49 Days Episode 18

Yi-kyung grabs Kang in a backhug, startling him, and nearly giving me a heart attack. He tries to stop her, calling her Song Yi-kyung-sshi, but then she holds on, crying, “Just a little… a little longer…”

He realizes that it’s Ji-hyun. Oh, thank god. I nearly had an aneurysm at the thought that the lovelines might cross that way. Not that I thought it was anything but cold comfort on Yi-kyung’s part, or that Kang would ever waver, but mostly I was crushed at the thought of Yi-soo looking on.

He puts his hands over hers (swoon) and says, “Tell Ji-hyun to say what she wants to tell me right now… when she wakes up. That I want to hear it. And not to go without saying goodbye.” Heartbreak. Ji-hyun cries, unable to say anything as herself, but just holding onto him for dear life. He adds: “And not to go like Mom did.” Aw. She nods silently. He lingers for a moment, and then breaks their hands free and walks away.Turns out they have an audience in Min-ho, whose eyes flare up in anger. He watches, thinking back to when he was told that Yi-kyung had full control of her body.

Downstairs, Ji-hyun thanks her unni, and Yi-kyung says that if she could, she’d like to give her life to Ji-hyun so that she could go to Yi-soo and Ji-hyun could remain with Kang.Ji-hyun tells her not to even think that way, and feels disappointed, since she thought Yi-kyung helped her out of concern and attachment, not just guilt. Yi-kyung says it’s a mix of all of the above, adding that Yi-soo isn’t someone who can come back to her. Ji-hyun points out how messed up their lives are. In-jung calls Min-ho in a panic, and waits up all night for him to show. He finally arrives, and tells her that she was right—it IS Ji-hyun, and Yi-kyung is Ji-hyun and vice versa.She’s scared that Ji-hyun threatened to follow her around for the rest of her life, and Min-ho says there’s but one solution: get rid of Ji-hyun, and her soul goes poof. He surmises that she’s not really a ghost, and that her spirit is wandering around because she’s still alive. He says that her father knows everything and that he can’t gain access into the hospital. So In-jung has to do it. Min-ho: “You started it, so you have to end it.”In-jung meets with Min-ho and pleads with him to back out now, and just run away with the money. He tells her that it’s never going to happen, because money isn’t the reason why he started this. She surmises correctly that he’s actually caught up in his feelings—that he’s really in love with both Ji-hyun AND Yi-kyung. He doesn’t even try to deny it, and then, like the evil genius that he is, turns that fact around on her. He says that as long as Ji-hyun is around, he’ll never be able to be with In-jung, for fear that she’ll always be haunting them, or even inhabiting HER body.That’s the ticket that gets In-jung debating bloody murder. She takes down their picture and heads to the hospital. Ji-hyun is there in spirit form, waiting for Kang to return from dropping off her parents at home.

She follows In-jung inside…In-jung starts shaking as she approaches the bed. Ji-hyun: “What’s wrong? What are you doing?” She raises her hand up to Ji-hyun’s oxygen mask.Just then, Kang returns, and walks in to find In-jung mid-attempted-murder. He freaks out and pulls her back, screaming, “Shin In-jung! Are you crazy? How could you do something like this? To Ji-hyun… Are you a person? How could you do something like this? You want to go this far? What did Ji-hyun do wrong? What did she do to you? You guys aren’t human, are you? Go. I might kill you. So go.”Kang shows up at Min-ho’s apartment the next morning, wearing a trenchcoat. Buh… there are words coming out of his mouth, I think.

Oh, right. He tells Min-ho that he’s here to tell him what kind of person he is… a shameless one. He drops the “hyung” rom becoming: his father.

He gets him right where it hurts, spitting that he’s trampled on his mother’s hopes. Eye-to-eye he lays it out: “You’re the man who made the woman who loves you lay a hand on her friend’s respirator.” Min-ho’s shaken at the baldness of the facts.

Kang asks what he’s going to do when Ji-hyun’s gone, since Kang’s got a soul AND a body, that plans to stick to Min-ho’s side. Over in Land Deal Battleship, Min-ho starts phase two, by pulling out one of the major investors in the Haemido project. It’s as feared, and now Daddy Shin has to put up another chunk of cash in a big hurry if he’s going to save his company from going under from this one deal.He gets the call from Ji-hyun’s mom that the company’s back in trouble, and sees Ji-hyun walking back to Heaven. They instantly light up at the sight of each other, and he asks what she’s doing wandering about.

She pouts that now that she’s free, he’s really busy, and he instinctively raises his hand to her face… only he has to stop in mid-air.Kang decides on his last-ditch effort: to go see his estranged dad in the States, to ask him to invest in Haemido. He knows that asking for this amount of money is no tiny favor, and ironically enough, knows that he can present it as a sound investment because Min-ho did the work, and in that one arena, he can be trusted.

Here’s the hitch though: Kang thinks he has five days until Ji-hyun’s time is up. But no, she’s down to three days, and this is one area they haven’t cleared up with each other. So Kang plans his trip, thinking he’s got plenty of time to go and come back in two days, and then have two days left with her. Min-ho tries to send In-jung abroad, giving her some money and telling her to go before being around him messes her up any more. She doesn’t want money; she wants him, and protests. Just then, Ji-hyun’s mom arrives at In-jung’s door, and runs right into Min-ho. Her jaw drops, not because she doesn’t know, but because she’s being confronted with it so blatantly.

In-jung sends Min-ho away, and then Mom gets a good slap in. In-jung actually becomes defiant rather than apologetic, and throws it back in Mom’s face that she’s the reason for all this—because she always knew that Mom hated her.

She actually blames them for taking her in, as if it’s their fault for having been nice to her.Ji-hyun asks Yi-kyung for some advice on something nice to do for Kang, and Yi-kyung says that she used to make kimbap for Yi-soo and go on picnics. She wonders where she can make food undetected.

Kang is just outside, saying a quiet goodbye as he gets ready to leave. Ji-hyun returns to Yi-kyung’s apartment to make kimbap in secret, which is where Min-ho finds her. She nearly jumps out of her skin in fear, but then gathers herself and manages to put up a good you-don’t-scare-me front.

It turns out that Min-ho’s here to draw up a contract for this apartment… in Yi-kyung’s name. She wonders what it means.Ji-hyun returns to Heaven with her kimbap all ready, and asks Manager Oh where Kang is. Hilariously, he just says that Kang went to America, when Kang expressly told him to lie. Well, he kind of covers for him, saying that something came up with his dad, and that he’ll be back the day after tomorrow.

Ji-hyun: “The day after tomorrow? NO!” She runs outside, calling out, “Kang-ah! Kang-ah!” over and over again, sobbing like a little girl. Oh, it’s breaking my heart.

She crumples to the ground in tears, “Kang-ah! I won’t be here. I won’t be here…”She continues to cry in bed in her spirit form, and Yi-kyung tries to comfort her that they can meet when he returns. Ji-hyun makes it clear that she won’t be here then, and Yi-kyung says, “The day after tomorrow, Ji-hyun-sshi will be gone too…” She says it wistfully, like here’s yet another person who’s leaving me behind.

Yi-kyung goes to see Dr. Noh for the last time, to tell him that she’s living for the traveling soul, which he doesn’t understand. She thanks him for looking out for her, and says goodbye.

The Scheduler shows up to give Ji-hyun her final notice, in an official capacity. She’s got a little over sixteen hours left, at which point she’ll be taking the elevator at the exact time of her accident. He tells her that she can’t leave anything behind that reveals her identity—that means no letters, no recordings, nothing.On her last day, Ji-hyun goes out and buys things for Yi-kyung, like skincare products and new underwear. She then goes to see Seo-woo to buy a cake for her parents’ anniversary. Seo-woo gets adorably jealous that “Yi-kyung” knows Ji-hyun better than she does, and she counters that she’s Ji-hyun’s best friend. “We’re total beppus!” She agrees, and tells her that Ji-hyun told her that after her parents, she loved Seo-woo the most, and that she was the kind of friend who was like the shade from a big tree. She heads to the hospital with the cake, and wishes her parents a happy anniversary. They tell her that Ji-hyun used to always sing them a song, and she plays them a CD that she brought. Ji-hyun asks Yi-kyung to eject her soul, and as the song plays , she stands there in her spirit form and sings.Yi-kyung walks over to Ji-hyun’s bedside, and it stirs something in her.She watches Ji-hyun sing with tears streaming down her face, and she cries too.

Back at Heaven, Yi-kyung muses that some parents are like that, while others abandon their children. Ji-hyun counters that she could’ve been lost rather than abandoned, but Yi-kyung remembers very clearly how her mother had her little brother, and then considered her annoying. Ji-hyun and I both gasp in horror. Seriously, no wonder this girl has such serious abandonment issues.She reaffirms that it’s why Yi-soo was sent to her, to be her mom, her dad, her brother, her everything. Ji-hyun says it must be why she lives this way, because someone like that was taken from her.

Yi-kyung apologizes, that because of her Ji-hyun has to leave such parents behind. She confesses to living that way for five years, trying everything to die—cutting her wrists, hanging herself, overdosing.

But every time, something happened to stop it. The landlady would find her, or the cord would break. She says that day was the anniversary of Yi-soo’s death, and says that she’s sorry.Ji-hyun: If you’re sorry, then live well. When it’s hard, think of days when you had regrets, just like this. Find strength, and live.When Yi-kyung wakes up a few hours later, she finds Ji-hyun gone and a present with a breakfast table set for her. He looks around in a panic.Outside, the Scheduler waits and Ji-hyun comes downstairs. He offers her a ride anywhere, as a special Last Day service. He asks what she wants to do with her last seven hours.She tells him to call the elevator down now, because there’s nothing left for her to do. She doesn’t want to linger and feel the weight of her final minutes counting down, so she’d rather choose to go now. Seo-woo goes to see Mom and Ji-hyun at the hospital, where the doctor tells Mom that it’s time they give up on Ji-hyun. He tells them that there’s no hope for her.At the same time, Yi-kyung opens up her present. She finds the note that Ji-hyun had written back when she was going to leave the first time, when Dad’s company was in jeopardy. The note tells her not to be alarmed and that she won’t be returning, and thanks her for everything.

Ji-hyun tells her to stop eating ramen and to take care of herself, and Yi-kyung looks at all the things in the box, her eyes filling with tears. She begins to cry…Ji-hyun and the Scheduler arrive in the garden, and he puts out his hand to shake hers goodbye. She tells him to hurry and call the elevator down before she starts to change her mind, and they’ll say goodbye then.

The clouds darken and he waves his hand past her to call the elevator… when he notices her necklace light up. A tear appears, surprising both of them.

She grabs it to look, which is when it glows a second time. The third tear!Back at the hospital, Mom cries hugging Ji-hyun, and Seo-woo stands behind her, sobbing for her friend for the first time.

Ji-hyun and the Scheduler look at each other, stunned…

And in the hospital, Ji-hyun opens her eyes.