Melodramas, why do you torture me so?
Whenever I watch I Miss You I get this queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach that won't go away. I literally watch every Jung Woo and Soo Yeon scene with dread and yet I devour every single second. This drama has eaten my soul.
The thing is, I don't trust melodramas. Not even a little bit. So when I get invested in a character in one of these things, as I am with the adult version of JW, I'm in a constant state of nervousness. Like, he's constantly walking around with a guillotine blade over his head.
I think it wouldn't be as bad if I didn't find SY's scenes with Harry, for the most part, so organic and natural. It's not that I begrudge their relationship, it's more that I know that they can go back to France, pretend their past never happened, and "carry on" with their lives. SY could live happily with Harry for the rest of her life and I'd be happy for her.
But with Jung Woo it's different.
He's been fixated on that terrible, life-altering decision he made for over a decade. And while he presents a pretty good facsimile of being well adjusted, he's so broken inside that at times it's sort of tragic to watch him smile.
When he ran away after what happened to SY when he was a boy, I was horrified. I thought, "this is unforgivable. I can't forgive this." And yet, he managed to earn my compassion along the way. His self-reproach, his desperation to find her, his complete emotional and mental breakdown left me empathizing with him. I understood that just as SY would live with that event for rest of her life, he too would pay for that moment of cowardice. And he does, every day he does.
It would probably be too much to ask for IMY to have a happy ending nor am I holding my breath. But I can only pray that JW will find some real happiness before it all completely goes to hell because I think he deserves it.