Just Between Lovers Ep 5

Hold on to your pearls, because we’re still a long way from rock bottom.

 

Just Between Lovers Episode 5:

MoonSoo slams the door to the site office wide open but finds no one there. Rain continues to pour outside and she runs right out, frantic. Meanwhile, KangDoo is transfixed by the shadow of a shoe buried in a wall of mud and like a mad man, he digs through the wet sand, recalling his time under the rubble where he actually picked up a dismembered leg. Oh, gosh!

Getting more and more frenzied, he digs harder and faster, as images of the dirty-faced teenager from his hallucinations flash through his mind, reaching out for him, clutching his legs for life as he tried to get away, screaming that he didn’t want to die. Oh my gad. He even flings MoonSoo away when she comes to try and stop him, but nothing gets to him. Oh shieeeeett!!!

“Don’t you see that there’s a person in there?!”

 

But once he uncovers the shoe, he finds out that’s all there is. There isn’t anyone buried in the sand. He flops to the ground, spent, but above, MoonSoo screams at him to help because the wall’s collapsing on them, weakened by the huge hole KangDoo made and mud is flowing out like a gushing river mouth.

Immediately, he gets up to help and chides her for coming alone. They barely manage to hold on and just when they can’t anymore, someone comes strolling over and they shout for help.

The rain passes in the morning and the skies are blue again. JooWon sighs over the state of the collapsed wall as the Site Manager wonders what could have happened. “What happened” is in the canteen having his meal with MoonSoo and when JooWon asks, MoonSoo covers for him. Spying YooJin glaring at them, KangDo excuses himself and MoonSoo follows, leaving Romeo and Juliet alone.

 

KangDoo takes a rest with a soft drink outside and MoonSoo asks for some coins to buy her own. He doesn’t have any, so she just steals his, heh. She asks him why he did what he did and KangDoo comes clean that he really thought it was a person trapped in there. He mutters that it must have been scary, being trapped, and MoonSoo looks at him for a beat before checking his leg out herself. Self-conscious of his scar, he waves her aside and hobbles off.

JooWon sits in the site office, asking for more favours to ensure the safety of the site. MoonSoo reports the she’s covered the damaged wall of dirt with a waterproof vinyl, trying to help more but JooWon tells her to just go home. YooJin isn’t as kind though and asks that she write the incident report now, since it’s weird that what was good before suddenly failed last night.

Ha, WanJin doesn’t even react when someone tries to unlock the door to her house, though she is very surprised to see MoonSoo standing at the doorway looking like a dirty, wet rat.

After a refreshing bath, MoonSoo brags that she’s now been awake for a whole day and a half and calls herself cool, pfft. WanJin isn’t in as happy a mood thanks to all the criticisms thrown her way because of her disappointing manhwa and asks for a can of beer even after ending up in a hospital the last time she drank all that alcohol.

She continues scrolling through her comment board and groans through the whole thing, though a certain extra-nasty comment catches her attention and when she reads that he cursed her to be wheelchair-bound for life, she decides that she has to sue him till his pants drop. She screams all sorts of manhwa terms at MoonSoo who catches nothing and later, it’s Mom’s turn to scream in frustration and relief at her daughter who stayed out all night without even giving her a call.

The helper ajumma comes to her with a warm cup of tea and some reassuring words but Mom blithely says that she doesn’t get what she’s feeling since she’s got no kids. Eesh. Trying to back paddle, Mom offers grabbing some ramyeon together, because ramyeon always brings people together.

Director Jeong isn’t having a good day too as he whines at his sister asking for more funds to carry out more inspections again. He’s tired of all the failures on site like people don’t know how to do work but YooJin is deaf to all his petty concerns and just tells him to get people to check their work again and again, because the board of directors getting annoyed with them has got nothing on the fact that they could have had fatalities.

 

She blames him for not cleaning up after the mall’s collapse well and possibly causing their project to be delayed indefinitely if anything of concern were actually to be found and he screams at her to do her work well, since he brought her in to counter JooWon, whom he strongly believes is there to steal whatever their family has. YooJin just snarls at him to do his work right so that JooWon has nothing to say.

Meanwhile, JooWon is out of the fight and in amongst the mud, unable to understand how the mud wall could collapse like it did. He picks some dirt out of the ground and recalls himself staring at the collapsed pile of cement, metal and mud when S Mall collapsed… and how devastated and lost with disbelief father was.

He returns back to his office and pulls out the list of survivors from the disaster back then, seeing MoonSoo’s name under the lists of survivors found on the 3^rd day… and KangDoo’s name on the next page, labelled as “Last Survivor”, found on the 7^th day. Oof.

Said last survivor is at Granny’s having his knee tended to and Madame comes along to pass her the payment for the medicine Granny provides her girls. Madame tsks at KangDoo needing treatment again, assuming he got into some kind of trouble again, and KangDoo in turns asks her what she thinks of his leg scar.

 

That’s an odd thing to ask for him and she guesses that MoonSoo must have said something about it though he denies and Granny hilariously cuts in to warn him off women who would be bad enough to make fun of other people’s scars. The two ladies proceed to deconstruct KangDoo’s love life like he’s not there and he escapes soon after along with his painkillers, refusing to answer any question.

Madame wonders to Granny if KangDoo really can take so many painkillers when she’d said that they’re really strong ones with very bad side effects and Granny comes clean that she mixes look-a-like supplements in the same bottle. If she didn’t, he’d be dead since long ago. Hahaha.

Madame pouts at Granny playing favourites with KangDoo and asks how Granny could have lent him such a large amount of money when he came asking for it without collateral when she never did before.

Turns out, Granny was moved by teenaged KangDoo’s declaration that he can’t repay the loan and his willingness to do anything to borrow just that $100,000. In fact, KangDoo did say that he won’t die till his loan is repaid and he owes nothing to anybody. She came to adore him more when he actually repaid all his interest on time without her having to chase him, unlike all her other big-talking customers. In short, she’s super proud of him for hanging in there and being so reliable.

PFFFT, that “reliable” guy is at CheongYoo’s construction site kicking a vending machine and getting two cans of soft drinks out of it without paying. When his Site Manager comes to stop him, he says that CheongYoo owes him at least that much and walks off with the extra can, ignoring his Site Manager’s outstretched hands, hahahah.

He marches straight to JooWon’s office, ignoring MoonSoo (who’s getting prettified by SoMi) when she calls out to him. He demands to know if CheongYoo actually just covered the whole mall collapse up without trying to remove all bodies respectfully and left the site littered with body parts. JooWon accepts that it’s possible, but he can’t stop work just because of that hypothesis without hard evidence. He challenges KangDoo to find it and KangDoo takes it up, warning JooWon not to go back on his word to support him if he succeeds.

 

JooWon actually lends KangDoo a car to ride with MoonSoo since it hurts his heart to see her go around with that heavy bag on her shoulder and KangDoo just tosses the keys to MoonSoo. He refuses to belt up too so MoonSoo does it for him, getting really close, and they smile when he offers her the can of soft drink that he didn’t have coins for the last time.

JooWon looks up an article on MoonSoo’s sister and his Team Leader comes in to report that CheongYoo is calling him over. The Team Leader tries to ask JooWon to be a little “flexible” and nice to CheongYoo but JooWon keeps work official and is resolute that they can’t compromise in any way.

Outside, KangDoo is getting on MoonSoo’s nerves by needlessly picking on her driving. Hahaha. She screeches to a stop at the side of the road and scoffs at him to just drive then but he retorts that the country won’t give him a license because of his busted leg. If he could, he’d wow their socks off and be so amazing they’ll go blind. So she snaps at him to put his legs down and off they go again, ha.

 

They visit a memorial at a park, but decide that it’s not a good one for their purposes because it’s too complicated and ornate, using words that the ordinary person can’t understand. So they press on to the next memorial all the way in the middle of a forest, at a top of a hill. They struggle up, but when they see the lonely dilapidated memorial, their hearts struggle not to feel sorry for it. Their memorial won’t be like this either.

JooWon, Director Jeong and YooJin gather for a three-way meeting and JooWon requests for a re-inspection of the ground, since the bed-rock that was supposed to be there according to the prior investigative work isn’t there. Director Jeong complains about the additional costs again and JooWon agrees to just continue as is then, but on condition that CheongYoo take responsibility for anything that goes wrong from now on. He leaves without a word and Director Jeong shouts after him, then warns YooJin to always take his side, paranoid that JooWon’s here to steal away everything they deem is theirs. YooJin just tells him to do his work well then so that there’s no cause for shame and walks out just like JooWon. Director Jeong paces the room, muttering that no one’s on his side and ends it off with several loud angry shouts. Aigoo ya, Jeong YooTaek, you little child.

YooJin’s not blind to the fact that JooWon’s being suffocatingly stubborn and stops his car to confront him, asking him if he’s overreacting to each incident like that because he’s scared. JooWon admits, saying that the last time his own father compromised logically, the mall collapsed and he committed suicide. He begs her to therefore take his side, but she can’t answer and he leaves her by the road. Aw.

SangMan’s in KangDoo’s room, forcing him to watch documentaries on cats being rescued (haha).  KangDoo the spoilsport calls it all just a show since it’s not like they’ll raise those cats to the end and orders him to change the channel but SangMan refuses to and even grabs the remote possesively. He says that people do that because they’re people and that’s what makes them people (as in compassion is what makes people, people). That lands with KangDoo and he tells SangMan to be the Hyung already but the smart guy just says he likes things as is.

Armed with this new realisation, KangDoo goes to MoonSoo to admit that they’re going about the memorial all wrong. Instead of wondering what rock would be great for their memorial and what to write on it, they’re supposed to be comforting the bereaved; finding out about the stories behind those who left. MoonSoo smiles, agreeing, and says that he’s not even a bit an idiot.

They get right down to work that night and JooWon comes back. He smiles when he sees MoonSoo but that same smile is wiped away when KangDoo comes into the frame. Oh no.

In Madame’s bar, Director Jeong is healing his poor achy heart by getting totally sloshed there. Madame tries to wake him so that he can go home and sleep but he complains about having to work so hard when his father’s so rich. He mutters that his father told him never to reveal his struggles if he ever has any, because 99 out of 100 people would take glee. Yeesh, dad. Madame wonders why he’s bothering about the 99 people when he could be so busy hanging out with just the one person on his side… and she offers to be that one person on his side, of course at the right price. “Good!” (I’m sorry, I know he’s a brat and a pain in the arse, but it cracks me up just how childish he is.)

 

Huh, someone’s brought to the police for leaving malicious comments on a webtoon and it turns out to be WanJin’s malicious commenter. He refuses to apologise for criticising her “trashy” manhwa, calling it a con to have people pay money for it, and she comes in wondering what’s wrong with getting 20 cents in return for providing a break from dreary reality. He’s chastened to see her in a wheelchair, but still refuses to apologise, saying that he’d rather do social service. That spunky attitude appeals to WanJin and she wheels off, demanding that he get the worst, harshest punishment ever.

KangDoo puts on a suit to visit the families of the victims and SangMan heaps praises on him, amazed at how cool he looks. But the moment is spoiled with KangDoo’s sister calls to snap at him for borrowing money from loan sharks and letting them come to her workplace. Pissed, KangDoo throws his tie off and storms off, just as MoonSoo calls him on his phone.

She leaves him a text reminding him of their appointment with a family member and SoMi comes into her office to warn her not to fall in love because the weather’s perfect for that. MoonSoo stares out the window to see that the weather really is beautiful… but then remembers her sister pointing that out just before she passed away in the rubble and she becomes solemn.

KangDoo bursts into the loan shark’s office, livid that they dared to show up before his sister just because he was one day late in paying the interest. He starts throwing things around but when an underling mouths that his sister should pay with her body if he can’t with money, he starts throwing fists and it doesn’t go down very well.

Of course, he doesn’t appear at the appointment with MoonSoo and MoonSoo meets with the son of the casualty herself. He’s a banker, but he’s not interested in having the memorial built, because he feels like they’re just using the memorial park to fulfil their mandatory green-space requirement without sincerely apologizing for their wrongdoings and leaves without signing an agreement supporting it.

Outside, he bumps into KangDoo and takes a second look at him as MoonSoo gapes at his beat up state.

Used to his usual nonsense, she just brushes the dirt of his coat and straightens his hair before leading him to their next appointment to meet the mother of a worker who died in the collapse.

 

She knocks on the gate when she gets there but no one answers so she goes down to find some neighbours. However, KangDoo sees the letter box full of fliers and unopened letters and leaps inside, his street knowledge coming into play.

Apprehensively, he walks towards the house as MoonSoo peers at him through a gap in the gate.

KangDoo easily lets himself into the living room… but stops when he finds a prone body lying in the middle of the house.

MoonSoo hops over the walls too, telling him not to be rude but KangDoo barks at her not to come. Ahh… turns out, the old lady had died and nobody had reported.

As KangDoo sits on her porch, paramedics take her away. MoonSoo quietly informs him that had they not found her then, she’d only be found next month. She was a lady who had begun losing her memories a few years ago and every day before she went, she’d sit right where KangDoo was sitting, waiting for her son who could never come home. Quiet, KangDoo asks for her name, because those who died aren’t the only victims.

 

“The misery that those who survived felt… how can they compensate them though?”

Mourning the loss of a life, they share a quiet moment and later when they walk down the steps, MoonSoo muses that the old lady had been bragging that her son was going to buy her a house down the street (so that she wouldn’t have to climb all those steps) and wonders if they would have already moved there if not for the incident.

KangDoo looks at her, and says to himself that it would have been difficult. Since there’s no such thing as “what if” with the past. But aloud, he agrees with her.

MoonSoo gets a call from her Team Leader calling her back and she regretfully has to leave KangDoo to find his own way home. He’s alright with it though and leaves first. MoonSoo can’t bear the look of his lonely, retreating back in her mirror and tries to offer him a ride home again… but another call rushes her and she chooses to go.

KangDoo looks as the car is driven off… and heads home wearily. He finds his landlady asleep and is disappointed not to find SangMan anywhere. He lies on his sofa on the rooftop, but the moment he closes his eyes, those bare, cold, lifeless feet of the old lady spring to mind and he can’t sleep.

He runs all the way to his site office, looking for his Site Manager… but finds no one. He lets out a quiet whisper, wondering where he went to, which ends in an anguishing cry that he’s lonely. Aw.

So when Site Manger appears, KangDoo wraps around him like a huge koala, but Manger doesn’t get the hint and sends him to make the rounds on the site, alone. “Alone?” Double aw.

 

MoonSoo isn’t unaffected by the death of the old lady too and crawls in beside mom when she gets home. Turning the TV off, she dreams back to that fateful day where she borrowed her sister’s phone. She’d asked her date to meet her at the new mall instead of their previous date location… and he turns out to the boy KangDoo hallucinates. (What?!) Again, the dream ends with the mall collapsing and her sister eaten up by dust. Argh. That’s just beyond horrible. So now she must be thinking that she’s the one who killed her crush since he wasn’t supposed to be there in the first place.

MoonSoo gets up crying and wakes her mother in the process. Mom sleepily asks if she had a bad dream but she denies it, saying that she cried just because that’s the only way she can see that person.

KangDoo makes the rounds in the dark night, slapping the walls that he ruined, now fixed. Suddenly, the lights blow out and his torch even fails him. Unable to understand, he looks around… the darkness and the site reminding him of his struggle with the fellow teenager under the rubble. OMG, so he’d actively struggled to get away and free himself, and to do so, he’d repeatedly, intentionally peeled the fellow teenager’s fingers from his ankles. A haunting voice demands to know if he can’t see him now, and right in front of KangDoo, an full-body apparition of that teenager walks towards him. Gackkkk!!!

While KangDoo freezes in fear and guilt, MoonSoo cries at her rooftop.

“The thing we were supposed to do – remember. His name, Choi SungJae, aged 17. If it weren’t for me… he would’ve been an awesome adult… my first love.”

 

Comment:

What the f——————ck…… It’s like this show is determined to show me that there’s always more despair that the world can bring and that we’re not at rock bottom yet. But I like how they’re revealing KangDoo and MoonSoo’s pain gradually over several episodes and not just vomiting it all out at the start, because trauma is like that – it ebbs and flows, the pain and horrifying memories intensifying just when you think you got away. There isn’t really a way to cure one of trauma after all, I guess, just a way to manage it. And when you can’t, you just bury it. But that’s not very effective. Where’s the mental help they need?

I don’t know what happened that KangDoo had to pry the poor boy’s fingers, but if I may hazard a guess, it’s likely that the building was falling on them and he needed to get away from the place as soon as possible even if he had to leave a trapped person to do it. You know, I want to stop talking about what a trauma that is, but damn, this is yet another level of trauma I didn’t expect with KangDoo. He didn’t actually just get fortunate enough to be saved – he had to actively choose and leave someone to die to be saved. That- that just messes with my mind. I maintain that it’s a miracle he still has his head on and no matter what anyone says, KangDoo is a goddamn survivor with blood of mercury. I am as proud as Granny that he’s so strong… and yet, he’s really just a little boy who wants someone to hug when bad things happen. I volunteer!

 

You know, I kind of wish YooTaek, AKA, Director Jeong, would leave his position because he’s just SO unsuited for it. I don’t just mean that he’s incapable; he’s also mentally not suited for the role. It’s telling that he gets terribly sloshed after mourning that no one’s on his side. He’s such a lonely guy and I really think that if it were up to him, he’d be happy running off into the sunset with Madame. He drives me nuts every time he complains about that $18,000 needed to rebuild the memorial. Excuse me, please look at the big picture! Is CheongYoo’s reputation not worth $18,000? You can barely hire a fresh graduate for 6 months for $18,000 so why are you whining so much about it?! It’s not even $180,000! Businesspeople constantly think about how to use and turn money into more money and this guy is hoarding money like he’s a squirrel hoarding acorns. I know cost is something you can’t overlook, but pick your battles please, director!

 His sister YooJin is so much more the better businessperson and sometimes I feel for her, having to act as the go-between between her brother and JooWon. When she’s with YooTaek, note how she defends JooWon. But when she’s with JooWon, note how she defends YooTaek and she does what she has to do without letting feelings overpower her. Yeah, maybe it was petty that she insisted MoonSoo do the report RIGHT NOW but hey, memories fade and can you blame her for insisting on it when such an incident weirdly happens when it isn’t supposed to?

Also, SangMan should be Hyung. But if he’s Hyung, he’ll lose the innocence that makes him wise and therefore the hyung.

PS: There’s a little something more about the language used in this show that I forgot to touch about in the previous recap and that’s the title.

사이(pronounced “Sa-Yi”) is a funny word that refers to that thing between two things, be it a gap or a relationship. You can use it to describe a physical gap between two mountains (aka, a valley) or the invisible bond between two people.

사랑하는(pronounced “sa-rang-ha-neun”) is actually the word “love” conjugated into an adjective, and so in this case, describes what kind of 사이the relationship or the gap is. If I translate it, it might come out to be something like, “of love”.

At the end of each episode just before the previews, this phrase 그 사이(pronounced “geu sa-yi”) appears too and it literally means something like “that relationship” or “that gap” and then it expands into “그냥 사랑하는 사이”, which with all the information you have now can be translated into “just a relationship of love” or “just a gap of love”, which is amazing, because it’s like a summary of the progression between two people’s feelings(?), relationship(?).

From a very vague “that relationship”, it expands into a very comforting “just a relationship of love”. Or if you look at the other translation, the ordinary “that gap”, probably between random strangers, becomes a painful “just a gap of love” derived from the inability for two people to fully comprehend each other at all times because no matter how in love two people are, be it romantic love between lovers, platonic love between parent and child, friends, mentor and mentee, they can never meld 100% to become one and there will always be differences in their perspective, ideas and even how they feel at times, which both persons in the relationship will have to work to reconcile all their lives.

And the drama is actually doing all that, exploring the different facets and interpretations of this one line, 그냥 사랑하는 사이. For example – that gap in understanding that MoonSoo has with her mother regarding her grief even despite the relationship of love with she has with her mother.