Crash Course in Romance: Episodes 7-8

by mistyisles

Our superstar math teacher encounters an unexpected problem — namely, “irrational” feelings he can’t easily explain away (though not for lack of trying!). But he might not be the only one trying to solve this particular problem by ignoring it and hoping it’ll just go away.

EPISODES 7-8 WEECAP

Su-ah and her mother are about to catch Chi-yeol arriving for a tutoring session, but Haeng-sun spots them and warns Chi-yeol to make it look like he’s just a customer. He’s a bit heavy-handed with his loud Oh no, looks like the shop is closed, but for now at least it’s convincing enough.

Meanwhile, the tutoring is already starting to pay off. Hae-yi scores at the top of her class on the next mock exam, above even Su-ah. When Haeng-sun calls Chi-yeol with the good news, he feigns nonchalance, but celebrates as soon as she hangs up. Aww.

They throw a party to celebrate, and since there are five of them (counting Chi-yeol and Young-joo), Chi-yeol calls a very confused Dong-hee to join them and even out the teams for a game of foot volleyball. It’s even in numbers only, though — the boys are absolutely terrible at it.

Watching Haeng-sun in her athletic element does things to Chi-yeol. His heart pounds, and he can’t stop staring at her, and it only gets worse when he sprains his wrist and she runs over to take a look and get him an ice pack.

Naturally, this sends Chi-yeol into a bit of a mental crisis. He’s a sensible man, and (he believes) she’s married! Plus, she’s his student’s mother. What’s wrong with his nervous system?? His therapist figures he’s probably just lonely — if he expands his social circle to include more women, he might feel less strongly attached to this particular woman.

So Chi-yeol takes a colleague up on her offer to set him up with her pianist friend. Despite an awkward start, the date goes well enough that they set a second one, and Chi-yeol breathes a sigh of relief that he can enjoy other women’s company.

Except, the second he’s back in Haeng-sun’s presence, the racing heartbeat and romantic music flare up again. He can barely speak to her without stammering, and when she offers to take him to an acupuncturist for his wrist, he finds himself unable to say no.

He assures himself it’s not a date, then proceeds to obsess over what to wear. He underdresses for class that day, then panics and overcorrects with a nice outfit and way too much cologne. The acupuncturist decides to treat a lot more than just the wrist, and the way he and Haeng-sun push Chi-yeol to accept despite Chi-yeol’s obvious discomfort makes me pretty uncomfortable, too, I have to say. But in the end Chi-yeol holds Haeng-sun’s hand to get through it, and though they bicker in the car afterwards, she’s touched that he finally remembers her full name.

On the way home, Haeng-sun takes Chi-yeol to her mom’s old restaurant, now owned by a family friend. Everything clicks into place for Chi-yeol, but he keeps his realization to himself as he takes it all in — the memories, their shared connection, the story of how and when her mom died. He owes so much to her mom’s kindness, so now he jumps at the chance to repay her family.

Suddenly, Haeng-sun has a new landlord who cuts rent in half and installs AC units throughout the entire building. The next time Chi-yeol comes over to tutor, he exclaims over how nice it is to have AC — so nice, in fact, they ought to have a party to celebrate. And by “party” he means he’ll treat them to dinner at a super fancy restaurant.

It’s not long, however, before Haeng-sun happens to see Dong-hee finalizing paperwork with her old landlord and the truth comes out: her new landlord is Chi-yeol. She tries to brush off Young-joo’s suspicions that Chi-yeol likes her, but can’t help speculating a bit herself, especially when Chi-yeol calls in a group order for lunchboxes for his entire staff and promises to make this a recurring order.

Of course, Chi-yeol’s blind date chooses that moment to breeze in with expensive novelty snacks for the staff and an invitation for Chi-yeol to her piano recital. Haeng-sun is tellingly upset — snapping at Young-joo, insisting Chi-yeol skip tutoring the night of the recital, and scolding Jae-woo for trying to invite Chi-yeol over for Chicken Day (also on recital night).

Chi-yeol brings flowers to the recital, but struggles to stay awake. At intermission, he calls Hae-yi to answer a math question, and overhears Haeng-sun dropping a hot dish and burning herself. He leaves the flowers and rushes straight over to make sure she’s okay, and stays for Chicken Day after all.

Ultimately, the landlord issue comes out. But before he can explain, they’re ambushed by a whole fleet of indignant mothers. Su-ah, on the verge of a complete mental breakdown, has recognized Chi-yeol’s handwriting in Hae-yi’s workbook, and her mother has hired a private investigator to photograph Chi-yeol coming and going from Haeng-sun’s house. They’ve been caught.

While all this is going on, the young detective continues investigating Young-min’s murder, finally convincing his partner that something is up. Seo-jin happens to overhear him talking about those round metal pellets, and that seems to ping her radar. She starts snooping around Hee-jae’s room (sure enough, he’s got a whole pellet stash in his desk drawer) and after he violently removes her from his room, she secretly installs a tracker on his phone.

And she’s not the only one investigating overheard information. “ChiYeolSucks,” who’s actually fellow math teacher JIN YI-SANG (Ji Il-joo), sees Dong-hee give Chi-yeol materials for Hae-yi and starts digging, intending to spin the less-sensational private tutoring situation into a teacher-student relationship scandal. Chi-yeol catches him, punches him in the face, and threatens to sue him for everything he’s got if he doesn’t cease and desist.

Just as Yi-sang is in process of deleting his posts and intel — on the same night Seo-jin follows Hee-jae to an apartment complex — someone in a hoodie shows up at Yi-sang’s apartment to chase him to the rooftop and shoot him in the head with yet another metal pellet.

Hmm. It seems so obvious that Hee-jae is the pellet shooter — but then why hide his face from us whenever he kills someone (assuming Yi-sang is dead)? If, on the other hand, Hee-jae is a red herring, it does seem very convenient that Yi-sang became the target right after a certain devoted assistant noticed something had changed between him and Chi-yeol. (Though I’d love for that to be a red herring, too!)

On another note, I appreciate how quickly a lot of secrets in this show come out into the open. Like Chi-yeol learning about their shared connection, or the moms finding out about Hae-yi’s tutoring. Secrets are fun, but so is navigating the aftermath of discovering the truth — and here’s hoping we can get past the nonexistent husband issue soon so Chi-yeol can navigate having feelings that aren’t so forbidden after all.

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Crash Course in Romance: Episodes 7-8