Just Between Lovers Ep 13

Mom’s reeling from feeling betrayed, and everything comes to a head with her grief as she confronts her family. But this time, it may prove too much for MoonSoo to hold back and she starts questioning if it’s okay to be happy. But the effects of the collapse run deeper than expected and there are more victims than those under it’s rubble.

Just Between Lovers Episode 13:

Seeing the site where her daughter died, from across the road, Mom barely breathes, the sorrow all rushing back to her like the tragedy just happened yesterday.

In front of the gates, MoonSoo runs up to KangDoo who coughs loudly, and she checks his forehead for a fever. She pulls out her medicine to give to him but he tells her to keep it. She insists on it, wanting to take responsibility for the cold since she passed it to him when they… you-know-what yesterday. Hee hee, they smile bashfully and KangDoo accepts her medicine as they walk into the site together.

Mom sees everything and wonders to herself in a small voice why her daughter is with that guy.

At the site, MoonSoo puts up red flags and spots JooWon working in the distance. KangDoo suddenly steps between them, refusing to let her look at the guy whom even he thinks is cool. HA. MoonSoo cranes her neck, teasing him, and KangDoo says that he can’t believe that she came to him instead of JooWon.

 

MoonSoo agrees that JooWon is a good person, making KangDoo scoff, but then she adds that to her, KangDoo is much better person and a good man. Hee. Site Manager calls KangDoo over and YooJin drives up in her swanky red car that moment.

In her car, YooJin warns MoonSoo to do well with her memorial park now that it’s been moved to a place with much more foot traffic, making sure that she knows that chances like that don’t come round often. She admits that she can’t believe that JooWon gave the project to her solely based on her abilities and asks that she not act lovely dovely with KangDoo in front of JooWon because JooWon’s having a hard time even if he doesn’t show it. She thought that she’d love it if JooWon were sad, but seeing him in pain pains her more.

SoMi appears with lunch in both hands, planning to share it with JooWon, but KangDoo unfortunately informs her that JooWon has already left for another meeting and she swats his hand when he tries to help himself to the food.

 

But there’s nothing else to be done and she relents, passing KangDoo and MoonSoo chopsticks. HAHAHAHA, KangDoo notifies them that he needs to eat from a separate plate because of his cold and SoMi envies their cold-sharing relationship, sighing that it’s been so long since she last dated. She asks what they do on their dates, wondering if they do the classic things like going to a theatre (no, too stuffy) or falling over each other at the ice skating rinks (no, what if KangDoo hurts his leg?). Surely they don’t just meet, eat fishcakes, walk around, childishly sit on some swings and send each other home, right? The childish couple stares at each other, taken aback that she’d described their date course so perfectly. HAHAHAHA.

Totally unimpressed, SoMi shows MoonSoo pictures of a Manga café, pointing out the cozy little spaces where she can spend time with KangDoo, reading, eating or even fulfilling their physical desires. Hahaha. KangDoo gives SoMi a very deadpan look but then MoonSoo innocently says that it’s interesting and his eyes go wide.

Later, SoMi and MoonSoo walk to the bus stop together, with SoMi complaining, when MoonSoo spots someone familiar. The lady looks in MoonSoo’s direction but doesn’t recognise her and boards the bus when it comes.

Mom rushes home and rifles through MoonSoo’s things, her breath leaving her when she finds the papers giving their family’s approval for the S Mall memorial project, signed by her husband. She heads over to MoonSoo’s father’s shop just as he puts out a sign to announce that his shop is up for sale.

They sit inside, but never look at each other in the eye. She slaps the document on the table and demands to know how father and daughter could leave her out of this. He pleads her to just think about how MoonSoo must feel but she can’t even begin to comprehend why her daughter’s working at the site at all. Dad tells her to just go see for herself then, but she can’t imagine why she’d ever go there and Dad tells her to just stop. YeonSoo’s dead, so she should let her go. But Mom can’t let her daughter go, blaming him for it and beats him, faulting him for not allowing her one last look at their daughter. Dad explodes then, shouting that he regrets seeing YeonSoo that one last time too and tells his wife that she would still have regretted even if she had seen YeonSoo that time. He tells her to go if she’s just going to compare hurts (What?! No no no no no no no! No running away!) as she wonders how he can be so at peace and perfectly fine like this.

 

Incredulous, he asks if she really thinks that, yelling back that there’s no parent who’s okay after losing their child.

GAAAAACCCK!!!! KangDoo gets another nosebleed while working and in the hospital, JaeYoung walks out of the pharmacy white like a ghost, her colleague having just informed her that the painkillers that her brother takes can harm the liver and is usually not prescribed to people with liver problems. What?!

Immediately, JaeYoung asks the nurses at the counter for records from 2005.

At their office, SoMi works on handicraft with MoonSoo and says that she wants to work with MoonSoo on their next project too. But MoonSoo tells her that she’ll have to do it herself because she won’t be there, not planning to continue working at the same company after the current project completes. She can’t because she knows JooWon can’t treat her without bias.

 

Director Jeong sits in a meeting with YooJin and JooWon, the latter trying to explain the paperwork and permits they have to seek for changing their landscaping plans. But Director Jeong’s not interested in all the nitty gritty details and instead tries to order his sister to marry some rich chaebol who’ll be of help to their company, pointing out that he was pushed into his current marriage by their father too just two months after the mall collapsed so that his father-in-law as chairman of the Architecture Industry Association would help them. That’s a terrible reason to get married. And it seems like it’s news to JooWon.

Director Jeong points to JooWon, telling him that he’s not the only one who sacrificed for the company and asks him what he thinks of his plan. JooWon cowardly says that he thinks that it’s okay, if the guy will be of such help to CheongYoo. You bastard.

 

So later, YooJin confronts him, asking him to pick her instead of CheongYoo, but JooWon replies that while Director Jeong was forced into a marriage he didn’t want, he lost his father. He even lost her when she abandoned him and chose her company, and asks what she lost. So now, he’s resolute in his answer. The guy will be of help to CheongYoo, and he guesses that she’ll marry him even if he tries to stop her.

She looks like he just put her heart in the shredder.

He escapes into the elevator while YooJin stands rooted, stunned and hurt.

Hee, Madame mothers KangDoo at Granny’s shop, force feeding a spoonful of something funny to chase his cold away. She wonders where he got it from and he starts smirking to himself, making her suspicious. But he just starts cleaning the place, explaining that Granny’s shop is the “Last Fortress” when Madame doesn’t understand why.

Madame asks KangDoo how he knew of the noodle shop and gasps, horrified, to learn that it’s owned by MoonSoo’s father. She complains that he should have told her earlier so that she wouldn’t have brought Director Jeong there and KangDoo warns her not to fall for that guy, grousing when Madame says that she just pities him because he’s so childish. Pfft.

KangDoo tells her to keep her distance from Director Jeong, noting that he’s a married man, and adds that Madame’s too good for him. Madame can’t get a word in, only that he really can sweet talk.

Mom trudges back home after a long day and refuses to eat the dinner that MoonSoo’s cooked.

KangDoo finds JooWon standing before Dad’s shop too and asks what he’s doing. JooWon replies that he somehow just ended up here and confesses that he wants to yell at someone but has no one he can do that to. He knows that the shop belongs to MoonSoo’s father, and KangDoo asks him to grab a drink with him, since it seems like JooWon needs company.

So they head to KangDoo’s motel where his landlord gasps at JooWon’s tall physique and SangMan bear hugs the “Hyung-nim”. Just because JooWon’s taller than KangDoo, he calls JooWon “more Hyung than Hyung”. HAHAHAH.

They cook ramen at the rooftop and KangDoo asks JooWon who he wanted to yell at. JooWon denies that it’s MoonSoo since he can’t just suddenly hate the person he liked. But KangDoo isn’t the person he wants to yell at either, because he envies KangDoo rather than hate him.

KangDoo looks like that’s crazy talk. JooWon asks KangDoo when he first liked MoonSoo and confesses that he was attracted to her from the very first moment, recalling all that she said, recalling all the times she thought just like him. He asks KangDoo to tell him the reason he likes her so that he can settle his feelings once and for all but KangDoo just says, “just because”.

“I saw her today, but I want to see her again tomorrow. Doesn’t it mean that I like her? I’m a guy who used to live only for today, but after meeting MoonSoo, I look forward to tomorrow.”

JooWon thinks about that, and SangMan runs in with Kimchi.

MoonSoo puts on lip tint the next morning and almost automatically cleans it off. But she doesn’t this time and informs Mom that she’s leaving. Mom’s lacklustre response bothers her, but not enough and she leaves.

Madame finally visits the migratory birds with Director Jeong, and comments that bird watching doesn’t suit a director like him. He laughs that he actually was president of the bird research team in his university days and would go round the country just for a photo of a crane. He point to the birds in the distance, passionately sharing his deep knowledge about them and sighs that if not for his father, he probably would have been a film director, since his dream was to create the Korean version of National Geographic and live and work in nature. Madame stops him from babbling, saying that it’s no fun if she knows everything about the birds. After all, they get to happily leave the place soon without regrets, and that’s all she needs to know.

KangDoo skips out of his office, ready to head home when Site Manager meets up with him, impressed by his new white jacket. He complains that there’re just too many pillars underground and the constant hammering and breaking of them is about to make him go deaf. That’s enough for KangDoo to go walking off and the once he spots an old column from S mall, he’s barely able to endure just standing in another mall and pulls MoonSoo out when she comes to meet with him.

 

She doesn’t understand why, since he said he had something to buy but he just replies that they should go somewhere else. He walks ahead of her as she looks back at the mall. Then she recalls how she was in one a decade ago and how everything collapsed. Cringing from the experience, she walks away, towards KangDoo who quietly waited and takes her hand in his.

They end up in a little toy store, with MoonSoo saying that she’s fine without a gift. HAHA, KangDoo says that he’s not insensitive enough to make her buy her own present and requests her help for choosing one for JaeYoung, whom he feels bad to for having to grow up on her own.

Eeeeps, at the hospital, JaeYoung goes through KangDoo’s records from years ago and reels to learn that he had traumatic liver injury back then. I do not like this.

YooJin ends up on a meeting with the chaebol her brother wanted to set her up with and when he jokes that he didn’t really want to come, YooJin lays it bare that they’re both here only because of the good their union would bring their respective families.

 

So he changes tack and says that she must have been really popular in school if she was in architecture, which not many girls take up as their major. Hmm.

That makes YooJin recall her days at university when she’d run into class only to learn that it was cancelled and nobody had bothered to tell her. Apparently younger JooWon was the only other one who didn’t know class was cancelled too and he’d sat there, just waiting.

Picking up his bag, he had asked YooJin if she would like to work on the upcoming project with him, treating her like any other classmate when she apprehensively asks if he knows who she is. Ahh, so the reason she was so guarded was because of the rumours that she only managed to enter university thanks to her father’s backing and that she’s famed for taking advantage of her classmates, somehow being the only one in project groups to get stellar grades.

JooWon disagrees with his gossipy juniors though, and guesses that YooJin received such high marks only because she overcompensates by working even harder to get rid of the label. He confesses that he was the one to ask her to team up and chirps that he plans on taking advantage of her to get good grades this time, something YooJin overhears from behind, somewhat touched.

Thus while the Chaebol prattles about land reassignment, YooJin picks her jacket up and suggests that they talk about work at the office and not on a date instead.

She speeds off in her red car, coming to a stop when she can’t hold her tears back anymore. JooWon’s words earlier that day asking what she lost cuts deeply, and contrasts the time when he’d passed her his number all those years ago, giving her a beaming, gorgeous smile as he did.

KangDoo and MoonSoo’s date comes to an end, and he has to send her off at the bus stop without even eating dinner together. MoonSoo wants to be home early for Mom, who seems even more listless than usual and KangDoo quickly passes her his present for her, which he’d bought while she wasn’t watching.

It’s a cute little beanie that she’d spent just one moment more on at the shop and in the bus, she grins as she tries it on along with the pair of gloves he got her.

 

KangDoo goes home too, but sees Madame happily waving Director Jeong goodbye after he sends her home. Pfft, this punk strolls right in front of the car and gets on without even an invite and warns the Director not to get too close to his Noona. He threatens him with creating a personal relationship between them if he doesn’t and Director Jeong snaps at him to mind his own business and keep an eye on JooWon so that he doesn’t make a mistake his like father did.

That confuses KangDoo, since he never knew that it was JooWon’s father who was to blame.

YooJin too has a bad time and she finally appears before JooWon, requesting a hug, not caring if he does it by pretending that she’s just a stranger. Realising how upset she must be, JooWon wraps her in his arms and the two embrace.

MoonSoo gets home but can’t find Mom. That’s because she’s at YeonSoo’s grave, crying to her daughter to please come find her, even if just in a dream, promising that she’ll sleep a lot. Oof.

Her absence worries MoonSoo so much that MoonSoo waits outside in the cold for her, unable to stay inside. She demands to know where Mom was while being uncontactable all this time and inside, she turns the television off, even if Mom insists on leaving it on.

 

Seriously, she asks Mom if she doesn’t know what she thinks about when Mom leaves and goes uncontactable, but Mom retorts that it’s not like she’s going to die because if she were, she’d have died long ago, right after YeonSoo did. She sarcastically asks MoonSoo if she doesn’t know who she’s living for and broken hearted, MoonSoo throws the question back at her.

So Mom pulls out the document agreeing to the memorial park and accuses MoonSoo of doing things behind her back, asking if she should pretend not to know like an idiot. MoonSoo tries to get her to think about how she felt, unable to approach Mom because she had to walk on eggshells around her and Mom moans that MoonSoo’s just like her father, never listening to her and brings up how she didn’t listen a decade ago and blames her for separating from YeonSoo. Oh, Mom. Low blow.

 

Stunned, MoonSoo tells her that if she had been with YeonSoo, she’d have died too. Raw hurt coursing through her, she snaps if that would have been better, or if Mom would even have preferred that she died instead of YeonSoo. Ouch. Mom smacks her immediately, shocked that she dared to say such words to her mother.

Eyes red, she breathes that MoonSoo’s a bad girl but MoonSoo defiantly counters that it was Mom who sent her there, refusing to take full blame for the tragedy. She retorts that Mom says whatever she wants anyway and screams, demanding to know why Mom keeps making her feel sorry. Overwhelmed, Mom smacks MoonSoo over and over again, yelling at her to get out.

So the poor girl dashes out in tears, all the way to Dad’s place. But her first words are for him to go be with Mom because she’s worried about leaving her alone, brushing aside Dad’s concern for her dishevelled state.

KangDoo sits on his rooftop, thinking over Director Jeong’s words when he gets a call.

He rushes all the way to MoonSoo’s father’s shop, stopping only when he sees her crouched outside. He gripes at her for sitting out in the cold and she mumbles that she really missed him just now and marvels at him really coming, wondering how he knew. He credits it to telepathy and tries to bring her inside but she can’t bear to go in.

So he suggests that they go wherever warm, but stops when he notices her broken slippers and dirtied socks. He carries her on his back, walking down the lane and MoonSoo wearily says that she likes his smell. That’s nonsense to him, since he thinks he just smells of perspiration but she replies that she really likes his perspiration smell then.

She adds that she doesn’t want to go home tonight and he just agrees to it, telling her to play with him tonight. MoonSoo mutters that she really hates herself right now and KangDoo warmly replies that he’ll just have to like her a lot then. She wants to run away, but she doesn’t know where to because she’s never done such a thing and KangDoo answers that they can go anywhere just as MoonSoo falls asleep.

 

He ends up bringing her to WanJin’s place, since that’s the only place he can think of. Otherwise, he really might have run away with MoonSoo. WanJin worries over the girl, sighing at how miserable she must have been to be knocked out like that. KangDoo doesn’t know what happened either, just that her father called him urgently and he just went to her. He gets up to go, but WanJin suddenly says that she and Assistant were supposed to go out soon and requests that KangDoo stay with MoonSoo instead.

Ha, from Assistant’s reaction, obviously there was no such plan. Best Wing-woman for the win.

WanJin rushes Assistant out and KangDoo sits beside MoonSoo to pat her.

On their walk outside, WanJin shares that she met MoonSoo for the first time at the hospital, with MoonSoo there because of the collapse and her because of a motorbike accident. She was the one riding the motorbike.

She takes full responsibility for her rash actions and muses that she really has to be good to MoonSoo because if not for her, she would never have come to terms with her paralysis and probably would still be wishing for death instead of accepting life for what it is. That last line surprises Assistant.

She suddenly recalls a place that she wanted to go to and it turns out to be a dessert shop. But her wheelchair gets stuck somehow on the steps and the bloody owner tells her that he’s going to close the door on her because his other customers are feeling cold. WanJin understands, but wonders where the ramp that was there has gone to and the owner replies that he took it away because his other customers kept tripping over it. What? What idiot trips over a RAMP?!

Assistant asks what disabled customers are supposed to do without the ramp then and the owner lamely replies that he has no disabled customers. Assistant complains that it’s not that he doesn’t have disabled customers but that the disabled can’t come to his shop because he makes it so difficult for them. Unable to make a comeback, the owner actually rejects them and Assistant huffily tells him that they’re the one’s going. He gripes about how wheelchair friendly Australia and America is when WanJin suddenly pulls out her phone and tells someone over the line that she doesn’t want to renew the tenancy contract with the dessert store anymore. LOL. And I was wondering how she could afford such a big house.

 

MoonSoo sleeps comfortably in WanJin’s bed, but sees no one when she wakes up. She lets out a disappointed sigh and picks up a call from Dad who asks where she is. Dad tells her that Mom’s okay now and that he’ll stay there till Ajumma comes in the morning.

MoonSoo offers to go be with Mom but he tells her to just rest there. Then he tells her something really important – Mom’s acting that way only because she’s hurt, not because of MoonSoo. He really wants her to remember that and not get hurt by misunderstandings, because neither he nor Mom are going to be changing any time soon. They can’t. It’s become a habit already.

MoonSoo gets up to leave but spots KangDoo in the courtyard, and she lights up. She admits that she’d thought he’d left and he just asks how he’s supposed to leave her alone and go on his own. KangDoo informs her that they’re the only two in the house since WanJin’s gone off with Assistant on purpose, and that he’s outside because he can’t help giving into his desire to keep touching her otherwise.

 

Sitting together, MoonSoo wonders what she would have done if he wasn’t with her. She doesn’t just mean earlier though, and thanks him for being with her under the rubble too. KangDoo returns the sentiment but she worries about her inability to remember everything. She requests that he tell her, since he remembers, but he just puts his hand on her head and tells her to leave it be.

She doesn’t like that she’s the only one comfortable, and KangDoo asks if it would be better if they both suffered. Rather just one of them carry the pain. MoonSoo laments that she said some really mean stuff to Mom but KangDoo consoles her, noting that people can’t be perfect all the time.

MoonSoo’s hurt hasn’t subsided and she guiltily asks if she really can be okay like this.

KangDoo immediately replies that she can. In fact, she has to be even better than okay. Since he’s sure that if the collapse didn’t happen, everything would have turned out wonderfully.

When she was fifteen, she would have met her first love at the ice cream shop happily, after he and her shared a nonchalant glance like strangers do. And KangDoo, when he grew up, he would have been a stellar soccer player, one whose goal would be seen by JooWon and YooJin as they ate lunch together and worked together, and still stayed together. She would have become a successful drama director who’d watch KangDoo send Korea to the world cup finals.

Just what they would have been, if not for the collapse.

“So, we have to work hard and, more than anyone else, be happy.”

As the first snow falls, MoonSoo stares into KangDoo’s eyes, letting a tear fall, and he leans in for a kiss.

Comment:

Oof, that sequence of “what could have been”.

But life unfortunately has no “what ifs”, so the only thing anyone can do is accept and move on, and make do of the present to the best of their abilities. That coming from KangDoo is an incredibly big thing, considering that this boy was about to run away from any hint of happiness just because of the possibility that his life might go to ruins. But everyone’s life has a chance of going to shits, no matter who you are. Rather than worry, feel guilty, over what hasn’t even happened, live life to the fullest. Because you only have one life.

That’s why Mom really breaks my heart, because it’s obvious that before the accident, she was a flamboyant woman with love for all things pretty, a very much alive woman who was so full of life even if maybe a little vain.  And now, it’s like she’s just living half a life.

That spat that she had with MoonSoo was so shockingly raw, full of meanness with years of pent up hurt spilling over after a rolling boil. But you know what? I wasn’t satisfied that it ended like that. I needed MoonSoo to break Mom. I needed her to be even meaner, for the very reason that Mom has been running away for more than a decade already. This poor family has been in limbo ever since YeonSoo died, each blaming each other and yet feeling too apologetic to express it all outside in case they hurt each other even more. But what’s the difference, when they’re already so hurt and not healing at all? Why not just show their feelings, so what if they hurt each other, so that they can forgive each other? They don’t communicate and that just kills me. Mom doesn’t want to lose her family, but the very fact that she runs away emotionally every time, that she never faces her feelings, she’s pushing them away and losing them little by little. I know I cannot blame her for feeling how she feels, but they’re all hurting because she can’t see anyone else’s sorrow other than her own. Dad isn’t any better, always telling people to go away. WHAT?! I just… I just really want this family to burst. So that even if worse comes to worst, they actually break up, they can heal individually rather than them living like they’re dead. Maybe, they need a “YeonSoo Day”, a day where they do nothing but talk about YeonSoo like those who loved Granny did last episode. This walking on eggshells thing has to stop. It’s what caused all these problems.

I am so thankful that Dad accepted that KangDoo is MoonSoo’s refuge and whatever misgivings he might have about him, he still trusts in MoonSoo’s trust for KangDoo and calls him for her. And how sweet was it that KangDoo knows that all he has to do is be by MoonSoo’s side and take her side in her moments of uncertainty and morose? Maybe it’s because he realised it when MoonSoo did that for him during his darkest moments. And I have never heard anything more romantic that “Just because” and “she makes me look forward to Tomorrow”. MoonSoo is his hope and his world, apparently.

I also liked the little episodes about the Jeong siblings, with YooTaek confessing that he never wanted this life, and YooJin breaking down from the loss of JooWon. It may be harsh, but they’re in this state because there were less than courageous and didn’t go for what they wanted, and instead, did what was obligated. Still, wow, that difference between their fresh faced, hopeful college-aged selves versus their current weary images. They show that tragedy happens not only because of accidents, but can also be the result of many little seemingly insignificant choices. Or maybe even just one bad choice, like in WanJin’s case. And of everyone who’s suffered a loss in this show, she’s the one most comfortable with where she’s at in life and which is also why she’s the happiest.