Let's just cut right to it, this show was painfully boring. There, I said it. A story built around partial amnesia has real potential, but between the choppy scene structure and random flashbacks thrown in constantly, the whole plot ends up feeling more tangled than it needed to be. The romance doesn't fare much better either, it's written so poorly that I never really found myself invested in this couple. Both leads come across stiff on screen and deliver their lines in a really awkward way. The show runs 8 episodes, each somewhere around 30 to 35 minutes. Hanuel, a 29 year old language teacher, wakes up after an accident only to realize his memory stops at age 19. It turns out he'd been in another accident back then too, which is why his memories cut off at that point. He has zero recollection of the fact that he's currently living with his childhood friend Saebyeok, who's now a huge celebrity. That makes the whole situation even harder for Hanuel to wrap his ...
Hanuel, a 29 year old language teacher, wakes up after an accident only to realize his memory stops at age 19. It turns out he'd been in another accident back then too, which is why his memories cut off at that point. He has zero recollection of the fact that he's currently living with his childhood friend Saebyeok, who's now a huge celebrity. That makes the whole situation even harder for Hanuel to wrap his head around, since back in high school the two of them had this constantly shifting relationship, one day best friends, the next day full on rivals. He leaves the hospital to move in with Saebyeok since doctors think falling back into a normal routine might help jog his memory. He picks up a job at a cafe where a fellow barista keeps flirting with him. From there, the story becomes less about him falling back in love and more about him having to face a relationship he can't actually remember choosing. The pieces he starts finding, old photos, messages, a strange sense of familiarity, all point toward something his mind just won't accept. Meanwhile Saebyeok is left dealing with the fallout, stuck in that painful spot of being fully known by someone who has no memory of ever picking him in the first place. Along the way some buried secrets from their past and their individual pain get uncovered, and of course by the end everything wraps up nicely.
The show's biggest issue really comes down to the writing. It keeps jumping back and forth between past and present, which could work fine, but there's basically no visual signal given to the audience to help track which timeline we're actually in. Hanuel's carrying this guilt over believing he was responsible for Saebyeok's father's death. Saebyeok's own arc, especially how his career both brings him closer to Hanuel and eventually helps drive them apart, feels like it only ever gets explored on the surface. The romance itself feels scattered too. Some of their moments happen in the present day, while others are just flashback memories dropped in randomly. The intimate scenes are steamy enough but feel completely disconnected from everything else and kind of random. You'd also expect Hanuel's mom and sister to play a bigger part in helping him get his memory back, but instead they just let him move in with Saebyeok like they couldn't care less. The finale drowns itself in pointless melodrama and rough acting. After putting these two through all that misery, they just get back together anyway in an ending that lands with zero impact. This one had me bored out of my mind. (2.5/10)
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