Who Are You: Episode 9

by javabeans

Fun fun fun. The series is getting more interesting, I think. Or maybe that’s just because I’m a fool for romantic developments, which is a big theme in today’s episode.

SONG OF THE DAY

G.O.D. – “모르죠” (Don’t know). Can’t have a Yoon Kye Sang drama and not post a G.O.D. song, right? This one’s from their fourth album. Danny Ahn speaks the first two lines, after which point Yoon Kye Sang speaks the next part, starting around 23 seconds in to about 0:45. (The rotation after that goes — thank god for detailed Korean GOD fans! — Sohn Ho Young, Kim Tae Woo singing, Danny, Park Joon Hyung, Kim Tae Woo, then Yoon Kye Sang again at 2:36 through 3:00.)
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EPISODE 9 RECAP

Young In arrives at Young Ae’s craft shop to see SeungHyoDad there bearing flowers. It looks like an awfully cozy scene; assuming they’re dating, she accuses SeungHyoDad of liking older women and using her as bait to meet Young Ae, whom she censures: “Are you embarrassed to talk of your old boyfriend in front of your new one? My dad has only just passed away.” SeungHyoDad stands up for Young Ae against his daughter’s harsh words, which only angers Young In further. Muttering that he must be a playboy, Young In stomps away.

Young Ae follows her outside, and Young In scoffs, “Why don’t you forget about your ex’s ill-mannered daughter and go back to your new, young, good-looking boyfriend?” Immediately, Young Ae catches on, smiles, and answers, “So you like him, huh?”

Young In protests (too much), and Young Ae points out, “You said he was young and good-looking. That must be how he looks to you. To me, your father was a thousand times better-looking.”

Over breakfast, Young In sees how kind and attentive SeungHyoDad is to Young Ae and frowns some more. But Young Ae’s bothered by something else — the more she encounters SeungHyoDad, the more she’s struck by his similarities to Il Gun.

SeungHyoDad has a favor to ask the two ladies, and suggests that they live together temporarily. Just for the next two months. Young Ae is the only person he feels safe asking, despite knowing that it’s not his place to butt in.

Young Ae tells Young In (when SeungHyoDad is away) about an incident a few days before her father died. He was accosted by loan-shark gangsters who demanded Il Gun hand over his paintings. Both women start wondering — what if foul play was involved to get his paintings? After breakfast, SeungHyoDad regretfully leaves Young Ae, who’s disturbed at the growing suspicion that he’s Il Gun.

SeungHyoDad follows at a distance while Young In is preoccupied by thoughts of her father being murdered. When SeungHyoDad grabs her hand to lead her to his waiting car, she mentions his OCD; he withdraws his hand, but this time she grabs it.

Remembering that Seung Hyo had the same suspicion about her father’s death, Young In brings it up with him: “My dad wouldn’t have died in such a frightening way, right? How afraid must he have been?” SeungHyoDad comforts her in a hug, which Young In accepts for a few moments, before stepping back in alarm: “Why did you hug me, without asking?”

In the car, Young In remains embarrassed and silent, while Il Gun thinks to himself:

“Why is she blushing? Bad kid, no matter how much I tried to hug her, she wouldn’t even let me near her after she turned nine, saying she was all grown up!”

Il Gun disapproves: “Cha Seung Hyo won’t do! Definitely not him!”

SeungHyoDad follows Young In to work, refusing to leave before his full three hours are used. He tells her to quit this job, but she retorts that she needs it. Saddened to see her doing such menial work, he takes over (to the kitchen ajummas’ amusement and delight), scrubbing the grill pans for her.

And before he knows it, it’s 11 o’clock, and Il Gun’s time is up.

Seung Hyo’s first reaction is disgust at the dirty dishwater, and he demands of Il Gun, stunned and angry, “Did you do this?!… What have you done to me? Why am I here?” But of course, nobody else can see Il Gun (who’s still mute), and Young In thinks he’s back to his Jekyll-and-Hyde act.

Jae Ha receives the stolen evidence from Gangster #3, whose name is revealed to be Ho Joong. Questions of his parentage are also finally explained — he’s Seung Hyo’s half-brother, sharing the same father. Seung Hyo was born to his father’s first wife, then sent to the U.S. for adoption (presumably the mother died). The father then married his current wife, and they had Ho Joong.

In any case, Jae Ha tosses the cigarette stub into the river and warns Ho Joong not to get in any further trouble. Just because the evidence is gone doesn’t mean he’s safe, since his DNA is on file with the police station. Although the previous episode seemed to hint that Ha Joong was the guilty one, he answers that he wasn’t the one who smoked the cigarette at the accident site; he’s clean. (Although he doesn’t say it outright, he insinuates that he knows of Jae Ha’s guilt and wants something for his silence.)

Ho Joong arrives at his father’s boxing gym, interrupting an argument between his parents, set off when his mother discovers that Seung Hyo’s father has been looking for his first son. She shows her husband the magazine profile on Seung Hyo that she found in his pocket.

Ho Joong tells his father off — apparently the father has never exhibited fatherly concern for him — and tells his mother to prepare her passport. He’s going to take her out of the country, away from his despised father.

Seung Hyo finally figures out everything, confirming with Il Gun that he is the only one who can see his ghost, and that Il Gun takes over his body for three hours a day. His loud arguing with Il Gun draws the notice of Secretary Yeo, who jumps to perform an exorcism to drive away the ghost. It doesn’t work.

Secretary Yeo and the driver are fairly excitable, flipping out over Seung Hyo’s most recent strange behavior, in contrast to the other associate, unflappable Mr. Yoon. Seung Hyo tells Yoon of being assaulted the night before, and deduces that if he was attacked for the evidence, it supports the probability that Il Gun’s death was murder.

Seung Hyo vaguely remembers a hazelnut coffee-like smell on his attacker, and instructs Yoon to buy every kind of black cigarette sold on the market. Inspecting them, he finds the one in question, and notes that it’s not a cigarette smoked by many.

Il Gun tries to tell Seung Hyo that he can recognize the guy — he saw his face — but Seung Hyo doesn’t understand.

Young In is fired from her job with a full month’s pay; her apologetic boss tells her to take the money and find a better job. Young In refuses the extra pay (she’ll only take what she earned), but the woman tells her she can’t take the money back. It was given to her by her rich young man, who asked the woman to fire Young In and provided compensation.

Young In goes to Seung Hyo’s office that night intending on confronting him over his interference, but by the time she gets there, her reaction has cooled. Before she goes in, however, she’s preceded by Young Ae. Having spent all day thinking of SeungHyoDad’s resemblance to Il Gun, Young Ae is convinced Seung Hyo is him.

Young Ae: “It’s you, isn’t it? It is. Other people might not know, but I do. Even if it doesn’t look like you, I can tell you’ve come back to meet Young In, and me. It’s you, isn’t it?”

Seung Hyo sees Il Gun’s reaction and guesses what’s going on. Perhaps for that reason, he doesn’t immediately turn her away. She continues, reminding him of Il Gun’s promise when she was in the hospital to stay by her side till they were both old and gray.

Young Ae: “Why won’t you answer? Tell me it’s true. You’re Il Gun, aren’t you?”
Seung Hyo: “What did you say your name was? I’m Cha Seung Hyo, not Sohn Il Gun. It appears you came under a misconception, so please leave. You’ll make a scene here.”

Young Ae collapses in sobs, but Seung Hyo feels pangs of sympathy and helps her rise.

Young In arrives just in time to hear Young Ae ask Seung Hyo, “Will you meet me, just ten times? Mr. Cha Seung Hyo, please meet with me.”

Seung Hyo turns to see Young In — who promptly turns and stalks out. (I love that this time he has no excuse to chase her, but he does anyway.) He follows her to the bus stop, shouting all the while for her to stop. She pretends not to hear him.

Young In tells him to talk quickly and leave, because she hates the sight of him — to which he answers, a little self-consciously, “What’s wrong with the way I look? Do you know how much these clothes cost?” (Cute.)

Young In gets on the bus, leaving him staring after her. After a moment’s hesitation, he steps onboard.

Young In’s astonished that Seung Hyo — who can’t even figure out how to pay properly, who recoils at the dirtiness of the public bus — would come onboard. He manages a compromise by holding onto the bar after covering it with a handkerchief.

Young In’s friends (who are adorable) prepare for her arrival — Deok has been relegated to the floor or outdoors — and Sooki teases him about still having lingering feelings for his first love (Young In?) from way back in middle school. She mentions her own first love, an “unperceptive, thick-headed idiot,” which excites Deok into asking whether he knows the idiot in question. Sooki answers, “You know him well.” (And mutters to herself, “Idiot.”)

Jae Ha snoops through Young In’s things some more, and this time he finds something promising — letters to Il Gun from (orphanage?) kids with return addresses on the envelopes.

Seung Hyo follows Young In all the way home, and asks why she didn’t take his advice to move out. Annoyed, she doesn’t tell him she IS moving out; instead, she asks him to leave her alone. He responds, “Don’t be mistaken, I’m not interested in you.”

Ha. If he’s so uninterested, she asks, why did he pay her employer to fire her, or hug her in the street? Which is news to him. He tells her it wasn’t him and insists he never lies.

Young In: “Then what’s your relationship to that woman?
Seung Hyo: “That woman?”
Young In: “The woman you were holding in view of everybody in your lobby.”
Seung Hyo: “Who was holding whom?”
Young In: “You’re a total womanizer. You hold me in the street in the morning, and hold another woman at night in your office. On top of that, she’s the woman I hate the most!”

As she stalks off, leaving him angry and frustrated, he yells out, “So did you come to see me because of your job? You had no other reason? Why won’t you take my advice? I said move out of that place!”

Seeing her mood, Jae Ha teases Young In, guessing she’s just had a fight with her boyfriend. She overcompensates with a stuttered denial.

Jae Ha has looked into having her father’s case reopened, and will accompany her to the police tomorrow. That renews her favor (it’s almost like she forgot her crush on Jae Ha until he was standing right there — which, perhaps, is exactly the case). She thanks him, and he offers her a ride to her friends’ place.

She goes back down to the lobby with her luggage, startled that Seung Hyo is still there, brooding. He sees her bag and asks if she has a place to go. She counters, “Why, would you put me up somewhere if I didn’t?” Seung Hyo takes her comment at face value and tells her to follow him; he’ll find something.

So when he sees Jae Ha standing by his car, waiting for her, he’s not exactly thrilled. The two men have another glare-off.

Seung Hyo follows her to the car, asking where she’s going. She says it doesn’t matter, and he says grimly, “Yeah, it doesn’t matter. Get out of the car.”

She refuses, just as he glances on the dashboard to see a cigarette pack. A pack of black smokes matching the particular brand he identified earlier. Dun dun DUN!

Young In closes the car door on Seung Hyo, who steps back… and then climbs into the back seat.

 
Additionally…

Admittedly, I do wish Il Gun would take more care to remember the increasingly awkward positions he’s placing Seung Hyo in. I don’t fault him for doing his best to look after his daughter and Young Ae, but he could be more courteous to his host. To be fair, though, Il Gun has been more respectful recently of not jumping into The Body willy-nilly whenever he’s upset, because the Reaper has warned him not to abuse his opportunity.

And now that Seung Hyo is aware of everything, I’m more at ease about the ethical aspects of everything. It’s becoming clear that he and Young In like each other — and although she’s clinging to her denial more fiercely, I have the feeling that Seung Hyo is more aware of his own feelings. (Reluctant perhaps, but aware.) Plus, his relationship with Young In is serving as the catalyst for changing his obsessive-compulsive tics, which is always a meaningful development. If liking her forces him to overcome his lifelong problems/issues, it suggests that the relationship is balanced, and not just a rich guy swooping to save a poor damsel in distress.

 
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