In Your Radiant Season: Episodes 3-4
by DaebakGrits
After a shaky beginning, our main couple is finally sharing some meaningful time together. I wouldn’t say love is quite in the air for them yet, but the romance quota is more than satisfied elsewhere. This drama doesn’t give us one, two, or even three ships — it gives us four — so there’s almost guaranteed to be a favorite pairing for everyone.
Episodes 3-4
Chan has always had a deep love for art, but after his mother left him and his STEM-focused father SUNWOO SEOK (Jung Hae-kyung) when he was a child, his father intentionally and forcefully crushed his creative spirit. Seok put the “troll” in controlling, and the mere sight of art supplies or sketches would send him into a rage. Even after Chan relocated to Boston and chose a more “sensible” major, Seok still forbade him from dabbling in art as a hobby, and he had a full-on breakdown when he found the small basket of arts supplies hidden in Chan’s dorm room, dumping the items on the floor and ripping the illustration Chan drew of his mother. It was the fallout from this particular incident that drove Chan to attempt to take his own life.
Although Chan’s seven-year transformation may seem dramatic at first glance, his present golden-retriever energy and renewed sense of purpose feel far more plausible if we assume he has since put some distance between him and his father. That said, Chan credits his past conversations with Ha-ran as the spark that first brought light into his otherwise bleak life, which is why he now feels driven to return the favor. Prior to the explosion and Hyeok-chan’s death, she was chatty and vibrant — her current antithesis — and Chan struggles to comprehend how such a bright personality could become so dim. And so, he offers to go on a three-month long “picnic” with her. She rejects the offer, but Chan’s undaunted and confident that he will make her want to be his friend.
Of course, after hearing such a declaration, Ha-ran does her absolute best to avoid Chan, which means patronizing a crowded mainstream cafe totally lacking in vibes for her sketching sessions. She also tries to back out of the collaboration with Chan’s company, but Na-na refuses to reassign her. Ha-ran’s request — combined with the fact Ha-ran seemingly has no dates scheduled for the weekend — fuels Na-na’s doubts that her relationship with Chan might be a façade, so in order to keep up the ruse and fool her grandmother into believing she has a social life, Ha-ran spends a whole day cooling her heels outside the house. Unfortunately for Ha-ran, though, ever since Chan moved in with Man-jae, he’s become a regular fixture in her neighborhood, leading to several close encounters.
After spending the day narrowly avoiding Chan, Ha-ran thinks it’s finally safe to head back home, but this is when her luck runs out. Although she’s clearly been spotted this time, she tries to avoid a lengthy confrontation by hurrying across the street, but in her haste she’s nearly hit by a scooter. Chan pulls her to safety, but she falls and injures her wrist. Her frustration gets the better of her, and she finally snaps, telling Chan outright that she has no interest in being his friend. She wants a life free of unnecessary variables, and his presence has been both disruptive and stressful. Chan wisely backs down but insists on escorting her to the hospital to have her sprained wrist examined, and after the ER visit, he apologizes and offers to move out of the cafe so she can comfortably resume her routine — variable free.
While Ha-ran has been doing her best to avoid and push away the other half of her ship, her sisters’ love lives have been heating up. The youngest, SONG HA-DAM (Oh Ye-joo), has informed her family that she intends to marry her boyfriend, CHA YOO-GYUM (Kim Tae-young), who has been scouted by an American baseball team. Ha-young delicately asks if there’s a bun in Ha-dam’s oven, but she rolls her eyes and insists their love is pure and innocent. The marriage is primarily a way to give her a sense of stability while he plays baseball in the United States and she pursues her studies in South Korea, making their relationship a long-distance one.
If K-dramas (and real life) have taught us anything, it’s that wedding vows don’t stop people from cheating, but before passing judgement on Ha-dam’s boyfriend and decision to marry him, Na-na takes a diplomatic and practical approach, requesting to meet Yoo-gyum before passing judgement. And you know what? Yoo-gyum is adorably loyal and attentive. Not even a popular girl-group trainee publicly asking for his phone number is enough to sway his affection.
You know who else is a total catch? Tae-suk. By all outward appearances, he may be a stoic robot, but he’s downloaded and saved all of Ha-young’s personal data and preferences onto his mental hard drive. She, naturally, remains completely unaware of his hidden feelings for her — even as he covers her food stall tab, urges her to eat as much as she likes, carefully pours her drinks, and subtly removes the less desirable bits from her tteokbokki to match her taste. (Girl, how do you not notice his attentiveness?! Oh right…)
At the moment, Ha-young’s attention is preoccupied by CHA-MIN (Kang Hyun-oh) a man she met on a blind date, so when Tae-suk happens to see his love rival handing out flowers to other women, Tae-suk’s CPU begins overheating. In the shadows, he does his research on his opponent while strategically preventing them from meeting by claiming Na-na has asked to meet with Ha-young. I, for one, am totally here for this secondary couple, as his low-key pettiness combined with her obliviousness adds some necessary humor to our story that offsets the present tension between the lead couple.
And speaking of our OTP, Ha-ran is beginning to wonder if she perhaps reacted a bit too strongly to Chan’s offer of friendship. After all, he’s extremely chummy with the rest of her co-workers, and it’s possible she misread his intentions and blew the situation out of proportion. And, now that she’s the outside woman looking in — metaphorically and literally, given her office placement — she’s feeling a bit left out. Not that she’d ever admit it, of course. Even so, she’s far less resistant than usual when Na-na asks her to accompany Chan as he tours the palaces to study the dancheong patterns for their collaboration — but she probably regrets her decision the instant Chan shows up dressed like a Joseon king.
After a while, the continuous parade of tourists stopping Chan to take a photo with him becomes too much of a distraction, so he excuses himself to change out of the costume. When he returns to the spot where he left Ha-ran, he only finds her belongings. Concerned, he frantically searches for her, and after some time, he locates her at a secluded pavilion, where she’s obviously been crying.
Worried, he lies that his legs have become fatigued in order to remain by her side in comforting silence. After a moment, Ha-ran confesses that she wandered off because she heard a voice call her name and got lost in the memories of her mother who used to call her with the same nickname and intonation. Unprompted, she reveals that her parents were killed in a car accident after the driver of a Truck of Doom went into cardiac arrest. She, Ha-young, and Na-na were in the car behind her parents and Ha-dam, and they witnessed the whole incident. She explains that their deaths — coupled with the loss of another — are the driving force behind her isolation. She chooses to push people away before she grows to care about them, but she also feels trapped behind the walls she built to protect herself.
Ha-ran apologizes to Chan for being so harsh, admitting that she now realizes he’s like a capybara who makes friends with everyone, but Chan makes it clear that what he wanted from her was something different. Without disclosing that she is the subject of his story, he recounts how he once happened upon someone who helped him emerge from his own personal winter. Seeing her, and sensing a resemblance to the woman in the painting at the Radiant Seasons art exhibit, he resolved to become the force that would help her rediscover her smile.
Now that Ha-ran better understands Chan’s motives, she decides to take him up on his offer. He’s delighted, but just as they shake hands on their deal, a car drives past them. The blinding headlights trigger a fresh memory — a brief flash of a figure exiting a room — from the day of the explosion. Chan assures a worried Ha-ran that he’s fine, but the new memory is worth mentioning to his doctor, who theorizes that he still hasn’t fully recovered from his amnesia and that gaps in his recollection may still remain.
His doctor suspects Ha-ran is the trigger for releasing Chan’s new memory and cautions Chan against spending time with her, as there’s likely a reason his subconscious kept some details buried. Chan, however, goes against his doctor’s advice and decides to stay by her side and ensure she finds happiness. If it weren’t for her, he wouldn’t have attained his current life, and whatever memories he may have locked away, he’s willing to risk facing them for her.
Ha-ran’s “free trial” of Chan’s friendship kicks off with a picnic by the Han River and a bouquet of pens to replace the special one he had accidentally caused her to lose. Since he’ll soon be away on a two-week business trip, he also hands her his Seoul bucket list, instructing her to choose their first destination for when he returns and her official subscription to his “services” begins. They start off well, but a nearby conversation reminds Ha-ran of the lonely fireworks show she spent alone on her first Christmas Eve without Hyeok-chan. Sensing her mood shift, Chan quickly adapts — abandoning the fried chicken he’d ordered — and insists they go for a bike ride instead.
Their evening by the river serves as a pleasant icebreaker, but Chan and Ha-ran’s new friendship is still somewhat superficial. It isn’t until Chan—an anxious driver—nearly causes a car accident with Ha-ran in the backseat that their connection begins to deepen. In the aftermath, both are vulnerable. Chan feels guilty, knowing the accident inadvertently triggered her trauma and worries he might be doing more harm than good. But Ha-ran reassures him that his “free trial” is working, gradually replacing her painful memories with positive ones. In the past, she would have retreated into her cave after such an incident, but not this time. Instead, she comforts him, encouraging him to be vulnerable and honest, as that’s what makes their friendship genuine.
Now that Chan and Ha-ran are making progress, it’s time to shift focus to Ha-ran’s sisters — and the secret that’s bound to destroy their happiness. You see, the day Yoo-gyum is set to meet Ha-dam’s family finally arrives, but little does Ha-dam know, her boyfriend has already met her grandmother. You see, earlier in our story, Yoo-gyum gave Ha-dam a bit of a fright when he unexpectedly cut a phone conversation with her short, leading her to believe he was involved in an accident. After assuring her that he was alive and well, he explained he’d rushed into traffic to help a woman with dementia. That woman was Na-na. (No, drama gods! Why must you be so cruel!)
Yes, Na-na has been experiencing some distressing symptoms that would suggest some sort of cognitive decline, and she’s been intentionally keeping it secret from her granddaughters — at least until after her follow-up visit with her doctor, when she’ll likely get an official diagnosis. Upon recognizing Yoo-gyum as the young man who rescued her, Na-na asks him to keep her declining health a secret.
The guilt of keeping a secret from Ha-dam eats at Yoo-gyum’s conscious and causes him break out in panic sweats, so when Ha-ran and Ha-young fail to show to their planned dinner on time, Yoo-gyum jumps at the chance to leave prematurely with a promise to return when the whole family is present. The failed family meeting leaves Ha-dam distressed and vulnerable, and — in one of the drama’s more heartrending scenes yet — the youngest Song sister seeks comfort in what is obviously her old baby blanket.
After that night, Ha-dam senses that Yoo-gyum is being emotionally distant and begins to fear his affections might have been swayed by the trainee’s interest in him when she discovers that he lied to her about his whereabouts after school. Come to find out, Ha-ran and Ha-young waited for him outside the school gates and invited him to dinner as an apology for being no-shows. As the sisters make up and enjoy their meal carefree and unaware of their grandmother’s possible dementia, Yoo-gyum looks on with the omniscient perspective of someone who knows it’s only a matter of time before a shockwave ripples through their happiness.
For the time being, though, the only force disturbing the peace comes in the form of Cha-min, whose cheating scumbag ways have finally caught up with him. Ha-young learns that Cha-min has been with multiple women in addition to her — all while sending out invitations to his wedding. Ha-young decides to teach him a valuable lesson by dropkicking him in the face outside his office — but not before learning that some mystery guy (who’s now short one side-view mirror) has already been threatening to expose his philandering ways.
So later, when Ha-young returns to the office and sees Tae-suk returning from a meeting in a taxi, she asks him if his car is in the shop because he’s missing a side-view mirror. When he confirms, she begins to not only piece together what happened but question his motives for acting on her behalf, but he scurries away to avoid admitting he’s been acting as her secret vigilante love avenger. It’s too late, though, the seed has been planted, and I think Ha-young is about to start noticing the subtly special way he treats her.
At the same time, the nature of our OTP’s relationship is quickly evolving from a budding friendship to something more romantic in nature after Ha-ran spontaneously joins Chan on his roadtrip to Gyeongju. Although she claims she’s tagging along for work, it’s clear that she’s worried about him driving after his earlier near-miss. Luckily, she insisted on driving because, half-way to their destination, the motor for their windshield wipers goes out in the middle of the rainstorm, and they’re able to work together to safely pull off the road at a rest stop.
After calling the rental company, the learn it won’t be a quick fix, and with a long wait ahead of them, Chan decides to call his maternal grandmother who lives nearby. KIM SUN (Kang Ae-shim) is a real spitfire who playfully scolds Chan for not telling her he was in South Korea. Obviously pleased to see her grandson, Sun invites Chan and Ha-ran to wait at her house, which also doubles as a pottery studio, while their rental car is being prepared.
Their time at Sun’s house is relaxed, but as Chan and Ha-ran kill time sculpting clay on the pottery wheels, Sun knowingly watches their interactions with a subtle knowing smile. When Chan excuses himself to take a phone call and leaves Sun alone with Ha-ran, she divulges that Chan’s mother was an artist who desperately wanted to study art abroad. When she finally got the opportunity, she intended to take Chan with her, but Seok refused. Ultimately, she left Chan behind to pursue her art, but while she was abroad, she passed away. From that point on Seok refused to let Chan pursue his own creative interests, so began Chan’s descent into darkness.
Chan returns, completely unaware that his grandmother has spilled the details of his tragic backstory, and it’s now Ha-ran’s turn to leave the room. While she’s washing her hands, Sun tries to get Chan to confess he likes Ha-ran as more than a friend, but he responds that she’s someone he “shouldn’t like” — a rather odd way of referring to a woman who isn’t married or a blood relative.
Little does Chan know, Ha-ran overheard his conversation with his grandmother, and she, too, found his wording strange. So once they’re back in their rental car, and after confirming for the umpteenth time that their windshield wipers are functioning properly, Ha-ran confronts him. Why would he say that she’s someone he “shouldn’t like” instead of simply admitting he wasn’t interested in her? His response is to lean in closer, and with the rhythmic sounds of the windshield wipers and Ha-ran’s heart beating softly in the background, he asks her: “Then is it okay for me to like you?”
What a deliciously tantalizing note to end this week’s episodes on. Still, I can’t help but suspect the scene will pick back up with one — or both — of them awkwardly deflating the romantic tension by steering the conversation somewhere far less charged. It feels a little too early for their romance to truly take flight. Then again, if we’re following the classic K-drama order of operations, their relationship needs to reach a place of emotional contentment before the inevitable storm rolls in to shatter it. Whether that storm comes in the form of Na-na’s dementia diagnosis or the revelation that Chan was Hyeok-chan’s college roommate remains to be seen.
And while we’re on the subject of Chan’s time at the Boston Institute of Technology, I have to admit I’m slightly disappointed we weren’t given more insight into his past connection with Ha-ran. I need clarity. Did he mostly read her long, rambling messages and reply only sparingly, quietly forming a one-sided attachment as he took comfort in her words? Or were their exchanges intimate enough that she may have unknowingly fallen for him instead of Hyeok-chan?
The fact that he still has unrecovered memories — ones his mind seems to be subconsciously repressing — suggests there’s something he feels guilty about or deeply traumatized by. Yet the latest flash of recollection appears to stem from the day of the explosion and doesn’t seem connected to his conversations with Ha-ran at all. Unless…what if he witnessed something in the lab he was never meant to see just moments before he was hurled through that window?
What if Hyeok-chan was in the lab canoodling with a woman? From the limited glimpses we’ve had of him, he hasn’t exactly come across as an attentive boyfriend, so turning him into a cheater wouldn’t be out of left field. But then again, Chan has already proven to be an unreliable narrator of his own history, and the flashbacks we’ve seen are just as fractured as his recollections. At this stage, the story could veer in any direction, and I find myself craving answers even more than I’m rooting for the central romance to blossom. At this point, I don’t know if that’s good or bad for the long-term appeal of our OTP, but either way, it keeps me excited for more. And, worst case scenario, I’ll still have fun shipping Ha-young and Tae-suk.
RELATED POSTS