Woohoo Waikiki: Episode 12

by LollyPip

We all know that Joon-ki is impulsive, though usually he only hurts himself with his crazy antics. But this time, an ill-considered decision may put someone else’s heart in danger. There are a lot of emotions flying around as someone else starts to see one of the Waikiki boys in a new light, and a competition for a lady’s hand starts to get… well, out of hand.

 
EPISODE 12: “I’m a woman, too//Life and death situation”

Seo-jin tells Joon-ki that she likes him, and at first he thinks it’s a joke, then he starts to realize that she means it. Still hoping it’s a prank, he says that she can’t be a woman to him because he’s known her since they were kids and they even share razors. Seo-jin says she gets it and kicks him out of her room.

Joon-ki pounds on the door, trying to get her to talk to him, but the noise draws Dong-gu instead. Dong-gu yells at Joon-ki for going near his sister and forcefully drags him off for a beating. Seo-jin tries to convince herself that Joon-ki isn’t worth crying over, but she cries anyway.

A few days later, Soo-ah is excited to tell Doo-shik that she’s found something she wants to do with her life — become an idol. LOL. Joon-ki says that’s a dumb idea at her age, so Doo-shik asks her if there was anything she liked doing as a child.

She confesses that she always wanted to go to college for fashion design, but sighs that she’s too old for the college entrance exam. Doo-shik says that lots of older people are going to college, and he even offers to help Soo-ah study.

They head to the bookstore for a study guide, and first Doo-shik asks Soo-ah some questions to determine what she knows. She turns out not to be that bright (she confuses Crown Prince Sado with Yoo Ah-in, who played him in the movie Sado), but Doo-shik says optimistically that they can just start from scratch.

Dong-gu hasn’t been home in a few days, busy working on the movie he’s helping make. He hasn’t seen Yoon-ah in a while, so he consoles himself with pictures from their fake wedding. The director says they’ll be working overnight again and gives Dong-gu an hour to get cleaned up at a sauna.

Back at the guesthouse, Doo-shik tests Soo-ah’s English skills, but she gets a lot of words mixed up. Doo-shik stays positive, but he’s starting to look worried.

Dong-gu runs in screaming Yoon-ah’s name, using his hour to try to see her instead of showering, ha. Out of time, he leaves again, barely missing her.

It’s the day of Joon-ki’s audition, the one he got from his friend in return for a date with Seo-jin. He checks his social media account, hoping that a message from his one fan will calm his nerves, but there are no new comments. Aww. He gives his usual passionate audition, and when he’s finished, the director just blandly thanks him.

Jae-woo (Joon-ki’s friend), looks apologetic, but Joon-ki still thanks the director for letting him audition. The director suddenly asks if Joon-ki likes bean sprout soup. Confused, Joon-ki says he does, and the director suggests they discuss his role over dinner. OMG, he got the part!!

That night, Joon-ki reads over his script at home. His face crumples and he starts to cry, overcome that he’s finally getting his big break. I’m crying right along with him.

He tries to hide his tears when Doo-shik, Yoon-ah, and Soo-ah creep into his room. They brought a cake, and Joon-ki starts crying all over again. Even Dong-gu calls to shriek a congratulations at him over the phone. They all jump around chanting his name, then Joon-ki gets the cake to the face.

The director sends Joon-ki to the house of a famous announcer, to interview him as research for his drama role. Oddly, Announcer Park’s wife seems sluggish, and the housekeeper literally staggers out of his office with huge dark circles under her eyes. The wife sends Joon-ki in, begging him not to tell Announcer Park that she’s home.

Announcer Park’s desk is piled high with books and papers, and when he pops up to introduce himself, he seems friendly and willing to help (cameo by Kim Byung-se). He tells Joon-ki that he’s writing an autobiography, which he expects to top out at twenty volumes.

Joon-ki quickly realizes why Announcer Park’s household are so exhausted — he asks one question, and Announcer Park launches into a long, excruciatingly detailed answer. He remembers the tiniest details of his life, including dates, the layouts of houses, and even the names of the dogs, ha.

Joon-ki nods off while he’s talking about his second sister’s childhood hobbies. Luckily, Announcer Park isn’t offended, but he gets sidetracked onto the topic of the nature of sleep and Freud, sending Joon-ki off into lala land again.

Dong-gu surprises Yoon-ah by showing up at her school, claiming that he was in the neighborhood. She notices his red eyes, but he says he’s fine, so she asks what he wanted to talk to her about. He pretends to want to talk politics, but Yoon-ah’s stomach growls, giving Dong-gu an opening to take her to lunch.

The poor guy obviously hasn’t slept in days, and he just grins vapidly at Yoon-ah as they wait for their food. He insists he’s not tired and asks how he classes are going, but he falls asleep while she’s telling him about learning to bake a cake.

He says he was just thinking, but he crashes again when the waitress brings their food, and this time he says he was praying. The third time he falls asleep (while still chewing, hee), Yoon-ah doesn’t wake him.

By the time Announcer Park is expounding on Catholicism, Joon-ki is hiding behind his question sheet so that he won’t get caught napping. But when he wakes, Joon-ki realizes that the man’s been talking for over twenty hours and still hasn’t even answered his first question.

The housekeeper returns to ask Announcer Park about lunch, nervously begging him to make a quick choice. But even Joon-ki’s simple request for pork triggers a lecture on which body types should eat which foods. The housekeeper escapes, trapping Joon-ki under a landslide of information.

When Doo-shik tries to direct Soo-ah’s attention from food to studying, she snaps that she can’t concentrate if she’s hungry. Joon-ki comes home, having finally broken free of Announcer Park, just before Yoon-ah returns and mentions having eaten lunch with Dong-gu. As she checks on Sol, Doo-shik remembers that Dong-gu is supposed to be location scouting in Sokcho.

Awww, Dong-gu came all that way just to see Yoon-ah. The director calls him while he’s on the bus back, angry that he’s been gone so long. But even though he’s barely conscious, Dong-gu smiles as he thinks that it was worth it to see Yoon-ah.

Soo-ah goes to Yoon-ah’s room, where she slyly asks if Dong-gu went back to Sokcho. Yoon-ah didn’t know he was out of town, and Soo-ah says that he must have come back to see her. She says Dong-gu is clueless with uncertain future, but he’s a good person who’s very affectionate and warm. She also informs Yoon-ah that the coat she gave her was actually from Dong-gu, asking her to keep it a secret. Ha, she’s a great wingman.

Joon-ki has worried that his one social media fan hasn’t posted anything in days. He sends them a message asking if they’re okay, and he hears a phone alert nearby. He finds Seo-jin’s phone under a cushion, and when he turns it on, he sees his own message. Awww, she’s his one fan.

He takes her phone to her and asks why she sent the messages. She just asks, “Why do you think?” and asks him to leave. He gives her her privacy, but he doesn’t look at all happy.

Doo-shik convinces a grumpy Soo-ah to stop watching TV and study, but she doesn’t even know how to do the most basic math. She pushes back and argues with him until he finally snaps. He throws down his pencil, whips off his glasses, and gives Soo-ah the tongue-lashing of a lifetime.

Even as his director is praising his preparations for his drama role, Joon-ki can’t stop thinking about Seo-jin. He goes back and reads her comments on his photos, and they take on more significance now that he knows who they’re from.

Jae-woo yells a congratulations to Joon-ki on landing the part, and thanks him for introducing him to Seo-jin. He says that he confessed to her, and that she asked to see him today, so they have a date later.

Joon-ki remembers Seo-jin saying that she likes him, and how he made light of her confession. He tells Jae-woo that he’ll probably regret this, but he can’t see Seo-jin today, because, “If I lose Seo-jin now, I think I’ll regret it for the rest of my life.”

He runs out of the building as fast as he can, and he catches up to Seo-jin as she’s getting off work. She’s not interested in talking to him, but he stops her and says that he’ll try to look at her as a woman from now on.

He asks her to date him, date as man and woman, and for a long moment, Seo-jin just stares. Joon-ki assumes she’s turning him down and wilts. But then she breaks into a huge smile and throws her arms around his neck, thrilled. Joon-ki warns that they have to keep this a secret from Dong-gu or he’s dead meat, but she just hugs him harder, and he hugs her right back.

Chef Hyun-joon and a pair of friends come to Waikiki guesthouse, needing somewhere to stay since there’s a problem at his place. Today is also Joon-ki and Seo-jin’s first date, but Joon-ki is still terrified that Dong-gu will discover them.

He flings Seo-jin across the room when Dong-gu arrives home, but Dong-gu saw them standing together and warns Joon-ki again that he’s dead if he goes near his sister.

Unhappy to hear that Hyun-joon is staying for a few days, Dong-gu rushes upstairs to “greet” him. He shares some of the dried squid he brought from Sokcho, and the men somehow manage to make chewing look like a competition.

Joon-ki gets ready for his date with Seo-jin, but he’s feeling really uncomfortable about it. He spots a photo of himself an Seo-jin when she was a little girl, and he guesses that he’s feeling weird because he’s always thought of her as a little sister, but he’s determined to give it a try.

In the kitchen, Hyun-joon says that he met his friends while studying in New York, while Dong-gu glowers at him over his coffee mug. Dong-gu is embarrassed when he can’t open a jar for Yoon-ah and Hyun-joon easily pops it open.

Hyun-joon invites Yoon-ah to have a drink with him and his friends, but Dong-gu protests that she’s breastfeeding. She informs him that Sol just switched to formula, so he claims it’s too late at night. Doo-shik pipes up that it’s only 9 p.m. and Sol is sleeping, so Dong-gu invites himself along.

As Joon-ki waits at the movie theater for Seo-jin, he gets a call from Announcer Park. He gets to hear the entire history of the telephone, and when Seo-jin arrives, he lies that he has a shoot and hangs up. HA, his poor ear is bright red.

He’s unnerved by all the kissing scenes in the movie, and he feels even more awkward when Seo-jin holds his hand. But he reminds himself that she’s an adult, not a kid anymore. Then he turns to look at her and sees the little girl from the photo, and he freaks out.

The little girl (LOL, she even has a tiny mustache!) asks him in Seo-jin’s voice if he’s staring at her because she’s so pretty, which yeah, is pretty freaky. She snuggles up on him while he looks like he’s trying not to scream.

He’s pretty wigged out by the time they get home, but Seo-jin trots off to bed happily, not noticing anything strange. Doo-shik drags a very drunk, very loud Dong-gu downstairs after the drinking party, and Hyun-joon looks like he feels terrible for getting Dong-gu into this condition.

Dong-gu cheerfully tells Hyun-joon to call him “Dong-gu-yah” (instead of the more formal “Dong-gu-sshi”) and reminds him at top volume that he promised to make him sausage bread. Joon-ki slaps him before he can embarrass himself further and he and Doo-shik drag him off to bed.

In the morning, Dong-gu wakes up to find Joon-ki and Doo-shik cleaning the floor. He belatedly realizes that he’s naked, and his friends inform him that he wet the bed last night, but before that he hugged and kissed Hyun-joon and declared them hyung and dongsaeng. Joon-ki guesses that Dong-gu is jealous, but Dong-gu insists he doesn’t like Yoon-ah anymore, only to yelp when Joon-ki threatens to tell Yoon-ah he wet himself.

Dong-gu angrily admits that he still likes Yoon-ah, and that he can’t stand how much Hyun-joon is hanging around her. Doo-shik and Joon-ki don’t think anything is going on there, but Dong-gu isn’t convinced.

After he’s up, Soo-ah asks Dong-gu if he’s going to apologize to Yoon-ah for lifting her with his feet last night. LOL, what? Apparently he hoisted her in the air with his feet and pretended to fly her to foreign countries.

Dong-gu is downstairs when Yoon-ah comes in with Hyun-joon. Dong-gu takes extra pains to be formal with Hyun-joon, who reminds him that they’re hyung/dongsaeng now, but Dong-gu snaps that he doesn’t remember that. He sends Hyun-joon upstairs with a steely glare, then apologizes profusely to Yoon-ah as soon as they’re alone, but she quips that she enjoyed the flight.

Later Dong-gu lurks nearby as Hyun-joon teaches Yoon-ah and her friends to play gonggi, a game sort of like jacks but played with special stones. Dong-gu says he’s doing it all wrong, and a quick demonstration shows that he’s actually pretty good.

He challenges Hyun-joon, who looks flustered, to a competition, and Hyun-joon tentatively accepts. But when talk turns to the loser’s penalty, something tricksy glints in Hyun-joon’s eyes as they agree on the loser taking ten finger-flicks to the forehead.

He immediately wins the first round, and Dong-gu, his pride stung, bets twenty forehead flicks on the next round. But a call from his director means he has to postpone, though Hyun-joon makes him take his penalty first.

After work, Dong-gu looks up a sunbae from his college days (cameo by Yoon Sae-ah). He finds her in a large traditional house, wearing hanbok, and she remembers him from their old film club. Dong-gu reminds her that she once represented their club in a gonggi competition, winning in record time with a record score.

He begs Sunbae to teach him to be a better gonggi player, even getting on his knees. She’s a true guru, giving him tips on everything from the weight of the perfect stones to how high to throw them. They’re both utterly serious as Sunbae teaches Dong-gu everything she knows.

Joon-ki has been blocking Announcer Park’s calls, so instead he sends him miles of text messages, ha. Seo-jin wants to to go a noraebang for their next date, and as she slinks around to a sexy song, Joon-ki again sees her as a little girl. He turns off the music, yells that she’s way too young to be singing an erotic song, and cues up the Pororo theme song.

When they arrive home, Seo-jin (still a little girl) says that if they were married, they wouldn’t have to separate. She asks where they should go for their honeymoon, and Joon-ki can’t take it anymore. As gently as he can, he says that he tried, but he can’t stop seeing her as a child.

She stops him as he turns to go inside, and he begs her to understand. But Seo-jin yanks him back and plants a kiss on him, then asks if he still doesn’t see her as a woman. Joon-ki stammers, “I do… I do see you as a woman.”

But she says she still hears uncertainty in his voice, and she kisses him again. Suddenly, a screaming Dong-gu gallops past them, breaking up the kiss. He doesn’t even see them, though he gives them a pretty good scare.

Dong-gu marches up to Hyun-joon and challenges him to a second round of gonggi. Everyone convenes upstairs, where they decide that the winner is the first to reach one hundred points, and the penalty is twenty forehead flicks. By the way Dong-gu and Hyun-joon are acting, you’d think the game was life or death.

Hyun-joon wins the right to go first, but he breaks the rule of not throwing his stone too high. He stays just ahead throughout most of the game, but Dong-gu isn’t far behind. Eventually the score is ninety-six to eighty-three in Hyun-joon’s favor, so Dong-gu thinks back on Sunbae’s teachings.

He recalls a special skill she taught him for these situations called “Arirang,” where he catches the stones off the back of his hand from both above and below. If successful, the move earns five times the normal score. Dong-gu risks everything on the Arirang skill, and he performs it perfectly, winning the game.

Hyun-joon suddenly claims that his back pain has returned, and tries to escape. But Dong-gu makes him take his penalty first, so he has a bright red raspberry on his forehead when he goes into the bathroom. He slams a palm onto the mirror, growling Dong-gu’s name in fury.

His forehead still looks sore the next morning when he and his buddies head home. Dong-gu stops him to ask why he lent Yoon-ah his bakery, finding it strange that out of all his students, she’s the only one he lets use his kitchen.

Hyun-joon says that he feels they have something in common, since both of them are raising a child alone. Dong-gu seems relieved, but Hyun-joon continues, “But now, I find her interesting. No — I like her.”

COMMENTS

I have a feeling I’m going to enjoy this rivalry very, very much. Both men are intensely competitive, and they both have genuine feelings for Yoon-ah. I think they’re going to take this battle for Yoon-ah’s affections quite seriously, which should be endlessly entertaining to watch. Dong-gu is just so ridiculous, and so far Hyun-joon has kept it classy, but I have a feeling he can get down and dirty when something he really wants is at stake. But the best part will be when Yoon-ah gives them both a beatdown for thinking of her as a prize to be won, as if her feelings have nothing to do with it. I won’t be at all surprised if she kicks them both out on their asses.

I can’t even express how happy I am for Joon-ki that he finally got a real role in a real drama. I just hope that he doesn’t somehow screw it up, but this time feels different, somehow. Joon-ki is a total goofball, and he makes terrible decisions and always ends up making bad situations worse, but he’s got the right attitude of commitment when it comes to succeeding as an actor. He always works his hardest, is willing to do anything for a role, and he never gives up. Other directors and actors have acknowledged that Joon-ki has real talent, he just needs the right role. I was genuinely crying when he broke down, hugging his script, because I understand that feeling of not only having proved to yourself that you can do something, but that someone else sees something worthwhile in you. He really deserves for things to work out this time.

As for Joon-ki and Seo-jin, I’m still worried that Joon-ki will hurt Seo-jin by not being ready for a relationship with her. I’m not at all surprised that he almost immediately balked when faced with actually dating her, because he’s known her since she was a child and always thought of her as a little sister. I believe that his instinct was pointing him in the right direction when it told him to go after her, because there’s obviously something there based on his reaction to her kisses, but Joon-ki needs more time to let himself shift from seeing Seo-jin as a little girl, to a grown, attractive woman.

I think that Soo-ah is about to develop a serious crush on Doo-shik, based on the way she was blown away when he yelled at her. It’s hilarious because they’re just so different, but it also doesn’t surprise me that her interest was triggered by his angry outburst. She’s such a strong personality that she’s used to getting her own way and calling the shots, and Doo-shik is usually so meek and mild that she didn’t respect him. That is, until he showed her that he can roar with the best of the alpha males, and now she sees him in a new light. She knows he can be strong and forceful, and call her on her nonsense if she needs it. Not that I think that strong women want to be dominated, but having strong personality and always being in charge can be exhausting, so it’s nice to have someone else around who’s willing to make decisions and be in charge sometimes.

I was wrong about Yoon-ah after the previous episode, when I said that she wasn’t obligated to give Dong-gu a reason for turning him down. I still think that she shouldn’t have to tell him of her fears if she doesn’t want to, but she was very curt with him right from the beginning. We know that she’s got a way of understanding Dong-gu’s deepest fears, so she must have known that her harsh rejection would be painful to him. She could have been softer with her rejection, at least the first time (because after that, yes, she had every right to say “I already gave you an answer, you need to respect it and back off.”). But I also can’t help but wonder if maybe that was her intention — to hurt him just enough to make him give up on her. If so, I think it would be better if she did tell him the honest truth, because sometimes not knowing can be worse than knowing. If she really intends not to give him a chance, then for the sake of their friendship she should tell him something so that he isn’t stuck wondering if there’s anything he can do to change her mind.

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