Destined With You 2023 Episode 4

Episode 4 of Destined With You starts with Sin-yu confessing his feelings for Hong-jo. He tells her that he’s accidentally consumed the potion that was meant for Jae-kyung. He shows her the CCTV footage from the conference to show her and confirm that he’s unwillingly falling in love with her.

Hong-jo is shocked and frustrated to learn this and has an argument with Sin-yu. The latter asks Hong-jo to reverse the spell because he is trying very hard to keep himself from falling further in love with her. Hong-jo asks Sin-yu to get a medical test to check if the spell has worked as further proof.

Sin-yu gets home and starts thinking about Hong-jo, while Hong-jo thinks about her situation with Sin-yu and Jae-kyung. Hong-jo recalls her date with Jae-kyung from earlier that night and how he blatantly rejected her. During the date, Jae-kyung mentions that he’s not the guy she saw him to be and adds that he has a very messed up family relationship.

Jae-kyung confesses that he is not really a person who desires to have a family and wants to be alone. He wishes Hong-jo well and hopes that she finds a better partner in the future. The next day, Jae-kyung gets to work and starts thinking about his interaction with Hong-jo wherein she calls him lonely. 

At the same time, Sin-yu is singing romantic songs and his colleague finds it odd for a person like Sin-yu to be in love. Sin-yu asks his colleague about Jae-kyung and starts getting territorial over Hong-jo.

Meanwhile, at her own office, Eun-young asks Hong-jo if Seo-goo bullied her but Hong-jo defends her team leader in front of the manager. 

Out of nowhere, Sin-yu shows up with a coffee for Hong-jo and her colleagues. He confesses that he was the person who crashed into the flower pots on the street and takes responsibility for his actions, asking the team to be kind to Hong-jo. Hong-jo gets mad at Sin-yu for ambushing her at work and creating a scene. She asks Sin-yu to be loyal towards Na-yeon.

Sin-yu confesses that he has broken up with Na-yeon because he no longer has any control over his actions. He claims that he keeps finding ways to get closer to Hong-jo and asks for her to break the spell in order to free him of this new curse. Hong-jo asks Sin-yu to drink a lot of water to pass the spell potion out of his system and get back to work.

Meanwhile, Sin-yu’s father meets Na-yeon and apologises to her on his son’s behalf. He asks Na-yeon to stick with Sin-yu despite the break-up because he is sure she is the one for him. At the same time, Sin-yu drinks a lot of water in order to try and pass the spell from his system.

When Hong-jo goes out to work on a new project, he carries a box to help Hong-jo out. Na-yeon spots the two interacting on the street and is heartbroken. After another chaotic interaction between the two, Hong-jo and Sin-yu part ways for the night.

That night, Hong-jo’s landlady comes back home from the small town and tells her that she is ready to lease out her floor of the apartment. She claims that since Hong-jo was leasing out the second floor, a new family was set to move onto the first floor. At the same time, Sin-yu sees the same young girl in a hanbok helping out a young boy in his dream.

The next day, Hong-jo goes out to work with a group of volunteers while she wonders if the love potion was still potent now after a man starts being kind to her after drinking water from her bottle. At work, Eun-young scolds Seo-goo for bullying Hong-jo because she stopped his promotion.

She asks the team to go home if they are done with their jobs instead of waiting for Seo-goo, their team leader. That night, Sin-yu shows up outside Hong-jo’s house and helps her get home safely after he learns that she is being followed in the dark alleyway that leads up to her house. Sin-yu also surprises Hong-jo by fixing the headlights on the street after his chat with the City Hall chief.

During their interaction, he spots the background on Hong-jo’s phone and is shocked to learn that the girl from his dreams is actually Hong-jo from when she was little. Sin-yu accuses Hong-jo of messing with his mind by now taking charge of her dreams as well.

The two go to see Shaman Eun-wol and try to discuss a way out of their predicament. The old woman asks to chat with both Sin-yu and Hong-jo individually and tells Sin-yu that the spell is irreversible because only the true owner of the box can break it.

Since Hong-jo doesn’t have any recollection of being the owner of the box, she too is helpless in this case. Next, Hong-jo then meets Eun-wol and discusses the only way to break the spell. Hong-jo is disappointed after her meeting with Eun-wol and refuses to tell Sin-yu anything about the actual solution that Eun-wol offered. 

Sin-yu starts rambling about the possible ways he could break the spell and wonders if a kiss would break it. He starts making romantic comments towards Hong-jo which makes her blush. He drops her back home that night and Hong-jo looks up information about Aeng-cho, the author of the spell book.

The next day, Eun-young helps Hong-jo deal with a troller who’s harassing her over the phone. She warns the civilian and asks Hong-jo to report such troll callers to her. Seo-goo shows up to work late and Eun-young confronts him. She learns that Seo-goo was compiling a list of malicious comments and reported them to the cops on her behalf.

Since Eun-young was being harassed over her husband’s cheating scandal, Seo-goo asks her to file a complaint against the trollers. Eun-young refuses to file a complaint and claims that she would like to deal with her personal issues on her own. Seo-goo is disheartened and goes back to work on his own after scolding his colleague of 21 years. 

Meanwhile, Hong-jo goes to a local park to look into a complaint from a civilian and learns that Sin-yu had made the complaint in order to see her. He forces her to tell her to spill details about the possible solution that Eun-wol gave her but she refuses to do so. Hong-jo runs away from Sin-yu and gets back to work.

Later that night, Sin-yu’s mother tries to help him deal with his complicated love life. She asks Sin-yu to understand what his lover is trying to say from her expressions alone. Hong-jo gets back home and finds a note, as well as a dessert, from her new neighbour. She eats the dessert when she suddenly gets a call from Sin-yu, which sours her mood.

The two bicker over the phone and she asks him to give hints so he can decipher the solution himself. Both his parents join in to help Sin-yu crack the code but are no help to her. At the same time, Hong-jo is shocked to learn that her new neighbour is none other than Jae-kyung.

Jae-kyung is also shocked to learn that Hong-jo lives in the apartment above his. Hong-jo starts jumping up and down as she blushes in her room. Sin-yu meets his friend, Wook, from Law & High and seeks his help with the spell but he too is not able to crack the code. 

That night, Sin-yu sees another dream of himself and Hong-jo from when they were kids and decides to follow her around on their day off. He forcefully takes the bus with her and follows her to the beach, where Hong-jo spends the day remembering her late father. Sin-yu sits by the beach, waiting for Hong-jo to deal with her emotions.

The episode ends with Hong-jo finally telling Sin-yu that the message from Eun-wol declares that both Hong-jo and Sin-yu’s destinies can’t be severed and they’ve got to accept that fact.

The Episode Review

It looks like this show is not going anywhere substantial and that’s a bit disappointing. Most of this episode had no plot and it led to nothing significant, adding to the gripes around the slow pace of the show. For now, it is Rowoon’s chaotic energy that is keeping the boat sailing and making the show interesting.

Seeing Sin-yu and Hong-jo beat around the bush for an entire episode only to finally come to terms with the fact that they have an unbreakable bond seemed unnecessary. From the promo of the next episode, we can guess that Hong-jo from the Joseon era will be making an appearance in front of Sin-yi in the present world, so hopefully that spices things up a bit!