Answer Me 1997: Episodes 9-10
We get some twists and turns this week, as confessions come tumbling out, setting us down some unexpected paths. We get to meet Mom and Dad as teenagers, which is maybe my favorite thing about these episodes, Yoon-jae continues to be afflicted with adolescentia foot-in-mouth-itis, and Joon-hee continues to make my heart bleed. The question of the day: How many puppies does it take to say, You’re the one for me?
SONG OF THE DAY
S.E.S. – “I’m Your Girl” [ Download ]
EPISODE 9: “The Thread of Fate”
Dad rifles through drawers looking for nail clippers, complaining of his increasingly elderly eyesight, and comes across an old picture tucked away that gives him pause. He smiles, “It’s been a long time, Jun-hyuk-ie. You’re still so young, and I just keep getting older…”
It’s a big family picture: Mom and Dad and their two daughters, and Yoon-jae and Tae-woong with their parents. Looks like Yoon-jae’s dad will be a cameo by Yang Jun-hyuk, baseball player/sportscaster.
1968, Gwangju. Awww yeah. Flashback to Mom and Dad as teenagers? So great. Two young girls from Busan ogle the baseball players eating a few tables away from them. It’s our pair of moms as teenagers (cameos by members of Jung Eun-ji’s idol group, A Pink).
Yoon-jae’s mom decides she has a crush on Number 24—the big burly guy stuffing his face. She tells Shi-won’s mom to deliver her love letter to him because she’s too shy, and tells her it has to be Number 24, and not the little guy next to him.
Shi-won’s mom (Il-hwa) sighs and asks how much their check is, her strange Kyungsangdo accent turning the gaze of everyone in the room. The girls panic and run. Ha.
Shi-won’s dad (Dong-il) is the little guy in the baseball uniform, and he complains to his buddy: “I’m the athlete, and you’re the one eating all the food!” So big n’ burly isn’t a baseball player after all? This is gonna be hilarious.
Yoon-jae’s dad (Jun-hyuk), is training for the air force and says he has to take care of his body too. Dong-il pats his belly, “Do you think the plane will take off with that?” Jun-hyuk angrily takes his baseball jacket off and throws it back at him, and Dong-il puts it back on.
So of course it’s Dong-il that Il-hwa stops in the alley outside the restaurant. She checks his number; it’s 24. She hands him the letter saying it’s his. Dong-il: “What’re you saying?” Il-hwa: “This is yours!” Dong-il: “Did you come from Japan?” Lol. I love that they can’t understand each other.
She checks his number again and wonders if he shrank or something, and sighs at her friend’s weird taste in guys. She leaves him confused but smiling.
Back to the present (er, yunno, 1998). Dad digs through the fridge complaining there’s nothing to eat and jumps back at the sight of Shi-won in her new S.E.S. hair. She asks if she looks pretty, which is just the furthest thing from Dad’s mind.
He asks what the one sliver of bang-hair in her face is for, and she’s like, hello, that’s the focal point of the whole ‘do! She asks for money and he tells her he’ll pay up if she cuts off that ugly hair. Stalemate. Shi-won: “I hate you!” Dad: “I hate you more!” I love these two.
Yoon-jae gives Joon-hee the puppy, saying that he’ll probably raise it the best. Joon-hee gets the puppy?! Joon-hee gets the puppyyyyyyy!
He says he bought it for someone but it didn’t really work out the way he planned, and tells Joon-hee to keep him, but change its name, since he named it Yoon-jae. Joon-hee puts it up to his face to compare and realizes they do look alike, and says he’ll keep the name.
Yoon-jae argues, but Joon-hee just ignores him. To puppy: “Yoon-jae-ya, hyung will buy you lots of tasty things.” *puppy kiss* Yoon-jae (the human): “I told you to change its name!” Joon-hee: “No, I like Yoon-jae.” That he gets to say it, even in reference to the puppy, is so cute.
Tae-woong sits at home in his pajamas, his room littered in filth. Uh, being unemployed does not suit you well. Somebody, intervention! He smiles like a goof while watching FinkL.
Shi-won comes in and immediately changes the channel. She snarls, “No DSP!” Haha, so FinkL, by way of Sechskies, is off limits? She lays on the compliments which Tae-woong recognizes right away as allowance flattery, and tells her to take money from his wallet.
She obliges, and takes more, “Oppa, do you know that I love you? You’re my ideal man! You’re smart, you’re good-looking, you’re tall…” He glares, “You took more, didn’t you?” Haha.
And then on the news is a big story about a website that’s making waves, called I Like School that connects students and alumni to each other…invented by Tae-woong. So… not lying around being a loser, then? (It’s a spoof on a real site is called I Love School.)
The 27-year old creator is announced as the next big thing, worth billions. Shi-won looks back and forth at the television and at Tae-woong sitting there guzzling soda, like This guy? And that guy? Are the same guy?
Joon-hee plays with puppy Yoon-jae in the park, and a little girl mistakes the puppy for her own and picks him up. Her mom gives the puppy back to Joon-hee with apologies, and the little girl cries.
It happens again the next day, and her mom explains that Dad gave her a puppy that looks just like this one before he left with a fishing crew, but she lost him after only a week.
Back to 1968. Il-hwa gives Dong-il note after note after note. Everywhere he turns, she’s there with another letter, and finally she snaps at him to write one back already.
Sometime later, he shows up on her front step, “Eh, Busan!” and hands her a letter. She smiles and says her friend will be happy, but he says she needn’t deliver it: “It’s yours.” AW. They stand there smiling awkwardly on her doorstep.
Their background music goes from up-tempo to slow-and-warped as we transition back to 1998, and Mom stares at a credit card bill: “Is this yours?” Dad: “If it’s not yours it’s mine.” Heh. Oh, how times have changed.
He smiles and ignores her sniping and beams when Yoon-jae interrupts them for some leftovers. Mom calms down and tells Yoon-jae she’ll pack him up some food… and gives Dad’s head a good shove as she gets up. Ha.
He stews in embarrassment and tells Yoon-jae to marry a nice quiet well-mannered girl or he’ll end up like him… as Shi-won bursts out of her room with a ta-daaaa… in her ridiculous hair and wearing makeup to boot.
Both Dad and Yoon-jae do this hilarious lurch backward in shock, as Dad tears into her for going out looking like that, threatening that she can’t go to Seoul if she keeps that up. He swears he’ll wipe her face clean and Yoon-jae adds under his breath: “And the hair too…”
But Mom comes to her rescue and shuts Dad up, saying she looks pretty and he can shove it. Dad sighs and asks Yoon-jae to keep an eye on her in Seoul. He must mean college?
Shi-won says she’s going out for dinner with Tae-woong oppa, and a cloud passes over Yoon-jae’s face. She calls back in a loving voice for Dad to feed “our Yoon-jae” too, leaving Yoon-jae puzzled.
He turns around to find Dad cuddling a tiny white puppy. Huh?
He says he found the little guy all alone in the park, and so he brought him home and Shi-won insisted that he looked just like Yoon-jae and named him so. HA. So this must be the little girl’s dog!
Dad says Shi-won sleeps holding him every night, and Yoon-jae just gapes, totally confused. And then Yoon-jae and Yoon-jae sit side by side at the table, eating the same dinner.
And in the park is Joon-hee, giving his puppy away to the little girl with a wistful sigh. Aw.
Shi-won comes outside to find Tae-woong decked out in a snazzy suit, waiting by his car. He’s on a capital-D Date, which she seems oblivious to.
She just marvels at how handsome he looks and happily goes along, her usual voracious appetite and bubbly self. He goes shopping for a new cell phone and buys a matching couple set, with a smile.
Back in 1968, Il-hwa takes a one-way trip back home to Busan with a long face, and then takes out the letter from Dong-il. It just says one thing in the middle of the page: “Should we… be a couple?”
That’s adorable. Past Dad was so cute! She smiles wistfully.
Tae-woong shows Shi-won his new office, currently just an empty room with one desk, since he’s the CEO and only employee. He gives her a cell phone saying it’s hers, and that he’s programmed his number as 1.
She looks up hesitantly, only now starting to catch on. He crouches down at her feet and asks if she wants to date him. It stuns her, and she asks hesitantly if she has to answer right away.
He hides his disappointment with a smile and tells her of course not; he’ll wait. He gets up and puts his hand out like a gentleman, but she stares at it like she doesn’t know what to do. Has no boy ever been nice to you? He helps her up with a chuckle.
Yoon-jae watches the latest trendy drama Innocence, (Why yes, I DO know the names of all of Ryu Shi-won’s ’90s dramas. Don’t you?) and drools over a handholding scene. Puppy Yoon-jae crashes his fantasy with a finger lick.
He watches Mom and Dad flirt again, having forgotten all about their latest yelling match. Dad gets up, suddenly feeling ill, and bends over to fart in Mom’s face. Pwahaha. Yoon-jae smiles to himself and narrates:
Yoon-jae: They say that people are born with a red string that they can’t see, tied to their pinky fingers, and the end is tied to the one you’re fated to be with. But the thread is twisted this way and that, making it hard to find the other end.
Tae-woong sits at his desk, holding his couple phone. He looks up at the mirror, and then at the picture of him with Shi-won’s sister, still on his desk. He holds it for a long moment, and then with a sigh, he tucks it away into a drawer.
Shi-won sits on a bench and ponders the phone for a long while, and then decides to dial 1. Tae-woong rushes his phone and picks up in an all-too-eager voice that kills me, and she asks if he was waiting for her call.
As they chat, Yoon-jae narrates:
Yoon-jae: People’s countless threads, all tangled together. But when I start to unravel it, I end up face to face with my fate, without even knowing it. If the red thread of fate really exists, then who is the one tied to my red thread?
Back in 1968, we see Yoon-jae’s future mom eat at the same restaurant alone, and then realize she left home without her wallet. Future Dad gets up and says he’ll pay for both, and they smile sheepishly.
And in 1998, both little white puppies play together in the park. The little girl comes running to claim her puppy, and then Shi-won comes running over a moment later calling after Yoon-jae. They end up taking home their rightful puppies after all, without even knowing that they’ve switched.
1988, Busan. The two familes gather for the picture that started the show, as the parents say they should take a nice group photo because you never know—they might end up in-laws.
Yoon-jae’s mom figures they have two sons and two daughters, so they could be double in-laws, and Shi-won’s mom says you never know if it’ll go by age or crisscrossed the other way, and they all have a good laugh.
They pose for the picture, and then we go back to the moment Dad finds it. He puts it out on display and gives it this heartbreaking look that makes me cry, and walks away as we linger on the photo.
Sometime later, Shi-won comes into Tae-woong’s room talking to him on her phone, as he asks her to find an envelope. She digs through the mess and opens all the drawers… and finds the photo of Song-joo with Tae-woong.
She smiles, “Unni, it’s been a while,” and caresses her sister’s face in the photo.
Under it, she finds a little post-it from Song-joo to Tae-woong oppa, telling him how much she misses him already and wants to see him again, and that she loves him very much. She signs it: “Future Wife, Present Lover, Song-joo.”
Yoon-jae comes home and jumps out of his skin to see Shi-won there, and then stews in silent fury as Shi-won talks to Tae-woong on the phone and roots through his room, like a girlfriend. He storms in, finds what she’s looking for in two seconds, and slams it down on the desk.
She comes to thank him by bursting into his room and jumping on his back (I love that she just hangs there like a monkey on a tree), squealing, “Yoon Yoon-jae, what would I without you?”
He tells her to get off, even surlier than normal. She refuses, so he throws her off, screaming at the top of his lungs, “I said I don’t like it!” She says it’s a joke, and wonders what’s gotten him so angry.
He snaps that she shouldn’t act this way in the future, because Hyung wouldn’t like it. “What guy would?” He storms out, leaving her hurt and confused. It’s okay, honey. He just means the opposite of what he says.
Yoon-jae douses his face in water, calling Shi-won an idiot, which cracks me up. ‘Cause clearly, you’re one to talk. But the bottled up pain, that’s just searing—he can’t tell anyone that his brother is dating the love of his life, can he?
Reunion, 2012. Joon-hee says he saw Eun Dokki outside and immediately Shi-won pokes Yoo-jung, “You called her here, didn’t you?” Yoo-jung scoffs, “What’re you gonna pull her hair and throw down right here? How old are you?”
Eun Dokki saunters in with Eun Gak-ha (the two lead Sechskies fangirls), and Sung-jae has a heart attack, confessing that he always had a crush on Eun Gak-ha. Too bad their husbands walk in right behind them. (Cameos by comedians Yoon Hyung-bin, Eun Dokki’s real-life boyfriend playing the other girl’s hubby, and Yang Sae-hyung.)
Even Hyung-bin knows that Shi-won is on Team H.O.T. and that Yoo-jung was a wishy-washy floater. She balks, all I was Switzerland! She thinks they ought to thank her for saving all their hair.
Eun Dokki and Hyung-bin do a round of inside jokes about how they’ve been friends forever but felt zero attraction, and they ask Sae-hyung what he liked most about Eun Dokki. He thinks back…
1998. Shi-won and Tae-woong ride in his car, and she asks, “Oppa, why do you like me?” It’s a simple question, asked in a happy tone, but he’s taken aback.
At the same time, Yoo-jung sits with Hak-chan, asking, “Do you like FinkL or me?” He’s learned some lessons by now and immediately points to her. She asks, “Why? Why do you like me?”
*blink, blink*
EPISODE 10: “The Reason I Like You”
SONG OF THE DAY
Deux – “Look Back at Me” [ Download ]
The boys stand outside a club, whining at Sung-jae that this is a stupid idea. Hak-chan sighs at the utter uncoolness of a colatech (heh, nice name for an underage club) and would rather they drink real booze at his house.
But Sung-jae swears it’ll be awesome and they’ll get all the girls. They finally give in and start to head inside, when he says they’re waiting for Shi-won and Yoo-jung to arrive.
They stop in their tracks. Sung-jae says matter-of-factly that Hak-chan was sure to get caught anyway so he might as well just go with his girl, and Shi-won wanted to see Joon-hee dance, so he invited them. They glare.
Hak-chan: “I will kill that bastard tonight.”
They head inside and recognize their classmate Eun Gak-ha up on the stage, and gape as she starts to dance. Sung-jae goes gaga over her, making giant hearts over his head like a fool.
The girls arrive and Shi-won jumps on Yoon-jae’s back again, forgetting his warning the other day. He yells at her again not to do that anymore, and Yoo-jung asks if they fought—she’s never seen Yoon-jae yell like that before.
Shi-won turns her attention to the topic of the day: Turbo or Deux? They agree that Deux is better. And then on cue, Joon-hee takes to the stage. The group goes silent, and then the girls screeeeam.
Deux Dance! I’m pretty sure by now, I’ve seen Eun Ji-won dance this on 1 Night 2 Daysmore than Deux.
Joon-hee dances his heart out and the girls take turns yelling their fangirl best. But when he’s done and the crowd goes wild, he only looks at one person: Yoon-jae, who smiles back and cheers him on.
When he comes down from the stage, Eun Gak-ha asks if he has a girlfriend, offering up her pager number. But he gives it back, “I have someone I like,” and walks away. She turns around to get a pager number from Sung-jae who’s now madly in love with her, and she sighs, letting him carry her bag like a puppy.
By now Tae-woong’s internet startup has a few college friends as employees. He tells them to go home for a change or go take their girlfriends out, but they sigh that they don’t have time for any.
He brags that he does, and shows off a picture with Shi-won. They give the obligatory “She’s pretty…” but Tae-woong can read their faces and says he knows she isn’t, and she’s last place in school too. They ask, “In her [college] department?” Tae-woong: “No, in her [high school] class.” Their jaws drop.
The gang comes out of the club and the girls playfully fight over who gets to be Joon-hee’s girlfriend. He shows them the backpack and cash he won as his prize for being the best dancer, and offers to buy dinner.
Yoo-jung says she and Hak-chan have movie plans and drags him away. Awkward love triangle, table for 3?
But Shi-won says she has plans too, and picks up a call on her cell. She whispers in Joon-hee’s ear: “Have a good date!” and runs off. That’s adorable.
Joon-hee says they can just go home, but Yoon-jae says he wants to eat, so whatever, they’ll just go on a date, the two of them. He puts his arm around Joon-hee and they head off.
Date night for everyone. Sung-jae and Eun Gak-ha go the movies. Omg, it’s Eun Ji-won inSeventeen, when he was an idol and couldn’t act. I’m cringing for you!
And then, a few rows down… are Yoo-jung and Hak-chan. Aaaaack, the secondhand embarrassment! Hak-chan watches with his head cocked to the side says this acting is terrible: “Even I’d be better than that.”
Yoo-jung: “Let’s break up.” He quickly gets up to buy some soda, and she ogles her oppa in peace. Omg, stop making me watch it. It’s terrible! Oppa, noooooo!
Joon-hee and Yoon-jae go to his noona’s pojangmacha, and he introduces her as Noona Number 7, who’s twins with the noona who caught him with Sung-jae the other day.
Yoon-jae asks about Noona Number 8 then, and Joon-hee says that’s his twin. What the? You have a twin? Yoon-jae has the same reaction and wonders, “What else don’t I know about you? Is your dad a gangster? Do you… have a crazy secret crush on somebody?”
They both pause knowing the answer is yes, but Joon-hee says no, there’s nothing like that. Yoon-jae sighs that he’s got so many secrets.
Joon-hee: “Then what about you? Why didn’t you give that dog to Shi-won? Didn’t you buy it for her?” Yoon-jae turns to noona and asks for a bottle of soju.
On a different date, Shi-won eyes Tae-woong’s beer with a gleam in her eye and asks if she can have a sip. She says she’s going up to Seoul to see H.O.T. tomorrow and asks him to soften the blow to her parents.
He asks why she likes them so much and she says because they’re good looking, and dance well, and just… everything. Tae-woong asks her to like him that much and she nods.
Back to the pojangmacha. Yoon-jae throws back a drink, “How’d you know?” Joon-hee: “How could I not know?”
Yoon-jae asks in turn, “Why don’t you confess to Shi-won?” Joon-hee just looks down, not answering. Yoon-jae: “Why, is that a secret too?”
Joon-hee downs a shot.
Augh, you two and your painfully crossed wires! You’re killing me!
At school the next day, the fangirls are aflutter in preparation to see their oppas win at the big end-of-year music awards, and Eun Gak-ha slams a poster down on Shi-won’s desk, accusing her of vandalizing it.
The top of the first letter has been ripped off, to change “I love Sechskies” to “I love asshole,” which you have to admit, is pretty clever. But Shi-won says that’s beneath her, since they can’t compete with H.O.T. anyway.
She asks why they’re even going to the music awards when they should be going to some movie awards. “Seventeen? The acting was amazing! Al Pacino would cry!”
She is so hilariously awesome with the smackdowns. Eun Gak-ha says H.O.T.’s lipsyncing days are over, and Shi-won says yes, sure, but pray tell, why do only three of your oppas go onstage wearing mics? HA.
The downside of being so quick and witty, of course, is that the other girl has nothing left to do but scream and grab Shi-won’s hair. Fight! Dan-ji just turns her attention back to her magazine, and there in her desk is the evidence of the torn letter from the poster.
1998 Golden Disc Awards. The front of the theater is roped off in different colors in preparation for the fans: one side for H.O.T., the other for Sechskies. It’s a sea of white and yellow.
One yellow-clad girl bravely darts over to the other side: It’s Yoo-jung, wanting to confer with Shi-won. She and Dan-ji yell at her to take that yellow jacket off before they’re mobbed, and then they argue about who’s getting the Daesang tonight.
It starts to rain and the air turns icy. Uh-oh, I smell epic fanwar.
The girls all rise one by one, ready for a face-off. And they’ve brought the big guns this time, because each club’s president steps out in front. (Cameos by comediennes Ahn Young-mi and Kang Yumi.)
It’s mudslinging, not gun-slinging, though you wouldn’t know it by the looks on everyone’s faces. They throw their best insults (and the reference to Sechskies’ see-through pants gets a spit-laugh outta me, ’cause that was surely a highlight of ’90s fashion WTFery).
It of course devolves into a hair-pulling, name-calling, all-out war, as both sides rush the divide.
But just in time, a PD comes out with a bullhorn to announce they’re going in. (Daeju? Aw seeing the old 1N2D crew stick together gives me the warm fuzzies.) Nothing like the promise of seeing their oppas to calm a raging war.
The war resumes in the form of out-cheering each other when the Daesang comes up… and we hear Shin Dong-yup’s voice, so they must’ve just cut in the audio from the original broadcast.
Mom and Dad watch from home… and see Shi-won screaming from the crowd. Oh noes. Mom screams in delight and Dad crushes an orange with his bare hands. Eep!
The MC teases them about whether or not to just give the award to H.O.T. or Sechskies, back and forth, back and forth… and then announces that the Daesang goes to… Kim Jong-hwan.
Pfffffft. Love it. This is so hilarious. Both sides go from screaming to dead silence, and slump down in utter defeat. Yoo-jung and Shi-won look over at each other across the aisle in shock.
The only one who’s happy is Mom, who squeals and sings along, as Dad covers his ears.
The aftermath outside the theater is like a fangirl wasteland. The Sechskies and H.O.T. presidents now sit huddled together, suddenly war buddies who know each other’s pain only too well.
The boys play basketball, and suddenly Sung-jae runs out in the middle of the game because the girls have arrived from Seoul. He rushes away to go pick up Eun Gak-ha. Hak-chan trails after him, to go get Yoo-jung.
That leaves Yoon-jae and Joon-hee alone, and Joon-hee asks why he’s not going to pick up Shi-won. He sighs that there’s someone else to do that.
Yoon-jae: “Why do you like Shi-won?” Joon-hee just turns the question back on him. Yoon-jae tells him to guess.
Joon-hee says he thought they were twins at first—they always fought, but then always went home from school together.
Joon-hee: “Isn’t Shi-won the person you’re closest to in the whole world, like a twin? You like it when you’re together, and it’s comfortable, and even if you’re not doing anything, there’s no awkwardness between you. That’s what I was always most envious of. Isn’t that why you like her?”
Yoon-jae says no, he’s wrong about that. Joon-hee: “Then why? Why do you like Shi-won?”
Back to the scenes that opened the episode. Yoo-jung asks Hak-chan: “Why do you like me?”
Shi-won asks Tae-woong: “Oppa, why do you like me?” No answer. “Because… I’m like Song-joo unni?”
Joon-hee asks Yoon-jae again. Yoon-jae: “Because… she’s pretty.” Awwwwwwwwwww.
Yoo-jung waits for her answer. Hak-chan: “Because you’re cute, and pretty.” She does a little happy jiggle.
Shi-won asks if Tae-woong likes her because she reminds him of unni, but he says no, he did at first, but not now. “Because you’re pretty.”
She points out her un-pretty features, but he says she’s still pretty in his eyes. “Though, not in anyone else’s.”
Eun Gak-ha asks Sung-jae why he likes her. Sung-jae: “Your chest.” Haha. Unsurprisingly, she walks out on him. Sung-jae: “No, your arms! Your legs!” Not making it better!
Back to the reunion, where Eun Dokki’s hubby answers the question the same way: Because she’s pretty. Because everything about her, from her wrinkles to her moles, is pretty in his eyes.
And then we return to the basketball court, where Yoon-jae asks Joon-hee why he likes Shi-won. Joon-hee: “I don’t like Shi-won. I like someone else.” *gasp*
Yoon-jae nudges him, “Who?” He takes a deep breath and bites his lip…
“You.”
Omomomomomomomo. He said it! He said it! I’m holding my breath…
The longest silent moment in the history of silent moments passes back and forth between them. Joon-hee bravely doesn’t break his gaze, doesn’t take it back.
Finally Yoon-jae processes it in the only way he can, and slaps him on the back, laughing that he got him good. Oh noes!
But his good-natured ribbing actually gives Joon-hee license to keep saying it, because Yoon-jae thinks he’s kidding. “No, it’s really you.” The laugh and joke, which is sweet, even though my heart just breaks for Joon-hee. He narrates:
Joon-hee: The reason I like you? Because you’re that person. Because you’re you. Is there another reason besides that one? I’d rather know the reason if there was one. Then I could find a way to not like you. If I can’t avoid it, then there’s only one thing I want: to remain by your side, unchanged, for long time. Here’s to our love, that chills our hearts.
