“Seriously, Chae Jong-hyeop has such an adorable light-up-the-universe kinda smile/laugh!“
And yet no screen shot of that?? 😀

I didn’t really enjoy the show as much. The first episode felt more flat. But the second episode was slightly better. I like both the female leads. Hope it gets better from here for me.
I was quite surprised the leads had some form of friendship before to actually go out and have meals.
I also wonder why HJ pretended not to recognize him when she met him in the blind date. Did she walk up to him knowingly to see if he recognized her??

There was nothing new in this 2 first episodes but it was cute!

I hope they won't waste time because it's a short drama.

They were both ok in their roles but the drama was boring as everything was predictable and there was nothing to motivate me to watch this again. It is such a pity that these opening eps had nothing new/semi new or interesting or intriguing to convey. It just felt like a KD off the conveyer belt which was a real pity.

liked these episodes a lot, but that just because I’m a sucker for straightforward rom-coms. The story is totally ordinary, no grand themes, and without at all throwing shade on the leads, they are good looking but not exceptionally so, likeable, but not exceptionally so, and act adequately, but not exceptionally.

Here’s the good about this: thought its tropey, its totally realistic. I know a couple, happily married for 30 years, two wonderful now adult children, who have almost exactly the same story. They knew each other in high school, no relationship except a common friend group between them, he went to England to study and then work, she fell deeply in love with a good looking guy who turned out to be a total loser, he came back to home for a visit and met with high school friends who just happened to include her, he fell hard, they went on a couple of dates while he was visiting, and then he wrote her and called her frequently from England, and eventually she went to London, and that was that. (In my experience, this is how the “met in childhood” trope works best in real life. Those I know who married right out of high school are mostly divorced.)

Here’s the bad: because the leads, especially the male lead, are just beautiful, not sensationally good looking, it won’t get the squees. And because the plot isn’t fantasy based, or something flashy, it won’t attract a devoted fan base. For me, because the writing isn’t that sharp, or funny, I don’t get that sense of eager anticipation for the next episodes. Oh sure, I’ll watch the whole thing and enjoy it, but this is one that I’m happy that its shorter, and I actually wish they had dropped all the episodes at once, so I could just watch it, finish it, and file it away as one that was pleasant but I kind of forget what happened.

One final comment: all the characters are perfectly likeable, which is a plus, except the cocky and pushy 2ml. While I get a little frustrated at the second male leads that are so attractive and appealing, you either wonder why the FL doesn’t choose them, OR why they don’t move on and just find a woman who loves them, I much prefer those type of 2MLs to the obnoxious jerks who you wonder why the FL was attracted to them in the first place! (Although, I guess he is good looking, suitable for a first love but not a serious rival in a love triangle.)

Thanks for the recap @unit
‘Like Hoo-young’s stay in Korea, this show doesn’t have much time to spend with us. Hopefully, it devotes the precious three weeks left strictly to the romance and keeps things light and cute to the end’ 👈🏾 Jabel🙏🏾 I just want a low key watch where the rom com stays in its lane.

I loved the picture of the cute niece everyone wants as their template daughter🥰 if they do a time skip it would be great to see them married walking hand in hand with same said cute kid❤️

I will never be tired of the “he fell first and fell harder” trope and now you give me a man who has been on the floor for ten years?

"ON THE FLOOR." I'M DEAD. 🤣😂

This drama's main selling point has to be the romance. There's nothing new or extra special going on. There were many typical kdrama tropes, but with only 8 episodes, the first two moved by quickly. Drunken acts of embarrassment, amusement park date, closeness in the car, high school first love, close living quarters, etc. Chae Jong Hyeop and Kim Soo Hyun sold me on their chemistry so they are making the romance work. Their king and eunuch photoshoot was cute! 전하!..

Happy to see Lee Won Jung! He left a strong impression in My Perfect Stranger.

I'm not crazy about the second leads. The friendship between Hye Ji and Hong Joo is nice, but Hye Ji immediately crushing on Hoo Young again after seeing him 10 years later is strange. I can understand Hoo Young and Hong Joo having unresolved feelings or issues. In Hye Ji's case, I would rather she had moved on after accepting his answer back then. She too her shot and sent him multiple love letters. For some reason, I thought she was in a separate pairing with Joon Ho.

Not a fan of Joon Ho and his audacity that he thinks he can continue his relationship with Hong Joo after leaving her for 3 years.

Weird. Even tho the drama didn't do anything particularly wrong, I couldn't get into it.

For a show called "is it fate" things feel a too forced.

First of all, for a guy that came to Korea for only ten days, strictly for business, we didn't see him do his job once. Unless staring at the wall in his uncle's office while thinking of a high school friend counts. LOL

I don't know if I should care or even be a little curious about his family or his business, or anything particular about him, because all he did for two episodes was droll over the FL. Which isn't anything new, but most of the time we get a general idea of the individual before he drowns in droll.

But this time, I don't get him. I feel like even the actor is confused about how to portray this character, tbh. At first I thought he was just boring, but nope, it's not that.

The FL... I don't know how much of my memories of the episode are really her, and how much of those memories are the "idea" of her. The ML's POV was massive, imo. And apart from that, all the FL did was act as a wingfriend for her bestie.

Also, since she had no real opinion or interest in the ML, but he was desperate making tricks to get a date with her, it was kinda weird... Maybe sad?
It's just that it all happened so fast.

Like, let me care about the guy first? Introduce him properly enough so I can root for him and feel confident defending his weird behavior.
It's not the first, or last, time in kdramaland that people meet their first love after a decade and get obsessed over it, but this time it felt so... in my face?

Is it me or the show was way too focus on showing how much the ML likes the FL, before actually showing him as a real person?
It's like, she existed (wait, why does he like her?), he fell in love, and that's it. That's all that matters.

It feels like the romance is going at the speed of light, but at the same time the show feels slow because nothing really happened in these two hours.

I think we saw as many cliches as we could, but they weren't fun or romantic, imo. This is probably the first time the reveal of the leads being neighbors felt this underwhelming. And I truly adore that trope.

I think a more natural vibe and a little less of the pink high school glasses for the ML (and the bestie) would help.
Tbh, the only real thought I had while watching this was "if the peak of your love life was the high school crush that ignored your existence... Damn. Maybe ML and bestie should end up together."

PS. The FL's ex talks like a very scary manipulator.

The second ep was so much better that the first, so I'll watch the rest, with fingers crossed that they keep getting better given the short runtime.
I enjoyed the flashback from his POV, and there doesn't seem to be too much cringe- comedy. It seems to be enemy-to-love from her side, and I'm all down for that too.
I do wish they'd dropped all the episodes at once though- the show is fluffy enough for a nice binge-watch.

Maybe I'm biased by the knowledge that the drama was filmed a few years ago, so it's a bit older, but everything seems a bit stale and not very innovative.

At least in dramas I like the tsundere type, but ML comes across as extremely bored and listless at times here.
SFL is extremely tiring and childish. How can a woman her age become so fixated on a guy she last saw over ten years ago and fantasise about marriage? I don't like her attitude of entitlement.
And as often as ML didn't accept the letters, FL should have realised that he had no interest in her best friend. Her pushiness quickly became unpleasant and not funny at all.

Since it's only 8 episodes and because of Chae Jong-hyeop, I'll keep watching, especially since there are clearly worse dramas out there.

It was okay. Cute in places and Chae Jong-Hyeop is handsome.

But it's pretty much just good enough to watch to fill the time before some other more spark-filled K-Romance comes along.

There are instances when a Slice-Of-Life type K-Romance works marvellously without any Serial Killer or Truck Of Doom plotline. BECAUSE THIS IS OUR FIRST LIFE is a wonderful example of that.

SERENDIPITY'S EMBRACE falls short. Watchable. But falls short unless it can meet the bar within the remaining 6 episodes.

His crush on her (and Chae Jong-hyeop) is adorable, but the reason why I like this drama is because of its OST. These songs are my type.

I had always been confused about the premise of this show. Why do all the descriptions say they were each other's first loves when Hong-joo never liked Hoo-young and her first love was Joon-ho? So I was waiting for a plot twist that she did like him but kept it a secret from Hye-ji.

Whether this story turns melo all depends on how Hye-ji takes Hong-joo and Hoo-young's feelings for each other and how clingy our second male lead gets, which may be a lot. I don't want anything to happen to our girls' friendship. Joon-ho being Hye-ji's cousin was an unexpected twist.

I was glad there was no Big Misunderstanding since high schooler Hong-joo told Hoo-young that the love letter was not from her. Even though her bombarding him with letters was stalkerish, it was squee that the reason he didn't reject Hye-ji right away was because he wanted to keep seeing Hong-joo.

I love Sang-pil because he's Lee Won-jung but wonder if he befriended Hong-joo and Hye-ji because he felt sorry for them. Will Hye-ji get together with Sang-pil or the awkward blind date teacher?

My favorite part is how Hoo-young's uncle is close enough to Hong-joo to even call her by her nickname "Lee Ddoong." I'm so curious if Hong-joo recognized Hoo-young before she sat down and mistook him as her blind date.

Many thanks for the recap, @Unit!

Too bad I don't feel as excited as I expected but I think I'll keep watching it till the end, it's only 8 eps though.
I watch because of both leads but somehow, I don't really their see character here. I'll give it a try until eps 4.

The First Love theme should have been a warning, but I do like the two leads. Unfortunately it was so boring and stale - was it written by AI? The actors do deserve a better script. If I have lots of time to spare, I might watch episode 2.

This show did . . . nothing (?) for me. Maybe I am bored of bored handsome MLs who don't give anything away for long periods of time and having the spunky FLs do all the work of being charming or even energetic. It would have been nice if in high school they had a little more two-way interaction of some sort, even if it was bickering. Almost every interaction that they both knew about was a one-way delivery of her giving words, messages, letters and energy to him and him not responding. CJH whom I usually find charming (especially the full smile) felt really flat to me. When he did smile, it was when she was super drunk (hello, drunk trope) or when she couldn't see, other than the one eunuch photo smile. Even the appearance of an umbrella, a yellow one at that, didn't bring much joy.
Even though this series is short, there was so much time spent on the bored affect of ML that the episodes felt sluggish and I too started to feel the ennui of his lot in life of being so smart and handsome.
Hopefully, the fake dating phase will be better.

I loved it to pieces. Also, I too will die on the hill that a romance drama is always 100x better when the man falls first and hard. I love how ordinary it is, I don't need over the top, just give me love.

I haven't finished ep the two eps yet, but I love CJH and also how this seems really down to earth.

Is there ANY chance the 2FL will end up with Sang-pil? Idk, I got a vibe. But according to Wikipedia, there's a male teacher at the 2FL's school that has a crush on her, so I imagine she'll end up with him.

This kind of fell flat for me, like other people have mentioned, I didn't feel the connection or why the ML is so in love nor did I think we spent enough time with the FL as she actually is. I also don't subscribe to this obsession with losers in love and the he fell first he fell harder, I prefer my romances more level from both the leads and want to see two individuals who show the same depth of affection and love for each other.

I like how simple and no murder mystery it is. And my ultimate catnip "he fell first and fell harder"!

Also, the hair though....please show some forehead. xD

The "Junho" streak is still going strong, I see.

Move along, runners and mobsters, a new sheriff has arrived at the loser-in-love town! Serendipity has come to embrace us with a story of first loves, friendships, fun, and frozen food analogies. And if you’re a fan of any of these themes, you’re welcome to dive right in. That was a good one😄
Thank you for this wonderful recap @unit. I really want to watch this but haven't had time to catch up on ongoing dramas yet. So I'll just wait to binge this once it ends.

OMG a stress-free and serial-killer-free drama. Sign me up. Why are there so freaking many serial killers? You would think they are as common in Korea as white-trucks-of-doom