Recap Korean Drama "The Interest of Love (2022)" Episode 14

Episode 14 of The Interest of Love starts with Su-yeong drying off back home after being caught in the rain. Sang-su is still outside though, having kept his distance and giving his crush some space. She hands him a towel and the pair talk outside. Sang-su admits that he saw her and Jong-hyeon’s fight and is ready to do what he can for her, trusting that they can both be together in the future.

At work the next day, Mr Yuk briefs the team. With winter rolling in and end of year evaluations on the horizon, he warns them all that this is the last opportunity they have to make a big impression. The bank have a number of calendars to give out, which we know is grueling work, given the flashbacks we’ve seen across this season.

Su-yeong has also taken a day off from the office too, so Mi-gyeong offers to cover for her at the sub-branch. On the way, she stops to pick up Gyeong-pil who begins humming cheerfully and generally annoying her.

At work, Mi-gyeong learns just how far her father will go to “protect” his daughter. Remember that story about Gyeong-pil sleeping with all her friends and breaking her heart? Well, that’s not strictly true. In reality, Chairman Park found out that Gyeong-pil’s dad is an ex-convict and refused to let him marry her daughter. This explains why Gyeong-pil was all on-board with breaking Sang-su and Mi-gyeong up, as well as doing all of this for her. It would appear that he still has feelings for her.

After spending a long time after-hours rolling up calendars, Sang-su heads over to see Su-yeong, who’s sick and bedbound. He helps her out and gets some medicine, but in doing so Sang-su realizes, properly, that he’s in love with Su-yeong. He makes her some food, warning that it won’t taste good with a note and dropping off some medicine, a calendar and a plant for her veranda.

At work the next day, Sang-su is crushed when he finds out Su-yeong has finally been granted her transfer. He congratulates her, as she thanks him for helping her out. She suggests they hang out that weekend, with her treating him to a meal.

There’s also a final meal for Su-yeong and Mi-gyeong too, with the latter admitting she doesn’t like her nor understand her but felt compelled to show up all the same. After offering a sincere apology, the pair part ways. It’s a bit of closure Mi-gyeong needed and it’s a surprisingly somber moment.

Jong-hyeon is now working in a hotel and through Seon-jae, Su-yeong drops off her ex boyfriend’s gear again, including his clothes and the books for studying the police exam. There’s also an envelope with Jong-hyeon’s photos inside, and a flashback of Su-yeong telling him to never give up no matter what and keep fighting for his dream.

Sang-su shows up to see Mi-gyeong’s father, but Chairman Park is a tough nut to crack. He offers to front a loan to help with Sang-su’s performance at work and goes on to reveal he wants to meet his mother too.

However, Mi-gyeong appears and confronts her father, putting him in his place. As Sang-su and Mi-gyeong talk, the latter points out she slept really well for the first time and here, she decides to go full-on Two-Face and decide their fate with the flip of a coin. She claims it was heads, deciding that this is the end and properly breaking up this time.

With everything resolved as best as it could be, Sang-su and Su-yeong meet for dinner. And where should it be? In that very place they tried twice to have food all those episodes ago. Sang-su admits that he wanted to ask her out before and be her lover but obviously a bunch of inconvenient circumstances got in the way!

The pair head out for coffee afterwards and whilst there it begins snowing. It’s a nice way of contextualizing the earlier chat the pair had about winter. Su-yeong also reveals that the flower he left on her veranda actually has another meaning – “future happiness”. Sang-su wasn’t aware of this though, funnily enough, and admits he just picked the prettiest one from the shop.

The pair haver different ideas about what they want for the future, with Sang-su deciding that his version of future happiness comes from stability and living the next day better than his current one. Between his job and friends, he just wants to settle down and live a good life with a good wife.

Su-yeong meanwhile, has decided to put her feelings and happiness first, and part of that comes from not trying to please others and just doing what makes her happy. This almost feels like a nod toward Sang-su and Jong-hyeon’s expectations for her and the final scene of this episode only reinforces that. But we’ll get to that in a sec!

After their night together, Sang-su arrives at the KCU Bank and is shocked to learn Su-yeong has left a letter of resignation in her locker. She’s not at the Sindo Branch after all.

Sang-su, upon learning that the oyster shop has been shut and replaced, drives up to Su-yeong’s place, where he finds all the furniture being cleared out. The apartment is completely empty.

The Episode Review

Did anyone else notice that the coffee shop Su-yeong and Sang-su visited at the end was called “Time’s Up”? That almost feels like a nod toward their relationship prospects, which I think confirms that the pair are just not on the same wavelength and want very different things from the future.

Their chat about future happiness, not to mention Sang-su admitting that he likes “pretty things” (bit shallow that, surely!) is indicative of this, while Su-yeong is still trying to find herself and figure out where her place in life is. She’s very much like a caged bird right now and she needs that space to fly and stretch her wings.

What’s particularly interesting is the way this has been framed through that transfer to the Sindo Branch. She doesn’t really want to transfer, nor does she particularly want to progress up the ladder at the bank. What she wants is something different and a new challenge, and with her parents moving back home because Seoul is “too cold” for them, Su-yeong has finally decided to do the same and move to her proverbial idea of warmth. The fact that her parents so easily and quickly committed to this and moved on I think helped Su-yeong with her decision.

The drama itself has felt like an unending car crash of miscommunication and frustrating red flags but to be honest, Su-yeong’s life has very much been about the lies through most of the episodes we’ve seen. Not just the big ones like Gyeong-pil and Jong-hyeon but even the small ones, like lying about being somewhere else but actually being at the bus-stop. It seems Su-yeong has embedded herself in these lies so much that this is the only way she knows to live her life. Until the end here, where Sang-su and Su-yeong end up together at “Time’s Up”.

This has been undeniably enjoyable to watch, albeit also rather frustrating too. It’s one of those tricky shows that has a lot wrong and embraces many K-drama tropes (are we going to get the nervous pacing outside the surgery and the white truck of doom too I wonder?) but has some surprisingly good character growth too.

The final week of this emotionally draining K-drama is almost upon us and this one is certainly going to need a thorough post-mortem to dissect all the themes and ideas this one has been wrestling with!