Fox Bride Star: Episodes 11-12

by LollyPip

We get a lot of answers in this episode, mostly regarding the past, but as usual the answers only lead to more questions. Everyone’s emotions are out in the open now, with accusations and confessions flying back and forth causing both confusion and clarity. But even with all the drama going on, one thing makes it all worth it – Soo-yeon’s smile.

 
EPISODE 11: “The time it takes for one’s heart to move”

Yeo-reum tries to figure out why Soo-yeon helped her mother, but he denies that he wanted to be a hero or likes doing good deeds. Finally she asks, “Then do you like me?” and after a long, long pause, he answers a simple, “Yes.” He thinks, She asked, and she thinks, He answered.

Eun-seob waits at the airport for Yeo-reum to return, knowing she has no place to stay. He watches her return and pace back and forth as if she’s not sure what to do. Finally he calls out to her, and at her strange expression, he asks if something happened.

She blurts out, “It’s Lee Soo-yeon. He likes me,” and Eun-seob’s smile falters.

We see more of the conversation between Seo-koon and In-woo outside the Fox Bride Star bar. In-woo asks if Soo-yeon requested to be transferred to Terminal Two, and when Seo-koon accuses him of being overly dramatic, he says that what’s dramatic is the way Soo-yeon walks around as if he’s perfectly fine. He claims that it’s impossible for Soo-yeon, who lost all nerve feeling in his right arm and leg, to appear so normal.

At home, Soo-yeon uses a remote device to open a secret door in the wall, and steps up to it to take out what looks like a piece of his arm prosthetic.

Seo-koon tells In-woo, “Sometimes, things that can’t be explained by common sense happen like miracles. And that miracle happened to Soo-yeon.” In-woo asks if she’s saying it was all a coincidence and a miracle, and she says it’s true, warning him to stop talking about Soo-yeon’s disability.

In-woo had asked his question a different way: “Soo-yeon’s arm… what is it? You say it’s a coincidence and a miracle. What’s the truth behind his unbelievable arm?”

In voice-over, Soo-yeon says that what seems impossible to one person can be a miracle to someone else. He puts on the new, slightly different prosthetic and looks at it in the mirror, and thinks of Yeo-reum’s necklace attaching himself to his arm: “And a moment that seems to pass like a coincidence could feel like fate to another.”

He remembers her walking into the Fox Bride Star bar one day, the first time he ever saw her. He heads to the bar and knocks until Bartender Jang answers.

Eun-seob asks Yeo-reum if she and Soo-yeon are dating now that he confessed. Yeo-reum explodes that she has no time for that when she doesn’t even have a home, nor would she date a coworker, and that she plans to tell Soo-yeon so tomorrow. Eun-seob looks incredibly relieved.

Although Bartender Jang said it would take a day to fix Soo-yeon’s prosthetic and advised him to take a day off work, Soo-yeon asks him to fix his arm now. When BJ asks why, Soo-yeon just says he really wants to go to work tomorrow.

Young-joo kicks so much butt in her and Dae-ki’s marital arts class that a classmate asks Dae-ki if she’s upset about something. He asks her and she says no, then invites him to go a round. It makes Dae-ki hilariously nervous, but he agrees, and is immediately slammed to the mat, ha.

Yeo-reum is still storing her things in a back room at the airport, strategically arranged behind some cardboard sheets. But after she gets dressed for work today, the cardboard slides down, exposing her suitcase.

Soo-yeon is so cute – he can’t quite suppress his smile on his way to the office, but he’s disappointed when Yeo-reum isn’t at her desk yet. She’s hiding from him, nervous because she said she was going to reject him this morning.

She starts to compose a text to him, but while she’s still working out how to word it, Manager Gong sneaks up on her and reads part of it. He thinks Soo-yeon asked her to borrow money, and he doesn’t believe her that that’s not the case.

She gives up and goes to her desk, studiously ignoring Soo-yeon, which gives him a chance to take cute little love-struck peeks at her (oh, my heart). Yeo-reum can’t quite catch him at it, but she’s so hyper-aware of him that when Manager Gong calls Soo-yeon’s name, she accidentally answers. LOL.

Manager Kwon calls the team leaders together to discuss the public’s positive reaction to the way they handled the recent emergency. He says the airport CEO is coming to personally thank them, and that they’ve gotten fewer complaints overall since Seo-koon came on board.

In-woo asks Team Leader Choi how Security is managing the support devices of employees with disabilities. Team Leader Choi says dryly that they aren’t, because it’s a matter of privacy. In-woo tells Manager Kwon that one of their employees wears support devices on an arm and leg that may not be safe, and Seo-koon cuts in, taking offense to In-woo’s attempted violation of Soo-yeon’s privacy.

He argues that their passengers’ safety is more important than one person’s privacy. Seo-koon doesn’t see how a support device could be dangerous, but In-woo just says that’s why they should check and make sure.

Manager Kwon orders Team Leader Choi to check the device that’s upsetting In-woo so much, and report to him. After the meeting ends, Seo-koon asks Team Leader Choi if he’s really going to do it. He says he’s obligated to, and Seo-koon warns that as soon as he tries, Soo-yeon will quit, but it doesn’t change his mind.

As he walks through the terminal with Yeo-reum, Soo-yeon thinks, “All I ever wanted was to live a quiet, normal life. I just wanted to live each day and focus on the present with someone by my side like this.” He grins at Yeo-reum’s obvious discomfort, until she finally rounds on him.

She stammers that their conversation last night doesn’t mean they’re dating, but he says the thought never occurred to him. Yeo-reum says that she only asked if he likes her because she thought he’d say no, and he asks why she thought that.

Yeo-reum tells Soo-yeon that she’s taken aback by the fact that he likes her, but he doesn’t see the problem. She asks him, “Why me? I’m… I mean, I’m…” and he seems to find her confusion amusing. She finally concludes that she’s too average for a guy like him, who’s good at everything. She asks if he thinks of her as easy, and when he says he doesn’t, she says it makes no sense for him to like her.

She brings up that they’ve only known each other for three weeks. Soo-yeon replies, “Why is that important? It can take a heart three weeks, three years, or three seconds to start liking someone.” Yeo-reum asks if he thinks he can fall for someone in three seconds, but he just says that each person can have a different memory of when they first met someone.

Yeo-reum asks if he truly does remember their first meeting a year ago, when he saved her life. He thinks that that’s the first time she remembers seeing him, but he remembers seeing her at the Fox Bride Star bar.

Suddenly someone bumps into Yeo-reum, throwing her into Soo-yeon’s arms. After a long moment of shock on both their parts, she steps back to complain. She realizes that her hand is on his right arm, and she looks at him with questions in her eyes. Soo-yeon yanks his arm away violently, then he looks embarrassed, apologizes, and quickly walks away.

A group of rough-looking men walk into the Terminal Two office and surround Team Leader Lee’s desk. They accuse him of destroying their livelihoods, but he just notes that they reek of alcohol. The leader of the group orders Team Leader Lee to release the valet parking service but he says he can’t.

He tells the men to go home, but instead, they all take their jackets and shirts off and lie down on the floor. Manager Kwon calls Team Leader Lee from his office, worried about the CEO’s upcoming visit, but Team Leader Lee doesn’t seem that bothered. Manager Gong tells his coworker that Team Leader Lee and Manager Gong were hired in the same year, and were best friends — until Manager Kwon was promoted.

When Soo-yeon gets back to the office, Seo-koon pulls him aside and tells him not to go into the terminal for a while, or do anything to stand out. He asks why, and she warns him that Team Leader Choi will be investigating him soon.

EPISODE 12 RECAP

Seo-koon tells Soo-yeon that someone mentioned him in a meeting, and he correctly guesses that it was In-woo. As they talk, neither of them notices Young-joo watching them from nearby. She leaves when Dae-ki approaches, and he sees that she was watching Soo-yeon, though he can’t see Seo-koon from his angle.

Yeo-reum walks into the office to find the half-naked guys still sprawled all over the floor, and Team Leader Lee blandly tells her that this way is blocked, HA. She recognizes several of the valets by name, and they all wave hello at her excitedly.

Turns out, all of her violent episodes at the airport have been against the valets when she worked for Transportation. The guys actually seem to like her, and even Team Leader Lee smiles to himself.

She runs into In-woo, who asks if she found her mom the other night. He asks if they can consider it repayment for his reducing her salary for two months, and Yeo-reum is surprised he even remembers her.

He asks her to get a certain file from his desk and take it to the head of Facilities. She does, and under the file she sees Soo-yeon’s personnel papers. She scans it, and sees that Soo-yeon wears a support device.

Team Leader Choi begins his investigation by asking people around the airport if they’ve seen Soo-yeon do anything unusual. He watches video from the CCTV cameras, where he watches Soo-yeon pull the immigrant over the railing one-handed.

Young-joo asks Dae-ki about Soo-yeon, but Dae-ki doesn’t know much about him. He mentions the boyfriend he thinks Young-joo has, and when she says she can still be curious if she’s got a boyfriend, Dae-ki fusses at her about cheating. Young-joo asks when he last dated (college), if his girlfriend dumped him (his voice squeaks “No!”), and why he’s not over her yet (“I totally am!”). Hee, I love his adorable confusion whenever their conversations get away from him.

Soo-yeon takes In-woo somewhere private to ask why he ordered a background check on him. In-woo says that Soo-yeon bothers him, so he’s going to get rid of him. He complains that Soo-yeon always followed him around even when he told him to stop, which is how he got into his accident.

Growing angry, Soo-yeon asks, “Don’t you feel an ounce of guilt after what you did to me?” In-woo asks why he should feel guilty when Soo-yeon looks just fine, and Soo-yeon loses his temper. He grabs In-woo by the collar and slams him into the wall, growling, “You were my hyung!”

In-woo gasps that it was only because his father remarried, but it meant nothing to him. Soo-yeon recalls asking In-woo to eat on In-woo’s birthday, but In-woo had grumbled that they weren’t brothers anymore and never really were, and ordered Soo-yeon to stop following him around.

On his way home, In-woo had run into some guys (old friends/gangmates?) who had said something about him leaving them, then beaten him up. They’d thrown In-woo into a van and driven off when Soo-yeon saw them, and despite In-woo’s frantic nod for Soo-yeon to get lost, he’d followed the van on his scooter.

In-woo had looked more scared for Soo-yeon than the fact that he was being kidnapped, and he was right to be… the driver had turned into an alley, then deliberately backed into Soo-yeon at top speed, causing his horrific injuries.

The men had jumped out to check on Soo-yeon, leaving In-woo crying in the van. They’d assumed Soo-yeon was dying, and while they were deciding what to do with him, In-woo had jumped out. He’d seen Soo-yeon begging him, “Hyung, help me,” but he’d turned and run away, leaving Soo-yeon behind.

Back in the present, Soo-yeon cries at the memory, but he lets In-woo go with a barely audible, “You bastard.” He punches a huge dent in a metal grate as he walks away, and In-woo sinks to the floor, a single tear sliding down his face.

Manager Kwon decides to say something about the half-naked tattooed men in the office. He informs Team Leader Lee that the CEO will be there in an hour, but Team Leader Lee couldn’t possibly care less, and looks like he’s actually enjoying this. When Manager Kwon accuses them of being thugs, they all jump up to ask if he’s ever gotten a beating before.

Yeo-reum invites Eun-seob to lunch, where she says she tried to talk to Soo-yeon, then muses that you can’t judge someone by their appearance. She fusses at Eun-seob for never going on more than two dates with the same girl, saying that he’ll never get to know anyone that way.

He complains that even knowing someone a year does no good, glaring balefully and telling her “It’s you.” Yeo-reum thinks he’s joking around, and he sighs that that’s the problem.

Manager Gong calls Yeo-reum to ask her help in getting rid of the guys in the office, since she’s friendly with them. Manager Kwon has called in security, but it’s not like Dae-ki is very threatening, and the protesters refuse to move. One protester falls in the scuffle, hurting his knee, and then it’s on.

Soon the office is being trashed, while Team Leader Lee sits placidly. Hilariously, the fight is mostly a lot of biting and hair-pulling, so no one is seriously hurt. The leader goes after Manager Kwon, but a loud siren makes everyone stop and look up. It’s Team Leader Lee with a megaphone, and he calmly tells them it’s time to stop.

Manager Kwon roars that he wants them all punished, but Team Leader Lee placidly announces, “The CEO is here.” Whoops. As everyone stares in shock, the CEO says he’ll come back later and leaves. LOL! Yeo-reum runs in with impeccable timing, but Manager Gong grumbles that it’s all over, and Team Leader Lee tells the protesters to go.

When the security team get back to the office, Team Leader Choi quickly shuts his laptop and leaves. Young-joo gets complimented on how badass she was in there, while Dae-ki looks sheepish (since he got his butt kicked).

He responds a bit too forcefully to a report of an unknown suitcase in the tensabarrier storage room, ha. The Terminal Two office gets the same report, and Yeo-reum looks alarmed — those are her bags. Manager Gong guesses that they probably belong to an employee, and Yeo-reum timidly confesses, nearly giving poor Manager Gong a stroke.

At the end of the work day, In-woo invites Seo-koon for a drink and she completely ignores him. He asks again, but she just stares at him, almost pityingly.

Soo-yeon leaves for home and sees Yeo-reum sitting outside with her suitcases, nowhere to go (I love how he walks straight to her like the crowd doesn’t even exist). He asks if she has somewhere to go, so she tells him she can stay at a nearby sauna, and that she’s moving into housing tomorrow.

Soo-yeon asks her softly, “Do you want to come to my place? You can stay at my place for the night.” Surprised, Yeo-reum asks him, “Why me?” and he thinks, She asked. He says that it only took three seconds to like her, and she thinks, He answered.

He thinks again about the day one year ago when Yeo-reum walked into the Fox Bride Star bar. He’d been there eating, and he’d frozen at the sight of her. She’d ordered what he was eating, and he’d remembered someone showing him her picture and saying that she’s his daughter.

Yeo-reum had finally noticed Soo-yeon staring at her, as we hear again their conversation about falling for someone in three seconds. By the utterly smitten look on Soo-yeon’s face, that’s all it had taken for him to fall for her.

 
COMMENTS

I thought Soo-yeon couldn’t get any cuter, but what, now you’re telling me that he’s liked Yeo-reum for a year? That puts a different spin on everything, including the fact that Soo-yeon even works at the airport in the first place. No doubt he followed her there, which would be stalkerish except that he’s treated Yeo-reum like any other coworker, even getting upset and angry with her at times. He hasn’t pressured her to date him or even be friends — it’s like he just wanted to be near her, with no other expectations, which is pretty sweet. I originally thought he was a big old grump, but now I see him more as a big old squishy ball of feelings, and I just love him.

I can’t wait for Yeo-reum to start liking him back (well, she already does, but when she acknowledges it) because their adorable factor is going to be off the scale. I realized that the reason Soo-yeon likes Yeo-reum is probably because she doesn’t treat him like he’s an oddity or something to be afraid of because of his disability. Whatever it was about her that originally caught his eye (and his heart), you can tell that he appreciates the fact that she knows about his inability to feel pain, and his super strength, but she doesn’t let it influence how she sees him. She has compassion for him, and she instinctively understands that he doesn’t like to be asked about it, which has got to be so wonderful to a guy who clearly has something so unusual, even miraculous, going on that he has to hide it from the world. Having Yeo-reum not only treat him as normal, but as someone exceptional for normal reasons, has got to be something Soo-yeon hasn’t encountered much since his accident. It would be more surprising if he didn’t have feelings for her.

Finally we know a little more about Soo-yeon and In-woo’s history — it sounds like they were stepbrothers, but then their parents got divorced and In-woo tried to chase Soo-yeon off (possibly to protect him from the men who were following him?). But when the accident happened, In-woo had saved himself and left Soo-yeon to die, so it’s no wonder there’s a lot of bad feelings between them. I don’t even entirely blame In-woo for running, because Soo-yeon’s injuries did seem fatal, and he was terrified for his own life. Even if he’d tried to help Soo-yeon, he likely would have been no help anyway, and gotten himself killed in the process.

But Soo-yeon remembers it from the viewpoint of the young boy who watched his beloved hyung leave him to die, and who underwent months of agony and years of emotional anguish resulting from the accident, so I understand his hurt as well. Neither of them is wrong when it comes to their feelings, but what is wrong is how In-woo is acting now. He likely wants to get rid of Soo-yeon because if his rough history is discovered, he could lose his job and his good standing, and Soo-yeon is the only one who knows about that. And In-woo actually has good reason to suspect that Soo-yeon wants revenge, but it also shows that he doesn’t know Soo-yeon very well if he thinks that’s the kind of person Soo-yeon is. They have a lot of talking (and even more fighting) to do before they straighten this out, if it can even be straightened out.

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