As the Sandglass OST plays for maximum dramatic effect, Jang-mi and Ki-tae fight violently-they scream at the top of their lungs and shove each other around. Jang-mi starts to cower in fear and takes off in a run, and Ki-tae chases after her to yank her back and yell at her some more.
I hate the fake-out cold opens (ones where the actual footage is a lie, not just the interpretation), but in this case, I hope this was an exaggerated one.
Rewind to Hoon-dong and Hyun-hee's wedding day: The couple takes off to a round of cheers, and Ki-tae scans the wedding party still looking for Jang-mi. She doesn't answer his calls because she threw her phone in the river, and she runs around trying to find him, wishing she hadn't been so rash. She starts to cry thinking she's too late.
Yeo-reum is the first to find her, and he thinks back to the other night when Jang-mi presented him with an envelope of money. She tells him to repay Ki-tae's loan with it, which he refuses to do. She's shocked to discover that he's covered in patches and realizes he's been doing manual labor at a construction site to make ends meet, and insists he take the money.
She apologizes for dreaming an impossible dream and hurting everyone around her, including Yeo-reum. He chases after her to give the money back, and they pass it back and forth a zillion times, arguing about who's better off: "At least I have youth!" "Fine, yes, I'm your noona. Listen to your noona." "Noona, do you have that much money?"
He tests her by threatening to rip the envelope in half, and she cries that it's her severance. She tells him she has her own future to worry about, and leaves him standing in the street holding the envelope.
Back in the present he finds her standing in a daze, and she finally comes to and says that she tried to send someone off coolly this time, but ended up making another mess. Yeo-reum says that if she clapped for someone else's happiness, it's time for the two of them to find their own happiness too.
He takes her to a rundown coffee shop and says that he's renovating it. She can be the manager and he'll be the chef-he'll accept the money if it's an investment in his new restaurant. She's naturally skeptical that he can ever make enough to open a restaurant, but he swears he has another investor who agreed to back him after tasting ten different dishes he cooked.
She worries he's being conned and asks what on earth he's trusting to make this happen. He answers simply, "You." He says that she was the person who made him dream in the first place. But she says she's done with dreaming, and congratulates him on finding his dream.
As she walks along on her own, she says to herself, "I think I know now why people are cool in love... Not leaning on anyone, not expecting anything... It's not because you want to be alone, but because life has to be lived on your own. Now that I've woken up from my dream, I see reality in front of me."
She focuses on herself for maybe the first time ever, with a brand new haircut, a new cell phone, and a newfound determination to start over. She takes her resume all over town and meets rejection after rejection from other boutiques and department stores.
Ki-tae's bad mood at being ignored by Jang-mi spills over into his work, and when a plastic surgery addict comes in for a consultation, he gives up trying to explain why she shouldn't get surgery the polite way and tells her to go see a shrink instead to get her brain nipped and tucked. Ha. She threatens to shut him down with her power-blogger prowess, and he throws her out to go try.
When he heads down to the restaurant for lunch, Hoon-dong is back from his honeymoon with a new look courtesy of his new wife, and mutters under his breath that he's been too busy living under her thumb to even call.
Hyun-hee sits down with Ki-tae and notes bitterly that he seems fine after leaving Jang-mi in that state, and he counters that Jang-mi is the one ignoring him. He thinks she changed her number and quit her job to avoid him, but Hyun-hee corrects him-she was fired because of his mall-brawling mother, and her parents are getting a divorce.
