Answer Me 1988: Episode 19

by girlfriday

Here at last, here at last, finale week with answers to be had! Between the last episode and this one, I’m surprised I have any emotions left to feel—Show took them all from me, and now I’m spent. That bastard. The moment we’ve all been waiting for is finally here: Our heroine reveals her heart, and half of us will cheer and half of us will cry ourselves to sleep. Grab a tissue, hold a friend’s hand, and let’s face the music together.

 
SONG OF THE DAY

Kihyun – “세월이 가면” (As Time Goes By) for the Answer Me 1988 OST [ Download ]

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EPISODE 19: “You did your best”

January 2016. Deok-sun and Husband record another portion of their interview, and they don’t know how to answer the question about who asked the other out first. Deok-sun says that it happened gradually, and mentions that nowadays people date and kiss and just call it “some” if they’re not officially dating. Husband is shocked at that, and they both mention learning this stuff from “the kids,” though they don’t say if it’s their kids.

They’re asked when their first kiss was, and they exchange adorable looks. Husband suggests saying it together on the count of three, and Deok-sun says, “1994!” Husband: “1989… 1994! That’s what I said, 1994!” Guess someone’s in the doghouse tonight.

We go back to 1994, where everyone has some version of tofu for dinner because the tofu man came through the neighborhood. Deok-sun’s mom worries about how much Dad is working, but he says that he has to work hard to stay useful when he’s a senior employee who only has a high school diploma. He tells Mom that he doesn’t intend to quit, and only mentioned retirement because he was working so hard on that last case. Mom smiles gratefully.

Taek eats too, and bursts into laughter at Mom and Dad sitting across the table just staring at him like they’re trying to memorize his face and drink him in before he goes poof. They’re so cute.

He’s leaving for another match in Beijing that night, which is where Deok-sun’s next flight is headed too. Her co-worker brings up the famous Choi Taek and asks why Deok-sun doesn’t date him if they’re so close. Deok-sun clarifies that they’re just friends and have been for twenty years. The co-worker asks, “So… why aren’t you dating?”

The moms watch TV and talk about how cute Yoo Dong-geun oppa is, and Jung-hwan’s mom points out that he’s ten years younger than them. Sun-woo’s mom insists that the rules are, if he’s handsome, he’s oppa. Yup, them’s the rules.

The others tease Sun-woo’s mom about calling Taek’s dad “oppa,” and they wonder how a handsome boy like Taek came from a man like him. Sun-woo’s mom swears that Taek’s dad looked exactly like Taek in his youth, and the others decide she’s lost her mind.

We don’t realize until now that Dong-ryong’s mom is there with them, because now she’s staying at home to help take care of her grandchildren instead of working. The other moms suppose that she’s bored of being at home all the time when she used to work so much, but she says it’s okay and rushes off to tend to the kids.

Taek heads all the way down to the air force base to see Jung-hwan, who runs up to him with a giant smile.

Up in Seoul, Bora visits Sun-woo at the hospital and waits nervously for him to tell her what he’s decided about giving her a second chance. He looks very stern and serious, which makes her doubly nervous, but then he finally says that he has three conditions, and if she says okay to all of them, they can date again.

The first is that he’s going to stop using jondae with her, and stop calling her noona if they date. She doesn’t look pleased, but agrees to let him use banmal with her, and he cracks the tiniest grin for a split second.

Second, he asks what Bora considers first place in her life. She thinks it over and admits, “Me.” Sun-woo says, “Now it’s me.” He isn’t asking to always come first all the time, but he doesn’t want to be cast aside when things get rough for her and she chooses herself again. Ouch. Sun-woo says, “I would just like to be one of the important things in your life,” and admits that he was badly scarred.

Bora agrees to the first two conditions and prods for the third, so Sun-woo says that if they start back up again, he wants to date with the next step in mind. Oh, he means marriage, doesn’t he? He tells her not to start at all if she’s afraid of the next step, which gives her pause. She asks for time to think it over.

Jung-hwan takes Taek out to lunch near the base, and Taek marvels when two petty officers salute Jung-hwan on their way in. It’s okay, Taekie, I find it hot too. Jung-hwan asks what brings him all the way down here, and he can tell right away from Taek’s hesitation and serious tone that he’s about to bring up the 20-year-old elephant in the room.

Taek brings up Jung-hwan’s wallet and says he opened it back in the day, and Jung-hwan cuts him off, scoffing at him for bringing up something so far in the past. Agh, why do you always cover up your heartache with jokes? It pains me so.

Jung-hwan: “Go grab Deok-sun. Frustrating moron.” No, that’s YOUR NAME, you frustrating moron! Taek reads between every line though, and the way he smiles at Jung-hwan is just so perfect, like he sees it all and truly appreciates his friend. But Taek surprises him by saying that he didn’t come here for that, and then it’s his turn to scoff at Jung-hwan for thinking he came down just to talk about Deok-sun. But… what else are you here to talk about then?

Back at home, Jung-hwan’s mom tells the others that she thinks she’s menopausal. They realize that they’re at that age now, and Deok-sun’s mom worries that it’ll be hard on her. Jung-hwan’s mom insists that it’ll be liberating, and intends to face it head-on.

So she tells Dad and Jung-bong about it, and declares that she’ll still cook, but not do the dishes, and she’ll still clean, but not do the laundry. Dad and Jung-bong jump to say that they’ll do everything, and that puts a smile on Mom’s face.

Jung-bong even calls Jung-hwan to alert him about Mom, and to remind him to call home often for her sake. Jung-hwan wonders if they should be doing more for Mom, and sighs that it’d be better if she had a daughter for stuff like this. Who needs a daughter when she has a son like you? Jung-bong asks if Jung-hwan is eating well and isn’t lonely, and makes sure he can come home next month for Mom’s birthday.

Then he calls Mi-ok, who tells him excitedly that she’s meeting up with the girls at their old ddukbokki haunt. She worries that Deok-sun and Ja-hyun will have gotten so pretty that she won’t recognize them, and Jung-bong insists that those two girls just tell each other that to make themselves feel better.

Mi-ok is the one who changed the most, and Deok-sun and Ja-hyun gape at her the next day, wondering when she became so pretty. They’re hurt because she didn’t call them once over the last six years, but Mi-ok says that she couldn’t call because she missed them too much, and just looking at pictures of them made her cry. They all burst into tears and eat ddukbokki while crying.

Jung-bong and Dad keep to their word and do all the cleaning around the house while Mom sips tea. Deok-sun’s mom brings cabbage by and tells Jung-hwan’s mom about Dong-ryong’s brother opening a second restaurant nearby. She jokes that sending their kids to Seoul University is useless when Dong-ryong will make the most money of all of them because he’s so good at running a business. Even Dong-ryong’s dad admits that he regrets hitting him so much for not studying in school.

That evening, almost all the kids come home for the weekend. Sun-woo, then Bora, then Taek. He hesitates in front of his gate and turns towards Deok-sun’s house, but then he whirls around again and just goes home. Deok-sun arrives a minute later.

Sun-woo waits on pins and needles until Bora leaves a message for him to come outside. Deok-sun’s mom wonders where both the girls ran off to, and No-eul says that he thinks Bora is dating someone. Mom perks up immediately because she was worried about Bora not caring about anything but work, and when No-eul says that it has to be someone in this neighborhood (because she’s home so often lately), they run through the possibilities.

They figure it can’t be Jung-hwan because he’s away, though Mom says she’d be happy with Jung-hwan. She doesn’t look as enthused about Jung-bong, and Dong-ryong has a girlfriend. Both Mom and No-eul are the most excited about Taek, but then Mom remembers that Taek is afraid of Bora, so he’s out. No-eul says that leaves only one person, but then suddenly Mom’s smile fades as she says, “It can’t be Sun-woo. All the others are okay, but it can’t be Sun-woo. You know why.” What? Why?!

Bora waits out by the steps, and aw, she’s wearing the necklace. Sun-woo looks like he’s bracing himself as he walks toward her, but halfway there he spots the necklace around her neck and relaxes. He marches right up to her and yanks her around the corner to make out, and afterwards she laughs at him for not even waiting for her answer.

He points out that she shouldn’t have worn the necklace then, and she says sweetly, “Sun-woo-ya, Sung Sun-woo, thank you. I love you.” Wait, his last name is Sung too? Are they… related? No, that can’t be it. What the?

Sun-woo runs home and bursts into Taek’s room to tell him the good news that he and Bora are back together after six years, but Taek’s expression stays stiff and awkward, and Sun-woo’s excitement peters out as he wonders why he’s not getting the reaction he wants.

Taek silently nods to point to the other side of the room, and Sun-woo turns around to find Deok-sun and Dong-ryong sitting there with their jaws on the floor. LOL. They call him a crazy bastard and Deok-sun can’t believe it wasn’t just a one-sided love. Dong-ryong does a double take at that because he didn’t even know about Sun-woo’s crush in the first place.

Jung-hwan happens to call right then and Dong-ryong tells him too. Hilariously, Dong-ryong fixates on the fact that everyone but him knew that Sun-woo liked Bora, and he’s so hurt that he gets all dramatic and says he’s not really a friend if he was the only one who didn’t know. Poor Dong-ryong looks like he’s going to cry.

Taek lies and says he didn’t know either, and Dong-ryong narrows his eyes and points out that Sun-woo came rushing in here to tell Taek, and wonders again why anyone loses to him in baduk, ha. They gasp when Sun-woo jumps to Bora’s defense and calls her by name instead of noona, and Taek escapes before the other two pummel Sun-woo for keeping secrets.

Deok-sun has a layover in Beijing the day before Taek’s match, and when she hears from his baduk teacher that he hasn’t eaten anything, she brings over a thermos of porridge that she brought from home. Teacher tells her to drop it off herself, and she jokes that he shouldn’t see her before a big match because he’ll get too fluttery with excitement. He agrees because Taek likes Deok-sun so much, and she points out that she was kidding. Teacher says he wasn’t.

The news reports that banks all over the country are laying off workers and pushing older employees into early retirement, and Deok-sun’s mom worries about Dad hanging onto his job.

Deok-sun waits and waits outside Taek’s baduk match, and finally gets tired of pacing and asks Teacher to call up to her room when it’s over. She waits anxiously by the phone all day, and is surprised when Taek calls himself. She tells him to rest, but he says he’s hungry and asks her to dinner.

She gets dressed up and waits in the lobby, and Taek beams when he sees her. He pets her on the head like always and they head out, but they both look disappointed when they run into the rest of their party and are forced to go eat in one big group.

Dinner is pretty uneventful, but Deok-sun’s roommate gets drunk and heads in early, which leaves Deok-sun without a key late that night. She pounds on the door but there’s no answer, and no one’s at the front desk to give her another key. So she sits in the lobby, and Taek happens to spot her while he’s outside to smoke a cigarette.

She tells him to go up because she just needs to wait for another key, but he tells her to sleep in his room. It’s a giant suite, so he tells her to take the bedroom while he sleeps on the couch. She tries to take the couch, but he insists he wouldn’t be able to sleep comfortably that way, and it won’t matter once he takes his sleeping pills anyway.

She gasps to see how many pills he’s taking these days, and warns that if he takes too many, he’ll start sleepwalking and doing crazy things in his sleep. He laughs and says he’s not that far gone, then jokes, “You never know though. Lock your door tonight. I don’t know what I’ll do.”

Deok-sun: “Why, are you going to kiss me again?” Omo. It was real! Taek freezes and finally says, “It… wasn’t a dream.” He looks over at her, and she avoids his gaze nervously. He asks why she lied about it, and she admits, “I was scared. We’re friends. What if it became awkward?”

A tear trickles down his cheek. Aw, Taek. She says that she can’t imagine things ever being awkward between them. He wipes his tear away and seems to accept it, but then he turns to ask, “What about now?”

Deok-sun finally meets his eyes, and says, “It would be awkward now too… But…” OMO. BUT? BUT?!

Taek doesn’t even wait for her to finish her sentence, and leaps to his feet to kiss her. Damn, this boy is a closer. Her eyes flutter closed as he kisses her again and again. Wow, that conversation did not go the way I thought it was going.

We return to 2016, with Deok-sun and Husband offscreen. She asks how he could say their first kiss was in 1989, and he argues that it’s the right date. She points out that she was just a high-schooler back then, and he apologizes for not remembering since he didn’t go to school(!). He doesn’t think it’s that big a deal, but she doesn’t like the picture it paints, and insists on asking to rerecord that part of the interview.

TAEK. IT’S TAEK. OMG. I’m partly just relieved to finally know, and partly heartbroken for Jung-hwan. I thought I cried all of the tears already, but apparently not.

We flash back to that first kiss, when Taek took sleeping pills and passed out. Deok-sun got up to go home, but then decided to linger a while and sat nearby just watching Taek sleep. This time we see the scene without the fuzzy dream halo, when he opened his eyes and saw her there, and swooped in for a kiss.

Deok-sun was up all night afterwards unable to sleep a wink, and in the morning she came out and practiced how to greet Taek. That’s so cute. But when she came out to the street and told him that she went home right away last night, he’d said aloud that he was relieved it was just a dream. She clammed up about it after that, and he just believed it was a dream.

Back in 1994, Deok-sun has managed to get back into her hotel room, and she tosses and turns and kicks her feet madly under the covers because she can’t contain her happiness. And Taek is sound asleep without taking a single sleeping pill.

Jung-bong and Mi-ok meet for another date, and when she sees him talking about samgyupsal so animatedly, she suggests he quit studying law and do something foo-related. She remembers Deok-sun saying that Jung-bong made the best ramyun she’d ever tasted. Mi-ok says that her father made her go study abroad and learn fashion, but she’d like it if Jung-bong did what made him happy in life.

After their date, we finally get to meet Mi-ok’s scary father… Ha, it’s Go Chang-seok? He’s a cuddly teddy bear! He’s not a gangster at all, but a businessman who runs a successful fabric/tailor shop that has multiple branches, and now that Mi-ok is no longer in high school, he’s totally cool with her dating.

Deok-sun’s mom waits up that night wondering what’s keeping Dad so long, and finally heads outside to wait in the street. She finds just sitting outside, and he tells her solemnly that the bank forced him to retire today. He tells her that he’s sorry and Mom spills tears, but she sits by his side and holds his hand, and tells him that he has nothing to be sorry for.

Jung-hwan’s dad wakes up in the middle of the night to find Mom sitting in the dark. He’s worried about her and asks if she’s okay, and she just quietly admits, “I’m not okay. I’m not okay.” He goes over to her and puts an arm around her and just holds her that night.

Deok-sun’s parents tell all the kids about Dad’s early retirement, and Dad tells them it was his idea to take the extra pension bonus while they were offering it. Jung-hwan’s dad pops by to talk to Deok-sun’s mom, and later the dads gather at Taek’s dad’s store and Jung-hwan’s dad says he got kicked out of the house.

Deok-sun’s dad says that it’ll happen from time, and remembers his wife throwing some punches last year when she went through menopause. Jung-hwan’s mom doesn’t even know why she blew up at her husband earlier, and says she’ll just be irrationally angry one minute and then crying the next.

Deok-sun’s mom says she still dumps a bucket of cold water on her head before going to bed, and that it’ll get better. The other two moms envy her for having daughters at a time like this, especially one like Deok-sun. Sun-woo’s mom says she’d love to have her for a daughter-in-law. Good, ’cause you’re about to.

In flashback we see Deok-sun’s mom go through depression the year before, but Deok-sun came home all the time to force Mom out of bed and take her out on mommy-daughter dates.

She painted Mom’s nails and lifted her mood, and Dad even got jealous of all the attention, muttering that he wanted to be born a mom in his next life. So Deok-sun painted Dad’s nails too, LOL. She left medicine on Mom’s nightstand with little notes, and Mom was so touched to be taken care of in that way.

The news reports on Taek’s big win in Beijing, and Deok-sun runs out the minute Taek calls. No-eul thinks it’s suspicious, but Bora tells him to mind his own business. Taek grabs Deok-sun’s hand and pulls her toward him, and they cuddle like that right in the middle of their street.

Deok-sun says that Dad’s retirement ceremony is tomorrow, and she can already feel the tears coming. Taek hugs her and asks if he can go too, but she tells him to stay home because he’ll become the center of attention if he comes, and tomorrow is Dad’s day. Aw, I love that she’s that thoughtful. Taek tries to wheedle an invite anyway, but she puts her foot down and he complies very obediently. Okay, that’s adorable.

Mom dresses Dad in his best suit the next morning, and when they step outside, Jin-ju and her parents are outside with a bouquet of flowers at the ready, and Jung-hwan’s parents run out with flowers too. They all congratulate Deok-sun’s dad on a job well done, and he heads off to work for the last time.

Bora tells Sun-woo about it afterwards, and she complains that the bank held the most cursory ceremony for the thirty employees who were retiring, and didn’t even give a single gift or plaque to acknowledge Dad’s thirty years of dedication to his job. In the background, we hear Deok-sun arrive and raise a stink, and the three siblings hunch over Bora’s desk to take matters into their own hands.

Jung-hwan calls home and tells Jung-bong not to wait up because he’ll get in very late that night, and he worries when Jung-bong says he’s not sure whether Mom is okay. Jung-hwan sighs that Mom could really use a daughter, and declares himself the second daughter who’s on his way.

But even still, Jung-hwan isn’t prepared when he comes home to find Mom sitting in the dark with a sad, faraway look in her eyes. She doesn’t have the usual reaction to his arrival and just goes to bed, and he’s even more worried to discover every single family photo in their house turned around or put face-down. He puts them all back the way they’re supposed to be, and lingers on his parents’ old wedding photo.

Jung-hwan runs into Sun-woo in the street early the next morning, and Jung-hwan jabs him as he asks how things are going with Bora. Sun-woo just smiles sheepishly.

Jung-hwan is frustrated that no one seems to have any good ideas for a restaurant for Mom’s birthday dinner tonight, when Dong-ryong calls asking him to bring everyone he knows to his restaurant. He had a huge wedding party cancel at the last minute because the bride ran off with her first love (okay, don’t say things like that!) and doesn’t want the food to go to waste. Dong-ryong offers to change the wedding cake to a birthday cake, but Jung-hwan tells him to leave it as it is because he has an idea.

Group by group, everyone in the cast files into Dong-ryong’s restaurant, and Bora and Sun-woo stop to smile at each other, and Taek and Deok-sun do the same. Dong-ryong and his brother seem concerned about their mom, but we don’t hear any specifics. Jung-hwan’s family is the last to arrive, and Jung-hwan pulls Dad aside and whispers something in his ear.

While they sneak off into a side room, a server spills a plate of kimchi all over Jung-hwan’s mom, and mentions that they do have something she could change into. Jung-hwan makes sure that Dong-ryong has the cake and music ready and tells Hyung to be the flower girl, and when he tries to hand off bouquet duty to someone else, Dong-ryong makes him do it because this was his idea. In classic Jung-hwan fashion, he complains but does it anyway.

Dong-ryong enlists Deok-sun’s mom to help coax Jung-hwan’s mom out of the back room, and she comes out wearing a pretty evening gown and feeling silly because she’s now way overdressed for dinner. But then wedding music begins to play, and Dad steps out in a tuxedo and walks down the aisle toward her.

Mom bursts into tears and laughs and cries the whole time, as Jung-hwan hands her a bouquet and Jung-bong sprinkles flower petals in their path. They walk down the aisle together as everyone cheers and chants for them to kiss, and then Dong-ryong wheels out a wedding cake and a photographer takes pictures of the family.

Afterwards Mom asks whose idea this was, and Jung-bong pats Jung-hwan on the back and answers, “Your daughter.” Dad asks how he knew that their wedding photo was fake, because Mom and Dad were convinced that they’d never find out. Aw, were they too poor for a real wedding? And that’s why Jung-hwan did this? Could you possibly be any sweeter?

Mom says that she’s all better now thanks to him, and then bursts into tears all over again. Jung-hwan gets all gruff about the tears and Dong-ryong has to yell at him to keep his mouth shut.

At the next table over, Deok-sun’s dad says it’s nothing to cry about, which is when Deok-sun hands him a present to commemorate his retirement. He opens it up to find a large plaque, and when Jung-hwan’s dad gets too teary-eyed to read it, Deok-sun read it aloud.

It thanks Dad for his years of service to the bank, and says that even though he’ll no longer be called by his job title, he’ll always be Mom’s husband and proud father to Bora, Deok-sun, and No-eul. It lists Dad’s favorite foods, his favorite activities like buying random things and kissing his children, and says, “But what our Dad loves most is his family.”

Deok-sun begins to cry, and so does just about everyone else. “As your daughters, as your son, we’re sorry for not giving you a warm word, for not sharing a drink with you, for not being able to hug you first, for not saying ‘I love you,’ and for not being able to fathom the weight of the name Dad.” It’s signed from each of them, thanking him for being “the dad Bora respects, the dad who’s like a friend to Deok-sun, and the dad that No-eul depends on.”

Of course, the only dry eye in the house is Dad himself, who does not cry in public. He wonders in his grumpy way why they insisted on reading that aloud and bringing the mood down, so Dong-ryong’s dad signals for music and starts chanting for Jung-hwan’s mom to come out and dance. In no time it’s a party again.

Deok-sun’s parents sit outside that night and reflect on how quickly the years have passed, and Dad says he realized tonight that he was so fixated on the leaves falling that he forgot new fruit would appear. He says that he might’ve gotten laid off from the bank, but did one hell of a job raising his kids.

Mom nods in agreement, though she reminds him that there’s always time for one of them to give them a hard time about something. He laughs and says that one day their children will know their parents’ hearts and answer.

The next day, the moms are gathered and Dong-ryong’s mom says she’s starting work as a cashier at the nearby supermarket. She admits that she ran away from home a few weeks ago, and only just returned last night. She says with a sigh that she didn’t like the idea of her whole identity being Dong-ryong’s mom, and one day as she was taking care of her grandchildren and just couldn’t handle it.

The moms realize now that Dong-ryong’s dad was home because he was taking care of the kids, and we see him in flashback, calling to make sure that Mom was okay at her sister’s house and just taking care of the babies on his own so that she could rest all she wanted.

Bora comes home and drops off some fruit on her way in, and both Mom and Sun-woo’s mom notice a gold band on her finger. Jung-hwan’s mom asks if Bora isn’t going to marry, and Mom says she thinks Bora is dating someone right now.

Two seconds later, Sun-woo comes by with pastries for his mom, and ack, he’s wearing the matching ring. It does not go unnoticed by the two moms, who suddenly aren’t smiling anymore. Uh-oh.

 
COMMENTS

*CRACK* There goes my heart. I can’t believe I had to go through that a second time. Why, Jung-hwan-ah, why? Why did you tug at every single one of my heartstrings and then just give up? The last episode was such a blow that I was waiting for the big reversal today, thinking that he couldn’t just fold like that with one confession, that it couldn’t be the end. I’m still a little bit in denial, but what can you do when Deok-sun has made her choice? Obviously it’s a case where no one would fault her for choosing either of them, but no matter how much I love Taek as a character, I’m more heartbroken for Jung-hwan and his epic one-sided love.

I’m convinced that this writer is just sadistic with her love for the guy who doesn’t get the girl. She did it once with Chilbongie, and I thought he couldn’t be topped until Jung-hwan came along. It was probably a trap all along to rely on the fact that he was written in every way to be the typical leading man, but it’s not like anything would’ve stopped me from rooting for him anyway. I was just a goner from the moment he started crushing on her. He made petty, childish first love swoony and the bromance just as heart-wrenching as the romance. I just can’t help feeling like he was written as the lead with the bait-n-switch in mind, which hurts in a whole new way because I feel like I was led down this path so that the heartbreak would land with maximum pain. I know he’s a good person and a good friend for stepping back when he knew he’d already lost his chance with Deok-sun, and I know that it matters more that Deok-sun loves Taek now and chooses him. I just need to cry some more about it, is all.

I did love FINALLY, FINALLY seeing Deok-sun show her feelings, which were kept at a distance from us for so long to keep the damned husband mystery alive, that I stopped caring much about her feelings in all of this. It was refreshing to be privy to that side of her that we hadn’t seen since her very first high school crushes on Sun-woo and Jung-hwan, and once we got to see her getting excited for Taek’s call and getting dressed up to go meet him for dinner, it was obvious where her heart was. I hope there’s more of it coming, because her side of the romance got shortchanged for it to remain a mystery, and though I get that this is what keeps us on the hook, now I want to see her feelings develop more concretely, whether it’s through more flashbacks or future conflict in her relationship with Taek.

I still didn’t expect their first-kiss conversation to go the way it did though, because it sounded like a rejection at first, the way she said she lied because she didn’t want there to be awkwardness between them. Taek took it like a rejection too, but it just goes to show that the guy who fights to the end gets the girl, because he risks getting rejected all over again to ask her plainly how she feels now, and she throws a curveball at him and at us. And no matter how heartbroken I am about Jung-hwan, I could never complain about Taek being so bold as to go after the love of his life, and seize the moment when she opens her heart to him. And of course they’re adorable together, but that’s always been the case.

As always with this show, the family stories are what really move me. There was a bittersweet thread in today’s stories about Deok-sun’s dad’s retirement and Jung-hwan’s mom’s menopause, and it felt like an entire episode dedicated to aging and mourning one’s youth gracefully. I’m constantly floored by all the ways that these kids step up and care for their parents in little ways, but none more than Deok-sun and Jung-hwan. It’s touching to see how different it was for Deok-sun’s mom to go through menopause and depression because she had a daughter who knew her needs without having to be told, but then I was doubly moved when Jung-hwan overcame that deficiency anyway and found a way to lift Mom’s spirits and show her how much she’s loved. He’s just… he’s not real, this guy.

And who knew that the final mystery would be Sun-woo and Bora’s, or more specifically what reason their parents would have for opposing their marriage. It must have something to do with Sun-woo’s father, and his death? I expected Sun-woo’s mom to dislike Bora for her prickly personality, but this goes beyond that, and her mom seems more opposed to the match, which makes me even more curious. I’m sure they’ll work it out—we only have one episode left to tie up all our loose ends, marry off the couples, and find Jung-hwan someone perfect. Ugh, nope. Not there yet. Still in denial. Maybe a drink (or ten?) will help.

 
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