One Spring Night: Episodes 13-14

by abirdword

Our librarian is determined not to back down from her intentions to break-up with her long-time beau. While Jung-in is straight-forward in her efforts, Ki-seok is equally evasive in his own determined efforts to keep the relationship going. But this delay isn’t keeping Jung-in from deepening her new involvement with the pharmacist, and the list of people in the know begins to grow. And pharmacist Ji-ho? As the world starts to open up with possibilities for him, he promises to be patient until the end.

 
EPISODE 13

Ji-ho rides alongside Ki-seok in the car, on the phone with Jung-in. Ji-ho manages to convey that he’s currently with Ki-seok through a series of simple answers to her questions, and Jung-in is ready to hang up. But Ji-ho says no, and then asks Ki-seok to let him out of the car.

Ji-ho remains in the car for a moment while Ki-seok babbles apologies for making him pick up the phone. Ji-ho stays silent, and then ducks out of the car and into the crosswalk. Ki-seok yells for him, but it’s drown out by the soundtrack a s Ji-ho staggers down the street in a disoriented jog.

Jung-in grabs for a shawl and heads outside, while Ki-seok meets up with his basketball buddies. Ki-seok tells them all not to worry about Ji-ho, because he’s off to see a girl, and then he grins that he can’t wait to meet her. And yet, I bet you can.

Ji-ho managed to stumble into a taxi, and now he arrives at Jung-in’s apartment, where he finds her with her head bowed like a contrite child. Before Ji-ho says anything, she asks if they can go somewhere less crowded before he yells, and they head to a nearby park.

Sitting together on the bench, Jung-in asks if she can speak first, but Ji-ho says what he’ll assume she plans to say, that she’s sorry and that they couldn’t keep talking while Ki-seok was next to him. Jung-in counters with a, “You should have just put him on the phone then if you wanted to be bold,” and Ji-ho admits that he’s too scared to take any risks.

Ji-ho says he wanted Jung-in to help push him away, since he couldn’t do it himself, and Jung-in says that she’s too busy trying to deal with her own heart to try to manage Ji-ho’s as well.

Back at the restaurant, one of the guys ducks out to sooth his angry girlfriend. Ki-seok comments that the guy is on a short leash, and Hyun-soo sighs that he wishes that he had a girlfriend to put him on a leash. Ki-seok tells him to get a girlfriend then, and Hyun-soo responds that Ki-seok isn’t exactly in the position to hand out dating advice, considering his own currently rocky relationship status.

Ki-seok can’t stand for a junior commenting on his ability to maintain a good relationship, so he leads Hyun-soo outside to put him in his place. Ki-seok is focused on Ji-ho and Young-jae’s visit to Jung-in’s apartment though, and now Hyun-soo is defensive of his friends.

Hyun-soo insists that this isn’t normal behavior, especially for Ji-ho, and Ki-seok says that that’s even more worrisome. Because Ki-seok also recalls how worked up Ji-ho got when they were out to eat when Jung-in came up and then, Ki-seok puts it together, and he asks Hyun-soo if Ji-ho likes Jung-in. Now Hyun-soo raises his voice, and says that Ki-seok makes his friends sound like they just run around hitting on any women they find. Both men sulk at each other, neither wanting to give in, until finally Ki-seok says to forget it and heads back inside.

Hyun-soo calls Young-jae immediately and lashes out at him for his behavior. He warns him to not see Jung-in or Jae-in again. And Young-jae shoots off a text to Ji-ho, warning him that Hyun-soo is upset.

Back on that park bench, Ji-ho and Jung-in continue to try to sort their feelings. Ji-ho says that he knew, even when he was getting mad at her that it wasn’t right to do so. He says that he feels doomed, because while he’s too scared to fight for her, his love for her grows every day. He says that when he heard her try to break up with Ki-seok, he immediately began to worry that he wasn’t good enough for her himself.

Jung-in shares her own worries, that even though her break up isn’t entirely due to her growing feelings for him, everyone will still come to their own conclusions and blame him. She says that she doesn’t know what she wants from a relationship, but that she’s not happy now. She looks down as she admits that she still wants to hope for a relationship where she isn’t the only passionate one, and a love where she doesn’t get hurt.

And because of this, she says, she hasn’t even considered a relationship with Ji-ho yet. Ji-ho says that he understands, and then tells Jung-in that he’s willing to wait for her. “Even if I’m an old woman then?” she asks, and he replies with an affirmative and a smile.

Ji-ho walks her back to her apartment and lingers until he sees her reach the elevators through the windows. He starts to walk home, but he gets a phone call. “Don’t turn around,” Jung-in says through the speaker, and her blurry figure ducks back out onto the street behind Ji-ho.

Ji-ho holds out until he can’t any longer, and turns to face her. Jung-in tells him not to fall in love with anyone else while he waits for her, and reminds him that she’s a selfish and mean person that will hold him to this. And then she promises to shield him from all criticism when the time comes, and says that what she had actually wanted to say on the bench is that she promises that she won’t hurt him anymore. He promises that she can take all the time that she needs, and he’ll wait no matter now long. Then he leans in and hugs her, and after a moment, Jung-in’s arms reach up to return the embrace.

Ji-ho wanders home among all the couples out to get their selfies with the night time cherry blossoms falling along the path, and he’s jubilant. Jung-in is cuddled at home when she receives a text from Ji-ho of the beautiful flowers that he’s looking at, and she smiles. Ji-ho smiles to himself as well, taking in the beautiful night.

The next day, Jae-in runs into her mother at the grocery store. They shop together, even though Mom is obviously trying to hold up a stern front. Mom calls Jae-in a mooch for living off of Jung-in, but then transitions the conversation to Jung-in and asks what Jae-in thinks about her sister’s relationship with Ki-seok. Jae-in is vaguely positive at first, saying that Ki-seok came over for wine with them a few nights ago. But Mom asks again and after a pause, Jae-in says that her sister looks sad. It’s not the answer Mom was hoping for, as her shoulders sag.

At the library, Jung-in stops to admire the poster for their upcoming book event with her slogan on it. Young-joo sneaks up to tease her for gloating, and then how her great idea is really just about her new relationship with the pharmacist. Jung-in confesses that Ji-ho said that he would wait for her, and Young-joo is both startled and impressed.

But by the time Jung-in and Young-joo eat lunch, Jung-in asks what Young-joo would do if she was about to do something that would upset everyone. Young-joo points out that if it’s something that everyone would protest to, it’s probably not something good. Young-joo also wonders if there’s something wrong with Ji-ho that makes Jung-in hesitate, like a current girlfriend, and Jung-in says that she’ the one with the issue, not Ji-ho.

Young-joo asks if Jung-in plans to break up with Ki-seok soon, and Jung-in says that they’re meeting tonight, a smile on her face as she thinks about it (or maybe she’s thinking about the person she gets to spend more time with after it’s done). Young-joo sarcastically notes that Jung-in obviously feels awful about it.

In the evening, the guys meet at Ji-ho’s place for dinner. Hyun-soo immediately dives into the topic of Ji-ho and Jung-in, and Ji-ho admits to his friends that there is something going on with him and Ki-seok’s girlfriend. Ji-ho said they met before and agreed to be friends, but that it didn’t stay that way.

His friends remain supportive of him over Ki-seok, and ask if he plans to steal her from the guy, or if Jung-in will hurry up and make up her mind. Ji-ho tells him that he gets it, why it’s hard for her to make her decision, and how Ji-ho’s own complicated life situation makes it harder. They sit together, mulling over the situation as they drink their PPL Sprite.

EPISODE 14

Jung-in waits at a coffee shop, ready to break up with Ki-seok, but he calls to say that once again, he can’t meet her to talk, this time because he’s out for a work dinner. Jung-in points out that this behavior demonstrates that she is not a priority to Ki-seok. She pushes forward, prepared to just break up over the phone, while Ki-seok says that he’ll cover over right away and that they can’t break up.

Jung-in hangs up and calls Young-joo as she leaves the coffee shop. Young-joo is still at work, but says that she can meet Jung-in at her apartment soon. So off Jung-in heads to Young-joo/Ji-ho’s apartment building, where the guys are standing outside.

“Has she been coming over?” Hyun-soo gasps, while Young-jae drags him away to leave Ji-ho and Jung-in to talk. Jung-in asks if Ji-ho has had dinner yet, and though his answer is yes, he still asks if he can come with her and watch her eat. Jung-in asks if he won’t be treating her to the meal, and he shrugs that his wallet isn’t on him. She smiles as she says that he wouldn’t buy even if that weren’t the case.

At the restaurant, two bowls are set before them, but then Jung-in picks up Ji-ho’s bowl and places it next to her own. She intends to eat both, since Ji-ho isn’t eating. While she slurps at her two bowls, Ji-ho leans in to stare at her with dreamy eyes. Now Jung-in is uncomfortable, so she passes him a bowl and offers him a bite with her own chopsticks. There’s a moment, and then while Jung-in reaches clumsily for new chopsticks for him, he grabs the bowl and takes a big slurp with her utensils.

Meanwhile, Seo-in gets a visit from her mother. As Mom pushes, Seo-in finally admits that she and Shi-hoon are in the process of getting a divorce, and currently aren’t living together. Mom says that she is impressed that Seo-in held out in this relationship this long. Seo-in says that she’s quit her job as well, and says that it’s because she’d like to go back to school. Seo-in wants to have Jae-in move in with her.

Before Mom can ask another question, the doorbell begins to ring, over and over again. When Seo-in doesn’t rise to answer it, her phone buzzes with a call, and the doorbell keeps ringing. When it’s clear it’s not going to stop, Seo-in gets up to answer the door, Mom only a few steps behind. Shi-hoon swaggers in, until he spots Mom there and his eyes grow wide in shock. Mom pushes forward and takes Shi-hoon out into the hall to talk alone.

Mom admonishes him for showing up like this when she understands that he no longer lives together with Seo-in. She tells him she’s disappointed, and that if this continues, she’ll make sure that the two of them get divorced. Mom watches as Shi-hoon boards the elevator, and then Shi-hoon’s look of shame flashes into something sharper and scarier as the doors close.

Mom heads home, so distracted that she doesn’t even register her husband standing in the kitchen with her as she worries about her daughters. Seo-in broods in bed, and then receives a text from Mom: “We can get through this. I love you.”

The next day, it’s round two at the coffee shop, and this time Ki-seok shows up. Not only that, but he plies Jung-in with compliments. Just as Jung-in starts to utter the words, Ki-seok interrupts that he still wants to try to make things work, and that his father is interested in meeting Jung-in. It’s an opportunity that Jung-in can’t resist, and she agrees to him with him.

As they get into Ki-seok’s car, Jung-in asks to meet Ki-seok’s father by herself. Ki-seok seems a little uncomfortable, but he doesn’t argue anymore and agrees.

Over at the pharmacy, Ji-ho’s mom stops by with Eun-woo and they all go out to lunch together. As they’re eating, Mom asks about the teacher at the library (Ji-ho says she’s just a friend), and then she mentions that there’s a woman that she’d like to set Ji-ho up with. Ji-ho takes a breath and then confesses that there’s someone who he’s interested in right now. Mom is overcome with happiness to hear that, and Ji-ho has to choke back his own tears as his mother cries with joy.

Mom’s tears are still flowing even back at the store. They wonder if the mystery woman has a kid of her own, and then agree that as long as Ji-ho and the woman want to be together, that’s all that matters.

Meanwhile, Chairman Kwon receives a call from Jung-in to set up a meeting. He’s surprised to hear from her directly, not Ki-seok, and even moreso when she asks to meet him without Ki-seok, but his smile suggests that he’s not offended by any of it.

That evening, Jae-in lingers outside Young-jae’s cram school to take him out. But Young-jae says that he’s too busy studying, and when Jae-in says she’ll come by next time, he says that he’s going to be too busy for a while. Jae-in gets the point, and snarls that Young-jae better pass the test this time from all that studying.

At home Jae-in confesses that Young-jae rejected her, and tells Jung-in she should dump the pharmacist too. Jae-in then relays that Mom was asking after Jung-in and is worried about her.

Later that night, Jung-in tells Ji-ho over the phone about the Jae-in/Young-jae incident, and she wonders if it was because of her. Ji-ho says that Young-jae isn’t like that and he probably just really needs to study. Jung-in mentions that Jae-in knows about them, and then Ji-ho admits that he told his mother that he likes someone. Jung-in asks what his mom said about it, and Ji-ho says that she cried. Jung-in promises again that she won’t hurt him, and Ji-ho says that they’ll both be good to one another. Ji-ho chuckles about how surreal it feels to say, “we” in regards to the two of them.

The next day, Chairman Kwon asks his secretary to set up his lunch with Jung-in. Jung-in’s dad arrives and is completely surprised to hear that the chairman is meeting with Jung-in. Chairman Kwon calls Jung-in “daring,” and it definitely sounds like a compliment. Meanwhile, Ki-seok is at a jewelry shop, asking to see a ring. Oh no, Ki-seok. Don’t do it.

Ji-ho picks up Eun-woo for a trip to the library, while Jung-in dresses in her best neutral outfit and heads out for her lunch date with the chairman. The chairman offers his hand to greet her with a handshake, and sits down eager to talk with Jung-in.

Jung-in doesn’t beat around the bush and dives directly into the topic on her mind: she knows that Chairman Kwon doesn’t approve of her, but she hadn’t really considered it since she hadn’t started dating Ki-seok with marriage in mind.

At the library lunch room, Eun-woo is disappointed that the teacher isn’t working that day. Eun-woo asks for water, and Ji-ho bumps into Young-joo. She asks why he’s there since Jung-in isn’t working, and when he gestures to Eun-woo she smiles and notes that he’s here with his nephew, garnering only a tight smile from Ji-ho.

The lunch with the chairman continues, and Chairman Kwon praises Jung-in for being opinionated. He says that he got the impression that even her father was afraid of her, and tells her that’s a compliment. Jung-in then tells him that she’s incredibly grateful for the position that the chairman offered her father in his organization, regardless of the state of Jung-in and Ki-seok’s relationship.

At home, Jung-in’s Dad paces the kitchen, desperate for news from Jung-in. Mom shoves her phone at him so that he can wait for Jung-in to call himself, while he continues to pace nervously.

Ki-seok’s officially purchased something from the jeweler, while Ji-ho spots Jung-in’s event poster as he wanders the library halls.

Back to the lunch with Chairman Kwon, he asks if Jung-in and Ki-seok have discussed marriage. Jung-in says that they have, and the chairman says that it sounds like the two aren’t on the same page about it. “I’m sorry,” Jung-in says. “I don’t want to get married.”

 
COMMENTS

I knew the chairman was going to take a liking to Jung-in as soon as she made that phone call. He’s been flippant and a bit of a jerk, he’s a guy that believes that love is like a business deal, and yet, I was never convinced that he had any other motives other than wanting his son married. And if he’s been resistant to Jung-in all this time, it seems like that resistance was rooted in his feelings about her father. But instead of a meek yes-woman who takes after her dad, Chairman Kwon sees Jung-in as a woman who is assertive and sticks to her believes, and I’m pretty sure all those smiles he shot Jung-in’s way means that he admires those traits.

We’ve yet to see how he will handle Jung-in rejecting his son though. He may like Jung-in’s self-assured manner, but that might not be enough to withstand a blow to his pride. So he’ll either rebuke Jung-in for daring to not love his son, or take away Ki-seok’s basketball court privileges until he steps up his game. We’ll see how it goes soon enough.

And Ki-seok has officially moved on from one of my favorite characters and officially into bad guy status. I knew it was inevitable, but I’m still sad to see him go that direction. When your girlfriend asks to break up, it shouldn’t take her more than one conversation to get it done. And you should definitely not be buying engagement rings after you’ve basically been broken up with over three times now. And it’s this, not the apathy of their relationship, that is the real cause of the breakdown. Ki-seok doesn’t think about how Jung-in feels at all. He doesn’t care about what she actually wants. He doesn’t seem to care about anything at all, honestly. And that’s too bad, because when he’s lost his girlfriend, and then his job if he keeps helping Shi-hoon out, what is he going to have left?

Moving on to Shi-hoon, I’m surprised that he managed to look contrite for as long as he did in the hall with Mom, and I was not surprised at all by that gleam in his eye as the elevator closed. It was a gleam that said that he wasn’t going to let anyone get in his way, not even Seo-in’s family. And it’s scary. There is a possibility that Seo-in’s life could be in danger soon, once Shi-hoon feels like he’s in a corner with nothing left to lose. His look did not say that he respected anything that Mom had to say.

As worried as I am for Seo-in, I’m also concerned about Jae-in now. We know that she’s not good with rejection, and as much as she’s been trying to play it casual with Young-jae, it’s clear that she’s hurt by his rejection. Will the stalking habits return now that Young-jae is avoiding her? And how does that complicate the already tangled web of inter-relationships going on here? I’m worried that Jung-in and Ji-ho will be asked to take sides as this conflict develops.

As for Ji-ho and Jung-in, as much as they may be holding back, things are still moving forward and I love it. They already have the kind of relationship where they are talking to each other at the end of every day and playfully teasing one another over dinner. I’d consider it emotional cheating on Jung-in’s behalf, except that Jung-in has been actively trying to end her current relationship for days now. She is doing her best to not make the break-up about this newly blossoming romance, but the longer Ki-seok holds out, the more likely that he try to feel justified in his indignation. Especially since he already has his suspicions, and the number of people who know about the relationship is growing around him.

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