Minhyuk is throwing a surprise birthday party to his best friend — Shin-Ae, and invited all of her friends to help with the preparation… yes, including "Yeong-Gi" who recently was out of prison. Well, he got himself dragged into this so why not just go along with it? That's what he thought at least. Shin-Ae noticed his old haircut is back since the last time she saw him in front of the hospital.
Dieter was told to bring a gift, Soushi tagged along him, Rika was helping Maya and Minhyuk on baking Shin-Ae's favorite Citrus Cake!
Hopefully the plan goes well for Minhyuk the prank mastermind!
[19/04/2025]
It's been 2 weeks since this episode dropped, you'd think this would be an easy one to write about but I feel SO overwhelmed by all my feelings but AAAAHHHHHHHHHH I want this to be out of the way AAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH I want all my screaming to be in one place so HERE WE GO!!!!!!!
WHAT AN EPISODE I LOVE THIS EPISODE AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH THERE IS SO MUCH GOOD IN HERE AND I FEEL LIKE I'M JUST GETTING EVERYTHING I WANT HANDED TO ME ON A SILVER PLATTER like quimchee PLS this feast you keep serving up is SO DECADANT!!!!!!
I wanted Girl Talk SO badly and OH MY GOD quimchee DELIVERED!!!!!! There's something SO satisfying about this talk, for what it reveals but also what it sets up. Shinae and Maya had a number of reasons to never be close to each other before, and now they have the opportunity to start over for REAL, and what a way to do it! Something I've always loved about Shinae is that she is not an "I'm not like other girls" character. She isn't dismissive of things that are feminine just because they're girly in nature - if anything, she's just never had the time/money/space/influence in her life to dig into them. Her best friend is a guy and she was never comfortable enough with Maya and Rika to explore these things. Starting over provides her that chance, the opportunity to take a chance on the things that scare her and I am SO excited for that, to see how it plays out!
Maya and Shinae's friendship is INCREDIBLY important to me, and Maya, the one who has so famously shipped Shinae with anyone in effort to get rid of her and not have to compete for her brother's attention, being the one to make her aware of her feelings is SO. FUNNY! TO ME!!!!!!
There's also something so incredibly funny about the fact that, yes, Shinae IS acting "out of character" because, for the first time in her life, she's behaving her age. She's being a moody teenager, complete with the sass and saying terrible (if not true) things (I audibly GASPED when she told Simhan he wasn't really around to raise her!). Of course no one else knows how to deal with this; Simhan has never had to deal with a moody teenager because Shinae has spent her entire life trying not to take up space, stuffing her feelings down, trying not to be a burden, trying to be good and not make waves, so now that she is doing the opposite, he's at a loss! Minhyuk, too, is at a similar loss, because this is nothing like the Shinae he knows! But Maya! Maya, a teenage girl herself who has doesn't repress her negative feelings as much? She knows. Oh she KNOWS.
There's something about that family meal that feels... bittersweet. I love the panel from the stair-view where Lil Buddy is sleeping and we can look down and see everyone gathering at the table to eat together - a proper family meal that Shinae never has, to announce big news. But the big news feels so foreboding with what we've seen, and the choice of words. Simhan admits shame at having failed three times now to get over his alcohol addiction and asserts that this will be the last attempt - because he intends it to be, because he has people who have his back, because he's trying to get help for real this time. Knowing what we do about Yui, though.... I can't help but be worried about the word use! And the previous imagery of the hanging chain over him at his neck? UGH, GOD.
We know Yui has overheard Simhan's plans to attend AA, and I really, REALLY hope Shinae does go with him to the first meeting, in case Yui is already showing up. I think the main fandom fear is that Yui would slip in and try to seduce him, try to get him to go back to drinking, maybe even go as far as to stage something to frame him for sexual assault, or you know, far worse, kill him. I... really don't want to go that route and I HOPE we aren't. It's bad enough Shinae has already lost her mom. I DON'T want her to lose her dad, as well. There's similar imagery/foreshadowing regarding Rand and a heart attack and despite what a bad father Rand's been, I don't want Nol to lose HIS father, either! Shinae has already struggled, and honestly this feels SO hopeful and having it dangled in front of us like this almost feels cruel, the what could have been, if Yui didn't get in the way. What I'm really hoping instead happens is, if Shinae DOES catch sight of Yui at the meeting, maybe she'd put 2 and 2 together and realize that Yui is trying to get Simhan in her clutches in order to corner Shinae, and instead of giving Yui the satisfaction and allowing her to harm someone important to her, Shinae might make an offer to "trade" herself.
As readers we already know Shinae is going to end up taking Yui's offer. Yui gets what Yui wants and she knows exactly how to do it, how to exploit peoples' weaknesses and corner them until they have nowhere left to run. She's already done this to Shinae! She doesn't have to do it again. So I think this is the best way for Shinae to end up taking up Yui's offer. Rand has already told her it's inevitable, she can do nothing to get out. And if it means people she cares about will be put in harms way, then she'll do the very thing she doesn't want to in order to save them.
I just... I don't want Simhan to die. I WANT Shinae to have her blended family unit. I know she's ultimately going to have to take Yui's offer and while this isn't ENTIRELY on her own terms, it's enough so that she can still feel in control, that she's making a choice, instead of being driven to it and losing everything she has left.
Something that comes up a lot with other readers is how Nol would feel if Shinae took Yui's offer, knowing how he feels about Alyssa doing it, but I think this current arc is about Nol starting to open up and talk to his friends, so that if Shinae DOES take this offer up this way, they can talk about it and he would understand how it's different than Alyssa's naive idolization of Yui, and how she was willing to do whatever Yui asked. Nol knows how Shinae feels about Yui, and more importantly, he knows how she hurts people and why Shinae would put herself in that position if it means saving her father.
I just UGGGHGHHHHHH I have FEELINGS about this, because for so long Shinae wanted her father and mother to get back together and when she grew old enough to know it was never going to happen she was just left to STRUGGLE. To feel like a burden at every turn! Adults made her feel like trash! People treated her like trash! They didn't have money and her father was spending what little they did on his addiction and she couldn't even guarantee when her next meal would be! The idea of her having a brother and a sister, a family unit who work together, who can get through things because they're not alone? ;~;
That Shinae, who is so emotionally overwhelmed already, started crying because of how happy it made her. PLEASE Simhan CAN'T die we can't go through that!!!!! It would be TOO cruel!!!! ;______;
But man, this episode was just a ROLLER COASTER of emotions! Shinae is just GOING through it. It's like she's fast tracking her way through puberty complete with every mood swing you would ever need. That she goes from happy tears about to eat to seeing Nol on tv watching Alyssa and acts like THAT?! SCREAMS
And on some level, it's almost funny - because Shinae has just learned that the relationship is fake, that Alyssa means nothing to Nol, that he resents her and her Yui idolatry. And yet
And yet
The JEALOUSY. The INSECURITY. It's not just that Nol is watching Alyssa - it's that he's looking at her like that, because we KNOW Shinae is very attracted to that aspect of him. She likes his "darker" side, she likes Nol. Now, again, as readers we know Nol isn't making that face because he feels anything about Alyssa. Frankly that's just... kinda his face being surrounded by all those people lmao but the way SHINAE sees it?
It's not limited to only that, either. Minhyuk there saying all those things about Alyssa - that she's got talent, the looks, she's famous now, what's she doing with someone like him. While it's not at all what Minhyuk means, it's like blow after blow, because it's true. Alyssa is a hot idol, anyone would kill to be her or be with her. She's famous. She has that body, she has those looks. What would someone with a girlfriend like that see in someone like Shinae? At the same time, too, Minhyuk is pointing out Nol's bad reputation, and how it would make those associated with him look.
But mostly, yes, it's the insecurity. It's seeing Nol and Alyssa at this Hirahara party in a world to which Shinae does not belong, because she is not part of this elite, uppercrust, socialite world. She is reminded viscerally that Nol has a girlfriend - a gorgeous, talented, famous girlfriend - and what he told her about his feelings towards Alyssa are long out of sight. Insecurity is such a gnawing beast, gnashing its teeth at her, pointing out every flaw, every aspect where she probably thinks she falls short.
Ngl, even if it sounds bad lmao I really like seeing this part of Shinae, because it's just one of those aspects of pining and yearning that I LOVE - mentally comparing yourself to someone with who you think you can't possibly measure up. Comparing yourself to someone you think outshines you. Even though the conscience thought isn't there in her head - how can he possibly look at me when he has that instead - it still fills her stomach like bile doesn't it? It's like she's walked face first into a glass door and doesn't realize WHAT the door represents, WHAT it means yet.
And GOD THE DELIGHTFUL GIRL TALK FINALLY ARRIVES!!!!!!
Just a couple notes: there are two different manga series in Maya's room, one called Relax! HE'S JUST A FRIEND, and the other IT ALL STARTS WITH REVENGE. Listen. LISTEN TO ME. You see what I'm seeing, right? You see what's cooking? ALFKKJAKFKAJFKAFJK SCREAMING!!!! Such POINTED names! And not only that, but the content of the spicy manga that Shinae saw? Believe me, that WILL be coming back. The smut is too pointed to NOT show up in Shinae's dreams lmao. That's not his knee SCREAMS
The funniest thing to me is that Maya gets SO MUCH MORE than she bargained for with Shinae. She just wants her to tell her what's going on but here's Shinae, just obtuse as hell, almost willfully belligerently obtuse, and she just keeps going on without GETTING IT.
Once again, I'm always in awe of how quimchee chooses to write this story, and the reveals, because they always go in directions I would have thought about. Girl Talk (for us) essentially beginning with Maya reminding her that she did, in fact, take issue with the fact that Shinae and Minhyuk were always together, and that it's a thing she's still working on, that something like those feelings doesn't just magically go away, even if she's ready to start over and be friends anew.
Maya telling Shinae, point blank, that it sounds like Nol likes her and is being mean so she doesn't find out? LOVE IT. Shinae popping out looking a little deranged to say "no he has a girlfriend" LOVE IT. LMAO Absolutely LOVE that panel.
Shinae has this really funny black and white view of relationships despite, again, Nol told her Alyssa means nothing, that relationship isn't real! He has a girlfriend only in that it's a title, and nothing more. Not that, you know, feelings work like that. Rand had a wife who likely meant nothing to him and he still fell in love with someone else. Feelings are complicated and if they were easier to control, would Nol have fallen for the same girl his best friend did? Would he have fallen for someone if he has a girlfriend?
Feelings are not that tidy, and neither are Shiae's.
(An aside, Maya's "Teehee! I love this part!" is SO meta. She speaks for us. She IS us!)
Maya is the only person who has really seen Shinae through all of this. She knew who Shinae was pre-Alyssa, who she was as a result of Alyssa, and she's been watching all the changes made since Nol entered her life. Simhan is always busy working and when he's not, he's blacked out from drinking. Minhyuk is a year ahead of them, so he wasn't there for Shinae's last year of middle school and has been in the U.S. this whole time. Maya alone has watched Shinae go from that bright, boisterous middle schooler to someone who "lets things go" and pretends nothing bothers her, pretend she doesn't care what people are saying or doing, pretend she's unaffected. Maya has watched her change not only opening up, but caring about things. And especially caring about these boys.
And that's what's important here. Shinae is so vexed, so bothered, SO UPSET that she cannot let it go. And she feels more strongly this way about one of them over the other.
My favorite part of this episode is when they're talking about their friends - how Maya describes Rika and it's so clear why they're best friends, how they get along and how they click, the ways they compliment each other. But I really loved Maya saying what makes her and Shinae friends. As much as it's true they weren't getting along before, it's not that Maya never cared. She DID - that's why it hurt so much! She wouldn't have tackled Kousuke if she DIDN'T care. But just seeing them have that discussion between each other? SOBBING Shinae admitting that she's afraid of all those girly things, not that she looks down on them, and how they pull her out of her shell. ;A;
All this time, Shinae has been trying to compare Nol to Minhyuk, because he is THE most important person in her life, her BEST friend. It's all she knows, and if Nol is just as important to her as Minhyuk, they must be comparable. But we know she's been trying to stuff him into a box he doesn't fit, because he ISN'T Minhyuk. He's not platonic, not simply friends. There's more.
It's EASY for her to talk about what she likes about Minhyuk because that's their relationship. It's easy, it's effortless, they clicked from the get go and he became very much like a brother to her (sidebar: I LOVE that frame of her with her head in his lap IT'S SO CUTE I LOOOOVE IT).
Likewise, Dieter is easy to talk about, too. Notably, the things she likes about him are the things she gets out of their relationship - he's comforting, he's secure. She literally says he's like a teddy bear. Something that doesn't get talked about a lot is that when it comes to Shinae and Dieter's relationship, she is take take take. She doesn't mean to, and it's partly because Dieter doesn't draw that boundary. He lets her take take take. But the needs Dieter fills as a friend all entail comforting her. She states that it's almost like Dieter understands her feelings better than she does because it's true. He knows the things she hasn't figured out and he sits there and lets her lean on him despite how much it hurts him. He's helping her and taking care of her but who is taking care of him? ;______;
And while Shinae thinks that she has nothing nice to say about Nol, because she's so focused on how bad he's making her feel, she can't help it....
ALL THE SCENES! FROM HER POINT OF VIEW! AS THEY BECOME FRIENDS! AS HE INSERTS HIMSELF INTO HER LIFE! AS HE GOES FROM A YELLOW CAUTION AS SHE WARMS UP TO HIM AS THE BACKGROUND TURNS RED. THE FORMAL AND HIS SHEEPISH EXPRESSION WHILE DOING HER MAKE UP, SUCH A CRITICAL MOMENT FOR THEM.
I WANT TO HOWL FOREVER ABOUT HOW FOUNDATIONAL THE KIM FORMAL WAS and how we've known it and it was always there but to see it confirmed and reinforced like that, that this was the night, the MOMENT those feelings began to shift, began to blur, how there was now something more to the friendship, that she was affected by him. That night was absolutely CRUCIAL and had it not ended the way it did, she would still have felt the way she did. It still lead to that honest heart to heart. And we know it was similar for Nol, that this was a night in which they tethered themselves to each other, the times he put his needs above anything else - even the ire of his father - and the times he reached to her, the way he felt seen in a place where normally he felt so invisible.
GOD the confirmation is just soooooo !!!!!!!!!!!! INSANE!!!!!!
AND THE BACKGROUND COLORS?! THAT GRADUAL CHANGE FROM CAUTION TO FEELINGS? To the bleak black where everything changed, where HE donned the blindfold but it blinded her, too. All of these feelings, so confused, so turbulent and uncertain.
He lifts her blindfold and we see her chest but it's just her lungs - her heart is there.
And she's SO FERAL! She feels SO STRONGLY! About Minhyuk or Maya or Dieter, she can talk about what she likes, what she feels, but when it's Nol it's just turbulence, it's just the STRONGEST emotions, it's RAGE, it's FERAL ENERGY.
"If you won't let me have you...."
AND EVERYONE WAS DEAD IN THE CHAT ALKFJAKFKAJFKJAFKJJAF LKAJFKAFKAF ALFJAKFJKAFJ LJAFKJAKF ALFKJAKFJ
LIKE SHE REALLY SAID THAT! WITH HER OWN MOUTH! OF HER OWN VOLITION. "IF YOU WON'T LET ME HAVE YOU"
SHE WANTS HIM SO BAD and she wants him to herself and she wants to see the parts of him that he hides she wants to see the things he doesn't want to share and she wants it ALL and she is SO feral about it!!!!!!!
The way she is BLUSHING and frustrated and if she can't have him, he can't have any of her things (as if that was ever a question)
But there's one thing he's taken that she can't get back. HEHEHEHEHEHE.
I LOVE the emphasis on Maya's expression at this part, how she's just SHOCKED, her eyes wide her brows high because WHO IS THIS IS THIS REALLY SHINAE? Because she KNOWS she KNOWS what Shinae doesn't want to know and it's SO CLEAR.
She's so defensive! It's RIGHT THERE in front of her face and she keeps turning a blind eye, refusing, because NO of couRSE NOT hwo could she LIKE him he has a girlfriend what kind of person is she to like someone who has a girlfriend to like someone who is so important to her to like someone to whom she's SO DRAWN. She accuses Maya of projecting because what can she really know, she only knows smutty manga - but it's funny because that's the thing isn't it? Maya at least has experienced that secondhand. Shinae is feeling things she can't even IDENTIFY, so much WANT.
I CAN'T believe she actually BIT MAYA LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
LIKE
NOL WAS THIS CLOSE TO BITING SHINAE AND HAD TO KICK HER OUT OF HIS ROOM BECAUSE HE COULD NOT BE ALONE WITH HER, HE ABSOLUTELY COULDN'T AND HE COULDN'T TELL HER WHY
AND SHINAE DOES THE SAME EXACT THING.
SHE BITES HER AND KICKS HER OUT OF THE ROOM.
GOD. LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOOO she's so funny wth ;_______;
It's so funny how Nol and Shinae respond to their feelings the same way lmao like, they each try to deny it, it can't be true, there's no way "I don't have time for this", kicking people out of rooms, fully feral (though I daresay Nol is holding himelf together better, but only barely) but here she is BITING her friend, kicking her out of her room, blushing at the realization that what Maya said is TRUE.
Also uhhh can't help but notice that she's finally able to go to sleep after she thinks she'll be going to see Nol. Knowing that Dieter will come by, she's finally able to pass out.
GIRL.
/GIRL/
Something else that is funny to me is that Minhyuk describes Shinae as "ornery" as if she was just being frisky or something LMAO going around fighting everyone and BITING MAYA LMAO.
And frankly, it's for the best that Dieter goes to see Nol alone. Firstly, Minhyuk describing how Shinae was acting just further solidifies what he saw, what he knows, why she's behaving that way. Can he really be alone with her right now, trying to be a dependable friend when all it does is hurts her? But also, it's for the best, because Nol and Dieter need to talk, and it's not just about Shinae, though that's part of it. Nol keeps pushing everyone away, including Shinae, and we all, including Dieter, know Nol is only going to continue doing so for his sake, and like, let's be real. That's not what Dieter wants. He doesn't want pity. He doesn't want people denying what they want. He doesn't need to be treated like a baby, and I hope he stands up for himself that way, and stands up for Shinae, and more importantly, I hope he calls out Nol on the kind of friend he's been.
Dieter is the one who knows the least about anything. He was there playing mediator without even knowing how Nol showed back up, Nol who blocked them and told them to stop contacting him, Nol who he was resigned to accepting had left.
Nol owes Dieter a LOT of explanations and I, for one, am SO EXCITED.
GOD what a good episode, it was honestly a MASTERPIECE and I never get over reading it lmao Shinae's so vulnerable blushing expression upon realizing that Maya is RIGHT? Oh I LOVE it. I love my feral cat Shinae I LOVE THEM.
you're right. i am a hypocrite! i'm a terrible friend to you! i was jealous! i'm always jealous of you! everyone gives you attention. everyone's worried about you! shin-ae this! shin-ae that! my mom! my brother! even rika! and i'm not allowed to complain because i have it good. i don't have it as bad as you. i hate you. at least that's what i want to say to you... i want to say i hate you so bad but... but the people i care about will dislike me for it. so i try to get close to you. but my jealousy gets the best of me. and i start acting all petty. and because of that, i have failed those that counted on me... i put you in danger. you've gotten hurt. i don't really hate you. thinking now... hating you is only me lying to myself... seeing you and spending time with you only reminds me of how much i suck. i hate myself.
