[KD] Best Love: Episode 5

Pil-joo accompanies his PD friend on a scouting trip, having turned
down an invitation from Se-ri. Paused at a red light, Pil-joo spies the
big banner touting Ae-jung’s appearance at the nightclub.
No wonder, then, that he drops in to see her, only to hear (from Fake
Dokko Jin, heh) that Ae-jung canceled her performance at the last
minute and left.

Ae-jung wakes up in the car — which is now parked at a different,
more scenic locale. She walks out to a dock overlooking an
amusement-park castle on the water (as cherry blossoms waft down), and
comes face to face with Jin.
Trust him to ruin the romance of the moment by pointing out the very
romance of the moment, saying, “After being in such a pathetic reality
and finding yourself here with me, don’t you feel like you’re dreaming?”
Well, when you put it that way…
She’s oblivious to the mood lighting and fantasy ambiance, wondering
instead what happened to her nightclub performance. Jin tells her he
bought it: “That performance on the day of your 10-year anniversary of
your debut, which you waited for while eating a suffocating chunk of
kimbap — I bought it.”

She doesn’t understand why, and he replies that it made him angry: “I
don’t like you doing that.” He concedes that it’s understandable she’d
be confused when he can hardly believe it: “There’s only one answer to
all this. What do you think it is?”
She thinks for a moment, then lands on it: “Dokko Jin, it can’t be… Do you like me?” Jin: “Ding-dong.”
But lest you think he’s about to get all sentimental, he adds, “Yes.
Which is why I feel like a disgrace.” Whew! Way to be a charmer. It’s
like he’s channeling Gu Jun-pyo’s ego AND sense of boyish romance. And
maturity level.

Pil-joo, meanwhile, is bothered at the memory of seeing Ae-jung
sleeping in her car outside the nightclub — which was then driven away
by Jin. Pil-joo asks his friend about him, and hears that he’s dating
Se-ri.
Back at the cherry blossoms, Ae-jung confirms that Jin is confessing his feelings for her, using the customary word go-baek. He replies, “It’s not a go-baek, it’s a ja-baek.”
Pffffft! Heh, he’s subbed one word for “confession” with another, but
the one he uses is the kind a criminal makes when being interrogated by
the police.
To pin the blame on her, he says that he’d resisted as long as he
could, but she kept pestering him until he had no choice but to cop to
his (shameful) feelings.

Ae-jung: “In any case, you’re saying you like me.”
Jin: “How many times do you have to ask?”
Ae-jung: “I just can’t believe it.”
Jin : “You may not believe it, but numerically, it’s true.”

HAHA. To make his point, he glances at his heart monitor, grimacing
at its 110 reading. Ae-jung takes a look, and as she touches his wrist,
the numbers start climbing. She wonders if his monitor’s broken, so he
tells her to confirm for herself, and holds her ear to his chest to hear
the thumping.
With a self-satisfied smile, Jin asks if she’s speechless with the
honor and gratitude of receiving his affections. Is she trembling with
the thrill?
Ae-jung says, “I do feel honored and thankful — but I’m not
trembling.” Jin blusters that sure, she can play a little hard to get,
only to have her set him down. She turns his words back on him: “There’s
only one answer. What do you think it is? I don’t like you. I’m sorry.”

Cruuuuushhhhh. (His ego, I mean, not his over-palpitating
heart.) Jin insists that this scenario should be like a dream for her —
he secured this location and the scenery and the lights. How dare she
upset this dreamlike scenario?

Matter-of-factly, she responds, “Because it’s a dream, I should wake
up. Dokko Jin-sshi, I don’t want to feel all aflutter in my dreams. I
have to live diligently with my eyes wide open.” She says she’ll pretend
this dream didn’t happen, and he doesn’t have to feel disgraced.
She leaves him standing alone, feeling his beating heart.

Ae-jung drives home, only to have a pissy Jin catch up to her car and
cut her off. Omg so immature, this overgrown manchild. He orders her
to leave her car behind and get in his, threatening to tell everyone she
rear-ended him (snerk) and he’ll fake injury, reminding her that he did
as much for Peter Jason.
Into the car she goes. She offers to keep mum about this, if they
could just put it behind them, and will consider today her chance to see
some pretty flowers.
Growling, Jin offers to tell her flower story to match, and pulls
over to explain a tale he calls “Camellia.” (Which may be based on a gay
love story, whose original characters Jin actually twists around to fit
his version.)

The hero of the tale is Gamja, the guy who had everything — good
family, background, the works. One day, he looked favorably upon the
neighborhood loser, and made his feelings known. But that loser rejected
him — so how must he have felt? More than just a little embarrassed.
But that loser had a beloved chicken — and the rejected hero started to
torment that chicken. So what happened? That loser cried ever so
pathetically that she’d been wrong, sobbing underneath the camellia
blooms.
“I’m searching carefully now — Gu Ae-jung, what is your chicken?”

Gah! I’m starting to think Jin’s not just egotistical, but downright
unhinged. He plucks a cherry blossom petal from Ae-jung’s sweater and
says maniacally, “Away with today’s shameful cherry blossoms of my heart
— the camellias of revenge are blooming bright red!” Uh, this guy IS
our hero, right?
Later that night, Se-ri calls to thank Pil-joo for the flowers he
sent in place of attending the fanmeeting, and invites him to the wrap
party. He declines, so she retracts and says that she was just throwing
it out there, whatever. Pil-joo asks her if Jin’s with her, and she says
no; he, of course, is thinking of seeing Jin with Ae-jung, but Se-ri
lets his interest flatter her vanity.

Jin pulls up to his own house, without bothering to drop Ae-jung off
at hers. She stays in the car, feeling miffed at his high-handedness,
refusing to go into his house: “Do I look that easy to you?” Jin: “You
don’t look that hard.”
He clarifies that he doesn’t want her to go inside with him — she
ought to go home. Perplexed, she informs him that he’s a pretty strange
person; normally, a guy whose advance has been declined will either walk
away coolly, or try to change her mind. Jin replies that he has no
interest in either: Instead, he’s going to make her (heart) tremble.
HAHA. He warns her to prepare herself, because he fully intends to make
her heart thump at the thought of him. He means in attraction, right?
‘Cause I can think of a few other emotions that might cause
palpitations.
Ae-jung just sighs, telling him to have at it; she’s got a pretty
cool, easy-going personality so she can accept his childish antics.
“I’ll consider you at Hyung-kyu’s level and let it slide.” Recall that
Hyung-kyu’s her young nephew, also known as Ding-dong.
He takes up that gauntlet and tells her, “You’re quite beautiful tonight.” Which elicits this reaction:

Hee! That’s a line from the Fake Dokko Jin, and he challenges her to
make good on her word to “accept” his behavior (the word they use has
the connotation of doting on, or cooing over, as with a child).
So Ae-jung accepts that challenge, pats him on the butt, and says in baby-talk how cute he is.
He grabs her hand and tells her not to mistake him for Ding-dong,
because the methods of doting on a 7-year-old and a 37-year-old are
vastly different. So how ’bout she try that again, and do it right? He
jerks his head toward the house, then starts to lean in closer, and
closer…

Ae-jung pushes him away, saying that he’s going to give her
palpitations. He replies that palpitations can lead to fixation, and
“One day, you’ll find that flowers bloom in the background.” In his
case, she’ll find camellias as his backdrop. Muahaha.
Omg. Forget the possibly unhinged — he’s downright dingbatty. He goes
home laughing crazily, congratulating himself for making a good rebound
from humiliation. That would depend on your definition of “rebound.”
Also “good.”

Ae-jung looks up the Camellia story and imagines how it would play
out with them. To her shock, despite the poetic, flowery language, the
content is unmistakably…sexy. (It hints in vague terms at
tumbling over with the wind and being buried in camellia flowers.)
Ae-jung gasps, wondering what Jin intends.
Jin’s amusement park lighting event is turned into a PR move by
President Moon — Dokko Jin romances Se-ri with midnight date! — who
tells Se-ri that it was better than entertaining more breakup rumors.
Se-ri asks if Jin is dating, but President Moon waves that aside, saying
that he’s not the type to do that kind of thing for a woman.

The story makes the rounds with Pil-joo (who knows Jin wasn’t with
Se-ri) and Ae-hwan (who remembers Jin taking Ae-jung away that night).
Jenny takes the story at face value, figuring that Se-ri’s really
done well in her career. Ae-jung asks Jenny if it would be burdensome
receiving a confession from Dokko Jin — if the woman were someone of her
level, there’d be too much of a gap between them, right? Jenny laughs
that that would mean Jin’s stock would plummet, akin to “stepping in
crap.” Ae-jung vows not to become that crap.

At the agency, President Moon wants to speak with Ae-jung and asks
her to wait in her office, which is where Ae-jung finds Jin. She
vacillates over whether to stay, then decides that she should play this
cool and sits down across from him.
Jin asks how she slept, and she says she had a good night’s sleep. He
replies, “I couldn’t sleep, thinking of you. To be more specific,
thinking of your chicken.”
He’s found one such chicken, and shows her the flyer from her
nightclub performance: Attending events without the agency’s knowledge
is a breach of contract. She asks for the flyer, and he stuffs it down
his shirt. LOL. And then his back pocket.

Just as she’s reaching for it, President Moon walks in and asks Jin
pointedly about yesterday’s events. Jin answers that he just viewed some
flowers, and makes a show of taking out the folded flyer.
Ae-jung looks at him pleadingly, and he prolongs her anxiety before
tossing it in the trash, then leaving with a wink. Gah, Cha Seung-won,
why are you so sexy when you’re not being an eccentric nut or a drunk,
crotchety grandpa?

President Moon finds his explanation fishy, but assumes his
flower-viewing partner was some other woman. She explains to Ae-jung
that this is the first time Jin’s scandals have had this melodramatic
touch; the Se-ri scandal arose after she followed him around (she had a
crush), and they were photographed together by paparazzi, so President
Moon figured to use the rumors rather than blocking them. But this time,
there’s a huge CF hanging in the balance, and a bad scandal could
derail things.
Turns out President Moon is thinking to give Ae-jung an album, which
is great news. Ae-jung vows to not worry about other things (like
turning into crap) and to work hard on her career.
At the studio, she runs into the Couple Making PD, who
comments about seeing her poster at the nightclub. He promises to keep
it a secret, but since Pil-joo also saw it, Ae-jung visits him next.

He makes a comment about never having been to a nightclub before,
always having thought studying was more fun. Ae-jung says his mother
must be happy to have such a good son, and remarks that she’d like a son
like that some day. Pil-joo says, “To have a son like that, you’ll have
to marry a man like that.” Omo omo! Did our oblivious doctor actually
make an advance? Eeee!
Ae-jung doesn’t pick up his other meaning and just says that men like
that tend to obey their mothers, and those mothers won’t accept her as a
daughter-in-law.

Pil-joo: “Men like me sometimes disobey.”
Ae-jung: “How?”
Pil-joo: “We purposely do something our mother dislikes.”
Ae-jung: “Alcohol, smoking, gambling?”
Pil-joo: “No, not that. This is a secret… I eat ramen.
My deceased father used to say that we should always listen to what our
women say and make them happy. But sometimes we don’t understand and get
angry too. So then, Father and I would cook ramen together. We’d eat a
ton of that, and eat Mom’s food unappetizingly as our sole form of
rebellion.”

That’s so adorkable. Ae-jung sighs, “I really have to have a son like
that,” which makes him smile like the cutest little boy ever.

At the CF shoot, Jin and Se-ri pose while muttering under their
breaths back and forth about Jin’s flower-viewing date. Se-ri says that
she should know who it is, and that if she meets a guy, she’ll be sure
to let him know. She advises him to make sure she’s a good catch,
“Otherwise I won’t let you go.” Jin mutters back, “Even if you meet
someone who’s not a good guy, I’ll be sure to let you go.”
President Moon and Ae-jung are on their way to a meeting with a
songwriter when a call comes in needing attention: Jin has put a halt to
the CF by refusing to proceed.
The reason? The ad requires him to shave off his trademark facial
hair, and he isn’t having it. The others try to persuade him that it’ll
be a good look for him, and when Jin pointedly asks for Ae-jung’s
opinion, they all frantically indicate that she should agree. Caught off
guard, all she can say is, “Well…”

Jin takes advantage of that hesitation and reaffirms his refusal.
Ae-jung finds him in a green room to try again, this time rattling off
everyone’s comments about how he’d look more handsome without the facial
hair, but he’s enjoying putting her into this awkward spot and reminds
her that he’s still looking for her chicken. Lol, if that’s some kind of
euphemism, I don’t even wanna know.
Jin asks for her opinion of going clean-shaven, disregarding money
and CF contract matters. Ae-jung thinks for a moment, then says
honestly, “I think you’d look handsome.”
Ding-dong! Jin: “Really? Then I’ll shave. I’m doing it because of
you.” Ae-jung, confused: “Then if I told you not to, you wouldn’t?” Jin:
“Naturally.”
In exchange, though, he requires one thing of her. What could that possibly be?

Next thing we know, Ae-jung is standing there awkwardly with bright
red lips. The photographer gives her instructions to kiss Jin on the
cheek, to leave her lipstick mark. Hee!
Ae-jung quickly gets it over with, but not to the photographer’s
satisfaction. After many dissatisfying attempts leaving subpar lipstick
imprints on Jin’s cheek, the photographer is throwing his hands up in
frustration and Ae-jung’s nerves are shot.

Jin sees her discomfiture and tells her to close her eyes and stay
still, then guides her to kiss his cheek — at which point a heart starts
thumping. And from the looks of it, it just might be Ae-jung’s.
Lying in bed restlessly that night, she recalls Jin’s ominous words
about making her heart thump at the mere thought of him. When washing
up, the photo of Jin on hair product’s label suddenly springs to life,
jumping off the flat surface like a menacing Thumbelina (-o?). He
glowers and vows to make Ae-jung’s heart thump. So random and wacky, I
love it.

A phone call arrives from “Camellia” (hee! another change), who’s
outside, ready to take her somewhere. Ae-jung retorts that she’s not
about to go anywhere with him, but he laughs, “But your heart is
thumping right now. You’re best off seeing it through the end to confirm
it. That’s what I did.” And we see how well that worked out for his
sanity.
But it has a certain twisted logic (if only feelings could actually
be worked out of one’s system), and Ae-jung tells herself that taking
this through to its conclusion will allow everything to return to its
rightful place — an argument Jin had also used.

Manager Jae-seok reports to President Moon that he suspects Jin is
out secretly with someone again. He has a habit of seeing his movies in
the theater on opening and closing day, and today’s the last day Fighter is screening. Jin always drags Jae-seok along, but tonight he let him off without a struggle. Fishy, fishy!
In the car, Jin wonders aloud why he likes Ae-jung — she of the cheap
clothes and poor situation. Not flattered at that, she grumbles, “How
would I know?” He replies that he has nobody else to discuss this with,
actually wanting to discuss the dilemma of liking a problematic woman
with the woman in question. Ha.

He asks Ae-jung if she has some kind of mystical energy, which might
explain how she controls his feelings. Or maybe she’s got some sexual
energy. Anything to deflect the responsibility from himself. She returns
that she lacks those, but has a touch of the wacko energy in her, so
he’d best watch himself before she unleashes it on him. He throws her
old scandal in her face, laughing that yes, that particular skill made
her slap Se-ri and turned her into a washed-up has-been. Ha! Ha! HA!
That sours her mood, and she says that he always has to say things meanly, in a ddong-ko way (her early nickname for him, a play on his surname, meaning butthole).
Though it’s not in retaliation, he drives right over a speedbump just
as she’s taking a sip of flavored water, and the spill stains her white
shirt red.
Jin actually feels bad this time and hands her a tissue, telling her
to wipe up. She automatically wipes the spill from his car, and he
amends, “Not the car, yourself.” Aw, progress! She’s thoroughly out of
sorts with him, though, and tells him to forget it.

The writer and PD of Couple Making meet with Pil-joo for a
planning session about upcoming dates. The writer worries about the
cruise date, which took the most effort to set up — Ae-jung can’t get
that one.
Pil-joo asks why not, and is told that the cruise has been planned
with an ultra-luxury shoot in mind, and Ae-jung would bring it down with
her “air of cheapness.” Ouch. Pil-joo doesn’t like that either, though
the producers don’t notice as they muse that on the other hand, seeing
Ae-jung amid the luxury could be entertaining for the fish-out-of-water
aspect.
The writer suggests that they could make Ae-jung do a Titantic parody to up the humor level. Pil-joo likes that even less, so when the writer checks, “You do know what a Titanic parody is, right?” he plays dumb and says no. Hee!

Not only that, but he’s actually offended and says in a hilariously
miffed tone that he won’t eat with them. With a pout, he leaves.
That means Pil-joo has to drop by the convenience store for some
instant ramen instead, and when he reaches for a bottle of water, he
imagines Jin laughing at him from the label and purposely picks a
different brand.
Se-ri runs into Pil-joo in the lobby and waits for him to notice her,
and this time he does. She sees his dinner, and he invites her to join
him. She declines, since she has a shoot tomorrow and she’s been
studiously watching her diet today to keep her looking her best, but he
waves the bag enticingly. Eek! Having just eaten a bowl of ramen and
resigning myself to the dreaded bloat-face to follow, I cringe for
Se-ri.

But it’s cute that she gives in, more for her dinner companion than
anything else, and takes just one bite. He points out that she left out
the kimchi, so she agrees to another bite with it. And pretty soon, “one
more” turns into an empty bowl, soup and all.
She has regrets the instant her brain regains control over her
stomach, and wails that she’s doomed. Bloated face means press scrutiny
and internet comments about how she must’ve gotten injections, et
cetera. Seeing her worry, Pil-joo calls his clinic and has some medicine
set aside to be sent to her first thing in the morning to help with the
bloating.

Se-ri offers to treat him to dinner in return for the dinner she ate,
and that gives Pil-joo an idea. He asks for a favor instead, and
requests that she nix the whole Titanic parody idea for the cruise date. She doesn’t really know what this is about, but agrees readily enough.
That gives Se-ri an idea, and she suggests a movie instead of dinner.
Speaking of movies…

Jin pulls into the parking lot, and when he goes over a speedbump, he
puts out an arm to brace Ae-jung against the (hypothetical) impact,
which is hilarious and also sweet, especially since he’s feeling sorry
for putting her in a bad mood and hyper-aware of possible triggers. For
the second speedbump, he all but rolls to a stop as he goes over, and
she has to smile at that. So. Cute.
Jin sends Ae-jung ahead while he waits in the car — can’t be seen
together! — and turns down her offers to buy refreshments, saying
crabbily that he can’t abide noisy snackers. She makes her way to the
VIP room just as Jae-seok arrives, armed with camera, reporting to
President Moon that he’ll be sure to suss out Jin’s date.

Another group is on its way to the same screening: Se-ri, Pil-joo,
and the two producers. At the PD’s comment that Pil-joo has developed an
interest in Dokko Jin, Se-ri’s interest — and vanity — are piqued,
since that can only mean interest in HER.
While waiting for the others to grab snacks, Se-ri asks why Pil-joo’s
interested. She pointedly refers to Jin as “my boyfriend,” because in
her mind surely Pil-joo’s not concerned about Jin specifically, but
whoever it is that happens to be her boyfriend. Life must be grand in
the Se-ri Galaxy.
Jae-seok sees Ae-jung entering the VIP theater and guesses in shock,
“It was Ae-jung noona?” This throws him into confusion, because he
doesn’t know if he should report this to President Moon, who’s expecting
news.

As Ae-jung sits alone in the empty theater waiting for Jin, she tells herself, “I can come this far. This much is okay.”
Catching sight of the stain on her shirt, she heads to the bathroom
to wash it out. In that meantime, Se-ri arrives with Pil-joo and
recognizes Jae-seok, thinking nothing of it until she registers his
shifty behavior and his insistence that she can’t see the movie.
Immediately guessing that Jin is with another woman — probably the
same other woman from the other night — she corners Jae-seok and pesters
him for the name.

Pil-joo wonders what’s going on, particularly when he spies Ae-jung
in the distance, who hides her face when she spots Se-ri and slinks off.
In the lobby, she ducks away again to avoid being seen by the
producers.
She drops her hat in her haste, and Pil-joo picks it up to return it
to her. Thoroughly rattled, she thanks him and asks him to not tell
anyone he saw her, then dashes off nervously. Aw, poor disappointed
Pil-joo. Eek! I knew this would hurt — and it’s only the beginning!

Once safely out of view of acquaintances, Ae-jung stops to collect
herself and wonders with some self-disgust, “What the heck are you
doing?”
And then, to twist your heart even more, next we see Jin sitting in
the empty VIP theater, in front of a table laden with all the movie
snacks he hates. AW. He looks around wonderingly, sadly, and jumps to
answer when Ae-jung calls.

Sounding stressed, she tells him that coming to the theater was “as
far as this goes” for her. When she says she won’t see the movie with
him, he protests that he even bought popcorn and potatoes for her. At
that (potatoes = gamja, Gamja = hero of his Camellia story), she replies that she finds Gamja “really, really, really frightening.”
He asks, “Did you leave because you’re afraid I’ll get your chicken?”
(Which I swear doesn’t sound that ridiculous in Korean.) Ae-jung sighs
that yes, she’s afraid — of herself for not avoiding his tormenting. She
wants to be cool and easy-going, but what will he do if she actually
asks him to catch her?
And as she talks, Jin gets up and stalks out of the movie theater.