Recap Korean Drama "Cheer Up" Episode 12

In case anyone else forgot, we ended last time mid-kiss. Now, after all the pre-empting we finally re-enter the same scene, with rainbow-covered rain kisses and handholding at night. Hae-yi and Jung-woo are happy as can be with their new relationship but agree to tell no one (since we can’t have the captain breaking his own no dating rule).

The new love birds awkwardly start speaking banmal as they say goodbye for the night in front of Hae-yi’s house but Jung-woo just can’t leave and comes back for a quick peck. Gah. He’s so cute. He looks so much younger than he did in the first half of the drama and the boyishness suits him.

As Hae-yi makes her way to the front door, her mom walks up — having seen everything and starts making kissy faces and teasing Hae-yi. I’ll never get sick of these two and their close relationship, and since Hae-yi usually wins the arguments, it’s nice to see her actually embarrassed for once.

As far as dating secrets go, Hae-yi won’t tell a soul — except her BFF Sun-ja. The two are giddy, blabbering away about Hae-yi’s new romance when they realize they’re not alone in the practice room. KIM JIN-IL (Lim Ji-ho), the crazy culprit guy who we still know nothing about, is there too. Jin-il has headphones in but it’s pretty clear he heard the news (mostly given away by the overly ominous music).

We find out that Jin-il is now officially a part of team activities. He’s taken Yoo-min’s spot in charge of planning because Yoo-min has just decided to study abroad with no explanation. (Talk about an instrumental character. We still don’t know where she was the past two years. Now she’s leaving again?) Ah, well. This allows Jin-il to spy on help out the team. Cho-hee (rightly) thinks it’s weird that he volunteered all of a sudden, but Jung-woo is walking around with hearts over his eyes and can’t see anything strange about it.

In Episode 11, we saw Hae-yi reject Sun-ho but didn’t get to hear what was being said. Now we get to go back and see the full scene. Sun-ho (being himself) tries to talk Hae-yi out of her feelings. The short version is, “But, wait, you liked me before! How can you change your mind?!” It’s a little sad to watch, but more in the pitiful sense than in the makes-you-want-to-cry way.

Hae-yi is clear, but not unkind. She was confused before, but now she’s sure she likes Jung-woo. Sun-ho says he won’t give up and Hae-yi says she’ll keep rejecting him.

True to form, Sun-ho comes to Hae-yi’s house late at night, stumbling drunk, and sobs about his broken heart. Mom and brother try to calm him down, and Jae-yi let’s Sun-ho sleep it off in his room. Breakfast is awkward the next day and Chun-yang teases Sun-ho and tells him to get over Hae-yi (“Just think of her like a bad day”) — haha, I love the mom.

Since they’ve become buddies, Chun-yang has called Sun-ho’s mom, Jin-hee, who shows up with suitcases and tells Sun-ho he’s kicked out of the house. Chun-yang had called her so she wouldn’t worry, but Jin-hee wants Sun-ho to quit the cheer squad because it takes up too much time, and this is the final straw. However, Sun-ho calls her bluff, which she wasn’t expecting, and Jin-hee winds up driving Sun-ho and Hae-yi to meet the team on their way to cheer camp. In the car, Sun-ho says he truly likes cheering and won’t give up.

The cheer training camp gives us a change of scenery as the team spends a day or two in a decked out house with a pool — exercising their days away as Jung-woo blows a whistle and times how long they have to change clothes between routines. After all the hard work, Jung-woo and Hae-yi sneak off for some cuddly time alone and Sun-ja thinks Hae-yi has forgotten her birthday.

After moping around and gathering her anger, Sun-ja finally explodes at Hae-yi. She’s sick of being ignored while Hae-yi hangs out with Jung-woo — she doesn’t always have to do what Hae-yi wants! All of this comes out as Hae-yi is trying to drag Sun-ja to the surprise party she’s set up for her birthday. Not only does it leave a sour mood for the whole team on their bus ride away from cheer camp, but everyone heard the bit about Jung-woo and Hae-yi (oops).

For no apparent reason, before they go back to the city, the team stops at an abandoned hospital to play a game. Jung-woo, Cho-hee, and Jin-il (as senior members) are hiding in the building and the rest of the team has to find them. They wander around with flashlights, mostly on their own, except when Hae-yi and Sun-ho run into each other and Sun-ho still insists he’ll keep “following his heart.” Jung-woo, in hiding, happens to hear this conversation.

The important part of the hospital game, though, is that Jin-il locks Hae-yi in a room and causes a fire. Sun-ja sees Hae-yi inside, about to pass out from the smoke, and stands there screaming not knowing what to do. (Ugh, everyone’s glued to their phones until there’s an emergency.) We end with Jin-il walking toward Sun-ja threateningly.

Well, that last part bored me now that I’m getting used to the cute new couple scenes. We know Hae-yi won’t die and we still don’t understand Jin-il’s motives (except that he doesn’t like inter-team dating), so I found all this high drama pretty flat. It doesn’t make total sense story-wise either why the team would play this game when Jung-woo knows that someone is trying to kill Hae-yi. I guess he’s too smitten to remember pre-dating life.

And honestly, who wouldn’t be? Dating life is good when your new girlfriend insists on trying out cheesy pickup lines after she hears another couple using them. Hae-yi starts: “You’re in violation of labor laws. Your good looks are on duty 24/7!” Jung-woo laughs and then tries his own: “I think you’re made of copper and tellurium. Because you’re cute.” With the mystified look on Hae-yi’s face, Jung-woo explains that Copper’s symbol is CU and tellurium is TE. CUTE. Get it? Hae-yi doesn’t find this endearing, but I’m loving nerdy Jung-woo with the dad jokes. The turn in his character has him swooping in for quick kisses, letting go of his angry-guy routine, and acting so nerdy — he really is CUTE.