Everyone has a past that they’re either trying to forget about and move on from or that they can’t seem to let go of just quite yet. Ha-jin and Jung-hoon find themselves caught in between both ends of this spectrum, but will things turn out differently for them or will things stay this way forever?
Here’s a little something for you to listen to while you read the recap 🙂
Find Me in Your Memory: Episode 3 Recap
Ha-jin and Jung-hoon chat outside on the sidewalk. Jung-hoon remains suspicious of Ha-jin and how similar she is to his first love, Seo-yeon. He questions if she knows someone by that name, but Ha-jin doesn’t. She has no clue as to who this Seo-yeon person is. Jung-hoon then follows up on Ha-jin’s career as a ballet dancer: how long has it been since she’s quit? Ha-jin claims that she stopped dancing ballet during her first year of college due to a motorcycle accident. Eventually, Ha-jin drives Jung-hoon home in his car and gets picked up by Ha-kyung. Responsible Ha-kyung taking care of her sister. I love it.
The next morning, Ha-jin follows up with Ha-kyung about the question Jung-hoon asked her the night before. Who is Jung Seo-yeon? Jung-hoon had asked her, but she’s not sure so she wants to know. Upon hearing the question, Ha-kyung panics. After cooking some ramen noodles for the both of them to eat, Ha-kyung rushes to her bedroom and pulls out a diary that once belonged to Ha-jin and Seo-yeon when they were younger. Back then, their names were Ha Na and Yeong and the two became friends through practicing ballet together as young kids. From that point on all the way to high school, they kept their friendship intact throughout the years. Their long history with each other is documented by photos and a diary that the two best friends once kept. It seems like some things have changed since Seo-yeon’s passing.
Ha-jin makes an appearance on a radio show later on that evening to promote her new movie. Before going on a break during the radio show, the radio host plays a song recommended by Ha-jin called ‘Two People’ sung by Sung Si-kyung. Jung-hoon witnesses Ha-jin on the radio show while passing by and is reminded of another memory with Seo-yeon once ‘Two People’ begins to play. In that memory, Jung-hoon and Seo-yeon are at a restaurant together on another date. Seo-yeon chatters on and on about Ha-jin to Jung-hoon and even sings along to ‘Two People’ which Seo-yeon notes is a song that Ha-jin introduced her to. It’s obvious the two have a strong friendship and Seo-yeon hopes to one day introduce Jung-hoon to her best friend. Although a bit too late, Jung-hoon believes he’s finally met Ha-jin at last.
In the present, Jung-hoon meets with Seo-yeon’s sister at that very same restaurant. He’s curious about Seo-yeon’s friendship with Ha-jin and their history with each other. Seo-yeon’s sister starts off by pointing out that the two had nicknames for each other: Seo-yeon was known as Yeong and Ha-jin was Hana. Jung-hoon recalls this conversation with Seo-yeon’s sister once he witnesses Ha-jin at the radio show. Ha-jin eventually notices him outside the studio, but before she can flag him down, he disappears.
Once Ha-jin finishes the radio show, she expresses interest in visiting Jung-hoon at the newsroom. She’s already at the building anyways. However, Ha-kyung refuses her idea and the two bicker with each other. Along the way, they encounter Reporter Il-kwon who’s seen walking in the lobby of the building. When asked on the whereabouts of Jung-hoon, Il-kwon notes that he went out.
Instead of in the newsroom, Jung-hoon is with Tae-eun. He’s aware that Tae-eun knows about the history between Seo-yeon and Ha-jin so he wants to know more information about their complicated relationship with each other. Why doesn’t Ha-jin remember Seo-yeon even though they were best friends? Tae-eun eventually gives in and reveals all to Jung-hoon. Months after Seo-yeon’s death, Ha-jin was admitted as Tae-eun’s patient. He notes that she had a very difficult time processing Seo-yeon’s passing just like how Jung-hoon did. Their behaviors and attitudes were similar to each other which is why Tae-eun never gave up on Ha-jin despite finding out some stuff about her. Eventually, Ha-jin started to show improvement and she began to want to do things. For the first time in months, she wanted to sleep. But as Tae-eun would eventually find out, Ha-jin overdosed on sleeping pills that was prescribed by Tae-eun and fell unconscious for days. By the time Ha-jin woke back up, she was different. All her memories of Seo-yeon had vanished because it was the only way that Ha-jin could cope with Seo-yeon’s death. All of Ha-jin’s memories of Seo-yeon disappeared, but that was the only way for Ha-jin to be happy and bright. Tae-eun eventually shows one lasting photo of Ha-jin and Seo-yeon together to Jung-hoon. The photo remains as the only one showing the two together; everything else was deleted so as to help Ha-jin move forward with her new life.
Ha-kyung catches Ha-jin attempting to drink some alcohol late that night as a way to relieve her stress. Determined, Ha-jin is dragged out by Ha-kyung to a hiking trail in hopes that she will get tired out by the end of the trip. While taking a break at the peak of the trail, the two sisters have a thoughtful conversation about Ha-jin’s career as an actress. Ha-jin enjoys being an actress and doesn’t find it tough; she likes how the various roles she plays makes up for the memories that she’s lost over the years. Since she can also be forgetful sometimes, she enjoys taking lots of photos as well as looking at photos of herself. After the conversation, the two sisters grab some street food before heading back home. Ha-jin is tired from the short physical activity, but she also clearly enjoyed it. Among the street food that they ate, Ha-jin wishes they could have had some sausages just like how they used to do at the Han River back then. Of course, Ha-kyung avoids the topic and forces Ha-jin to go back to sleep. It was Seo-yeon who Ha-jin would eat sausages with at the Han River, not Ha-kyung. Ha-kyung is then reminded of the night they attended Seo-yeon’s funeral shortly after her death. Ha-kyung couldn’t bring herself to bid farewell to her best friend due to the immense amount of guilt she felt.
Ha-jin holds a press conference with the director of her new movie, Director Ji Hyun-keun (Jo Il-joo) and her co-star. When asked about Jung-hoon and what specifically about him Ha-jin likes, Ha-jin lists a bunch of different traits and reasons as to why she fell for him (“best of all, he is very sexy when he criticizes others!” lol!). As Ha-jin and Ha-kyung will eventually find out by CEO Park after the conference, Ha-jin’s movie is actually succeeding! It’s the most popular one out of all the movies premiering and it seems like the movie will be out for more than two weeks. This causes to ponder if she should change her fake relationship with Jung-hoon from two weeks to two months based on CEO Park’s update.
Speaking of Jung-hoon, he heads into the newsroom for another day of work. Of course, his relationship with Ha-jin is the talk of the town and Technical Director Kim teases Jung-hoon about it before the live broadcasting. Fed up, Jung-hoon heads outside to give Tae-eun a phone call since he’s bothered about Ha-jin. What will happen to Ha-jin if she recovers her memories? Tae-eun notes that it’ll be painful for Ha-jin and she might return to like how she was right after Seo-yeon’s death. But then again, there’s also a chance that she might never gain back those memories at all.
Back at home, Ha-jin patiently waits for a phone call back from Jung-hoon who she’s been trying to get in contact with the entire day. She’s not completely interested in him since it hasn’t been that long since they’ve met, but she is intrigued by how he freezes and spaces out at times when with her. It’s in moments like those where she feels the need to stay next to him. That night, minutes for his broadcasting, Jung-hoon finally responds back to Ha-jin and agrees to meet up later on that night after he is finished with work.
Ha-jin gets ready for her ~date~ with Jung-hoon that night. They meet up at a cafe and have a talk about their upcoming plans. But of course, Ha-jin takes a few photos first before settling down to reveal her news to Jung-hoon. She loves taking photos since it helps her remember things especially with her forgetful memory. Eventually, Ha-jin gets to the point and conveys to Jung-hoon her wishes to extend their fake relationship to two months instead of two weeks. Her movie is doing better than expected so she feels like it’d be best to stay together for a little bit longer so as to not ruin any success from the movie. Jung-hoon surprisingly agrees and gives in to Ha-jin’s request.
That’s great news for Ha-jin, but she’s also confused. Jung-hoon seems to be acting suspiciously kind to her. It’s too good to be true. And that’s because it is. Jung-hoon breaks his news to Ha-jin. He believes Ha-jin’s a genuinely good person, but he hopes to never see Ha-jin again after her movie promotions end. Their relationship was never genuine and real to begin with and it won’t make a difference in the end regardless of how long they extend their fake relationship. Ha-jin isn’t happy with Jung-hoon’s announcement and the two bid farewell at the cafe that night in silence. However, things for Ha-jin isn’t done just quite yet. Photos of her are taken by a sasaeng fan as she arrives back at her house late that night. The same sasaeng fan scratches out Jung-hoon’s face in photos that were taken of him with Ha-jin in his car a while back.
My Thoughts:
A sasaeng fan?! I could have never imagined! Just kidding. I knew it was going to happen sooner or later given the scope of Ha-jin’s popularity and how big she is. I wonder if the sasaeng is someone who Ha-jin knows or if it’s just a smaller ploy used to strengthen the relationship between Jung-hoon and Ha-jin. Maybe Jung-hoon will find himself rescuing Ha-jin and saving her from the dangerous sasaeng fan and somehow that will drive them closer to each other? Just throwing some wild ideas out there, but I can’t say I’m too excited about the whole sasaeng situation. I hope it doesn’t drag out for too long or that it actually turns out to be something bigger and more intentional.
I’m pleasantly surprised at how much they gave away in this episode about Ha-jin and Seo-yeon’s friendship with each other. It seems like Ha-jin had something to do with Seo-yeon’s death which explains for the extreme sense of guilt she faced at the funeral as well as to why Tae-eun almost didn’t become Ha-jin’s doctor. It seems like Ha-jin had something to do with Seo-yeon’s passing, but we don’t know just quite yet what she did (if she was involved). All we know so far based on this episode is that the two were extremely close as best friends and had a strong bond with each other. The connection was there since they were young and extended all the way to high school. I’m glad that this episode gave us more insight on their history with each other after what felt like a rather empty second episode; I thought the episode would tease us again with little hints here and there, but we rather found out a lot about Seo-yeon’s involvement in Ha-jin’s life pre-death and that was really interesting to see.
What was also interesting to me was Ha-kyung’s role in all of this. That’s one thing that I really loved about this episode. We got to see more of Ha-kyung’s involvement in all of this and her reaction to something that doesn’t ring any bells for Ha-jin. She panicked when Ha-jin mentioned about Seo-yeon and she even kept some of their belongings hidden away in a box in her bedroom just in case. More than anything, Ha-kyung is afraid that Ha-jin’s memories of Seo-yeon will eventually return because that could potentially lead to Ha-jin returning to a life that isn’t healthy for her. And I can see why Ha-kyung remains so protective of Ha-jin not just as her manager but as a sister. She’s seen her sister go through the worst and she knows her sister has gone through really rough days. She’ll do anything that she can to make sure that her sister never goes back to those dark days or so that she’ll never start to repeat those type of behaviors again. If Ha-jin was to go back to that mentality, who knows how bad it will get next time? Ha-jin tried so hard to forget about Seo-yeon to the point where she was unconscious for days before waking up to forget everything; she finally felt better about her life after erasing specific memories in her mind of Seo-yeon. Once Ha-jin’s memories of Seo-yeon return (in which there is a high possibility of that happening), who’s to say that Ha-jin won’t return to those old, dark, and heavy days?
Photos was a pretty big theme in this episode and I think the drama was intentionally doing that to paint a possible predicament in the future. Though Tae-eun did erase every physical item related to Ha-jin and Seo-yeon’s relationship, he did save one last photo of them together. If Ha-jin was to ever have access to that photo, will her memories of Seo-yeon return? Or is that gap in her memory way too far and wide at this point that she won’t even recognize Seo-yeon’s face? At this point, Ha-jin doesn’t recognize Seo-yeon because she’s only heard her name and hasn’t seen her face, but what will happen if Ha-jin was to see a photo of Seo-yeon? Will things change then?
Jung-hoon and Ha-jin’s relationship didn’t really go anywhere in this episode which wasn’t surprising but was a bit disappointing. I can understand why Jung-hoon would want to stop seeing Ha-jin. They are in a fake relationship, they don’t even know each other that well, and Jung-hoon just isn’t romantically interested in Ha-jin at all. That’s not to blame him or point fingers at him, but that’s just Jung-hoon being honest and I can respect that. He’s never been an outgoing and social person in the first place so it makes sense as to why he wants to end things with Ha-jin. Add this to his knowledge of Ha-jin’s connection to Seo-yeon and I think it adds more fuel to the fire. He doesn’t want things to get more complicated than it already is. No one is aware that Jung-hoon knew and used to date Seo-yeon (at least that’s what I assume because no one’s brought up anything about that just yet) so he just wants to end all ties with Ha-jin before things start to escalate between them. But as we will see in future episodes, Ha-jin and Jung-hoon will only continue to be more involved in each other’s lives, in more ways than they would probably like.
I do love the fact that Ha-jin’s movie was successful which lead to a two month extension instead of the original two week period that they were first aiming for. While it’s gonna get complicated and iffy once everyone finds out about Jung-hoon and Seo-yeon and then Jung-hoon with Ha-jin and then Ha-jin with Seo-yeon, I’m curious as to how Jung-hoon will fall in love with Ha-jin. It’s obvious that she’s a bit more interested in him at this point and may actually be slowly developing feelings for him, but he’s clearly not interested in her. I wonder how he will slowly start to fall for her and when he will be completely fine with being associated with her. Jung-hoon found happiness with Seo-yeon and the two were in a happy relationship with each other based off of what we’ve seen so far. Will Jung-hoon be able to find another type of happiness with Ha-jin or will their complicated and traumatic history catch up to them and ruin those chances?
Extra screenshots from this episode~
MaryMeKpop 