The lines in More Than Friends are just too beautiful not to capture. Hence, I will just go all the way to the recaps before its full review.
I’m sure we all missed More Than Friends after the finale week delay, at the very least this episode made up for it and more.
abbyinhallyuland watches More Than Friends on iQIYI
Recaps: 01&02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07 | 08 | 09 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | Finale + Review |
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSqfVcE9KY8
More Than Friends Episode 15 Recap
“I cried every day. And I couldn’t remember to close my umbrella. But you ask… how I’ve been?”
Time stops as Woo-yeon hears Lee Soo saying hello to her. Offering him a cup of tea, she heard him ask how she has been, and Woo-yeon looks back on those crying nights of missing him by her side.
Unable to answer him truthfully, she confirmed she has been doing well and asked him the same question. She tells him how time heals everything.
However, on Lee Soo’s side; he has been battling with time to achieve a dream he regretted giving up.
“I hardly ate or slept. All I did was take pictures… to come back to you.”
Telling how time has passed already, Woo-yeon tells Lee Soo that he was already late.
Just then, Joon-soo enters Woo-yeon’s shop which she used to drive Lee Soo away. Alone with Joon-soo, Woo-yeon musters her strength not to break down.
Giving her an option of either lending his ear or changing the topic, she agrees to change the topic. She receives merchandise from the calligraphy project and agrees to come with him to the premiere of the movie she worked previously.
“I thought we’d never break up since it took a long time for us to be together.”
Lee Soo enters his apartment as memories he shared with Woo-yeon automatically fill his heart. He looks back on his conversation with Yu-ra on why he agreed to break up with her.
Hurrying to finish his project, he revealed that his ultimate destination is to go back to Woo-yeon. He tells Yu-ra how he did not plead for her to stay when he heard how she was having a hard time.
Though Yu-ra discouraged his ambitious love claim since everything is over because of the time that already passed, Lee Soo believes that his connection with Woo-yeon is different.
His reverie is cut with a phone call from Joon-soo, who made sure that he does not misunderstand, why he was there earlier to meet Woo-yeon.
“I keep regretting things. I think I ruined our relationship.”
While the girls are out to destress, Lee Soo visits Sang-hyuk who revealed his upcoming wedding. Woo-yeon suggests for them three to be single forever, but Jin-ju quickly removes her arms locked to her, obviously not sharing the same love fate as her two friends have.
Sang-hyuk was initially turned down by Jin-ju’s parents. Fortunately, he got on the good side of Dong-sik, Jin-ju’s family’s dog. Thus, successfully securing Jin-ju’s hand for marriage.
Sang-hyuk asks Lee Soo (on behalf of all viewers) why they are making dating look so complicated? Their being considerate to each other even caused them pain to one another. Regretting the time that passed, Lee So blames himself for being clueless and ruining his relationship in the process.
Confessing his inability to turn back what has been said and done, he tells Sang-hyuk how he feels so lost. Sang-hyuk can’t help but respond how he is like Woo-yeon with his thoughts and how they are both foolish.
Later, Jin-ju arrives, who like her boyfriend feels apathetic to Lee Soo’s love fate. Softly chiding on the choice he made, she declares not harboring animosity towards him anymore. She adds how she hated him so much, she does not feel anything anymore.
Taunting her to continue hating him because he intends to chase Woo-yeon again, she replies to go ahead. Bluntly conveying how her connection to him is only because of Woo-yeon, she gives him an honest comparison: of how a bystander like her, felt emotionally drained – and that won’t even compare to what Woo-yeon might have felt.
Despite her harsh words, Lee Soo is resigned to protect the glimmer of hope that he can still work it out with Woo-yeon.
“Are you going to make me remember what your back look likes?”
Young-hee heads to the hospital to visit her mother. Unaware that Hyun-jae also dropped by earlier and pours his heart out for failing to keep his promise. He can only apologize for their wedding not pushing through and cries painfully for disappointing her.
Watching her mother wakes up suddenly from her sleep, she asked if she will just show her back, when her mother turned away upon realizing she’s there. In pain, omoni replies not to remember her back and everything about her.
Telling her mom that her back side looks sad and how she does not want to forget her face, Young-hee’s mom acknowledged how she has shown her sad back side to her almost all the time. Bearing the pain, she orders her daughter to leave and turns her back again.
“If I open my heart, I can see a whole new world.”
Lee Soo visits the museum where his photos will be exhibited and made important instructions to the staff arranging it. He also obliges for an interview to be used in the pamphlet.
Explaining the meaning of his exhibit, he elaborates on how traveling let him realized discovering new world through opening a door. He further relates it to how people build connection. Like how meeting someone means entering a new world.
Talking about how his photos about people in love are to decorate his exhibit, he also hinted the interviewer that his favorite photo was his own portrait.
“We’ll hold you, so just cry.”
At the hospital, Young-hee sits beside her mom who barely holds on to her life. She apologizes to her daughter how she never received proper love from her parents so she was not able to love her properly.
In her dying words, she tells her daughter how much she loves her and hears the same from Young-hee.
Young-hee’s mom inevitably passed away which reunite the six friends who gave their support wholeheartedly. Woo-yeon and Jin-ju urge her to cry hard and not bottle up her feelings.
Receiving the comfort she needed, Young-hee’s tears rushes like a dam in the arms of her best friends. In turn, she also consoled Hyun-Jae who wept loud in agony paying respect to his second mother.
Hyun-jae sits beside Young-hee like how he did when her father died. Back then, he encouraged her to cry when he was holding back her tears, and promised to hold her up in case she crumbles.
Offering the same warm words, Hyun-jae tells Young-hee to lean on him again.
“Lean on me as a friend again. Or if not, consider me a chair, a rock or a tree. Anything you can lean on. Consider me something like that.”
Laying her head on his shoulder, Young-hee closes her eyes as Hyun-jae sat beside her silently.
“Your existence alone comforts me.”
After her mom’s funeral, Young-hee meets her friends at Sang-hyuk’s restaurant. Noticing her friends awkwardness, she breaks the mood by being grateful for the comfort they all gave her.
As someone who hates to cry because she might crumble, she hates leaning on others because it makes her feel small. She tells her friends how she did not crumble even when she cried, because they were there to hold her up.
Feeling happy for having her friends, Young-hee successfully lightened up the mood. Later, Young-hee sits with Woo-yeon and talks about Lee Soo.
Heaving a sigh, Woo-yeon mutters how she did not throw everything that Lee Soo gave her. She often stares at those and remember their days together. The heartbreaks, the memories and even all the days she cried, she has used those to be guarded of her emotions.
Understanding the emotional armor Woo-yeon explained, she fully supports her to make the strongest armor; because it might break or she might take it off.
“You should have taken that off a long time ago.”
Coincidentally, meeting at the restaurant they frequently go to, Young-hee and Hyun-jae sit to talk. Noticing their engagement ring is still worn by Hyun-jae, he tells her that he is still the same as before to which she agrees.
Unfortunately, Young-hee is also the same as before. Wallowing in self-pity, unable to escape the misery she imposed on herself. Hence, she tells him that she does not want to share that misery with him.
Responding where he has been staying since she asked him to stay away from her misery, he confessed that he is living in his own misery. He asked if he can just go back in hanging out to her misery since his misery hurts way too much.
Young-hee still refuses to his request. Wasted from drinking so much alcohol, Young-hee looks back on Hyun-jae’s back and remembers her mom’s back that she now realizes in a different light.
“I realized overtime that it was to feed her child a little more… to cry alone… to hurt alone.”
Feeling the pain rush from her heart, Young-hee weeps as Hyun-jae supports her.
“You should’ve told me then. You should’ve said all this back then.”
Arriving in front of Woo-yeon’s home, Lee Soo stops her to have a heart-to-heart talk. While Lee Soo hopes to start, Woo-yeon appeals that they should wrap things up formally.
Refusing the friendship she offered, Lee Soo asks her to grant the one wish she owed him and go for a date with him the next day. Woo-yeon agrees and they meet the next day.
After the dinner date, Lee Soo asks again if they can start over, but Woo-yeon replies how she is not someone he can drop and just pick up whenever he likes it.
He tells her that she was the one who dropped him, so Woo-yeon brings out the communication that became less frequent for them; eventually she blamed how he changed because of it. Turning the blame to the time difference, he reasoned how she told him she was okay with it and she understood it.
Woo-yeon emotionally breaks down again and tells him how she had to understand to feel less pathetic. She points out his indifference and how he kept growing more and more distant back then.
He also just agreed right away when she asked for them to break up. Reasoning he does not want to put her in pain, he cited how he can’t fly right away that’s why he did not stop her plead.
Softly whining on why she did not tell all of it back then, Woo-yeon expressed how she felt so insecure the entire time she was with him.
“I wondered whether you truly liked me. Maybe I mistook fleeting jealousy for love. Someone who’s insecure can’t say what’s in their heart for fear of losing the other person.”
“I thought I could see her, but I was wrong again.”
Lee Soo replies how she never trusted him. He tells how she loved alone and break up alone and felt bad how he thought they were mutually in love, when in fact it is just one-sided love.
“You dealt with it because you didn’t trust me. And I dealt with it because I felt bad. We both just dealt with it until it ended.”
Woo-yeon agrees to what he said to be a failed relationship between them and closes the faint opening of the door to their relationship by wishing him well. Lee Soo stares at Woo-yeon’s back just as the lights from the stores of the street turn off.
Finding her mom at his place, Lee Soo seeks comfort while crying for not being able to win Woo-yeon back while. His mom hugs him as he thinks inwardly the reason why people show their backs. For him, unfortunately, he realized it too late.
More Than Friends Episode 15 Musings
Featuring romanticized fables is one of the many things that made the narrative of More Than Friends fresh and engaging. Just like in this episode where the fox story described Woo-yeon and Lee Soo’s mutual decision to let go of each other because they had to move on. Because the strain of long distance relationship and their reality can’t keep up to it.
We can never win on how convincing Lee Woo and Woo-yeon are in their love arguments. They keeps us under their spell in understanding their perspectives and emotions equally.
Woo-yeon is probably the most emotionally problematic female lead in K-Dramaland this season, but we love her just the same. She has captured the real sentiment of a woman in love, bound to the possibilities of being swayed by her insecurities, yet knows how to own the love moment she earned rightfully.
Will the two find their way back to love in the last episode of More Than Friends? Will Young-hee finally rely on Hyun-jae and let them face their miseries together?
Don’t miss the finale week of More Than Friends!
Photos: JTBC
