Just Between Lovers Ep 4

Time for hugs! Because life is too hard to get through without a few hugs.

Just Between Lovers Ep 4:

MoonSoo confirms that she doesn’t know Bulldog Mansion and brushing his disappointment aside, KangDoo answers a work call and leaves.

Still at the construction site, MoonSoo keeps her eye trained on KangDoo, which kind of bugs him. She insists to know if he was here at the mall’s collapse too and KangDoo retorts that he wasn’t (you liar). He accuses her of being a bad person when it seems like she doesn’t buy it, saying that harassing a person just to hear him give you the answer you want without consideration for his feelings is a form of violence too.

Luckily, JooWon’s arrival breaks the tension and KangDoo goes off to get some people to move their cars.

MoonSoo asks WanJin about Bulldog Mansion and WanJin’s surprised that MoonSoo doesn’t know about the band since she kept listening to their songs in the hospital right after her rescue. Worried, she checks that MoonSoo’s memory loss is only limited to the events of the collapse and jokes if she even remembers how they met. (At the hospital, but we don’t know why WanJin was there.)

 

JooWon’s at the site doing more tests on the ground, irritating the project manager for questioning his father’s company’s reports on the groundwork investigation. Director Jeong comes out of his car to complain about the additional costs again, calling it an act of stealing (his company’s money).

Pfft, annoyed, he calls KangDoo as the Site Manager over and emphasizes the fact that he, not JooWon, pays his salary, and warns JooWon not to act like the place is his just because he has a “gangster” like KangDoo on site. Otherwise, he’ll end up like his father. My god, you’re such an ass.

KangDoo comments that Director Jeong is doing such a good job belittling others as befitting his high position and JooWon defends, him, saying that Director Jeong is not a bad person – he just can’t handle his position.

JooWon tries to ask what MoonSoo’s business with KangDoo was but KangDoo refuses to report his personal matters to his boss.

 

SoMi dumps KangDoo’s bag of burn medication on MoonSoo’s desk, informing her of the source and bragging that she’s confident that there’s something between them even though MoonSoo denies. She’s not the only employee who thinks that they have a special relationship and MoonSoo is directed to KangDoo’s resume when she asks for his contact.

KangDoo’s words of her being a bad person weigh heavily on her mind and copying his information down, MoonSoo leaves for the day.

KangDoo swaggers into Dad’s restaurant and asks for some noodles, noting the few pictures that Dad has of his little girls. Before he can pick the photos of young, smiling MoonSoo up, Dad takes them away. So now KangDoo knows for sure that MoonSoo was the girl with him under the rubble all those years ago.

JooWon is greeted by YooJin with a list of ground inspection companies for him to choose from. When she tries to smoothen his hair affectionately, he avoids her hand and she notes that he doesn’t wear their couple ring any more. She just says that he can meet another new woman, but tells him not to let her see the new woman and JooWon tells her not to cling on anymore. He drives off and she returns to her car only to realise that KangDoo’s been their audience the whole time, heh. He isn’t very interested in their affairs and moves to leave since he only came to meet JooWon.

YooJIn asks him to pretend that he didn’t see anything and KangDoo hilariously just mouths off that he can’t since he’s already seen it all. He leaves her, saying that even an ignorant guy like him knows that love isn’t a win-lose game and the saying that the one who loves more loses isn’t true, so she must be dumber than he thought.

MoonSoo ends up at Madame’s hostess bar, since it’s the address KangDoo put down as his place of residence in the resume. She’s almost accosted by a drunk man but KangDoo arrives just in time to shield her and takes her away to a cheaper roadside stall for alcohol, seen by Madame.

 

Pouring just MoonSoo a glass of Soju (he doesn’t drink it because it’s bitter, lol), KangDoo admits that he doesn’t live there. MoonSoo came to apologise for her earlier actions that day, admitting that he was right and that his words weighed heavily on her mind.

Understanding dawns in KangDoo’s eyes and he begins to tell her the real reason he smashed the memorial. It was because it felt fake. The creators and owners just engraving the names of the dead in stone and expecting people to remember those names just felt ridiculous. So he smashed it in a fit of anger. MoonSoo tells him he did good.

KangDoo calls for beer and wonders why she insists on knowing and she uses his words about forcing people to answer being violence. Haha! In turn, she asks who Bulldog Mansion is and when she explains that she knows that they’re a band, he quietly tells her that they’re not just any band… they’re a GREAT band. Then he starts singing a song of theirs terribly and loudly while she crumbles in embarrassment. PWAHAHAH!

 

On her ride home, YooJin gets the report that KangDoo was directly hired by JooWon’s company and she orders for him to be fired. But she changes her mind the moment she’s informed that KangDoo’s father, Lee CheolWoo, was one of the employees who died in the disaster while working on the mall that day. In fact, his family never got any compensation for his death because he was accused of taking out rebars from where they were supposed to be, and that decision not to give compensation was done by her own brother. She wants him looked into.

Madame enters her room after a long day at work just to find KangDoo splayed across her sofa and he asks if she knows Jeong YooTaek. Warning him not to get entangled with the guy unnecessarily, Madame sighs that YooTaek seems like a pitiful guy with an inferiority chip on his shoulder, what with him saying things like her looking like his first love and always choosing to come to her little run down bar when the son of a chaebol could do better.

She’s instead more interested in MoonSoo, though KangDoo calls it nothing and she knows that “nothing” always means “something”, so he escapes to wistfully watch some kids play soccer.

KangDoo comes to JooWon and tells him that he’d like to rebuild the memorial and asks for MoonSoo as his partner. JooWon tells him that he needs to get approval from headquarters and is curious to know why he specifically chose MoonSoo. He says, “just because.” Yeah, like that doesn’t raise suspicions. He clarifies that it’s because she’s the only one he knows in this office, though JooWon doesn’t buy it.

Pfft, KangDoo goes to MoonSoo’s office and SoMi gives him the fright of his life when she creeps up behind him to announce that “unnie” hasn’t come in to work yet. He’s offended when she calls him “Ajusshi”, but she insists.

Just like at the stairs, MoonSoo runs into his arms outside the office building too and KangDoo just leaves her with a smirk and a denial that he came for her. Also, “we’ll be seeing a lot of each other!”

 JooWon gives MoonSoo a cup of freshly brewed coffee and passes her the things she left in his car. He doesn’t hide that he saw her drawing of her family’s bath house and says that he looks forward to seeing a building MoonSoo designed.

 

Leaving her alone, MoonSoo checks out her lunchbox, which JooWon said he washed, only to find it filled to the brim with good food.

He goes off to call YooJin and intrigues her when he offers KangDoo as the person-in-charge for the memorial rebuilding project. She asks him to persuade her but he must have come through, since she proposes exactly that to her brother. She basically threatens him to approve it, bringing up how 1/5 of the land for the project is still under someone else’s ownership and yet he went ahead and put the horse before the cart with regards to licensing it. She scoffs at him to do a good job, strutting out while he shouts after her that he totally disapproves. Okay, child.

YooJin calls KangDoo out for dinner, which they have at Dad’s restaurant. Looking straight at her in the eyes confidently, impressing her, he announces that he doesn’t talk of work after work and YooJin returns that she isn’t here to talk about her love life too. But she does ask if it’s possible for former lovers to become friends and KangDoo wisely just says that it puts one in too much torment, having to hide his love, so if the love’s not that deep, it’s best to break it off totally. After all, even though love isn’t a game, it’s true that the one who loves more is at a disadvantage.

 

Smiling at that, she gets down to the real reason why she came – does JooWon know that KangDoo’s father was an employee who worked on the mall? And, in fact, are they plotting something?

KangDoo skirts around the question, but his expression gives everything away and YooJin leaves, satisfied that JooWon still doesn’t know the truth. She leaves payment for dinner on the table and asks that they have a drink sometime later.

WanJin is convinced that JooWon likes MoonSoo though MoonSoo is fixated on the pretty image of YooJin beside JooWon and WanJin, while working out, just says that she can steal JooWon away, pfft. MoonSoo doesn’t give into the idea and WanJin wonders why she’s being like that – always liking someone out of her reach or running away when someone actually starts to like her.

But WanJin has other bigger concerns and asks if her “love” is doing well. Hahaha! She finally learns his name and tells MoonSoo to get closer to him so that she can too, especially when MoonSoo admits that though he’s rough around the edges, he’s a good hardworking guy.

The next day at work, KangDoo’s superior sends his men to prepare the site for the upcoming rainy season, urging them to make sure that nothing collapses or falls due to the additional water because they’re the only ones capable of protecting their own lives after all. KangDoo calls MoonSoo, who’s also there, for lunch, though he picks at his food while MoonSoo gorges on hers.

She side eyes him for being so picky for a construction site worker and KangDoo retorts that she was the one who just went into the restaurant and ordered without asking for his opinion. He actually teases her for eating so well when she doesn’t even do heavy work at the site.

He’s curious about what she keeps measuring this and that at the site for and she replies that she does it for her miniature building models. She’s taken aback when he calls it “toys” and she pulls out a 2D blueprint, asking if he understands it. Nope. He doesn’t understand when she shows him a 3D digital render of the blueprint too and explains that it’s why her actual 3D models are important. You don’t know for sure until you build it and only then can you find any risks while building or figure out any flaws in structure. Um, I thought that’s what Finite Element Modelling and Analysis is for, but whatever rocks your boat.

 

Right about now, KangDoo’s already stopped listening to her, taken in by the pretty. He summarises what she’s saying into, “so you’re trying to prevent an accident?” and says that she’s doing good work. He notes that she ate everything herself, so she can pay for it all herself, pfft. Instead, he buys her some expensive ice cream.

She starts with her questions again as they walk and asks about the scar on his leg. He refuses to answer and she complains about how he speaks casually to her. He replies that he heard they’re the same age, but refuses to reveal how he knew that and MoonSoo plays catch up with him as he walks on first, sharing her views about equality and respect which he totally ignores.

KangDoo’s superior begs him to take night shift that day too because the guy who was supposed to come isn’t contactable. KangDoo holds out for just bare seconds before giving in and MoonSoo comes up to say that his actions don’t match his words, since he goes round preaching about not helping others but actually helps out lots of time. His pathetic comeback is that she talks a lot. Hee.

 

He gets into his site office and slams the door behind him loudly but then heads to the window to peek at MoonSoo. He starts to smile… but a dirty face in the dark appears right in front of him and taunts him for appearing happy. Jeez, that scared me!

Director Jeong is up to his bullying ways again, kicking his Project Manager around and screaming at him for not being able to find the owner of the land he needs to buy over (the same one YooJin scorned him for). Huh, so Project Manager is actually Director Jeong’s brother-in-law and Director Jeong’s father-in-law’s company was the one who won the bid to be their sub-contractor. No wonder JooWon doesn’t trust them.

Bro-in-law assures Director Jeong that the landowner will sell no matter what since they’re going to pay top dollar for it, way above the market price for a wasteland, and Director Jeong asks who the lucky bastard is.

Cut to… KangDoo. KangDoo??? That’s impossible.

Ah, we see KangDoo creeping up on Granny and scaring the daylights out of the old lady. HAHAHA. For once, she’s actually out exercising but he takes issue with her choosing such a dark and gloomy place to do so. She retorts that this place becomes the most beautiful spot on earth when it’s covered in snow and wonders if she’ll be able to see that again in her lifetime.

She walks off complaining about her aching knees and KangDoo follows to scold her for smoking (Granny: “I exercise so that I can smoke this for a long, long time.” Pfft!!!), totally using casual-speak as he does. She takes issue with that and KangDoo complains about how she can be like that to someone who’s going to take care of her till she goes senile. She wonders why he has to do that and screeches when he throws her cigarette to the ground, calling him a bastard. Hahaha!

 

A quiet moment falls and KangDoo asks which is right, between “knowing is power” and “ignorance is bliss”. Granny calls it bullshit and wisely says that “knowing that ‘ignorance is bliss’ is power”. KangDoo calls it unfair, thinking that MoonSoo is having it good not remembering anything but Granny-the-sage asks him how he would know whether other people are at ease?

“It doesn’t mean that the one who cries louder is in more pain.”

KangDoo breaks the moment by forcing her to get up and exercise more, which she whines to. Hahahah! I love this relationship.

Director Jeong is at Madame’s again and refuses to drink with anyone but her.

She calls for a bottle of her regular alcohol, pouring his away and Director Jeong asks her who KangDoo is, seeing how she’s was the one who sent him to get money off Director Jeong. Madame defends KangDoo, saying that he did it only because she asked, and he’s a guy who does anything for money.

 

She tries to pull Director Jeong off KangDoo’s back by belittling him as little poor thing who doesn’t know how to spend money since he’s drowning in so much debt and warns him not to mess with people who’s got nothing to lose.

As a result, Director Jeong signs off on the rebuilding of the memorial, leaving KangDoo in charge just because he’s interested in the fact that so many people are interested in this one boy.

KangDoo’s annoyed that Director Jeong called him all the way to his office just to tell him that and Director Jeong does what he does best, rubbing it in his face that their time are valued differently.

YooJin asks for the building models to be done quickly so that they can start selling and is annoyed when MoonSoo oversteps and asks if their construction method of choice is suitable for the land they’re working on. Director Jeong tells her to get out and not waste their time, but outside, JooWon comforts her that she wasn’t wrong. But Director Jeong and YooJin aren’t wrong either.

“The real mistake is just glossing over something when you have serious doubts. Accidents. It rarely happens because bad people cause them on purpose. It happens when hardworking people make little mistakes. So you can’t work in this line if you’re not confident.”

He tells her to keep her head up and not be intimidated by others since she’s his person.

Forlorn, she heads for the stairwell where she sits to massage her aching foot and KangDoo comes along to join, having witnessed the whole thing.

She sighs at always showing him her bad side and he scoffs that looking like the world ended over such a small thing is pathetic.

She wonders why she’s the only one doing so badly when everyone else seems to be doing just fine and KangDoo notes that it always seems that way, but moving forward, everyone has it the same. Even those who do well stress out behind the scenes.

Heh, he stops it from becoming any mushier by repeating his mantra that it’s every man for himself and refuses to answer any of her other questions (“why don’t you take the elevator?”), asking if she really likes him.

Heh, she follows him all the way to his residence (a motel) but hesitates since such a place is usually seedy. He teases her for being so when she was the one who asked for a drink and leading him all the way to his rooftop, he hands her a lukewarm beer from his broken refrigerator.

He lies back with a Manhwa in hand while MoonSoo wonders what’s so fun about stories that all end up the same. KangDoo replies that that predictability is what makes them good – “Even if you’re betrayed, you have one friend who trusts you. Everything your mentor says is correct, so you just have to follow. If you work… hard… results will follow. The bad guys get punished. That’s nice.”

“It’s because you can’t just do what’s obvious and simple that this world is so beggar-like.”

Pouting, MoonSoo tries a few pages and soon, KangDoo’s just reading her face instead of his comic. Haha, she tries out some dragon-ball kind of actions and KangDoo starts to smile as beer cans pile up on their coffee table with passing time.

 

SangMan suddenly appears behind MoonSoo to explain about the “Ultimate Healing Method”, which KangDoo just calls an excuse to grope women. Pfft. SangMan explains with all the seriousness of a doctor presenting his Nobel-prize-worthy discovery that the “Ultimate Healing Method” involves the exchange of energies between two people for real, effective inner healing and is a sacrifice by the one administering it because he can get hurt too, internally.

He explains how hands were a source of healing from long time past and KangDoo thinks back to his conversation with Granny about keeping the ignorant in the dark. The smile slips off his face while MoonSoo falls into SangMan’s engrossed explanation of the “Ultimate Healing Method”.

Mom’s drinking again when MoonSoo arrives home. She’s feeling a little lonely since ajumma’s gone home to her trouble-making husband and sighs that it would have been great if life were changeable like changing channels.

But what’s the point when you just always end up at the first channel and MoonSoo asks if Mom’s first husband, Dad, was sweet. Mom sniffs and MoonSoo wonders if that’s why she’s refusing to divorce. Mom replies that it just feels like he’s being taken away from her, sighing that she wouldn’t feel that if she never liked him from the beginning.  Either way, she doesn’t like it and ends it by saying that MoonSoo wouldn’t understand anyway.

MoonSoo recalls back to the past when Mom first got the call from Dad about YeonSoo’s death and how Mom had collapsed right in the middle of the ward while she stared blankly at the TV screen which just routinely announced the discovery of more bodies while a lady gushes over good food above. The world had just gone on as usual happily while Mom’s world had come to a screeching stop.

In the present, MoonSoo thinks to herself that even though they’re family, she doesn’t feel like Mom does and can only guess that the pain Mom felt for losing her daughter would be worse than her’s for losing her sister. There’s nothing she can do about it, except for giving Mom a big, tight hug, which she does, trying to heal her mother’s pain with the “Ultimate Healing Method”.

Up on the rooftop, KangDoo’s still there on the sofa deep in thoughts. He smiles to himself as he thinks about MoonSoo’s adorable self and calls himself crazy before heading to his room.

 

The next day, he’s there at JooWon’s office while JooWon tasks MoonSoo with helping KangDoo out with the rebuilding of the memorial.

The two go out, making the rounds at various stonemasons looking for the right one for their memorial. They’re told that the price will change if they change the design and KangDoo wonders what all the writing of names is for if it doesn’t change the fact that the dead are gone. The stonemason corrects him, saying that the piece of stone is not so much of asking people to remember their names but to give those who lived and survived on some comfort from their loss. He blithely wonders what these two young uns would know about hardship, not knowing that they both live each day with gaping emptiness inside.

Taking a popsicle break, MoonSoo concludes that the stonemason was right and KangDoo agrees, saying that people who focus on just one thing their whole lives tend to be right and the stonemason’s hands were a testament to his dedication.

 

MoonSoo starts wondering “what if” he didn’t ruin the memorial and KangDoo cuts her off abruptly, hating the phrase “what if”, since it doesn’t change anything and yet brings them into an endless downward spiral. Unable to reply to that, MoonSoo starts singing the song by Bulldog Mansion that KangDoo sang the other time and affected, KangDoo orders her not to sing it. She calls him petty, and he just gets up to leave, making her run after him again.

JooWon takes out his father’s old blueprints for the mall that collapsed and recalls Director Jeong’s mean words about ending up like his father.

MoonSoo interrupts his thoughts to report that they didn’t achieve much that day and JooWon just tells her to focus on conveying her thoughts and not so much on making the memorial different or fantastic. The last time he designed it, he wanted it to be something quiet, sturdy and classy enough not to draw criticism. But now that they’re rebuilding it, it’s good, since the two of them are different from him.

MoonSoo takes that in and tells him that he’s a good person. Asking him to believe in them, she’s sure that this new memorial will be different.

It’s time to blast some land at the site and KangDoo watches on apprehensively. But when he overhears some workers talking about how CheongYoo probably just covered the whole collapsed mall instead of dealing with the ruins properly, he imagines the same dirt covered boy from before grabbing his ankle and is unable to move.

Rooted, he freezes and only leaves when someone else pulls him away.

Gripped by fear, he hides in his site office and covers his ears but no matter how tightly he presses against them and resolutely forces himself not to hear, someone’s taunts that it would have been good if he’d died together with him back then ring loud and clear.

 

JooWon leaves his office only to find MoonSoo sleeping at her desk. Waking her up, she suddenly huddles when thunder blasts behind her.

It’s raining outside and remembering the line she heard that morning about 26% of all collapse accidents happening at construction sites, especially due to rain, she runs off, thinking of KangDoo whose covering the night shift.

JooWon looks down at her desk to find a list of fatalities and names of their families. Taking a closer look, he sees MoonSoo’s name right beside Ha YeonSoo’s and tears begin to well in his eyes.

Meanwhile, KangDoo takes a walk under the storm at night, which is when MoonSoo arrives too… and something makes KangDoo pause.

“I said it before. Those curse-ful things… will come back someday.”

 

Comments:

Geez, KangDoo is super messed up. How such a young boy could carry such burdens and still grow up with his head well attached, I don’t know. Not only does he appear to remember everything that happened during the collapse, after the collapse, he still had to be the head of his household and support his sick mother and sister without any financial help at all. I don’t suppose that their family is well-off if Dad Lee had to steal-and-sell rebars on the side (what?!) and I’m not sure how long their savings could have lasted the small family after Dad went.

It’s like trauma after trauma and what is this thing with a fellow victim coming after him in his hallucinations? My god, it’s more than just Post-traumatic Stress Disorder with this poor boy – he’s got survivor’s guilt and from what the hallucinations are saying to him, he probably believes he doesn’t deserve to be happy at all. That’s just not true because everyone has a right to happiness and whether you’re happy or not has no bearing on the one that left. But I see how he can believe it because “by right”, the both of them were supposed to suffer the same fate, but by some “un-earned” luck, KangDoo got saved while I guess the other boy didn’t and KangDoo felt guilty for having that luck while the other boy didn’t and struggles to accept that he deserved that and therefore deserved to live and that’s just totally messed up on several different levels. Then you add in the fact that his dad stole supporting structures from the building (Dad!!!!!!) which to the untrained probably meant that he was the one who caused the collapse that claimed so many lives and that’s more undeserved guilt piled on a small body. No time to recover, no time to rest. It’s always go, go, go with this poor boy.

Wow, this show.

I also want to touch a little bit on the “Ultimate Healing Method” by SangMan, which is really, you know, touch as a means of comfort. Comic books can be silly, but you know, it’s their simple-ness and silliness that somehow convey the wisest ideas the best. Harry Harlow in the 1950s had to traumatize several monkeys to show that touch and affection rooted normal development and kept it on track and here we have MoonSoo understanding that when all gets hard, you just need a really, really big, tight hug or the “Ultimate Healing Method” to feel even just a little better, like Mom used to do for you when you were little – hug you when you cry, hug you when you get a boo boo. Somehow, it’s always the wordless actions that do the most. And sometimes I wonder if WanJin is so hilariously spontaneous, straightforward and open because she spends half her day in comic-book land and away from dreary reality. I mean, I don’t doubt that there’s stress in working on comics, but it must be nice to just keep concentrating on what the next big act of mushiness your characters will be and the delight it’ll probably bring your readers.

It’s clear that the only thing that’s keeping KangDoo sane on this planet is his mother-figure, Granny. And I hope she stays for a good while, at least till KangDoo finds another anchor just as strong as she is and stabilizes because I’m not confident that he won’t turn into himself without her now.

You know, besides the obvious gorgeous movie-quality cinematography (lighting, angles, contrasts, colours… squee!!), the acting (the nuances in facial expressions, the little quirks of each characters, and the performances and tandem between two actors), the other thing this drama does really well is with language.

Granny obviously isn’t a Seoulite. And KangDoo speaks banmal to practically everyone he deems is in his circle after the first meeting without asking for permission, even Granny. Pfft, this punk. He keeps the “jeondae” with YooJin, acknowledging that she’s his superior, but also comfortable with keeping their distance and goes official-formal with his site superior, showing respect. He sometimes drops to “banmal” with JooWon, but generally addresses him formally, meaning that he’s not up for worshipping JooWon but he does hold him in high respect. With MoonSoo, he feels closer to her than she does to him, obviously still tied and attached to her as fellow victims that comforted each other and shared the same space under the rubble. He calls Granny “HalMeom”, which, if we translate with connotation, becomes “old woman” and is definitely not something usually used by young people to call some older woman unless they’re really close. The fact that Granny calls him all sorts of “bastard”, “jerk” and “punk” tickles me too. The love-hate between these two really warms my cockles. And with Madame “Noona”, he just goes full banmal. HA. You can tell who this boy likes, dislikes, respects, holds at arm’s length, holds close to his heart or even derides just from the way he talks, heh. But there’s one thing even more certain: he doesn’t like being called “Ajusshi”.