transparent. Just before he disappears completely, a sharp sound rings in his head and he turns solid again, dropping to his knees in agony.

 
EPISODE 30 RECAP

Outside, unaware of Hae-sung’s terror, Jung-won sees a shooting star and quickly makes a wish. Finally, she goes inside to find Hae-sung on the ground, feverish and barely able to speak. She tucks him into bed in Potter Ha’s room, wondering if he’s just exhausted from their busy day.

Hae-sung eventually wakes — he’s weak, but okay for now. Jung-won lies down with him, her head on his arm, and Hae-sung holds her hand tightly and says that he’s glad she’s next to him. Jung-won tells him about the shooting star, but she keeps her wish a secret.

Snuggling closer, Jung-won remembers a time when they played hide-and-seek as children. She says that she cried because she couldn’t find Hae-sung and thought he had gone missing, and the reminder that he’ll one day go missing on her again brings tears to Hae-sung’s eyes.

He turns his head away so Jung-won won’t see him cry. Jung-won remembers another time when Hae-sung was stung by a bee and his eye swelled up, and she confesses that she put the bee in his hat. But Hae-sung doesn’t respond, barely holding it together, and he lets Jung-won think that he fell asleep.

In the morning, Hae-sung shakes off his melancholy to congratulate Jung-won on gaining Potter Ha’s agreement to participate in the exhibit. He hugs her for a long time, until she teases him that it’s nothing to be that happy about, then they head back to tell Grandmother.

Hae-chul gets a call from the children’s home where Gong-ju lives, letting him know that Gong-ju’s mother, Yoo-min, is there. He runs over to find Yoo-min watching Gong-ju as she plays. When he demands to know what she’s doing there, she tells him that she’s moving to the U.S. and that she plans to take Gong-ju with her.

Ho-bang has some more information for Hae-sung: There were two sets of fingerprints on the bronze statue that was used to kill Kyung-chul. One set is Hae-sung’s (he touched it when he found the bully in the art room), but the other has no known match. Ho-bang explains that Korean citizens are fingerprinted when they get their ID cards, so it must be someone without a Korean ID card.

Even more interesting is that Park Dong-seok, the boy whose arm was in a cast, left the country right after graduation. That means he never got an ID card, so it’s possible the unidentified prints belong to him.

Hae-chul is visited by a lawyer, who informs him that Yoo-min has filed for parental custody of Gong-ju. Hae-chul snaps that he’ll never let her have custody, but the lawyer presents Yoo-min’s official plan for raising Gong-ju, mentioning that the little girl is living in a children’s home at the moment.

Hae-chul says that he has plans for taking her out of there soon, but the lawyer just retorts that if Hae-chul fights, then he’ll lose his right to see Gong-ju at all. He suggests they settle things reasonably, but Hae-chul just tells him to leave.

When Hae-sung returns to the gallery, Grandmother is thrilled that Potter Ha agreed to hold an exhibit. Hae-sung tells her that he nearly disappeared while they were gone, and he asks if the same thing happened to her husband. She doesn’t answer, but her deflated expression says it all.

She reminds Hae-sung that he knew he wouldn’t be able to stay. He sighs, accepting the truth, and she changes the subject to the meal he made for Potter Ha. She thanks Hae-sung for cooking for him in her place, sure that Potter Ha understood the sentiment behind it.

Grandmother tells Hae-sung that six months after her husband returned, he’d told her that he would have to go back where he came from, and that she was shocked that he wasn’t back for good. Then one day she felt as though he’d be leaving soon, so she’d cooked him a warm meal. She couldn’t find him, and although he’d only gone outside, she’d thought he’d left and had been frantic.

She says that Potter Ha came over and wanted to eat the meal he saw laid out, since he was used to eating with them. But she’d yelled that the meal wasn’t for him, adding that she never saw him again after that. She says that she’s regretted being so mean to him ever since.

Min-joon takes Jung-won to a nice restaurant, explaining that he wants to tell her how he feels. He starts by thanking her for intending to tell him the truth about Hae-sung, even though he found out first. He tells Jung-won that she’s a precious person to him, and that Hae-sung is precious, too, so he wants them to be happy together.

Min-joon continues that he wants to be comfortable around them, and for them to feel the same way with him. Jung-won agrees, and Min-joon sneaks them out before the waiter can come to ask if they want to order, ha.

The elevator is crowded on their way downstairs, and they’re roughly pushed out when it stops. Jung-won’s purse (the one Hae-sung gave to her) is left behind, snagged by the handrail in the elevator, but by the time they notice, the elevator is on its way back up again.

They go to the stairwell and run upstairs after it, but Min-joon misses the closing door by inches. They go flying back downstairs, and this time, Min-joon just manages to squeeze into the elevator as the doors close.

He retrieves Jung-won’s purse, and they’re both exhausted by the time he returns it to her. Min-joon complains that things like this always happen when he’s with her, joking that he’ll never be alone with her again.

As she’s teaching her yoga class, Jin-ju keeps thinking back to Ho-bang, with his handcuffs and his cringe-worthy confession. After class she nervously answers a call from him, but it’s Ho-bang’s sunbae on the line, calling to tell her that Ho-bang is injured.

She rushes to the hospital, where she learns that Ho-bang hit his head while chasing a suspect. He’s fine, just sheepish about his accident, and Jin-ju just glares at him before walking away.

Young-in and Soo-ji arrive home that night to find Tae-hoon waiting for them with all the makings of a nice dinner. They all stuff themselves on the meal, and Tae-hoon ignores multiple calls from his mother.

She’s nearly frantic with worry because Tae-hoon hasn’t been home in two days, and she asks CEO Cha if they had an argument. He denies it, forbidding her from calling the police and telling her to stop fussing. Finally, he explains vaguely that he scolded Tae-hoon for dating one of the store employees.

Young-joon is preoccupied with the discovery that CEO Cha put him through medical school on Tae-hoon’s request, and it makes him wonder what the man is hiding. He and Seo-won go again to talk to CEO Cha, where Seo-won explains that she didn’t want Young-joon to leave the country because they’re getting married.

CEO Cha plays the loving family friend to the hilt, even saying that he thinks of Young-joon as his son. When Seo-won leaves his office to take a call, Young-joon takes advantage of the situation to ask a few questions.

He asks CEO Cha why he sent him to school when there were smarter students in worse financial situations, inquiring boldly if CEO Cha chose to send him to school because Tae-hoon asked him to do it. But Seo-won returns before CEO Cha can think of a good answer.

Young-joon and Seo-won meet her mother, Director Sohn, for lunch. Young-joon offers to move Director Sohn’s car when the waitress tells them it needs to be moved, and once he’s gone, Seo-won notes that her mother seems to love him now. Director Sohn says that she just didn’t know about his family situation before, but that CEO Cha’s endorsement is all she needs to know.

Meanwhile, CEO Cha fumes, thinking that things will get complicated if Young-joon marries Seo-won. He calls Director Sohn, and when the call connects he says darkly that there’s something she needs to know about Young-joon.

But Director Sohn left her phone in her car, and it’s Young-joon who responds. CEO Cha quickly backpedals, fibbing that he was calling to congratulate Director Sohn on her daughter’s engagement.

Ho-bang learns from a former classmate that Park Dong-seok has been seen in Korea recently. But he’s changed his name and nationality since moving to Canada, so Ho-bang tells Hae-sung that they need to discover what name Dong-seok is using now.

Feeling confused and conflicted about everything he’s learned about CEO Cha, Young-joon drives to the gallery to find Hae-sung. He reminds his brother that he recently came to him to ask if CEO Cha gave him money for school. Young-joon confesses that he’d lied, and that CEO Cha did pay for him to go to medical school.

But he says that he has a question for Hae-sung: “Why did you ask me about it?”

 
COMMENTS

Hae-sung nearly fading out scared me to death. I thought I had come to terms with the fact that he’s going to have to go back to wherever he came from eventually. But that moment when he almost disappeared reminded me that it’s going to be horrible when it happens. I don’t really hold any hope that the show will pull a ninth-inning miracle and find a way to let Hae-sung stay, because nothing we’ve been told about the way it all works indicates that there’s even the slightest possibility that there’s any way to avoid it.

Mr. Mystery knew he would be leaving soon, so I think he may have been having the same fading incidents as what Hae-sung just experienced for the first time, and it wasn’t long after that that Mr. Mystery just blinked out of existence mid-sentence. Plus, Jung-won saw the shooting star at the same time that Hae-sung was fading out. The shooting star heralded Hae-sung’s return and now, I fear, is heralding his leaving again.

All of this makes me think that it’s time to Hae-sung to tell his friends the truth — that he’s not back for good, and that very soon he’ll be leaving them again. I know that he doesn’t want to take away their happiness at having him back, but it’s not fair of him to risk disappearing on them without even saying goodbye like he did when he died. He didn’t get a choice then, but he has a choice now, and those who love him deserve the chance to say everything they need to say now, before it’s too late. At first I understood why Hae-sung kept the truth a secret, but now that he’s experiencing clear signs that his time is running short, it’s selfish of him not to be honest.

Speaking of being unselfish, I really loved the way Min-joon listened to Grandmother’s lesson about her old friend and decided that he didn’t want to be the person clinging to someone who doesn’t love him. It was very mature of him to tell Jung-won that he loves her and Hae-sung both, and that he values their friendship enough to let go of his own feelings for her (he didn’t say that outright, but that’s what he meant). I really think he’s a sweet soul and a good, gentle-hearted person, and I hate to think of him as a consolation prize for Jung-won after Hae-sung is gone. If by doing this, Min-joon can establish a lifelong bond with Jung-won — even just as friends — then I think Hae-sung’s return has made both of their lives richer.

I’ve had this feeling for quite some time now that Tae-hoon knows more about the night of Hae-sung’s accident than he’s let on, and that conversation with his father seemed to allude to his having some knowledge of his father’s involvement. Something about the way Tae-hoon seemed to know exactly why his father was objecting to Young-in simply because she’s Hae-sung’s sister struck me as suspicious, not to mention that he said he would “take care of things” himself. I think that CEO Cha knows more about bully Kyung-chul’s murder than he’s admitting, and that Tae-hoon is in on whatever secret his father has kept hidden all these years.

It was actually sweet of Tae-hoon, and very in-character, for him to ask his father to support Young-joon through medical school as a trade-off for keeping quiet. Tae-hoon probably thought that by keeping his father’s secret and sending Young-joon to school, he would be helping Hae-sung’s family indirectly by setting Young-joon up to be the head of the family with a good career and stable income. Only, Young-joon didn’t stick around to take care of his siblings in Hae-sung’s absence, so Tae-hoon’s plan didn’t work in the long run.

As for Young-joon, his conversation with Soo-ji hinted that wherever he really was the night of the accident, it was probably somewhere completely innocent. Soo-ji didn’t appear upset with him, and she even said that she understands him — I’m assuming she means that she understands why he left the family. But if Young-joon has such a good alibi for that night, then why won’t he tell anyone? I hope that we’ll learn more in the continuation of his conversation with Hae-sung.

I’m a bit disappointed in Young-joon as a person, because even though he’s finally getting involved in what’s happening with his family, he’s really only doing it out of self-interest. He didn’t give a flying fig about Hae-sung or his other siblings until he learned that CEO Cha’s generosity wasn’t because he likes him, or thought he was a worthy investment, but because Tae-hoon is hiding something for his father. I guess that it’s good that he’s getting involved now, and that the answers to his questions could help lead to the truth, but I just can’t help but wish that he were doing it because he actually cares about someone other than himself. Young-joon would still be denying that he has any family at all if this didn’t threaten his career and his marriage to Seo-won, and I won’t really feel relaxed about him until see him actually give a damn about Hae-sung and his other brother and sisters.

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