5 Painful Realizations In Episodes 9-10 Of “Moon In The Day” That Don’t Bode Well For Pyo Ye Jin & Kim Young Dae

“Moon in the Day” may just have one of the best couples of the year. Do Ha (Kim Young Dae) and Kang Young Hwa (Pyo Ye Jin) may be riddled with more baggage than an airport, but these two communicate nonstop and work things out together in the best of ways. However, a series of major realizations this week threaten to bring back the past in the worst of ways. History may be about to repeat itself, but can Do Ha and Young Hwa stop it this time?

Warning: spoilers for episodes 9-10 below.

1. Do Ha is in love with Young Hwa

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Do Ha has finally caught up to the fact that the rest of us viewers already figured out: he can’t kill Young Hwa because he’s in love with her. She’s quite literally who Ri Ta would have been if she’d been born in a better period of history. And any conflation of Young Hwa with Ri Ta isn’t foolish or disrespectful to Young Hwa because she’s reliving that life and vividly identifying with Ri Ta’s feelings for Do Ha. In essence, she’s becoming both women, and he loves who she was and who she is now. And it’s for that reason that Do Ha tells her that she doesn’t have to keep trying to remember the past. He doesn’t want her to realize how their story ended, and he’s convinced himself that the reason he was stuck around her for 1,500 years was because of his lingering feelings. Part of him seems to be somewhat aware that this isn’t true because he wanted to enter the afterlife and cease being stuck neither living nor free in death. But it’s wishful thinking on his part because he just really doesn’t want to kill her. It’s too bad that Han Min Oh (On Joo Wan) is on his way to do just that.

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Soribu (Lee Kyung Young) in Seok Chul Hwan’s (Jung Woong In’s) body has convinced Min Oh that all he needs to do to restore his brother Han Jun Oh (Kim Young Dae) back to him is to kill Young Hwa. He frames it as a result of Young Hwa’s karma in her past lives and reveals that Young Hwa knows that Jun Oh isn’t Jun Oh. Min Oh notices the way Young Hwa keeps covering for Do Ha and falls for Soribu’s scheme, hook, line, and sinker. Do Ha’s also realized that Min Oh’s acting weird, and we get a great explanation for why Do Ha hasn’t been properly acting as Jun Oh (it would have been great if we got it earlier though)—it’s because he doesn’t feel comfortable rifling through Jun Oh’s memories even though he has access to them. At the end of the day, Do Ha was a Goryeo warrior and using the memories of his body’s former inhabitant as camouflage feels like a terrible invasion of privacy, especially since he thinks he’s not going to be here for long. And that’s the one thing that Young Hwa’s starting to realize that she’s not okay with.

2. Young Hwa is in love with Do Ha

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The more Young Hwa dreams of Do Ha, the more she sees what a good man he was despite the horrible things he was forced to do during that time. At first, when she contrasted that with how free he is now and how happy he’s been on the few times she was able to give him everyday experiences that others have, she just wanted him to have more happiness in his life before he has to die. But she realized that it was equally about her wanting him to stay with her as it was to see him happy. So when ever-honest Do Ha admits that his lingering feelings toward her might be what have tied him to her for 1,500 years, she immediately speaks up (I love this so much about her) and asks if he can’t stay for longer, given that she, too, wants him to stay and isn’t ready to let him go.

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But this lovely declaration is interrupted by Min Oh who’s gotten his plan going. He gets Young Hwa to bring Do Ha to an isolated location on a “camping trip.” She thinks that Do Ha will get to enjoy his first-ever vacation. Only, Min Oh drugs Do Ha and swears to kick him out of Jun Oh’s body and lures Young Hwa to a cliff and pushes her off. Do Ha wakes up and panics, realizing that Min Oh must have gone after Young Hwa. But Young Hwa’s a tenacious one and clings to the rocks until Do Ha arrives and drags her to safety. Both of them realize that they can’t let the other go. But first, Do Ha has to deal with Min Oh.

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3. Jun Oh really is dead

To give Min Oh some credit, he didn’t really want to kill Young Hwa, but just like Do Ha would do and has done anything for Ri Ta and Young Hwa, Min Oh’s the same when it comes to Jun Oh. Min Oh is shaken but also relieved that Young Hwa died and is also heartbroken because he doesn’t know how to get Jun Oh back. Do Ha is furious but also has compassion for Min Oh’s position. He tells Min Oh that there was never getting Jun Oh back because Jun Oh is definitively dead. Do Ha entered his body hours later when it was in the morgue. I’m really hoping that the show sticks to this because it would be just strange if Jun Oh started to try and show up after all these declarations that he’s gone for good.

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Min Oh asks Do Ha if it means that that person was lying, and Do Ha realizes that there’s something that he’s missed. Something that he may have missed for 1,500 years in fact. Because if there’s someone running around telling Min Oh to kill Young Hwa and who knows that he’s a ghost, then there’s a third party to their curse.

4. Young Hwa has always died before her 30th birthday

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Young Hwa’s no idiot and confronts Do Ha on what he’s hiding from her. He’d warned her that she was in danger and had predicted that Min Oh might try to harm her beforehand. She asks why he isn’t giving her the full truth and why he’s somehow convinced that he doesn’t need her to break his curse anymore. Do Ha can’t bring himself to tell her that she killed him, but he gives her the other half of the truth. All her reincarnations have died before the age of 30. Not a single one has lived past that age. He’s hated it and was hurt at not being able to do anything to stop her deaths while in ghost form, but he’s put it down to 30 just being her time to go. Yet, it seems that something much more dangerous is at work.

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After recalling Do Ha giving Ri Ta the lotus seed prayer beads that ended up in Young Hwa’s protection bracelet over a thousand years later, Young Hwa goes to the monks at the temple to ask what she might have done as Ri Ta for a curse to follow not only her but the people she touched, like Do Ha. The monks tell her that it’s up to her to remember, but no matter how she racks her mind, she only has one key realization: she’s in love with Do Ha, and he may not be long for this world. Until, a familiar figure steps in.

5. Seok Chul Hwan is Soribu

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Soribu has been having a blast manipulating everyone in sight, which indicates that this isn’t his first rodeo. He seems to be following the same logic as Do Ha where he thinks that killing Young Hwa will help him but with a twist. He’s out to stay here for as long as it appears. He tells a terrified Min Oh (who tried to confront him) that it’s only if Young Hwa dies that Soribu’s stab wound disappears, presumably meaning that he can live in Chul Hwan’s body until it dies of old age. Can this magic work on Do Ha, please? Stabbing Soribu saves Do Ha? Please, show! Do Ha’s hot on Chul Hwan’s trail but hasn’t put it together that he’s Soribu. But Young Hwa has because Soribu confronts her in the middle of the street, and she hears him speak and knows. And that’s where we leave off!

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This show is wafer-thin when it comes to any character/plot that isn’t our main trio: Do Ha, Young Hwa, and Soribu, but given how explosive the main couple’s chemistry is, I’m not complaining. These two just light up the screen, and the Goryeo scenes always hit so hard and are acted with tremendous pathos. In the present, Jun Oh’s ex-girlfriend Jung Yi Seul (Jung Shin Hye) is threatening to ruin him. Soribu is insane, and that cruel master, fate, has put a deadline on Do Ha’s present body, so anything could go either way with only four episodes left. Next week shows Young Hwa realizing that she killed Do Ha, and we’ll probably finally see why (or they’ll save it for the finale). There’s been a decent amount of divergence from the webtoon, and Do Ha and Young Hwa deserve everything, so here’s hoping that we get some form of deus ex machina. Finding peace doesn’t have to be death, Do Ha! You can find it in fried chicken places here too!

 

 

cr: Soompi