49 Days Episode 8

In-jung walks into Min-ho’s apartment, and to her utter horror, she finds Ji-hyun (in Yi-kyung’s body) glaring right back at her. Ji-hyun’s the one with the upper hand here, despite being the help: for one, she’s the one with the proper invite, and two, she knows that In-jung’s relationship with Min-ho is super-secret. She turns that fact around on her, asking what the secretary is doing here, and how she knew the lock code.

In-jung lies that she’s here on an errand to deliver food, and Ji-hyun accepts it with a cold send-off. In-jung leaves, unable to shake the feeling that something is terribly amiss here. Min-ho arrives home soon after she leaves, and is quite flustered when Ji-hyun tells him about In-jung’s little visit. She notices that he comes home with a file, which he takes into his room. He calls In-jung and suggests dinner out to do some damage control. Meanwhile, Ji-hyun re-enters the apartment to search for the mystery file, which he’s locked in his safe.

In-jung can’t understand why he’s hired Yi-kyung of all people as a housekeeper, which he just tries to brush off as no big deal. But she points out how out of character it is for him to help someone because she got fired, or give her a second chance when she was so rude to him.

He asks if in the two years he’s been with Ji-hyun, if he ever fell for her. She answers no.He refuses to discuss the matter further, feeling it beneath him to even consider falling for someone of Yi-kyung’s position. At the new coffee shop, Yi-kyung gets her first customer of the night: Dr. Noh. He smiles and says, “I seem like a stalker, right?”She tells him that he did the best he could as a doctor, and that “it” wasn’t his fault. He agrees—he’s always done his best as a doctor, and knows that he did everything he could. But then he adds that when he met her five years ago, he was a newlywed. He had met Yi-kyung at the lowest point in her life, when he was at his happiest. But then three years ago, he watched his wife die in a car accident. He explains that there are some things that people can’t understand unless they go through it themselves.

He tells her that if she can’t forget, then to just miss him—that’s what he did, because he missed her so much. His words stir something in her, and she finally takes out a picture at home, as Ji-hyun watches. It’s a picture from grade school, of Yi-kyung with her little brother, Yi-soo. She finally lets herself remember and miss him, and she cries. Ji-hyun wakes up and goes to Min-ho’s apartment to officially start work, and he adds a slew of tasks for her to do, including hand-washing his things, because he’s a little princess. But then he notices the burn on her handand it weighs on him. It finally niggles at his conscience Ji-hyun uses her time to search for the file, finally discovering his secret safe, but Min-ho arrives before she can even make an attempt at safecracking. He gives her ointment for her burn, totally lying that he didn’t come back just for that.

They discover that while they were arguing, the pot she left on the stove has started to burn, and Min-ho rushes to open the door…just in time for Kang to appear, unannounced. enough for him to duck out of work in the middle of the day to go back home.

In-jung spots him driving away and catches him red-handed in another lie, so she rushes over to Kang’s. She makes up the excuse that Min-ho is going ahead with the Haemido project believing that Kang is still onboard, and that Kang ought to go in person to make it clear, either way. Kang flips his lid to see Yi-kyung there, and tries to wrist-grab her out of there. But she holds her ground, declaring that this is where she wants to stay. Even Min-ho looks surprised at that. In her head, Ji-hyun apologizes to Kang, that she’s got unfinished business here.

Poor Kang-ah. He’s all turned around, from jealousy mixed with his protective instinct, all the while being totally rejected. He asks, angry and disappointed, “Was it this all along?” She turns her back to him, and starts to cry.Kang leaves, angry at himself for worrying over Yi-kyung so much that he was planning on finding her. Ji-hyun cries in the bathroom, unable to make things right with Kang. He heads back to work in a bear of a mood, and trashes his office, remembering her words that she had no interest in Min-ho, now thinking they’re all lies.

Meanwhile, Min-ho actually smiles to himself, thinking that Yi-kyung really does like him, what with her outright declaration to Kang that she wants to stay. He suggests they go out to dinner, and takes her to a small family restaurant that Ji-hyun notes he’s never brought her to.He says it’s a place his mother used to frequent. She makes a jab that he must’ve brought his fiancée here, and that she has no intention of being treated like a woman by him. He calls what he thinks is her bluff: if she isn’t interested, why didn’t she leave with Kang when he re-offered her a job?

He says that he doesn’t trust a poor woman’s pride, which is completely condescending, of course, but it also sounds like he says it out of personal experience—as in, he’s familiar with being poor, and the lengths a person will go to, to rise above it. It’s an assumption on my part, but I think it speaks to his character’s motivation. After eating they part, and she walks away wondering why he brought her to a place that’s special to him…a place he never brought Ji-hyun-in-Ji-hyun’s-body. She thinks back to all his weird behavior, and it dawns on her…”Kang Min-ho, what is this? Do you like Song Yi-kyung…I mean…me?”She follows Yi-kyung to work, and calls the Scheduler to meet her there. She whines that for a Scheduler, he sure does make people wait around a lot, but he thinks she should be grateful he even meets her at all.

He asks why they’re here, and she reminds him that he’s the one who doesn’t like being at Yi-kyung’s house, and he just breezes, “Here, there…” Another hint that it’s not so much the place as it is the third party involved that gives him that uncomfortable feeling.

She asks him for a favor: to track down Song Yi-soo. He tells her that he’s not a Help Center, and to do it herself.In-jung is dying of curiosity to find out what happened when she sent Kang over to Min-ho’s the other day, and she decides that Kang’s birthday is the perfect excuse. She knows that Seo-woo likes Kang and already has a present ready for him, and suggests they stop by tonight.Dad makes an impromptu visit to the office, spurring Min-ho to follow him to the hospital in fear that something’s up. He witnesses Dad throwing up for what he realizes is now the second time. He senses that something’s amiss, and goes to ask the doctor, who TOTALLY JUST TELLS HIM, wtf? Anyway, Dad’s got a brain tumor, and he refuses to be operated on with Ji-hyun in her current state.

Ji-hyun spends her day in a war against the safe and its six-digit code. She actually does the math to find out the number of possibilities of six-digit combos, and hangs her head in frustration. She starts searching for some clues, and finds today’s date marked on Min-ho’s calendar as Kang’s birthday. Manager Oh goes to wake up Birthday Boy, who’s been on a downward spiral, following his outburst at Yi-kyung. He drags him out and has to inform him that it’s his birthday today, and gives him traditional birthday soup.

Kang looks down, surprised that it has mussels in it, and asks if his mom told him that he likes it this way. Manager Oh tells him that Yi-kyung made the soup; she dropped it off earlier because she made too much and had extra.He peers down at the soup, as we flashback to his high school days, when Mom had come to school bearing soup on his birthday. He acted like a brat, rejecting her and throwing the soup on the ground.

Later in class, Ji-hyun heads to the front to do a magic trick, asking for bets on where her bottle cap will end up. Kang reliably makes a snide remark so she singles him out on the bet: if she wins, he has to do whatever she says. He loses, and follows her outside, where she spreads out a lunchbox feast and tells him that his punishment is to eat with her. He looks down and sees his mother’s soup. Angry and embarrassed, he asks her if she saw everything.

Ji-hyun: “You’re the size of a mountain, but you treat your mom that way?” As in: you’re grown, but why are you still acting like a child? She basically has to bully him into eating the soup, and he finally caves, but only if she turns around while he eats. She happily turns around and tells him to eat every last drop. He obliges, even cracking a smile, while her back is turned.He asks Manager Oh if Yi-kyung really brought this, and he confirms it, adding that she technically asked him not to say anything. That just confuses Kang even more, as he says, “This is my mother’s birthday soup. I don’t know what this feeling in my heart is. Is it because of Shin Ji-hyun, or Song Yi-kyung? I don’t know.”

And with that, he bolts, running right past In-jung and Seo-woo. He heads straight to Min-ho’s place and rings the doorbell and bangs on the door shouting Yi-kyung’s name. She hesitates, but finally lets him in, and he asks her again why she’s here. “If you’re interested in Min-ho, then say so, and this’ll be the end of it.” He waits, and she says nothing. That’s enough of an answer for him, as he tells her to stop it then, and drags her out, laundry be damned.