a melodramatic slow-burn romance, in which two broken people find solace in one another and try to heal.

i'm writing this two months after watching it and, to be honest, the romance didn't resonate with me as much as the theme of sisterhood did. strangely, i think the most memorable scene for me is a flashback in which hae won is braiding her grandmother's hair, along with her mother, and aunt, laughing. it's a very simple scene, but i think it spoke the most to me.

'hey, don't die. if you die, i'll die. your mom will die too. our mom will die too. that's how it is. even if we seem not to care, that's what will happen.' though their sisterhood isn't shown through affection, it is very much shown through their sacrifice. hae won's mother did not hesitate in taking the fall for her younger sister, so long as hae won could still be cared for by someone. of course, this had a huge impact on hae won and how she was perceived.

this doesn't mean to say that i disliked the romance aspect, though i would have felt the same had they decided to make hae won and eun sub have a platonic relationship. for me, i saw love, but i don't think i would say that it's the typical passionate romance shown. it was a nice change but i could have done without. i also could have certainly done without the love triangle- seeing eun sub never had reciprocal feelings for bo young, it felt like an unnecessary element, beyond maybe demonstrating another reason as for why bo young and hae won may not be able to reignite a friendship, at least to how it was before.

it felt like as the story progressed, the leads were becoming as vital as the secondary characters. at times, i felt overwhelmed at times by certain revelations and kim bo young's persistence. maybe that was the point, feeling overwhelmed made us feel just a fraction of what hae won must have felt, but in terms of being an enjoyable experience, i wouldn't say it was as cosy as you'd anticipate.

one thing that particularly irked me was the portrayal of hae won's abusive father. yes... people are multi-faceted. humans are complex and unreliable, but rare kind actions do not cancel out the formidable actions. one can act kind without being kind. in fact, his ability to be kind only makes it worse that he chose not to. i honestly cannot say that i think either the aunt did anything wrong. had he had access to them, i firmly believe that he would have killed them. i understand that self-defence laws differ, but it felt frustrating that it couldn't be just ruled as manslaughter. i don't think forgiveness is necessary, nor always possible, especially in cases of domestic violence so severe, and i didn't like that it felt as if they were being forced to forgive, when there was more than one victim.

i think i would say that i preferred jang woo and eun shil's romance plot. it was definitely a little more cliche, but that kind of familiarity felt nice in this format. jang woo was probably my favourite character.

i suppose a takeaway for me is to not leave things unsaid. hae won's mother thought that correspondence and honesty would have hurt hae won, and so she distanced herself, even after her release. perhaps, it's not our right to choose what someone knows and to choose to endure their pain for them, seeing as we don't know how much future damage we may be causing, even if our intentions are pure. 'if you're family, i believe you should all share the pain together.'

my other takeaway i suppose is don't trust men except from eun sub?