Thirty But Seventeen: Episodes 23-24

by abirdword

Confessions abound at last in this episode, though most are either clouded by conflict or misunderstood for friendship. Woo-jin and Seo-ri’s feelings for one another build to crescendo as they open up to one another bit by bit. Chan and Woo-jin start to achieve some of the goals they set for themselves, while Seo-ri must reevaluate her goals in order to retain the joy of the experience.

 
EPISODE 23: “Comfort”

Now that the music festival director’s motives are known, Seo-ri and Woo-jin argue about her involvement. Woo-jin says he doesn’t want to see the woman he likes hurt, but his confession is lost amidst the frustration and tears of their argument.

He’s worried that being used like this will make Seo-ri hate the music she loves so much. From Seo-ri’s point of view, she’s okay with being used if it means playing again, with the bonus that she might find her uncle again if he hears about her in the news.

Seo-ri leaves Woo-jin behind at the studio and retreats to the practice room, but Tae-rin’s words and her fight with Woo-jin have her playing frantically until a string snaps and cuts her hand.

Woo-jin waits outside the house for Seo-ri to return, even as it grows dark. Chan calls his uncle and lets him know that Seo-ri called Jennifer earlier and plans to spend the night in the practice room.

Woo-jin races to find Seo-ri, but a not-too-observant security guard misses Seo-ri crumbled on the floor among the music stands and tells Woo-jin the practice room is empty.

The next morning, Chan, Hae-beom, and Deok-soo all file out of Chan’s bedroom wearing the same pajamas in an effort to improve their teamwork. Chan notes Woo-jin’s sleepy face, but Woo-jin doesn’t acknowledge what worries kept him up all night.

Woo-jin jumps when the door of the bookcase swings open, but it’s Jennifer there instead of Seo-ri. She’s packed some fresh clothes for Seo-ri and asks if Woo-jin will deliver them to her at work.

Seo-ri heads to the design studio in the morning, but she hesitates at the door and turns away. Hyun spots her as he drives up, but she doesn’t acknowledge his shouts.

Hyun berates Woo-jin at work for driving Seo-ri away, and Woo-jin is so distracted he cuts his finger while working on a model. Hyun cleans up the wound, while Hee-soo sends Woo-jin home after seeing his pathetic expression.

Seo-ri sits at the park where she often practices, and the older woman who has been there listening to her sits on the bench next to her.

The woman asks why Seo-ri didn’t show up the day before, and tells her that she was waiting for her. Seo-ri is surprised to hear this, and the woman says that while it’s hard to leave her house with her leg pain, she does so anyway to hear Seo-ri’s beautiful music.

The woman says that it looks like Seo-ri was in a fight. Seo-ri gasps, thinking that the woman somehow knows about her argument with Woo-jin, but the woman means the cut on Seo-ri’s hand.

This makes Seo-ri recall practicing for hours on end when she was a child. In her memories, even when her mother asked her to take a break, Seo-ri didn’t feel sore or fatigued from practice because she was having so much fun.

And in the present, Seo-ri realizes the problem with her current approach to playing music. Her fingers and the cut on her hand hurt, because she isn’t having fun anymore.

Seo-ri still hasn’t returned home by evening, leaving Woo-jin to sit in the garden alone and stare up at the tree. Jennifer joins him with some of her sage advice: some things get better with time, but awkward feelings between people only get worse.

Woo-jin takes the advice and runs to find Seo-ri at the practice room. But it’s Conductor Shim, not Seo-ri, who he runs into, and it turns out that Seo-ri came to see the conductor earlier to quit the festival. Through her conversation with the woman in the park, Seo-ri realized that she wasn’t confident enough in her skill to tell the woman that she was a performing violinist.

Woo-jin searches the usual haunts for Seo-ri until he finds her at their pedestrian bridge crossing. He hugs her and blames himself for her quitting the festival, but she tells him that he was right. She wasn’t having fun anymore, and playing her violin for all the wrong reasons.

Woo-jin brings up her uncle, but Seo-ri admits that she’s no longer a child anymore who needs her uncle, and she’s come to understand that her uncle abandoned her a long time ago. She thanks Woo-jin, for caring enough to help her see the truth.

Woo-jin admits that he was afraid that his interference had hurt her, just like his interference had hurt someone in his past. Seo-ri points out that running into him at this bridge has only brought good things into her life.

He tells her that he doesn’t want to hold back any of his thoughts or feelings anymore, and that she should do the same. So Seo-ri admits that her heart is beating fast, her legs are shaky, and her feels dizzy… and that it’s probably because she’s hungry. Woo-jin gives her a big grin as they saunter off together to find some food.

The next morning, Chan and company awake, dressed alike again and pumping iron. Unlike yesterday, Chan notes his uncle’s well-rested face.

The boys ask what present they’ll be getting from Uncle when they win their race, and Woo-jin sputters out that he didn’t know this was a requirement. The boys know that Woo-jin has to miss the race to run the music festival, but that he’ll be available for Chan’s solo match.

In her room, Seo-ri is deep in reverie as she recalls Woo-jin’s confession of his feelings during their fight. When she spots him in the morning, he says that he forgot to tell her something important. “Your hair looks pretty.” Seo-ri rushes to the kitchen all flustered.

Seo-ri tells Jennifer about her decision to quit the festival. Jennifer assumes this is sad news, but Seo-ri’s cheery mood contradicts this. Jennifer recommends that Seo-ri not tell Chan about her decision to quit until after his competition.

Seo-ri is concerned when she sees Jennifer take some medicine, but Jennifer explains that it’s just vitamins from the doctor she cleans for. Seo-ri recalls the man’s name, because it was the same name as her childhood friend.

She recalls young Hyung-tae’s affinity for music, and asks Jennifer if there is a singer named Kim Hyung-tae. Jennifer finds only an older singer with some songs that are decidedly not Seo-ri’s friend’s style.

Speaking of Hyung-tae, he receives a call from Seo-ri’s hospital as he exits a surgery. The nurse reports in that after the appearance of the unidentified man in the hat, Seo-ri’s hospital payments stopped coming in.

Hyung-tae recalls Seo-ri’s mother, rushing to move away from the house, and how Hyung-tae had offered to continue to pay Seo-ri’s medical bills, only to discover an anonymous payment was taking care of it. Hyung-tae guesses that the mystery man must be the one who had covered the expenses.

Meanwhile, that man in the hat stumbles in to quit his construction job. A co-worker calls out to him, “Mr. Kim!” His co-workers wonder how he can afford to quit when he’s been scraping together all the money he could for so long.

At the design studio, Hee-soo gets a phone call. She pulls up news coverage online, showing that the director of the music festival has been in a drinking and driving accident. Hee-soo seems almost gleeful about it as she encourages everyone to keep working hard even though they won’t get to work with the director.

Woo-jin asks her about it, and Hee-soo confesses that she heard about the accident earlier from Conductor Shim, who had called worried about Seo-ri. Now that Hee-soo understands Woo-jin’s reason for insulting the director, she forgives him with a smile.

The rowing team finds a beautiful spread of beef and abalone laid out for them after practice. Jennifer arrives with a white parasol to feed the hungry athletes. Everyone is awed and mistake Jennifer for Chan’s beautiful mom, and she wishes them good luck before sauntering away.

Woo-jin keeps his promise to get the boys a gift for all of their hard work and picks up three identical backpacks. The shop worker suggests different colors, but Woo-jin insists that the three recipients are “becoming one.”

When Chan gets home that evening, Chick Jr. is missing. Chan starts to panic, until Woo-jin comes in with an expanded house for the chick to live in. The other boys arrive and spot their presents on the bed. They try to say, “I love you,” to Woo-jin, but he won’t let them get the words out.

As Woo-jin exits, Chan follows after his uncle to thank him for being kind to his friends and behaving like the old Woo-jin. When Chan tells Woo-jin to make sure he eats while working hard at the festival, Woo-jin praises Chan for growing up, just like his chick, and chases his nephew away with the threat of an awkward, “Don’t think!” cheer.

In her office, Tae-rin’s thoughts are on Seo-ri and their latest confrontation. She’s interrupted by a visit from Conductor Shim.

At the police station, an officer receives a call for a missing person, and the person described is Seo-ri. The camera transitions to the caller, the man in the hat from the hospital. Slowly the camera pans out to the small one-room apartment the man lives in. Newspaper clippings about Seo-ri’s accident cover one of the walls.

 
EPISODE 24: “Don’t Think, Feel!”

In her office, Tae-rin laments that she won’t get the chance to hear Conductor Shim play in the festival. Conductor Shim sees through her false concern, and asks directly why Tae-rin is so worried about Seo-ri, when Tae-rin has so much.

In flashback, we see that the conductor caught young Tae-rin preparing to destroy Seo-ri’s violin. He thought that she wouldn’t have grown out of her jealousy. Conductor Shim says that Tae-rin got everything she ever wanted, so there’s no need to continue torturing herself through self-comparison. He tells her that she’s earned the right to enjoy her music.

Alone in her office now, a tear slips down Tae-rin’s cheek. She whispers to herself that the conductor doesn’t know anything about her, though his words have obviously struck a nerve.

Chan finds Seo-ri spending her evening in the yard with Deok-gu. Chan asks her if she’s working hard for the festival. Not wanting to derail him while he trains, Seo-ri nods along.

Chan asks her if she’ll do something for him if he wins the solo competition—spend a day with him. She thinks he means that everyone will celebrate, so Chan clarifies that he means just the two of them. Seo-ri, still not quite getting his meaning, agrees.

Chan is on his feet, with a resounding, “I really want to win!”

The musical festival is officially beginning, and the design team packs up their car. Seo-ri wants to help even on the days not related to the classical stage. She plans to catch a ride with Hyun, but Woo-jin steers her away so that they can drive together.

Seo-ri is quick to deliver water to all of her hardworking co-workers. Seo-ri runs over with a fan for Woo-jin, and he grabs a drink from Seo-ri’s arms and doesn’t even hesitate to smile nonchalantly when she says that it’s the bottle she’s already taken a drink out of. Seo-ri can’t handle all that Woo-jin charisma and has to turn the fan towards herself.

Chan spends the week training hard for competition, while the events of the musical festival pass day by day without a hitch. Woo-jin can’t help feeling bad, however, when they get to the day of the classical concert. It starts when he sees that Seo-ri doesn’t seem worried at all about her hands when she gets a splinter. She hands out snacks to the orchestra blithely, while both Woo-jin and Hee-soo watch solemnly. Tae-rin also notices Seo-ri’s hard work.

When the orchestra begins rehearsing, Seo-ri retreats to a hillside for some alone time. She’s soon joined by Woo-jin, who settles in back-to-back with her and offers one of his earbuds. As Je te veux begins to play, he nuzzles his head into Seo-ri’s shoulder and asks her to wake him in a bit.

Seo-ri nervously sneaks glances back at him, until he finally calls her out on it and then just as casually jumps up to get back to work. Woo-jin, how are you so smooth?

Chan and crew are ready for their race. The rival team from Pungjin High arrives, and the two teams size each other up. The boys are worried that they’re working Chan too hard in an effort to get a medal. Chan’s not nervous though; he’s Yoo Chan, after all.

After some encouraging words from the coach a team cheer for the boys, the race begins, and even Ri-an shows up to cheer along the route. Even with a small fumble in the beginning by Deok-soo, the team comes in third place.

Back at the festival, Tae-rin isn’t satisfied with the quality of the sound outside. She insists the sound tech improves things by final rehearsal, even when he shrugs that they’ve done everything they can. Frustrated, Tae-rin retreats to the dressing room, with Seo-ri right behind her.

Seo-ri knocks and enters, here to apologize to Tae-rin for going back and forth on performing. Tae-rin drops her false niceness and curtly points out that Seo-ri must not want to play that badly if she gives up so easily.

Seo-ri corrects her that it’s because she wants it so badly that she backed off. She doesn’t want to trade her love for music with the desire to quickly correct course and make up for her long absence.

Seo-ri admits that she is so impressed with and jealous of Tae-rin, who in her eyes has everything she could have ever wanted. Tae-rin can’t help but think back to all of the times she was jealous of Seo-ri, and how little she’s appreciated her own accomplishments in her efforts to just be perfect.

Once Seo-ri leaves, Tae-rin receives a text from her mother saying that she’s proud of her daughter and looking forward to the “perfect festival.” This much truth all at once leaves Tae-rin tugging at her collar for air.

Back at the rowing competition, the boys celebrate as if they had won gold. But as Chan moves in for a photo, his ankle nags at him with pain. He blows it off, again, and poses.

In Tae-rin’s dressing room, the sound tech hasn’t been able to improve the sound. Tae-rin will not get her perfect concert, and there’s nothing that she can do. She calmly accepts that they will have to work with what they have.

The classical concert officially begins. As the orchestra begins to play, Woo-jin reaches out and takes Seo-ri’s hand in his own. Seo-ri doesn’t pull away, and a secret little smile teases her lips.

The audience claps along to the music, and they gasp in appreciation at the aquarium images that display behind the orchestra. But just when everything seems perfect, Tae-rin receives news of an unexpected hiccup. Their percussionist has experienced an allergic reaction to something in her food and can’t perform during the last song.

It’s Toy Symphony, so her replacement only needs to play a toy instrument. Tae-rin starts to volunteer herself, but then remembers someone else in the audience who might want to participate.

Tae-rin offers Seo-ri the opportunity to take over the part, and Seo-ri is soon up on the stage wearing a party hat and playing the ratchet. She smiles as Conductor Shim gives her cues and she twirls the instrument.

After the concert ends and everyone else is gone, Woo-jin finds Seo-ri alone on the stage. He asks what’s keeping her up, and Seo-ri admits that she’s not sure if her experience on stage was good or bad. Woo-jin assures her that it was good, and as proof, he hands over a sketch he drew of her. In the image she’s smiling broadly.

Seo-ri sees the joy in her face, and thanks Woo-jin for helping her discover this. A moment of silence passes between them, and then Woo-jin confesses, “I like you.”

Seo-ri’s response is quick: “I like you too.”

Woo-jin turns to her, and they kiss under the stage lights. After the kiss, Seo-ri begins to scoot just a bit farther away. When Woo-jin asks where she’s going, she says that she’s afraid he’ll hear her heart, it’s beating so loudly.

Woo-jin says that’s a good thing. Seo-ri mumbles that this is her first kiss, and Woo-jin promptly shares that it’s his too. Seo-ri is shocked, and asks how he can be that old and have never kissed anyone. “What have you been doing all this time?” Woo-jin stutters that he’s not sure.

They walk hand in hand through the field, and Seo-ri asks if she can do it again. Woo-jin is ready with a second kiss. He pulls away, and Seo-ri begins to ask again, and Woo-jin rewards her with another kiss. And finally, Seo-ri manages to clarify that she just wants to see the sketch of her again.

They tease each other and laugh, standing in the field among the decorations of the music festival they worked on together.

 
COMMENTS

The answer to your question, Seo-ri, is that Woo-jin spent all this time waiting for you! Hooray, my wish has been granted! They finally kissed! This kiss just felt so perfectly earned. We’ve had some silly accidental skinship along the way, but everything was building to this really genuine crescendo, as Seo-ri would call it, and it was really satisfying.

Woo-jin proved to be the smoothest of smooth. Now that his confession is out there, and he’s committed to not hiding anything ever again, he is all about using that charm. Shared car rides, shared drinks, shared shoulders for naps, shared handholds, and then sharing his art with her. Welcome back for real, the old Woo-jin. I admit to tearing up a bit when he handed his drawing to Seo-ri. He’s been so focused on drawing stages and props, I suspect it’s been a long time since he drew a person, especially one in his life.

The kiss also felt like such a grown up kiss. Even with Seo-ri’s mild panic at the end of it, this was a serious kiss between two people who took their time getting to know one another and realizing their feelings together. No one takes the other by surprise, no one is overly aggressive. It’s two adults finding love in the same moment. I think that was important for two formerly-stunted adults. They’ve caught up to their ages at last.

Now the question is, which will derail Chan’s solo rowing victory first: his painful ankle or learning that Woo-jin and Seo-ri are a couple? It’ll probably happen all at once, and be the saddest thing ever. I simultaneously dread and can’t wait for next week.

I was a little frustrated with the quick turnaround of Seo-ri’s (non)performance situation at first. I’ll admit to agreeing with Seo-ri’s initial stance on the whole thing. Being used as a marketing scheme isn’t awesome, especially when no one tells you that’s the plan, but Seo-ri was getting the opportunity to play with a former teacher, to improve and practice, and even possibly reach out to people from her past who don’t know she’s awake.

But by the end, it became clear that this was about rushing things instead of taking her time to understand what she wanted out of music. As a child, it was always about the process and the love of it, so this rapid approach hasn’t given her the time to ask herself if this is what she wants. And with Woo-jin’s help, she understands that her passion for music is still there, but that she needs to come at it at her own pace.

I stand firm that even if she was acting selfishly, Tae-rin wasn’t really being a bad guy in any of this. She told Seo-ri the truth when she told her about the director’s plan, which is more than Woo-jin was willing to do in the moment. Her advice to Seo-ri may not have been sincere, and much more likely intended to get Seo-ri to quit, but it wasn’t exactly sabotage.

And I’m glad that with just a little nudge from Conductor Shim, Tae-rin was able to take a breath, accept imperfection, and help Seo-ri along her way. And now Seo-ri can make the decision for herself how she’d like to return to music, and at what pace, while Tae-rin understands that her path to success is different from Seo-ri’s, and that there’s room for both of them where ever those paths lead.

I think it’s probably a fair guess that the mystery man in the hat is Seo-ri’s uncle. He has the ability to actually put out a missing persons request, suggesting he’s family, since both Seo-ri and Woo-jin failed in their previous requests. He’s very likely been paying the hospital bills all this time, and laboring hard at a construction job to afford just that with nothing left over for himself. So now the question remains: what sort of trouble was he in when Seo-ri was in the accident, and is that trouble still something he’s hiding from?

I think I’ll need to rewatch that kiss scene a few times before next week, since I can only assume the remaining episodes will be nothing but angst and conflict as we descend towards our conclusion.

 
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