A Shoulder To Cry On – K-Drama Episode 4 Recap & Review

An Arrow of No Regrets

Episode 4 of A Shoulder To Cry On starts with a young Tae-hyun at the therapist’s cabin. Since he is refusing to talk to her, the therapist asks him to draw something he likes. Tae-hyun ends up making cryptic drawings, shocking his therapist.

Back in the present, Da-yeol and Tae-hyun are in the corridor when the archer leaves Tae-hyun alone after he confesses to murdering someone. Tae-hyun thinks about how Da-yeol’s disdainful reaction made him feel and starts getting upset.

A flashback from 10 years ago shows a young Tae-hyun at an orphanage. After a couple had adopted Tae-hyun, he started living with a new family of three. Soon, Tae-hyun’s adoptive parents conceived to have a child of their own. Tae-hyun’s adoptive mother’s sister jokes that Tae-hyun could be sent back to the orphanage after his adoptive parents have a child of their own.

Tae-hyun gets infuriated and starts saying that he did not want a sibling in such a case and ruins the drawing of the newborn baby from the family photo he was drawing. He locks himself in the room when his aunt slaps him but ends up running out of the house.

Tae-hyun’s adoptive parents get back home and are shocked to see that the young boy was missing. Tae-hyun’s adoptive mother ends up rushing to look for him on the street but ends up meeting with an accident as she tries to save him from a passing car.

After the accident, the woman ends up losing her unborn child while she and Tae-hyun survive. In her depressed state, Tae-hyun’s adoptive mother ends up committing suicide in front of him. Present-day Tae-hyun still suffers from flashbacks about the things that he had witnessed.

Meanwhile, Da-yeol is doing his best to avoid Tae-hyun at school making the latter even more furious. On the day of his archery match, Da-yeol tries his best to keep Tae-hyun away from his mind but still ends up scoring poorly after thoughts of Tae-hyun keep clouding his vision.

At the same time, Tae-hyun is losing his mind about Da-yeol’s behaviour towards him and ends up injuring himself by dropping a potted plant on his head. Min-jung ends up scoring badly on purpose and Da-yeol ends up winning the match. However, Da-yeol is furious and confronts Min-jung about it.

Min-jung explains that he was going to quit archery because of his injury and needed Da-yeol to look his best. However, Da-yeol’s attention is sidetracked when Tae-hyun calls him and tells him that he was badly injured because of Da-yeol. Da-yeol rushes to find Tae-hyun bleeding out of his forehead and rushes him to the ER.

After Tae-hyun has left the ER with a bandage on his head, the two friends reconcile. Tae-hyun claims that he did not injure himself on purpose and that he had an accident. Over some soft drinks, Tae-hyun tells the story of his childhood to Da-yeol. Da-yeol feels bad for misunderstanding that Tae-hyun was a murderer.

The two friends take a walk down the park as they playfully bond. After a while, Da-yeol tells Tae-hyun that he does not actually know how to comfort someone as he did not have any friends. He still tries to comfort Tae-hyun by stating he was not at fault for his mother’s accident.

Tae-hyun ends up feeling touched by the warm words and walks away. Together, the two take a bus ride back home as Tae-hyun dozes off on Da-yeol’s shoulder as the episode comes to an end.

The Episode Review

There is just so much that went down in this episode that I am confused about. First of all, I have genuine sympathy for what Tae-hyun went through but his actions as a full-grown adult who knows better are very manipulative. He is the one who confessed to being a murderer but was upset when Da-yeol looked at him with disdain.

At the same time, when Da-yeol showed up to take care of him, instead of confessing that he injured himself, Tae-hyung ended up stating that he met with an accident to save face. I feel like this lie could come to bite him in the future but hopefully this does not break his potential relationship with Da-yeol.

The chemistry these two characters share is really interesting and it is surely credited to their bond as bandmates. I wish the show was longer so we could see more of these two characters getting to know each other’s true personalities and falling in love with each other, slowly.