Decisions come with responsibilities, and the repercussions our heroine has to face for letting her secret out of the bag might be more dire than she imagines. Also, more clues about the tragic accident our leads got into as children, which might not be an accident after all.
Picking up where we left off, despite the risk, Ji-eum spills the beans about being Joo-won. Something that gets Cho-won shocked. No matter how similar she thinks Ji-eum is to her late sister, it is hard to believe Ji-eum and Joo-won are the same person.
It might seem absurd to Cho-won, but Ji-eum still remembers all the little details about Cho-won. Be it having three moles behind her neck, getting a scar from a shattered mirror, or going missing in an amusement park on the day she lost her first tooth. A still confused Cho-won visits her parents’ house for verification. Yet when Ji-eum’s words check out, Cho-won gets more puzzled. Is Ji-eum really her late sister, Joo-won?
In her 18th life, Ji-eum promised that even if she died, she would come to see her mother in her next life. Cho-won’s mother never forgot that promise and kept waiting for Joo-won to return, yet no one showed up. Unbeknownst to Cho-won’s mother, Ji-eum kept dropping by the house but couldn’t muster up the courage to approach them and only looked at them from afar.
After pondering on it for a few days, Cho-won reaches a decision. She is still skeptical about it. But she wants to believe that Ji-eum is Joo-won. The two sisters share an emotional hug, and a delighted Cho-won can’t contain her happiness and wants to tell everyone the truth.
But the thing is, Cho-won can’t tell anyone about it, especially Seo-ha. Seeing how Joo-won’s death has affected him, Ji-eum worries he might break down if he learns the truth. But it seems Cho-won isn’t the perfect candidate for a secret holder. A slip of tongue almost gets them caught by Do-yoon. No need to worry, though. Do-yoon doesn’t buy the idea of Ji-eum being Cho-won’s sister in her past life. To him, the theory of Ji-eum fooling Cho-won into thinking she is Joo-won seems more plausible.
We have been getting snippets about Ae-kyung getting sick, but I took it as the terminal illness trope rearing its head. But as it turns out, it is the aftermath of Ji-eum telling other people her secret. Something our new mysterious players, Min-ki and Han-na (Seo-ha’s mother’s reincarnation), are aware of, or at least suspect. Also, it doesn’t seem like a coincidence that Cho-won almost got hurt soon after learning the truth.
While Ji-eum wants to maintain her relationship with Ae-kyung and the people from her 18th life, she wants nothing to do with her current family. If handing over her priceless Goryeo celadon to the loan sharks means she will get rid of Dong-woo forever, she will do it gladly.
Though Ji-eum gets the debt written off, Dong-woo causes another mess. To save his skin earlier, Dong-woo claims his sister is dating the heir to MI Group, Moon Seo-ha, a name that rings a bell for the loan sharks’ boss. How can he forget that name when he almost had a heart attack when the wrong child died instead of Seo-ha? So, it was really a murder attempt and not an accident. Was the evil stepmother behind it? Or are we getting a startling plot twist here?
Thinking he might get a hefty sum of money in return, Dong-woo approaches Seo-ha, claiming to know who caused the car accident. At first, Seo-ha doesn’t believe a word Dong-woo says. It isn’t past Dong-woo to lie for money. But thinking Joo-won might have been murdered, Seo-ha settles to check it himself. Unsurprisingly, the boss (probably the truck’s driver) claims he knows nothing about the accident. But that doesn’t mean Seo-ha will give up.
Worried, Ji-eum follows Seo-ha after spotting him riding a taxi alone. And overhearing the boss talking on the phone, Ji-eum figures everything out. She tries to choke the truth out of the boss, but he remains tight-lipped to the end.
Before he has time to process that recent shocking intel, another bomb drops on Seo-ha. The driver in the car that day was indeed Do-yoon’s father. Something we expected, yet Seo-ha had no clue about till this day. Mad, he heads to confront Do-yoon about it. How can Do-yoon keep him in the dark all those years? Has Do-yoon considered Seo-ha to be his friend, even for a moment? Do-yoon replies with a flat-out “no.”
For probably the first time, the two friends get into a fistfight where they beat each other until they run out of breath and lie on the ground. Waiting for Seo-ha after this long night by his house is a worried Ji-eum. And this time, Seo-ha lets his high walls down and asks Ji-eum to hug him.
Truthfully, I am glad they made Do-yoon’s father the car driver. A sequence with him being the truck driver would be off-putting. Now, everything makes sense, from Do-yoon’s father dying on the same day as Jo-won to the conservative way Do-yoon treats Seo-ha, though I doubt he blames Seo-ha for his father’s death.
As he says later, it isn’t true that Do-yoon never considered Seo-ha to be his friend. Instead, I believe Do-yoon is afraid to show any signs of affection lest Seo-ha’s evil father fires him. He cares about both Seo-ha and Cho-won, but the difference in social classes makes Do-yoon hold his feelings in.
