You Are My Spring – K-Drama Episode 9 Recap & Review

That Office Scene Though!

Episode 9 of You Are My Spring begins with Young-Do and Da-Jeong exchanging text messages. It’s pretty cute in truth, with Young-Do sending a video over of his little toy she got him. Hilariously while they message, Da-Jeong happens to be watching a drama mentioning about being love sick.

That evening, Ian rings and asks to meet. This catches us up to the moments from last week where he was holding the paper rose. Da-Jeong approaches and opens the rose… revealing nothing inside.

Apparently someone left him the rose too and he’s not the one who made it. However, that doesn’t stop Young-Do confronting him about the rose after their initial meeting. It’s an uneasy conversation, one that hints that there’s more going on with Ian than we’ve been led to believe thus far.

There’s more going on with Da-Jeong too, which is revealed in a tearful and incredibly well-acted segment in Young-Do’s office. She’s been carrying around the memories of her Mother, who was beaten badly when she was young. Despite locking the door, she felt helpless with no way of helping.

Young-Do steps forward and hugs her; a warm embrace between friends. He tells her not to blame herself, reminding Da-Jeong that she should be proud of how far she’s come and how strong she is now.

After this cathartic moment, the pair head up to the rooftop to share some food. Young-Do is determined to help cover up her bad memories with good ones. It works well too and the dialogue flows beautifully during this segment.

Meanwhile, Ian returns to his car where he finds another paper rose left on his windshield. This one has red writing on it but he chooses not to read it. He’s still thinking hard about this in the morning when Da-Jeong phones, apologizing to him for how she acted around him.

The next day, Jin-Bok learns there’s no fingerprint traces from the accident. However, Park Ho has a theory. Given the burnt palms match the description given by the victim, Park deduces that the attacker is the same man who put Jeong-Min’s suicide note in the locker at Yongsan Station.

Based on the way he walks in the CCTV footage, it also seems like he’s the same man who has been leaving paper roses about.

Elsewhere, Da-Jeong’s Mum shows up at a temple, marking her name with her friend. The pair both start writing their names on tiles but Mi-Ran gets into an amusing disagreement about how to sign. Well, Mi-Ran has been having bad dreams lately and ends up writing down the name of Kang Yun-Chan. This is the name of her partner and apparently he made a promise to her in the past.

This promise sends us back through time to the moments before Mi-Ran walked out on her abusive husband. Although we initially saw her walk into his bedroom with a knife, Mi-Ran actually dropped it and took off with her kids. She didn’t kill her husband after all.

Back in the present, Da-Jeong heads out with Ian. The pair end up eating together where the restaurant owner slaps Ian on the back and tells him to chew his food before swallowing. This is, of course, a throwback to his time in the orphanage. Da-Jeong is still uneasy around Ian though, and he senses this. You can tell it deflates him but Ian does his best to put on a brave face. He wants to share dinner dates more often, determined to change her mind about him.

Further revelations about the sinister subplot in this drama comes to light not long after. That paper rose we initially saw actually had the word “you” written on it. The killer also passed both Da-Jeong and Ian during the fateful moments of placing the white roses and attacking Detective Park.

In Young-Do’s office, Da-Jeong gives Young-Do an origami rose after following an instructional video online. It gets him thinking and Young-Do heads upstairs to greet her. Only, she has a prior engagement with Cheol-Do.

It turns out his Father is coming back and he’s feeling really down. Cheol-Do admits that he’s scared and worried that he’s completely incapable. Da-Jeong decides to stick around for now and hear Cheol-Do out, while Young-Do gets comfy and falls asleep.

When Da-Jeong returns to Young-Do, he looks up at her and tells the girl not to leave, planting a big ol’ kiss on her. Yep, definitely just friends!

The Episode Review

So Da-Jeong and Young-Do switch things up this week with echoes of romance in their complicated relationship. The moments with the pair in Young-Do’s office are easily up there with some of the best in the entire season. Da-Jeong’s outpouring of grief, pent up emotion from her traumatic childhood, was so well-acted and incredibly poignant.

The shaky hands, the wobbly lip and the tightly shut eyes while the pair embraced are perfect examples of just how good Seo Hyun-Jin is in this scene – and as an actress in general. Hats off to her, this was superbly performed.

The actual series itself continues to serve as a complete mash-up of genres, blending murder mystery, rom-com, healing and comedy together into a pretty unique and endearing blend.

The tones don’t always mesh perfectly though, with some scenes sporadically jumping a little too much between light and dark, but other than that this is definitely a really intriguing and unusual drama.

Quite what will happen tomorrow is anyone’s guess but that kiss is definitely going to change things now!