I binged this all the way up until the last three episodes, and up until that point, I was totally enthralled and invested. Then I came back for the last three eps and realized how silly the story is. Some dramas are incredibly good at creating forward motion and sucking you into that forward motion, without ever having to tell a real story, and I think that's the case with this drama.

There's not a lot you haven't seen before. Girl gets dumped by her boyfriend; old friend shows up suddenly and decides to help her get her boyfriend back; as they spend time together, feelings develop; girl successfully gets boyfriend back, but by then she's completely over him; old friends almost girlfriend comes back, and now he feels obligated to stay with her; leads avoid telling each other how they feel because they think they're both in love with other people; the secondary romantic leads plan out their lives with the leads, and the leads go along with it even though there's no logical reason to; the leads Finally break it off with the secondary leads in the final quarter of the story but Still don't tell each other how they feel. And yes, there's an unnecessary time jump in the last episode.

But there is a happy ending, so I guess that's a good thing.

It's really just...nothing to write home about.

The relationship conflicts do start off fairly believable. But they quickly become irritating. Initially, it's understandable why Jae Won feels so conflicted after his almost girlfriend comes back. They were basically 'spoken for' with each other at the beginning of the story, so his feelings of obligation to her make sense. They genuinely liked each other once, to the point of each of them privately contemplating getting married. But the drama doesn't give us any sort of compelling backstory to their relationship and why it would make sense for them to possibly be together over the main couple, or alternatively, why it wouldn't. Of course, almost girlfriend eventually ruins herself as a character by being incredibly selfish later on, and you feel absolutely No sorrow for her and the situation she's in anymore, but before that happens, you can understand Jae Won's dilemma. (The whole thing also makes him look a little bit like a dick for basically promising himself to someone and then as soon as she leaves for a little while, falling for someone else, but I don't really have the energy to tackle that right now.)

But Eun Woo has no excuse for why she went along with her Ex' obnoxious plans for them to get back together, and to get Married, no less. 1) They broke up because he cheated on her (which he continues to do after they get back together, although she never finds out, so it's never actually addressed). 2) There is no reason, character-wise or story-wise, for him to want to get married to anyone when he obviously likes playing the field so much and doesn't appear to have any sort of genuine feelings for Eun Woo. 3) He's unendurably selfish and boring and honestly quite unintelligent. And most importantly, 4) SHE DOESN'T LIKE HIM ANYMORE!!!! Like, I get stuffing her feelings for Jae Won down, because she thinks that he's in love with someone else, but why does that mean your only option is marrying your awful ex whom you don't even like???? There is the option of....simply not doing that.

Again, like I said in my round-up of the story in the second paragraph, they do both eventually break things off with the secondary leads, but not until after what felt like an eon of just going along with whatever the secondary leads had to say. It's just silly and unnecessary and stupid.

This is the second project I've seen Jin Ki Joo in, the first being Secret Life of My Secretary, and she really excels in these cute, aegyo-like roles. (So much so that I really don't even want to see her play more serious characters, because I like her style of aegyo so much.) This is the first project, however, I've seen Hong Bin in, and he alternates between passable (usually whenever his character is being more sad and serious, and I honestly found some of those moments kinda cringey to watch) and quite enjoyable ( mostly whenever he's engaging in banter with Jin Ki Joo). Ki Joo definitely carries this drama and is probably the main reason, outside of how good the production team was at creating that forward motion I mentioned, for why I ended up finishing this.

So yeah. This is a cute, if generic and cliché and occasionally cringey story; good for a quick binge when you need some fluff, but not really something you'll find yourself grabbing when looking for something with substance.