lol. Even tennis balls have meaning, don’t you know?

Tennis is a two-player game. Kyung has always been always looking for a partner. The manhwa writer gave him Haru as a tennis partner after Haru came back from the “dead” and lost his memories, just like the writer gave him Haru as his guard in the first manhwa, “The Flower.”

But his real partner should have been his younger brother. From the start, the younger brother had been there. In the Flower manhwa, the younger brother was concerned when Kyung’s minister/father began scheming Kyung’s power-grab. But he stayed in the sidelines, afraid to change his stage.

In “Secret,” the younger brother also didn’t want anything changed. He thought if he let things be, Kyung would eventually find happiness with DanOh and end his loneliness. He wasn’t concerned that DanOh was unhappy with that setup as long as Kyung would have somebody finally at his side.

Because he knew that his brother had always been lonely. Lonely BY CHOICE, mind you. He rejected the opportunities which people threw at him to become close to him.

The younger brother didn’t realize that Kyung wasn’t looking for love so much as he was looking for companionship. Anybody would have done for Kyung: Haru, his tennis partner; DanOh, his childhood friend; the A3 guys; and even him, the younger brother.

Thanks to Haru’s *heroic* example, however, (lol), his brother decided to step up for the job and be at Kyung’s side.

He missed out on helping Kyung deal with his loneliness because he’d been afraid to a) break down Kyung’s wall of hostility for him and his mother, and b) go against the manhwa’s setup. He accepted both Kyung’s animosity and the writer’s intention as inevitable and irreversible. But when he saw Haru’s perseverance in changing DanOh’s fate and his bravery in accepting the consequence of his actions, i.e., death/disappearance, he realized that he too could successfully change his and Kyung’s fates if he willed it.

Ep 31 25:12
Bro: You’re getting punished for changing my brother’s change. Your name disappeared. You’re an extra that interrupted the stage.
Haru: I know.
Bro: Aren’t you scared? I think it would be really scary.
Haru: It’s scary. I get scared whenever I think about how much time I will have left. I’m afraid.

Note: this is another concept of Heidegger’s “Being and Time.” I said this when I was discussing the ending of Hotel del Luna. I’ll borrow my notes from HdL…

Heidegger said that we exist in space or spatially because we have a body. For example, I’ll dig my bony elbow into your tummy, and it’ll hurt you because my elbow is in your space. 😈

And we also exist in time or temporally because we have thoughts, awareness, consciousness, memories, and hopes. For example, I wake up in the morning, I know I’m not a stone. I’ve a husband to hug, a full day’s work ahead, coffee to drink, people to defend, and a kdrama to watch that night. I remember all these details about me before I get out of bed because I exist as a person with a past, present and future. 🙂

Since we exist in time, we’re very much conscious of our finite time, of our deaths. With this certainty of death in the unseen future, we begin to FEAR a lot of things, like missing people, saying goodbyes, being lonely, and squandering opportunities.

When Haru says he’s very scared, he means his FEAR of leaving DanOh behind. He didn’t want to be without her.

You see, hand-in-hand with this discovery of FEAR is learning how to CARE for someone. Fear and care are almost like two sides of the same coin. If you want to know what you care about the most in this world, look for what you fear losing the most.

Haru: (continuing) However, I get better whenever I think of DanOh. Since the time I spend with her will be forever. The heart that DanOh gave me may stop after the story or when I’m gone. But it won’t disappear.

Again this is a Heideggerian concept. He realized that their love exists BEYOND the usual human notion of time as seconds, minutes, hours, days, years. Love transcends time. Their love is timeless.

Bro: Don’t you regret it?
Haru: Not at all. I’ve never regretted it.
Bro: I thought that since the writer created this world, we have no choice in what we do. I believed that it was my destiny based on how I was drawn. However, you decided your destiny and changed it. I envy your courage. You turned what happened in the shadows happen in the stage.

Bro: (continuing) DanOh probably regained her memory because you tried changing the destiny that the writer assigned us whether it was in “Chinese Trumpet Vine” or “Secret.” I want to make a decision, too. I want to be by my brother’s side until the very last scene the writer draw. I sincerely hope that you can be with someone special to you in your last scene, too.

Also, if people have been paying attention, in Ep 12, at 16:13, a tennis ball dropped out of nowhere and rolled at the younger brother’s foot after Kyung told him off for pretending to care about being brothers.

Because of Haru, the younger brother realized that he could effect change and make a difference in his own Hyung’s life.

****

Okay, I’ll more on Extra-Ordinary You later. I’ve VIP people to pick up from airport. My in-laws!!

****

Wait, I can’t leave without this…

You do realize that the final moment of DanOh and Haru at the stairs refers to Heidegger’s “Being and Time,” too, right?

They were escaping the void or blackout of the manhwa. Heidegger would call this “Das Nichts” or the “nothing” that eats up our existence, our being. In the drama, it was a literal “nothingness.”

Lights out in the library!

And then, in the hallway. This was a visual “Das Nichts.” lol.

Haru: DanOh. I wasn’t able to protect you then, but it’s a relief that I was able to change your destiny. I’m sorry for not being able to be with you until the very last scene.

He smiled at her tearfully. The “Das Nichts” approached them, extinguishing the lights one by one.

Haru: DanOh. Don’t cry. Today’s been the happiest day for me. Since my beginning and ending was you.

Haru: Call my name. (she shook head). DanOh. My name.

DanOh: Haru. Haru-ya.
Haru: DanOh.

I like that she called him “Haru” first. She gave him this name because she CHOSE him to be the one to change her fate, step by step, little by little, day by day.

But I also like that she called him the more affectionate term, “Haru-ya.” This was her name for him, too.

Remember that poem, “Flower” by Kim Chunsu that I explained earlier? I said that to call each other’s name is a personal and intimate act, in the sense that they EXIST in that world for each other. They’re not nameless, unfamiliar, unknown strangers. Look: whenever DanOh called him by name (as opposed to “Hey, you!” or “Yah!”), he couldn’t help but to turn around and look back at her.

To me, Haru wanted to hear her calling his name, at this moment when he disappeared, because he wanted HER to be the last thing on his mind. He wanted their names to be final words when he ceased to exist. That way, when he woke up again in another time and world, he would hopefully, remember them at first instance.  He would like that the first thought in his consciousness was a) his name is Haru, and b) he’s looking for DanOh.

I know some people might like to poke fun at Haru because of simplicity. He’s end-all and be-all is nothing (hahaha) but DanOh.

But that’s the point here…the philosophical and metaphysical point. Heidegger’s musings, for all his arcane language and unusual digressions, were very simple. The writer of this kdrama is unabashed about drumming this message in the viewers’ head until hopefully, it’s ingrained.

First, she’s HIS existence. He told her, “Today’s been the happiest day for me since my beginning and ending was you.”

Second, he’s HER Haru. Her day. “Haru. Haru-ya.”

And that’s what Heidegger’s book was all about. That’s the title, in fact. Existence (meaning DanOh) and Time (meaning Haru) are merged and blended.

That’s the meaning they’ve created for themselves. As the philosophy teacher said, the world might have been created against their will. They’re thrown in setups and circumstances that they did NOT agree to, like DanOh’s heart condition and 10-year unrequited love, and Haru’s nameless #13.

But people can create their own meanings and their “authentic selves” (as Heidegger would say),  with the relationships they CHOOSE to make on their own. Like Haru and DanOh.