Naughty KISS

Episode: 8

Ha-ni looks out her window in her room above the noodle shop wistfully. Dad comes up and tells her it’s just a temporary room, while work on the new house is being finished. She puts up a stiff upper lip and heads downstairs, but Duckie and Dad can’t manage to cheer her up.

At Seung-jo’s house, Mom is in a funk over Ha-ni’s departure. Seung-jo tries to convince her to go out, but she doesn’t want to do anything anymore, and nothing makes her laugh. She asks if he’s okay (a little accusingly) and he answers flatly that he finds it peaceful.

Mom: Peace? What is that peace? Is it knowing exactly what to expect? Having everything in the palm of your hand? Isn’t that why you were bored and suffocated before? Isn’t the reason you went to Parang because you disliked that peace?

Duckie gets permission from Dad to take Ha-ni out on a date, in an effort to cheer her up, but she doesn’t answer when he calls. Seung-jo takes out the present he got from Ha-ni before their college exams, and thinks of her.

The next day, Ha-ni announces to her friends that she’s not only left the house, but given up Seung-jo for good. She declares that she’s going to find a really awesome new boyfriend, and says goodbye to Seung-jo in her mind.

They drag her to lunch, saying that she has to face Seung-jo at some point, and sooner is better than later. But everyone stares at them oddly as they walk into the cafeteria. When they walk in, they see why. Duckie has put up an embarrassingly giant banner that declares Bong Joon-gu’s Current Love Mood: “Oh Ha-ni got tired of Baek Seung-jo so she said goodbye!” Okay, worst tweet ever.

The girls fear that Seung-jo will see it and assume the worst, but too late…he’s standing right behind them, and with He-ra at his heels, no less. He-ra further rubs salt in the wound by commenting on the childish ploy to get Seung-jo’s attention, but Ha-ni retorts that she’s forgotten Seung-jo already. He doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t look happy about it.

At Top Spin, Kyung-soo asks Seung-jo to attend their weekend retreat, and when he refuses, he challenges him to a doubles match: Seung-jo and Ha-ni vs. Kyung-soo and He-ra, and if Seung-jo loses, he has to attend the retreat.

Mom finds out that Seung-jo went to a Top Spin meeting, deducing that he must’ve gone to run into Ha-ni. She puts on sunglasses and goes herself, and runs into Min-ah and Ju-ri, who tell her about the ensuing match, and the fact that Seung-jo and Ha-ni kissed the night of graduation.

They lose the match, of course, due to Ha-ni’s inability to, well, play tennis. Kyung-soo rubs it in that it’s Seung-jo’s first loss ever, and challenges him to a rematch at the retreat, with the same partners. To Ha-ni’s horror, Seung-jo accepts, clearly because it’s an excuse to spend time with her, though he wouldn’t admit it.

He trains her, even putting his arms around her to show her how to swing, and she tries hard in her Ha-ni-esque way. He-ra notes to Seung-jo that Ha-ni seems to be working at it quite fervently (in her condescending tone, of course), and Seung-jo smiles as he tells her that Ha-ni is fun, and there’s a “fun in raising her,” because you can see directly that hard work equals results. She admits that it must be a new feeling for him, since he doesn’t have to try to be good at everything. He notes that He-ra is the same way, which is again a nod to the pot-lid metaphor.

Ha-ni packs for her retreat, and Duckie, taking some advice from Dad, chooses not to follow her, and instead packs her a lunch. He tells her to always think of him as “home”—the place where she can come back to, and he’ll always be there. AW. Ten points, Duckie.