Just Between Lovers Ep 11

Just Between Lovers Episode 11:

Eeeps, KangDoo’s nose keeps bleeding, to the extent that it concerns even JaeYoung’s senior who’s come to use the toilet too. But the nosebleed is the least of his problems because the moment he gets out, he’s greeted with a cacophony of doctors and nurses fussing over Granny whose very basic responses aren’t even reacting. She can’t even breathe on her own. DAMMIT.

Frantic, he runs after her bed as she’s rushed to surgery and JaeYoung only barely manages to hold him back so that the doctors can do their work. Helpless, KangDoo crouches before Granny’s chart in what was her ward and he cries when he reads Granny’s beautiful name: “Jeong SukHui”. Hand over the chart, he tries to convince himself that Granny will be fine.

 

But JaeYoung delivers contradictory news, saying that the surgeons couldn’t contain the bleeding in Granny’s brain and that’s she’s only alive because of the respirator they put her on. Furthermore, Granny signed a Do-Not-Resuscitate (DNR) form before the incident, meaning that they can’t do anything more for her and even, later, when he’s done assessing, her senior will decide whether to take her off the respirator.

KangDoo can’t believe what he’s hearing, fixated on how warm Granny’s hand is and unable to accept that she’s essentially dead when everything indicates otherwise. He warns the doctors to revive Granny, believing that they can since she was healthy enough to curse him out earlier and wails and roars when two male nurses forcefully pull him away from Granny, screaming that they better not touch her.

Outside the Intensive Care Unit, he almost socks the male nurses, but thankfully, MoonSoo arrives just in time to stop him from doing that and from losing all chances of seeing Granny ever again.

A long while later as KangDoo sits outside, JaeYoung finally emerges from the ICU, letting MoonSoo know that KangDoo may meet Granny now if he behaves himself and MoonSoo gently tells KangDoo to go. He’s too desperately and fervently praying for Granny’s health that he doesn’t hear, and MoonSoo just holds his shaking, tightly clenched hands in a quiet attempt to help him accept the reality.

 

In the darkness of the night, JaeYoung escorts KangDoo to Granny’s side and pulls the curtains to give them privacy. KangDoo takes a long look at Granny, as if he’s trying to remember every single part about her, then massages her arm and admits that there was something he didn’t tell her earlier because he was mad at her.

“When a person dies, they said that the person goes back to the time when they were prettiest. So don’t worry. Halmeom’s groom will be totally besotted by you. I should worry for myself. If later, I meet you and make a pass at you, don’t pretend not to know me. Curse me out, so that I will recognise you, mm? You can’t pretend not to know me. Our Halmeom…”

*tears*

He takes her in his gentle embrace and sniffles, saying his final goodbye to the only mother-figure he’s known in his adult life.

And outside in the hallway, he trudges just a few steps before giving into the pain and crumbling to the ground, heaving miserable sobs.

He spends the next few days after the funeral just sleeping in, unreactive to anything and MoonSoo, though she comes by to his place too, leaves him alone and passes SangMan the food that she prepared for him,  trusting him to feed KangDoo when he’s hungry.

SangMan pokes his head in KangDoo’s room and asks after him, but KangDoo just opens his eyes for a bit then closes them again.

MoonSoo’s model making project is about to come to an end and SoMi asks if she’s going to leave the company after that. Before she can respond though, JooWon calls her to his room and puts her in charge of planning the memorial park. She thinks she’s not capable enough, but JooWon insists, saying that there’s a first for everyone and she can start gathering experience from this. She tries to turn it down but JooWon tells her to let him at least be a good senior and apologises because she needs to be in charge of this project as CheongYoo is going to use the fact that the designer of the memorial is a survivor of the mall’s collapse as a marketing tool.

 

SangMan’s mother knocks on KangDoo’s door, trying to get him to eat but when she opens it, KangDoo’s nowhere to be found.

He’s off at the lawyer’s office completing the transfer of Granny’s land to him as per her wishes. The lawyer passes him Director Jeong’s card, saying that Granny intended for him to sell the land to Director Jeong at the agreed price and use the money to pay off his debts and set up a new bank account under his name.

Director Jeong gets news that Granny’s passed away, but he offers no condolences and actually gabbles that he should have just offered her more money and gotten the land immediately back then. YooJin stares at him like he’s hopeless, looking like she’s almost praying fervently inside that her brother didn’t speak like that to Granny but the fool is all, “of course! There is nothing more important than money.” PFFT.

 

YooJin lets out a very loud sigh and suggests that he let their legal team handle this but Director Jeong complains that the board of directors are already on his back and insists on doing this himself. So YooJin says that he should start with offering condolences before talking about business but this gorilla puts his foot in his mouth and just says that people die all the time so what’s the big deal. And he wonders why he can’t get the land.

Now awake, KangDoo makes the rounds in the neighbourhood collecting late payment and MoonSoo hears from SangMan and his mother that KangDoo’s not at home or even at Granny’s store.

So she goes round to KangDoo’s frequent haunts like the playground and Madame’s hostess bar.

Madame finds her at the latter and offers her an alcoholic drink, sighing that MoonSoo won’t find KangDoo without a plan like that. But MoonSoo has no other idea how to go about this and Madame wonders if MoonSoo actually thinks that KangDoo will do something stupid.

Smiling, she quips that MoonSoo must not know KangDoo very well then and shares that the molars in her right jaw are all dental implants. Her teeth came loose thanks to the abuse she suffered under her bastard ex’s hands.

The beating took place out in the streets 10 years ago in public but not a single person stepped up to her abuser and believed his lies that she was a gold digger instead. KangDoo, who was only a scrawny little teenager then, was the only one who dared to.

With just a rock in his trembling right hand, he commanded the man not to hit Madame anymore, because if he does, he’ll beat him.

In the present, Madame repeats those brave words and laughs at the memory wherein they both ended up getting beaten into a pulp. Her laughter confuses MoonSoo and Madame just answers that she’d asked teenaged KangDoo what he’d held on to that rock for if he wasn’t going to use it anyway, and KangDoo, this precious child, had replied that he was just scared. He was afraid of the big bad ahjusshi who’d kept pummelling him, but he’d held on and endured it, only because he was even more afraid that Madame would really die if he didn’t.

 

Giving MoonSoo a meaningful look, Madame tells her that KangDoo will definitely not do whatever she fears he’ll do. All she has to do is believe, and wait. Because the boy’s a fighter.

Comforted a little by that, MoonSoo sits by the harbour’s bay where she first kissed KangDoo and looks at KangDoo’s contact in her phone but then ends up calling WanJin who suggests dinner together.

So by the time KangDoo comes by, she’s gone.

The weary man slumps into the bench and reads through the “will” that Granny left him, which is more like a To-Do list. It lists the payment Granny needs to receive and give to different people which he crosses out one by one, and as the last task, Granny orders KangDoo to clean her place even if she isn’t around anymore because her little shop is the last refuge for people at their wits end. It makes KangDoo remember the time when Granny kept nagging at him to clean while he was distracted by MoonSoo’s lack of text replies. And he gets up to walk off, grumbling about Granny ordering him around after her death.

 

JaeYoung takes a short break in between work and her sunbae tells her to get her brother checked out even if nosebleeds can really just be due to inconsequential things like fatigue. Then he steals her food. You are such an ass.

WanJin and MoonSoo have dinner at dad’s noodle shop, where WanJin’s trying to push MoonSoo to KangDoo’s side, totally ignoring MoonSoo’s father who turns the telly volume up, haha.

But MoonSoo refuses, because she wants to give KangDoo time to mourn on his own without having to pretend that he’s fine for her sake. Looking at her dad, she notes that they couldn’t in the past because they were too busy being worried, being apologetic to each other.

KangDoo lingers outside Granny’s shop, looking like he’s hoping against hope that she’s still in there. It takes him a while, but he finally tears his eyes away from it and turns to go.

MoonSoo sends WanJin into a car for home and tells Dad not to worry about what WanJin said because she’s not dating now. But Dad thinks it’s a good idea for her to date though, even if he thinks it’ll be even better if the one she were dating isn’t KangDoo.

KangDoo makes his way home and spots MoonSoo across the road. So he quietly follows her from afar, matching her step for step, watching as she buys groceries from the local market. He gets increasingly concerned when she buys food that he knows SangMan likes and by the time he spots her by his doorstep, he looks almost miserable. He watches on as SangMan comes out to collect the groceries…

…and later, he finds his landlady packing it all into her refrigerator and hears from SangMan that all the food he ate while living almost half-dead the past few days were bought by MoonSoo.

He dumps everything into the plastic bags again and runs after a bus. He misses it, but MoonSoo pops up from behind, asking if he wants to eat together. He just stuffs the things she bought in her arms and storms off, begging a little too desperately to himself that she doesn’t follow.

 

She doesn’t, and MoonSoo brings all that food home to Mom who’s already eaten dinner and left a mess on the coffee table before the television. MoonSoo cleans up and wonders why Mom married Dad in the first place if she was going to live alone in the end and Mom moans that she regrets asking him to get married too but tells MoonSoo that she still has to experience marriage for herself at least once.

MoonSoo arranges the food she bought KangDoo and grips a melted ice cream. Recalling his demand that she not do this anymore or even come by his house anymore, she mutters to herself that she’s really just letting him off easy right now.

Alone, KangDoo sits in the streets with Granny’s To-Do list, everything done except for cleaning, and he reads the line she left at the very bottom.

“With the strength that you have, be happy.”

But KangDoo mutters to Granny that he can’t do that though, and runs around the harbour, hoping the fatigue it’ll bring will dull the emotional pain as the morning sun peeks over the horizon.

 

MoonSoo’s Team Leader comes into her office making snide remarks, jealous that JooWon’s already given her a project of her own. But MoonSoo just retorts that he’s insulting JooWon instead of her right now by assuming that JooWon would be swayed by feminine wiles. The pathetic guy tries to make excuses, but MoonSoo has no time for him because KangDoo’s just come looking for JooWon.

JooWon offers KangDoo some of the tea Granny gave to him for sleep and tries to say that it was good that Granny was healthy to the very end at such an age… and KangDoo takes offense, asking if a person’s death means lesser if they’re older.

Immediately, JooWon apologises, and KangDoo doesn’t make much of a fuss about it, since he didn’t come here for that. He points to the VIP carpark that takes up prime land in their blueprints and asks if he can put the memorial garden there instead of where it’s supposed to be, hidden behind buildings in a place that no one really goes to. JooWon doesn’t think there’ll be any structural issues, just that CheongYoo probably won’t accede to the request purely because of business reasons.

MoonSoo ambushes KangDoo on his way out and refuses to let him go without saying her piece. She informs him that JooWon put her in charge of the memorial park and so they’ll have to work together because she’s not letting him slip out of this himself. She slips her hands around his and KangDoo almost looks caught… only for him to latch onto YooJin who’s just walked in and he calls her out for a chat.

SoMi twitters over that interaction and asks if MoonSoo doesn’t have to go after them, but MoonSoo already understands KangDoo well enough to know that it was just a show he put on to push her away. His mouth smiles, but his eyes aren’t smiling.

KangDoo brings YooJin to the nearby convenience store and cops to using her earlier. He thanks her for playing along, since he almost brought MoonSoo out together with him and YooJin smiles that he’s really charming. But it was true that KangDoo had something to say to YooJin though and he asks that she still hasn’t met the person who’s got Granny’s land yet right?

 

In her house, WanJin gets Keyboard Warrior her assistant to bring her water for her medicine. But something about her drawing perplexes Keyboard Warrior and he comments on her characters’ unnatural pose, getting handsy with WanJin as he explains it. Suggesting a different pose, they find themselves getting reeeeaaaaal close and they spring apart. Should I now call him Assistant since he’s getting a pay check from WanJin? Assistant gifts WanJin Virtual Reality Goggles that he got from his first pay check and the lady giddily giggles as she puts it away.

JooWon’s at work with YooJin asking for more business help, but he’s too busy trying to catch glimpses of MoonSoo to work properly and YooJin sighs that looking at him is like looking at herself – they’re both always looking for the person they like who cares nothing for them. Pfft, JooWon insensitively says that him working with YooJin is uncomfortable and worries that it must be like that for MoonSoo too, then sighs heavily and asks if it really seems like he’s being stubborn for no reason now. He thought he’d be different from other people and keep feelings separate from work, but he’s not confident of that now and YooJin softens at that.

 

In her bar, Madame escorts Director Jeong to someone who asked her to set up an appointment. She opens a door and introduces the guy but one look has Director Jeong shutting the door straightaway. HAHAHA.

In a huge room, KangDoo sits at the head of the table, with Director Jeong at the side, and smugly dangles the land deed in front of him. Hee. He rips the contract Director Jeong made with Granny into two and says that he needs more in order to sell the land, making it clear that he’s not as eager to sell the land as Director Jeong is to buy it. He’s not talking about money though.

After their discussion, KangDoo emerges from the room first and Director Jeong looks on annoyed at how close Madame seems to be with him. So when she comes in to sit with him, he accuses her of plotting something with Granny and KangDoo and loudly gripes at the old lady putting him through all these trouble. That grates on Madame’s nerves and she snaps at him not to talk about Granny like that.

Director Jeong is taken aback by the sudden display of emotion and tries to say that he wasn’t insulting Granny or anything. It’s just that when people get old, they become all the same and… *facepalm*

Madame stares at him straight in the eyes, full of anger, full of sorrow and breathes that they’re not the same. No matter if it’s few or many, there is only one MaMa (Granny) to her. Just one.

And she leaves him behind.

KangDoo gets some udon at a roadside stall. But just a memory of Granny telling him to live and let live and accept what he can’t change has him leaving without touching the noodles. He goes to her shop, where numerous bouquets of flowers and packets of her favourite snacks lie at the doorstep and sees her drinking cola in front of her table again as always.

It’s a memory from just before they left for the hospital.

 

In her eye-catchingly cool red parka, Granny’d sat at her desk with a simple, single bag containing all her necessities. Taking a seat, he asks if she isn’t afraid and she readily admits that she is – who isn’t if they’re going to have their head forcibly opened? Chastened, KangDoo says that if she’s doing this for him… and Granny cuts him off, scolding him for assuming that she’ll do things just because of him, calling it his problem.

She’d threatened to forget about getting treatment and KangDoo gives her a little smile to appease her. But she’d gone on to say that if she leaves without saying good bye, refusing to let KangDoo get in a word at all, she wants him to take his own sweet time coming to her because she’s really patient.

KangDoo in his childish way orders her to live longer than him because otherwise he’s going to live like a delinquent however he pleases and Granny nags at him that other people’s advices are the most useless in the world.

“Don’t go crazy because you can’t have your own way by being afraid of what other people think. Live how you want to.”

 

KangDoo laughs at her, wondering what all this advice is for then and Granny says that it’s an order, not advice.

And then Granny in her red parka disappears, and KangDoo sits desolately alone in the shop.

MoonSoo grabs some cat food from the store to fulfil her promise to Granny to feed the cats when she spots canned peaches.

So she ends up joining KangDoo at Granny’s store with the peaches, and Madame comes in, followed by SangMan, an Indian, and even JaeYoung.

JaeYoung’s brought Granny’s things from the hospital and a sweet cookie with English on its wrapper has SangMan asking if Granny knew English. According to Madame, Granny used to sing at the US military barracks, but according to SangMan, Granny used to be a guerrilla with 100 soldiers under her. MoonSoo thought that Granny used to be in the medical profession but JaeYoung counters that it’s all illegal and that Granny used to be a loan shark. LOL.

The Indian sets it all straight and says that Granny was orphaned in the Korean War and lived on the US military base but as a medic and not as a singer. Her husband was a guerrilla fighter and died of tuberculosis without receiving treatment and so she became a loan shark to make money and with that money, she opened this store for people like him who couldn’t go to the hospital. (Either hospitals were too expensive, or, worse, they’re illegal workers without the proper papers and identity.)

Madame says that the past doesn’t matter at all because Granny is Granny no matter what she did and sighs that it feels like Granny’s still in her room when they talk about her like that.

And in voiceover, MoonSoo says that Granny still feels like she’s with them since she’s left so much for them, but, as she looks over at KangDoo who’s said not a single word, she laments that there’s sorrow that no one can console.

As everyone leaves for the night, JaeYoung asks MoonSoo if she knows if KangDoo’s hurting anywhere. MoonSoo has no inkling about that, though she does know that KangDoo takes blue painkillers. Worried, she asks JaeYoung if KangDoo’s sick and JaeYoung guesses that he must be. After all, he almost died in the collapse years ago and she pleads with MoonSoo not to bring up the collapse since he spent so many days with a corpse and that must have hurt.

 

It’s news to MoonSoo, but before she fully registers it, KangDoo comes out to take JaeYoung home and JaeYoung mouths her plea for MoonSoo to bring her some of KangDoo’s blue pills.

JaeYoung asks KangDoo if he didn’t tell MoonSoo about how he came out of the rubble, but KangDoo just mutters that there’s no point.

And flashback to years ago when KangDoo was finally brought out. He’d begged weakly for the rescuers to save “Hyung” since he’s still alive inside, but when the rescuers went in, they only found a cold corpse, a body that had been dead for a long while already. Gack.

KangDoo springs right up, breathless from his nightmare and pops a blue pill. Even that single action reminds him of Granny who’d nagged at him to stop taking the pills and just admit that he’s in pain when he’s in pain. Because those pills can harm his body and he won’t even know that he’s in pain by then. Crouching over in Granny’s bed, he lets out a little sob.

 

MoonSoo almost makes it home, but turns round suddenly. She runs all the way to Granny’s shop and tries to turn the lights on but it’s gone off. Sensing a presence in Granny’s room, she steps into it and finds KangDoo sitting in defeat on her bed, head hanging, arms limp, looking like the world’s left him.

She asks what he’s doing but he just tells her to go. She doesn’t want to though, and still he orders her to go.

MoonSoo has had enough of his sorrow and points out that even when other people were sharing stories about Granny, he said nothing. She knows that it’s because he’s speechless in grief, though KangDoo snaps that he just doesn’t have anything to say and tells her to go.

 

But she won’t go, even if he says that she’ll embarrass him. After all, she’s already showed him her dumb and idiotic sides and he still stayed beside her. So this time, she wants to be beside him.

He tells her to just go already, but she wordlessly steps closer to him.

She tries to pet his head, and he grabs her hand. And finally, he lifts his head to stare at her straight in the eyes.

 “I definitely told you to go. If you don’t, I’m never letting go of this hand.”

Comments:

YES! DON’T LET GO OF THAT HAND! We’ve been waiting episodes for you to grab that hand and not let go already!

And so, it has happened – Granny has passed on, rather peacefully, thankfully, but too abruptly and whatever, however it happened, it never lessens the pain of having a loved one that you can’t meet anymore, especially one who was so influential and impactful in your life.

The way Granny left was both cruel and merciful to KangDoo. Cruel in the fact that it was so sudden and so fast. He’s probably kicking himself a lot after the funeral for not getting her to the hospital sooner. But merciful, because she held on long enough with the help of a respirator so that he could say his goodbyes to her. Urgh, this poor boy, being stuck for days beside a corpse in the past and now suddenly losing the one who meant so much to him.

I find MoonSoo very wise in choosing to let him mourn himself. I was really surprised when she said that by being around him, she’s only going to make him seem like he’s okay. And that’s the last thing she wants. I was surprised because it’s so true but I’ve never thought of that before. With something as devastating as this, the only way to come back up is hit rock bottom, come to terms with it, accept it, and have closure. And most people don’t let themselves hit rock bottom in front of other people. Instead, through their grief, they’re apologetic for their sadness and guilty for spreading their sorrow, like it’s not okay to show that you’re not okay. And again, she very wisely knows when too much is too much.

Madame was right that KangDoo is a fighter and will never take his own life or give up. But what she didn’t take into account is that KangDoo is also an overgrown child who’s never allowed himself to live life for itself, happily, and there’s a real danger of him turning into himself and becoming a shell. She knows that KangDoo will never physically kill himself but she’s forgotten that this strong boy doesn’t know for real what it means to be emotionally alive, bubbling and frothing with uncontrolled happiness and bliss. MoonSoo, as a fellow survivor of the collapse like him, carrying sorrow, guilt and unreasonable expectations herself too, knows, after watching him get stuck at being unable to express his sorrow, knows that he’s about to kill himself emotionally and so she runs all the way to him to be there for him like he was for her.

I loved the gathering at the end where they shared about Granny. Death ends a life, but it doesn’t end a relationship. And if you lived a good life, you still live on even after death in the hearts of those who were touched by you, who loved you. And Granny, she who was larger than life, was such a person.