The Heirs

Chapter 18

We return in the midst of Tan’s meltdown, as he lies bloody and bruised in the street and tells Young-do he can take Eun-sang now. Oh are you done playing with that toy now? Young-do fumes: “Do you wanna die?” He challenges Tan’s right to rebel now, after what’s happened to Eun-sang because of him.

I do admit I see things from Young-do’s point of view in this conversation, because Tan made this mess and is now the one crying about it. Tan admits he can’t do it anymore, and Young-do just leaves him there to wallow a little more in his own self-loathing.

Tan trudges home to a shocked Madam Han and Won, and an annoyed Chairman Dad who shouts after him that his antics aren’t cute anymore. The fact that you thought they were before is disturbing.

Won comes up to his room to try and talk some sense into him, with reminders that no amount of kicking his feet will change the way their household goes ’round. He tries to order Tan to go to the hospital, which is sweet, but just gets met with more deadened stares.

Tan finally asks when he’ll get sent to America. ” I feel like I’m dying. Please just send me away. Please, save me hyung.” He breaks down, and Won is taken aback by his desperate tears.

When Won returns to the hotel, he runs into Young-do wearing a matching bloody lip, and stops him to ask if he’s the one who fought with Tan.

Young-do says he did the hitting and sighs that he forgot that he shouldn’t hit kids with hyungs. “I forgot Tan had one. He’s so good at hiding it.” Buuuurn.

Won just needles right back: “Looks like he doesn’t have any friends either.” He tells Young-do to put some ointment on his wounds, and heads upstairs.

Bo-na gets upset when she realizes Chan-young is staring at Eun-sang’s posts online, hoping for a clue on her whereabouts. The stream of messages back and forth between Tan and Eun-sang both posing as Eun-sang confuse her, because she’s delightfully simple like that.

Eun-sang sits at work staring at the same posts, and takes one last lingering look before deleting them. Tan sits up with a start as he watches every last picture and message disappear from the account before his very eyes.

Hyo-shin sighs to see Tan so troubled, and jokes that wearing his pain on his face is a little clichéd. He knows it won’t solve anything, but suggests that he should just go see Eun-sang or bring her here if he misses her that much, thinking it’ll at least lessen his suffering.

Young-do goes down to Eun-sang’s house for a visit…stalk…visit-stalk. There’s no sign of her, but just as he turns to go, he recognizes Mom, who remembers him too. She turns him away at first, but decides he’s probably harmless (if only you knew) and invites him inside.

She makes him food, which is probably the first home-cooked meal Young-do has had since he was a child, and he chokes back tears as he takes a bite. It’s pretty heartbreaking, and a scene like this makes me wish Young-do had been written this sympathetically from the start.

Mom asks if he’s good friends with Eun-sang, and he admits shyly that he likes her. But as soon as he says it out loud, he gets this sheepish smile on his face that he can’t hide. Mom tells him Eun-sang went to Seoul to wrap up some paperwork at school, but in reality she’s sitting in a room with Chairman Dad. Eep.

Chairman Dad accuses her of taking his money and then overstepping her bounds, feeling so high and mighty about it that he doesn’t even want her saying Tan’s name. What, is she going to taint it by uttering it with her drugstore-chapsticked lips? Good grief.

Eun-sang promises to repay the debts that Chairman Dad covered in her own time, but doesn’t apologize for liking Tan: “because that’s not wrong.” Good for you.