Jugglers: Episode 5

by LollyPip

Working for a man who fights her every time she tries to help him is driving Yoon-yi crazy. Luckily she’s no quitter, and she’s determined not only to be a good partner to Chi-won, but win him over in the process. But just as it looks as if they may be coming to a tentative truce, both at home and at the office, a new challenge threatens to create a brand new rift between them.

 
EPISODE 5: “Whatever it is you want, I can’t give it to you”

On the bus ride home, Yoon-yi smiles over the questionnaire that Chi-won wrote out for her. That is, until she sees that he listed his most awkward moment as “the first time I met my assistant.” Such a smartass. She’s surprised that his first love was in middle school, and was an older woman.

She gets frustrated when all he says about his first kiss is that it was nice, having hoped for more details like when, where, and with whom. But Chi-won does answer all of the questions honestly, like admitting that he feels pathetic when he says things he doesn’t mean, and that if he could go back to any point in time, he’d go to the time before he was born.

When she gets to work the next morning, Yoon-yi sends a report on Chi-won to the president’s secretary, as she was ordered. She starts to send it to Executive Director Jo as well, but she feels weird about it and doesn’t send it.

She straightens up Chi-won’s office and gives his little cactus a spritz of water. When she goes in to talk to him later, she sees that he’s turned the cactus so that the cute note faces him, though he stammers that he was just letting the other side of the plant get some light.

She thanks him for the list of facts about himself and offers to treat him to lunch, but he says curtly that he has plans. Deflated, Yoon-yi turns to go, but Chi-won keeps talking. He tells her that he has to pick up some shoes that are being repaired, then he has to go drinking after work, although he doesn’t want to. He asks her not to misunderstand and think he’s making an excuse to get out of eating with her.

Encouraged, Yoon-yi asks Chi-won to share his schedule with her, but instead, he reminds her of the answer to the last question on the questionnaire. It was a prompt to give a final statement to the reader, and he’d written, “Whatever it is you want, I can’t give it to you.”

Yoon-yi leaves Chi-won’s office and runs into her friend Jung-ae, who’s worn way too much makeup for her first day as Yul’s assistant. Yoon-yi redoes it for her, telling her that the smiling people she saw on the way to work were probably laughing at her, but good-natured Jung-ae takes that in stride. She tells Yoon-yi that she’s moving to the basement apartment of Kyung-rye and Bo-na’s building, and Yoon-yi frowns, wondering how to respond.

Jung-ae introduces herself to Yul’s team, and Team Leader Baek tells her right away that if she does well in her year-long contract, he will renew it until the day he quits. The rest of the team give her a listless round of “Fighting” and ask when Team Leader Baek intends to turn in one of those resignation letters he writes all day long. LOL.

Team Leader Baek introduces Gye-young, who is in charge of sports marketing, and who won’t get married until her savings account matures. Next is Shi-won, the company’s team manager and known blabbermouth, and Ban-mi, manager of general affairs and web novel writer (ha, she offers to email Jung-ae something “for mature readers”). Last is the intern and only guy, Deul-rae.

At her new desk, Jung-ae marvels at all the buttons on the phone. When it rings, she panics and finally starts to rattle off the greeting she’s been given, but she bolts to her feet when it turns out to be Yul himself. He calls her outside, where he rolls up on his motorcycle, tosses her a helmet, and tells her to get on.

Yoon-yi brings Bo-na coffee, cutely pouting that she must be in a one-sided love because her calls are going ignored, until Bo-na says that she’s not ignoring her, she’s just been busy. She reassures Yoon-yi that Executive Director Jo didn’t take it out on her when Chi-won dragged Yoon-yi out of the club the other night. Executive Director Jo walks past them, ignoring Yoon-yi, then calls Bo-na to send her into his office.

He’s upset that she left with Chi-won the other night, reminding her that he’s the one who got her a new job at YB Ad. She argues that an assistant is meant to be her boss’s partner, though she has to admit that Chi-won doesn’t actually see her that way.

Executive Director Jo says she should make Chi-won accept her as his partner, so that they can get even more information about him. He tells her to remain loyal to him first, then a mysterious text about a “black file” has him dismissing her.

Heh, it turns out that Yul brought Jung-ae out to have her break up with his girlfriend for him. She plays it like a makjang drama, sliding the woman an envelope full of money and telling her dramatically to go. Yul is outside feeding Jung-ae lines through an earpiece, and she does a decent job repeating his messages.

The girlfriend tells Jung-ae to give Yul a message, then flings a glass of water into her face. She calls a friend for help, and soon three huge thugs are chasing Jung-ae down the street.

She catches a heel in a manhole cover and falls, and as she’s trying to save her shoe, Yul pulls up on his motorcycle and yells at her to get on. She does, but only after breaking the heel off her shoe and leaving it behind.

At the end of the day, Chi-won closes his office door when he leaves like usual. But he remembers Yoon-yi telling him that most bosses leave the door open as a sign, and he goes back to crack his office door open a bit. Awww.

Yoon-yi surprises him by popping up to thank him, and Chi-won tells her that she thanks people too easily. She gives him a couple of tonics since he’s going out drinking (one for his liver and one for the inevitable hangover), and retorts that he’s too stingy with his thanks.

He says dryly that she’s compensated for the drinks and paid for her work, so there’s no reason for him to be thankful. Yoon-yi says that’s true, but that a single word goes a long way. Chi-won argues that he learned while working at the news station that a single word can get you in a lot of trouble.

Before he goes, he reminds her of the number one condition for her job—silence. Yoon-yi makes a face, but Chi-won actually lets slip a tiny smile.

As they wait for Jung-ae’s shoe to be repaired, Yul acknowledges that what happened was upsetting, but he’s mostly interested in making sure she noticed how cool he looked when he rode in to save her. He tells her she’d better not quit, and when she says she won’t, he gives her a thumbs-up for her tenacity.

He declares that he’s going to call her “Queen” (wangbi), which is short for “Secretary Wang,” then says he has to leave for an appointment. As he goes, he promises to buy Jung-ae a new pair of heels as thanks for today.

Yul turns out to be the drinking date that Chi-won’s been dreading, ha. Chi-won says he’ll only stay an hour, and he stands to leave when Yul rejects that limitation. But he turns back when Yul mentions that he wants repayment for helping him find the questionnaire.

Yul guesses that it was for Yoon-yi, and he asks if Chi-won plans to date her. Chi-won says he doesn’t, so Yul calls dibs on her as his next assistant. Chi-won asks Yul about Jung-ae, but Yul says she’s too innocent for his taste—he prefers someone with pride, who stands up for herself.

Meanwhile, Jung-ae wanders the city shops, looking at new shoes in store windows and flipping through books about being a good assistant. Outside the police station she finds a photo of her husband on a wanted poster, and she stares at it sadly.

Yul tells Chi-won that after having gone through so many assistants, he knows how to read a person, and Yoon-yi is exactly what he wants. Noting Chi-won’s discomfort, he offers to make a bet: If Chi-won loses he has to finish his shot, but if Yul loses, he’ll give up on Yoon-yi.

Annoyed, Chi-won says that Yoon-yi’s future is her own to choose and can’t be decided by them over drinks. Yul accuses him of being scared he’ll lose, and Chi-won’s pride goads him into agreeing to the bet.

Watch the scene

A drinking bet for the best secretary

 
One of the things Yoon-yi learned from the questionnaire is Chi-won’s birthday, which is in a few days, and she wonders how to celebrate. Her planning is interrupted by a call from Yul, who’s got his hands full with a very drunk Chi-won. Yul wants Chi-won’s new address, but since she doesn’t wish to reveal that he’s her tenant, she instead meets them outside the restaurant.

Chi-won is rip-roaring drunk, barely aware of what’s happening as Yoon-yi bundles him into a taxi and sends Yul home on his own. As the taxi pulls away, Yul busts out laughing at a video he took of Chi-won bellowing at their waitress that he loves her.

On the drive, Chi-won’s head falls onto Yoon-yi’s shoulder, making her face grow hot. He’s a bit more awake when they arrive home, and he insists on getting himself upstairs. Yoon-yi goes inside, but she keeps hearing thumping noises, and it takes her a minute to realize that they aren’t coming from Chi-won’s place, but from the basement.

Someone is down there, and they take a loud tumble, sending Yoon-yi flying upstairs to pound on Chi-won’s door. He doesn’t respond so she calls him, but he falls asleep again while she’s telling him about the intruder. She ends up creeping to the basement by herself, using her phone as a flashlight, until someone grabs her from behind.

Oh whew, it’s only Chi-won, who shushes Yoon-yi and motions for her to leave. After she goes, he flings a sheet off of a suspicious lump in a corner, and out pops the intruder. They grapple in the dark for a minute until the intruder breaks free and escapes upstairs, bowling over Yoon-yi on his flight out of the yard.

Chi-won chases him, but he trips over Yoon-yi and lands on the ground next to her. He asks if she’s okay, holding up the fistful of hair he pulled from the intruder’s head. The police are called and they promise to install a CCTV camera right outside, but they can’t do it until tomorrow.

Scared that the intruder will return tonight, Yoon-yi follows Chi-won upstairs and nervously blurts out, “Let’s sleep together!” She quickly clarifies that she means actual sleep, not sex, but Chi-won just goes inside and shuts the door in her face.

Once he’s alone, he realizes that he’s got a bad scratch on his arm. He flops in bed and tries to fall back asleep, but strange noises keep him awake. He goes outside to investigate, and finds Yoon-yi huddled in front of his door, wrapped in an old cardboard box for warmth. Awww.

He grudgingly lets her in, but only until morning. Yoon-yi marvels at Chi-won’s extensive comic book collection (one of his answers on the questionnaire was that he wants to own a comic book store), but he redirects her to a chair she can sleep in. He crawls back into bed, but he wakes not long after to find Yoon-yi reading a stack of his comics.

He gives up and joins her, taking serious notes like he normally does, while Yoon-yi giggles over her selection. She notices the blood on his sleeve, and Chi-won jumps to hide whatever he’s writing as she approaches.

But she just wants to patch up his cut, reassuring him that he won the fight, based on the sheer volume of hair he ripped from the intruder’s head. Chi-won says that only counts when women fight, but when men fight, the loser is the one who bleeds first. Yoon-yi argues that since his cut was from a fingernail, and scratching is cheating, that he still won. Cute.

Chi-won actually smiles at her as she grumbles at his cut, and when she blows on it, he jumps like she goosed him. They go back to their comics, but this time Chi-won keeps peeking at Yoon-yi over his book, and once she even catches him at it.

Watch the scene

Stealing peeks over comic books

 
In a group meeting the next day, they both fall asleep on the table, making the team wonder what’s going on. An alarm goes off, and Chi-won and Yoon-yi jump up, Chi-won with paper stuck to his lip and Yoon-yi typing sleepily on the cover of her closed laptop. LOL.

The alarm is the president’s secretary, calling all of the assistants to the roof so that she can announce that it’s time for the Best Boss Award competition. Yoon-yi is chosen to explain it to the new assistants, and she says that the “BBAs” are a competition in which the best boss is chosen, and that the winner will be fast-tracked for promotions along with his assistant.

In the elevator, the assistants discuss which bosses plan to enter the competition. Bo-na says that Executive Director Jo wouldn’t miss it, and Jung-ae is dismayed to learn that she can’t opt out, because it’s the boss who decides.

Bo-na tells Yoon-yi that her old boss, Director Bong, has decided to compete. She looks almost gleeful as she says that with someone from the chairman’s office participating, the competition should be fierce.

Yoon-yi tries to convince Chi-won to compete, but he completely ignores her as she bounces around him excitedly. She keeps talking anyway, telling him that there are three rounds of missions, and that they should focus on the second mission, “A boss who understands.”

Eventually Chi-won asks if Yoon-yi has a lot more to explain, and she says she’s finished. He asks about the application and she lights up, but he refuses to sign it. Yoon-yi retreats to the break room to fume at how he trolled her.

She goes back to argue the point, but he has no interest in a promotion, fame, power, or popularity, not counting it worth the sacrifice of his precious time. Not even Yoon-yi’s mention that he’d gain memories can move him, because he doesn’t see the point in making memories with her.

Yoon-yi briefly vows to give up, but after work she takes Chi-won some stew to try and butter him up. He just gargles his mouthwash in her face, grossing her out. She even has a very loud phone conversation with Bo-na about how Executive Director Jo got promoted after winning Best Boss, hoping that Chi-won will overhear and become interested, but he just thinks she’s being weird again.

Jung-ae goes around the office passing out her new business card to everyone, excited even though it’s technically her sister’s name on the card. Team Leader Baek asks her to make copies of an email he sent to her, but the whole team is away so there’s nobody to ask for help. She gets a call to come into Yul’s office, so she hastily hits print, not noticing that instead of ten copies, she’s told the computer to make a thousand.

Yul holds up a BBA entry form, asking if she filled it out, but Jung-ae says she didn’t because she heard he’s never competed. He pouts that it’s only because his assistants always ran away when he tried, but he wants to try again this year.

He explains that if he wins, then maybe the family elders will let him do business his way, promising to explain later. He holds out a hand to shake Jung-ae’s, then peers at her hand closely. He comments that her hands look like she’s done housework for a decade, and Jung-ae just says she’s lived a rough life.

She leaves his office to find paper everywhere, and Team Leader Baek trying to stop the copy machine that’s spitting out a stream of paper. He orders Jung-ae to cancel the print job, but she has no idea how to do that, and later the team members gossip on instant messenger about how clueless she is.

Jung-ae and Yoon-yi end up downstairs in the cafe, complaining to Kyung-rye about their crappy day. Yoon-yi is upset that her boss won’t even consider entering the competition, while Jung-ae whines that she’s not qualified to compete alongside her boss. Kyung-rye’s solution is for them to swap bosses, and when they scoff, she reminds them that there’s someone with an even worse boss.

Cut to: Bo-na, having lunch with Executive Director Jo, who’s treating her suspiciously well. He says he really wants to win Best Boss again, which would make him the first three-time winner in the history of the company. He tells Bo-na that his goal is to be the youngest vice president ever at YG Group, and she promises to do her best.

It’s late when Chi-won finally leaves work, and he surprises Yoon-yi by offering her a ride home. She accepts, though she hopes that people won’t misunderstand, and Chi-won says they haven’t done anything to be misunderstood. Yoon-yi hesitantly explains that she’s been terribly misunderstood in the past.

She tells him that her old boss is going to compete in the Best Boss competition, and that she just wanted him to see her win. She’s confesses that she wanted revenge, and she apologizes for dragging him into it.

Yoon-yi struggles to stifle her triumphant smirk when Chi-won asks when the entry deadline is. She pouts that it’s this Friday, and with a sigh, Chi-won pulls over and kicks her out of the car. PFFT. As he drives off, leaving her to catch the last bus, he mutters with a touch of amusement that Yoon-yi should have gone into acting.

Yoon-yi is incandescent with rage by the time she gets home, and nearly breaks a lamp in her fury. Her phone reminds her that tomorrow is Chi-won’s birthday, and she decides to use this last chance to convince him to enter the competition.

She goes shopping for a cake and gifts, and calls the whole department together for a meeting. They have a serious discussion about how much Chi-won is going to hate this, but Yoon-yi overrides their concerns.

They find Chi-won in the meeting room and come in singing “Happy Birthday,” with Yoon-yi right in front carrying the giant cake with lit candles. The flames cause Chi-won to have a flashback, and he suddenly finds himself trapped while his home burns down around him.

His uncle finds him unconscious and frantically slaps his face until he wakes up. He pushes Little Chi-won out the window and onto the balcony, but when Chi-won turns back to help his uncle escape, some beams fall and block the window. He wails in fear as his uncle yells at him to run.

Chi-won’s only escape route is a tree near the balcony, so he climbs into the branches to avoid the flames. But he gets stuck and can’t climb down, so he’s forced to sit in the tree and watch, screaming, as his uncle perishes in the inferno.

Chi-won snaps back to the present, and he lashes out, swiping the cake out of Yoon-yi’s arms and sending it crashing to the floor. Shaking and sweating in front of the entire team, he asks if Yoon-yi became an assistant to plan stupid events, making her cry. With his usual lack of awareness, Yul bounces into the room, yelling “Happy Birthday!” and setting off a party cracker.

Chi-won flees to his office, and once he’s alone, he sinks to the floor with a heavy sigh.

Watch the scene

Happy birthday… or not

 
Epilogue.

Yoon-yi shops for the perfect birthday gift for Chi-won, and she finally settles on a coffee mug that she can personalize. She writes out what she wants it to say, remembering his questionnaire answer: Whatever it is you want, I can’t give it to you.

Chi-won finds the gift in his office after his outburst, and he opens it. Inside is the mug, and in Yoon-yi’s handwriting, it says: Whatever it is you want, you will be able to get it.

 
COMMENTS

Damn, I see now why Chi-won has such a deep fear of fire. His trauma goes a lot deeper than just having had his home burn down when he was a child—he was actually trapped, and had to watch his uncle die in a very horrific and painful way. We don’t know yet what happened to him after that, but I suspect that his uncle was his only family, and that’s why he’s shut himself off to any love and concern from others as an adult. I can see how he would think that when losing someone you love is so heartbreaking, it’s just safer not to connect with anyone in the first place.

And yet, against his will, Chi-won is starting to open up to Yoon-yi. It was cute how he made a point to tell Yoon-yi why he was declining her invitation to lunch, so that she wouldn’t misunderstand him. He’s finally understanding that her interest isn’t meddling, but genuine interest. He’s still drawing a line, insisting that he can’t give her what he wants, but he’s giving her more than he’s given anyone in probably decades. It’s a start! I think that Chi-won is even beginning to see Yoon-yi as an attractive woman, based on the way he’s opening up, but also by the way he reacted to her when she blew on his cut. It gave him the shivers, and he looked totally befuddled there for a minute. I think someone is developing a crush.

Of course, all this is just going to make things that much worse when Chi-won finds out that Yoon-yi is feeding information about him to his enemy. She may have backed out of sending his questionnaire answers to Executive Director Jo, knowing he’s got something nefarious in mind for Chi-won, but she still sent it to the president’s assistant, who admitted she needed a “bullet” to use against him just in case. Having worked for her previous skeevy boss, Yoon-yi can’t be that naïve to think that the president’s assistant only wanted personal information on Chi-won for fun. And she knows full well how private Chi-won is, so even if she’s still pushing him to tell her about himself, she should know better than to share that information with anyone else without his permission.

It’s early yet, but I can see a lot of potential for cuteness as Yul and Jung-ae learn to work together, and hopefully they’ll be able to help each other grow as people, too. I don’t know if there’s a potential loveline there, but I’ll be perfectly happy if there isn’t (and at this point, I’d prefer if they didn’t get together). Yul is such a spoiled child, and he obviously uses his work assistants as buffers so that he doesn’t have to take responsibility for his actions, while Jung-ae has only ever been a wife and has no idea who she is beyond a mother and homemaker. I can see them becoming great friends and supporters, with Jung-ae helping Yul grow up and become a responsible part of the workforce, while he teaches her how to have some fun in life.

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