Destined With You 2023 Episode 2

Episode 2 of Destined With You starts where we left off with Sin-yu showing up outside the City Hall and meeting Hong-jo. He finds her crying outside the office and tells her that he has a gift for her from the Shaman. Sin-yu gives the wooden box to Hong-jo. Hong-jo is confused by the interaction and takes it back home with her.

That night, Hong-jo tries her best to open it but is unable to do so. Hong-jo tries to break the lock with a hammer but gets distracted when an LED light goes off in her apartment. She gives up and gets a call from Sin-yu, who asks her about the box. Hong-jo tells him that she’s not able to open it, no matter how hard she tries. She’ll instead try the following day.

The next day, Hong-jo is at work when she is asked to get hangover drinks for her teammates who are all trying to hide the fact that they were out eating together. Hong-jo goes out to a nursery in order to buy plants to decorate the main street, where she learns about the Mayor of Onju City.

At the same time, Jae-kyung tells his boss that all the civil lawyers who work for City Hall are incompetent as they often lose most of the cases because they’re being paid by the government. He suggests they bring in a different lawyer who is not only competent but also someone who isn’t greedy.

Jae-kyung’s boss is sure that there’s no competent lawyer who would be willing to work for the meagre salary that they are providing. Jae-kyung tells his boss that he knows a guy who is fit for the job. At the same time, Sin-yu calls Hong-jo and asks her if she has managed to open the box yet. He also learns that Hong-jo is still being cast out by her team when she answers his call while having her lunch at a local children’s park.

Hong-jo asks Sin-yu to refrain from calling her until she figures out how to open the box herself. A while later, Jae-kyung shows up at Sin-yu’s office and tells him about the job. Since Jae-kyung used to be Sin-yu’s senior at college, they seem to know each other well. Sin-yu also learns that the City Hall has a number of cases against the construction site client – Haum.

Later that night, Hong-jo tries to open the wooden box yet again and keeps Sin-yu on a video call to show him how she’s having a hard time. She tries all her gimmicks to get the box to open but the lock doesn’t budge. Hong-jo ends the call and puts the box aside, losing all hope.

The next day, Sin-yu is in a meeting with Laum’s CEO, Hyun-seo. Hyun-seo gifts each lawyer at Law & High Law Firm an expensive watch and sarcastically apologises to the female lawyer for treating her badly at the celebration party. He claims that despite being the biggest client of the law firm, he’s being forced to apologise because of Sin-yu.

On his way out, Hyun-seo asks Sin-yu to bow and show him respect like the other lawyers but Sin-yu refuses to do so. Instead, he hands in his resignation letter and asks his boss to pick between their biggest client, and a mere lawyer like Sin-yu.

That night, Hong-jo decides to fix her broken LED light all by herself and injures herself after falling off a chair. She wishes Jae-kyung was there to take care of her. However, she is shocked when she discovers that the wooden box has miraculously unlocked.

Sin-yu tells his father that he has quit his job and is trying to take his health seriously. Sin-yu’s father, Se-heon, asks him to take it easy for a while and to take some rest before starting a new job. In his room, Sin-yu thinks about taking the job at the City Hall.

The next morning, Hong-jo runs into Sin-yu and tells her that the wooden box contains a Book of Magical Spells. She tells him that the book is as useless as it can get and mocks it. Sin-yu asks her to give the book to him instead but Hong-jo claims that it’s her gift and she would like to keep it. She also reveals that a Shaman named Aeng-cho is the true owner of it.

Jae-kyung shows up, intervening in their conversation and asks about the wound on Hong-jo’s forehead. She starts acting coy and blushing which Sin-yu finds odd. She learns that Jae-kyung had posted a community message praising her and gets harassed by her colleagues for swooning over a guy that they all like. Sae-byeol asks Hong-jo to get in line.

Sin-yu starts working at the City Hall. He looks up information on Aeung-cho and learns that she was a Shaman from the Joseon Dynasty and killed by a man named Jang Mu-jin. That evening, he finds Hong-jo at her desk and asks to see the Book of Spells in person. Sin-yu drives Hong-jo home after she insists on bringing the book outside for him to see.

On her way back home, a drunk man from the street tries to harass Hong-jo but Sin-yu shows up in time to help her. She invites him over to the house and puts him to work, asking him to repair the LED light for her. Sin-yu suffers another attack and is unable to go through with fixing the light. He offers to call someone to repair the light for Hong-jo but the latter shows him the book and asks him to leave.

Sin-yu finds a number of spells in the book and also spots the spell to heal diseases. He asks Hong-jo to promise and save one spell in the book for him and goes back home. The next day, Na-yeon visits the City Hall to meet Sin-yu when she runs into Hong-jo. Hong-jo and Na-yeon used to be high school friends and Hong-jo is shocked to learn that the latter was the Mayor’s daughter.

Na-yeon apologises for a past mistake she made and claims that she too suffered the consequences of what happened back then. Sin-yu interrupts the conversation and assumes that Hong-jo is being mean to Na-yeon for no reason. He states that her rude attitude was a reason that Hong-jo was treated like an outcast.

In the car, Na-yeon tells Sin-yu that she studied with Hong-jo in high school and adds that she used to be bullied because she was poor. She befriended Hong-jo but the latter claims that Hong-jo was very mean to her. Na-yeon adds that she was already having a hard time because of things at home and claims that Hong-jo’s behaviour added to her troubles.

That day, Hong-jo shows up at the place where her colleagues are hanging out. She forces herself into the group and asks her colleagues to allow her to hang out with them. Jae-kyung shows up at the same restaurant with Sin-yu and the other lawyer who worked at the City Hall.

They excuse themselves after sharing a few drinks with Hong-jo and her colleagues. As she makes her way back home, Hong-jo runs into Jae-kyung who gives her  a new outfit after she ruined her while trying to save him. Hong-jo is touched by the gesture and ends up confessing her feelings for him.

Jae-kyung tells Hong-jo that he likes her just like he likes anyone else and does not have any romantic feelings for her. Hong-jo is dejected about the rejection. Sin-yu finds her there and accuses her of stealing her friend’s boyfriend. He accuses Sin-yu of being the one to catch feelings for every guy who is kind to her and mocks her. Hong-jo and Sin-yu argue when she tells him that he is making assumptions without knowing anything about her.

The next day, Hong-jo is embarrassed at work when a video of her proposing to Jae-kyung and being rejected by him goes viral. She blames Sin-yu for leaking the video but he claims that the angle it was taken from proves that it wasn’t him. She is embarrassed and goes back home after spending the evening drinking all by herself.

Once home, Hong-jo gets a box of groceries from her land-lady who now works at a farm. She finds a bottle of goat’s milk and recalls that the love spell in the Spell Book had goat milk listed as one of the ingredients. She decides to perform the spell on Jae-kyung and gets dressed in hanbok for the ritual.

Sin-yu suffers from another attack on his way back home where the Red Hand starts trying to control him. Sin-yu loses his balance and crashes his car into the potted plants Hong-jo had put up on the street. The episode ends with Hong-jo finishing the spell to make Jae-kyung fall in love with her.

The Episode Review

Sin-yu’s relationship with his mother (who could be his stepmother) is odd. She seems to act like she is attracted to him, but who wouldn’t be? It’s Rowoon after all. From the way this episode ends, we can see that Sin-yu is in desperate need of help and has the spell in the palm of his hand. I wonder why he didn’t just take the spell from Hong-jo immediately when he had the chance.

From what we see in the preview for the next episode, Hong-jo will try and get Jae-kyung to drink the water from her spell but I am sure something chaotic is going to happen and it will be Sin-yu who ends up drinking the water. It is clear that Jang Mi-jun is Sin-yu from his past life who killed the owner of the spell book – Aeng-cho and I am looking forward to seeing how the makers rope in the Joseon era in this modern-day office romance.