A Hundred Memories: Episodes 7-8
by Dramaddictally
Buses are a thing of the past as we move into 1989 and the era where our women are working in a beauty shop. With one of our heroines on the run, the other is moving in on the man they both love. And for his part, it seems our hero might be ready to hear her confession.
EPISODES 7-8
We left off last time with a 7-year time jump and met up with Young-rye in her new gig at a beauty salon. That comment about Jae-pil being her boyfriend was just to throw us off, but still, the two have gotten quite cozy in the last few years. They spend almost every day together, know each other’s likes and dislikes, and feel comfortable enough to point out food on their faces. Young-rye is still harboring a serious crush, and Jae-pil seems like he might be interested.
Most of Episode 7 is spent bringing us up to date on what’s been happening with everyone since the catastrophe at the bus company (without ever mentioning said catastrophe). We find out that Jae-pil’s family hit hard times when his dad’s department store went bankrupt and his dad collapsed from poor health. That made the once-unstudious Jae-pil buckle down, and now he’s in med school, learning the ropes by working in an ER.
On Young-rye’s side, she and another of the former bus attendants are making ends meet at the beauty salon, and Young-rye’s mom has given up selling goods on the street to run a restaurant. Things appear to have improved somewhat for her family, but she’s still helping out with the bills. She lives with two roomies (both former bus attendants), her two younger siblings (who are now teens), and the young daughter of one of her roomies (who, when we last left off, had just gotten pregnant by the bus company’s biggest womanizer).
The important news is that no one has heard from Jong-hee since she ran away that night seven years ago. Young-rye still thinks of her and wonders where she is, and it’s a point of sadness in her life. However, without Jong-hee there, Young-rye is getting closer and closer to confessing to Jae-pil. On a night when Jae-pil asks her to be his date at a medical school event, Young-rye plans to spill her feelings, but things go awry when she thinks she sees Jong-hee there.
It’s not Jong-hee. But as Young-rye is chasing the woman down, she injures her ankle, which is a good reason for a doctor-in-training to hold ice on it for her and then piggyback her all the way home. After so much careful attention, Young-rye is on the verge of confessing at her doorstep, except Young-shik’s friend, JUNG-HYUN (Kim Jung-hyun), ruins the moment.
I haven’t mentioned Jung-hyun before but he’s been around the whole time, secretly crushing on Young-rye by calling her “Ugly” as a pet name. He’s been in the US since the time jump, but now he’s back and he can’t believe that “Ugly” is all grown up and actually really pretty. When he finds Young-rye and Jae-pil together outside her house, he’s instantly jealous and the men end up in a drinking contest — showing that Jae-pil is certainly harboring more than friendly feelings for Young-rye.
Back at the salon, the staff learns that a VVIP client is arriving with her daughter, and they’re all to be on their best behavior. When the new clients walk in, the “daughter” is Jong-hee. Both Jong-hee and Young-rye are surprised to see each other, but Jong-hee acts like she doesn’t know Young-rye, which makes the whole thing even more uncomfortable.
When we find out the backstory of where Jong-hee has been all these years, it becomes clear why she acted that way. Essentially, when she ran away from the bus company that night, she stumbled on Young-shik, who paid for her one-way ticket out of town. Afterward, Jong-hee got a job cleaning upscale hotel rooms, where one fateful day she stopped a woman from jumping from a ninth-floor window.
The woman, MI-SOOK (Seo Jae-hee), is trying to escape the pain of losing her daughter, and when she meets Jong-hee she takes her under her wing, buying her gifts and treating her like a replacement daughter. Mi-sook is uber-wealthy and one day she finally just asks Jong-hee to be her adopted daughter. That’s how the two end up at the salon as mother/daughter.
But, Mi-sook is also emotionally abusive. She’s told Jong-hee that she doesn’t want her to mention her past or to associate with anyone that she knew in the past. Jong-hee has to be her daughter now, and that’s it. This is why Jong-hee ignores Young-rye at the salon.
Later, to make good on it — and because she’s so excited to see her — Jong-hee sends a car to pick up Young-rye and bring her to her house when Mi-sook isn’t there. Both of them are ecstatic to be reunited, but Young-rye realizes that Jong-hee has to hide herself in order to please her new “mom.”
For one, Jong-hee is attending university, in equestrian studies no less, because that’s what Mi-sook wants. It’s bittersweet for Young-rye because Jong-hee never wanted to go to college — that was Young-rye’s dream. And Young-rye is still saving and studying to go but can’t afford it yet. Still, the bigger concern for Young-rye is that Jong-hee was happiest when the two of them were together, eating ramyun on the rooftop of the bus depot, and she cries on the way home, thinking about their losses.
This is when we finally learn what happened to the Bus Boss and why Young-rye seems to have matured so much since then. First, he didn’t die. But second, Young-rye blackmailed him into keeping quiet about the stabbing, using evidence that he’d been stealing company funds for years and blaming the employees.
The thing that doesn’t add up is that during that blackmail conversation, Young-rye also states that Jong-hee acted in self-defense, and that Young-rye would testify to that until the end, so the guy is screwed either way. But like, doesn’t that mean that Jong-hee didn’t need to disappear? Why did Young-rye push her away and make her run if claiming self-defense was always an option? Feels pretty forced to me.
Well, on Jong-hee’s side, once she ran it makes sense why she didn’t return or reach out to Young-rye. Since there was no news about the stabbing, she had no idea what happened, and was terrified to make herself known. But Jong-hee has been missing her old life, and once she’s back in Young-rye’s orbit, she visits Young-rye’s mom’s restaurant and catches up with her old friends.
The one person she’d like to know more about is Jae-pil, but she also feels like she can’t contact him after the way she broke it off with him so coldly before. And Young-rye is also reluctant to tell Jae-pil about Jong-hee’s return, since it would upset her chances with him.
When Jong-hee finally decides she wants to see Jae-pil, she stops by the hospital where he works and finds him and Young-rye outside, joking around like buddies, but with an obvious flirtation. Jong-hee gets back in the car and leaves, but later, she’s so distracted thinking about it that she falls off her horse.
And isn’t that just the perfect reason to end up in the ER where Jae-pil is attending.
Jong-hee tries to leave the hospital in order not to see Jae-pil, but he argues that she needs to stay and be examined. As they argue, Young-rye shows up with Jung-hyun and sees them together, and it’s pained, angry, shocked stares on all sides as we’re made to wait until next week.
There’s a lot of melodrama here and I’m feeling way less interested since the time jump. I wasn’t convinced that Jong-hee running away made any sense even as it happened, but hindsight isn’t helping anything. And since I’m having so much trouble buying it, I’m also having troubling caring about the outcomes of that decision.
Anyway, the show wants us to worry about this love triangle and what will happen to their friendship. Honestly, it’s a tough call. For the past seven years Jae-pil and Young-rye have been building up their relationship, so it’s stable, close, and based on reality. On the other side, Jae-pil and Jong-hee have been holding each other in the backs of their minds — as a possibility or a fantasy — which is a very tempting option when the one who got away suddenly reappears. Plus, there was all that heartbreak between them when Jong-hee left and the opportunity to mend that might also be too good to pass up.
Personally, I’m on team Jong-hee/Young-rye and hope their friendship is the end game here.
