It hit me this episode that Dan-ah does not really have any experience with affection or expressing it. I know she laid that kiss on him a few eps back, but that was more heat (and maybe a little power play?) than warmth. He’s the one who pulled her in for the hug, which she allowed, but only briefly. YH even comments on the “physical distance” between them. The few times where she’s stroked his face briefly always seem to me like a momentary slip of her self-control.

It feels like…she wants to experience the physical manifestation of their affection but she’s scared and doesn’t really know how. She already feels fragile because of her heart condition; and here she realizes she is putting her fragility into his hands – literally. So when he pulls her into his arms to rock her to sleep, I thought: our 2 couples are so flipped. MJ and SG already have emotional intimacy, so ramyeon invites are a logical next step. But for DA and YH, they don’t need the flash of that flame, they need the warmth. And that’s why that scene felt really intimate to me (also, god, their eyes). He rocks her to sleep, he carries her to the medical tent. She sends him away, but with much less of her usual bark and doesn’t protest when he won’t go. She’s starting to let him be with her.

My treatise now over (😂), this episode hit close to home because I think I have felt many of the same things that all of these characters have felt in the course of inter-personal relationships, and it’s been a while since I’ve felt like I could relate so strongly to an ensemble. There is something refreshingly realistic about the way this drama looks at people, lives, and connections.