'When I was the Most Beautiful' Episode 7: A rift that has formed between Hwan and Ye-ji leads to heartbreak
At the end of 'When I was the Most Beautiful' Episode 6, Ye-ji (Lim Soo-hyang) was comforted by Hwan's (Ji Soo) arrival on a very bad day. In episode 7, however, the fact that Hwan forces Ye-ji to accept that his brother is dead forces the two of them apart. What is interesting, however, is the fact that Hwan himself has not given up on finding his brother dead or alive. Every time hospitals in the US where his brother had raced report a John Doe, he leaves to check on their identity in the hopes of giving both his mother and Ye-ji a sure shot reason to believe that his brother is no more. At the moment, both of them believe that Jin will return.
He even sends quarterly reports to his mother of all the bodies that he checks to confirm that his brother is in fact dead. So when he meets Ye-ji in Jeju Island, which is where she ended up after leaving her father-in-law's house, she asks him to show her the report because her mother-in-law doesn't share them. Once she sees the report, she is heartbroken because there has been no news still about her husband, and Hwan had to go through the horrible experience of checking strangers' dead bodies repeatedly. For a bit, just for a bit, she finds solace in Hwan's company. However, when things progress to an awkward space where Hwan ends up almost kissing her, she decides that it is time for her to draw a strict line between herself and Hwan.
So she does exactly that and even tells him to leave without her. She tells him to return to the US, forget everything that happened between the two of them, and stay in the US. She wants him to continue searching for his brother even if it hurts him, and she wants him to stay healthy but she tells him that she will no longer keep in touch with him. She doesn't want to lead Hwan on anymore and in that vein, the way she drew the line hard and fast was right. However, Hwan is extremely hurt.
When Ye-ji arrives home and hears from her father-in-law that it would be a good idea for her to leave the house and live apart, she is further distressed. She doesn't want to say goodbye to another person in her life after losing everyone that she loved. So instead, she tells him that she wants to continue to stay at his house that has become her home and continue to work in his workshop as his protegee. Her mother, meanwhile, has learned that Ye-ji's husband has gone missing and could even be dead. This makes her mother extremely angry and so she decides to attack her sister-in-law for putting her daughter through a tough time and even goes to the extent of threatening to sue her. What her mother doesn't realize is that she is only making it more difficult for her daughter.
Despite months passing and Hwan attempting to reach out through mails and email, Ye-ji has completely cut herself off from Hwan. She doesn't read anything that comes from her brother-in-law and so three years pass. Three more years of living with the belief that Jin might return for Ye-ji and three years of being cut off from the only woman that he had ever loved for Hwan.
While Jin's family is going through all of this, Carie, Jin's ex-girlfriend seems to know something about his disappearance and she might even be involved in it somehow. What we see is her paying another driver who took part in the race off and telling him that there is no use to revealing what happened three years ago because revealing the truth doesn't change anything. She seems extremely interested also in returning to Korea because she says there is something important that she needs to take care of. Considering how Jin's remains haven't been found, is it possible that Carie is hiding a horrible truth to indulge her greed?
'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.
