High-school Gong Myung is Kim Min-ha’s first love

by Jenzy

The first teaser for TVING’s Way Back Love (formerly A Week Before I Die) introduces us to our lovebird leads Kim Min-ha (Pachinko) and Gong Myung (Lovers of the Red Sky) before fate tragically tears them apart.

The teaser opens back in high school. Our adorable besties Jung Hee-wan (Kim Min-ha) and Kim Ram-woo (Gong Myung) are starting off their school year, and Hee-wan has unilaterally decided to switch names with Ram-woo for funzies.

While it’s confusing to everyone else when Hee-wan starts answering for Ram-woo’s name and calling him by hers whenever she sees him, it’s clear to us as the audience that this is her way of flirting in that indirect awkward teen style.

And even though it might be clumsy and deeply embarrassing — like when she faceplants while trying to stop another girl from confessing to Ram-woo — her sincerity appears to win him over as he says in the voiceover, “It’s a good thing when you find someone you like.”

However, in a sharp cut to several years later, we meet a reclusive Hee-wan catatonic in her apartment, barely getting up when she hears a knock at her door. We don’t know exactly what happened to our formerly bubbly teenager, but when Hee-wan opens her door to find Ram-woo — greeting her with “did you not miss me?” and “there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you” — it looks like their reunion starts to spark something in her again.

That is, until a polaroid picture of the two of them reveals the dark truth about Ram-woo that Hee-wan has been holding on to all this time: “You died.”

You heard her right. Turns out Ram-woo actually died four years ago, and this figment in front of Hee-wan is actually him as the grim reaper, here to take her away into the afterlife. But after missing Ram-woo for so many years, is Hee-wan ready to lose him a second time?

Directed by Choi Ha-na (Citizen Pane) with the screenplay written by Song Hyun-ju and Jang In-jung, TVING’s Way Back Love is scheduled to be released sometime in 2025.

 
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