11 timestamped notes explaining the Korean cultural context in this episode — customs, idioms, food, honorifics, and history, at the moment each appears on screen. These notes discuss events across the whole episode. To see them revealed scene-by-scene as you watch, use the episode page to find an airing.
The opening song, '여전히 아름다운지' (Are You Still Beautiful?), was a massive ballad hit by Kim Yeon-woo in 1999 — the very year the characters are about to revisit. Its lyrics are about wondering whether a first love has changed, which perfectly sets up this episode's theme. Playing it over the 2017 present-day scene underlines how much the past still lingers.
야동 (ya-dong) is everyday Korean slang for pornographic video — literally 'wild/lewd video.' It's casual enough that it gets thrown around as a teasing accusation in married-couple banter, which is exactly how Jae-won uses it here to needle her husband about what he was secretly watching on the phone.
The subtitle asterisk references 'TV는 사랑을 싣고' (TV Carries Love), a long-running KBS variety show (1994–2010) where people searched for lost connections — old teachers, childhood friends, first loves. It was hugely sentimental for Korean audiences. The dad's fantasy of calling out for his first love parodies exactly how that show worked.
투석 (tu-seok) is dialysis, a regular treatment for kidney failure where a machine filters the blood. The scene shows Jin-ju quietly asking detailed medical questions the doctor didn't expect — a common way Korean adult children demonstrate 효도 (hyodo), filial devotion, by staying fiercely informed about a parent's condition rather than leaving it entirely to doctors.
양배추즙 (cabbage juice) is a bitter home remedy widely believed in Korea to protect and heal the stomach lining. Mothers and grandmothers press it on reluctant family members the way Western moms push chicken soup. Ban-do gagging on it, then forcing it down without complaint, is a small but clear signal that something has shifted in how he treats his parents.
엄친아 is a compressed slang term for '엄마 친구 아들' — literally 'mom's friend's son.' It describes the impossibly perfect guy Korean mothers constantly compare their own children to: top grades, good looks, money, manners. Using it as a nickname for the handsome senior is a jokey shorthand for 'this guy seems too good to be real.'
가오 is slang borrowed from Japanese (顔, kao, meaning 'face') that in Korean means pride, dignity, or street credibility. When the guys say a man needs his 가오, they mean it would be embarrassing — a blow to his masculine image — if the woman were the one to say 'let's date' first. It reflects a traditional Korean dating script where men are expected to make the first formal move.
This is a classic Korean proverb: 'The quiet cat is the first to climb up on the hearth.' It means that people who seem shy or well-behaved on the surface are often the boldest when it comes to actually doing something — here teasing Jae-woo for secretly having had a kindergarten crush first. Korean conversation is full of these four-beat proverbs used for comic timing.
Korean universities hold an annual 축제 (chuk-je), a multi-day campus festival in spring with performances, food stalls, and drinking. A popular event is electing a 메이퀸 (May Queen) — a beauty pageant-style title voted on by students, usually by department. Being nominated as May Queen candidate from the humanities college (인문대) is a significant compliment to Jin-ju's looks among her peers.
The rainy outdoor setting with drinks evokes the 포장마차 (pojang-macha) culture — canvas-covered street stalls that sell cheap snacks and soju or beer, especially popular with university students after festivals or exams. Drinking together under makeshift cover in bad weather is a quintessential scene of young Korean romance and friendship, carried forward even into this 1999 flashback.
Nam-gil's fumbling over what to call Jin-ju's father is a real social anxiety for young Korean men. 아버님 (abeomnim) is 'father' used for one's own or a respected elder's — presumptuous before marriage. 장인 (jangin) means 'father-in-law' — even more presumptuous. Landing on 아저씨 (ajeossi, 'mister / middle-aged man') is the humble fallback, though it can feel awkward too. Getting this title right matters enormously in Korean social etiquette.