49 Days Episode 5

Ji-hyun (in Yi-kyung’s body) beats In-jung in the race to get to her house first to retrieve the seal. She introduces herself to her mother as Ji-hyun’s friend and has the benefit of knowing how to explain her presence to a mother who’s never heard of this particular friend before.
She says she’s a friend from an online cafe, and lent her a magic-trick video that she needs now. She reminds Mom that last year, Ji-hyun performed a magic trick at her parents’ anniversary, which they’d practiced together. Mom’s still wary about never having heard of her, but Ji-hyun saysthat it’s because she’s just an internet friend.

Ji-hyun finds her wayward seal in the kangaroo pouch, but in her haste doesn’t notice that the necklace inside gets pulled out. She takes the magic CD, and on second thought, also a digital camera — but she whispers up to the Upstairs Boss that she’s just borrowing it, not stealing.On her way out, she tears up at the sight of her exhausted mother, and tells her to eat something. She adds that Ji-hyun adored her mother and wanted to become a mother like her, which is just the thing to pick up Mom’s spirits. She’d always thought Ji-hyun was Daddy’s girl, so it moves her to hear that Ji-hyun did love her just as much.

Mom eagerly asks if Ji-hyun said anything else about her, but before she can get an answer, In-jung buzzes the gate. Realizing she has seconds to slip away, Ji-hyun hurries out and ducks behind a tree just in time to avoid being seen. In-jung comes in with the excuse of having left behind her cell phone, but her search turns up nothing in the kangaroo doll. She wonders if Ji-hyun’s mother found it, and asks Mom casually about the dolls. But Mom and the housekeeper are more concerned about In-jung’s suddenly odd behavior; for instance, despite living together “for all those years,” In-jung had forgotten that Mom doesn’t eat certain things.

Considering that In-jung had been Ji-hyun’s bestie for a decade and lived with the Shin family, it’s interesting that she’s handling them all wrong, and arousing suspicion in the parents now. Clearly she’s not going to get anywhere with this doll issue.

Mom sighs that she should’ve fed Ji-hyun’s sad-looking friend earlier, which pings In-jung’s radar. An unknown friend?When she reports the latest news to Min-ho, In-jung can’t let go of her suspicions about that friend. Min-ho dismisses her concern, pointing out that there’s no motive for that friend to be involved. Nobody knows of their plans, so there’s no need to take that seal.Ji-hyun comes to the restaurant despite it being a day off, and searches for a hiding place for her seal, thinking it unsafe to leave it at Yi-kyung’s apartment. She ducks out of sight to avoid being spotted by Manager Oh, and that leads her to Kang’s living quarters, where they both overhear him singing in the shower. Min-ho broods over how to fix this land deal problem, and in particular thinks back to his earlier meeting with the doctor, who’d said that Ji-hyun had very little brainwave activity — she’s virtually brain-dead. The doctor had told him that it’s just a matter of her guardians coming to accept the reality of her case.

He overhears Ji-hyun’s father arguing with the doctor, and in his vehemence Dad grabs his head in pain.Min-ho takes him out for dinner and finally confesses that he didn’t actually complete the contract before Ji-hyun’s accident. Dad is stunned and upset, and with shaking voice, Min-ho tells him the truth about Ji-hyun giving him lipstick instead of her seal. And in order to sell her land without her seal they’d have to declare her incompetent. The Scheduler opts to call Ji-hyun out of the apartment via phone rather than going in himself, which would be easier for them both. All he can say is, “I don’t like that room. I don’t know why, I just find it uncomfortable.”

He takes Ji-hyun to a department store that’s closed for the night, and tells her to pick out anything she likes. He adds, “Isn’t shopping the best thing to cheer up women?She says he’s mean to treat her like this “on a day like this,” to which he counters that not marrying Min-ho was the best thing to happen to her. He has a point, and with that, she approaches her shopping spree with new enthusiasm. She even chops off her hair, proving once again that Felicity was on to something. Once she’s in her body for the day, Ji-hyun flips through the family photos stored on her borrowed digital camera and promises to return to her parents somehow. She’ll start with the list she’s drawn up of possible criers, which includes friends from school and the like.Unfortunately, she doesn’t have anybody’s phone numbers, so she asks Kang for his permission to use his computer. Not even fazed anymore by her over-the-top requests, he assents.

She finds phone numbers online, and supposes she can contact one person a day. But she has the added complication of working from 11 am to 11 pm — when to meet them?Kang sees Ji-hyun peering down into his office and hanging back, so he cuts to the chase, asking what she wants this time. Ji-hyun has a matter to “negotiate” with him, and reminds him that he’d once scoffed that this ain’t no freelance part-time job. Well, would he be open to making it one?

She’s done her research and is prepared to lower her hourly rate a full dollar, pointing out that his original pay was actually below minimum wage. She says that she doesn’t have many days left to live in this body, and has a lot of matters needing attention. Kang calls her out for borrowing his computer to research minimum wage rates, calling her quite shameless, and asks if she thinks he’s likely to agree.

She ponders the matter and then decides he’s not, and sighs that she’ll have to quit and find a different freelance part-time position, then. Lucky for her, Kang’s bickering is more of the mating-dance variety and not the I-want-you-to-quit kind, so he leaps up to stop her from leaving and says he was just joking. He agrees to the freelance thing, and even increases her pay to the stated minimum wage.Min-ho arrives to talk business with Kang, just in time to see Yi-kyung bursting into laughter as she admits she was joking, too. Kang even laughs in response.

Back upstairs, he’s bothered at the way Ji-hyun’s expression goes from cheery to glaring at the sight of him. He calls her over and takes her to task for her behavior, saying that if she doesn’t want him to misunderstand her feelings , she should act in a manner that avoids such misunderstanding. He cites her standoffishness, the way she ignores looking at him, and how she vacillates between friendly and unfriendly attitudes. He wants an apology, and that really gets her goat — but she remembers the Scheduler’s warning not to break the necklace, and obliges.

Min-ho assumes that her attitude change came upon hearing he was engaged, and asks how she found out he has a fiancee. She asks whether he still has one, and he replies, “I do, but—”

Ji-hyun cuts him off and tells him she’s an employee with no interest in his personal life. Kang overhears this exchange — and we can note that it’s the second time he’s witnessed awkwardness between these two — and steps in just as Ji-hyun steps away. The boys relocate downstairs, where Min-ho asks what’s up between Kang and Yi-kyung. Kang answers that she’s just an employee, so Min-ho tells him to fire her, because she’s too disdainful.

At Kang’s deflection, Min-ho calls him out for giving her special treatment. Kang turns the question around on him, saying that Min-ho — usually so charming and open with women — is unusually terse with Yi-kyung.

Kang says that if they were to take Ji-hyun out of the picture, Min-ho’s behavior is textbook indication that he’s attracted to Yi-kyung. He recognizes the signs — because he’s intimately familiar with them — of having feelings for her, but being unable to say that and instead engaging with antagonism. “It’s the stuff of childish, immature bastard men.”being attracted to Yi-kyung hadn’t even crossed Min-ho’s mind, but on his way out, he wonders incredulously if it could be true.

He intercepts her and asks why she looks at him so scornfully. She asks quite saucily if perhaps he interprets scorn in her gaze because on some level he feels he earned it.

Provoked, he steps toward her and grabs her arm. Staring, he mutters, “You’re acting pretty funny.” Just as In Jung comes into view.