“In you...I keep seeing myself.”
Architectural model maker. Architecture school graduate, junior architect.
Moon Soo’s days are busy.
She starts by waking up at dawn and opening the doors to ‘San Ho Jang’ the women-only sauna that her mother runs, then sits at the sales window making the architectural models she’s received orders for while helping with various tasks around the bathhouse in her spare moments. Among those, the one daily task she can never leave out is looking after her mother, who lives each day by the bottle.
Due to the accident she suffered when she was young, Moon Soo and her family hit a turning point from which they can never return, and Moon Soo was left by her mother’s side in place of her father, who left the house. So she smiles even more diligently, works more diligently, and cares for her mother more diligently.
Seeing this, people look at Moon Soo and say, ‘she’s okay now, thank goodness.’ Not seeing Moon Soo’s internal wounds, without even really knowing what it is they’re talking about. Moon Soo is also sad and in pain. It’s simply that she’s lost the chance to besad. But instead of showing her true feelings, Moon Soo bravely continues about her daily life. That was Moon Soo’s method of coping with her sadness.
Why on earth did the accident happen on that day, at that time, at that place? No matter how she thought about it she couldn’t understand, so it was easier to shift the blame to herself. Why on earth was I at that place, on that day?
Moon Soo remembers that afternoon. The wind that blew and the rattling glass, the building that collapsed in an instant, she remembers them. After the accident Moon Soo came to a decision. In exchange for having survived, to not be greedy, to not be swayed by trivial emotions. She simply wished for time to pass, for her to live according to her lot in life, without being noticed.
If I were to date someone, I want to date someone who grew up well and smoothly, without any accidents.
Joo Won, who is kind to everyone, who behaves affectionately towards mom, and who speaks without hesitation of having respected his father, who passed away early, is definitely different from me. That’s why she liked him. It seemed like if she was with him, she could also become a good person.
In contrast, Kang Doo, who keeps seeing her true self that she had worked so hard to suppress, is an uncomfortable existence for Moon Soo. While clashing with Kang Doo, who is different from her in every respect, Moon Soo begins to express her emotions. It doesn’t take long for her to realize that the awkwardness has started to turn to refreshingness. Kang Doo, who goes from a shameless jerk, to an irreplaceable friend, and then to a person she never wants to lose again; Moon Soo finds him oddly discomfiting.
You can find the original Korean on JTBC’s original website here.
Translation originally published on tumblr here.
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