Heart to Heart: Episode 13

by LollyPip

Hong-do discovers the secret of her past, and spends this entire episode trying to run from it. But no matter how much she may want to, she can’t hide from the truth. She can’t hide from Yi-seok either, as he refuses to let his world crash down around him without an explanation. Sadly, the explanation won’t be much consolation for either of them.

EPISODE 13 RECAP

We go back to the children’s hide-and-seek game in the field, and this time we follow the twin boys as they enter the shed to hide. The older twin instructs his younger brother to help him hide in a metal drum barrel, and the younger brother piles junk on top to make double-sure the little girl won’t look in there. With a kick to the barrel hiding his bossy brother, the younger twin makes himself comfortable with a book in a pile of hay outside.

Back in the present, Yi-seok surprises Hong-do with a late-night visit and tells her he’s run away from home. Shocked, Hong-do can only weakly protest as Yi-seok carries his things inside and delights in his first look at her home. He marvels at her garden and attic, and skirts her questions about what happened with his family. She tells him to go home after dinner and deal with things, but he refuses and says he’s staying forever.

Butler Ahn reports on Yi-seok’s whereabouts to Chairman Go, who’s decided that he’s going to send Hong-do abroad to avoid all this negativity. Ahn counters that he tried that once before twenty-three years ago and she came back, so maybe it’s time to confront the issue and let Hong-do and Yi-seok make their own decision. Smart man — I knew I liked him.

Hong-do worries about Yi-seok’s family and wonders why he didn’t at least go to his own apartment, but he’s in no mood to be serious and just wonders out loud what the two of them could possibly find to do all night long. He declares himself suddenly very tired and plunks himself down in Hong-do’s bed, patting the blanket for her to join him. Hee, so cute.

Hong-do grabs some blankets to make a bed in the other room, but Yi-seok says they may as well practice now since they’ll be living together eventually, and gently wrestles her to the bed (and I notice that Hong-do doesn’t protest much). With sweet kisses, a whispered “I love you,” and an order to her pet fish to look away, Yi-seok convinces shy Hong-do to stay with him.

She wakes in the morning to find her breakfast laid out and Yi-seok dismantling her excessive door locks. She takes a call from his mother (Yi-seok is so adorably jealous until she tells him it’s a woman calling), who invites her to meet and asks her not to tell Yi-seok. He gets her to tell him her door code, and she convinces him to go on to work without her by feigning tiredness.

Hong-do meets Yi-seok’s mother in a coffee shop, and Mom immediately starts accusing Hong-do of taking her sons away. Wasn’t one enough for her — now she wants the other one too? Hong-do is understandably confused because Mom is raving, threatening to tear her apart and calling her “Cha Young-ji.” She tells Hong-do point-blank that she killed Yi-seok’s brother, Il-seok, and Hong-do runs home in a frenzy, desperate to find anything to explain Yi-seok’s mother’s wild accusations.

She digs through her grandmother’s old things and finds papers proving that her grandmother once worked for the Go family. With shaking hands she looks through photographs from when she was a child, and finds the same picture that Butler Ahn found, of herself and her grandmother with Yi-seok and his brother. It triggers an old memory of the hide-and-seek game, and the accidental fire. In shock, Hong-do can only cry, “It can’t be… It can’t be…”

Yi-seok’s mother confesses to Chairman Go that she met with Hong-do and told her about the fire. Irrationally, she declares that even if she doesn’t remember, Hong-do committed a crime and must pay for it. Chairman Go points out that now Yi-seok will find out, which apparently never occurred to Mom, and he asks what she intends to do when that happens.

Se-ro struggles on the set of her drama, though she tries to stay positive as the director complains that she’s a terrible actress after all. She texts Doo-soo to buy her a cup of coffee at the station, where she tells him sadly that she ruined her scene today. She asks him to take her out for drinks, and when he turns her down because he’s working overtime, she sighs that this happens so often it doesn’t even hurt her feelings anymore, though clearly it does.

Yi-seok goes home to see his mother who’s taken to her bed again, and Butler Ahn stops him to warn him that his grandfather is planning to send Hong-do out of the country. Yi-seok visits Mom who begs him to stay with her, and she grabs his hand every time he thinks she’s sleeping and tries to slip away. In a semi-sedated daze, Mom tells him that she met with Hong-do today and that if she shows her face around here again, she’s not even human.

But Hong-do is in even worse shape as she sits alone, surrounded by old photos and assaulted by her emerging memories of that horrible day. She remembers the aftermath, when Yi-seok had stood stonily with his parents near the smoking skeleton of the shed. Hong-do’s grandmother had ushered her away, and the last thing she remembers is Yi-seok’s mother clutching her surviving son, and the accusing look on young Yi-seok’s face.

Lying on the floor, Hong-do begs her grandmother to say something — to say whether it really was her that did such a terrible thing. Yi-seok tries to call her, still trapped by his mother’s needy grip, but she’s too shocked to answer. He tries one last time to leave his mother and go see to Hong-do, but Mom grabs his sleeve and says that if he goes, she’ll die.

Doo-soo drives Se-ro home, and she tells him about how she was sent to the States when she was only ten years old. She goes on about how she was bullied at first but eventually became popular, and for the first time Doo-soo doesn’t look annoyed at her chatter. He interrupts her to put his coat over her exposed legs (he’s such a prude, this guy) but actually smiles at her silly stories.

Se-ro sighs that she wasn’t done talking when they pull up to her house, and admits that she doesn’t have any friends other than Yi-seok. She warns Doo-soo that she didn’t approach him with friendship in mind and warns him not to get any ideas like offering to be her friend. She offers to clean his coat for him, and it’s cute how he seems really concerned that she might think he’s dirty or something. He doesn’t seem particularly eager to leave either, which Se-ro notes with a grin.

In the morning, Chairman Go calls for Butler Ahn and is shocked when Housekeeper Geum-shim answers instead, as if she never left. She finds his favorite undies for him and fusses at him for wetting himself (“It’s not urine, it’s barley tea!”) and for letting himself get conned by that Madam Oh. They already act, and fight, like an old married couple.

Worried about Hong-do, Doo-soo remembers going to her place the night before and overhearing her landlord saying that she wants that weird girl Hong-do out. He’d approached, and she’d asked him why she never sees Hong-do anymore. He goes back to her place and becomes frantic when she won’t answer the door, and kicks his way in. Finding her senseless on the floor, he carries her to the hospital.

In the morning, Yi-seok manages to pry himself free of Mom’s grip and goes to find Hong-do. His father pulls Butler Ahn aside and instructs him to move his bed to Yi-seok’s mom’s room, but to lie that he didn’t tell him to do it, which is just so sleazy. Ahn asks him if he knows about Yi-seok’s girlfriend, informing him of who she really is and saying that Yi-seok doesn’t know yet.

Yi-seok is alarmed by Hong-do’s broken-down door and takes a call from Butler Ahn, angry and assuming they’ve sent her out of the country already. Ahn and the chairman correctly deduce that Hong-do figured everything out and can’t face Yi-seok, and the chairman figures he may have some things to set straight and asks Ahn to find her.

She’s at the hospital, where Doo-soo tells her she’s suffering from exhaustion. Hong-do is unresponsive until Doo-soo starts to call Yi-seok, when she begs him desperately not to ever, ever call him. She manages to stammer out, “I… I… his brother… I killed him,” leaving Doo-soo wondering what to do.

Yi-seok shows up at the mansion to confirm in person that Butler Ahn and his grandfather haven’t sent Hong-do away, but his mother stops him when he tries to go upstairs. She asks if he’s seen Hong-do, and he asks why she hates Hong-do so much. He wonders what his mom said to her, and what she meant by Hong-do not being human.

Mom grows desperate, begging Yi-seok to promise never to see Hong-do again, and in exchange she’ll approve whatever girl he brings home from now on. Yi-seok still thinks this is about Hong-do being a poor orphan, but Mom screams that it’s all Hong-do’s fault and swears again that she’ll die if Yi-seok sees her.

This pushes Yi-seok too far, and he tells Mom that he and Se-ro have lived in fear for their mother’s life for years, accusing her of using the threat to hurt her family. He says that their father is worthless and their mother has tried to kill herself countless times, and screams that being an orphan would be better.

This earns him a hard slap, which is when the chairman finally breaks up the argument — but Yi-seok doesn’t even hesitate, demanding that his grandfather tell him where Hong-do is right now. The chairman yells that he doesn’t know, and Yi-seok yells back that the both of them can stop interfering in his relationship now, and he leaves.

Doo-soo takes Hong-do home, but she goes right back to the floor where the pictures are still strewn all over. He tells her she can’t stay there, so she says she’ll clean up the mess and he can go. Instead he gently helps her up, and takes her out for fresh air.

He drives Hong-do out to a beautiful lake in the mountains, where he tells her that if what happened back then is true, she was too young to really be held responsible. Thank you, Detective Voice-of-Reason, I’m glad somebody said it. Hong-do remembers that she lit the fire, and says she’s afraid of what Yi-seok will think if he knows.

Doo-soo offers to be her fall guy if she wants to break up with Yi-seok to protect him from the truth, saying that it’s easier for a man to accept a breakup if there’s a clear reason. She could tell Yi-seok that Doo-soo was so persistent that she couldn’t reject him — which is sweet, but I really don’t think Yi-seok would believe that. Hong-do declines his offer, saying she just has to disappear, which Doo-soo rejects outright.

Se-ro feels depressed after witnessing her family’s blowup, and it’s even worse that Doo-soo isn’t answering her texts. She finally takes his coat to the police station where she runs into Detective Yang (who is, for some reason, dressed like Sherlock Holmes today).

Yang gets a call from Yi-seok, who’s had no luck calling Hong-do’s phone and is now looking for Doo-soo, and he tells him Doo-soo took the day off. Ha, I love his reaction when he gets Yi-seok’s famous hang-up treatment for the first time.

Yang assures a worried Se-ro that Doo-soo is probably just visiting family, but she whines that he should try to reach him anyway. He does, as he asks if she likes his outfit because he has a blind date, because somebody promised him a date but didn’t follow through and he got tired of waiting, HAHAHA. Se-ro sheepishly admits she doesn’t actually know anyone in Korea, but Yang insists (in English) that he likes foreigners too.

Doo-soo and Hong-do are still at the lake that night, since Hong-do is afraid to go home, as Yi-seok sits on her bed and checks his phone every three seconds for a message from her. Doo-soo finally drives her home at dawn, and Yi-seok is still there when they walk into her house together. Well, that looks bad, especially since Hong-do immediately bursts into guilty tears.

With a stony expression, Yi-seok just says it’s fine as long as she’s back, and goes to the door to pull her inside. But instead of being angry, he folds her into a relieved hug and says he forgives her for everything. He realizes something is seriously wrong and asks Hong-do why she’s still upset, and orders Doo-soo to leave them alone when he offers to explain in private.

Doo-soo tries to play the “we stayed out all night together” card, but like I thought, Yi-seok doesn’t buy that they actually did anything. He focuses on Hong-do and says he’s not accusing her of anything — but he lets his worry get to him and he shakes her, demanding to know why she’s unresponsive and what the hell is wrong.

Suddenly, Hong-do collapses at Yi-seok’s feet wailing that she did wrong, over and over. She begs him to forget her and, without a clear explanation, Yi-seok can only assume the worst as Doo-soo tries to pry Hong-do off the floor. Doo-soo tells her she’s done nothing wrong, but Yi-seok gets free and leaves without a word.

Later, Hong-do listens to the messages that Yi-seok sent all night long, flipping from wondering whether she was with Doo-soo to telling her that it doesn’t matter because he just wanted to know that she was safe, to taking the blame for his family’s behavior. It kills me that he still thinks this is about how his family treated her.

Doo-soo looks up the old police file on the fire, but there’s not much information since it was never officially investigated, having been started by a child. Yang suggests he check with the fire department for more information, and Doo-soo says he has and is waiting for the report.

Yi-seok lets himself into Hong-do’s place to find her packing, and says he’s ready to talk. First, he apologizes for how his mother and grandfather treated her, but she tells him to stop. He begs her to tell him what she thinks she did wrong, but she tells him not to ask and just go.

Yi-seok takes this about as well as you’d expect, and he refuses to go without an explanation. Angry and still assuming, he demands to know what she and Doo-soo did, and Hong-do lets him draw his own conclusions and only says she’s sorry. He finally leaves, but only to go to Doo-soo’s place, where it’s Yi-seok’s turn to throw the first punch.

Like he said he would do, Doo-soo takes the blame and says that he took advantage of the opportunity when Yi-seok’s family gave Hong-do a hard time. That’s still too vague for Yi-seok, who wants details, but he calls out Doo-soo on his lies when he implies that he and Hong-do slept together. He knows her too well to believe she’d do such a thing. Yi-seok knows there’s still something he doesn’t know, but he’s not getting the answer from Doo-soo.

Hong-do sits in her indoor garden the next day, and she reaches out to touch a sunbeam as she thinks to her grandmother that if someone got too close to the sun, they would disappear. She wishes that she could do that, and leave the world without a trace or a memory to anyone.

A knock on the door rouses her, and she opens to find Yi-seok’s mother there on the other side. She manically searches for Yi-seok, only acknowledging Hong-do when she grabs her arm and shakes her head that he’s not here. Mom spits that she’s disgusted just looking at Hong-do, who just gets on her knees and says that she’s sorry.

Yi-seok enters the house, just in time to see his mother drop to the floor and shake Hong-do, demanding that she bring her son back. She screams Il-seok’s name and, confused, Yi-seok asks what she means. Mom tries to compose herself and lead him out, but Hong-do rises and starts to speak.

Mom tries to convince Yi-seok to leave before Hong-do can say anything damning, but Hong-do manages to say in a small voice, “I’m Young-ji.” Yi-seok clearly recognizes the name because his head snaps around and his eyes grow wide, and he gasps for air as he realizes what this means.

Hong-do cries as she explains who her grandmother was to his family, and says, “Your brother…” But she doesn’t get to finish her sentence, as she’s interrupted by Yi-seok’s furious scream.

COMMENTS

Oh, that’s hard to watch, and even harder to figure out a way to articulate how I feel about Yi-seok’s reaction to this revelation. I’m glad that Hong-do got the chance to be the one to tell him, because as hard as this will be for Yi-seok to process, I think it would have been even harder if the news had come from anyone but Hong-do. I do think he’s most likely got a not-insignificant amount of guilt for what happened to his brother weighing his own shoulders down, since he was the one who helped him hide so well that he couldn’t escape in time to save his life. That’s going to seriously complicate things, I’m sure. But I’m counting on Yi-seok’s deep capacity for understanding and forgiveness when it comes to the people he loves, and his incredibly strong love for Hong-do, to help them smooth the way back to each other. He seems to understand her so well that, even when faced with incredibly damning evidence, he always knows the truth — so I have faith that after the initial shock, he’ll be able to forgive her this, too.

It’s interesting to see how far Hong-do has come in her recovery, now that everything is falling down around her ears and she has every reason and excuse to fall back on her old habits of avoidance and fear. She’s still afraid, and she still wishes to disappear and avoid all this heartbreak, but when it comes down to it she speaks up and faces the fire, so to speak. Hong-do will always be private and soft-spoken, and will probably always default to retreating and trying to hide when things go badly, but she’s no longer that fearful woman who would hide from the world when things get difficult. When she has to, she can now stand up straight, look people in the eye, and tell the truth — even if it means risking everything. If nothing else, even if things don’t work out with Yi-seok, I love that Hong-do now knows she can be a part of the world instead of hiding from it, and understands that hiding is so much scarier than living.

I also have to mention that I like the friend that Doo-soo has turned out to be for Hong-do, which suits both of them much better than when he was a love interest. He cares about her enough to want to help, and his caring is slowly shifting from “I know what’s best for her” to “I want what’s best for her,” and he’s getting better at letting her define what that is rather than assuming and telling her. Several times in this episode alone, Doo-soo actually asked Hong-do what she wanted, then helped her get that. Though I think his advice isn’t always great (because no, it’s not better to lie when you break up with someone than to tell the truth), I do think it comes from a place of wanting to help. And I love that his instinct now, when Hong-do needs someone, is to call Yi-seok. He finally understands that Yi-seok is who she wants and loves.

I’m counting on this show’s (and these characters’) proven ability to subvert all the usual tropes, and not allow the fallout from this reveal to drag on for too long. Yi-seok has such a great track record of going away to be upset but then coming right back to work things out with Hong-do, and I want to see that happen here, too. They’re so strong together, and they both have a much better chance of healing themselves and Yi-seok’s damaged family together than they do apart. I said previously that this is something I could see the family having difficulty ever forgiving, but now I realize that their challenge isn’t to forgive her… it’s to realize that she was a child, and didn’t know any better, and that there’s nothing to forgive. It was simply a tragic accident, and only by facing the truth together can they all really heal from their loss.

 
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