Crash Course in Romance: Episodes 11-12

Crash Course in Romance: Episodes 11-12

by mistyisles

Love is in the air and out in the open for all to see! But all is not sunshine and roses, especially with a serial killer still on the loose and a desperate tiger mom’s grip closing tightly around her children.

 
EPISODES 11-12

After Hae-yi declares their feelings a romance, not a scandal, Chi-yeol and Haeng-sun receive the same advice from Young-joo and Hae-yi, respectively: don’t let each other go. More poignantly, Hae-yi adds that Haeng-sun has sacrificed enough — now it’s time to live (and love!) for herself. It takes a few turns of just missing each other in transit, but finally Chi-yeol and Haeng-sun come face-to-face and he goes straight in for a hug and a Why didn’t you tell me sooner? I agonized over nothing!

Now free to express their feelings, they park by the Han River to pinpoint exactly when each started falling for the other. Haeng-sun can’t identify a single moment; rather, her feelings towards him changed gradually. But Chi-yeol decides he was drawn to her from the start. Calling her his “second savior” (after her mom), he says happily that his life got a whole lot more fun after meeting her. It’s hard to tell who’s more giddy that night as they stay up texting each other cute stickers.

The next morning, Hae-yi puts on a brave face as she heads to school. To her relief, not only do her closest friends show immediate and genuine support, but her entire class literally applauds her for being so cool.

Likewise, the All Care moms acknowledge they were in the wrong — well, all but Su-hee. The most she’ll deign herself to do is pressure the hagwon director to hire Chi-yeol again, but the other mothers apologize directly to Haeng-sun. Yes, it’s partly because they hope she’ll convince Chi-yeol to keep teaching their kids, but it also feels pretty genuine.

Haeng-sun doesn’t pressure Chi-yeol to accept the hagwon’s request for him to return, but she does listen as he explains how conflicted he feels over whether to accept or not. Observing that he seems to have more and greater concerns about rejecting the hagwon than he does about accepting, she suggests he consider this a “yellow card” — if the hagwon pulls something like this again, he’ll feel better about cutting ties for good.

That solution gives Chi-yeol peace. Dong-hee, however, is decidedly displeased — less about the embarrassment of having to walk back on his promise to a rival hagwon that Chi-yeol will sign with them, and more about the fact that Haeng-sun now occupies so much of Chi-yeol’s attention.

When Dong-hee is invited along for bowling on the next Chicken Day, his attitude toward Haeng-sun specifically is just weird enough that it prompts a spat between Haeng-sun and Chi-yeol over whether she read too much into it. They spend all night and all the next day overthinking how to make up and who should text first, and when Haeng-sun finally tells herself to grow up and hits send… Dong-hee intercepts and deletes the message.

But despite Dong-hee’s best efforts to keep Chi-yeol occupied until the wee hours of the morning, Chi-yeol shows up outside Haeng-sun’s house at 5 am when she’s heading out to buy groceries for the day. She melts, he happily tags along to the market, and they officially make up from their little argument. Even better, his business trip to Incheon that day is the perfect excuse for a spontaneous day trip. (Three guesses how Dong-hee feels about that.)

They take Chi-yeol’s yacht (yes) out for a spin, and when Chi-yeol goes below to grab a blanket, Dong-hee yanks the wheel to one side, throwing Haeng-sun off balance. She’s fine, thankfully, other than a scrape on her hand and a nagging suspicion that Dong-hee might’ve done it on purpose. She doesn’t want to spark another fight with Chi-yeol, though, so she convinces herself she must have been mistaken.

Chi-yeol’s too worried to just drop her off at home, so he “kidnaps” her and re-doctors her hand back at his place. That leads to a smoldering “stay the night with me,” and that leads to kissing all the way to the bedroom — and before we know it, it’s morning, and Chi-yeol is begging for just five more minutes of cuddling before Haeng-sun has to get dressed and leave.

Meanwhile, Young-joo aims for a romance of her own, having noticed that Jae-woo fits her kindness and height criteria. But to her embarrassment, he’s disgusted at the thought of dating someone who’s practically another sister.

While all this romancing is going on, however, the murder mystery continues. Unsuccessful at getting answers out of Hee-jae, Seo-jin resorts to locking him in his room. But the detectives have tracked him down and show up on his doorstep with a CCTV printout of his face. Sun-jae tries his best to pretend he doesn’t recognize his brother, only for Hee-jae to panic and make a run for it.

He’s taken in for interrogation, and poor Sun-jae is sent home to study while Seo-jin appoints herself Hee-jae’s lawyer and orders him not to say a word. Now it’s Sun-jae’s turn to hole himself up in his room. Only when Hae-yi calls him out to the playground to talk does he finally emerge, and immediately collapses on her shoulder in tears. In return for her emotional support and class notes, he shares his exam prep materials… which they both realize mid-exam were actually the exam itself.

The longer Hee-jae stays in police custody, the closer he looks to breaking. Eventually, he ignores Seo-jin’s warnings and blurts out that he’s not the murderer — he’s a witness. And guess whose apartment is full of metal pellets, slingshots, and walls plastered with Chi-yeol’s face? Dong-hee, who currently has one of those slingshots aimed directly at Haeng-sun.

My heart. It breaks for Sun-jae. But it’s also squeeing over Haeng-sun and Chi-yeol being so openly and unabashedly in love. Episode 12’s title, “Point of Intersection Between Comedy and Tragedy,” is so fitting, because even as Chi-yeol and Haeng-sun are basking in each other’s warmth, the past Chi-yeol is finally starting to heal from is repeating itself in Sun-jae, and by extension Hae-yi.

I’m glad Haeng-sun and Chi-yeol were there to accompany Sun-jae to the police station when Hee-jae was arrested, and I hope that’s a hint that Chi-yeol will be able to help Sun-jae where he was unable to help Su-hyun all those years ago. Seo-jin may deserve to see her carefully laid plans blow up in her face, but her sons don’t deserve to be the collateral damage.

As for Dong-hee, I’m curious about his actual motivations. I’m inclined to believe he thinks he’s acting in Chi-yeol’s best interests as a protector, but he doesn’t seem to take into account how those actions affect Chi-yeol emotionally. In fact, Dong-hee this week reminded me a little of Seo-jin: steering Chi-yeol’s life in the direction he wants and trying to prevent Chi-yeol from getting too close to other people — and yet everything he does only drives Chi-yeol and Haeng-sun closer together.

 
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Crash Course in Romance: Episodes 11-12
Source: Buzz Pinay Daily