Doom at Your Service: Episode 3

by quirkycase

Our heroine comes to regret her impulse decision to make Doom her new roommate as he disrupts her life in unexpected ways. But she’s not the only one affected. Doom finds himself growing closer to his human client than intended, forcing him to confront repressed emotions that threaten his veneer of apathy. While he tries to convince himself he has no feelings, our heroine starts to formulate a plan to protect what she holds dear.

 
EPISODE 3

We flash back to Dong-kyung’s parents’ funeral where her family callously discusses what to do with her and Sun-kyung. Soo-ja arrives and grows furious when one relative argues they’re best off in an orphanage. Pulling both children into her arms, Soo-ja announces she’ll raise them, even though she’s single. Dong-kyung narrates that luck and misfortune can be hard to distinguish.

We return to when Myeol-mang tells Dong-kyung he’s grateful to her and she surprises him by suggesting they live together. Dong-kyung wonders to herself whether Myeol-mang came to her as luck, misfortune, or neither.

Myeol-mang smiles in amusement and shocks Dong-kyung by immediately agreeing. Later, Dong-kyung hides in her bathroom and beats herself up for her impulsive suggestion. She steels herself for the embarrassment of taking her offer back and opens the door … right into Myeol-mang’s living room.

Without looking up from his book, Myeol-mang explains he can’t live at her place. Dong-kyung rambles at him until he’s forced to pay attention to her. He thinks she’s either fallen for him or, more problematically, is willing to move in with just anyone.

“I suggested we live together because you’re not just anyone,” she responds. Myeol-mang looks up in surprise, but Dong-kyung reminds him he told her to cling to him. When she saw him walking away after being so nice, she worried he’d disappear on her.

Dong-kyung nonchalantly says that people who are nice to her always leave, making Myeol-mang marvel at her causal depressing comments. Dong-kyung wants Myeol-mang around so that she never misses a recharge and has him nearby when she decides on her wish. As if she’s his captor, she promises to release him once he grants her wish.

Myeol-mang has his fun teasing her, refusing to let her have any of his many rooms and making each door she opens lead back to the living room. Dong-kyung stops when she hears Sun-kyung ringing her doorbell and calling out to her. She opens Myeol-mang’s front door and is baffled to find herself staring out at her own rooftop.

Dong-kyung joins her brother while he video chats with Soo-ja. Sun-kyung whines about Soo-ja sending Dong-kyung money instead of him, and the siblings bicker to their aunt’s amusement. After they hang up, Sun-kyung chides Dong-kyung for her men troubles.

He vows that he didn’t beat Dae-han up – he didn’t need to. While Dae-han was running, he got hit by a car. He’s not critically injured, but he’ll be hospitalized for a couple of months.

Sun-kyung doesn’t even have to ask to know his sister must’ve been deceived by Dae-han. He’s told her before not to trust everyone who’s nice to her. Sun-kyung marches into her apartment to deal with Myeol-mang next.

Dong-kyung is relieved the door leads into her apartment this time and insists Myeol-mang isn’t there. Sun-kyung still searches every room, and they’re both stunned to find Myeol-mang posing lounging on her bed. He argues he did his best to hide, but her place is too small.

Myeol-mang amuses himself by flustering Dong-kyung, calling her “yeobo” (term of address between spouses) and playing up their relationship. They all sit and Dong-kyung explains that Myeol-mang pretended to be her boyfriend to get rid of Dae-han.

Sun-kyung plays the tough guy, trying to figure out why someone like Myeol-mang is hanging around Dong-kyung. That tact would work a lot better if he didn’t have to ask his big sister for money to buy beer.

He gets drunk and is amazed when Myeol-mang seems to read his thoughts. Sun-kyung is so moved by Myeol-mang’s perfectly targeted assurances that he announces he’s passed and asks him to take care of Dong-kyung. Myeol-mang happily plays along and calls Sun-kyung “brother-in-law.”

Once they’re alone again, Myeol-mang decides to conjoin his and Dong-kyung’s houses so they each have their space. Dong-kyung gets riled up when Myeol-mang guesses that Sun-kyung is the person she loves most, and she tells him not to touch her brother.

As she lays on the couch, Dong-kyung asks why Myeol-mang cares so much about having her doom the world. He responds that doesn’t believe the world needs to end, but he also doesn’t see why it needs to exist. Based off fantasy stories, Dong-kyung assumes supernatural beings must pity humans.

Myeol-mang argues there’s no reason to pity trivial humans who are all the same, but Dong-kyung argues pity comes from the heart, not the head. When Myeol-mang says he has no heart, Dong-kyung calls bull. He’s the one who told her that he chose her because she was the only one whose thoughts matched his. He has no retort to that.

After she falls asleep, Myeol-mang turns off his light. He lays on his couch, facing Dong-kyung. That night, Dong-kyung dreams of happier times with her parents before it shifts to their funeral. Across the hall, she sees a man who resembles Myeol-mang from the back.

Dong-kyung wakes up to find Myeol-mang in her house, marking off days on her calendar so she doesn’t lose her sense of urgency. Dong-kyung decides to put their contract in writing and clarify the terms. To sum it up, she needs to wish doom upon the world before she dies, but she gets 100 pain-free days and one wish in return. If she breaks the contract, the person she loves most will die in her place.

Dong-kyung has the epiphany that the person she loves most will die no matter what, then. Even if she upholds her end of the agreement, the world will be doomed. Myeol-mang points out that she’s the one who wished for doom without regard for her loved ones. She argues she didn’t mean it, but Myeol-mang says he wouldn’t have heard it if she the wish wasn’t genuine.

After she leaves for work, Myeol-mang wanders around her apartment. He picks up her funeral portrait in its now broken frame.

Throughout the day, Myeol-mang drives Dong-kyung crazy by making messages appear on whatever is available – her laptop, an ATM screen, a restaurant menu. He can’t turn off the boiler, so she rushes home only to find a note saying he figured it out. Before she can head back to work, Joo-ik calls with the alarming message that she should head to the funeral hall.

At the office, Joo-ik meets with the disgruntled sleazy writer who whines about his ratings dropping. Joo-ik mockingly offers him a contract under the table to help him raise his rankings, and the writer actually wants to take him up on it.

Meanwhile, Hyun-kyu’s friend pesters him to attend a reunion, recalling how popular Hyun-kyu was back in his swimming days. When his friend mentions that Ji-na is coming, Hyun-kyu changes his tune and agrees to go.

At the hospital, Myeol-mang cosplays as a doctor and diagnoses a woman (cameo by Han Ye-ri) with the same condition and prognosis as Dong-kyung. The woman gives the expected response, crying and begging him to save her life.

Myeol-mang can’t fathom why Dong-kyung’s response has been the opposite. He snaps his test subject out of it and erases her memory before sending her on her way to her actual doctor. Myeol-mang then goes to visit the goddess, but she’s not in her room.

Dong-kyung pays her respects at a writer’s grandfather’s funeral. On her way out, the goddess passes by and bumps into her shoulder. Dong-kyung has a flash of memory and sees Myeol-mang at the funeral hall the day of her parents’ funeral.

The goddess appears at the bus stop by Dong-kyung and strikes up conversation. She compliments Dong-kyung’s bracelet and reaches for it. Before she can touch it, Myeol-mang comes up and pulls Dong-kyung away from her.

Dong-kyung shares that she saw him long ago crying at a funeral hall. In a flashback, Myeol-mang kneels and sobs at a woman’s funeral. Dong-kyung calls him out for pretending not to have emotions, but he denies that was him. The goddess watches, amused.

At home, a worried Myeol-mang encourages Dong-kyung to stay home from now on. She can wish for money so she doesn’t have to work anymore. Dong-kyung thinks that’s a waste of her wish. Myeol-mang chides her for being trusting and cautions her not to show her bracelet to just anyone, calling it her “weakness.” Now Dong-kyung is the one questioning if he’s fallen for her.

Myeol-mang just gives her a look and says he’s clearly warned her, so it’s not his problem if something happens. He continues to deny it was him crying in that memory, but Dong-kyung smugly observes that his huffiness is a sign of emotion, too.

Laying on his couch with his eyes closed, Myeol-mang offers his hand when Dong-kyung points out it’s almost midnight. Myeol-mang doesn’t respond while Dong-kyung rambles, so she assumes he’s sleeping and leans in close to stare at his face.

Myeol-mang startles her by opening his eyes and saying he never sleeps, even when she’s sleeping and vulnerable. Dong-kyung hops back over to her side of their joined house where she asks who he lost that day. It was his mother, or at least the equivalent.

The next day, the goddess pops up in the backseat of Myeol-mang’s car, smug about the fact that he cried at her funeral. He changes the topic and says to leave Dong-kyung be – she’s dying anyway. The goddess observes that they seem close; she’s the first human to remember him. But then, how could she not when he was crying so pitifully? Heh.

The goddess gets a good report from the doctor but to herself calls it a lie. She talks to her potted plant (or seeds) and smiles as she says they should bloom soon.

Dong-kyung arrives at work and is told the CEO is back, although he seems a little different. She looks over, and Myeol-mang gives a little wave. Dong-kyung marches into “his” office and asks if this is payback for making fun of him about the crying.

Myeol-mang, as usual, is highly amused by flustering her and just smiles infuriatingly. Joo-ik interrupts awkwardly and agrees to go see Ji-na in Dong-kyung’s place since she’s busy glaring at Myeol-mang.

While Ji-na waits at a café, she learns that Hyun-kyu is back from Japan and running a (different) café. Ji-na catches Joo-ik reading her work and overhears him say it’s boring. When she sees him, we cut to a scene of them kissing in the rain, which I’m guessing is her imagination rather than memory.

Joo-ik is brutally honest about Ji-na’s work and criticizes her habit of making her male leads run after a woman confesses. He cuts to the heart of it and guesses her pen name is inspired by Hyun-kyu who serves as the model for those male leads.

Meanwhile, Dong-kyung camps out in the CEO’s office and makes Myeol-mang help her by flipping pages while she types a manuscript. They bicker back and forth, both too stubborn to give in. Dong-kyung laments that for all the things he claims he can’t do – eat, sleep, cry, type – he can speak.

They’re back to the crying thing with Myeol-mang insisting memories can be false. Dong-kyung finds it fascinating that she had completely forgotten but remembered after that girl from the bus stop bumped into her.

Myeol-mang storms over to the hospital to confront the goddess. He demands to know if this was her plan. “I just made her forget what happened. You’re the one who got close to her,” she responds. The goddess supposes he understands sympathy now, that he smiles often and pities Dong-kyung. It’ll only get worse.

“Can you just let her die?” The goddess challenges that he could change Dong-kyung’s fate. Myeol-mang scoffs at the idea of him pitying Dong-kyung, and the goddess fires back that he always finds himself the most pitiable.

“Do you know what sympathy is?” Myeol-mang retorts. The goddess says she’ll be the one to find someone to die in Dong-kyung’s place when Myeol-mang breaks the contract.

When Dong-kyung returns home, she finds Myeol-mang on her rooftop. She nags him for stirring up trouble and taking off but stops when she notices Myeol-mang is unusually quiet and serious. He says that he remembers her from that day too, the little girl who smiled while everyone else cried.

He’s not sure when this was all planned or how, but it doesn’t matter. “I don’t plan on making you smile.” Dong-kyung tries to lighten the strange, tense atmosphere and apologizes if he got offended when she made fun of him crying.

It’s almost midnight, but Myeol-mang says he won’t hold her hand tonight – he’s been too uselessly kind to her. Dong-kyung is hit with a massive headache before she can even respond. She drops to the ground, gasping in pain, and begs for his hand.

When Myeol-mang asks if it’s her wish, Dong-kyung glares at him wordlessly. He finally relents and touches her hand, reminding her that he warned her not to trust so easily and that her bracelet could become her weakness.

Myeol-mang explains that he’s not human and decided long ago not to indulge in emotions like sympathy or love. Dong-kyung stares daggers at him and calls him pitiful. Myeol-mang retorts she’s the pitiful one. “You’ll end up crying because of me. You will want to bring doom upon the world since that’s the only way you can kill me.”

Dong-kyung asks if that’s his plan. She steps up on the railing and faces him. “Because this is mine.” She lets herself fall backwards off the roof. Myeol-mang grabs her arm and pulls her back, looking shaken.

Myeol-mang yells at her for acting crazy, but Dong-kyung was confident he’d hold onto her. “You’ve been caught by me.” Even if he can’t feel things, she can. “So I plan on loving you. Then, without losing anything, I can live.”

Myeol-mang stares at her and then pulls her close. “Then let’s do it properly,” he says, “until you want to bring doom upon the world for my sake.” They stare at each other, determined.

 
COMMENTS

Well, this should be interesting. I did not expect Dong-kyung to figure out and exploit this loophole of making Myeol-mang the person she loves most. She’s been so resigned to her fate that it’s nice to see her take control and put up a fight. She seems like one of those people who has a high threshold but once she gets truly angry, she goes all in. I like this set-up of Dong-kyung and Myeol-mang working together for different outcomes. If I’m understanding both of their intentions accurately, she wants to make him her most beloved person so she can break her contract with no human casualties. He wants to use her love to make her follow through on the contract. Despite their different goals, they’re now playing on the same team, using each other to get what they want. It puts them on more equal footing which I like. Now they just have the weird challenge of making Dong-kyung fall in love with Myeol-mang in a span of a few months. Whether Myeol-mang wants to admit it or not, they clearly have a connection, but he’s going to need to stop being so in denial about the fact that he has emotions.

I know he’s doom and that requires a certain amount of callousness, but it was still hard to watch him cruelly let Dong-kyung suffer to prove a point. Myeol-mang is obviously damaged from who knows how long of doing this work, and the fact that his only companion is a goddess who is destined to die again and again can’t help. He may resent her for the position she’s given him, but she’s really his only family. In his rare moment of vulnerability, he even admitted she’s like his mother. The goddess is harder to read, so I have no idea what she feels, if anything. She exists solely for her duties and doesn’t appear – at least currently – to have the frustration Myeol-mang does about it. She’s obviously not going to let Myeol-mang doom the world, but I can’t tell how much she’s put into motion herself. With regards to Myeol-mang and Dong-kyung’s entanglement, it could just be that she’s taking advantage of a situation that occurred coincidentally. Or, to use her favorite gardener metaphor, she might’ve planted the seed and let it grow naturally. Being omniscient, I suppose she’d always know how to achieve the outcome she wants.

This whole contract business is rather vague. You’d think a contract of this magnitude would involve more than a simple verbal agreement on both sides. It’s odd how informal and ambiguous the whole process has been. And it’s not like Myeol-mang is overly concerned with transparency. I had originally thought Dong-kyung had some choice in what or whom she doomed, but it seems she has to stick to her initial wish of dooming the world. We know that there’s a penalty if Dong-kyung breaches the contract, but what about Myeol-mang? The goddess implied if Myeol-mang breaks the contract, she would choose the person who dies in Dong-kyung’s place, but she didn’t say if there are any repercussions personally for Myeol-mang. Maybe there’s some clause in this invisible contract that allows him to terminate it whenever he wants.

We got to see a little more of Dong-kyung’s family, and I’m glad to know her life hasn’t been all tragedy. Although she’s had it rough, she and Sun-kyung lucked out in having an aunt like Soo-ja. She didn’t hesitate to take those kids in and essentially become a single mom overnight. The three of them formed a loving, well-adjusted little family unit. Dong-kyung’s reaction to Myeol-mang makes a bit more sense after knowing that, due to her past, she inextricably links fortune and misfortune. Most people would find the literal embodiment of doom disturbing, to say the least, but she was quick to see him as multifaceted and not “bad” per se. She certainly keeps Myeol-mang on his toes with her unpredictability. Watching him have to eat his words that humans are all the same and not worth wasting emotions on is going to be quite satisfying.

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