Way Back Love: Episodes 1-2 (First Impressions)

by SailorJumun

Knock, knock — Death is at your door and he has your high school crush’s face. It’s an unnerving and downright mortifying idea, and the heroine of TVING’s Way Back Love is now living it. She’d rather get her death over with, but her former-love-turned-reaper won’t be letting her go that easy. Even if it’s just for one week, she still has so much life to experience.

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EPISODES 1-2

I love a good grim reaper romance, even knowing I’ll be crying by the end of it. These kinds of stories can lean pretty heavily into the drama or lean the other way into comedy, and I usually like a healthy balance of both. Way Back Love promises exactly that, opening to our depressed heroine lying on the floor of her apartment and our smiling hero on the other side of the door, ready to pick her up.

The woman is JUNG HEE-WAN (Kim Min-ha), and she’s shocked when she opens the door to KIM RAM-WOO (Gong Myung). We’re immediately thrown into a flashback, when these two were in high school, and it’s interesting to see how different they are. Here, the young Hee-wan is vibrant and full of life, while Ram-woo is reserved and laser-focused on his studies. Unfortunately for Ram-woo, he’s pressured into partaking in a class-wide April Fools’ prank in which they switch names to confuse the teachers.

The classmate who Ram-woo trades names with is — you guessed it — Hee-wan. And he complains to his best friend LEE HONG-SEOK (Jung Geon-joo) that Hee-wan is the worst to be associated with. Case in point: Hee-wan fully commits to his name, giving it out to boys and using it to check out BL books from the library. To top it all off, Hee-wan gets into trouble with some bullies and it’s his nametag that she leaves behind.

As an introvert, I feel Ram-woo’s pain, but omg, do I love Hee-wan. Like, when the bullies confront her, she uses markers to draw tattoos on herself, Ram-woo, and her friend YOON TAE-KYUNG (Oh Woo-ri) to appear more intimidating.

Ram-woo is relieved when April Fools’ is over, only to discover that he and Hee-wan are actually neighbors. He ends up meeting her outside their apartment building to deliver a bra that his mom sold her online. (Pffft, his pure embarrassment kills me). He begs her not to tell anyone about this at school, and she agrees… for a price.

The name switch brought a lot of luck to Hee-wan (free food, better test scores, etc), so she’d like to keep the act going. With that, they continue answering to their new names, and Ram-woo gets used to it after a while. The arrangement also brings them closer together, and they become good friends.

Eventually, Hee-wan finds herself developing a crush on Ram-woo. She buys herself a nice dress and wears it every time she takes out recycling, hoping to run into him. When the opportunity comes and she knows that he’s outside, she rushes to meet him, her dress dripping wet from the wash and her foot injured from dropping a drawer on it.

Despite all of that, Hee-wan has the biggest smile when she sees Ram-woo, and it’s absolutely adorable. Back in the present day, however, Hee-wan is not at all happy to see her old friend — because he died four years ago.

Not only is Ram-woo dead, but he’s a reaper, here to warn Hee-wan that she’ll be dying in one week. As expected, she doesn’t believe him. In fact, no one else is able to see or hear him, so she doesn’t even believe that he’s real. In order to convince her, he has to take her to the hospital to witness a patient’s death. And Hee-wan watches in amazement as the patient’s soul appears and is escorted away by another reaper.

The truth sinks in, along with the fact that Hee-wan really will die. Ram-woo can’t tell her how, and it seems like they can’t prevent it, so all Hee-wan wants to do is go home and sleep. But Ram-woo won’t be having that — he encourages her to do all the things on her bucket list. When she insists that she doesn’t have one, he asks that she at least humor him and do the things on his own list. Reluctant, she settles on completing ten items, as long as he leaves her alone after.

The couple promptly goes through Ram-woo’s bucket list, crossing off things such as drinking beer under the stars, going bird watching, and eating cup ramyun at the North Pole. (They complete the last one by watching a polar bear documentary and simulating snow, lol.) They go through the items so fast that I worry they’ll finish and part too soon.

Thankfully, time seems to slow when they attend a classical music concert. Hee-wan’s mind wanders, and we’re taken to another high school flashback, when a girl named Ji-soo asks Hee-wan to rewrite a confession letter in pretty calligraphy. Hee-wan accepts, only to realize that the letter is addressed to Ram-woo.

Hee-wan makes up every excuse in the book to avoid writing the letter and avoid facing a very impatient Ji-soo, to the point where she jumps out a freaking window and breaks her leg. In the end, she does give Ji-soo the letter, trying to convince herself that any sort of high school romance wouldn’t last anyway.

According to Tae-kyung, Ram-woo accepted Ji-soo’s confession, leaving Hee-wan heartbroken. It’s made even worse when Ram-woo comes to her with the request to rewrite a letter to “J.S.” Assuming that it’s for Ji-soo, Hee-wan is hilariously pissy about this, but Ram-woo clarifies that it’s a birthday letter for his mom (Jung-sook). He has no intention of dating Ji-soo.

In the present day, the couple prepares for the next item on the bucket list: paragliding. Ram-woo makes Hee-wan go by herself, saying that he’ll be waiting for her at the landing area. At first, she goes kicking and screaming, but by the time she’s in the air, she’s laughing with glee. She arrives at the landing sight, looking around for Ram-woo, and immediately panics when she can’t find him.

Ugh, my heart when her eyes finally land on him. It’s like she’s already gotten used to having him around again.

We then see a memory of Ram-woo’s, as he listened in on Hee-wan telling some friends about her list of things she wants to do with a boyfriend. And they’re the exact same things that the present-day couple has been doing. Another flashback shows Ram-woo’s funeral, as students gossip that he died because of Hee-wan.

Yeesh, another jab at my heart right there. From the hints we’ve been given, it seems like Ram-woo died in an accident and like it had something to do with the name switch. It would definitely explain the added layer of trauma that present-day Hee-wan carries, which Kim Min-ha is portraying beautifully.

I’m sure it’s hard for Hee-wan to have Reaper Ram-woo around and to relive her past, but we are starting to see her old vibrancy. I especially liked that the flashbacks were colorful while the present was dark — that way, the brightness in the present paragliding scene really popped. There’s still a long journey ahead of us, and hopefully, it comes with healing for both our heroine and our hero.

 
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