Although the title of this episode suggests one unsent letter, I believe more than one letter was unsendable.

Let me see now.

1. There’s that letter from the high school girl.

DongJoo: Is there nothing you want to ask me?
Girl: I’m fine. Everything’s fine. But there’s one thing I regret. Sixteen.
DongJoo: What?
Girl: That’s the locker of the guy I like. TaeHyung’s locker number.

Girl: (voiceover) My locker number is 52. There should be a letter inside. Can you put that in Oppa’s locker?

Here’s what she wrote to him:

Hello, TaeHyung oppa.
I don’t know if you were surprised by the sudden letter
from someone you don’t even know.
My name is Park Seorin, a freshman in class 2.
Even if I introduce myself, of course, you wouldn’t know.
Does Grass doll sound familiar to you?

I think it was from that day.
Your happy face. Watching your daily life became everything to me.
Just watching you gave me strength.
Thank you.
And I don’t know if this letter can be delivered.
Well, I don’t have that kind of courage.
I don’t know if I can dare to have feelings.
I liked you. A lot.
Right, I’m moving to the US. A new drug has been developed there.
Well, I’m going to get treatment and go to college in the US.
It’ll be difficult to see you again, but I will always support you.
I will never forget you.

The girl wrote her name on the envelope “Love Park Seorin”.

The girl explains to DongJoo why she never sent the letter. It’s because the guy was popular and had lots of friends. According to her, there’s no way he would have liked her because she was sick, had no friends, and wasn’t pretty.

Then, she beams at herself in the mirror.

Girl: Well, now I’m pretty. But now that I died, I do regret it. My feelings are more important. Who cares if he pities me? And who cares if he doesn’t like me? I should’ve told him the truth. I should’ve told him. Ugh. I figured out that too late. I shouldn’t have hidden my feelings.

After this surreal conversation with the deceased girl, DongJoo goes to the school to fulfill her request. She finds the letter in the locker just as the girl said. As she moves away, she spots an envelope on the floor. It fell from the girl’s locker when she opened the door.

It’s marked, “To Seorin”.

DongJoo realizes that two letters missed their recipients. To me, the difference between the two letters is that one is unsendable because the Seorin is already deceased while the other one can still reach TaeHyung.

2. TaeHyung’s letter

DongJoo leaves Seorin’s letter in TaeHyung’s locker #16,

and leaves TaeHyung’s letter at Seorin’s altar at the funeral.

Question: Who do you think had it worse? Seorin for not knowing that her TaeHyung also liked her or Taehyung for not knowing that Seorin was already dead?

My Comments:

a. To me, TaeHyung’s letter is the letter that doesn’t get sent. It’s unsendable now because Seorin already passed away. Nobody will know what’s written in it.

While TaeHyung’s letter would have undoubtedly comforted Seorin, she wasn’t expecting reciprocity. It was enough for her that she expressed her feelings for him and thanked him for being there.

c. Seorin’s letter to her Oppa actually gets sent. It reaches him, albeit after her death, because of DongJoo’s assistance.

If her death had been kept secret from their high school and nobody knew that that they became acquainted with each other, then it’s possible that TaeHyung will continue to believe for the rest of his life that she’s alive and thriving somewhere in the US. How sad is that?

d. The biggest life lesson that DongJoo takes away from this death experience is to live without regrets. This reminds me of the Umbrella Grandma’s advice to her to “live her life loving,” that is to live loving someone, loving herself, and loving life in general.

3. DongJoo’s letter

Coming home from Seorin’s funeral, DongJoo composes the letter in her head to give to Taehee.

It goes like this:

I realized it then.
We met in a strange way.

You probably thought I was weird.

When I knew it was just a misunderstanding,

I thought you would just pity me.

Hearing that,

I wanted to be by your side.

Your first love, who seemed to remain in your heart, made me hesitate.

No. I couldn’t be honest.
“He wouldn’t like me.” “He probably likes someone else.”
My mind made so many excuses.
That’s right. I wasn’t the most honest with myself.
If it’s not too late…

My Comments:

a. DongJoo’s letter is essentially a repeat of Seorin’s letter.

It begins by reminiscing about their first meeting — I agree that their meet-cute is hilarious. They were breaking up with each other when they hardly knew each other. lol.

Then her letter talks about receiving strength and support from him. It mentions the barriers to confessing their feelings. Seorin wasn’t courageous enough because she wasn’t pretty and had leukemia, while DongJoo hesitated because his first love — who was an admirable doctor — reappeared. Both girls underrated themselves.

b. DongJoo learns from Seorin’s regret. She learns to value her feelings for him more than her fear of rejection.

Like Seorin.

Seorin didn’t know that her words changed DongJoo’s outlook. Previously, DongJoo hesitated to tell TaeHee anything because she felt that she was intruding in his and ChungHa’s relationship.

That’s the reason she lectured her friend Sora to stop chasing after the Director. She and Sora were in the same boat.

She told Sora that the Director dated his ex-girlfriend for a long time (like TaeHee), and that his first love is back (like TaeHee). She begged Sora to leave the Director alone because he was having a hard time (like TaeHee).

DongJoo: It’s not where you belong.
Sora: What’s wrong with you? Why are you so angry?

DongJoo realized that she was projecting her fears onto Sora.

DongJoo: Don’t do something that will hurt you. Do you think our team leader will like you? No never. They’re deeply involved with each other. So don’t do anything useless.

She was scolding both Sora and herself.

c. Although DongJoo’s letter is not in written form, her letter is sent and received by the intended recipient. She tells TaeHee how she feels about him.

4. TaeHee’s letter to his brother

His letter is unsendable, too, because JongHo is dead.

But if he could write a letter to his younger brother, I think this is what he would have told him:

Only if…
I hadn’t left in a hurry that day…
Only if I hadn’t made that promise…
Only if I had answered his last phone call.
I’m sorry.
Everything is my fault.

It’s short letter but it’s full of regrets too and self-recrimination.

TaeHee: It was already late when I had arrived. There was nothing I could have done. I miss you I just wish I want to see him just one.
DongJoo: If you meet your brother, want do you want to tell him the most?
TaeHee: That I’m sorry. That everything is my fault. He probably resents me a lot.
DongJoo: After I started this job, there was only one time I met a kid.
TaeHee: You met a kid before?
DongJoo: Yes.

Flashback to that time she met JungHo and Jungho wanted out of the room because he had to deliver something to Bongsu Market.

Side note: In the previous open thread, there was a discussion on TaeHee’s flashback. It was unclear whether the flashback we were watching was only running in TaeHee’s mind or being told explicitly to Dongjoo.

If you ask me, I think the flashback is intended for the viewers only. TaeHee was NOT actually filling DongJoo in on the details of the night Jungho died. TaeHee was only telling her the gist of the situation. You see, DongJoo still doesn’t know that a ring was involved, and that TaeHee arranged to meet JongHo at the Bonsu market.

If she had known the whole backstory, she would have connected the dots together,  and figured out that the ring she had in her safekeeping actually belonged to TaeHee, and was intended for ChungHa.

To continue…

DongJoo: He was a worried child. He worried for other more than himself. He was that kind of a kid.
TaeHee: (sigh)
DongJoo: I didn’t know then but now that I think about it, it hurts more. Like that child, I’m sure your brother won’t resent you. Because it’s not your fault. Don’t blame yourself.
TaeHee: If you were there. If you were there besides me, it would’ve been better.

Huh?! What does he mean? He had a girlfriend back then. He was going to propose to ChungHa that evening. Did he forget? Or was he saying that she gave him zero emotional support that night?

TaeHee: Thank you… for being next to me now.

5. Joseph’s miscommunication

DongJoo and Taehee wanted to extend their camping. They thought they could easily convince Joseph to agree to stay another night.

Taehee: Joseph, should we stay another night? Didn’t you say you want to see the stars more?
DongJoo: You did? Should we?
TaeHee: We can fish and swim too. And we have so much food left.
DongJoo: That’s right.
Joseph: No. I have to go see my mom.

When Joseph’s mom arrived to pick him up, they learned the reason he wanted to go home early. Joseph didn’t want his mom to feel scared or lonely without him.

Joseph: Mom, weren’t you scared?
Mom: Why would I be?
Joseph: Because you were alone at night.
TaeHee: Joseph cares for you a lot.
Mom: You do? I wasn’t scared at all.
Joseph: (looking dejected) Is that so? Then, I should’ve called you. DongJoo and TaeHee wanted to stay for another night. They begged.

In this case, we learn the importance of staying in touch, either by letter, texting or calling. Joseph assumed his mother would miss him, so he hurried to get home. But if he had called his mother up or texted her (like DongJoo and TaeHee did to ask permission to extract his loose tooth), he could have enjoyed another day at camping.

He assumed that he was doing the right thing for her by coming home quickly, and he regretted not communicating with his mother to find out.

6. TaeHee’s missing communication with ChungHa

Of all the letters in this episode – be it the written or verbalized form, the real or abstract kind – the most pressing letter that needs to be sent is the one TaeHee refuses to write to ChungHa.

As much as ChungHa is a needy, stalkerish, obsessive, desperate, (put your worst adjective here) ex-girlfriend, the fact still remains that he ghosted her.

Considering that:

a) they dated for 10 years without problems,
b) he knew and accepted her issues arising from her relationship with Mommy Dearest,
c) he loved her enough to propose and start a family with her,

his sudden and inexplicable termination of all contact with her, i.e., ghosting, reeks of emotional abuse.

TaeHee: It’s over between us. It’s over.
ChungHa: No. How can we just end it? We dated for 10 years. Your smell, your behavior, your way of speaking, your habit…I didn’t forget any of it. Have you already forgotten? Is it that easy for you to end it?
TaeHee: (sighing)

I get that ChungHa-haters revile her for not knowing when to let go. But they don’t get this…

ChungHa: Do you still hate me that much? Can’t you forgive me?

There. That’s the problem of ghosting someone. Since TaeHee simply ran away from her without giving her a plausible reason for their break-up, she blames herself for the break-up and can’t move forward. For someone with parental issues like ChungHa, being ghosted by someone she trusted for 10 years would make her question herself.

“Was I at fault?”
“Did I do something wrong?”
“Could I have done something better?”

ChungHa is naturally obsessing about the break-up because she doesn’t understand his reason for suddenly rejecting her when they were together happily for 10 years.

TaeHee: No. It’s not a matter of forgiving or hating. You did your job as a doctor. I would’ve done the same if I were you. So there’s no need for you to feel any guilt or be sorry. It’s my problem.
ChungHa: “It’s my problem…” What is your problem exactly?
TaeHee: (silent)
ChungHa: What else don’t I know?
TaeHee: (silent)
ChungHa: If it’s not my fault, we don’t need to break up.
TaeHee: (walks away)
ChungHa: (back-hugging him) I’ll wait until you’re okay. No matter how long it takes. I’ll wait.

Sigh. If TaeHee wasn’t in love with somebody new, then yeah…go for it, girl. Knock yourself out. Waste more time on him. But the problem is, he’s found another girl to love while he was learning to get groove back.

Hence, the closure is very important. He should have told ChungHa a long time ago exactly why he broke up with her. If he couldn’t do it to her face, then write a letter.

When there’s a clear demarcation between the time he lost all feelings for her and found love again with DongJoo, ChungHa won’t view DongJoo as the interloper and usurper of TaeHee.

TaeHee: Don’t wait for me. (unclasping her hands) I’m never coming back.
ChungHa: Just because we’re over, doesn’t mean it never happened.

She has a point there. This reminds me of what he told DongJoo earlier. He said, “If you were there beside me, it would’ve been better.”

I questioned whether he blocked out that he did have somebody beside him during those hard times: ChungHa.

To me, this scene says a lot more about TaeHee’s character than the ChungHa’s. I know that ChungHa is the second female lead so I accepted that she has warts and all. But TaeHee is the male lead. This scene makes me question if he’s mature enough and good enough to be a life partner. It makes me wonder whether he would do the same to DongJoo and ghost her too should things fall apart for him again.

But one good thing from TaeHee is that he recognizes that he’s done ChungHa wrong. After he escapes from her, he hides in the office. His Uncle Vincent finds him there.

TaeHee: Why do I make people so pitiful? Why do I make a sad person more sad?

There. He knows that he’s done ChungHa wrong.

Uncle: What about you? Aren’t you sad too?
TaeHee: Why would I be?
Uncle: Ya. Keeping your mouth shut doesn’t mean it’s wise.

Note: this is the second time in two episodes that Vincent asked him to come clean with his reason for the breakup. Remember the macaron session in the van? He told TaeHee then that ChungHa wasn’t healing, despite the passage of time, because she couldn’t make sense for their breakup.

Uncle: ChungHa doesn’t know yet, does she? That it happened when JungHo was going out with the ring that day. Just go and tell ChungHa. Seeing ChungHa coming home like that…
TaeHee: But that’s my fault.
Uncle: (speechless)
TaeHee: I don’t want to blame ChungHa.
Uncle: (sighing)

Seriously, what’s the difference? His lame “It’s my problem” excuse is inflicting the same emotional damage on ChungHa that he might as well have blamed her everything. Either way, he was hurting her.

TaeHee: I feel sorry for you the most. You live like you’re trapped somewhere. I feel the most pity for you keeping everything inside.

Pffft. I feel that this writer has dragged this “guilty conscience” for far too long.

So here’s a pen and a paper, TaeHee. Just write down your overdue explanation to ChungHa and be done with this.

8. Last, the text that TaeHee can’t send 

And because TaeHee can’t tell ChungHa the truth, he now feels guilty about replying DongJoo’s texts that night.

DongJoo: Let’s have dinner next time. You don’t have to worry about me. Good night.
TaeHee: (typing) Good night.

Then he erases it.

Good grief! He makes everything so complicated.