Love Next Door – K-drama Episode 6 Recap & Review

Your First

Episode 6 of Love Next Door begins with Seung-hyo reminiscing about how he remembers all of Seok-ryu’s firsts—the first time her tooth came out, the first time she rode a bicycle without help, the first time she ran away from home, the first time she confessed to a high school senior and the first time she got engaged.

The scene changes as Seok-ryu drops some side dishes at Seung-hyo’s house. After greeting his parents, she goes upstairs to find him and ends up reading the letter Seung-hyo had written in high school while he is in the shower. He catches her reading the letter, takes it, and crumples it up before throwing it in the bin, dismissing it as a joke. Sensing the discomfort in the air, Seok-ryu brushes off the topic and leaves for her father’s restaurant.

She tells her father how much she loved coming to the restaurant as a child and how much fun she had. However, instead of being happy, her father seems to be hiding something.

After the letter incident, Seung-hyo begins acting distant. Seok-ryu runs into Tae-hue, but she goes on her way after Seung-hyo emphasizes that he and Tae-hue have work to do.

Later, Seok-ryu meets with Mo-eun, and we learn that Mo-eun has been coveting an opportunity to be dispatched to the South Pole. To increase her chances of being selected, she’s been learning how to drive a boat. She encourages Seok-ryu to chase her passion for cooking when Seok-ryu tells her about joining a cooking class. They invite Seung-hyo over to celebrate Seok-ryu’s decision, but he declines the offer.

Later that night, Seung-hyo runs into Dan-ho and invites him for a drink. They end up not drinking but hanging out at Dan-ho’s house. Seung-hyo even meets his daughter and introduces himself as Dan-ho’s “neighbourhood friend.”

Sensing that Seung-hyo is troubled, Dan-ho gently probes about it. Seung-hyo indirectly shares how complicated things are with Seok-ryu since, although he likes her, he’s terrified of ruining their friendship, especially because they’ve been friends for so long. Dan-ho advises him to be courageous like he was during his swimming competition.

Meanwhile, the sneaky Mo-eun has been eavesdropping on their conversation. It’s revealed that she already knew about Seung-hyo’s feelings because she had dug up the time capsule and read their letters earlier.

In the meantime, Seok-ryu attends her first cooking class. Later that night, after meeting his old teammates, Seung-hyo accidentally sees Seok-ryu’s father assisting a drunk woman. The two later talk, and Seok-ryu’s father asks Seung-hyo to keep it a secret from her mother.

The next day, Seok-ryu’s mother and her friends spend time together at Mo-eun’s mother’s office. She shares how her husband has been coming home at dawn, and they become suspicious about the possibility of an affair, advising her to be vigilant. Her mother then goes through her father’s belongings and discovers that he had taken a loan and debited money from their bank account. 

Simultaneously, Mo-eun and Dan-ho accidentally meet at the convenience store. Mo-eun tells Dan-ho not to sacrifice everything for his daughter because, as a single child herself, she had hated her mother sacrificing everything for her. She also asks him to help her win Yeon-du back. While he’s telling her about all the things Yeon-du likes, he becomes too drunk to keep his eyes open. Mo-eun then quite literally dumps him outside his house, which is right next to hers.

Meanwhile, Seok-ryu’s father comes home to a disaster. It’s revealed that guests at his restaurant, who claimed to have a YouTube channel, complained about hair in their food. When her father went over, one of the guests’ watches was ruined. They demanded compensation for the expensive watch, threatening that the video they recorded about the hair in the food would go viral.

During this time, Seok-ryu’s father had been trying to pay them back by working as a night-time driver. He feels inadequate in front of his family and leaves, with Seok-ryu trying to cheer him up later.

The next day, Seok-ryu starts investigating, but Seung-hyo is steps ahead of her. He meets with the men and exposes them as fraudsters who trapped Seok-ryu’s father. Not only were they caught planting their hair in the food, but the watch was also a cheap knockoff, and they had even lied about the YouTube channel. Realizing they’d been caught, the two men run, with Seung-hyo and Dan-ho, who had come to help, hot on their heels. Eventually, they catch the men with Seok-ryu and her brother’s help.

Seok-ryu later thanks Seung-hyo, but he emphasizes that they’re not children anymore and tells her to stop chasing him. Later that night, Seok-ryu recalls how she remembers Seung-hyo’s first times too—the first time he had Korean food, the first time he started swimming, and the first time he had a crush, although she doesn’t know who it was.

The next day, after her cooking class, she waits for him to give him the dish she made—the first dish he had in Korea, which is also his favourite. But Seung-hyo blows up, telling Seok-ryu to stop chasing him. Seok-ryu gets upset and complains that they are friends, and she has every right to interfere in his life.

She questions him about something he said to her, and the episode ends with Seung-hyo in a pickle since his secret about liking Seok-ryu might be exposed.

The Episode Review

The theme of today’s episode is “Your First,” which begins with the two friends reminiscing about each other’s first times as childhood friends. The episode ends with “Your First Love” when Seok-ryu confronts Seung-hyo about his detached behaviour. Did you notice how the show played with the idea of change here? The characters transition from discussing memories of friendship to how feelings evolve over time, in this case, friendship turning to love with the change in the episode theme!

Love Next Door digs deeper into the nature of complicated emotions that arise from long-term friendships, and although it’s a popular rom-com trope, the K-drama doesn’t use it lightly. Knowing how deep Seung-hyo and Seok-ryu’s friendship goes, almost pervading into the definition of family, it’s neither easy for Seung-hyo to let Seok-ryu go nor to keep her close. It’s his own personal hell where nothing can be done without pain.

Apart from this, Dan-ho and Mo-eun’s characters provide perfect comic relief from the intensity of emotions their counterparts deal with. It would be fun to watch Dan-ho become Seung-hyo’s neighbourhood friend and the nosy Mo-eun shamelessly eavesdropping on them!