Woohoo Waikiki: Episode 8

by LollyPip

Okay, I know I said that some of the Waikiki housemates were going to be falling in love soon, but this is not exactly what I meant! But seriously, things are getting rather intense for one housemate, whose crush is getting to the point that they won’t be able to hide their feelings for much longer. Not that it was that much of a secret in the first place.

 
EPISODE 8: “Cute woman/For love”

Finding Yoon-ah safe, and not hurt in the fire, Dong-gu grabs her in a tight hug. She asks if he was worried about her, but he fibs that he was worried about all their neighbors. To prove that he didn’t come running just for Yoon-ah, he goes around hugging everyone, even the firefighters.

Soo-ah tells Seo-jin and Joon-ki about the fire at the store, and how Dong-gu raced out when he realized Yoon-ah was there. Yoon-ah and Dong-gu arrive home, and Seo-jin teases Dong-gu about his behavior, but he just makes big innocent eyes at her and insists he was worried about a neighbor.

He wanders to his room and jumps in bed to chastise for running to Yoon-ah. She comes to get him for dinner, but he fights her when she pulls on his arm, grumping that he’s not hungry.

Downstairs, Sol starts crying, and Soo-ah uses the distraction to try to snag a second chicken drumstick. Seo-jin calls her out, so Soo-ah slams the drumstick down and sails out of the room, palming it again on her way out, ha.

Joon-ki notices Seo-jin watching a mokbang on her phone (an online broadcast where people eat large quantities of food), and she tells him that the mokbang BJs can make a lot of money. He likes the idea of making money just for eating, and he runs to the guys’ room to borrow Doo-shik’s laptop.

Doo-shik comes in with his face covered in cuts and bruises, and he tells Joon-ki about his fight with the guys who insulted Mal-geum (his first love, who’s now starring in his erotic movie). He says he doesn’t know why he did it, but Joon-ki tells him that it’s because he likes Mal-geum.

He urges Doo-shik to confess to her, acting it out as he tells Doo-shik to just walk up to Mal-geum, grab her arm, push her against the wall, then confess. He shoves Doo-shik back onto the bed and lands on top of him, which is when they realize that Dong-gu is still in the room. Dong-gu tells them dryly to just date and get married, PFFT.

He heads to the kitchen, watching Yoon-ah as she heats up some chicken for him, wondering why he likes her when she’s not good at anything, or pretty, or even cute. But then she turns to look at him, and he goes starry-eyed and thinks to himself, “She’s cute. Has she always been this cute?”

She catches him staring, and when he snaps at her, she asks if he’s angry with her for getting a stain on his camera bag and breaking his lens cover. She grabs his hand and gives him an adorable pout, asking him to forgive her, but he just yells that he’s not angry and runs away.

He makes it to the hallway before collapsing against the wall, cooing over how cute Yoon-ah is. Soo-ah comes out of her room and catches Dong-gu lurking nearby, trying not to look like his brain just melted.

Joon-ki prepares to air a mokbang episode, but there are no viewers when he’s ready to start. Seo-jin bursts into his room to borrow his razor for her five o’clock shadow, and she stays to watch as his show begins.

He gets one viewer, who orders him to start eating. Joon-ki starts on a plate of fried chicken, but his viewer complains that he’s boring. He starts again, moaning as he eats and making Seo-jin cringe.

Dong-gu keeps avoiding Yoon-ah, so she tells Seo-jin that he must still be mad at her. Seo-jin confides that Dong-gu is weak for aegyo, which explains his extreme reaction to Yoon-ah’s cute apology.

In fact, he’s obsessing over Yoon-ah’s cuteness at that exact moment. She surprises him with an unexpected aegyo attack, pulling out all the stops with the big eyes, pouty lips, and shoulder-wiggles. Unfortunately, she caught Dong-gu with a mouthful of water, which he spits in her face before fleeing.

Seo-jin informs Yoon-ah that she sucks at aegyo, but Dong-gu is about to die of happiness from the adorable display she just put on. Soo-ah finds him outside her room again and asks if there’s something he wants to say, but he just wipes the goofy smile off his face and goes to his room.

Doo-shik and Mal-geum go for a walk together, and Doo-shik decides it’s time to confess. But when he follows Joon-ki’s directions and grabs Mal-geum’s wrist, she reflexively grabs him back, flips him over, and shoves a knee into his ribs. She lets go immediately, explaining that her Krav Maga training instinctively kicked in, lol.

She has to leave for a fan meeting, and Doo-shik asks if he can come because he has something to tell her. He’s unnerved by the crowd of men who chant “Cherry, Cherry!” (Mal-geum’s stage name) when she enters the auditorium.

Joon-ki does another show, chowing down on chicken for his one viewer. He invites them to send him star candies, an online currency that can be converted to real money. He sets aside the plate of chicken bones, but his viewer offers to send one hundred star candies (about ten U.S. dollars) if he eats the bones.

Seo-jin yanks Joon-ki off-camera to beg him not to do this, but Joon-ki says he’s willing to do anything to pay off his credit card bills. He goes back and settles in to eat the chicken bones, and suddenly gains a ton of new viewers.

We see his first viewer, a young teenage kid at a PC cafe, ha. He shows his buddies the man eating chicken bones, and they decide to study hard so they don’t end up like that crazy dude.

While Dong-gu eats some ramyun, Yoon-ah sends him a video of herself doing aegyo. He freezes, hands shaking at the sight of her with kitten whiskers, cutely begging for forgiveness. Yoon-ah and Seo-jin watch from a distance as Dong-gu snatches up Joon-ki’s heart medicine and runs upstairs, and they conclude that she’s just bad at aegyo.

Of course, the exact opposite is true. Dong-gu takes some of Joon-ki’s medicine, growling that Yoon-ah is so cute she’s giving him a heart attack. Soo-ah runs into him again, but again he just runs off. She decides that his strange behavior lately might mean that he still likes her.

At Mal-geum’s fan meeting, there’s a prize drawing to win the bikini she wore in her most famous movie. To her and Doo-shik’s dismay, Doo-shik wins the bikini, and they pose for the most awkward picture ever.

Back at the guesthouse, Dong-gu runs across Yoon-ah while she’s doing chores, and he grabs a trash bag and takes it outside for her. He acts annoyed, so she grabs his arm, making his heart pound. He snaps that he’s not mad, and she relaxes. She sneezes right in Dong-gu’s face, making him complain that she’s getting sick because her coat is too thin.

Joon-ki continues to eat bones for his growing number of fans, branching out into pork ribs and fish bones. They all send him star candies, so he prepares to eat the most difficult bone — a pig foot. But he gets a sudden stomach cramp, which sends him crashing to the floor in pain.

After the fan meeting, Mal-geum meets with Doo-shik for coffee. She apologizes for today, saying that this is her life these days. She tells Doo-shik that she started out in regular dramas and movies, but that she ended up doing erotic movies because she needed the money.

Doo-shik says there’s nothing wrong with her job, but she says sadly that this isn’t her dream. But now she’s stuck, and she can’t get any regular roles because of typecasting, and because of her contract. She cries a little and says she doesn’t know what to do.

She asks what Doo-shik wanted, but he just says sweetly that he’ll tell her later.

The guys’ room is empty when Dong-gu comes in with a package, and he wonders out loud how to give it. He tries and rejects several strategies, then stops and asks himself what he’ll do if she finds out he likes her.

Downstairs, Yoon-ah and Soo-ah bring Joon-ki home from a trip to the emergency room after eating rockfish bones, which contain venomous spines. Yoon-ah goes up to their room to clean up, and finds Dong-gu standing there with his package. He holds it out to her, but everyone walks in right then, and he panics and gives the gift to Soo-ah instead.

Joon-ki hobbles over to the bed and realizes that he never turned off his webcam. His site is going nuts, with tons of viewers sending in so many star candies that he’s amassed over twenty-three thousand star candies (over $2300 USD).

Joon-ki backs up the video to his collapse, and they see Seo-jin wander in to use his razor in front of the camera, raising Joon-ki’s viewer count exponentially, hee. Seo-jin freaks out that the country saw her shaving her face (Joon-ki: “Thank you, Chewbacca!”).

The video continues, and the housemates watch Dong-gu practice giving a gift to someone and talking about liking them. Dong-gu launches himself at the laptop and snaps it closed, but it’s too late. Everyone thinks that he still has feelings for Soo-ah, since she’s the one he gave the gift to.

Annoyed, Soo-ah pulls Dong-gu aside to remind him that they’re really over. Dong-gu can’t tell the truth, but he does assure Soo-ah that he can get over her very quickly, quoting Yoon-ah’s “get over Soo-ah” rap and zipping away.

Soo-ah tries on the coat, noting that it’s much too small for her. Seo-jin comes in to order Soo-ah to do whatever it takes to make Dong-gu move on. Soo-ah decides that he needs a new girl, so she sets up a surprise blind date for him with her friend Ye-rin.

He comes home early from the blind date, claiming that Ye-rin isn’t smart enough or funny enough for him, only for Soo-ah to inform him that Ye-rin is a MENSA member and a professional comedienne. LOL. He says that he just doesn’t feel anything for her, only for Seo-jin to snap that he’s still hung up on Soo-ah, forcing him to agree to another date.

The next day, Seo-jin and Yoon-ah find Soo-ah’s room in a shambles, clothes everywhere. Seo-jin tries on the coat from Dong-gu, but it’s too short for her, and it just coincidentally fits Yoon-ah perfectly. Seo-jin realizes that the clothing Soo-ah is throwing out are all a particular luxury brand, and Soo-ah generously lets her take whatever she wants.

Doo-shik arrives on his movie set to find Mal-geum fighting with the director, who wants her to do a scene that’s not in the original script. Director Tak tells her to either do the scene or pay the penalty fees to get out of her contract, and Doo-shik follows her out to the hallway. He tells her to quit instead of doing things she doesn’t like, and that he’ll take care of things.

He goes back to tell the director that Mal-geum quits. He says he’ll pay the penalty fee, but he’s horrified to learn that it’s the equivalent of about forty thousand dollars.

Seo-jin dresses herself head-to-toe in Soo-ah’s luxury castoffs, which Joon-ki describes as a “beggar in warm clothes” look, lol. Doo-shik arrives home and says the exact same thing, particularly curious why she’s carrying around an onion net as a purse. Seo-jin swans out of the house, despairing that they know nothing about fashion.

Doo-shik asks Joon-ki how he’s supposed to pay off Mal-geum’s penalty fee, and Joon-ki gets an idea — gambling. Why are people still asking this guy for advice?! He takes Doo-shik to a place where they can gamble on bike races and points out someone he calls the Bicycle Ghost, a man who can predict the winner of any race.

He pushes Doo-shik into Bicycle Ghost, making him drop his betting ticket, then takes a peek at it as he picks it up from the ground. He writes down the numbers of the two bikers to bet on and sends Doo-shik to place the bet.

At the house, Dong-gu tries to get out of the second date with Ye-rin, but it just makes Soo-ah worry that he still likes her. He argues that he just can’t afford to date, but Ye-jin shows up offering to cook for him at home to save money.

When Joon-ki sees Doo-shik’s betting ticket, he freaks out to see that Doo-shik was holding his note upside-down and bet on the wrong bikers. But in a surprise upset, Doo-shik’s picks win the race, and they collect enough money to make a significant dent in Mal-geum’s contract penalty. But Joon-ki, that fountain of good ideas, talks Doo-shik into betting all of the money again so they can afford to pay the fee and make their movie.

After Ye-jin makes lunch, she tries to feed Dong-gu a bite of kimbap, but he declines since Yoon-ah is sitting right there. Soo-ah yanks Dong-gu to the hallway, thinking that Dong-gu is refusing to let Ye-jin feed him because of his feelings for her, so he submits to being hand-fed to prove it’s not true.

Seo-jin saunters down the street looking like a hobo, assuming that all the looks she’s getting are admiration for her designer clothes. A street cart vendor makes her pay up front for ddukbokki, then an onion seller almost uses her bag for a customer’s purchases.

A friend calls her, needing a replacement for a blind date setup, enticing her by describing the guy as looking like Kang Daniel from Wanna One. She shows up, only for her friend and the man (who looks more like Seong-woo if you ask me) to give her strange looks for her clothing and the fact that she smells like onions. Later, her date skips out while she’s in the restroom, leaving her to get herself home after having had quite a lot to drink.

Predictably, Doo-shik and Joon-ki lose all their winnings. On their way home, the Bicycle Ghost walks past and warns them against being greedy, then gives Doo-shik some money for bus fare on his promise that they never gamble again. But Joon-ki convinces him to take the money back and place one more bet.

Once they lose that money, they shuffle back to the bus stop again. Joon-ki finds a 500 won coin on the ground, and back they go to bet again. Of course, they lose that too, and this time around, Doo-shik refuses to turn in a beer bottle for a few won to bet yet again.

Seo-jin really does look like a bum, dressed in those clothes and staggering drunkenly down the street. She stops at a product launch event to spin a wheel for a prize, winning a bucket of lollipops, hee. She ends up passing out at the bus stop, where passersby think she’s homeless and drop money into her bucket.

Doo-shik and Joon-ki find her, and Joon-ki wants to take the money to gamble it. Doo-shik refuses, but when Joon-ki says he can just live the rest of his life in one-sided loves, he changes his mind and they run back to the gambling hall.

Under Soo-ah’s sharp glares, Dong-gu is forced to let Ye-jin feed him a piece of gum and give him a foot massage. Before she leaves, she asks him to date her, and he says sweetly that she’s a great girl, but he’s not good enough for her. She guesses that he already likes someone else, and when he starts to deny that he has feelings for Soo-ah, Ye-jin says, “I’m talking about Yoon-ah.”

Dong-gu is too shocked to deny it, and he asks Ye-jin to keep his secret. She’s not even out of the house before she calls Soo-ah to tattle that Dong-gu likes Yoon-ah, and Soo-ah realizes that all of the times she thought he liked her, he was really hiding a crush on Yoon-ah.

He walks into the room, and she points an accusing finger at him. She wails, “The person you like isn’t me, but Yoon-ah?” Dong-gu tries to deny it, but Soo-ah says that Ye-jin told her everything.

As Dong-go stammers, Yoon-ah walks into the room. Dong-gu makes faces at Soo-ah, begging her not to say anything, but she starts to squawk, “So, it wasn’t me that Dong-gu likes, it’s actually…” Dong-gu screams, grabs her by the face, and yanks her away from Yoon-ah.

 
COMMENTS

ACK, that was close! I think Dong-gu got away with it, but I’ll admit that a part of me was hoping that Yoon-ah would find out about Dong-gu’s feelings. I think she’s feeling flashes of something for him in return, but the flashes aren’t strong enough or clear enough that she’s figured them out yet. And it makes sense, since she’s given up on romance after becoming a single mother, and her whole life is focused on her daughter and her cooking classes. It’s hilarious that Seo-jin totally knows what’s happening more than either of the people involved, and I love how she asks Dong-gu if he’s crushing on Yoon-ah every chance she gets. She really should write a gossip column, because she’s excellent at spotting the one thing people don’t want to admit about themselves.

But okay, how much do we love that Mr. Grumpypants Dong-gu’s weakness turns out to be aegyo, of all things? He’s just so grouchy all the time that it’s hilarious to see him completely disarmed by a pair of big eyes and a pout. And goodness knows that no matter what Seo-jin says, Yoon-ah has some weapons-grade aegyo locked and loaded, even when she’s not really trying. Once she learns that her aegyo makes Dong-gu’s brain completely short out, she’ll be able to get away with anything. The poor guy won’t have a chance.

I actually feel kind of bad for Dong-gu right now, who’s stuck in that awkward place where he’s aware that he likes Yoon-ah, but he’s not ready to admit it because he’s still trying to come to terms with it himself. He can’t let on that he has feelings for her, but at the same time, he doesn’t want her to think he likes anyone else just in case she might like him back. Yoon-ah was right there every time someone accused Dong-gu of liking Soo-ah, so there was really nothing Dong-gu could do but let them think that.

I’m so happy that Doo-shik is getting more screen time and a loveline, even if it seems doomed from the start. True to the rest of the show, it’s a ridiculous yet heart-rending situation, where his first love just happens to be a famous porn star that’s starring in a movie he wrote. But I love that Doo-shik doesn’t let that affect his feelings for her, and actually, the fact that Mal-geum has sex on camera for money never even seems to bother him at all. What’s getting in the way of them being together isn’t Mal-geum’s career, but the fact that they’re both so unhappy to be where they are in life that they’re just not in a good headspace to be in a relationship. I think it’s wonderful that Doo-shik is trying to help Mal-geum get out of the business, especially since he’s not doing it because he feels that what she’s doing is wrong, but just because she wants out and he wants her to be happy. I have a feeling that if Mal-geum loved her job and wanted to keep doing it, Doo-shik would support that, too, because he’s totally that guy. When he does finally find the right girl, she’s going to be one very lucky lady.

I think that one of the main things keeping this show grounded is the way everything always circles back to following your dream. It never gets preachy or heavy-handed, and I love watching the Waikiki crew chasing their dreams, whether it be making a movie, being a star, becoming a journalist, or even just learning what your dream is in the first place. I think that’s something everyone can relate to, even those of us who are a tad older than the characters (cough) but are still trying to fulfill our dreams. Wanting more is just such a human condition, and it’s something we can all understand, so when we see these people doing ridiculous things in the name of a dream, it doesn’t seem so farfetched.

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