'When I was the Most Beautiful' Episode 14: Hwan learns he was abandoned and rightly rebels against his family
After 13 episodes of watching Hwan (Ji Soo) in 'When I was the Most Beautiful' suffer silently as he sacrificed his wishes and his love for his family, episode 14 finally gives him a chance to express how he feels after learning the truth about what really happened years ago when his father, his brother and himself had gone on a hike. After learning of how Carrie had betrayed him from Gi-seok, Jin (Ha Seok-jin) decides that he is no different from her. She had asked one of his former teammates to slash his tires so that he doesn't win the race, however, the tires burst and the car fell over the cliff because of the rough racecourse.
The more Jin thinks of how Carrie managed to steal seven years of his life from him, ruin his wife Ye-ji's (Lim Soo-hyang) life and his family's peace, he begins to compare himself with her. In a way, he is right. He hid the fact that the accident that caused his father's disability was because of Jin selfishly trying to survive by abandoning his brother on the hiking trail that his father had thrown himself to help his youngest son. All this while, Hwan had been feeling guilty that his father was injured because of him and this was a huge part of the reason why Hwan stayed behind with his father when his wife abandoned him and his son, who had caused the accident in the first place, began staying away from home to avoid even looking at the brother that he had abandoned.
Hwan stuck by his father, helped him through rehabilitation and even an attempt by his father to die by suicide. However, no one considered how Hwan would feel as he lived through all of this. After his father, he also lived through hell, when he was forced to track Jin down after he went missing and no one as of now, except maybe Ye-ji had even considered how Hwan had felt through all of this. Instead, his brother doubted his relationship with his sister-in-law. Jin had already known that Hwan liked Ye-ji from when he was just a student. He also knew that Hwan had given up on his first love for the sake of his brother and Ye-ji. Yet, the moment Jin returned, he began doubting his brother.
All of this rises to the surface when Hwan hears his brother's confession about him being the reason why their father was injured. At the moment, Hwan feels abandoned by his entire family as everyone left him alone while he lifted the heavy load of keeping the family together at all times. Now, he is done sacrificing for his family that is extremely selfish. Now, he has found out that his mother loves her company the most, his brother his freedom and his father, his art. There is no space for Hwan in the family and when he attempts to get some comfort by speaking to Ye-ji, the way she begins to draw a line between them ends up angering him further.
In the end, Hwan feels extremely lonely and the only thing that he can think of doing is to abandon his family just like they abandoned him. Ye-ji tells Hwan that there is no way her relationship with Jin can be repaired, now that Jin's mother is also aware of Hwan's interest in Ye-ji. Hwan tells her that there is one way things can work out. That is if Hwan decides to leave and never return. Ye-ji says she cannot ask such a huge sacrifice of him, but he corrects her and tells her that this time, he is not sacrificing, but planning on exacting revenge. Will Hwan leave his toxic family behind to start a new life?
'When I was Most Beautiful' will air on MBC on Wednesdays and Thursdays at 9.30 pm KST. It will be available on Viu outside South Korea.