Ya’ all know I adore my Kam with all my heart, but really, it’s time to send Choi Soo-young some ♥♥♥, too. After only three episodes getting to know Bom-yi, she has become one of my favorite younger female leads. What delights me is how normal the character is, though a lot nicer than I would ever be. While cheerful and kind, there isn’t a hint of the dreaded Candy. I attribute this to how intelligently the character is written, too. Yes, she works hard at her job, but it’s a career, not delivering milk. Yes, she is kind to children and old folks, but with a wink and a grin, making sure they know she’s boss.

She shines especially as an actress in one-on-one interactions with her co-stars, making it look easy when it just isn’t. Working with veteran actors like Kam, Shim Hye-jin, Kwon Hae-Hyo, and briefly in this episode with Kang Boo-ja, could be intimidating for a novice. Let’s compare dramographies – the actor playing her father has been in 56 productions to her one previous as a lead and a handful of walk-ons. It’s not like her job is to appear briefly in a scene, drop a line or two and disappear, either. She’s going toe-to-toe with Oma delivering a credible performance of the daughter on the verge of emancipation.

Episode 4 recap:

“Say hello to her, Hyung. Miss Lee Bom-yi is my girlfriend.” Shock from hearing those words washes over him. Bom-yi smiles self-consciously because she doesn’t know what else to do.

Poo-reun, also, is taken aback. For more than thirty seconds, Hyung, thunderstruck, is unable to find his voice. “What do you mean?” Maybe he hopes he misheard. “Your girlfriend is the daughter of your hospital’s director?”

This cannot be the same person. This is his person. Poo-reun’s person.

“Unni, aren’t you a dietitian?”

Yes, and she’s sorry that she couldn’t tell them earlier; she imagined her first impression wasn’t great wanting to wait until after pulling the posting to let him know. Dong-ha seems to be listening, but he’s still reeling and the words pass by unheard. Fortunately, her apology gives the man some time to recover but not enough.

Dong-wook says it isn’t her fault – no need to apologize. “I was involved too. I’m sorry if it hurt your feelings.”  But the longer Dong-ha absorbs the news, the more it rattles him. “No, it’s okay. There’s nothing I have to feel bad about. I’m… just a little surprised.”

Bom-yi apologizes again. “No, no, no,” he waves it away, ”It’s okay. It’s really okay.” He takes a sip of his water and drops the cup, spilling it down the front of his shirt.

He excuses himself, practically bolting from the table.  Poo-reun watches in silence. Uncle Dong-wook attempts small talk with his niece. Putting her arm around Poo-reun, Bom-yi repeats they’ll see each other often now.

The young girl listens to a few lines of cute between the lovebirds and announces where her loyalties lie by going to find her dad.

“Your brother doesn’t seem to like me.” Bom-yi worries. “That’s not true. He likes you.” She asks how he can tell and he replies, “I’m his brother. Of course I can tell by seeing his eyes and expression.”

In the Men’s Room, Dong-ha is doing his best to pull himself together. He rinses his hands vigorously, then runs them through his hair, grabbing the back of his skull as if to keep from exploding. He tries to shake off the disappointment of losing something he never really had in his grasp. Rearranging his hair and his expectations, he laughs cheerlessly at himself, shaking his head at the bewildering facts before him.

That the beautiful Stepanette of his dream belongs to another. That another is his brother.

Poo-reun sits outside on the bench in the hall. Tears fill her eyes and she can’t keep the corners of her mouth from pulling down.

 “Poo-reun. Why are you here?” She starts to sob. “Why are you crying, honey?” “I don’t know either,” she confesses. Oh, poor baby!  Dad says he knows. How could he? she asks. “You were hanging out with Unni like this and you liked it so you want me and Unni to keep seeing each other. Days like today you should just enjoy and forget.” I don’t think he is convincing anyone this is possible, but at least comforting Poo-reun helps him move through his hurt. “It’s being greedy otherwise.”  “Do you want it too, dad?” He mulls this question over and smiles, “No. Today was enough for me.” She doesn’t believe a word. “You’re lying.”

He laughs and tells her to wipe her tears while doing so, and warning that Uncle will feel bad if he sees her crying.

Thing is, Dong-wook is watching from down the hall.

Poo-reun stands forlornly off to the side as the adults say good-bye.

Dong-ha gives Bom-yi the thermos, but her hands are full from the bags. She asks Dong-wook to grab it. When her fiancé asks if she bought it, Dong-ha explains it was a free gift then jokes, “She threatened me and stole if from me.” Bom-yi narrows her eyes at him, and they laugh. holyshit The back and forth between Hyung and his girl is too fun, too familiar. It intimidates Dong-wook.

Bom-yi approaches Poo-reun, giving the girl gift bags, “This is yours and this is Ba-da’s. Could you give it to him?”

Poo-reun, who can’t hide her unhappiness, is polite, but won’t make eye contact. She walks away.

“Don’t be too concerned.” Dong-ha says to Bom-yi.

She gives him three gifts – his, the kid’s maternal grandmother’s and his mother’s. She disagrees when he says it’s a lot. “I hope that you like it.”

A thought occurs to him. “What should I do with the hat? It’s in my car.” Dong-wook wants to know what hat? Slightly embarrassed now, Hyung says, “I bought one to give your girlfriend tomorrow.”

Bom-yi’s idea for him to give it to her the next day is knocked down. They’ve already met, so there isn’t a reason for a formal introduction. Dong-ha is fine with that, saying he’ll need the time to comfort Poo-reun anyway. Bom-yi wants to get together, though, to see Ba-da again and to meet the brothers’ mother.

But Meat Mom won’t be attending anyway. Dong-ha reports that her mother and his mother already met. This stuns Bom-yi, “She already m-met my m-mother?”

Dong-wook didn’t know either.

“Did my mother say something to her?” Even though Bom-yi is imagining the worst, she has no idea how well-founded her fear is.

Poo-reun and Dong-ha leave, and the young girl throws one last accusatory glance at the traitor couple.

 Bom-yi is furious with her mother, “What did you tell her? You asked his brother to meet a woman? What do you mean? Why so suddenly?”

Oma is on the way to a meeting at a restaurant, “I’m busy. Let’s talk at home,” and hangs up.  “You heard me, right? My mother’s being crazy.” Dong-wook, trying to calm her down, says he can understand why, that it would be good for Hyung to meet a woman.

 Bom-yi won’t be soothed. “We’re not talking about whether or not that would be good for him. How could she suddenly visit my mother-in-law and ask your brother to meet someone? How did that sound to your mother?” She walks away still pissed leaving a silenced boyfriend. “It’s none of my mother’s business if your brother is single.”

The woman, of course, is Miss Bae.

Oma flatters her, saying how she made quite an impression when she first saw her. Oma reveals she knows that Ji-won’s actual purpose for working nearby is to report what’s going on in the hospital to Chairman Song. Ji-won betrays no alarm because she was aware the older woman knew. Asking if Bae knows Doctor Kang, Oma hands over a card, “I’d like you to meet his older brother.” This gives Ji-won pause. Can she refuse? 

Meat Mom gets the details from Oma, telling her, “Don’t visit me or call me from now on.” A text message would be the best way to reach this busy woman.

Oma comes home to a fake scolding from Apa. “Why did you meet Dr. Kang’s mother without discussing it with me?” Oma walks away, her husband tries the “How dare you?” line to sell that he’s on his daughter’s side.

Bom-yi, cuts off her mother’s retreat demanding to know everything she discussed with Dr. Kang’s mother. Oma just happened to mention that she knows a woman who would be a good marriage partner, and just happened to find out that Dr. Kang’s brother is a single man. Suggesting very nicely that the two of them meet. “Are we done now?”  “Dad, do you believe her?” “Yes, I do. I always believe your mother,” he says, but waves his hand “No.” LOL  Even though she knows  her mother would yell at her, Bom-yi follows her into the bedroom. “If you really care about manners, how could you do that?”No matter how bad Bom-yi says it looks, and how insulted Dong-wook’s family could be, Oma puts her daughter’s health first. “I had to do it because I was so worried.”

 But Bom-yi has far more compassion, they aren’t talking about “someone else’s children,” they’ll be her family too.  Mom pulls the old “Why do you only care about others? Why can’t you care about me?” argument. Bom-yi lectures her mother – that she shouldn’t hurt other’s children for her own child’s sake. Rejecting the statement that this is for her benefit. “You’re just doing what you want. Don’t make an excuse out of me.” “You brat,” Oma says as Bom-yi walks out making a loud noise with the door. Loud enough that she immediately re-enters, contrite. “I didn’t slam the door. It was the wind.” Oma sits on a chair exasperated.

Dong-ha gets a text from Mom. “The woman you’re meeting will call you.” Legs!

He calls her back, prolly just to give her hard time, and succeeds. She objects that he called — why when she texted him? “Are you mad at me, mother? Did you text me because you didn’t want to hear my voice?” She tells him she didn’t want to wake him up, but Dong-ha’s not buying it. He wants her to come to her house, not stay away. It sounds like an old argument. “If I go there, your mother-in-law will be uncomfortable.”

She tries to hang up, but he stops her, “By the way, today, I accidentally met Dong Wook’s girlfriend,” he says. “How could you meet her accidentally?” (Good question. She should ask how many times, too.) He admits that he already knew her and that she is a nice person. Mom’s only expectation is that she be bright and healthy, and Dong-ha assures that she is. “So meet her sometime.” Mom’ll meet her when the time comes.

We get to see what Bom-yi bought him. A jar of Pine needle tea and some Hovenia Juice. He recalls her teaching him how alcohol negatively affects his sleep. “Hovenia juice is good for hangovers and pine tea or jujube tea is good for insomnia.” He smiles. Sigh.

Bom-yi begins a text “I think my mother made a mistake…” but deletes it.

The last gift is a book: Conversation Skills with Children That All Wise Parents Should Have. The makes him chuckle, too.

Another unsent text “How’s Poo-reun?”

Someone dreams of the moment her head lands on his shoulder. “You’re the shepherd in the story and I’m the beautiful Stepanette.”

Dad joins his family already assembled for breakfast, rubbing Poo-reun’s head. “Cut it out!” She whines.

He compliments his MIL on her new scarf. “It’s pretty, right?” she concurs. “The color is so bright, and it looks good on me.” She appreciates Bom-yi’s thoughtfulness. Ba-da shows off his toy that dietitian Noona bought him. “The one we met on Udo Island. She’s marrying uncle from the hospital. That means she’ll be my aunt.” Not sure that is what Dad wants to hear, and he scolds Ba-da for talking at the table. We hear a beep and that the toy recorded the reprimand.

When Ba-da plays it back, everyone laughs. Gramma says “What a funny toy,” Dong-ha gets a lovely look in his eyes and says mostly to himself, “She chose the gift just like her.”

Bom-yi and family are off to work in a chauffeured car. The daughter complains she has a headache and blames her mother.

They bicker, so Apa begs to have a quiet ride.

CEO is working with the hay inside one of the cattle barns. Park delicately tip-toes through, holding his nose.

He wants to know what to do with the supply contract for Hae Gil Hospital. When Dong-ha doesn’t want to give it to Bom-yi himself, and won’t listen to advice on dating, Park sneaks away with the CEO’s phone.

In a kitchen storeroom, Bom-yi and Se-na take inventory. Bom-yi can’t stop feeling bad about the way things turned out between her and the CEO. “I can’t just be comfortable after I did something wrong.” She just wants to apologize to him. A text arrives, and the two girls get excited. It’s from the CEO asking,“Would you like to come here to pick up the contract?” “That’s right. The contract,” Bom-yi says.  Se-na comments that he doesn’t seem to hate her. Bom-yi guesses he wouldn’t ask her to come if he hated me. Another text, “I’m sorry for asking you to come even though I promised to visit. In return, I’ll show you around the ranch.” “Wow, he’s so cool,” Se-na gushes.  Bom-yi texts back, “I’ll be there right away.” We discover it is actually Park doing the writing; he even sends a winking emoticon, omg, evoking a “He’s hot. Really hot!” from Se-na.

 Hospital business.

Dong-wook holds the contract and asks the Organ Transplant Center thingie be added. Song agrees and instructs Miss Bae. “As soon as the hospital’s financial condition is recovered, we’ll reopen the Organ Transplant Center.” Oma brings up the fact that she met Dong-wook’s mother, and drops the bomb that they are fixing up Miss Bae with Hyung.

Livid, and not worrying who sees him, Dong-wook drags Ji-won out into a stairwell to yell at her.

“What’s wrong with you? What’s with this reaction?” she demands to know. “Did you break up with Chairman Song?” He is so completely not over her. “Why do you care whether or not I broke up with him?”

He claims he doesn’t care whether she broke up or not, but would hate the idea of her being with his brother. “I have no choice. This is the best I can do.” He doesn’t understand her, or what she has had to put up with to get where she is now. She can’t give up now. “I’ll do what they ask me to do.” He warns her not to meet Hyung, “You don’t deserve my brother.” So mean!  “You asked me to keep it a secret from Miss Lee Bom-yi that we lived together, for old time’s sake,” and she agreed, but he should just let her be. She leaves him.

Walking onto the Hanu Haon campus, Bom-yi spots Dong-ha “I hurried here. Were you waiting for me? You surprised me.” Not as astonished as Dong-ha looks right now, though, Ha! “I thought you’d be mad at me because of my mother.” “Excuse me?” Dong-ha really doesn’t know what to say.

She thinks he’s playing with her, “You sent me a text and asked me to come here. “I sent you a text message?” His reaction doesn’t faze her, she doubted whether he could be actually be cool.  “Excuse me, Miss Lee Bom-yi. I think you misunderstood me again,” he sounds very distant and business like. “I think this is good. I wanted to take care of this anyway and you’ve given me the chance so I’d like to apologize to you.” The confused man glances at his phone, he sees the text conversation between Bom-patenette and not him. He turns to Park who bows.  He figures it out, meanwhile Bom-yi continues her apology, “I’m really sorry. I think my mother did it for my sake. I’ll get on my knees to apologize if that’ll help.”

He asks the young woman to hold on a minute and goes to speak privately and calmly to Park. “It was you, right? You sent her the message, right?”

I don’t know how he doesn’t strangle the so-called “Love Messenger.” Instead with good humor, he accepts the situation, asking, “What is this emoticon? How did you know my password?” He threatens they will talk later.

He returns to Bom-yi, resigned to follow through the promise Park made. Bom-yi’s river of words hasn’t slowed. “Anyway it’s lucky that I have a chance to apologize to you like this.” She yammers on about her being sick, and her mother doing it for her sake, and… Dong-ha can’t stop her. “I’ll be really nice to you.” “Okay,” he says, “I get it, so—“   Bom-yi is too nervous to pay attention to his non-verbal cues, “You know I already know you don’t like me. You dislike me, don’t you?”   It’s obvious to anyone how untrue that is – just by observing his gaze, “Why would I dislike you?” What is so evident to Dong-ha and to us, Bom-yi isn’t picking up on. “If I disliked you, I wouldn’t have visited you at the hospital or have gone shopping and had a meal with you.” His genuineness strikes her, and she smiles. “I like you, Miss Lee Bom-yi.” (He does, he really really does.)

 “Really?” He indicates his cell. “I even messaged you. I did, but I think I just forgot because I’m old.” The return of his teasing manner relaxes her.

“I’m sorry. This is the contract,” handing it to her.

“Okay. Let’s go see the ranch.” “You should’ve just said that to start with.” He remembers her hat, and as he walks away from her to fetch it, we see how Bom-yi’s nearness unsettles him.

The afternoon in Park’s imagination begins for real while the pair walk through the corn fields, “Wow! This is so wonderful. Is this all yours, father?… Wow, you’re really great, brother.” “You just called me brother and father. Just call me whatever you want.”

 They realize the difference between their ages is eighteen years, “That’s why you shouldn’t talk back to your elders like that.” He chides. “Yes, sir!” she snaps back. Dong-ha observes, “Dong Wook’s quite a bit older than you too.”

And she complains he treats her like a kid sometimes. This strikes Dong-ha as funny since Dong-wook hates it so much when Hyung treat him like a kid. Maybe because he was such a late child that he still acts like that, she supposes. It tickles her that she can talk with Dong-ha about him behind her fiancé’s back.

Her hat flies off, and he catches it, which unfortunately makes him think of Park’s ridiculously cliché-ridden dream.

He stops and cocks an ear hearing the “lalalala” soundtrack in his mind. She wants to know why he stopped. “Nevermind. I was just hearing things.” She, of course, has to do all the activities two men fantasized about, but Dong-ha’s stilted behavior makes it a lot less fun that it could be. When she milks the cow,

he stays yards away. There’s no love shot or sultry milk streaming down his neck. He even pours out his excess milk into her glass just to be safe.

Same when she stirs the cheese, getting no help from his strong arms.

He smirks at the picture in his head.

Any tension he feels trying to avoid the sexy goes unnoticed by innocent Bom-yi, who just wants him to try her curds.

Pulling away rigorously as she puts the cheese in his mouth, he manages to toss an entire glass of milk in her face. Awesome. Eyes closed, she grins resignedly. He is just so embarrassed.

They trudge back from the ranch. “You did it intentionally, right?”

He denies it, “I told you that I had a reason.” She demands to hear it, and god love ‘em he actually earnestly tries to explain, “I had a daydream about something like it.” This doesn’t sound good at all, but he looks adorable dimpling. “Daydream?”  “Well, it wasn’t really me. Someone else asked me to do it…” What the hell kind of daydream did he imagine? Bom-yi wants to know.  He gives up trying to tell the truth, “Forget it. Let’s just say that I did it intentionally.” His discomfort amuses her, and she makes the most of it. “We’ll say this terror offsets my mother’s mistake.”

“Terror?” That’s a little too strong for him.  She sticks to her story. “Yes, it is. It’s milk terror.” She looks down at her chest. He is happy to do the same. Twice.

“Okay. Offset it or whatever.”

She is going to change clothes before leaving. “Thank God you have a change of clothes,” he remarks smiling. “I know, right?” She smiles aggressively back, “After I fell into the sea on Udo Island because of someone, I always bring extra clothes with me. I never know when it’ll happen to me again.” He nods, taking the ribbing well. They say good-bye.

Gil-dong comes up, recognizing her as that lady he met on Udo Island.

Dong-ha makes sure his friend knows she’s Dong Wook’s girlfriend, not an interest for him.

Meat Mom sees Bom-yi in the locker-room, “Who are you? I haven’t seen you before?” The ladies hit it off right away; Mom warming up to the chatty, charming girl who tells her she looks nice and healthy for her age. Mom grumbles that she is too talkative, but clearly she likes her. While putting on a clean shirt, Bom-yi’s scar is very much in evidence. It worries Mom, “Oh my lord. Were you seriously sick?”

Bom-yi explains she had heart disease, (No! Not to her. Don’t tell her!) and it is just a scar left from heart surgery. She makes sure Mom knows she’s fine now.  “Take care, Halmoni.” “Thank you for being concerned about my health,” Mom says, leaving.

Gil-dong speaks everyone’s mind, as they watch Bom-yi leave. “I liked her a lot. Why does she have to be Dong Wook’s girlfriend?” The friends munch on nuts. “That such a good woman is Dong Wook’s partner,” Dong-ha says, “it’s fortunate, isn’t it?” Gil-dong doesn’t believe his friend could be that indifferent, “You really aren’t disappointed at all?” Reminding him that he never went near the sea after his wife died but jumped right in to save her on the anniversary of Soo-jung’s death.

When Dong-ha goes home, he grabs some side dishes, heads for the sofa and drinks a lot of soju, dreaming the hospital stairwell dream of Bom-yi soothing him. He wakes up when the kids put the TV on the next morning. “Were you drinking again? I brought you water.” Poo-reun reprimands him for drinking like this every day when Samchoon is getting married. “How are those related?” he demands. “Who would like you as a man when you’re like this?”

As long as both of his kids like him, he doesn’t need anyone else. He puts his head in Ba-da’s lap. Dad notifies her that he’ll be meeting a woman soon, making her conclude that it really is over between Unni and her father.

He tells her to wake up from her dream – the opposite of reality Ba-da explains. (I take a note for later.)

Bom-yi enters an impressive and empty theatre, talking to Dong-wook on the phone. He asks her to wait a little longer, but she isn’t happy about it.

She goes in by herself. the room is decked out with all the trappings of a romantic evening.

She sits down, eager with anticipation. On a whim, she snaps her fingers and is thrilled when the lights go down and the show starts.

A lovely slide presentation of cute photos of the pair and Dong-wook’s heart felt confessions of love. Each one makes Bom-yi progressively more touched. “My time with you is like a dream, not reality.” (See earlier note.)

Will you marry me? Is on the last slide.

 At exactly the right time to make his entrance, Paging Doctor Kang gets an emergency call. Bottom line, he chooses to go to the hospital rather than take three, no, two minutes to propose in person.

*** SIGH ***

An employee goes in to see Bom-yi, “Your boyfriend left urgently for an emergency operation and won’t be coming back.”

The abandoned one decides to have the meal by herself. Bom-yi doesn’t show the proper amount of upset. Has this kind of thing happened before?

OMG so funny dressed up Dong-ha meets at a coffee shop with Ji-won. He is about to drop some sugar into his coffee, but Bom-yi’s words echo in his mind, “By the way, you put in too much sugar. It’s not good for your health.” He takes a sip and doesn’t like the bitter taste. Cute.

 Ji-won, who I just love, comments, “You look very different from Dr. Kang.” Right off the bat, she confesses that she didn’t want to come here. This startles him. She points out that as a CEO, he couldn’t possibly understand what some employees are asked to do. She states that she has no intention of getting married.  Always the gentleman, Dong-ha says he’s sorry, “Even though I didn’t intend for it, I’m sorry that I put you in such an uncomfortable situation. Your boss suggested this meeting to me.” They hatch a plan to pretend to keep seeing each other to keep the heat off.

That decided, Dong-ha offers to buy dinner even though it isn’t a normal date. Instead, she suggests they have a drink.

They relocate to a more comfortable place. He’s curious about how she can be so decisive about never marrying. “I loved someone so passionately once that I have no regrets left. I think I gave him all my love then.” When Dong-ha asks about the man, she says he is a very nice man. Aww.

She recalls watching him perform a surgery from the observation room, and saying when a man is tops in his field, he is very attractive.

She thought she did not measure up to him. Dong-ha can tell she hasn’t gotten over him, Ji-won she says her ex’s impending marriage will end it for her.

Dong-wook (finally) shows up, running in to Bom-yi’s office, apologizing for ruining the proposal. She, on the other hand, thinks it went just fine and her answer is yes. He gives her a big hug.

She offers him a piece of cake to eat, he complains that she finished two steak dinners and all he gets is that? She scrutinizes him while he finishes it. Her hope that there is a ring in the last piece gets crushed. “Nothing? I thought something would be in there.”

Doctor Dummy Head reminds her that she can’t wear accessories on her hands anyway…(but but but… diamonds can be worn anywhere.)

They climb onto the counter. She muses how unbelievable it is that they are getting married. As a little girl, it never seemed possible to her. He asks what changed her mind, and she tells the story of finding a crying child in a playground. The little one sobbed while Bom-yi asked a series of questions, finally answering, “They don’t worry about me because they have a new baby at home.”

At the police station, the child’s parents rejoiced seeing her. They just cried together and hugged each other, saying over and over, “I love you.” It was quite a scene but it was so beautiful to her. She wants a family like that, too. Suddenly, she remembers, “The mother gave me a bracelet to thank me, too.”  Dong-wook wants a family, too, one so beautiful to make others jealous like his brother’s family, despite how they ended up. Bom-yi lays her head on his shoulder, “If I got married I wanted to live like them.”

Now at a pojangmacha, Ji-won finishes the description of Dong-wook’s dream, lamenting that because of health issues, she couldn’t make his wish come true. So she lied to him and pretended to have someone else.

“Did he believe all that?” Yes, so she’s alone now. She gets shy having told him too much about herself, and she asks about him. “You haven’t been with anyone for five years, Mr. CEO?”  After his wife died he thought he could never love anyone again, but recently, he met someone and his heart fluttered. “So I realized that I can do this again.” He thought she was a really good match, “but I found out that she’s someone I can’t love as a woman.” Ji-won sees the heartbreak on Dong-ha’s face.

In the back of a drawer, Bom-yi finds the box and pulls out the bracelet “My lucky charm.” She says. Of course it is the bracelet Dong-ha gave to Soo-jung when he proposed.

 Ji-won and Dong-ha pull up at Hae Gil Hospital. The CEO says, “What kind of business do they have that they’d call you at this hour? We should have another drink.” “It’s urgent,” she says, and she has no choice. Before going in, Ji-won stops to inform him, “I’ll tell my boss that we’ll keep seeing each other.”

“Okay.” He says nodding his head a little too forcefully, a little too loosely – Dong-ha is inebriated. Coming through the entrance doors, Dong-wook is angry the second he sees them together.

Bom-yi realizes Miss Bae is Dong-ha’s matchmaking date. Dong-wook takes Ji-won inside, leaving his woman with his Hyung asking if he could offer her a ride home.

So drunk so cute says, “Oh, yeah.”  “Did you drink a lot?” Bom-yi asks, grinning. “No,” well, “A little…” He shows how little with his hands.

“I’ll go home and drink the pine needle tea and Hovenia juice,” he sways slightly, “that you gave me.” She has something better.

Dong-wook commands Ji-won stop seeing his brother.

She assures him not to worry about Dong-ha liking her, since he disclosed he likes someone else. Someone Dong-wook knows.

Dong-ha sits on the curb outside. Bom-yi walks up. “Tah-dah!” He is happy to see she’s using the free thermos. “I puréed some tomatoes and carrots. Don’t be surprised but I put some honey in too. I put a lot it. You like sweet things.” Everything she says makes him grin more.

He’s relieved that Bom-yi isn’t mad at him, though he feels bad that he poured milk on her. “Oh, I really didn’t intend to do it.”

“Just don’t pour milk on me again!” Her admonishment makes him giggle again.  He gets serious, “Anyway, thank you.”

“For what?” He explains how his relationship with Dong-wook hasn’t been good for a while. They are awkward when they meet, “but when he’s with you, he smiles often and he looks comfortable so I’m happy for him.”

This makes her bashful.

“When I think about you there are lots of things I appreciate.”

He starts with the juice, and includes her influence on Dong Wook.  Remembering he was the same way on Udo, she comments, “Your drinking habit is to thank to others?” He leans close for a second and moves away.

They share a laugh before he continues with his list: being nice to his children, making seaweed soup on his birthday that he hadn’t had in five years, for reading a book to his kids. Bom-yi gazes at him, softened expression. Dong-ha pauses, then adds, “Actually, they weren’t the only ones happy because of you. I was really grateful too.” Tears spring to her eyes and she reaches out to touch his hair.

He looks surprised at the gesture, but even more at the bracelet. Enough to forget his strength. He grabs her wrist tightly.

His vehemence frightens her more than the wrist grab, “How can you have this? Why do you have this bracelet?”

Thoughts:

I know I keep saying each episode is my favorite. So I won’t say that. However, I have to say this episode contains my favorite KWS scenes. The revelation that his Bom-yi is actually Dong-wook’s fiancée may be one of my top scenes of the drama season. The grief he experiences  and the devastation he conveys made my heart stop right with his. We found out exactly the depth of his feelings for the Pretty Smiley Girl who Makes Him Laugh. The cool part is, he was only realizing it just then, too. Perhaps he hadn’t thought any further than the dinner as far a specifics in seeing her again, but he definitely was looking forward to future interactions with her. The fun accidental ones that were bound to happen again again.

Fortune or Fate or Coincidence or whatever  didn’t care about any promise he made to himself to keep his distance from her. Whether Cupid Park or the Moms were to blame, his time with her continued to draw his heart towards hers. At the ranch, even an extremely embarrassing moment made him like her more. In the curb scene when the alcohol stole all his CEO seriousness, he basically glowed sitting there next to her. The smiles, the laughter, the tenderness in his voice all added up to a man falling in love despite himself. I was almost relieved he had a new reason to be mad at her with the bracelet. Though I doubt his anger will last, just like all the other times, when he learns the the truth.

Finishing this recap closes the gap, so to speak, in my drama coverage. It is bittersweet that I don’t have any more early recaps to write. Visiting and revisiting these characters has been lovely.  As you have all been wonderful in the past, please continue to keep comments spoiler free from later epsiodes. I imagine the time travelers from the future who haven’t watched the rest as we have will appreciate it, too. ♥ And whether the dialog with Dong-ha is fast and witty or quiet and tender, Soo-young loses herself in the role taking us with her. We get to live vicariously through it all, and have KWS look at us like the photo topping the post.  *sigh*