I Love Yoo 151 Analysis (pt.2) - A Lovers' Goodbye
In the episode, the characters show a level of deep concern for each other, but it's continuously contradicted by their hurtful actions and words. But why is it so contradictory? Answering this question helps us better understand the turmoil and complications involved in this heartbreaking scene, as well as what feelings are most genuine.
A Desperate Desire to Connect
Yeong-gi leaves his school to see Shin-ae standing in front of him. She confronts him as to why he’s ignored her calls and if he’s planning on leaving without saying goodbye.
But looking carefully, we notice that Yeong-gi is momentarily caught off guard. And we are given a glimpse into his feelings.
Notice the way he first looks at her, his expression is almost violent; you see the internal turmoil he feels when Shin-ae suddenly surprises him. The moment is similar to other key moments where Shin-ae causes this look: at the balcony; when she put his earphones in; and when she looked at his healed scratches during their lunch break.
I'm going to argue this look is because he is suddenly confronted with something he's guilty of doing (avoiding and lying to her) and, like the other moments in the series, because he finds Shin-ae to be emotionally confusing.
His second expression seems to indicate guilt, and him contemplating whether to engage with what Shin-ae is saying. But instead he walks away, and his expression shows resigned resolution, as he's firmly decided he won't engage. This falls in line with those other moments, instead of engaging with whatever feelings Shin-ae invokes in him, he chooses to dismiss them. Here, this includes the dismissal of Shin-ae herself.
She continues, accusingly asking him about how he deceived his friends.
“How long were you planning on keeping everything a secret? How long were you planning on keeping you a secret?”
But her questions are actually more redundant, it’s their implications that are meant to convey meaning. They insinuate that his friends would’ve wanted to see the real him. They would’ve wanted to be there for him. And as we see in the WcDonald's scene, she is part of this group. She would've wanted to be there for him.
Accordingly, she then shifts from her surface level emotion of anger to what she more desperately wants to convey — her compassion and desire to be there for him. Because she is scared — so scared to lose him that she so desperately tries to convey this compassion in hopes to reach him.
“Yeong-gi! I’m right here for you! Just as how you were for me! Please!"
After being ignored once again, she extends her hand to touch him and she yells out a different name, the one acknowledged by both of them to be his real name.
We see the motif of hands and emotional distance again. Every instance where Shin-ae extends her hands, she doesn't actually reach Yeong-gi or she is met with refusal, with WcDonald's as the only exception (although Yeong-gi initially protests). Her attempts to reach him are denied.
Here, when Shin-ae extends her hand and calls out "Nolan", she reaches to connect with him once more, but this time with the real him — the one without the mask and the fake name.
But he pushes her instead, rejecting her attempts to reach the true him.
After pushing her, Yeong-gi quickly realizes what he's done and his concern for Shin-ae leaks when he says,
It's a callback to previous moments in the series where they express concern for one another after commenting on the weather.
This moment of unhidden concern contradicts what we saw just a moment earlier when he ignores and pushes her.
The entire episode is full of contradictory moments such as this, where the characters deep concern for each other is juxtaposed by their seeming apathy and disdain. So it's necessary for us to sift through what we see, and differentiate between what to accept as real and what to call surface-level and "self-sabotaging".
Shin-ae ignores Yeong-gi's concern over the weather and continues talking about her feelings.
"It kind of makes sense now. How you were able to see through my act. 'My facade.' Because you were the same...
I want to feel angry. I should distrust you. But I feel sad...
I don't want you to disappear. I don't want you to go away."
Shin-ae starts to cry here (you can notice a streak on her right cheek)... Does Yeong-gi notice this in the rain at this point?
Yeong-gi begins to extend his hand out to Shin-ae — he wants to comfort her. But he chooses not to.
Despite his concern for her, he doesn't involve himself. He doesn't say anything. He doesn't touch her. Why?
"You deserve someone better."
I've previously mentioned that the panels in Ep. 65 are purposefully ambiguous, meant to roughly reflect both Shin-ae and Yeong-gi's feelings of inadequacy. They both feel as though the other deserves someone better.
However, the panels with Yeong-gi strikingly reflect his movements, giving us insight into his thought process.
In this scene in Ep. 151, Yeong-gi's hands parallel that moment on the balcony, and his thought process is the same. He ultimately turns away because he thinks she deserves someone better.
However, I also want to draw attention to another parallel — when Yeong-gi reaches back towards Shin-ae when she calls him at the formal.
At that time, Yeong-gi is called by Shin-ae since he is the one who is troubled. He extends his hand back towards where he heard her because he wants to seek comfort in her.
So, when Yeong-gi extends his hand to Shin-ae, it's not just for her. It's because he also wants to allow himself to rely on her.
But when he extends his hand towards her, the specific thought he has is,
What we see is that, part of Yeong-gi's hesitance is also because he has to fight that reaching for Shin-ae means something to him.
Because deep down he has also has a desperate desire to connect with her. But he hates himself. He doesn't think he deserves her. So he doesn't allow himself to pursue this "selfish" desire. He doesn't let himself reach for her.
As a result, he only allows himself to support her when he doesn't get that reciprocated, like when he stands to the side during her dance with Kousuke, when he asks Dieter to comfort her, or when he sits outside her hospital room... running away when she sees him.
Being there for her means something to him.
He doesn't deserve her so he doesn't allow himself to rely on her. Even though she wants him to.
After Shin-ae's repeated attempts, Yeong-gi finally responds.
"I don't have anything to say. I'm sorry for leading you on all this time."
And this calm, blunt admission of guilt causes Shin-ae to be hit with the full reality of their relationship.
Perhaps during her inquiry this whole time, she was actually hoping to be somewhat proven wrong. That Yeong-gi would now show a desire to genuinely connect or at least have some explanation that wasn't just... because. and I'm sorry.
Her countenance changes and she becomes more mellow. She seems to change from denial and insistence, to acceptance. And she asks the last few questions to finally cement her worst fear — that it was all fake, right from when the masked boy asked to be partners.
"The night you asked me to be your partner... You said we made a great team... Our friendship... How much of it was genuine? I'm guessing it was all a lie too, huh?"
But this time, Yeong-gi lets it get to him.
Is it her expression? Maybe he notices she's crying this time.
Is it her words? Earlier, Shin-ae asks him "What happened to you? Do you hate yourself?"
Now, she questions their shared relationship which causes Yeong-gi enough anguish to act. We may interpret this to mean that concern for Yeong-gi alone is not enough to drive him to reach for her, but concern for something that affects her too, their shared relationship, is (which is fitting, as mentioned earlier).
Yeong-gi also doesn't verbally respond to her question, was it all fake? Does this mean the answer's yes and he can't bring himself to say it?
I'll argue that he doesn't answer because he can't — he doesn't know the answer. Surely, some of it was fake, but something was real.
Something was so real that hearing her so sadly ask whether it was all fake makes him feel enough pain to fight against his inhibitions... and he finally reaches for her.
A Lovers’
A Friends’ Goodbye
Yeong-gi hugging Shin-ae the way he does... is intimate. But there aren't protests from Shin-ae. Instead, she sinks into the embrace.
When he looks at her, holding her face in his hand, and wipes away her tears, she quietly accepts.
I don't think I need to say how intimate this is. And frankly, how bizarre it is to see them do this. We haven't seen their relationship steadily progress to a point that would warrant them doing something like this in a way that feels appropriate. This is easily far too intimate for their relationship.
I’ve argued now and in the past that Yeong-gi has realized his (romantic) feelings for Shin-ae. His inner conflict simply meant there was a lot more exploration of his feelings that was shown in the comic.
As a result, I have not focused on Shin-ae’s perspective nearly as much. But there are moments where she seems to bear some undue fondness for Yeong-gi, especially due to her sudden role-reversal after the formal. She becomes quite friendly with him, she gives him soft smiles, she even reaches for him in her dreams... all of which may have been indicative of something that was there, something she didn't think about — something subconscious and unnoticed. Something romantic.
I believe this is shown here. Shin-ae wouldn't have ever initiated this, she wouldn't have even thought to. It makes a lot of sense that it's Yeong-gi who initiates this intimate moment (because he's realized those feelings, and it's been lingering under the surface for a while).
But Shin-ae's immediate acceptance is very telling... she feels something too. And she doesn't mind it. At least not in this moment.
There is this undeniable sense of underlying understanding between them. What they’re doing is not explicitly romantic. But it’s most certainly not platonic. They understand that the nature of what they’re feeling is unconventional and beyond friendship.
But alongside these feelings, there's something heavier — a feeling of desperation.
Just moments before, Shin-ae seemed to have reached the final stages of accepting that Yeong-gi's gone.
They feel this impending sense of goodbye... So for one final moment, they entertain everything they purposefully hid behind their masks, what bubbled under the surface, what would've blossomed if given time. Everything that could've and would've been.
Their desperate intimacy in these final moments strikingly resembles what we may have seen elsewhere... but between lovers.
Lovers who know they will be separated, so for their final moments together share a moment of uninterrupted and unquestioned intimacy. No questions or qualms. After all, this could be the end.
But - Yeong-gi and Shin-ae weren't lovers. They were only friends, right?
Unless... this was also something that could've been?
However, when Yeong-gi places his hand on Shin-ae's left cheek, he touches her scars. We know that she got them from her accident in middle school. But all Yeong-gi knows is that he dropped her.
After he finally allows himself to reach for her, he's reminded of how he's failed her.
And he remembers — he doesn't deserve her.
His resolution is cemented, and he finally severs their ties... walking away, and calling her "Yoo".
At the peak of the conflict in their relationship, and the height of their emotions, Shin-ae and Yeong-gi are faced with the imminent end of their relationship.
Despite it apparently being brought about themselves, through their contradictory actions, we can easily understand that their disdain for one another is... faked. For Yeong-gi, it's a byproduct of his special blend of troubles — his affinity to lie and "manipulate", in accordance with his insecurities. He doesn't tell Shin-ae he feels that he's bad for her, because he understands she won't accept that. Instead he pretends he doesn't care for her at all.
And Shin-ae, who isn't privy to the thought process behind this, is left wondering why her repeated attempts to reach him are rejected. Perhaps the boy under the mask really didn't care for her at all. It was all fake after all.
But Yeong-gi hugs her when she asks him that. They share a brief intimate moment with no words. And yet this moment is the most honest. The intimacy and care they show each other in that moment easily supersedes their earlier moments in honesty. Their feelings are palpable to us, and we understand them to be earnest and open. In this sole moment, neither of them hide.
Episode 152 shows the aftermath this moment has on them — Shin-ae is left reeling — she stands in the rain, mentioning that her throuat hurts. Later, she lays in bed in fetal position — completely struck by grief. Dieter himself recognizes this pain to stem from her love for Yeong-gi.
Yeong-gi, parallels her pain — his throat also hurts, as he dry-heaves after the moment. His physical agony reflects his emotional turmoil.
Personally, I believe there is some optimism to be found in 151 and 152 — after all, the love these characters have for each other is genuine. Not even after, but during the moment, they already regret hurting one another.
If their love for each other is enough to already push back so violently against their insecurities and desire to run away, it's only a matter of time until that love wins.
And when that happens, Shin-ae and Yeong-gi will reach a place of genuine emotional connection, where neither of them feel the need to don a mask. A place where, instead, they willfully choose to cast it aside in order to truly see one another. Because that's exactly what they want, to love each other's authentic self.
