Hong-jo and Sol-Ah come to terms individually with their feelings for each other. They can’t deny the emotions in their heart and the thoughts in their minds. But what happens when both collides and everything ends up spilling out?
Note: This episode aired during the elections in South Korea so poll results from the elections will appear in the screencaps.
Meow, the Secret Boy: Episode 7 Recap
Sol-Ah finally gives Jae-sun an answer on her stance regarding their relationship: she’s confident in just remaining as friends. She’s going to wait for Hong-jo so that they can meet up and spend time together. Jae-sun walks away after double checking with Sol-Ah on her answer.
“Having someone wonder where you are when you don’t come home at night is what humans needs.” – Margaret Mead
However, Jae-sun returns to Sol-Ah to deliver some bad news to her. After discovering some cans of peaches on the ground as well as Hong-jo’s collar nearby, Jae-sun notices that cat Hong-jo is missing. He updates Sol-Ah and the two separate to find Hong-jo. Both are unsuccessful in finding cat Hong-jo who’s been locked up inside of the house by the same man who was wandering outside Sol-Ah’s house the day before.
Jae-sun and Sol-Ah ensue on a desperate search for cat Hong-jo. They hand out flyers to passerby’s and tape the flyers up around the neighborhood. One spot in particular stands out to them because of its many flyers about missing cats. The pair goes around to ask people questions and come across two people who interacted with the man. They only have good things to say about him since the man is known for feeding and taking care of stray cats. They don’t think anything negative about the man so Sol-Ah and Jae-sun doesn’t either.
Just when all hope seems lost, Jae-sun and Sol-Ah encounter the man themselves while heading home later on that night. Though the man feigns ignorance at first, it doesn’t take too long for him to get caught. He at first manages to escape from the duo by running away to his studio, but Jae-sun and Sol-Ah catch on to him. Inside the studio, Hong-jo transforms into a human being to try to talk the man into letting all the cats go. However, the man resists and attempts to fight with human Hong-jo. Thankfully, Jae-sun and Sol-Ah break into the studio just in time with the landlord’s help. Human Hong-jo transforms into a cat to avoid being discovered by Sol-Ah and the man’s secret is finally revealed to the landlord. Cat Hong-jo stays overnight at the veterinary hospital to be taken care of.
However, Hong-jo escapes the clinic to reunite with Sol-Ah at home that night. Though she should be delighted to see him, she’s not. She’s curious as to where he was this entire time. Why didn’t he show up for her Mom’s death anniversary like how they had planned? Human Hong-jo doesn’t have a specific answer for Sol-Ah and instead, avoids her question. He just couldn’t meet up with her. Sol-Ah grows agitated at Hong-jo’s avoidance of her question. Why did he just disappear from her? Similar to Jae-sun, Hong-jo too acts like a cat. Even though Sol-Ah is upset, she views the situation optimistically. At least Hong-jo is home and not traveling.
The next morning, Hong-jo opens up to Jae-sun about Sol-Ah. He feels guilty for hurting her feelings. After chatting about Sol-Ah for a bit, Hong-jo accompanies Jae-sun to go visit all the other cats that were stolen by the man. Jae-sun plans on returning the cats to their respective owners as well as finding new owners for the stray cats. Hong-jo notices one of the cats and rightfully returns it to little Dae-sung and his grandmother. Aww. While at work, both Doo-sik and Sol-Ah wait anxiously for texts from their crushes — Doo-sik with Ji-eun and Sol-Ah with Hong-jo.
Afraid that Hong-jo has disappeared, Sol-Ah repeatedly calls Jae-sun the entire day to check up on Hong-jo and to make sure he’s still in town. When Jae-sun jokes around that Hong-jo’s disappeared, Sol-Ah leaves work early to check at the cafe. Sure enough, there is no Hong-jo, but Jae-sun does give her something that Hong-jo had purchased for her. Jae-sun presents a can of peaches that Hong-jo bought on the day of Sol-Ah’s Mom’s death anniversary and hands it to Sol-Ah. Jae-sun vowed that he would become Sol-Ah’s friend the moment she found someone else she liked, but he can’t comprehend why it had to be Hong-jo of all people. Jae-sun’s fine with anyone, but him.
Hong-jo wasn’t at Jae-sun’s cafe, because he was actually outside of Sol-Ah’s house waiting for her. Sol-Ah’s face lit up at the sight of Hong-jo. Turns out he didn’t leave at all. They resume with their original plan by eating canned peaches at the river like they were supposed to the other night. They both enjoy the peaches until Hong-jo wipes juice off of Sol-Ah’s lips which she panics about. She quickly uses the excuse of picking up cat Hong-jo from the clinic as a reason to run away, but Hong-jo stops her from going. He claims that he’s already brought the cat home so they both head straight home afterwards. Of course, Hong-jo transforms into a cat just in time before Sol-Ah becomes suspicious. She’s happy to have her cat back.
Sol-Ah has an interesting phone call with Bang-shil that night. Bang-shil brings up the idea of family to Sol-Ah and thanks her for being like a family to her. Plus, it helps that Guk-bong seems comfortable enough around Sol-Ah to stay at home with her instead of traveling like he usually does. As if that wasn’t enough, Dad has returned to writing poems again which Sol-Ah grows paranoid about. That means he’s happy again which she’s not so sure about. She grows conflicted at the thought of having Guk-bong around and being referred to as ‘family’ by Bang-shil.
Doo-sik worries about Ji-eun who he still hasn’t seen for a few days. However, his worries fade away when he stops by his parent’s restaurant for some food and encounter none other than Ji-eun also eating at his parent’s restaurant. Hahaha, reunited at last! He panics upon seeing her at the restaurant and then grows even more confused when he discovers that Ji-eun lives upstairs from them. Ji-eun runs out of the restaurant in embarrassment, but quickly slips money into the restaurant to pay for her food. While doing that, Doo-sik explains about his relationship with Ji-eun to his parents. Doo-sik updates Sol-Ah on his awkward interaction with Ji-eun and assumes she ate at his parent’s restaurant, work at the same company as him, and moved in upstairs because she wanted to be closer to him. However, Sol-Ah proves to him that Doo-sik started working at their company after Ji-eun got the job and she wouldn’t have ran out the restaurant if she knew that it belonged to his parents.
Hong-jo now has a method to staying up as long as possible so he doesn’t fall asleep and become a cat: coffee. LOL. He presents the idea to Sol-Ah who feels uncomfortable with the idea. She enjoys being with Hong-jo, but not to the point where he’s going to stay up with her all night and not fall asleep. So that night, she heads over to Ji-eun’s place to sleep over. Jae-sun isn’t so comfortable with Hong-jo drinking coffee either. Cats shouldn’t drink any coffee. Ji-eun and Sol-Ah have a bonding moment during their sleepover. Sol-Ah has conflicting feelings about Hong-jo and well, Ji-eun still feels embarrassed about the eraser story involving Doo-sik. They both shed tears together that night over what’s going on in their respective lives.
Our two girls show up to work together the next day. CEO Park is glad to see Ji-eun back in the office and reminds her to check in with their clients for work. Along with Doo-sik, our trio resume on working on their project together. They rejoice at what seems to be the final version of their graphic design, but a quick phone call with their client proves otherwise. Doo-sik’s constructive criticism proves to be too much for Ji-eun so she steps out for some fresh air. Once outside, she meets Hong-jo again on the same exact bench they sat on the first time they met. He’s waiting for Sol-Ah who he wants to speak with privately. Ji-eun then shifts her attention to the handful of flyers that are being thrown on the ground by passerby’s. She picks up and collects as many as she can, including the one that Doo-sik was going to throw away. The flyer is valuable to her since she worked on the drawing for it. Doo-sik empathizes with Ji-eun and begins to help her pick up all the other flyers on the ground.
And so our trio is back on working on the project together. It’s Doo-sik’s turn for a break so he steps away for a bit. Once he’s gone, Ji-eun reveals to Sol-Ah who she encountered earlier that day: Hong-jo. Sol-Ah grows shy and embarrassed upon finding out that Hong-jo was waiting for her. After work that night, she meets him near her workplace. However, he disappears just as quickly as he appeared. Although Hong-jo doesn’t say much, he reveals that he plans on going somewhere with someone he likes. Sol-Ah isn’t too happy with the news and can’t help but feel jealous and curious. When she gets home that night, human Hong-jo really is no where to be found. However, all is well when she does spot cat Hong-jo hiding in his bedroom.
With her back turned to Hong-jo, Sol-Ah expresses her disappointment with Hong-jo being Guk-bong. They might possibly become related if Dad moves forward with marrying Bang-shil. If only Hong-jo wasn’t Guk-bong and was anyone else, she would have already confessed her feelings to him and ask him to be her partner. Cat Hong-jo runs away in embarrassment after hearing Sol-Ah’s grand confession and escapes outside. Sol-Ah discovers human Hong-jo sitting on the rooftop of the house so she joins him too.
After sitting in silence for a few seconds, Sol-Ah begins a conversation by asking Hong-jo where he was planning on going earlier that night. Is this the place he mentioned that he was going to be at with the person he liked? Hong-jo’s answer to Sol-Ah’s question finally clicks and it all begins to makes sense for Sol-Ah: she’s the person Hong-jo likes. The rooftop of their house was the destination and well, Sol-Ah was the person who Hong-jo wanted to be with. If that wasn’t enough for Sol-Ah to comprehend and process, Hong-jo reveals another detail to her: he’s not Guk-bong like she thought. His real name is Hong-jo. Sol-Ah is speechless at Hong-jo’s comment, but it doesn’t matter anyways. Hong-jo leans in to give Sol-Ah a kiss on the lips.
My Thoughts:
OMGGGGG WHAT IS GOING ON!!!! GAAAAAH! MY HEART!!
Okay, so first and foremost, what does this mean!? Does this mean Sol-Ah is now aware that cat Hong-jo and human Hong-jo is the same thing or will she simply interpret human Hong-jo as coincidentally having the same name as her cat? I’m hoping it’s the former because I want to see her reaction to finding out that her cat and her housemate is the same person and the same thing, but I also want the revelation to be a lot more grand and bigger. I want more!
So in my last recap, I mistakenly thought the cat man guy was a cat himself who could transform from a cat to a human being. Obviously, I was wrong as we saw in this episode LOL so I apologize about that. He smells like cats simply because he was hoarding cats and bringing them home to take care of them (or at least that’s what he thought he was doing). While I was completely wrong about the man, I do ponder what it would have been like had there been another character in the show who was like Hong-jo and could transform from cat to human being. That would make for an interesting case to see that Hong-jo is not the only one who can be both. It’d actually be entertaining and funny to see him join a group of other cat-to-human members who are just like him. He would have a family then!
But of course, his family is Sol-Ah (not literally) and that’s more than enough for him. Sol-Ah’s family (again, not literally even though that’s what she thinks it is at this point) is Hong-jo as well and they both have each other. They remain so adorable with each other and I honestly don’t have too many new things to say about our couple other than that they find comfort and solace in each other that they don’t have in anyone else and that’s a beautiful thing. There’s going to be many more truths that is going to test their relationship and the strong connection that they’ve built with each other, but hopefully their love for each other will reign above all.
Our second lead couple with Doo-sik and Ji-eun has quickly grown on me as well (maybe even a bit more than our main couple) which is a pleasant surprise to me. I wasn’t a big fan of the way Doo-sik treated Ji-eun in the beginning and I’m still not, but I do enjoy seeing the two grow closer to each other. The drama has shifted their relationship from that of a one-sided love to now Doo-sik also showing interest in Ji-eun which is making for a great and adorable watch. Doo-sik obviously isn’t aware of his feelings for Ji-eun and how often he’s thinking about her which makes things even more adorable when they do interact. While I’m not a big fan of how their relationship was introduced at the beginning of the drama, I’m slowly warming up to where their relationship is now and how Ji-eun and Doo-sik’s relationship has developed and evolved throughout the series. They’re seriously so cute together.
Episode 7 made for another easy and great watch. While some stuff I find a bit hilarious because of how serious it is (such as the guy with all the cats), I generally enjoy the majority of the other moments in this show. I do have to turn off my brain at certain times while watching this show in order for me to get through any of it, but it remains a fluffy, adorable, and light-hearted watch for the most part. I appreciate its consistency.
Extra screenshots from the episode~
MaryMeKpop 