Five years ago, Da-Il’s mother died. In her hallucination, Da-Il was angry with her for being a burden to him. “Mom. Since I was young, you’ve been a burden. Without you, I could’ve done a lot of things. If I was an orphan, it would’ve been easy to take care of myself. I wouldn’t have ended up like this trying to get a permanent job in the army.”

But we know that Da-Il lost his job in the army, not because of his mother’s ill health, but because he was a whistleblower.

Five years ago, his long fight in court finally ended when the Supreme Court decided on his lawsuit. According to news report, Da-Il claimed that his comrade, “Private First Class Kim had committed suicide and he dug into the cruel treatments in the army and the corruption of the military officials and revealed them to the public which caused a huge social controversy.”

Furthermore, Da-Il was “arrested and fired for revealing classified information…(but) the Supreme Court ruled Lee Da-Il as innocent. Thus, he was compensated for having received jail sentence. However, he lost the lawsuit regarding his reinstatement. Therefore, he will not be returning to the army. As a result, Lee Da-Il permanently lost his position as a soldier.”

Five years ago, he and Attorney Baek worked together on his lawsuit. When it ended, she apologized for not being able to win his reinstatement. And his response was: Thank you for working hard. I hope we’ll never have to meet again. From now on, I’m going to live a safe life and normal life. I’ll just let things pass and keep my nose out of other people’s businesses.

He walked away without looking back.

Now, five years later, Attorney Baek told YeoWool that she had always been curious whether he was living that kind of life. She admitted it so casually.

We didn’t know until he emailed her in Episode 5 that this “curiosity” of hers involved her doing research on him for the past five years. She was ACTIVELY being curious about him.

He wrote in his postscript to her, “You’ve been doing research on me for five years. I won’t make it a problem. Why don’t you do me this favor and we’ll call it quits.”

And after reading this, she responded, “I wasn’t the only one doing the digging.”

Lol. What did she mean?

At first, I thought she meant that she knew of another entity –a person like her employer or the army personnel or a corporation — that was interested in him and tracking him for five years.

But on second thought, I think she was implying that the research had been a two-way street and that Lee Da-Il had been stalking her, too. lol.

You see, from the beginning, there was this mystery about them.

I thought he was being incredibly smart — a genius! — when just by a single glance, he deduced the purpose of her unexpected visit with CEO Lee.

But then, when he entered the room and sat across from her, he smiled at her wryly, but her face barely moved. Hmmm…

Later, we were shown sticky notes on his desk. One of the notes, zoomed in on by the camera, had the date 8.25.

Sigh. This is one of those times I wish I knew how to read Hangul!

According to the subs, the notes read, “CEO Lee’s interview, Threat? Company issues?”

Back then, I assumed that this was a plothole.

He hastily printed them while Sung Seob was entertaining Atty Baek in the Front Office. He surely didn’t have the time to change grubby clothes for a suit, AND view the CEO Lee’s interview online, AND print that note… but okkkaaaay, I’ll overlook it. It’s ONE plothole in an otherwise well-made kdrama.

But in light of the revelation that they’d worked together five years ago and that they were mutually keeping tabs on each other, I see now why he wasn’t confused to see her when that car drove in.

To me now, the printed note meant that he had been keeping tabs on CEO Lee prior to this meeting. That’s how he recognized him when he drove in the car with Atty Baek. He knew of him because Atty Baek was working for him.

Pwahahahaha. It would be absolutely funny for the YeoWool-Da-Il fanclub if there was a another mystery romance (as invisible as a ghost) hidden all along…. 

Also in Episode 5, Atty Baek looked disappointed when he didn’t show up to pick up the info packet she prepared. She expected him to come himself because she emailed him to get it himself.

Meanwhile, he was looking intently at her.

His eyes didn’t wander away from her face for one second.

I liked the haughty way she told YeoWool that if Da-Il ever felt like she had invaded his privacy, he could go ahead and sue her. She was challenging him, of course. She was defiant that he had called out for stalking him for five years when he did the same to her. hahaha.

He had to butt in and asked, “Then why did she help me with this?”

To me, this question was loaded. The sense I’m getting here is that he was judging her because she took on only high-profile clients and winnable cases (she admitted to this). He was judging her because she’d changed.

Five years ago, she took on his case when he was a mere soldier — and a whistleblower at that. And five years ago, she took on a risky case and lost their court challenge to have Da-Il reinstated. But she changed since then.

That’s why he asked her for her motives now. This was a personal question that he posed a bit feelingly, with more emotions than necessary. To me, he looked too keen to hear her response.

In contrast, her answer was said too coolly, “Because of old ties.”

But what old ties?  Their lawsuit?

Five years ago, he unequivocally told her “I hope we’ll never have to meet again” when he walked away.

If I were her, I would have considered all ties broken that day.  But then, I’m a certified bitch.