Warm and Cozy: Episode 11

by girlfriday

At long last, after weeks of backpedaling and denial, there are true moments of growth and revelation. It’s not even my birthday, but we get a two-for-one deal as both brothers kick things up on the swoony scale, and even take some steps toward maturity. Well, mature is a relative term in this family, but let’s not nitpick when we’re subsisting on breadcrumbs here.

 
SONG OF THE DAY

Sonnet Son – “널 위한거야” (It’s For You) for the Warm and Cozy OST [ Download ]

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EPISODE 11 RECAP

After the kiss to prove that he’s still got the upper hand, Gun-woo smirks to see Jung-joo’s eyes closed and says that she lost. URG. *stompity feet*

He tells her to throw his rose away in the trashcan properly, and leaves her reeling. He goes upstairs and seems to regret his actions, not that I actually give him credit for understanding what an assy thing he just did.

Jung-joo picks up the pink rose that Gun-woo left behind and snaps it in half with determination. And then when Gun-woo comes downstairs a little while later, he finds her eerily sharpening a knife, set to a horror soundtrack and looking like she’s ready to butcher the first thing that moves. I hope this is his conscience talking.

He tries to scurry away, but she calls him over for a drink. At first it’s unclear what she’s doing, but then she slides over a glass of red wine seductively, and warns him that she doesn’t do things half-assed—she goes all the way: “Let’s go all the way tonight.” Lol, is she propositioning him or threatening him?

He laughs nervously and asks if that’s really necessary, and Jung-joo leans in close: “Then you shouldn’t have touched me when I said I was enduring.” She then proceeds to do everything in her version of sultry, which for some reason involves perching on the counter and posing so stiffly that Gun-woo has to help her out. He chuckles, finding her antics cute. How could you not, really? She’s hilarious and adorable.

She declares that they’ll see an end to things tonight: Either she’ll eat him alive, or he can run away forever. Okay, and then I die laughing, because she needs his help in order clear enough counter space to lie down across the bar, and can’t figure out what to do with her legs once she’s on it. I’m gonna have to watch that again.

She didn’t throw away the rose after all, and sticks it between her teeth to give Gun-woo her best come-hither look. And she actually motions for him to come hither, in case he’s not getting it. I don’t know what’s funnier—that she thinks this is seductive, or how bad she is at it.

She breaks her seductress character to tell Gun-woo that she’s not going to let him think of her so lightly anymore, and that she plans to make him all kinds of uncomfortable, with winks and kisses and finger guns thrown his way without warning.

He smiles and tells her to do whatever she wants but at least get off the counter while doing it, and her voice gets shaky as she threatens to take this upstairs. Gun-woo tells her that she needn’t sharpen her knives (metaphorically, though of course in a Hong sisters drama, she was literally sharpening knives), because he’s the one who lost earlier.

He admits that he was angry to see the person he treasures and looks out for going on a date with another man, and confesses that he crossed the line. Jung-joo says that she can handle him not returning her feelings, but can’t handle being thought of lightly, and Gun-woo swears that he doesn’t, and has always cherished her.

He throws his hands up in surrender and says that he’ll forfeit tonight’s battle and go sleep elsewhere tonight, and Jung-joo tells him that she won’t jump his bones so he can go upstairs and sleep.

He whirls around and leans in close: “Do you think I can just go to sleep right now?” He taps her on the forehead with the rose and walks off with a knowing smile. What, how is she supposed to get over you when you do stuff like this? Bah.

Jung-joo tries to decipher Gun-woo’s words and wonders if that means he was jealous, but then her thoughts float back to Ji-won’s declaration that she’s going to accept Gun-woo now. She takes out her contract for Warm & Cozy and sighs that this needs to go away in order for that to happen.

Gun-woo runs into Ji-won at the hotel that night, and he’s taken aback by her sudden sweetness. She asks after his injured hand and asks whether Jung-joo told him what she said.

Gun-woo has no idea, so Ji-won spells it out: She’s going to accept his feelings, so she wants him to change for her and sell the restaurant so they can go to Seoul. Ugh, I was gonna skip the ughs this time around, but: UGH.

Gun-woo ponders the sudden change in Ji-won and asks noona if she said something to prompt it, and noona admits to telling her about his inheritance from their uncle. She wonders why he didn’t mention it earlier when he knows what kind of girl Ji-won is (and here I am wondering why they even still speak to her if they know this), and she pushes him to sell the restaurant and move on: “You’re not going to do that for the rest of your life, are you?”

Jung-joo crunches numbers in her savings account and meets with Mayor Wook the next day, and Poong-san overhears them discussing a different restaurant. It’s the other neighborhood place that’s looking for someone to run it in the owner’s absence, and Wook tells her she just needs to decide by the end of the month. Jung-joo asks for some time to figure out how she’ll wrap things up here and end things with Gun-woo.

Gun-woo gets dressed up with hyung and noona to go meet their uncle, and noona sighs that she can’t leave Jeju with Jung-geun being such a sad sack over his relationship and Gun-woo refusing to sell his restaurant. Gun-woo is surprised to hear that even hyung gets dumped by women. Uh, if you saw how he behaves around them, you wouldn’t be so shocked.

Gun-woo tells them about visiting Mom’s grave recently and finding a bouquet of flowers there, and says that they might be from his father. He worries that it’ll cause them trouble if Dad comes around, but assures them that he’ll handle it on his own. Hyung and noona worry for Gun-woo, and hope that his father doesn’t come around. Jung-geun sighs that accepting a con man who killed someone isn’t going to be easy for Gun-woo, and noona mentions that she heard that the wife of the man who died still lives in Jeju. Jung-geun guesses that she must’ve had a hard life.

Hae-shil is sick but refuses to go to the hospital, figuring that she’ll just work through the pain. She sighs that she’s being punished for plucking something out of the ocean that wasn’t hers, and that she just has to get her head on right.

A woman walks into Warm & Cozy with tear-filled eyes and beelines right for Jung-joo, claiming to be her mother. When Gun-woo comes home, he asks if that woman is really her mother, and Jung-joo shows him the picture of her as a baby with her parents. It seems to be true. Poong-san tells him that Jung-joo’s mother just returned to the country and is wealthy and wants to make up for lost time. Jung-joo goes to meet her mother for a meal, and when she exchanges numbers with Mom, she sees that the last numbers are her birthday. Mom says that all of her passwords are Jung-joo’s birthday because she didn’t want to forget.

Back at Warm & Cozy, Poong-san muses that Jung-joo’s life has totally changed—now she has a rich mother, things are going well with the mayor, and she even has a new restaurant to run. That’s news to Gun-woo, who frowns to hear about the mayor setting her up with a new job.

Mom seems disappointed to learn that Warm & Cozy isn’t Jung-joo’s restaurant (red flag!), and suggests that she take her deposit out so that Mom can set her up with a new restaurant of her own. When Mom runs out to take a phone call, Jung-joo accidentally spills her water and opens Mom’s wallet to wipe it down, and is touched to find their family picture tucked inside. But Mom’s phone call seems shady and urgent—she tells someone that she’s meeting her right now and to wait just a little longer.

Gun-woo is lost in thought over Jung-joo possibly leaving, and Ji-won has to snap him out of his reverie with tickets to a musical and plane tickets to get there. He tells her that he can’t just leave Jung-joo and Poong-san in the lurch, and Ji-won asks why it matters if he’s just going to sell the restaurant.

Gun-woo points out that he never made that decision, and Ji-won asks if he didn’t meet with his uncle in order to change for her like she asked. He tells her honestly that he has no plan to inherit his uncle’s business, nor does he have the talent or inclination to do so. He tells her in no uncertain terms that there’s no chance of him changing the way she wants him to.

Ji-won is taken aback and blusters that she’s not asking him to change right this instant, and asks if he’s at least going to sell the restaurant. He says that that’s up to Jung-joo, since they have a contract. Ji-won whines that Jung-joo isn’t dying, so she could keep the place for life, and Gun-woo says she can but doesn’t know what she’ll choose to do.

Jung-joo tells Wook that she could argue that the contract for Warm & Cozy holds for the rest of her life, because Gun-woo would tell her to keep it. Wook grumbles to hear just how rich Gun-woo is, but Jung-joo says that now her circumstances have changed, and Gun-woo doesn’t need to feel sorry for her anymore.

She comes home that night, arms full of bags from a shopping spree with Mom, and asks Gun-woo return her deposit so that she can buy a place of her own. He wonders why she’s in such a rush, but she says that she has a place picked out and Mom is going to help her buy it.

Naturally Gun-woo does the dumb thing and says it’s such a relief that she’s found someone else to take care of her so that he doesn’t have to feel bad for her anymore. But then he starts reaching for excuses, wondering if she doesn’t need more time to sort out her feelings for him: “What about the balloons?”

She says that there are only a few left and she can just keep those as memories, and shoots down his suggestion that she’s got a few stray balloons hidden away somewhere.

Hae-shil has to attend a committee meeting at Jung-geun’s hotel for the diving festival, and waves off Wook’s worry about her health. She runs into Jung-geun on her way in, and he’s predictably petty about her never coming here again; he even threatens to pull his support for the diving school’s functions if she doesn’t start sending someone else.

He points out that this is what he’s really like, and that he planned to give her the black pearl just to take it away from her all along. She just replies that she made the right choice then, which seems to deflate him even more. But then he notices her coughing, and suddenly anger turns to worry. He hovers around the conference room and peers inside to see how Hae-shil is doing, and orders his secretary to turn off the air conditioning and send in herbal tea. Aw, you can be so sweet when you stop being such a child.

Speaking of children, Gun-woo stomps off to Seoul today and tells Poong-san to just cancel all the dinner reservations. Poong-san wonders what’s gotten into him and says that it’s weird to see Gun-woo revert to his old ways.

But on his drive to the airport, Gun-woo happens to see Jung-joo’s mom on the street. She’s talking on her phone and insisting that she’ll have “it” soon, and then he sees her walk into a cheap motel, even though Poong-san said she was staying at his family’s resort. So Gun-woo goes to hyung’s hotel and asks his secretary if Jung-joo’s mother is on the guest list, but she isn’t. Ji-won thinks he’s there to go to Seoul with her, but Gun-woo says that he’s busy with something else and runs off.

Jung-joo’s mom checks out her dilapidated shack and sighs that it won’t amount to much, and is surprised when the real estate agent who comes by is Mr. Gong. They recognize each other from way back, and they reminisce about the old days. Mom says that she had a daughter with the man she was with back then, and sighs that if it weren’t for that accident, she’d be living happily here.

Nosy the Novelist tells Gun-woo’s noona that she found out more about Gun-woo’s father, and at the same time we hear Jung-joo’s mother confirm it: The man in the old picture with Gun-woo’s mom is Jung-joo’s father… and Gun-woo’s father is the man behind the camera, taking the picture. So we finally squash the twin theory once and for all, not that anyone actually believed it would be true. Mr. Gong remembers that the two couples toured Jeju together, taking pictures everywhere they went. Jung-joo’s mother says that what happened to Gun-woo’s father was all because of his mother.

Gun-woo comes home to find Jung-joo in the kitchen, and he eyes her warily when she says she cooked for him. She waits expectantly for him to taste her porridge, and he makes a face and says it’s bad, but keeps eating since she made it for him. He tells her not to cook for anyone else though, because she’s bad at it, and she says she’s only cooking because it’s for him: “Because I like you.”

She points out that she’d never have fallen for him if not for the terminal illness misunderstanding, because he doesn’t care about anyone else and lives however he wants. Gun-woo: “Did you just now figure that out? I’m bad!”

But Jung-joo says that it’s a good thing she did get that terminal illness: “Because of it, I got to see what a warm, good person you really are.” She assures him that he’ll still be a good person even if she doesn’t like him, and from now on he’s going to have the love of the person he loves, and will keep changing for the better.

Gun-woo asks how Jung-joo would like for him to change, and she says that she’d like to see him doing work that makes him happy, and becoming a good person. He decides that his first good deed will be to eat her terrible porridge. Heh. That night, Gun-woo sees Jung-joo looking at her family photo wistfully, and lets out a sigh. Clearly he knows that something shady is going on there.

The next morning, he stops Jung-joo’s mother on the street as she’s having another hurried conversation about the money that she’ll have soon. Then he goes to see hyung, who’s a little impressed to find that Gun-woo is looking out for a friend and isn’t just idling his life away. Gun-woo says he can’t stand to see her cry or get hurt, so Jung-geun readily agrees to help.

Ji-won is annoyed to be snubbed by Gun-woo again when she runs into him on his way out, and pries information out of the secretary. She guesses that he asked Jung-geun for money to take care of Jung-joo’s mother, but the secretary surprises her by saying that the money will be coming from Gun-woo’s account.

Jung-joo’s mom suddenly announces that she’s leaving town (presumably because Gun-woo gave her the money that she needed), and apologizes for not delivering on her promises. Jung-joo tries not to look disappointed, and assures Mom that it was nice just to hear someone say those things to her even if they didn’t come to pass. She quietly calls her “Mom” just once, and they say goodbye.

Hae-shil is still not feeling well but insists that she’s okay to go diving today, and then gets a worrisome dizzy spell just before boarding the boat. Jung-geun is driving by just as an ambulance passes him on the road, and he answers a call from Hae-shil.

But it’s her friend instead, crying into the phone for him to come help, and when he rushes to the scene, he finds the whole town gathering a search party because Hae-shil went into the water and never came back out. Jung-geun picks up her helmet in a daze, their last argument ringing in his ears.

Nosy the Novelist tells noona that she wasn’t able to interview the wife of the man that Gun-woo’s father killed, but she heard that she’s a diver on the island. She’s hoping that her colleague can get an interview today, and even a picture.

Jung-geun is sick with worry as he sits on the shore clutching Hae-shil’s helmet, and then the whole crowd sighs in relief when the rescue boat returns with Hae-shil, looking weak but alive.

She sees Jung-geun and asks what he’s doing here holding her helmet, and he says with tears in his eyes that he was scared she’d really disappear forever, and he was holding on so she wouldn’t.

He just pulls her into his arms and hugs her tight, and they’re both so overwhelmed with emotion that they cry.

Gun-woo runs out without explanation again, and Poong-san assumes that he’s running off to see Ji-won with a lunch that he packed for her. But he’s gone to see Jung-joo’s mother instead, and hands her the money she needs along with the porridge that Jung-joo made. Aw.

Mom is ashamed, but Gun-woo asks her not to say anything to Jung-joo about money, and to remain a mother to her—one that lived well and will continue to do so. Argh, there you go, doing swoony stuff again. How am I supposed to stay mad at you?

Jung-joo just assumes he’s back from a date with Ji-won and asks to finalize their contract so that she can get her deposit back and leave, and Gun-woo tells her to stay. She tells him that he doesn’t need to feel sorry for her anymore because she has people to help her, a mother to lean on, a place to go now, and a new restaurant all picked out.

She says that he’s with someone now who doesn’t like her being here, and Gun-woo argues that she doesn’t like Ji-won either so she can just ignore her. Dude, if it were possible to ignore her, don’t you think I’d be doing it already?

Jung-joo says he’s treating her feelings lightly when she asked him not to, and Gun-woo shouts back that she can think whatever she wants, but he likes things the way they are now and has no intention of breaking that contract.

Jung-joo huffs over to Jung-geun’s hotel to talk to him about the contract directly, muttering to herself that they’re classmates and she’ll just go right over Gun-woo’s head. But Jung-geun isn’t there, and the bad luck continues as she runs into Ji-won.

Ji-won says that Gun-woo will be giving her the deposit back so she can go away now, and when Jung-joo says she came here because Gun-woo wouldn’t hand it over, Ji-won guesses that he gave it to her mother. Ugh, you gnat.

At least now Jung-joo has an inkling of what Gun-woo’s been up to. She starts realizing that maybe her mother came to her looking for money, and races to the airport to catch her before she leaves, and sees the lunch thermos that Gun-woo walked out with earlier that day.

Jung-joo confronts her mother, who turns out not to be a con artist, but just a desperate mom who needed money for her other daughter’s surgery. She introduces Jung-joo to her half-sister who’s ill, and asks her to thank Gun-woo again, for his help and for giving her Jung-joo’s porridge.

Mom says that she’s sorry, and Jung-joo sees them off at the gate with a little wave at her sister, and turns around when she can’t contain her tears.

She gets drunk at a pojangmacha that night, and Wook comes by and sees her crying. She rips up the contract and sighs, “Baek Gun-woo, stop being good to me. You can stop it now.”

Jung-geun insists on having Hae-shil stay with him, more for his own benefit because he refuses to let her leave his sight. He tells her to rest, and promises to just sit by her bed quietly.

Gun-woo gets a text from Jung-joo’s mom saying that she came and found everything out, and Gun-woo worries knowing that she’s crying somewhere right now. Of course Ji-won chooses now to come by with tickets to the musical. Gah, if bad-timing radar were a marketable skill, you wouldn’t have to chase rich men to live well. But Gun-woo tells her that he’s in no mood to go to Seoul with her, because he has to find Jung-joo.

Ji-won asks what’s wrong with him—she’s finally decided to accept him, so why is he worrying about another woman right now? Gun-woo says she’s right, because he’s not at all happy to see her now that she’s coming to him. All he can think about is Jung-joo crying somewhere.

Ji-won argues that it’s a worry that began in a misunderstanding, and asks why he can’t clean that up. Gun-woo: “I can’t! I just… want to be with her all the time.” Ji-won: “The thing you gave her for life is the restaurant, not you!”

Gun-woo: “But things have changed. I only gave her this place at first… but I must’ve gone with it and given her me too.” YEAH NO DUH. Where were you two weeks ago? Omg, I cannot believe it took him this long to figure it out, but hell, I’ll take now over never.

Ji-won can’t believe what she’s hearing, but Gun-woo says that he’d already changed—he was just in denial about it and kept hurting Jung-joo. Ji-won cries that he’s wrong: “You haven’t changed! You’re going to go with me!” He stands and says it once and for all: “Ji-won-ah, I’m not going anywhere with you from now on. I have to go to Jung-joo.”

YESSSSSSSS. &%@##^!!! FINALLY! WAS THAT SO HARD, REALLY?

Mayor Wook stands at a distance and watches Jung-joo for a while, and then sits down when she orders her third bottle of soju. He jokes that he got a report that a girl from his village was drinking here alone, and tells her to marry him if she doesn’t want to drink alone.

She takes him up on the idea, and he chokes on his drink. Jung-joo offers to give him until the end of this bottle to seduce her, and if he succeeds, she’ll marry him. But then the mood grows heavier when she begs him to please worm his way into her heart, to chase the other guy out.

She starts to cry as she blubbers that she likes him so much that she can’t live, and she passes out on the table. Wook asks the owner to look after her while he runs to get her some medicine, and in the time he’s gone, Gun-woo sits down in his seat.

Jung-joo doesn’t realize it and just continues the earlier conversation, saying that she won’t be seduced easily because she’s fallen so deep for the other guy that she can’t swim out. She opens her eyes to see Gun-woo smiling back at her, just as Wook runs back and sees them together.

Jung-joo tries to focus her drunken eyes and laughs: “Mayor, have you transformed into Baek Gun-woo? Okay, I’ll marry you then!” Ha. Gun-woo gets grumpy at her declaration that she’d marry another guy, and pets her sweetly as she nods off.

The pojangmacha owner comes over and glares at him suspiciously, and he realizes what she’s accusing him of and says, “She’s my girlfriend!” The ajumma isn’t buying it, so he scoots over to Jung-joo so that she’s leaning on him, and insists, “It’s true! She just said she’d marry me. She’s mine!” So. Cute.

Jung-joo wakes up long enough to mumble that she’s going to marry him, and the ajumma finally buys his story. Wook’s heart breaks as he watches them, and he shuffles off sadly. Aw, poor sweet Wookie.

Meanwhile, a car pulls up to Warm & Cozy, and a man lingers there staring at a picture of Gun-woo’s mother. Ruh-roh, this must be Dad.

At the same, the novelist confers with her partner, who tells her that things would become really complicated if Gun-woo’s father ever showed up again because Hae-shil is the wife of the man he killed, and Jung-geun is now in love with her. The novelist shares what Gun-woo’s noona told her—that if the people around him were to see misfortune because of his father in any way, Gun-woo would leave.

Jung-joo is fast asleep by the time Gun-woo gets her home, and he tucks her into bed and takes out the contract that he taped back together. He puts it on her vanity and reaches for the sora shell to put on top of it, when the necklace he gave her falls out. He chides, “Where do you think you’re going when you hid this in here?”

He puts the necklace in his pocket and sits by her bed. He tells her that he put the contract back together: “I’ll give you Warm & Cozy back. And this is a freebie.” He sticks out his pinky finger and pulls her hand into a pinky-swear: “You keep it.”

He stamps their thumbs together and adds a thumb-kiss to seal the deal: “Promise.”

 
COMMENTS

Oh phewww, I was really bracing myself for another rant fest after the kiss that ended the last episode, but Gun-woo finally came around. It’s about time, and at this point I’m so relieved that we don’t have to deal with Denial Gun-woo that I won’t even question why the hell it took him this long to figure out what he was feeling all this time. I mean, how many times do you have to stop a girl from leaving you to realize, oh I dunno, that you don’t want her to go?

I can’t in all honesty say it was worth the wait—because OMG that took forever—but it was damn satisfying for Gun-woo to finally tell Ji-won off, and the timing made me happy because she had finally come around to Gun-woo (for all the wrong reasons of course), only to have him reject her flat-out. It only goes to show how much Gun-woo only wanted the idea of her because she was unattainable, and how little it had to do with Ji-won as a person. Because seriously, who could actually like that girl? It almost seems like Gun-woo found it easier to believe he was bad by association. Both brothers have been on my shit list for at least two weeks straight, and I was beginning to dread their next infuriating acts of stupidity. So I was pleasantly surprised today when they each turned a new corner.

Putting Hae-shil in danger was a bit of an easy way to gloss over all the myriad issues she and Jung-geun have, but the actors really sold the moment for me when they embraced. Suddenly it seemed petty to argue about what an ass he’s been, even though I don’t think he should be let off the hook. It’s just that in the moment, you see that they really love each other, and that’s all that matters. Obviously they’re in for some twists up ahead, if Gun-woo’s father is back in town and looking to stir up trouble. I just hope the dad storyline is as swift as Jung-joo’s mom’s little visit, because I’m mostly annoyed that the parents are popping in to create last-minute complications. I was just relieved that Mom’s story was wrapped up so quickly, and that she didn’t turn out to be a con artist. If her only function was to push Gun-woo to do the heroic thing, then that’s fine with me. I just don’t think Dad’s presence will work quite the same way, if he’s really as bad as they all say.

It’s kind of cute that it’s Gun-woo who needs to be loved just as he is, but it’s likely that he never considered himself lovable before, and when all Jung-joo asks of him is to do what makes him happy and be a good person, it seems to change how he sees himself. Mostly these changes have been happening all this time—he’s just the last to know about them. And hey, it’s saying something that She Who Shall Not Be Named served an actual function today, in pushing and prodding Gun-woo enough to help him realize that even when he had her, all he really wanted was to be with Jung-joo. It needed to happen eons ago, but I’ll give Gun-woo points for his directness in rejecting her, and his adorable about-face with Jung-joo. Even though she’s drunk and asleep and probably won’t remember any of it. Bah. Maybe he can make it up to her with a bar-top seduction of his own. Seriously, it’s the least he could do.

 
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