It’s the day of the Korea-Japan World Cup Qualifying Match, and Dad and Yoon-jae are already parked in front of the tv. Dad calls out to Shi-won to make sure that the chicken’s been ordered, and she looks up in a panic.

 

She was too busy going through her latest idol magazine with Yoo-jung to remember. Whoops. She pokes her head out to face them with her sincerest apologies, and confesses the whole truth.

 

Dad grumbles at her use of “fair play” and she explains to Yoo-jung that “fair play” is a surprise tactic: they think you’re going to lie, but you attack with the truth and therefore cannot be argued with. She smiles, “I’m not a coach’s daughter for nothing.”

 

One by one the boys arrive. Hak-chan is back to being his smooth eloquent self and immediately gets on Dad’s good side by saying he’s a fan. Then Joon-hee comes in, and Dad is impressed with his looks.

 

 

 

Sung-jae he knows only too well, and bribes him with Park Jung-tae’s bat if he can watch the game with his trap shut. Joon-hee’s the only one who goes to see Mom in the kitchen, and he sweetly compliments her, saying she’s looking younger every day.

She says loudly so everyone can hear, how NICE it would be to have such a husband, a son, or a son-in-law. Yoon-jae throws some eye-daggers his way.

Then Joon-hee joins the girls in Shi-won’s room as they’re squeeing over a message from the college boy Shi-won chatted with last night. He wants to meet in the chatroom again.

 

 

 

 

Yoo-jung: “You might date a boy from Seoul!” Joon-hee grabs Shi-won’s face with both his hands and tells her to do well… which is exactly when Yoon-jae walks in to tell them the game is starting.

He looks back and forth between them silently, and they stay frozen like that too, her face still in his hands.

Finally Yoon-jae tells them to hurry in his usual gruff way and walks out, leaving them behind in the room, smiling awkwardly.

Shi-won: “Still like him now?”

 

 

 

 

Joon-hee prods her to chat with ROTC guy, and meanwhile the game starts and Yoon-jae sits there stewing and wondering why they’re not coming out of the room.

Yoo-jung tries to get Yoon-jae’s attention any way she can, but he’s so distracted he can barely hear her. She tells him that Shi-won’s busy chatting with her soon-to-be ROTC college boyfriend, and you can practically see steam coming from his ears, like, There’s another guy?

Meanwhile, in Seoul, Tae-woong comes out of a friend’s wedding as his buddies urge him to move on with his life and get out of Busan. He says he will after he sends Yoon-jae to college, and then passes a street artist doing portraits.

 

 

 

 

It flashes him back to 1992, when he and his girlfriend had their portraits drawn together, and he had written a marriage proposal on it, using her original bad-English wording from when she was still a high school student. She squeals in delight.

Back to the soccer game. Shi-won and Joon-hee finally join the group and when they sit next to each other, Yoon-jae snipes at Joon-hee to move his head because he can’t see. So petty.

The game starts to get tense and Yoo-jung wraps her arms around Hak-chan, who can barely keep himself from spontaneously combusting right there in the middle of the living room.

And Yoon-jae has his arms around Joon-hee, whose omg-my-crush-is-hugging-me moment just kills me.

 

 

 

 

Suddenly the doorbell rings with a chicken delivery—a mistake, since they clearly forgot to order theirs. Yoon-jae is the only one to protest that they shouldn’t steal someone else’s chicken, but he’s outvoted and Mom says on a day like today, it’s okay to bend the rules.

He protests that the chicken shop owner knows them and will probably call, and Mom says they won’t answer the phone then. Shi-won whines that her ROTC oppa is due to call, which then makes Yoon-jae change his mind. Convenient, romance-killing chicken.

The game starts winding down 0-1, and they call it a day and filter out, sure that Korea’s never going to turn a loss around in the final moments of the game. Only Sung-jae is left to watch the rest in silence.

But of course, as soon as the room empties out, Korea scores its first goal. Sung-jae breaks his vow of silence and screeeeeeeeams.

 

 

 

 

Everybody runs back and gathers in front of the tv, and then they watch as Team Korea scores another goal and wins the game. The living room explodes in a sea of happy screams and hugs, and Hak-chan nearly has a heart attack at Yoo-jung’s show of affection.

Sung-jae finally gets to open his mouth, letting loose a barrage of things he’s been holding back since the start of the game, and Yoon-jae hugs Dad and then turns to Shi-won…

…who’s too busy hugging Joon-hee to notice him. Oof. His face darkens. They scream for joy, locked in a seemingly endless embrace from his point of view. He narrates:

 

 

 

 

Yoon-jae: I knew in that moment, that when you like someone, you have eyes for her in the sides and the back of your head. And that if you don’t knock, there will be no answer. Standing in place will not get you what you want. There’s no such thing as fair play anymore.

And then… the phone rings. Everyone freezes.

Yoon-jae is the only one who gets up to answer. He picks it up and everyone holds their breath, and Yoon-jae apologizes to the chicken shop, owning up to the deed and promising to stop by the shop later. They all commend him for his fair play.

Only… on the other end of the line is ROTC boy (Im Shi-wan? Is everyone from Standbycoming for a visit?), asking over and over for Shi-won, as Yoon-jae jabbers on about chicken.

 

 

 

 

Damn, Yoon-jae’s not messing around. In voiceover, again: “There’s no such thing as fair play anymore.”

Back to 1992, when Tae-woong couldn’t go on a trip with his girlfriend because the Seagulls were about to play the final game of the Korean series. She pleaded and pleaded but he said no, and let her borrow his prized possession, the walkman his dad gave him before he died, with a tape of their song, “A Lover’s Concerto.”

They wave goodbye as she gets on the bus. The Seagulls win the series and Dad calls Mom from the locker room, on cloud nine. He’s talking at her a mile a minute, but suddenly his face freezes. Oh no.

He lets the phone drop as he turns his attention to the tv. The bus crashed, didn’t it? Ohgodohgod… The list of victims gets read over and over on the screen. As the phone falls to the ground, we hear Mom’s voice screaming in terror, “Our Song-joo! Our Song-joo! What about our Song-joo?!”

OH NO.

 

 

 

 

There’s her name on the screen: SUNG Song-joo. She’s their DAUGHTER? Holy crap!

And then Tae-woong comes in looking for Dad with flowers in his hands. Dad can barely manage to say, “Tae-woong-ah… our Song-joo…” He turns to the tv, and sees the news. Augh.

1997, post-soccer game. Dad yells for Sung-jae to go get Ajumma’s wallet from the nightstand so he can treat the kids out to dinner. He opens a door and Yoo-jung stops him, “That’s Shi-won’s unni’s room. The master bedroom is this way.”

And through the cracked doorway, we see the framed portrait of Song-joo and Tae-woong sitting there on the shelf. Heartbreak.

 

 

 

 

Tae-woong gets back from Seoul that night and Shi-won runs into him on her way back from walking Yoo-jung home.

She sees that he’s got a shiny new portable CD player and asks for a listen. It’s still playing “A Lover’s Concerto.” She swoons at the thought of listening to H.O.T. on it and puts on her aegyo smile, “Oppa, give this to me!” Aw, exactly how her sister used to say it.

It stuns him at first, and then he smiles sweetly, “Sure.” She lights up and he pats her on the head.

But as she runs off with a skip in her step, a different feeling comes over him, perhaps reminded of Song-joo, or perhaps noticing Shi-won for the first time.

Reunion, 2012. Tae-woong walks in the door (!) and everyone gets up to greet their teacher. He sits down next to Shi-won and pats her head sweetly, as we get reminded in voiceover that at this dinner, one couple will announce a wedding.