hi beloved!! i'm not sure if you have already explained this in your Love for Love's Sake linguistic explanation posts, please refer me there if you have!! but i did not understand anything about Sangwon's crying scene. who died. was it his grandpa or a poodle. i really really did not get it 😭
Heyyy!!
Short answer: it was the poodle! (not died yet but had cancer pls someone check up on sangwon and his dog)
Long answer, because I'm always excited to talk more about Love for Love's Sake:
When Myungha catches Sangwon crying on a playground, he asks what's wrong. Sangwon answers: "Seulgi is sick" ("슬기가 앞아요").
And the thing is, Sangwon uses the word 앞아요 (apayo) which is a standard polite way of saying someone hurts or is unwell, BUT you wouldn't use it to talk about your senior or your grandparents. Usually you'd use this word about yourself or your friends or someone younger than you.
This is exactly why Myungha's first thought is that Sangwon is talking about his little brother/sister! He asks: "Is is your younger sibling? Are they too sick?"
And now Sangwon responds with "A grandpa" ("할아버지요"/haraboji-yo). Translation confusion coming in - Sangwon says 'My Seulgi is A grandpa', not MY grandpa. This is when Myungha's doubts and confusion click, because you wouldn't talk so casually about your well-respected old grandfather.
I pulled up an example from Korean studybook, this is how you'd address the same topic in a very polite and formal manner.
할아버지께서 편찮으세요. – My grandfather is sick.
First of all, you'd add a honorific form 께서 to the word "grandfather/haraboji", otherwise you'd look rude, and also there are several verbs that have more honorific forms that are typically used when you talk about seniors like your grandparents (like to be, sleep, eat, die etc).
Think like you can say someone 'kicked the bucket/died/passed away', each means the same thing but has different nuance and level of respect for the person. Sangwon used the second type but he is expected to use the highest level.
If Sangwon was talking about his actual grandfather, he'd probably use 아프세요/apeuseyo (more formal version of 앞아요/apayo that he can use for the adults) or 편찮으세요/pyeongchaneuseyo (honorific verb for seniors)
So Myungha apologizes - just in case Sangwon is a rude brat and actually always talks so casually with his cool grandpa - and assumes Seulgi is not his actual grandpa. His intuition was right, Sangwon is not that rude :D
I can imagine the dog too, this is a white poodle that is a very common breed in Korea – and he might either be actually old (is 12 years too old for a dog?) or Sangwon is affectionately used to joking about it (they do look like small grandpas, no? is it just me?). So it makes sense that you give a haraboji nickname to a dog + talk casually about him (Sangwon paying all respects to his dog would actually sound more confusing tbh xD)
I can add that 슬기/Seulgi means "wisdom" and it's a unisex name but mostly it's used by women, so Sangwon potentially could confuse Myungha even further :D
But also this scene breaks my heart, Myungha is so caring and comforting but then he breaks Sangwon's heart so easily, and Sangwon is left there with a beaten up face and more things to cry about, someone stop me –
(meta continuation is in the reblogs)