I like it much better this week, now that we’ve gotten past the introductions and into the musical, with crushes, competition, and egos galore. It’s a familiar setup, but if you’re a fan of musicals like me, there’s no business like show business. Bring on the divas.
SONG OF THE DAY
Kang Min-hyuk – “별” (Star) [ Download ]
EPISODE 4: “Towards Tomorrow”
Shin looks out from his perch above the passing students, and then a smile breaks across his face. He spots Kyu-won, ripe for servant abuse. How much do I love that torturing her makes him happy? It’s kindergarten-stage flirting, but it’s adorable.
She tries to ignore his call but gets caught red-handed, so off she goes, to get him a cappuccino “before the foam dies.” Jerk.
She runs into Yoon-su, and they walk back together, Kyu-won wondering if this is the girl that Shin likes, while she’s thinking the same thing about Seok-hyun. Yoon-su asks if Kyu-won knew him pre-musical and she says that she did, but doesn’t elaborate.
I kind of like this totally awkward love square. It makes for a boatload of drama, that’s for sure, since half the sides are teachers. And now the musical throws everyone together in a competitive environment where they have to see each other all the time, all the while pretending not to be in love with someone who’s clearly in love with someone else.
She delivers Shin’s cappuccino, making sure to get her money back, but when she doesn’t have the change to give back to him, he insists on adding interest. (It’s like adding interest on a 20-cent loan.)
On his way out, he tosses out one of his trademark random questions: “Do you sing well?” and then walks away before she even has the chance to answer. He really is the prince of non-sequiturs.
Seok-hyun gets a talking-to from his sunbae about casting Ki-young and “that Gukak Girl,” and Seok-hyun pointedly tells him that her name is Lee Kyu-won. I like that his casting her poses a challenge and a threat; it ups the stakes and makes me want her to prove them all wrong and stomp all over it.
She shows up to her first rehearsal and gets immediately antagonized for being a nobody who has some kind of pull with the director. Hee-joo of course takes personal offense, especially when Seok-hyun announces that she needn’t assume that the starring role is hers. Aw yeah.
Kyu-won squeaks her way through rehearsals, singing off-key, and Hee-joo follows her out to tell her that she doesn’t consider her a friend, and to stay away from Shin, who “likes someone that you can’t compete with.” Ugh! Squash her like a bug!
Not one to be talked down to (which I love), Kyu-won tosses back: “I don’t consider you a friend either. And Lee Shin? I wouldn’t take him if you gave him to me.” And with that she walks off, leaving Hee-joo stewing. It’s so satisfying that she speaks her mind instead of being some victim. And I love seeing Hee-joo squirm.
Bo-woon drags Kyu-won to Catharsis because Jun-hee is singing tonight. Aw cute. (It’s the song posted above.) Afterwards Kyu-won realizes that she left her sheet music at school so she heads back. She overhears Shin answering a call in a panic and then rushing off.
The call is from Yoon-su and he races over to her studio thinking that she’s injured. But it turns out that she’s just locked herself in. And he’s the only person you could call? He brings a security guard to open the door for her and walks her out, giddy that he got to rescue his crush. Oh puppy.
Kyu-won sees him walking Yoon-su out and notes it curiously.
Shin goes to see Dad, who is heartbreakingly ecstatic to see Shin there to visit him, out of the blue. He tells Dad about the dance teacher that he has a crush on, and Dad says that he liked a woman once. She was his friend’s girlfriend, and he even married someone else to try and forget her.
But he couldn’t, so he stole her away anyway. Shin asks if he ended up living with her. He says no. Without betraying that he knows, Shin says with a smile that he lived as a bad person. Dad agrees and tells Shin to live differently.
Looks like the original boyfriend in question was none other than Kyu-won’s dad (wow THAT’s not complicated or anything), who comes to see Shin’s mom that night. He seems to be in love with her still, which is epic badness. Someone please stop him.
Shin decides to do the musical, buoyed by his latest encounter with Yoon-su. Man, he’s got it bad. His bandmates are surprised to hear that he actually wants to do school-related things, and Jun-hee guesses that it has something to do with Kyu-won. They tease him while he denies it fervently.
Kyu-won shows up for dance rehearsal and this time it’s worse, with one of the older girls outright bullying her. Push comes to shove, literally, and somehow Hee-joo ends up in the fight as well, and all five girls end up on the ground in a mess of a catfight.
Seok-hyun makes them kneel with their arms raised, and Kyu-won complains that he’s punishing them like they’re grade-schoolers. He points out that if they act like kids, he’ll punish them like kids. Touché.
Yoon-su gets almost forcibly invited to dinner by her sunbae, and then comes across Seok-hyun flirting with Kyu-won.
Kyu-won is still upset and he just teases her good-naturedly, and pretends to fix her messed up hair. I love that he instinctively always pets her like a dog or something. It’s so cute. She looks up at him, “You’re messing with me, right?” Hahahaha. Why are these two so adorable?
Hee-joo comes out and latches onto Shin’s arm, which of course he rejects coldly. She spins around and tells him that Yoon-su was madly in love with Seok-hyun, and that she left him to go to New York and pursue her dream. Interesting then, that he’s the one who succeeded out there while she ended up back here because of the injury I presume.
She points out that the musical’s story is about Yoon-su. Shin turns back to tell Hee-joo that he can see now why she’s always alone and has no friends. Ouch. But true.
He then comes upon Yoon-su and looks at her, looking at Seok-hyun, looking at Kyu-won. It’s the backwards version of their love square, or… the same but starting with Shin this time. I think this is going to be a common feature. We’re gonna need a name for it. Unrequited Gaze Tag? Love Square Relay?
Shin goes straight to Seok-hyun to announce that he’ll be doing the musical, and then stops him to ask, “Is it fun, turning the woman you loved into a joke? I can see now why she left.” Geez, kid. He stops to add that he likes Yoon-su, just to make things clear.
Seok-hyun laughs to himself, because that’s the only thing you can do when some kid comes at you like he’s in a melodrama, all out of nowhere with big declarations. He chuckles that Yoon-su’s popularity is through the roof as always.
He rushes to the hospital to find his star Ki-young laid up with a fractured leg. It means he’s out for a month. Makes me wonder if he got hurt half on purpose.
Kyu-won comes across Hee-joo practicing late into the night, and her bitter words the other day about how Kyu-won is taking a spot that other people sweat for, start to sink in.
She comes to school the next day, cappuccino in hand, but Shin doesn’t show up to his usual spot. She leaves the coffee there and he finds it waiting for him when he arrives with the note: “This is Lee Shin’s coffee. I’ve spit in it.” HA. He looks at it with a smile.
She stops by later and sees the coffee gone, and smiles, only there’s a random other guy up there drinking the same coffee. It bugs her even later, wondering if Shin got his coffee or not. Meanwhile he refuses to share his spit-coffee with anyone. Aw, the coffee love.
Kyu-won tells Seok-hyun that she thinks she should quit the musical. He wonders if it’s because Shin isn’t around, or because she’s become an outcast, but she tells him that it’s because she feels like she’s wronging the people who really want to do it. She turns her focus back to her upcoming gukak competition.
But Seok-hyun isn’t about to let her go that easily, and decides to play the Shin card. He finds Shin and drags him into Kyu-won’s classroom, which tickles me to no end—these two, stalking her.
He tells her that she needs to do the musical, and she should just work harder if she’s not up to par. Seok-hyun: “I didn’t want to use this tactic, but… Shin wants to do the musical. He can’t unless you do.” Hee. Love him.
He leaves them to suss it out themselves, like an evil instigator. Shin doesn’t budge from his apathetic stance though, and simply declares that he’s going to do the musical no matter what, so she’ll just have to figure out her end.
He isn’t a complete dummy though, and tells her that she can’t outdo Hee-joo anyway. He talks Hee-joo up, purposely goading her and making her defensive. That raises her hackles and she insists that she can do it if she works hard, and he pretty much laughs in her face.
She asks why he wants to do the musical so badly anyway, and he tells her, “Because there’s someone I want to see.” It now dawns on her that he might be talking about Yoon-su. Really? Only now it occurs to you? She shakes her head in disbelief.
Seok-hyun brings the musical script to Ki-young, who still refuses to participate. Seok-hyun tells him, “You may have given up on yourself, but I haven’t given up on you yet.” I don’t know who’s more bull-headed, between the two, but I’m behind Seok-hyun on this one.
On his way home, he stops by a jewelry store and picks up a necklace that catches his eye. Probably for Yoon-su, but he doesn’t say.
Kyu-won mulls it over and then decides to come back to the musical, and Seok-hyun laughs, “She didn’t listen to me but…” Yeah, Shin’s smarter than you on that front. You should’ve tried reverse psychology too.
Kyu-won shows up to dance rehearsal and the air is even worse now, and the other girls knock her around and trip her. Seok-hyun yells that practice is cancelled and sends everyone out without another word.
Yoon-su asks him what’s so special about Kyu-won, and tells him that it looks like he’s giving her special treatment, even in her eyes. Without skipping a beat, Seok-hyun turns it around on her: “Are you jealous of her? Even if you are, you shouldn’t show it.” Oh, dayum. He’s got a really cold streak.
He then takes the five girls on an angry field trip, to see a group of musical actors in rehearsals. He tells them that these people are trainees, and have yet to even set foot on the stage. Can they say that they’re better than these guys?
Awesome. I was waiting for him to school these girls and knock them off their high horses. He singles them out, one at a time, even Kyu-won, and sets their egos back to square one.
Kyu-won takes his advice to heart, and heads straight to school, where she practices late into the night. Yoon-su finds her there and smiles to see her working so hard, and helps her out. Aw.
Shin comes by on his nightly visit after a concert, and happily watches the two of them, though he’s clearly reacting to seeing Yoon-su so happy. The next day he sees Kyu-won stumbling her way to school with sore legs, and offers her a ride on his bike.
She gets so absorbed in the fantasy of riding on Shin’s bike, all rainbows and hearts, literally, that she doesn’t even notice the crowd gathered around them when they arrive at school. She opens her eyes to see angry girls everywhere, staring at her hugging his back, lost in lalaland like a goof. Pfffft! Okay, that made me laugh out loud.
That day at practice, Kyu-won shows that she’s been practicing, and that she’s finally up to snuff. Seok-hyun smiles at Yoon-su, guessing that she had a lot to do with it. He ponders the necklace and then asks her to dinner that night.
She cancels with her sunbae and invites Seok-hyun over to her place for a glass of wine, and they agree to meet in an hour.
He runs across Kyu-won stumbling home and offers her a ride, which she doesn’t turn down in her hobbly state.
At the same time, Yoon-su sees that Shin is following her on his bike like the puppy stalker that he is. She gets out of the car to tell him to go home, but he hands her a jewelry box instead.
Whadduya know, it’s the exact same necklace, and he beat Seok-hyun to the punch. He takes it to put around her neck…
Which is right when Seok-hyun’s car passes them by, and Kyu-won sees them out her window…
…As Shin leans in for a kiss.
COMMENTS
Okay, I’m totally on the wrong ship here and I know it, but I don’t care. I want Kyu-won to be with Seok-hyun So. Badly. He’s so cute with her, I can’t stand it. How can I make this happen? Why does my heart refuse to follow my brain? If Shin has to be with downer dance teacher to make it happen, then I’ll get on that ship too. Gah.
All in all I do really like the bizarre love square of unrequited meaningful glances, mostly because of Kyu-won and the boys. I can’t wait till they start fighting over her instead of Yoon-su. At least she was slightly less of a downer in this episode. Slightly.
I could really do without all the adult Mom / Dad mumbo jumbo with past love lives resurfacing and all that, though so far it’s at least tangential. But I’d pay for it to disappear completely, since it has no bearing on the main story and well, I hate where that’s bound to end up.
Because really, coming into your twenties, finding yourself, following your dreams, potentially doomed love affairs with teachers – that’s all angsty enough as it is. No need to throw in your mom snogging my dad, past or present, yeah? Please Drama, let’s not go there.
What I’m dying to see is Shin and Seok-hyun battling it out on the stage. Can they have an epic sing-off soon? Pretty please?
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