Halfway in, this drama continues to deliver a satisfying combination of romance, warmth and humor. This week we face the first separation of our couple-not-yet-a-couple. Just when Bom-yi finds herself hopelessly, wonderfully in love with a man who feeds her soul with his adoring breathless gazes, he is gone. Their relationship has morphed several times already from enemies to friends, and now to lovers. Will his absence from her do what he hopes and end it completely?

Despite the fact that lots of flash-itty back-itting filled up this episode, I liked it. We needed space and time to watch our characters deal with the consequences of Bom-yi knowing the donor’s identity. It didn’t feel rushed because of how well we are acquainted with the characters. Bom-yi has had to cope with difficult choices before. She doesn’t waste time processing, but jumps right into action.

Episode 9 recap:

Dong-ha walks through the hospital remembering what his Hyung told him about not being greedy for Stepanette. I am not sure if it is his guilt or his relief that troubles him.

Bom-yi’s Apa has trouble getting through a sliding door because he is holding two cups of coffee. Dong-ha demonstrates how it is done, by putting one in his mouth to free a hand. Apa is very impressed. He still worries about the CEO getting close to his daughter since they work at the same place, despite Dong-wook’s confidence that she will never find out. When Dong-wook informs Apa about having told Hyung about the heart, the Chairman understands why exactly, “Good. He’ll be uncomfortable seeing Bom-yi after finding out.” Dong-wook lets him know that Dong-ha went to Udo Island.

Bom-yi searches Hanu Haon for Dong-ha, and Sec Park lets her know that the CEO had left on a not-at-all urgent business trip. Recalling his words about keeping her in his memory, she realizes he had planned on leaving before.

On Udo, Dong-ha reflects on the events from his wife’s memorial day. He pictures himself standing out by the ocean, chatting to her how the kids have grown and reading a letter from Ba-da. Ba-da knows she is watching him from heaven, but he can’t see her even so he misses her. The very moment Dong-ha ripped up the letter and threw it into the waves is when the Bom-yi attacked him for polluting. The look on his face seeing the girl from the meat shop is even funnier now that we have seen them so chummy.

He moves along the road, remembering how Bom-yi made fast friends with his children by the ice cream. Then at home in his yard, imagining the BBQ with Gil-dong yapping away when Bom-yi chowed down on the meat. One quick glance to the Shepherd Rock makes him shake his head and sigh.

Bom-yi brings a report to Meat Mom in the Ripening room. Mom notices Bom-yi seems troubled. The phone rings and Bom-yi hears Mom admonishing Dong-ha for disappearing suddenly when someone who worked for him could have attended the meetings on Jeju. She knows something is wrong with him, too, but stops asking when he denies it. The door swings open, slamming Bom-yi in the arm. Dong-ha hears his mother cry out, “Miss Lee Bom-yi. Are you okay?” but doesn’t get a chance to learn more Mom hangs up so fast.

Bom-yi almost walks into the Men’s room; Se-na stops her. Bom-yi continues into the Women’s room and leans forlornly against the wall.

Dong-ha sweeps up at his Udo home, complaining about the dust. He re-imagines yelling at Bom-yi for “going through his kitchen,” realizing in spite of being physically far away, “I see her everywhere.”

Hearing suspicious noises, Gil-dong enters cautiously and brandishes a back scratcher screaming to scare away the ghost or thief, or whatever.

Dong-ha complains that the house is like a pigsty. Gil-dong’s only excuse is it isn’t his house, though he stays because it’s comfortable. Gil-dong objects to Dong-ha accusing him of being too messy to get married. “Actually, it’s my decision not to get married. If I lined up all the women who have a crush on me, it’d be a hundred meters long.”  Dong-ha replies with his familiar line “What the hell are you saying?” Gil-dong knows something is wrong, and doesn’t buy that a seminar brought him to Udo.

Se-na finds Bom-yi moping, and admits she did her Bom-yi’s “hands, ears, eyes” lament.

“You like the CEO, right?” Bom-yi’s heartbreaking look confirms it. “Since you spend so much time with him, of course you’d end up with a crush on him.” She warns that this is something she shouldn’t do. Bom-yi is not receptive.

Dong-ha calls home to find Samchoon is hanging out with his kids, which, frankly confuses them. He tells Poo-reun to give him a chance to get close to them. Gil-dong mentions Dong-wook having a good woman by his side is good for the whole family – she makes it peaceful. Then stops himself, “Oh, that’s right. It’s her.” They get into a you-call-me-Hyung-I’m-older-than-you battle, both claiming their fathers waited to register their births. “Lucky you for being old.” Dong-ha tells him.

“Lucky you for having a young face,” Gil-dong replies. They pour each other drinks to end the feud.

Chez Kang, Samchoon awkwardly hands the kids cash as he didn’t have time to buy gifts. I love their reaction. Like he’s handing them poop.

Gramma tells them to offer their proper thanks and they do. Ba-da slides over his favorite food for Samchoon to thank him for taking them on the picnic.

Dong-wook smiles very sincerely; everyone relaxes. The rapprochement has begun!

On the way out, Gramma asks if Dong-wook requested that his girl take care of the kids while Dong-ha was sick. Dong-wook had no idea about this.

 Dong-ha and Gil-dong, after emptying quite a few bottles, sing a melancholy song about losing their youth.

Gil-dong demands to know why Dong-ha came out to the island so suddenly. Dong-ha just wants to forget. “I wish that I could go back to sleep there again tonight, I wish that after waking up, I’d find out this were all a dream.” “You aren’t good,” Gil-dong points out, “at forgetting things.” (I suddenly realize that Gil-dong reminds me of Pooh and I love him even more.)

“What can I do? I should do it slowly. I’ll forget yesterday tomorrow. I’ll forget the day before yesterday on the day after tomorrow and I’ll forget the two days before yesterday two days after tomorrow…I’ll forget everything someday.” He considers how this plan has worked for him so far. “But when I try to forget it makes me to think of her more. Wherever I look, I see her.”

Bom-yi lays on her side, speaking on the phone – totally depressed, “Mr. Kang Dong Ha. It’s me, Bom-yi. I got home safely. I’ll take a shower and go to sleep. Where are you now? Oh, Udo Island? I really want to be there too.” ☹

The phone really rings, and it is Poo-reun inviting her out for pizza.

Since Dong-wook gave them money, they would treat. When she protests that she should pay, Poo-reun replies that is what friends do for each other.  They make a date for the next night, and Bom-yi hesitantly asks about their father. “Your dad isn’t there. Are you all right?”  Poo-reun finds it strange that Bom-yi apologizes. They say good night.

Dong-ha sits out by Shepherd Rock drinking more. He looks miserably at the spot to his side where Bom-yi belongs.

Bom-yi dreams herself back at the hospital where she had soothed a grieving Dong-ha. But he isn’t in his spot, either,  near the wall. She wakes and sits up, “He’s gone,” wondering what that could mean.

At the same time, Dong-ha sleeps still out in the field, even with the bright sun shining down.

Drab in gray, Bom-yi comes down to leave for work. Her gloomy expression and mismatched socks signal things are not right with her.

Mom worries, “She’s so high one day and beside herself the next.” (If mom were any more clueless, I would guess she’s drinking scotch all day instead of tea.) She asks Dad if maybe Dr. Kang and she fought. “If only,” is his mysterious reply that catches Mom’s attention. He tells her not to worry. “She’ll be fine soon. There’s nothing we can do but wait.” Mom doesn’t believe his assertion that he’s hiding nothing from her.

Bom-yi boards the bus in a daze. She swipes her cell phone to pay, instead of her wallet; the bus driver scolds her. She gets off to check her purse and while searching frustrated for the wallet, the bus leaves to her great dismay.

Dong-ha and Gil-dong drive up in the white truck. Both get out, and head inside, but Dong-ha forgets to turn the ignition off and Gil-dong yells at him, ” You came to forget so you forget to turn it off? Hey! Why don’t you forget your name too?”

Missing the bus made Bom-yi late for a meeting; she apologizes to Boss Mom.

Se-na asks for an explanation, while Mom looks anxious and nods in greeting. Dong-ha wanders outside at the meeting site, and again Gil-dong has to pull him back to reality and into the seminar. Dong-ha keeps saying he forgot and he is sorry.

Park and Se-na coo flirt about seeing each in their dreams the previous night while Bom-yi sits glumly staring.

Park desribes his feelings, while Bom-yi imagines the first time she came out to Hanu Haon to meet with Dong-ha, “This is the first time I’ve ever felt like this. Even if I’m apart from you for a moment, I long for you. I miss you. I hurt just thinking of you. What’s wrong with me?”  Se-na explains that is how you feel when you are in love. They screech in laughter then run off to get their drink order.

Bom-yi sees Dong-ha calling on Park’s cell and answers it. Dong-ha keeps calling “Yobosayo!” as she takes in the sound of his voice, but stays silent.

He checks his screen to see if they are still connected or if the call dropped. When the lovebirds return, Bom-yi hangs up, puts the phone down and leaves. As soon as Park notices the call record, he dials the CEO back, who still thinking there was something wrong with the phone. “Can you hear me?”

Park informs him it was Bom-yi who picked up the call, “Miss Bom-yi is so lonely. She doesn’t talk and she doesn’t smile. She’d just start crying if someone so much as touches her. Stop now and hurry back. You shouldn’t do this.” After he promises to fax the paper and hangs up, Se-na demands, “Are the CEO and Bom-yi seeing each other?”  He tells her that, yes, the CEO likes Bom-yi very much, which is news to her. She tells him about the CEO’s brother dating her, which is news to him.

As part of a the hopitals PR, Dong-wook does an interview with a magazine. The interviewer states that his is the top pulmonologist in the country.

This it isn’t supposed to be part of a doctor’s duty’s to do these things, he grumbles to Ji-won who lets him know they “insisted on you as this year’s trendy man.”

He invites her to lunch where they talk about Bom-yi working at Hanu Haon. “Have you broken up completely?” He tells her it is one sided now on his part, “It feels like I am trying to hold sand in my palm, but it slips away too easily. Everyone I have loved has left me.” This hits a nerve for her, “I think that’s your problem. Your sister-in-law, Miss Bom-yi and I are all different people, but you think of us as one. ‘They all left me.’ ‘They all abandoned me.’” She has been curious for a while, how did he begin dating Bom-yi when they started out as doctor/patient? “After you left me for Chairman Song and when I was despair. Bom-yi got a job at the hospital.” Her energy and courage cheered him up. “Since I was her doctor she thought that I saved her life so she respected me and treated me like God. When I was with Bom-yi, I could forget how pathetic of a person I am.”

Ji-won listens silently. As they leave to get into the car, Ji-won gets a call from Song. Dong-wook watches and the expression on his face –jealousy? – stops Ji-won in her tracks.

Bom-yi is slumped all over a desk in the test kitchen.

Mom walks in and approaches her, alarmed. She asks if she is OK and if the work is too much. Bom-yi apologizes again. She lets the grandmother know she will be seeing Poo-reun Ba-da that night and invites her to go with. When the older woman declines, Bom-yi shows her the cell pictures from the picnic. Mom’s eyes fill with tears “They’ve grown so much.” Bom-yi likes their names that mean blue sea in Korean and learns that their Mom worked hard as a diver and loved the sea.

“It’s true the sea around Udo is beautiful,” Bom-yi says. But not to Mom, ”It isn’t beautiful. Damn that sea. Nobody could imagine that the sea she loved so much would eat her up.”

Those are the exact same words Ba-da used, and Bom-yi suddenly remembers. She starts to piece together events, her descent into the water being stopped by someone. Soo-jung’s grateful face holding the returning Poo-reun. Bom-yi asks, if she lived in Seoul, how did she die in the sea at Udo? Mom explains how on her oldest son’s birthday, they went back to visit the island. Flashback for Bom-yi: Angry Dong-ha yelling to take off the dress, and Poo-reun’s apology that it’s his birthday and something else…

Mom’s concern increases as Bom-yi runs outside. The girl stops on the walkway to think. More pieces fall into place: the bracelet, the surgery anniversary necklace, the 5 years keeps coming back, Dong-wook’s strangeness over her meeting with Hyung. Bom-yi runs by Se-na and ignores her friend.

Incredibly tense and still reeling from what she has figured out, Bom-yi confronts Dong-wook at the hospital looking for confirmation that her guess is correct. That Dong-wook’s sister-in-law died on the day she had surgery, five years ago on Dong-ha’s birthday.

“Was your sister-in-law my heart donor?”

He stammers, unable to reply. Bom-yi then understands that he did know. It upsets her that others knew. Hyung-nim, too?

“Why didn’t you warn me?” Recalling how she acted agonizes her. “If you’d told me, I wouldn’t have…He pushed me away so hard and I didn’t know why…” A suspicion surfaces, “The reason your brother likes me is my heart? The reason why Poo-reun and Ba-da like me and that your mother is so nice to me is because of my heart?”

Poor thing questions all interactions she has had with them.

She pleas with him to tell her, as a doctor, he would know. He must know. Dong-ha, unsure himself, has no words of comfort, and she takes his silence as agreement. “Then what about you? The reason you liked me was because of my heart?” Sobbing now, shaken to the core, she tries to manage the self-doubt hitting. At a crosswalk, still in a daze, she hears Dong-ha’s voice, “Give me some time. I’ll get better as time passes. I’m sorry that I like you.” In her memory, once again, her hand reaches for Dong-ha’s hair, and he turns around surprised. Dong-ha’s “Maybe I was confused” about his feelings makes sense now. His accusation that her feelings for him weren’t real. But she also remembers his certainty that the heart belongs solely to her now.

She cries and cries standing on the curb, unable to move forward.

The Kang kids sit with Gramma at the pizza place. They are hungry and impatient for Bom-yi, but they can wait. Gramma offers to leave them to be alone, but they assure her how kind Bom-yi is. Poo-reun phones Bom-yi who is staying outside instead of joining them. Looking up at the little family together inside the restaurant, Bom-yi apologizes she can’t make it.

Unable to hide the misery in her voice, she claims nothing is wrong when Poo-reun asks. “I’m sorry, Poo-reun. I’m sorry, Ba-da.” Then, using the formal expression, apologizes.

Dad checks in with Poo-reun later, asking how the pizza date went. The young girl fills him in on the fact Bom-yi didn’t show, and that she kept repeating she was sorry and sounded like she was crying. Dong-ha betrays no interest to Poo-reun, but the words give him pause. He goes outside to the deck, remembering her confession that someone suffered because of her. Holding the bracelet, Bom-yi sits on the big bed of unhappiness, and remembers Dong-ha’s warm assurance that the donor’s family just wants her to live well to show appreciation for the gift, placing his hand on their her heart.

She texts Dong-ha Now I know who donated my heart. Thank you. I didn’t know what you meant then but I do appreciate your kind words, even though you knew everything. I’m very sorry thinking about how difficult it was for you to see me when you knew all about it.

To be so far away when reading this outburst of sorrow, Dong-ha breaks his silence and replies. Are you all right? I told you not to be sorry. If you feel bad after receiving a gift, the person who gave it to you would be disappointed. I’m sorry that I left without saying goodbye. I hope that you can forget everything and be happy. His final sounding “Take care.” convinces nobody that their relationship is over. Bom-yi concludes: I know that you liked me because of my heart and not me but I hope that you know my feelings were real. Outside her house, Dong-wook stands and thinks, but doesn’t try to contact her.

The next day, Meat Mom makes an SOS call. Bom-yi is in her room with her. “Can you come here now? Miss Lee Bom-yi visited me this morning and suddenly said she wants to quit. She’s sitting here without even moving so I’m worried about her.” Again and again, Bom-yi says she is sorry. Mom doesn’t understand what she is so sorry for.

Dong-wook carries her away in his car, his questions elicit no response from her, sitting numb beside him.

When they get to her house, she’s about to go in when he stops her. He insists that it wasn’t because of her heart that he liked her. Not for a moment. She wasn’t a substitute for anyone else. More importantly, he admits the validity of her feelings. Bravely, he reveals his thoughts, “That means the time we spent together is meaningless now. Also, Hyung’s feelings aren’t fake either.” Confessing his motive in revealing Bom-yi’s heart donor was to separate them. The cloud seems to lift from Bom-yi’s expression. “How he feels about you, I think it’s real.” She barely absorbs the meaning of the words before she starts to go, to go to Dong-ha, wherever he is, turning back briefly when Dong-wook calls her name.

Gil-dong and Dong-ha are on their way to a meeting, when a text arrives for Dong-ha. He reads it, surprised.

Images of the sea around Udo appear, and we hear Dong-wook’s text: Bom-yi went to you. She stands out on a rock, talking to Soo-jung. “I know how to live now. I’ve realized too late. But if you really sent me here, that means you are allowing it.”

“What are you doing there?” Dong-ha asks as grumpy as ever. Bom-yi turns to face him. He doesn’t take his eyes from hers as he steps closer. “Why did you come here?”

“I missed you,” she answers and slowly a smile appears. Dong-ha looks at her wordlessly.

Thoughts:

I was very glad to learn more about how Dong-wook and Bom-yi started to date. It not only shows he isn’t really over Ji-won, but that he admits Bom-yi admired him more than cherished him. I was very proud that he let Bom-yi go so selflessly. He was able to give her hope with one sentence, “I think it’s real.” Something she never would have completely believed without his confirmation. He is my hero!

Poor Dong-ha. How deluded is he to think putting distance between him and Bom-yi would make a difference? Forgetting is not something he’s good at, Gil-dong informs us. Maybe he’d hoped the relentless Udo winds would help chase out his memories. We see the usually unshakable Dong-ha absent-mindedly leaving the car running, and forgetting appointments. His mind too full of missing her to fit in anything else. Mother Nature’s outward battering has nothing on the turmoil he’s carrying inside.

Now that Bom-yi has gone to him, he has to face his feelings, not try to run from them. I love the fact that they are back at Udo alone with a green light from Dong-wook. Time for lots of hugs and kisses, Show!