Both Were 7: ‘A Love Other Than Yours’ Reveals Leads Met the Day Her Father Died at Sea in Gangneung

Namgung Ho (Seo Kang-joon) and Lee Mi-do (Ahn Eun-jin), the leads of KBS 2TV's "A Love Other Than Yours," were both 7 when they first met, on a winter day 29 years ago when Lee's father lost his life in the sea off Gangneung. Episode 9 revealed the tragedy at the end of a night in which the couple agreed to spend a month apart.

The memory surfaced through Han Tae-seung (Lee Joo-ahn). He cried out to Lee, “How can you love the man who got your father killed?” Lee recalled that bitterly cold day. As the episode showed, she had been using the month of dating other people as a way to hurt Namgung and reset the wound she had given him, and the grief behind it was her father's death.

The day at the sea

It was the saddest day of Lee's life, and the child she looked at was a young Namgung, soaked and wrapped in a blanket. The day was also tied to the moment Namgung wanted to end his own life. He had wished for death to escape his birth mother's neglect and brutal abuse, but Lee's father brought him back to life. The two children came away from the same day with different losses and resentments.

Namgung's anger in the present was also fed by his birth mother, Choi Hwa-yeong (Choi Hee-jin). She demanded a lawyer over his half-brother Han-sol (Kim Dong-ju) giving up parental rights, and she brought Lee into the matter. Namgung vented that when he met people he loved and was grateful to, the first thing he felt was resentment. Episode 9 showed that the bond that kept the two alive began in tragedy.

A month apart, two first dates

Earlier in the broadcast, aired on the 17th, Namgung and Lee had taken off their matching couple rings. They agreed to separate for a month and give their best to their own "other love." Namgung's partner is Park Su-a (Jo A-ram) and Lee's is Han Tae-seung. The episode showed the ring coming off and then each couple's first date in turn.

Park Su-a, who knows why Namgung proposed the month, opened with bravado, claiming to be confident about every kind of adult skinship. Her stated goal, though, was to clear up, within the month, the mistake of taking human affection for romantic attraction. She proposed a 10-second eye contact test, saying that if she could hold Namgung's gaze it would prove she no longer liked him. She could not meet his eyes for even a few seconds. Lee, meanwhile, came face to face on her first date with Han Tae-seung's wounds and past.

Confessions and wounds

The four ran into each other at a restaurant that Namgung and Lee often visit. Han Tae-seung demanded that Lee block his contact and move house, then tore up a couple photo. While calming an angry Namgung, Park Su-a told him her real reason for the month. She had not wanted to sort out her feelings. She wanted Namgung to remember one moment with her even when he was with Lee, and she liked him enough to want to leave even a brief memory. “I've liked you since Haemado. You're my first love,” she told him. Namgung had decided only to stay curious about Park Su-a, but the first-love confession shook him.

Han Tae-seung had taken Lee to the mansion where he was abandoned. He said his unhappiness began there and admitted he had wanted even her pity. The only ways he knew to win someone's heart, he confessed, were to make them feel sorry for him or to hurt them. He had earlier told Lee, “If you see me for a month, you can't go back to that man. I'll win you over no matter what.” The episode paired that confidence with his admission that he does not even know how to love or be loved. Lee understood why he liked her. He has lived a life of being used and discarded, and the firm love she shows Namgung is something he has never had, and he wanted to take all of it from her.

The broadcast closed by placing 7-year-old Namgung and Lee beside their present-day selves. Namgung, too, had resented the day he survived. The pasts each had kept to themselves came back through Han Tae-seung's words, and the two exchanged tearful looks. After the broadcast, viewers reacted with comments such as “The story is so frustrating,” “It feels like every tragic backstory has been gathered in one place” and “It's too cruel that the main couple's story continues like this.”

Episode 10 airs at 9:20 p.m. on the 18th and will be available simultaneously on Amazon Prime Video to viewers in more than 240 countries.

Read the original (Korean)