Introduction: A young art student suffers a traumatic breakup, but soon finds herself in the throes of a dangerous new romance. A fellow art student sets his sights on her, and the two become romantically involved despite the warning in the girl's heart that their relationship will be tumultuous.

Episode 1:

Our novel starts with YU NA-BI, our rather innocent-hearted heroine, narrating about the joys of being in love only to be utterly humiliated by her artist boyfriend moments later. An intimate moment between the two has become the subject of his latest sculpture, and is in the middle of his exhibit for everyone to stare at.

We don't have to know anything about Na-bi at this point .... we feel for her automatically and our reaction is as visceral as hers.

As Na-bi sees the sculpture, talks to her boyfriend, and later breaks up with him.

She's a student at an art school, and her work seems to be mostly in clay sculpting.

For now, the main scene is that Na-bi is well-liked, but seems to be struggling a bit with her classes. She dreams of studying in Paris, but she doesn't measure up just yet. Her break-up understandably, has flattened her spirits, but she doesn't have much time to mope.

As fate would have it, she's sitting alone at a bar when a guy walks in, and touches her shoulder in greeting. It's PARK JAE-UN, but she doesn't know his name yet, or anything about him really. There's an immediate attraction in the air, despite the initial misunderstanding, and over the course of the night they talk, drink, flirt, throw darts, and the like. And no matter what is happening, Jae-un is at swoon level 10.

Jae-un's hand on Na-bi's shoulder. His finger gently tapping her temple. His mouth blowing on her arm as he draws a tattoo on her. The corner of his smile. The butterfly tattoo on the back of his neck. That glance he gives her when he turns up his gaze at her.

The two part before things can escalate, because Na-bi hears him on the phone, ontensibly with another woman. She tries to forget him, but over the next few days she keeps "seeing" him on campus --- they clearly had a high voltage connection that's hard to forget.

Then things get interesting. One of Na-bi’s friends convinces her to join them for drinks instead of pull her all-nighter in the studio, and who is there but Jae-un? As it turns out, he’s also a student at their school — and one that’s been asking around about her. Na-bi is halfway between swooning and ready to hide in her shell, but boy, Jae-un is a pro.

Even at a crowded table with a bunch of loud, drunk college students, he manages to cultivate this sense of intimacy with her, whether it’s through meaningful glances, whispered side conversations, or wordlessly passing her the snack he saw she wanted.

Na-bi is already in over her head — that’s easy to see. She is completely overpowered by Jae-un (not that I can blame her), and as she tries to piece together who he is, each detail she discovers only pulls her in closer.

For instance, the metal sculpture that captivated her so utterly was actually his work. Also, there’s the detail that he’s fixated with butterflies. This works two-fold (or maybe even three-fold) in the story. It gives Jae-un a reason to use some flirty wordplay (Na-bi’s name literally means “butterfly”), it gives them both a symbol that connects them — and it also works on a metaphorical level too. Na-bi is surely the same delicate creature as the real butterflies he keeps at his apartment — one is left to wonder if he appreciates the fragility of these creatures and wants to protect them, or if he just likes knowing that he can tease them and then tear them apart. (Can you tell I don’t trust him at all?)

To be continue...

While everything (and everyone) is telling our heroine that she should keep a distance from her new suitor, she can’t seem to deny her attraction. Or rather, she fights with herself against that attraction the entire episode, in a string of push-and-pull scenarios that feel alarmingly realistic.

The cherry blossom kiss that seemed about to happen at the end of our episode last week was interrupted by the ever-poorly-timed phone call, and Na-bi and Jae-un part without a kiss, but with heaps more tension between them.

As we venture into more of the story, we see more of Na-bi and Jae-un’s classmates, and the drama feels more full with this body of characters taking up more space in the story. Na-bi’s closest friend is OH BIT-NA (Yang Hye-ji), an edgy girl with a haircut I can’t decide if I love or hate.

But is this girl really a good friend? She spends the first half of the episode trying to convince Na-bi that Jae-un is a player and she should stay away… but then when she sees/feels what is between them when they’re together, she seems to change her course and is playfully encouraging.

Poor Na-bi doesn’t really need the encouragement, because she’s overpowered by Jae-un at every turn, even when she knows better. Their chemistry is ridiculous (how did they cast this drama!), and while Jae-un has a lot of question marks hovering around him, it’s not hard to see why Na-bi can’t seem to keep her head on straight around him.

Jae-un’s marked interest was one thing, but his propensity to touch Na-bi is another thing entirely, and it’s as if each time she falls deeper under his spell. In fact, there has probably been more skinship in this drama than in all of our 2021 drama combined — and that’s thanks to all the shoulder touching, head patting, lip brushing, waist holding, and more. And let’s not forget when Jae-un takes Na-bi’s wrists and gently pulls her arms around his neck.

But I’m torn on Jae-un. While I can see the swooniness for sure, and feel it at times, too, I’m also losing patience for him. In real life, he would have gotten an elbow in the stomach at this point. He’s all games — the meaningful glances and skinship and phone calls and inordinate attention don’t feel like a guy who’s smitten, but one who has set a master plan in motion. And the fact that Na-bi half notices this makes it all the more disturbing.

Na-bi goes back and forth all episode long between melting in his presence, and trying to distance herself and ice him out, even just a little bit. This happens on repeat, in a way that’s not at all repetitive, but instead incredibly true to life on how it works when you’re neck-deep in a crush and trying to decide what the other person is really feeling. The drama’s strongest example of this is about halfway through the episode, when Na-bi has a racy dream (hello 19 rating) where Jae-un turns up at her door and the two go at it in intimate detail. (Is this a K-drama I’m watching?!)

The morning after this dream, Na-bi is embarrassed by her own desires and shrinks back from Jae-un when he approaches her in class. Then, that same morning, she gets her period mid-class, and has to slip out and try to go home and change before the situation gets worse.

Before she gets far, Jae-un follows her out, and intuitive being that he is, understands what’s wrong right away, and gives her his shirt to tie around her waist. I might have wanted to slap him for most of the scenes leading up to this one, but yeah, who can deny this gesture? Na-bi sure can’t.

It only gets worse when Na-bi goes out drinking with a group of friends, solely because Jae-un is supposed to be there. Her ups and downs continue, feeling the tension of the room alter when he walks in, but at the same time seeing how he treats the other girls there; Na-bi remains in her hellish limbo.

The thing that makes this internal tension for Na-bi compelling is the direct contrast between her narration, which seems to exist outside of (or after) the story we are watching. For instance, during the drinks and game of spin the bottle (ugh), narrator Na-bi says that night was the perfect opportunity for her to put her feelings to rest. But instead… well, we see how it plays out. Even though Na-bi knows that Jae-un was just fooling around with another girl moments before, she kisses him, and he kisses her back. And with that, narrator Na-bi tells us, the gates of hell were opened.

Everything about this drama is not a K-drama, but I can’t tell if I’m refreshed by this, or about to click my heels three times and wish myself back to the much safer, happier world of My Roommate is a Gumiho. The only things that remind me that this is a K-drama are: the fantastic sets (particularly Na-bi’s apartment), and the overt PPL in this episode (I counted four instances, but I’m sure I missed some).

While I’m finding the drama really well-executed — from the cinematography to the all-too-realistic scenarios, I also don’t leave it feeling very good. We know Na-bi is in for it big time. Like a *moth* butterfly to the flame our heroine doth go.

But a step beyond that, it’s the story that leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Am I too old to care about the flirtations and sexual exploration amongst college students? Or is it just the uneasy tone this drama takes, leaving us breathless one second, and then a little queasy the next. Surely that’s the intention, so whether I’m enjoying the story or not, I can’t say this “hyper-real” genre isn’t working.

To be continue...