homcha season 2 headcanons (i know it's not happening but this helps me cope)
i’m just saying, there is plenty to still be explored in a second season. and by “explored” i mean “definitely absolutely needs to be produced and available to stream internationally by 2025”. without anyone having asked for this, allow me to present a handful of plot lines i came up with, some more developed than others...
heads up, this is a VERY long post.
newlyweds hyejin and dusik babysit bo-ra & her sister as a parenting practice run while geum-cheol and yun-gyeong go on a second honeymoon. they are overly confident that they’d be even better than the kids’ actual parents, but they of course unexpectedly find themselves butting heads over child-rearing methods. after a big argument, chun jae talks dusik down and hwa jeong talks some sense into hyejin, before the second-time honeymooners can return and have their blissfully rejuvenated spirits ruined by the negative energy.
dusik overcomes his fear and agrees to take the job as the school soccer coach. but it turns out after all those years of pushing it away, he’s more than a little rusty, and his co-ed team brings a new meaning to the term underdog. parents are desperate to keep the extracurricular for the kids’ otherwise wide-open afternoon schedules, so hyejin plots with seong-hyun to slyly train prideful dusik without him catching on.
ju-ri falls in love for the first time and by all appearances her suitor is great but underneath he’s toxic. hyejin is one of the only people to get a bad impression, because his behavior reminds her of kang-wook. when ju-ri says she’s giving up on her design school dream, chun jae eventually starts to see through the facade and rightfully runs the kid out of town
eun-chul is injured in the line of duty and has to take disability leave but goes stir crazy. mi-seon sneakily tries to find ways to keep him occupied to keep him from pestering the builders as they finish the house. eun-chul decides instead he’s going to finish building it on his own and fires the crew on a whim.
hyejin hires a mysterious newcomer to fill in for mi-seon as her hygienist, since mi-seon's been tied up more and more with eun-cheol and the house. when chohui comes in for a routine cleaning, sparks fly between her and the new hygienist. unfortunately, when faced with the very real opportunity for love, chohui runs.
hwa jeong and yeong guk remarry. dusik is asked to officiate (since he has a license), but they bicker over which parent young teen i-jun will stand next to for the ceremony. dusik comes up with the brilliant solution to have i-jun be the officiant instead, but i-jun has stage fright. they agree that since they can’t decide who he’ll stand with, he won’t stand with either of them. on the big day, dusik fakes a mouth injury (which hyejin backs up on the fly) and i-jun musters the courage to fill the spot, of course making everyone cry with a touching, off-the-cuff speech. bo-ra gives him a proud kiss on the cheek.
seon-ah has to travel abroad for work for a month and leaves ha-rang with uncle seong-hyun, who agreed before realizing the amount of energy and attention it would take while simultaneously finishing a huge project. ji-won calls dusik out of desperation, since she knows her boyfriend would never ask for help on his own. though dusik declines, hyejin secretly picks ha-rang up from seoul to bring back to gongjin anyway. dusik immediately sets out to return ha-rang to the city, but the universe keeps getting in their way. he resigns himself to letting ha-rang stay just for one night, which turns into a weekend, which turns into the whole week, but no one has told seon-ah.
gam-ri’s son moves back to korea and into his mother’s home, though his wife is curiously absent. he insists she’ll be joining him soon, but it is revealed they have been separated for some time now. he had been keeping the split from his mother and daughter—we learn that a big part of the reason for his distance from gam-ri and penny pinching was to maintain the secret and afford the spousal support.
seong-hyun decides his next project will be a biography of gam-ri, which he wants to be done in time to mark the anniversary of her passing, but only with the blessing of the entire town. all are on board, including gam-ri’s son, except dusik.
following the success of the food show, more and more people are visiting and moving to gongjin. it’s a boon for the local economy, but long-time residents are frustrated. they vote to create a new liaison role in town to manage the petty conflicts that have been springing up. gam-ri’s son and yong-hun battle it out on the campaign trail, while an unwitting grassroots darling stirs up interest among both new and old citizens. it’s hyejin who wins the campaign as a write-in by a landslide, much to her pleasant surprise and dusik’s extreme pride.
hyejin’s role as liaison proves to be more stressful than she expected. both the new and old communities can never be satisfied, and call on hyejin at all times of day and night. after the last straw, she throws in the towel and tells dusik to never mention it again, despite his pleading. but when the co-liaison runners-up take her place and things devolve into all out neighbor wars, the community resolves to win her back as their intermediary. but this second time around, dusik enforces much stricter boundaries on his wife's behalf.
when nam-sook finds herself in yet another financial hole, hyejin asks gam-ri’s son to advise her. it wouldn’t pay anything, but it might jump start his career in his new home of gongjin. he struggles to understand how nam-sook appears to be so horrible with her money, until he is able follow her one day and watch all the selfless ways she gives it away. he explains a more long-term vision for her savings, which might lead to a non-profit of her own. she meanwhile teaches him the value in not being quite so miserly. others start to notice that the financial planning sessions seem to be happening more and more frequently, but the couple hits a bump in the road when gam-ri’s granddaughter lands in gongjin for the summer.
dusik and hyejin are struggling to conceive. and before mi-seon can tell her herself, gossip hits hyejin that mi-seon and eun-cheul are pregnant out of wedlock. eun-cheol proposes without hesitation, viewing the news as the sign he had been waiting so long for to propose, but mi-seon refuses, not wanting to get married for what she assumes is solely him acting out of duty. mi-seon struggles with judgment from the community, and hyejin tries to remain uninvolved with the excuse that she must be impartial as the community liaison. though dusik and mi-seon know the real reason, they don’t push the subject. things come to a head when news travels that mi-seon and eun-cheol have decided to abandon the house build and move away to start fresh in a neighborhood that won't care about the scandal.
hyejin’s father falls ill. the doctors say that years of heavy drinking, though in the past, took a toll on his kidneys. hyejin could be a match for a life-saving transplant, but her father stubbornly refuses to accept the option. he feels too guilty that his drinking already cost her her childhood, and doesn't want it to potentially cut her future short too. hyejin stops talking to him, angry and hurt that, in her eyes, he’d rather kill her only surviving parent than fight to keep living. she argues that since he’s decided to die, she’ll just treat him as dead now and get the grief out of the way. though initially it seems dusik could be a match too, it turns out to be another false hope. dusik has to find a way to get through to tae-hwa and reconnect father and daughter.
community outreach fair! in the hopes of mending fences between old and new neighbors, hyejin spearheads a weekend-long festival. the weekend will kick off with a community play written and performed by the kids. ju-ri is selected to direct, and in an effort to symbolically unite both new and longtime residents, hyejin asks gam-ri's visiting granddaughter, who has been taking writing electives in college, to assist in the production. a rivalry develops that nearly brings the production to a halt.
chun jae is set to be a judge on the singing competition show, but the production is cancelled before they can shoot the first episode. depressed, his coffee goes back to being terrible and hyejin selfishly tries to cheer him up so she can continue ordering from the convenient location, but he misinterprets her intended consoling and thinks hyejin is hinting that he should channel his pain into an album, which he immediately excitedly embraces. hyejin tries to gently dissuade him and ju-ri thinks it's a terrible idea. most of the town is split on his decision but are relieved to see him happy again. regardless, chun jae soon finds himself coming up short on song ideas. he tries writing about his disappointment after losing the tv opportunity and performs some working versions for patrons of the cafe, but the lyrics are shallow and the melodies are clunky. everyone has an opinion on how chun jae can fix his music, but only dusik has the insight chun jae needs to properly redirect his approach.
a stray cat has been causing trouble around dusik and hyejin's home, including getting into a fight with the neighbor's dog. the cat seems to want to come inside, but the couple worry it might not be healthy or safe for a future infant (should they be blessed with one). they try trapping the cat and giving it to various members of the community, but each has a reason they cannot take it in. chohui's allergic, yeong guk's feline-phobic, eun-cheol points out the construction setting would be dangerous, geum-cheol and yun-gyeong just laugh at them with how overwhelmed they are already with their wild kids, etc. dusik and hyejin think they've finally found a home for the cat with chun jae, but it escapes and runs back to their doorstep. they agree to ignore the cat in hopes that it will eventually catch on and find another place on its own, but both hyejin and dusik find themselves, independent of each other, secretly doting on the animal despite the promise they made. one night when ju-ri's ex returns to gongjin and drunkenly tries to burgle some of the homes out of revenge for how he feels he was treated by the town, dusik and hyejin wake up to a loud scream and find the cat injured after attacking the intruder. they rush the cat to the vet, where they find out she is female and pregnant. hyejin and dusik simultaneously blurt out their secret adoration for the kitty, each begging the other to keep her. after officially moving in with them, the cat eventually gives birth to 2 kittens, who are adopted by chun jae, and help ju-ri cope with her lingering heartbreak and trauma.
throughout chun jae's experience with the kitties (both mom and babies), he finds himself mindlessly humming some tunes here and there. ju-ri usually just begs her dad stop the annoying noise whenever he starts up, but after she's brought to tears one night listening to her father singing the kittens a lullaby, she points out they're are probably worth exploring for his album. it turns out the lullaby is one that ju-ri's mother created and would sing with chun jae to ju-ri as an infant, but he hadn't been able to sing it since her mother's death. chun jae doesn't record the lullaby for the album, but he makes a private copy just for ju-ri to have. ju-ri tries to convince her dad to include it in the track list, and nearly posts it online without his consent, but realizes the sanctity and importance of keeping it just for them after hearing a story hyejin tells about her mother.
