Below are the official character profiles of the extended cast from tvN’s official website.
♠ People in Kang Doo’s Orbit ♠
Lee Jae Young – Kim Hye Joon
Kang Doo’s younger sister. Intern at a university hospital.
During her teens when she was the most impressionable, she was left with no choice but to raise herself due to a sudden accident. Because their job is to be at a hospital, to Jae Young, doctors were like gods. She entered medical school and, after enduring it with difficulty, she has now become an intern. To Jae Young, unlike herself, Kang Doo is nothing but a powerless, selfish, and tiring older brother. She can’t understand Kang Doo, who is forever struggling, trapped by his past. But he’s her only blood relative, and at decisive moments she always stands by him.
Mari – Yoon Se Ah
The face and madam of Club ‘Mary &’
After having the misfortune of meeting a good-for-nothing bum, she ended up with nothing but a ton of debt after barely managing to escape him. Having nothing left but her own body, and at a later age than most, she dove into working as an assistant at a noraebang (karaoke joint), thus hitting rock bottom. She was sick and tired of men. After her bastard of a first love, and while dealing with situations where men would guzzle alcohol and then call girls claiming they needed help singing, she decided that she would never be swayed by something as foolish as love again.
Possibly because of this, while establishing as her sponsors her regulars who she met only according to pre-established conditions and who consistently only responded according to those conditions, she ended up opening a club in her own name. This is also about the time when she meets Kang Doo, who was doing miscellaneous work in the back streets of the wharf district. She trusts Kang Doo, who unfailingly does exactly what he’s paid for, more than anyone, and pulls him in. Concerned about Kang Doo, who lives however he can as if there’s no tomorrow, at times she’ll treat him as an older sister, or even, when lonely, as a lover. A woman who can’t be pinned down.
Drug-Peddler Halmeoni (Halmeom) – Na Moon Hee
A sturdy halmeoni who sells illegal narcotic analgesics to Kang Doo. There is rumour that she was once a doctor, but it hasn’t been confirmed. Transcending their age difference, she is like a friend to him, and she and Kang Doo each share the other’s secrets.
An Sang Man – Kim Kang Hyun
In charge of cleaning the inn his mother runs. Also in charge of being his mother’s kind son.
My goodness, in all the world there is no one so positive and at peace as this. The neighborhood hyung, who follows Kang Doo, who is younger than him, around calling him ‘hyung,’ who seems as if he could appear anywhere at any time, and who is somewhat slow. But don’t dismiss him, as there is no one whose existence is without value. Sang Man, who is bottomlessly and endlessly good, is a salt-like existence to Kang Doo. A huge fan of chivalrous novels.
The Inn Owner – Park Myeong Shin
Sang Man’s mother, the owner of the inn where Kang Doo resides.
Her calculations are immaculate and merciless. That was her support while raising three children alone from early on. After marrying off Sang Man’s two older siblings, Sang Man alone remained as her precious child.* When she was young, she went about her work with Sang Man on her back, and at one point she slipped and fell on a sheet of ice. At that time, of all things she happened to fall over backward, crushing the back of Sang Man’s head. She feels forever apologetic towards him, believing that this was what caused his mental deficiency. It’s just that she’s stingy when it comes to money, she’s very generous otherwise.
[*Literally “painful finger” from the longer phrase, “Bite any of your ten fingers and it will hurt the same,” often used as an idiom for how parents love all of their children equally. Moon Soo’s mother also uses this phrase in EP16 to reassure her, saying that it’s not that one ‘hurts more,’ but rather that Moon Soo and Yeon Soo ‘hurt differently.’]
Original Korean text available here.
♣ People in Moon Soo’s Orbit ♣
Kim Wan Jin – Park Hee Von
Webtoon writer
To Moon Soo, she is, in a word, ‘an irreplaceable friend.’ They met in the hospital during their formative teenage years. The two had to spend that wonderful time of their lives laid up in hospital. Their camaraderie, born of the time they endured by talking about trivial things, has continued to today. They’ll carry on about any sort of mundane matters, but to this day they still haven’t broached the subject of each others’ wounds. They’re of the mind that, unless the other one brings it up first, they won’t ask.
Wan Jin is currently active as a webtoon writer. During 3 years of dating, she wrote unbelievably sweet romances, but that concluded in utter humiliation and ratings terrorization. Like her relationship that ended in vain, Wan Jin’s romance comics haven’t been well received by her readers. Que sera sera, she began responding to readers’ vicious comments. She speaks crudely, but to Moon Soo alone she is endlessly generous. To Moon Soo, who has deep internal wounds, her existence is like a gift from god.
Jin Young – Kim Min Gyu
Jin Wan’s Assistant
[No blurb]Yoon Ok – Yoon Yoo Seon
Moon Soo’s mother
The possessor of a slender body and refreshing facial features. In her younger years, she wanted to receive attention. She liked getting dolled up and so became a beautician. She was constantly told that she could have been an actress. But then she met her husband. Everyone was puzzled. It seemed she might travel all over the country with this truck driver who seemed ordinary and unremarkable, but then she suddenly became pregnant. Unlike dating, possibly because married life brought reality, it didn’t go smoothly. Though disappointed for a time by Moon Soo, who resembled her father, she began to dream again after giving birth to Yeon Soo, who was like a carbon copy of herself. She wanted for Yeon Soo to achieve her unrealized dreams in her stead.
That day as well, she curled her hair and did her makeup, and got dressed up to go promote Yeon Soo. It was while she was doing this that the accident happened. Yoon Ok’s life also ended in that instant. She acquired the derelict bathhouse and is barely managing to run it. No, she actually leaves the running of it to her daughter Moon Soo and spends her days in a drunken stupor. She was in so much pain that she neglected the fact that Moon Soo was in pain too. The truth is, in her heart of hearts, she wants to ruin herself even more and just depend on Moon Soo. Because she knows that if Moon Soo were to leave her as well she won’t be able to bear it.
Ha Dong Cheol – An Nae Sang
Moon Soo’s father
He loved Yoon Ok, who was beautiful when she smiled. After she gave birth to the two sisters but then devoted all of her energy only towards her second daughter, Yeon Soo, he became gradually estranged from her. Just when he was becoming tired of fighting with his wife, the accident happened and he separated from her. Currently, he runs a noodle shop. A brusque father, he feels indebted to his daughter Moon Soo but is unable to express it.
Ha Yeon Soo – Han Seo Jin
Moon Soo’s little sister
A child who exposed all of her white teeth when she smiled, a child who used to climb into her mother’s closet to nap, a child who would listen with a nod to anything her sister said, even while sticking out her lower lip. Yeon Soo remains that way as a young girl of just 12 years. What would Yeon Soo’s dream have been? Probably it would have been to become an adult, or so Moon Soo thinks.
Geumchon Auntie – Kim Nam Jin
A scrubber and permanent fixture at ‘San Ho Jang,’ the bathhouse that Moon Soo’s mother runs. As she worked at Yoon Ok’s beauty salon in her younger years, she and Yoon Ok have a long history* together. Her only family is her husband, who is a good person but constantly goes about causing accidents. She has an unfortunate life in that, after several miscarriages, she never managed to conceive a child, but at the bathhouse she flies about. She’s a true adult, who understands Moon Soo’s heart better than her own mother, and she comforts her unabashedly. Not just Moon Soo, but to her mother, who goes about making enemies, as well, she is her one true friend. As she’s friends with Moon Soo’s prickly mother, she’s bordering on attaining Buddahood.
[*in’yeon]
Original Korean text available here.
♦︎People in Joo Won’s Orbit♦︎
So Mi – Park Gyu Young
Immediately after graduating from a specialty school, she found employment at Seo Won architectural firm in charge of web design. Small, cute, and upbeat, she’s an emblem of youth. She arms herself with her sly use of either her worldly wisdom or her youth in accordance with the situation. She has an eye for people and completely fell for Joo Won. As a young lady struggling with a one-sided love, it’s impossible to hate her sly antics.
Jeong Yoo Taek – Tae In Ho
Yoo Jin’s older brother. Director of Cheong Yoo Construction’s Finance Team.
Unlike himself, who is weak-willed like his mother, his younger sister Yoo Jin, who is commanding and overflowing with confidence, is an unwelcome person to him. He had many emotions that he had to give up or suppress simply because he was the oldest son. Yoo Taek has never had the opportunity to love uninhibitedly like Yoo Jin, who was relatively freer, nor was he able to gather the daring to go on an adventure. He simply lived struggling not to fall short of the expectations placed upon him, and before he knew it he was over 40. Now he doesn’t even really know what it is he wants himself. A child who was never able to grow up. Somewhere along the way, he became a typical bad leader who believed that the halo of his family background was truly due to his own capableness. Someone who only knows how to solve his crooked desires through surface-level methods, once you realize it, he’s actually a pitiable person. After meeting Mari at the club, he belatedly comes to know a feverish one-sided love.
Original Korean text available here.
Translation originally published on tumblr here.
All source materials belong to the parties to which they are licensed. All translations are our own.