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Coffee Prince Chapter 4: “What Happened in Room S11”

(Random) SONG OF THE DAY

Soulstar – “입술” (Lips) [ zShare download ]

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Question: Do people want the post titles to include the chapter title or not? If there are some spoilerphobes who don’t want to see them (who would prefer I keep the title under the “read more” cut), speak now or forever hold your peace. Danke!

Like I mentioned, I wanted to rush through Chapter 3 because Chapter 4 was where it starts getting interesting. Granted, this is mainly stuff we’ve seen, but it’s still fun to see the characters’ thoughts explored in more depth, such as the attraction between the two leads. It starts in the novel a bit earlier than I felt it in the drama, but in any case, I think the drama has done a great job preserving the nuances of the book, even though naturally it can’t squeeze every little detail into the TV series.

 
CHAPTER 4: “What Happened in Room S11”

Han Gyul resumes his assholery right away as Eun Chan arrives at his VIP hotel room. The instant she steps inside, he tells her (sarcastically):

“Killer fashion sense you’ve got.”

Really? Eun Chan looked down at her clothes in puzzlement.

“Are those cleaning rags, or old scraps?”

Damn him!

At Han Gyul’s cold treatment, Eun Chan starts to think she made a mistake coming and makes a note of his physical appearance:

His eyes stretched sideways to look like Mashimaro [to your right], and they made an even triangle with the high bridge of his nose, while his upturned lips looked like Angelina Jolie’s. Whether it was from suntanning, his skin color all over was like a nicely broiled fish… Ah! Some broiled mackerel would be great. In any case, on the whole, he looked kind of slick, and irritating. He must’ve been about 5 foot 11 or so.

 
But still, she isn’t immune to his half-naked state of dress, as we can all imagine Mr. Gong Yoo similarly attired, even if she couches her reaction in annoyance:

What’s with him going topless? If he’s going to dress himself, he ought to do it fully. Not like this with only his jeans, and even then they were hanging perilously loosely to reveal his pelvis. Did he want to freeze to death? What kind of fashion is this?

Han Gyul does catch Eun Chan in an incriminating slip of the tongue when he asks how old the escaped criminal was (Min Yub), and she automatically answers that he’s twenty. Realizing she shouldn�t know that, she backtracks and says he looked like he was twenty, but that only confirms Han Gyul’s suspicions. He threatens to send her to the police station, and because Eun Chan is so insulted by him in general, she makes it a point not to correct his misconception that she’s male. It’s like her own little rebellion.

Eun Chan decides she’s had enough and turns to leave, but accidentally knocks into him with her shoulder as he’s taking a sip of water. The cup overturns and water spills all over Han Gyul:

Eun Chan stretched out her hand. Her intention was to dry the water from his chest. So without even realizing, she found her hand reaching out to wipe the water. However, the moment her fingers touched his skin, the strangeness of their pose struck her. The man looked at her, startled, and at the same time Eun Chan stiffened. At that moment, a shriek sounded.

“Oh my god! What in the world…?”

With her hand touching the man’s chest, Eun Chan turned her head. There stood a woman with a dumbfounded expression, with her two hands raised to her mouth.

“Wh…what are you doing? A-a-and… with a man!”

 
We then jump straight to Han Gyul’s matchmaking date with a perfectly proper but oh-so-dull woman. As planned, Eun Chan arrives and sits nearby, and Han Gyul makes it a point to stare fixedly at Eun Chan, to discomfit his date. But in doing so, he notices Eun Chan’s features……

He couldn’t be more than about 5 foot 8 or 9. White skin, round eyes, unusually red lips. He looked like the lead singer of a pop idol group he’d seen somewhere. These days, guys who were so pretty they could be mistaken for girls at first glance were all the rage. Go Eun Chan was that type. If he’d only sit still and keep his mouth shut, he’d have a splendid air about him. What a waste of his good looks. Dick would drool if he saw him.

It seems Dick is a gay friend of Han Gyul from the States (all inferred, not explained as of yet), and hello, Obviously Suggestive Name!

Han Gyul’s date finally asks the question, wondering who Eun Chan is, and Han Gyul excuses himself to say hello. Although the twosome appear to meet on friendly terms, underneath the show, Eun Chan and Han Gyul bicker, as Han Gyul initiates Step 1. Eun Chan prepares herself and puts on her game face:

Han Gyul placed his hand on Eun Chan’s arm, resting atop the table. Just like affectionate lovers.

“Smile, man.”

“This isn’t something to smile about.”

Han Gyul smiled weakly. As he moved his torso forward a bit to close the distance between them, Eun Chan’s crooked smile distorted even more.

“Are you a pervert?”

“Are you fooling around?”

Despite their bickering, they keep up the act, and Han Gyul gives Eun Chan instructions about Step 2, and gets ready to leave.

Before standing, Han Gyul reached over with his hand to stroke Eun Chan’s hair. In an instant, he stopped. That wasn’t in the plan……

Han Gyul returns to his date, who’s clearly unsettled but too polite to say anything. Strangely, his hand feels an odd sensation from touching Eun Chan on the head, and thinks how black and smooth and soft his hair was. But why did he touch Eun Chan’s head? He tries to convince himself it was to keep up appearances. Yeah. That’s it.

Han Gyul also watches Eun Chan eating away enthusiastically, with a happy smile as she packs it away:

Thanks to him [Eun Chan], it was even more tedious watching his date eat. She’d cut up her tiny steak, much smaller than the size of her fist, into 2-percent pieces.

At an appointed time, Eun Chan rises, knocking over a water glass loudly in the process. Han Gyul races to her side to ask with concern if she’s okay. With effort, the two “act” their way through the lovers’ quarrel, and Eun Chan bursts out:

“Go, get lost! You don’t have to worry about me anymore. We…we’re over, you jerk!”

She pushes him aside and walks off, leaving Han Gyul calling after her with sadness, “Chan! Chan!”

 
After this incident, Eun Chan returns to her normal activities, like teaching Taekwondo. She even receives an entire stash of chocolates from high school girls on Valentine’s Day. I think her student Seung Kyung has a crush on her, because when Eun Chan asks who the girls were who brought the chocolates, she tells her: “I don�t know, but they were really ugly, fat, and probably stupid.”

Eun Chan gets a call from Eun Sae’s teacher informing her that her sister’s once again gotten into trouble, and Eun Chan readies to find (and kill) Eun Sae, turning down offers of free meat (to her everlasting dismay) because her female admirers want to take her out. However, she’s interrupted by a phone call from Han Gyul. Without preamble or explanation, Han Gyul orders Eun Chan to meet him (he’s on another date) in ten minutes flat. Eun Chan tries to turn him down, saying she’s in an urgent situation, but he doesn’t care and orders her to come. Now.

Pissed off at his cavalier attitude, Eun Chan fumes as she storms out, muttering how she’ll go, but he’d better watch out! On her way out, she gives a few furious kicks to the brick wall. Her exit leaves her admirers sighing in her wake:

“Did you see, did you see? Wow, he’s so cool!”

“He’s awesome. He’s so tough. Such charisma!”

“Oh, our Chan! My love Chan!”

/end Chapter 4.

Wasn’t that a fun one? 😉

Phew! Now I’ve got to decide whether to put aside Coffee Prince for Harry Potter or not. I’m not in a frenzy to read Harry Potter, but I’m just worried that if I don’t read it right away, somehow the ending will inadvertently be spoiled. And I hate that. To think, I almost read that Michiko Kakutani review. From what I hear, it’s a damn good thing I didn’t. Sigh.

 

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"make coffee, not war"

cute!

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Wow, second poster! Thanks for the summary, this book/story is really interesting. And wow, you're a HP fan too huh? I'll be getting mine tomorrow; I didn't preorder or anything of that :[ Can't wait.

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wow, u have to pay and i don't have a credit card yet T_T
kkk, harrypotter, good that none of tha kids (harry, hermione and ron) died

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wow it is getting interesting esp. the part where he pats her head on the date.. thanks for ur hard work u're much faster than the coffee prince xanga website... ♥ :P :D

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Have some coffee !!!
It's hot but not dragon fire or magic wand , it's coffee.
Have some rosetta espresso.
I prefer your warm, soft and delicious coffee.
You are a Latte artist.
Kamsahamnida (Is it true?)

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You can put Coffee down for Potter. It will only take 5 hours to read potter and you don't have to worry about the translation part. LOL Well that is what I will be doing. If you don't be careful that it doesn't get messed up for you. GL

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You can put Coffee down for Potter. It will only take 5 hours to read potter and you don't have to worry about the translation part. LOL Well that is what I will be doing. If you don't be careful that it doesn't get messed up for you. GL

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javabeans,

please do me a favor, if it's possible. please when you read the book, can you advance read it and find out the event when han gyul found out about eun chan's gender? and how they ended up together? please write me in my email ad if you don't want to post it.

you see, this is how i watch dramas. i check out first if it has a happy ending cuz if it does not have, i stop watching it. i never liked sad endings. that is also what i do when i read books. i read the ending first then read on, excited to finish the book. that's how i motivate myself. weird me!

thanks a lot! whatever your reply is.

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I'm sorry coiwen, that's the one thing I absolutely can't do -- you see, just as you always read the end, I NEVER do. In fact, if I accidentally find out what happens before I get there naturally, it pisses me off. My mother once ruined the ending of a fantastic book for me, and aside from being upset with her, I lost all interest in the book (which had till that point been a favorite) and couldn't pick it up again for over a week. Sometimes even spoiler speculation kills me. I'll do my best to try and read quickly, but that's all I can promise.

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wow, thanks for your prompt reply. thanks a lot. i'm looking forward to monday and tuesday so i can read your summaries of coffee prince. these help me a lot since i'm not korean. thanks again.

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Wow.. what a fun chapter! hehehe.. no wonder you read 3 very quickly, and even posted 4 also.. hehe.. yay~~~
CP novel sounds like a really fun book to read, or is it just because you write it so well? hehe...
oh and btw, great song choice! I think Soulstar is another great group too, even though I'm still stuck on WANTED, until perhaps... forever... aigoo.. lol =)

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lol i like your comment about not reading the ending
i just got my harry potter book and im itching to read the ending but i won't because i have to see it through
you can't reach the end until you start at the beginning.

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"you can't reach the end until you start at the beginning."

dude, shenny, that's like, totally profound. keke. (but i mean it.) (It reminds me of the line in Air City where CJW tells LJJ, "People have to pick themselves up by their own strength from where they fell down in order to move on.")

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thanks javabeans for sharing your summary on the book :) very much appreciated!

also would like to say hi to coiwen and say u r not alone! i am totally "weird" like u! i check the ending 1st on any book i read or movie i watch haha! i can't bear the suspense (it's not about patience but about time and emotion management), i have to know if i'd like the ending to determine if i actually want to "waste" my time reading/watching (if i don't like it, i won't bother reading/watching)! all my friends think i am such a spoiler but i'm glad i'm not the only one in this world hahaha

but i appreciate people who are not like me, they help make the world sane (imagine if everyone is like us! scary!)

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thanks, nhetski. time is really of the essence. if i find a drama has a sad ending, like somebody dies or the actors part ways, i would immediately put it aside and look for other interesting dramas, which i know there are a lot to discover. thanks for people like javabeans who give very good reviews.

javabeans, please reconsider and continue with your summaries of coffee prince, esp. the tv series, since you are considering reading harry potter. please have mercy on us who don't understand korean. and i'm so very excited about coffee prince. and gong yoo is really getting to be interesting.

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Hahahaah... to nhetski and coiwen, now there's 3 of us. I do the same.
Thanks javabeans. Your summaries adds more depth to the story and makes the characters more interesting.

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I guess for me, part of the fun of a series (or book, or whatever) is discovering it along the way, rather than knowing from the outset what it's all about. If I find myself losing interest, I can put it away and not regret the time I put into it, because hey, I probably learned something, and for as long as I was putting time into it, I was enjoying it. I think it's also because I want to form my own opinion, not influenced by someone else who read/watched it first. That's why I'm going to be pickier about what I recap, because if Air City taught me anything, it's that it's a pain to keep going when I'd normally quit, merely because I'd committed to finishing. But it's so interesting to hear other people being the complete opposite and needing to know the ending first.

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Wow, 2 posts in 1 day! Thank you javabeans.

It's interesting to see that Han Gyul has a physical attraction so early on in the novel whereas it is presented much later in the series. And you're right, javabeans.. it did start out as a physical attraction (those damn pheromones) way before he found her personalities "intriguing".

Just out of curiosity javabeans, so far, do you like Coffee Prince the novel more than Coffee Prince the series? Personally, i found that the novel is more charming - perhaps due to the fact that the written pages allowed us to "bond" with the characters more . The characters are so quirky and lovable. Guess that's the advantage of the novel- more room for character presentation that even a 16-hour show would not be able to.

Side notes: NO SPOILER
HP was awesome. Kudos to J.K. Rowling **cheers**standing ovation** This literary masterpiece truly deserves to be on my bookshelf along side J.R.R. Tolkien's LOTR.

My personal opinion, go read it. The Coffee Prince novel will always be here... Plus, the series is so far ahead of the translated novel (either by you or 0CoffeePrince0) so there's no rush. Hope that you'll like HP as the rest of the world does. Now, it's my turn to crawl into bed. Looking forward to reading your posts next week.

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Things are started to get exciting ^^
Thanks again for your review ^^

To Samantha, 0Coffeeprince0 is translating the book, not doing a review, so it's no wonder it's taking her so long. We should thank her A LOT for her hardwork since she's taking her free time to do this. Translating a drama is already a tough job, imagine what it must be translating a book of 415 pages with not only dialogues but also description. This is NO easy job.

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LOL. xD This is better than the drama. Thanks for the summaries!

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Oh..thats a really cute episode! I am imagining Gong Yoo and Yoon Eun Hye's expressions as I was reading and imagining the scenes. Thanks..it really kept me hyped while waiting for the synopsis of the next episode of the drama.

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I like the Hangyul in the novel more then in the drama...

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I used to joke that I was in love with a young school boy. I can't sleep, can't take my mind off him. And his name was Harry. Harry Potter!!

It's stupid but I haven't read the 7th book. I keep 'saving it' for the best time. Ending the stories will make me cry I swear!!

Thanks for another great post....keep it up

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