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dangermousie*wonders if anyone will be insane enough to read this monster*
Two and a half episodes into Loveholic, if it continues the way it’s going, is definitely going into my Top 5 kdramas and might even *gasp* end up my favorite.
Why? I love the visuals of it: filters, distortions, freeze-frames. I love the music. It also doesn’t have two of the (IMO) greatest weaknesses of kdramas: it has a heck of a fast pace and it keeps its focus tightly on the two main characters. It doesn’t keep wandering into storylines with other people (something that made me put Green Rose aside for time being). The ‘other’ people in the love square remain strictly secondary. And likeable. I really like the girl who likes Kang Wook (Ja Kyung I think is her name). She is quiet and she nails the whole ‘liking someone when he doesn’t see you in that way’ vibe. And yet she isn’t running berserk or trying to sabotage anything. She is still rather a good friend. And I like Yool Joo’s prosecutor boyfriend. True, he has a tendency to get bossy or grumpy, but he does apologize for it unfailingly (hey, if you weren’t so bossy or grumpy in the first place, you wouldn’t have to) and they are clearly compatible and have fun together.
But I think the ultimate thing that makes me love Loveholic is that (at least so far) it’s empty of that annoying waffling will-they-won’t-they admit they like each other/go back and forth that made me give up on Chun-Hyang and frustrates me in a bunch of other dramas. In a way, this is akin to something like Meteor Garden in that he wants her and he knows he does and he will go after her, hell or high water. And it’s akin to something like Mars in that she reciprocates and early, and the gist of the tension is them fighting to keep loving each other in a world full of kdrama romantic obstacles. Committed OTP is a huge thing of mine.
This is also pretty tightly written (but I notice kdramas tend to be good in this respect). They establish all the important things early, and knowing the general gist of the plot, it’s fun to see how they sprinkle the hints: such as that he has a habitually violent reputation, or that sometimes she doesn’t remember the time immediately previous to her black-outs, or even *gasp* when she tells him he’ll forget her name as soon as he graduates and says that at the 5-year reunion he’ll be going ‘what was that name…that advisor…’ and he smiles at her and tells her that she is wrong and he won’t forget her in 5 years or 10, and does she want to make a bet about meeting then, and the Gods of kdrama foreshadowing, angst, and time-jump rub their hands in glee. (And then he says, grinning like he’s five, that she is also wrong because he’s never going to a school reunion :D).
I also think the actors have really great chemistry together. The story just gets extra intense when they are together and thankfully, they are together a lot.
Oh, where do I start.
1. Snow fight. After the end of ep 1, where he pulls her to him a little, he lets go and strides off, and she keeps running after him, and talking loudly to herself (to get him o join in) about how awful that teacher is but he just strides on ahead, so she pauses and throws a snowball at him and that gets a reaction, finally. And an unwilling grin. And soon they are having a gorgeous, hilarious, fun snow fight. I love the way it’s shot. And she is shoving snow down his back ;D
2. And then she does talk him into coming back to school and as they walk up, the students totally assume something is going on between them so they wolf-whistle and she is totally amused so she waves at them and grins and he is sorta unhappy because he complete amusement means she doesn’t see him that way at all.
3. And then she is apologizing on his behalf to that hateful teacher and neither of them know Kang-Wook is outside, and the teacher is scolding her and saying that KW is irredeemable, and it’s better to teach wild animals and he’s nothing (ugh, what kind of teacher is that?) and you see KW’s hands clench on the door-handle so tightly he almost breaks it, but then he manages to walk off, and is instead in the gym, pounding the fighting bag and he keeps flashing to the evil teacher and YJ’s laughing face in the snow, and oh boy, he is so full of angsty, angry, hot, violent emo.
4. Gratuitous shower shots. ‘Nuff said.
5. I love that she basically buys him a whole grocery-bag full of books and he thinks she is nuts, but he is clearly pleased someone thought of him (and it really goes, though she doesn’t know it, to the whole ‘irredeemable’ thing he overheard. Someone doesn’t think he is an idiot, or hopeless, or what not). And they ride back on the bicycle and they sit in some park somewhere and he is totally absorbed into one of the books as she just sort of stares over the lake and it’s all very companionable and then she sees that the reason he’s so absorbed is he is staring at a reproduction of a particular Chagall painting (kdrama that mentions Chagall! How happy can I get!) and it’s a painting of a woman flying over a village or a town and he says he felt like that once and that this used to be his house (pointing to one of the houses in the picture) and his Mom would scold him and his Dad would talk etc etc and I love that he is actually sharing something as personal as his constant loss of his parents with her, that he can be vulnerable like this (and that he’s found someone he can talk to about this, especially for someone as reserved as he is, must be really liberating), and she is being rather still, so as not to ruin the moment and he kinda shrugs and says that then his Dad disappeared and a short time after his Mom (I am getting confused here. Did they die at the same time? Separately? What happened to them? I really hope the drama explains later), and asks her what house was hers and she points to some other house in the village. I just love that scene so much. And it’s such a parallel to a later scene where she reveals her weaknesses, about which I’ll talk more below. In a way, she is just as guarded as he is about her weaknesses, her emotions. Only he is all stoic and quiet about it and she hides it under polite sociableness with a smile.
6. I love it when she asks him not to fight any more and then actually makes him apologize to the evil teacher and apologizes WITH him. The whole scene, with the teacher getting more and more pissed off and doing the whole ‘he should kneel to me’ thing and she is all mad too (of course for different reasons) and does the whole ‘you should say you are REALLY sorry. And bow your head’ and she does it and he follows? Awesomeness.
7. Eeeee! EEEEEE! His gang friends are pissed at him because he won’t fight any more so they arrange the rival gang from a different school to come for a fight with Kang Wook (without informing KW of the fact) and he has no idea but as YJ is going home from school (in order to go meet her bf’s parents, too!) she sees those kids loitering and she realizes exactly what’s going on, so she finds KW and says he should take her home (sneaky!) and he is all amused and ‘you like me too much’ and they go home on the bike but then the other gang people catch up to them and corner them in this deserted place (you know, according to kdramas, Korea must be horrendously violent and dangerous :D. Though I appreciate that so far, each of three eps had a fight scene in it). And there is fighting, and he is shielding her with his body and they make a heck of an effective fighting team and then they run and hide in this really narrow dark alleyway space and OMG, they are really close and there are close-ups on their mouths and then her cell starts to ring (it’s her bf, wanting to know where she is) and he hugs her to muffle the sound and guuuuuuuh. The chemistry and UST is so thick you could cut it with a knife (I really really love the intercuts between bf, getting more and more frustrated in the well-lit, spacious restaurant and KW and YJ huddles closely together in the dark).
8. And now I am dead. It’s dark, and they are on some staircase, and his shirt and jacket are off his shoulder and she is putting some sort of salve on it and it stings so she is blowing on it and he is so aware of her, as a woman, and how close she is. *dies* And then it turns out she has a cut on her knee, so he is putting salve on that, and blowing, and now it’s her turn (whoa, she is in deep denial, but I love how little moments like this keep giving her pause). And he promises her he won’t fight them any more (because she asked) and he says he’ll do anything she says and at the moment his shirt is open at the throat and if he told me that same thing, I’d have some very concrete things for him to do and aaaaaa….
9. And later they both get hauled to the cops for violence (I am really confused by Korea’s legal system. I am not being snarky about drama law here, I am honestly a bit confused about how civil and criminal systems interplay). And we get total foreshadowing, because when the cops come to interview her (in the middle of class) he actually take the blame on himself and says he was the one that hit those guys (useless as the cops want them both anyway). And as they are waiting in the police station, he notices her lips are dry (stop fixating on her mouth) and goes to fetch her coffee. EEEE!
10. Her fiancé shows up (and being a smart man, is kinda jealous of the closeness between KW and YJ) and offers her a ride home and YJ offers a ride to KW but he says he’ll walk and the looooook on his face as he sees her drive off with bf (and she has a pause moment too). I love the way it’s shot, through the glare of the glass (just as I love an earlier scene, where they are on the bus, going home after the fight, and he tells her he should call bf and she doesn’t and they sort of stare out of the window and their faces are reflected).
11. Little scene where she calls KW’s house (she is in Seoul with her parents) but he isn’t there because he is trying to dial her cell, which is of course busy. Awwww.
12. When she is all freaked out in class because a number of students didn’t show up (because they are morally outraged because she got hauled off to the cops. Whaaaaa? Who is that anal about morals for their teachers?) and his face as he sees she almost has the fit. But she manages to finish the lesson and stumble to sit in that place on the roof. And he comes up after her only to see her slump. And he walks up and just sits next to her and puts his arm around her and her head on his shoulder and just sits this way until it gets dark. And then she wakes up, all freaked out and startled (and significantly, she doesn’t remember finishing teaching. Ooooh, foreshadowing). And he asks her what’s wrong with her (and he is clearly freaking out it’s something mortal, probably because he’s seen too many kdramas) and there is a bit of a fight and then she tells him that it’s not life threatening or anything, she just randomly falls asleep from stress. And I love that now it’s her turn to tell him something so personal: about her disease, about her fear that it would put an end to her teaching career (something she truly loves), the fact that is why she learned taekwando, to be strong, her greatest fear, of being alone when she wakes up. It’s as if it’s a trade for the personal things he told her about his parents. It’s interesting, because she isn’t like that with her fiancé. There, she doesn’t admit weakness, there she doesn’t admit the importance of teaching to her life (she sort of shrugs it off). And OMG, his attitude to the news (probably fueled in large part by relief she won’t be dying any time soon), which is ‘oh, that’s nothing, I thought it was serious, you only sleep a little more than other people.’ And her huge relief because she says no one has ever looked at it that way before and everyone treats her as a patient. And he says she isn’t and there is this amazing scene where he teaches her a ‘magic spell’ to say if she gets sleepy. OMG, that scene is amazingness.
13. Him overhearing about all her legal troubles with the guys they beat up, so she might not be able to teach. OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! So Gift of the Magi (she is all about not having him expelled and he doesn’t care about that but wants her to keep her job). Because he goes to them, and he apologizes and they totally humiliate him and they tell him to kneel and he does (!!!!) and I die. And actually YJ just got to the room and she is unobserved and she watches in complete frozen horror and then she walks in and she slaps him, hard, across the face and walks out and he runs after her and I really think it was such a reaction to not being able to bear to see him like that, and she knew it was for her. And they have so switched roles, for the other’s sake, where she tells him she wants to rip their throats out and the only reason she doesn’t is because of him. And he says he’d do anything, he’d “beg and crawl” and OMG OMG OMG OMG. *is dead* and they finally have that huge confrontation that has been brewing. And he basically tells her his feelings and that she must feel that same and he is all passionate and determined and she is all distraught and horrified (in large part because she isn’t horrified enough) and it’s all sorts of awesome and painful and wonderful and she slaps him again and gets into a taxi and tells him she is just his teacher and he basically blocks the taxi so she gets out and they have some more of the confrontation and awesomeness and she storms off, taking a different taxi home.
14. And later, they have a peaceful conversation where she apologizes, saying she said some things she shouldn’t, but she doesn’t love him and she is only his teacher and if he keeps having these unrequited feelings, he’ll be in pain and he’ll get tired and he tells her he won’t get tired, ever.
15. The bit in class where he students are asking her about her bf, and how far they went (heeeee) etc etc and OMG, Kang-Wook looks so hot tormented and jealous and that big bear of a gang kid catches on. So later, he confronts KW in the middle of class, while YJ isn’t there, and basically is ‘so, is YJ what you want?’ And asks him if he’s slept with her yet and is she good and keeps insulting and insulting until KW snaps and there is a huge brawl and big kid says that if he wants to prevent him from ruining YJ’s life, he better kill him, and then YJ comes in and is horrified and orders them to stop fighting but they won’t and the big kid is all ‘so you look like you want to hit me, huh?’ and she just yells at them both to go run laps in the athletic field outside (it seems to be a thing to do in Korean schools. First Sang-Doo, now here). And so the two of them are running laps and YJ is teaching but she keeps glancing out of the window and then it starts to rain so she sends the school monitor to tell them to come in. So the big kid is all ‘I am off to school nurse’ but Kang-Wook refuses to come in and to tell YJ that he isn’t tired (ooooh, references to previous conversation. Symbolism! Hidden meaning! Oh, kdrama).
And so as the day wears on, and the classes are over, and he is still out there, in the rain, running laps and YJ is totally freaking out (I wonder if it’s his stubborn way to make her care) and the evil teacher is all “ooooh, you are even tougher than I am” to YJ and when evil teacher approves of you, I think you are in trouble.
And then everyone leaves entirely, and she finally can’t stand it any more and she goes out, with her red umbrella, and she is running in her tennis shoes, and so she is finally outside in the field, and he is still running, and he is totally exhausted and he runs up to her and she is all ‘What are you doing? What are you doing?’ and she is as near tears as makes no difference and he sort of whispers “I told you I won’t get tired” OMG OMG OMG OMG and she is using a scarf-thingie to wipe his face and neck, holding the umbrella over both of them and then he sees one of her shoelaces is untied so he kneels down (his uniform is toast! Not only is it soaked through, now he is kneeling in the mud!) and tries to tie her shoelace but it’s taking him a while because he’s so tired his hands are unsteady and she keeps looking at him kneeling there, and her umbrella keeps tilting, unheeded, and then she can’t help it, even though she tries, and she very slowly reaches to stroke his hair and he looks up at her (the look on his face? I am dead) and her umbrella is completely on the ground at that point and then she just sinks down on her knees in the mud and hugs him and they just hold each other like this for a really long time. That shot, of two tiny figures on their knees, hugging, red umbrella beside them? Gorgeousness.
And then they are drying out in the gym (gym clothes) and he notices a mole on her foot (I just love that he is in that ‘eeee, learning stuff about beloved person’ stage) and they have the conversation I mentioned in the very beginning about him forgetting her.
And then I had to run.
OMG, this is War and Peace here.
Two and a half episodes into Loveholic, if it continues the way it’s going, is definitely going into my Top 5 kdramas and might even *gasp* end up my favorite.
Why? I love the visuals of it: filters, distortions, freeze-frames. I love the music. It also doesn’t have two of the (IMO) greatest weaknesses of kdramas: it has a heck of a fast pace and it keeps its focus tightly on the two main characters. It doesn’t keep wandering into storylines with other people (something that made me put Green Rose aside for time being). The ‘other’ people in the love square remain strictly secondary. And likeable. I really like the girl who likes Kang Wook (Ja Kyung I think is her name). She is quiet and she nails the whole ‘liking someone when he doesn’t see you in that way’ vibe. And yet she isn’t running berserk or trying to sabotage anything. She is still rather a good friend. And I like Yool Joo’s prosecutor boyfriend. True, he has a tendency to get bossy or grumpy, but he does apologize for it unfailingly (hey, if you weren’t so bossy or grumpy in the first place, you wouldn’t have to) and they are clearly compatible and have fun together.
But I think the ultimate thing that makes me love Loveholic is that (at least so far) it’s empty of that annoying waffling will-they-won’t-they admit they like each other/go back and forth that made me give up on Chun-Hyang and frustrates me in a bunch of other dramas. In a way, this is akin to something like Meteor Garden in that he wants her and he knows he does and he will go after her, hell or high water. And it’s akin to something like Mars in that she reciprocates and early, and the gist of the tension is them fighting to keep loving each other in a world full of kdrama romantic obstacles. Committed OTP is a huge thing of mine.
This is also pretty tightly written (but I notice kdramas tend to be good in this respect). They establish all the important things early, and knowing the general gist of the plot, it’s fun to see how they sprinkle the hints: such as that he has a habitually violent reputation, or that sometimes she doesn’t remember the time immediately previous to her black-outs, or even *gasp* when she tells him he’ll forget her name as soon as he graduates and says that at the 5-year reunion he’ll be going ‘what was that name…that advisor…’ and he smiles at her and tells her that she is wrong and he won’t forget her in 5 years or 10, and does she want to make a bet about meeting then, and the Gods of kdrama foreshadowing, angst, and time-jump rub their hands in glee. (And then he says, grinning like he’s five, that she is also wrong because he’s never going to a school reunion :D).
I also think the actors have really great chemistry together. The story just gets extra intense when they are together and thankfully, they are together a lot.
Oh, where do I start.
1. Snow fight. After the end of ep 1, where he pulls her to him a little, he lets go and strides off, and she keeps running after him, and talking loudly to herself (to get him o join in) about how awful that teacher is but he just strides on ahead, so she pauses and throws a snowball at him and that gets a reaction, finally. And an unwilling grin. And soon they are having a gorgeous, hilarious, fun snow fight. I love the way it’s shot. And she is shoving snow down his back ;D
2. And then she does talk him into coming back to school and as they walk up, the students totally assume something is going on between them so they wolf-whistle and she is totally amused so she waves at them and grins and he is sorta unhappy because he complete amusement means she doesn’t see him that way at all.
3. And then she is apologizing on his behalf to that hateful teacher and neither of them know Kang-Wook is outside, and the teacher is scolding her and saying that KW is irredeemable, and it’s better to teach wild animals and he’s nothing (ugh, what kind of teacher is that?) and you see KW’s hands clench on the door-handle so tightly he almost breaks it, but then he manages to walk off, and is instead in the gym, pounding the fighting bag and he keeps flashing to the evil teacher and YJ’s laughing face in the snow, and oh boy, he is so full of angsty, angry, hot, violent emo.
4. Gratuitous shower shots. ‘Nuff said.
5. I love that she basically buys him a whole grocery-bag full of books and he thinks she is nuts, but he is clearly pleased someone thought of him (and it really goes, though she doesn’t know it, to the whole ‘irredeemable’ thing he overheard. Someone doesn’t think he is an idiot, or hopeless, or what not). And they ride back on the bicycle and they sit in some park somewhere and he is totally absorbed into one of the books as she just sort of stares over the lake and it’s all very companionable and then she sees that the reason he’s so absorbed is he is staring at a reproduction of a particular Chagall painting (kdrama that mentions Chagall! How happy can I get!) and it’s a painting of a woman flying over a village or a town and he says he felt like that once and that this used to be his house (pointing to one of the houses in the picture) and his Mom would scold him and his Dad would talk etc etc and I love that he is actually sharing something as personal as his constant loss of his parents with her, that he can be vulnerable like this (and that he’s found someone he can talk to about this, especially for someone as reserved as he is, must be really liberating), and she is being rather still, so as not to ruin the moment and he kinda shrugs and says that then his Dad disappeared and a short time after his Mom (I am getting confused here. Did they die at the same time? Separately? What happened to them? I really hope the drama explains later), and asks her what house was hers and she points to some other house in the village. I just love that scene so much. And it’s such a parallel to a later scene where she reveals her weaknesses, about which I’ll talk more below. In a way, she is just as guarded as he is about her weaknesses, her emotions. Only he is all stoic and quiet about it and she hides it under polite sociableness with a smile.
6. I love it when she asks him not to fight any more and then actually makes him apologize to the evil teacher and apologizes WITH him. The whole scene, with the teacher getting more and more pissed off and doing the whole ‘he should kneel to me’ thing and she is all mad too (of course for different reasons) and does the whole ‘you should say you are REALLY sorry. And bow your head’ and she does it and he follows? Awesomeness.
7. Eeeee! EEEEEE! His gang friends are pissed at him because he won’t fight any more so they arrange the rival gang from a different school to come for a fight with Kang Wook (without informing KW of the fact) and he has no idea but as YJ is going home from school (in order to go meet her bf’s parents, too!) she sees those kids loitering and she realizes exactly what’s going on, so she finds KW and says he should take her home (sneaky!) and he is all amused and ‘you like me too much’ and they go home on the bike but then the other gang people catch up to them and corner them in this deserted place (you know, according to kdramas, Korea must be horrendously violent and dangerous :D. Though I appreciate that so far, each of three eps had a fight scene in it). And there is fighting, and he is shielding her with his body and they make a heck of an effective fighting team and then they run and hide in this really narrow dark alleyway space and OMG, they are really close and there are close-ups on their mouths and then her cell starts to ring (it’s her bf, wanting to know where she is) and he hugs her to muffle the sound and guuuuuuuh. The chemistry and UST is so thick you could cut it with a knife (I really really love the intercuts between bf, getting more and more frustrated in the well-lit, spacious restaurant and KW and YJ huddles closely together in the dark).
8. And now I am dead. It’s dark, and they are on some staircase, and his shirt and jacket are off his shoulder and she is putting some sort of salve on it and it stings so she is blowing on it and he is so aware of her, as a woman, and how close she is. *dies* And then it turns out she has a cut on her knee, so he is putting salve on that, and blowing, and now it’s her turn (whoa, she is in deep denial, but I love how little moments like this keep giving her pause). And he promises her he won’t fight them any more (because she asked) and he says he’ll do anything she says and at the moment his shirt is open at the throat and if he told me that same thing, I’d have some very concrete things for him to do and aaaaaa….
9. And later they both get hauled to the cops for violence (I am really confused by Korea’s legal system. I am not being snarky about drama law here, I am honestly a bit confused about how civil and criminal systems interplay). And we get total foreshadowing, because when the cops come to interview her (in the middle of class) he actually take the blame on himself and says he was the one that hit those guys (useless as the cops want them both anyway). And as they are waiting in the police station, he notices her lips are dry (stop fixating on her mouth) and goes to fetch her coffee. EEEE!
10. Her fiancé shows up (and being a smart man, is kinda jealous of the closeness between KW and YJ) and offers her a ride home and YJ offers a ride to KW but he says he’ll walk and the looooook on his face as he sees her drive off with bf (and she has a pause moment too). I love the way it’s shot, through the glare of the glass (just as I love an earlier scene, where they are on the bus, going home after the fight, and he tells her he should call bf and she doesn’t and they sort of stare out of the window and their faces are reflected).
11. Little scene where she calls KW’s house (she is in Seoul with her parents) but he isn’t there because he is trying to dial her cell, which is of course busy. Awwww.
12. When she is all freaked out in class because a number of students didn’t show up (because they are morally outraged because she got hauled off to the cops. Whaaaaa? Who is that anal about morals for their teachers?) and his face as he sees she almost has the fit. But she manages to finish the lesson and stumble to sit in that place on the roof. And he comes up after her only to see her slump. And he walks up and just sits next to her and puts his arm around her and her head on his shoulder and just sits this way until it gets dark. And then she wakes up, all freaked out and startled (and significantly, she doesn’t remember finishing teaching. Ooooh, foreshadowing). And he asks her what’s wrong with her (and he is clearly freaking out it’s something mortal, probably because he’s seen too many kdramas) and there is a bit of a fight and then she tells him that it’s not life threatening or anything, she just randomly falls asleep from stress. And I love that now it’s her turn to tell him something so personal: about her disease, about her fear that it would put an end to her teaching career (something she truly loves), the fact that is why she learned taekwando, to be strong, her greatest fear, of being alone when she wakes up. It’s as if it’s a trade for the personal things he told her about his parents. It’s interesting, because she isn’t like that with her fiancé. There, she doesn’t admit weakness, there she doesn’t admit the importance of teaching to her life (she sort of shrugs it off). And OMG, his attitude to the news (probably fueled in large part by relief she won’t be dying any time soon), which is ‘oh, that’s nothing, I thought it was serious, you only sleep a little more than other people.’ And her huge relief because she says no one has ever looked at it that way before and everyone treats her as a patient. And he says she isn’t and there is this amazing scene where he teaches her a ‘magic spell’ to say if she gets sleepy. OMG, that scene is amazingness.
13. Him overhearing about all her legal troubles with the guys they beat up, so she might not be able to teach. OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! So Gift of the Magi (she is all about not having him expelled and he doesn’t care about that but wants her to keep her job). Because he goes to them, and he apologizes and they totally humiliate him and they tell him to kneel and he does (!!!!) and I die. And actually YJ just got to the room and she is unobserved and she watches in complete frozen horror and then she walks in and she slaps him, hard, across the face and walks out and he runs after her and I really think it was such a reaction to not being able to bear to see him like that, and she knew it was for her. And they have so switched roles, for the other’s sake, where she tells him she wants to rip their throats out and the only reason she doesn’t is because of him. And he says he’d do anything, he’d “beg and crawl” and OMG OMG OMG OMG. *is dead* and they finally have that huge confrontation that has been brewing. And he basically tells her his feelings and that she must feel that same and he is all passionate and determined and she is all distraught and horrified (in large part because she isn’t horrified enough) and it’s all sorts of awesome and painful and wonderful and she slaps him again and gets into a taxi and tells him she is just his teacher and he basically blocks the taxi so she gets out and they have some more of the confrontation and awesomeness and she storms off, taking a different taxi home.
14. And later, they have a peaceful conversation where she apologizes, saying she said some things she shouldn’t, but she doesn’t love him and she is only his teacher and if he keeps having these unrequited feelings, he’ll be in pain and he’ll get tired and he tells her he won’t get tired, ever.
15. The bit in class where he students are asking her about her bf, and how far they went (heeeee) etc etc and OMG, Kang-Wook looks so hot tormented and jealous and that big bear of a gang kid catches on. So later, he confronts KW in the middle of class, while YJ isn’t there, and basically is ‘so, is YJ what you want?’ And asks him if he’s slept with her yet and is she good and keeps insulting and insulting until KW snaps and there is a huge brawl and big kid says that if he wants to prevent him from ruining YJ’s life, he better kill him, and then YJ comes in and is horrified and orders them to stop fighting but they won’t and the big kid is all ‘so you look like you want to hit me, huh?’ and she just yells at them both to go run laps in the athletic field outside (it seems to be a thing to do in Korean schools. First Sang-Doo, now here). And so the two of them are running laps and YJ is teaching but she keeps glancing out of the window and then it starts to rain so she sends the school monitor to tell them to come in. So the big kid is all ‘I am off to school nurse’ but Kang-Wook refuses to come in and to tell YJ that he isn’t tired (ooooh, references to previous conversation. Symbolism! Hidden meaning! Oh, kdrama).
And so as the day wears on, and the classes are over, and he is still out there, in the rain, running laps and YJ is totally freaking out (I wonder if it’s his stubborn way to make her care) and the evil teacher is all “ooooh, you are even tougher than I am” to YJ and when evil teacher approves of you, I think you are in trouble.
And then everyone leaves entirely, and she finally can’t stand it any more and she goes out, with her red umbrella, and she is running in her tennis shoes, and so she is finally outside in the field, and he is still running, and he is totally exhausted and he runs up to her and she is all ‘What are you doing? What are you doing?’ and she is as near tears as makes no difference and he sort of whispers “I told you I won’t get tired” OMG OMG OMG OMG and she is using a scarf-thingie to wipe his face and neck, holding the umbrella over both of them and then he sees one of her shoelaces is untied so he kneels down (his uniform is toast! Not only is it soaked through, now he is kneeling in the mud!) and tries to tie her shoelace but it’s taking him a while because he’s so tired his hands are unsteady and she keeps looking at him kneeling there, and her umbrella keeps tilting, unheeded, and then she can’t help it, even though she tries, and she very slowly reaches to stroke his hair and he looks up at her (the look on his face? I am dead) and her umbrella is completely on the ground at that point and then she just sinks down on her knees in the mud and hugs him and they just hold each other like this for a really long time. That shot, of two tiny figures on their knees, hugging, red umbrella beside them? Gorgeousness.
And then they are drying out in the gym (gym clothes) and he notices a mole on her foot (I just love that he is in that ‘eeee, learning stuff about beloved person’ stage) and they have the conversation I mentioned in the very beginning about him forgetting her.
And then I had to run.
OMG, this is War and Peace here.
