Knowing me, I’d love to break down ShinYu’s wordplay and show the Love Spell in action. But for now, let me focus on the things that may not get attention. If I have time later, I’ll work on transcribing the dialogue. But if not, this write-up will have to suffice.

1. Coworkers Ms. Ma and Mr. Gong (Yoo)

I think they’re the other couple fated to be together.

Ms. Ma is divorcing her husband of 20 years, Park Juwon, after he was caught cheating with a “stunning golfer 20 years younger.” He’d been cheating for two years before he was outted by the media.

Concerned about his boss, Mr. Gong texted to see how she was doing. He asked her to respond even with a simple period.

I googled the meaning of a period in text since I’m a boomer. Apparently, in text language, a period is not just a punctuation mark. It also telegraphs a world of meaning, like “I’m still here,” “I’m okay, but I don’t want to talk about it,” and “That’s all. End of story.” That’s what Mr. Gong wanted to hear from Ms. Ma. He wanted to know that she was fine going through the shock of husband’s affair and consequent demise of her marriage.

It was rather telling then that the first thing Ms. Ma did upon seeing Mr. Gong was to poke his head with a finger. She made light of his concern for her.

Ma: You said to reply with a period. That was a period.

This indicated to me two things. One, there’s an the imbalance in their relationship. Not only is Ms. Ma his supervisor, he also has unrequited feelings for her all these years. And two, HongJu has nothing to worry about Mr. Gong drinking her Love Spell potion. Mr. Gong’s attachment is solidly for Ms Ma.

Gong: (bleating) Why are you replying only now?
Ma: I turned on my phone today to come to work. Your texts were funny. Why? You wanted to check if I was dead or alive? But you were scared, right?
Gong: Of course. Everyone knows about the affair and divorce. He shouldn’t have pretended to be so loving on TV. The whole nation knows you, and your phone was off.
Ma: I won’t die. See? I came back alive. (walking away)
Gong: Wait for me.

Lol. Mr. Gong sounded like ShinYu asking not to be left behind.

Then, in episode 4, she found out that he’d been working overtime gathering all the hate mails directed at Ms. Ma. She didn’t want to sue them, however. Instead of being grateful, she scolded him for doing something useless.

Ma: Leave them be. Why do you care about me?
Gong: Am I a stranger to you?
Ma: You are! Even my husband who I lived with for 20 years is a stranger to me.

Awww. She thought she knew everything about her husband, but his infidelity caught her by surprise. Then, after the divorce, they must move forward as if they never knew each other.

Ma: (continuing) You’re nothing to me.
Gong: I’ve been your colleague for 21 years. Am I still nothing?
Ma: Yes.

Mr. Gong is so upset that he’s at a loss for words. He leaves in a huff but then his sole of his shoe falls off.

Now, why is this image so pitiful? For me, a few reasons:

a. When somebody storms off, he’s usually stomping his feet in anger. Mr. Gong couldn’t do that with a broken shoe.

b. His broken shoe is a metaphor for his relationship with Ms. Ma. She hardly notices him because he’s a serviceable working shoe…until he breaks down.

c. It’s a reverse Cinderella scene. Cinderella left a glamorous glass slipper behind, and Prince Charming went in search of her with the shoe to profess love. In this scene, Mr. Gong left a sole behind, but Ms. Ma was no Princess Charming who’d chase after him and offer him a happily-ever-after.

That’s why I have my eye on this couple. Although they only have a few minutes of screentime, they captured my pathos.

2. Mr. Kwon Jae Kyung (JK)

Is he the Mayor’s top adviser? Well, if he’s ambitious enough, he should go after the Mayor’s daughter/Shinyu’s girlfriend, NaYeon.

Anyway, JK’s relationship with his dad is more unstable than ShinYu’s. I’m assuming it was his dad on the phone because he had received a text his dad. His dad threatened to go to City Hall if he didn’t pick up the phone.

JK: We have nothing more to talk about. I gave you my house deposit. That was my final present for you. No. I can’t do this longer. I’m going to change my number.

I guess he couldn’t buy his own house and had to rent instead he gave his money to his dad.

His self-confession to HongJu makes sense when we have the background info on his family.

JK: You got fooled by the prejudice that those who like animals are always good people. But you know what? Animals are abandoned by those who like animals as well. I often wish…(pausing) that I didn’t have a family. I’m kind to abandoned dogs, but I’m very cold to my family. I may look fine on the outside, but I’m not on the inside.

My comments:

a. One of my favorite quotes from Maya Angelou is applicable here. “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” In this instance, JK was disclosing to HongJu his true colors/true nature. While it can be argued that his intention is honorable so he must be a good guy, it’s also possible that he warned her about himself so she wouldn’t blame him in the future if he did end up treating her abominably.

b. That’s the difference between JK’s and ShinYu’s family relationships. Though ShinYu gave the impression that he was cold to his parents, the guessing game with his parents on the acrostic showed that he actually tolerated their weirdness, and their marital squabbles. ShinYu shows more patience with his parents than JK with his dad. I also like the way he understands and indulges his mom’s silliness. This augurs well for his relationship with HongJu because she’s an odd bird, too.

c. There’s also a difference between JK’s and HongJu’s regard for HongJu. He can’t stand his father that he cuts off ties with him. HongJu misses her father and wishes he were alive by her side.

d. I agree with ShinYu’s assessment that JK likes HongJu on his own free will.

3. ShinYu’s dreams

I’m keeping track of his dreams of the past. He had two in this episode. He had the first one on the night he drank a lot of water to dilute and urinate the Love Spell in his body. In his dream, there was a young lord who was sobbing until the girl arrived. This time the girl’s face became visible.

The second time was after he and his ex-colleague were talking about the acrostic in the bar. His dream replayed the moment when a young boy helped the littler girl pluck the berries from low-lying branches of the tree.

During this second dream, he was already aware that this little girl was HongJu in a previous lifetime.

My comments:

a. It’s noteworthy that his dreams are becoming clearer as he spends more time with HongJoo.

b. By the second dream, he realizes that he has a preordained fate with HongJu.

c. My gripe still stands. How come ShinYu is the only one who remembers their past life, and not HongJu, too? Guilt? Remorse? Because he killed her as the shaman said, he killed her?

4. ShinYu’s fear

After his dream, he stakes out HongJu’s place to demand once and for all that the Love Spell be broken.

A sidenote: I like this aerial shot. One, because of the diagonal lines, it projects uneasiness. And two, it tells me that the couple is about to reach a crossroad or a critical point.

HJ: What brings you here in the morning?
SY: You came to me last night. Appearing in my dream every night is very rude.
HJ: Timothee Chalamet appears in my dreams. Should I DM him “You’re rude” then?
SY: Don’t joke around. I’m dead serious. A personal issue came up. I must break the spell. If not, I might end up becoming an asshole who dates others while I care about you.

Huh? What does he mean by “care about YOU”?

At first, I thought that his statement was either a mistranslation or the Love Spell doing its mind trick on him. To me, he should have been worried that he might be portrayed as cheating on NaYeong with HongJu when he clearly still cared about NaYeong.

But upon review, I now think he didn’t misspeak. From his dreams, he realized that he was fated to care for HongJu, but he ended up dating others like NaYeong. He wants the Love Spell broken asap because he was worried.

As he confessed to the Shaman, he was worried that he might actually end up liking HongJu.

SY: I don’t want to feel butterflies around that woman outside, but I do. I don’t want to do this. But I can’t control my body. And maybe even my mind. Anyway, this is urgent. Teach me how to break the spell.
Shaman: I don’t know that either. I’m not the owner of the wooden box.
SY: The woman you said was the owner of the wooden box doesn’t know either.
Shaman: Is that so? Then it can’t be helped.
SY: That’s a relief. I don’t want to break the spell at all.

This is the Love Spell in action. ShinYu is expressing words he doesn’t mean because the Love Spell has taken control of him. But he catches himself saying such absurdity and corrects it.

SY: Look at this. What are you going to do? I have no time. What if I end up really loving her?
Shaman: You have no power in this. Everything is up to her.

And that’s ShinYu’s fear. He didn’t want to be in love or to fall in love with HongJu.

My comments:

a. When he says a “personal issue” came up, he means the realization that he’s “fated” to be with HongJu in the present life because they once met in a previous life.

b. To me, the Love Spell must be broken because it’s running counter to the dictates of fate. Ironically, the use of the Love Spell goes against fate. Think about this: if fate is allowed to naturally run its course, then they’re bound to fall for each other sooner or later. But because the Love Spell was accidentally added to the mix, he’s forced to like her, and he bridles against coercion and lack of free will.

c. His dream and his interpretation of his dream prepare him emotionally for the mysterious acrostic, “YDCBSAI.”

5. Her outfit

I made a big stink in my previous Ep 3 about ShinYu’s choice of shaman’s clothes for her. I said he could have bought her a conservative outfit for the ceremony instead of that bridal-looking dress. After all, the only thing stipulated about her outfit for the ritual was that she wore “neat and white clothes.”

Wellllll…observe her outfit here. She picked this out from her wardrobe for her dad’s memorial.

Her color palette: white, off-white, beige and brown
Her ensemble: a blouse, blazer and skirt
Her outfit material: lacy
Her neckline: not revealing
Her curves: undetectable

That’s what I mean when I said that his dress choice was all wrong. He could have bought her an outfit as frumpy as this one for the Cure Disease Spell. I don’t know what on earth he was thinking when he bought that dress. It would be excusable had he bought the dress after he drank the Love Spell potion, but entirely inexcusable had he bought it before.

6. “YDCBSAI”

Did you wonder how it all suddenly clicked for him while he was sitting on the beach and watching her at the water’s edge? This is MY theory so please don’t waste my time arguing about it, correcting it, or pitting yours against mine.

This is what he sees, and how I interpret it.

a. She pours soju into the sea.

There’s a visual metaphor there. The life of her deceased father is like the trickle of soju. The waves dissolve the soju and take it out into the sea, like death comes for one man and takes it to the afterworld. The soju joins the vast sea, like the soul of her father joins the infinite world of the dead.

b. She sits by the water’s edge; the sun is setting.

There’s another visual metaphor here. If she had been a shaman in the previous life, she would have witnessed this life-death-rebirth cycle many times. She would have been invited to bless these celebrations and memorials. As a shaman, she lived at the edge of life and death.

And now she’s touching the soul of her father in the water.

c. While she dips her hand in the rolling tide, he plays with sand.

This should be easy to decipher. There’s yin-yang in the images. She’s water; he’s sand.

The visual metaphor is also easy to understand. She pours soju into the sea; he scoops up sand then pours it to the beach. If the sea, waves, and soju symbolize the cyclical pattern of life-and-death, then we should know what sand symbolizes.

Do you know what’s used in hourglass, right? Sand.

The motion of his hand (I told you to watch his hand) grabbing sand and sprinkling it back to the beach is a visual metaphor of the passage of time. He’s passing time waiting for her, waiting for the Love Spell to be broken, and waiting for his dreams of his past life to become clearer.

d. The waves continue to come in.

This is another visual metaphor. Like the endless rolling waves, time is infinite. Like tide and time, some things are eternal: life, death, and true love.

e. And she stands up to look at him. Behind her, the sun is setting in the horizon.

That’s when the meaning of “YDCBSAI” sets in, like the sunset.

SY: I found out…the answer.

And I like the contrast in mood. When he was figuring the word puzzle with his parents, the mood in the room seemed goofy to him.

Now, the gravity and enormity of their situation set in, in a decidedly un-frivolous way.

SY: “Your destinies cannot be severed. Accept it.”
HJ: “Your destinies cannot be severed. Accept it.”

Note: she didn’t have to wear a frou-frou white dress to say exchange solemn vows with him.

Same here: he didn’t need to wear formal suit to exchange his vows.

source: numerodix’s tumblr

To me, the composition of this scene with the open sea, obscured sun, and long horizon in the background conveyed the theme of this drama well. She can pour soju into the sea a hundred times; he can pour sand back on the beach by the bucketload. But nothing they do will ever alter what’s eternal and immutable between them.