Unhealthy Reminiscence Eraser: Episodes 13-14
by solstices
Our wounded brothers lastly acknowledge their ache and face their trauma, extending an empathetic hand to one another. One household heals, whereas one other fractures aside — generally all we would like is for our cries to be heard.
EPISODES 13-14
In one more occasion of confusingly abrupt modifying, the blackmail photographs of the bridge incident abruptly go viral throughout social media. The general public works itself up right into a frenzy speculating about Shin’s “tried homicide” of his personal brother, whereas Shin cuts off all contact and goes into hiding.
As for Gun, he’s managed to acquire footage of the autumn. He leaves a voicemail urging Shin to return since he’s came upon the reality, and Shin recollects that fateful confrontation. Asking if Gun thinks he’s the one one who’s made sacrifices, Shin pushes Gun’s buttons till he accuses Shin of desirous to steal every little thing he has. In response, Shin calls Gun out for his self-pity and inferiority advanced, and Gun punches him.
The 2 brothers combat, and Shin lastly snaps — has Gun ever thought of how suffocating it’s to stay as somebody’s alternative? Gun tells him to stay his personal life, then, and cease whining about all that he basks in — Shin is nothing however a copycat. The phrases carve themselves into Shin’s coronary heart, and when Gun turns again, he sees Shin sitting on the bridge’s railing with a heartrendingly tranquil look on his face. “I’m drained, too,” Shin says. “Now, I simply need to relaxation.” Then he leans again, and falls off the bridge.
Gun manages to catch Shin’s hand in time — together with his ailing hand! — and Shin wistfully wonders if it’s the primary time Gun has held his hand since his damage. “If I die, not less than I’ll have the ability to breathe simply.” Unwilling to lose his brother, Gun latches on with each palms, and Shin panics, yelling at Gun to let go earlier than he falls over too. “Even when I may rewind time, I’d nonetheless select to save lots of you,” Gun asserts. However Shin’s hand slips out of Gun’s grasp — and Gun instantly dives in after him, hitting his head on the best way down. Ever since then, Shin has blamed himself for Gun’s situation.
Alas, our runaway brother finally ends up dropping all his cash when his too-kind coronary heart has him giving his padded jacket to a pair of teenage boys, pockets and all. With solely mere pennies left, a shivering Shin caves and calls Joo-yeon on a public payphone. He doesn’t say something substantial, however the name permits her to go looking up the payphone’s location.
Joo-yeon finds Shin struggling to camp in a bit tent — he’s hilariously ill-suited to the wild outside — and whereas fishing, he lastly opens as much as her. Shin had began self-harming on the age of twelve to deal with the stress, and he’d burned Gun’s emotion diary not out of vindictiveness, however out of worry that his personal historical past is perhaps written inside. When Gun instructed him to cease residing as his copycat, Shin realized that he hadn’t as soon as considered what else lay forward of him. Merely wanting to surrender on something, he’d tried to make the leap — however seeing Gun seize onto him together with his ailing hand had solely multiplied Shin’s guilt tenfold. Gun had chosen his brother over himself, as soon as once more.
Now that he’s run away, Shin desires to type his ideas out earlier than returning, since he’s solely adopted others’ phrases all this whereas. Joo-yeon gently encourages him to start out small; he can take it one step at a time. Moved, Shin confesses that he fell for her as a result of she attracts out the feelings he’s been repressing all his life. “After I’m with you, I develop into myself. Not somebody who wears the false masks of his hyung, however merely, totally, Lee Shin.”
The burden of his confession lingers, pushing Joo-yeon to awkwardly counsel taking a stroll — and that’s when she spots Gun. He’d tracked Shin down utilizing a photograph the youngsters uploaded. Leaping to conclusions, Gun stalks off in one more misunderstanding. (Um, are you abruptly not fearful about your brother anymore?)
When she catches up, Gun lashes out with sharp phrases, however Joo-yeon calls him on the lie. Making an attempt to drive her away, Gun goes means too far: “I’m sick and uninterested in you. Isn’t that why your father left you, too?” Ugh, low blow. Joo-yeon slaps him, and he storms off. They each find yourself strolling aimlessly by way of the night time, overwhelmed by tears, whereas a fearful Shin follows silently behind Joo-yeon.
In the meantime, Teo has been snooping round in an try and wrest management of the medical trial and internet himself a promotion. He methods Dr. Han into spilling data, then threatens to disclose all of it to Gun in the event that they don’t enable him to proceed with a trial that resets the bad-memory erasing.
When Joo-yeon learns of this by way of a panicked telephone name, her fear for Gun sends her right into a panic. It serves as a second of readability for Shin, who realizes what he should do. Borrowing the youngsters’ scooter, Shin takes Joo-yeon again to the town, the place he watches her rush again to Gun’s workplace. From afar, Shin bids her goodbye, as if coming to phrases together with his unrequited emotions.
After a determined search, Joo-yeon finds Gun on the hospital’s tennis court docket. Her concern is painfully evident, and Gun lastly acknowledges the sincerity she’d masked beneath a layer of feigned indifference. He pulls Joo-yeon right into a reconciliatory kiss, then walks her house giddy on their reaffirmed emotions.
Circling again to our errant brother, Shin returns house and clears his identify with the police. Then he tells his mother and father that he’ll be taking a break from tennis for a yr. As regular, Mother begins yelling up a storm, and Dad begins guilt-tripping him with all that Mother has sacrificed for his sake. Even because it tugs at his guilt, Shin is adamant on pursuing his personal path any longer.
In typical brotherly trend, Gun brushes off the bridge incident, and Shin apologizes by providing Gun a chewing gum with “I’m sorry” printed on its wrapper. Gun takes the “Let’s be pleased” gum as an alternative, hee. Then Gun encourages Shin on his quest to self-discovery, reaffirming his braveness and urging him to stay his personal life nicely.
One household could also be on the best way to creating amends, however one other is approaching a disaster level. Sae-yan’s diligent calls to her hometown villagers lastly repay when one claims to know her father, however the man can’t bear to maintain up the ruse when confronted together with her honest tears. Sae-yan’s overbearing mom had paid him to deceive her daughter, and he or she’d even submitted a resignation on Sae-yan’s behalf.
Heartbroken by her mom’s heavy-handed strategies, Sae-yan resumes her search and eventually manages to discover a newspaper photograph of her organic father. Her mom doubles down, packing her luggage to pressure her again to Italy, however a scooter blocks the automotive’s path and helps Sae-yan escape. As soon as they’re protected, the person removes his helmet — it’s the person from the newspaper article. It’s her dad.
Sae-yan is overcome with pleasure, and the 2 spend a blissful day having fun with a long-overdue father-daughter date. When a passerby by accident bumps into Sae-yan, although, her father excuses himself to make a name. Then he chases after the passerby and raises a brick in opposition to him. We don’t see the aftermath, however when Sae-yan’s father returns, he cradles her shut in an awfully creepy method.
Elsewhere, Joo-yeon is racing in opposition to time to resolve the unwanted effects of Gun mistaking her as his past love, earlier than Teo can proceed with the reset process. Her crew lastly succeeds — however at the price of Joo-yeon slicing Sae-yan’s telephone name quick. When Gun tracks down the blackmailer by way of the saliva used to lick the envelope adhesive, the police discover a match of their system. It’s Sae-yan’s bio dad AHN HYO-MYUNG (Ahn Nae-sang), an ex-convict with six prior counts of stalking and homicide.
Again in Hyo-myung’s automotive middle, he enters a secret underground room unbeknownst to an oblivious Sae-yan. He’s been maintaining tabs on Sae-yan all this whereas, judging by his board filled with stalker photographs — and it looks like his present goal is Shin.
Gun rushes to the hospital to tell Joo-yeon in regards to the hazard Sae-yan is in, however he runs proper into Teo’s lure. Cruelly exposing the total fact of the medical trial, Teo sends Gun spiraling into an excruciating migraine. Dr. Han learns that the lab rat which underwent the reset surgical procedure finally died, however he arrives too late to extricate Gun from the grasp of Teo’s manipulation. Betrayed, Gun finally ends up going beneath the knife.
This drama’s strongest side is its familial relationships, and it exhibits in how compelling this week began out. Each the Lee brothers’ uncooked anguish atop that bridge and Sae-yan’s unbridled tears of pleasure when assembly her (pretend) father had been such heart-wrenching moments, and I want the present gave its full consideration to its households.
Simply think about what this present may have been, if it reduce out its pointless meandering and targeted on the familial conflicts that gave rise to trauma. On Shin’s finish: the incessant comparisons to his brother, the suffocating expectations of others, the limitless days of carrying his physique all the way down to its bones. On Gun’s finish: the shadow his brother’s highlight casts on him, the grief of a shattered dream, the futility of slogging by way of a tunnel without end. Each have been hurting due to the opposite, by way of no fault of their very own save their unhealthy coping mechanisms.
Their trajectory, slowed down with superfluous battle and an pointless love triangle, would have been a lot more practical and affecting if given a sharper focus. The core of their battle has at all times been the interaction between guilt and indignation, and the nuance of their parallel love and resentment for one another holds a lot potential. Now that Shin’s hiatus has triggered one more rift between mother and father and son, I’m hoping that the drama will afford their reconciliation ample time and substance.
It’s seeming more and more seemingly that Sae-yan’s father murdered Joo-yeon’s, creating a foul reminiscence that Joo-yeon unconsciously repressed and that each households are defending their daughters from. I perceive the moms’ worry of retraumatizing their youngsters, however obstinately obscuring the reality is doing nobody any favors — and as Shin demonstrated, acknowledging one’s trauma is the one method to correctly heal from it. Even when it’s a sluggish course of that have to be taken one step at a time.
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