The Girl in the Painting

Episode 1. The Girl in the Painting

1998 - Kwon Min-ju listens to music while watching her uncle, Chi-won’s, music shop when Nam Si-heon and Jung In-gyu enter and pretend to inquire about rock and roll music when in reality they want to know her better. They are classmates but Min-ju pretends not to know them.

“Gather My Tears” is playing on the speaker and Si-heon asks who the singer is. Min-ju answers in half whisper, “Seo Ji-won.” She gets nervous because he asks her to say it louder. Si-heon orders one cassette copy and she asks for his pager number to contact him when the tape arrives. She smiles while looking at his number.

2023 – Han Jun-hee arrives at the advertising office. It has been a year since her boyfriend dies in a plane crash. She leaves early and her officemates suspect that she has a date and she teases them by saying that her date is really handsome. 

She attends the memorial service of Koo Yeon-jun, her boyfriend, at the church and flashes back to the memory of her visit to Yeon-jun to tell him that she accepted a job in New York. He asks her not to go. Unable to stand the memory she leaves and the mother of Yeon-jun catches up with her. Jun-hee explains that she still doesn’t believe that he is dead because his body was not found. The mother asks why she isn’t wearing the engagement ring that Yeon-jun was supposed to give her on her birthday before she left for New York.

She recalls the jewelry box that he gave her and how she told him not to leave his workshop to go to New York with her. She insists that they need to save money to buy an apartment. He tells her that being with her is more important. He says that they might break up when she is far from him. When she gets home, she opens the compartments of the box and discovers the secret drawer but it’s empty.

1998 - Kwon Min-ju misses the school bus when Nam Si-heon and Jung Ing-yu see her at the bus stop.  Si-heon gives her his helmet and tells her to ride with Ing-yu because his scooter is old. They are late for school and are locked out by the guard. Si-heon is about to climb the gate when the homeroom teacher catches him and the boys are made to do laps around the track oval while Min-ju squats with her bag raised above her head. The homeroom teacher doesn’t recognize her as a student in the class. 

Han Jun-hee recalls how she unknowingly used Koo Yeon-jun’s toothbrush one morning and how he teased her about using hers too. On her way to the office the first anniversary of the plane crash is on the news and how many bodies are still missing. Jun-Hee daydreams on her birthday at the office about Yeon-jun’s surprising her with flowers, a cake, and dinner. She is back to reality when her officemate brings her a basket of flowers that was delivered by an anonymous man. She tries to chase after him to find out who he was but is disappointed. She gets a call from Yeon-jun’s mother informing her that she just registered his death.

Chan-yeong, Yeon-jun’s partner, calls her and invites her to the shop. He hands her a box of the remaining belongings of Yeon-jun and the painting of a girl running away on a road under a canopy of trees. Still curious about who the girl is, Chan-yeong tells her that it looks like her. 

She flips through her phone photos at the café they used to frequent and texts his phone that she misses him, she has a litany of messages unanswered. She asks what his special treat for her birthday would be in the last hours of the day. An instagram photo appears on her phone, and she recognizes the young Yeon-jun but not the two other companions in the photo.  Han Jun-hee meantime asks the sender of the photo to identify himself. She discovers that the photo was posted in 2008. Jun-hee wonders if the girl is the first love of Koo Yeon-jun.

Back in the high school chemistry class, Kwon Min-ju is called by the teacher and she gives the right answer. This surprises Si-heon and In-gyu, when the class is assigned to do an experiment in threes, they join her as groupmates. They easily complete the task.

In another flashback, Nam Ji-heon returns to the music shop and asks her name. She answers, Kwon Min-ju.

#KDrama #TimeTravelDrama #GatherMyTears #SeoJiwon #HanJunhee #KooYeonjun #NamSiheon #JungIngyu #LoveAndLoss #DramaSeries