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sexyglances · 3 years

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How Water Is Used In Relation to Hyejin and Dusik and How it Narratively Unifies Them in Their Emotions

Hometown Cha Cha Cha uses Gongjin as a seaside town part of its narrative, so much so that the story feels like it would be incomplete without it, however, in addition, the drama also employs the use of water in other ways, especially during emotionally resonant scenes. Not only do both Hyejin and Dusik each go to the water when they want to go to find solace by themselves, but also, water holds significance when they are together, as its presence seems to be the equalizer in their relationship, washing away any artifices they may have put up and revealing them at their most basic emotional cores.

Hyejin and Dusik are their most carefree with each other when they are in the water together. Both in the beach rain scene and then later when they are washing the blankets together. It's those times when they, for at least a few brief moments, forget the pretenses they built their tenuous denial of attraction to each other on, and just allow themselves to be together. When they are splashing around in the water together, they are simply two people happy to exist in the presence of each other. They bask in the joy of being unencumbered by any of the supposed societal obligations, life philosophies, or whatever other baggage they usually carry with them as shields against showing their true selves. Of course, eventually, real life and their personal hang-ups come barging back in, but when the story has water involved, their dual attraction manifests at its most basic level.

Not there aren't other times they are attracted to the other person, like when Dusik was filling in at the supermarket and stared after Hyejin, or when Hyejin was looking at Dusik as he lay "asleep" while sick, but those incidents were more one-sided and didn't convey mutual attraction in those specific moments. Conversely, water seems to be often present when their attraction is mutual and sparks fly between them. It even happens during their drunken night. I doubt the kiss would have happened had Dusik not used the water from the condensation from the ice bucket as a way to cool his hands, and had he not used those water-cooled hands of his to cup Hyejin's face. That moment (with water in between them) indelibly brought them closer. Even how they met at the beginning of the drama had to do with her losing her shoe to the sea as she was alone, and then they were brought back together in a moment of unadulterated joy after he found the shoe while fishing and gave it back to her. Again, the story uses water as a catalyst for something more.

However, water is also used in isolating ways as well. It's when they are in or near the water by themselves that their individual melancholy hits the most. Both Hyejin and Dusik were each alone at the beach, both with pensive looks on their faces right before they first met as 30-something adults. They were at the beach to be alone in their own wistful thoughts, staring at the sea, lost in their own introspection before the sea brought them together via Hyejin's lost shoe. And a similar feeling was conveyed when they were at the waterfront at the same time (yet still separately) as teenagers as well. Even as children, Hyejin could feel the bittersweetness of an imminent goodbye to her mother at the seashore.

Also, remember the rain Dusik told Hyejin to find joy in because of its unexpected presence? How interesting that it is the next time it is raining, while Dusik is on a neighborhood patrol and he finds Hyejin and Seonghyun sharing an umbrella, that Dusik feels the most disconnected from Hyejin. Because this time with water present, he is separated from her. While she stays dry, he is the only one being drenched by the rain shower, alone, by himself. Even when Hyejin and Seonghyun invited him under the umbrella with them, he refused, keeping himself an outsider once again. He purposefully disconnected himself from them, and the water he said to embrace is the same water that he used to (at least subconsciously) wallow in his loneliness and distance from Hyejin in. And it's also the same rain that he insisted on not taking cover from that gave him the fever Hyejin worried about. His physical isolation in the rain literally made him physically sick, which dovetails in nicely with the emotional isolation they both have felt in their indivudual ruminations by the sea.

The closer the water is coming to them, the more acutely they feel their emotions, as the water itself moves from something they use as a tool for internal contemplation to a tool of external manifestations of feelings that can no longer be ignored.

#hometown cha cha cha #kdrama #meta #my meta #homcha meta #i didn't put it in the post but also interesting to note that dusik and seonghyun's most significant scene that includes water #is the one on the beach where dusik is trying to teach seonghyun to surf #and how it started with dusik not letting seonghyun get into the water at first #and then once they did it was kind of a disaster (and a bit contentious on dusik's part)#and the people on the sidelines commenting on how it was a comedy/tragedy #guess water is decidedly NOT a unifying force for those two love rivals

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kalena-henden · 3 years

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okay but why is no one talking about hyejin not letting dusik go after her parents left. she literally followed him up the long road to the top of the hill where his boat was without a second thought. after the way he brought warmth to her family she wanted to lock him down. but he’s not interested in being her ‘ideal’ boyfriend. she’s like this is a break, a pit stop, before you go off and use your impressive skills, right? and he’s like nope, i’m already living my ideal life. if he wants to change great but, if he doesn’t, you have to respect that if you want to be with him. she was so disappointed when she got home.

for as much as hyejin has embraced her new relaxed seaside village life, there is still a part of her clinging to her dream of moving back to the big city and being in a successful power couple with flashy jobs. from the previews it looks like hyejin is going to confess to dusik. with his fears resurfacing due to the new assault, he will probably reject her. also seonghyun is going to confess to hyejin. i hope this happens after dusik rejects her because then she has no reason not to move forward with seonghyun. she’ll get a taste of the ‘ideal’ relationship she thinks she wants. someone who will want her to spend more time in seoul which will cause friction with her life that is now firmly in gonjin. two episodes would be about perfect to explore this and then they can mutually decide to break up. (also seonghyun needs to wake up and realize his writer likes him.) dusik needs to work through his fears before he’s ready to be with hyejin. but hyejin needs to realize what she truly wants in life. ultimately that will be dusik and gongjin.

#hometown cha cha cha #kdrama #homcha meta #my meta #my post

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sexyglances · 3 years

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Hyejin and Dusik's Self-Reliance and How it Manifests in the Way They Present Themselves to the World

The clothes Hyejin and Dusik wear and objects they surround themselves in are so important to how they present themselves in society and indicative to how they socialized themselves to navigate the world.

We know Hyejin cares about designer clothing and she explicitly says in dialogue that that she uses her fancy clothes as armor. It's like a first line of defense against the incoming judgement she steels herself against. She clearly has a complex about being looked down upon. It's interesting because when she is comfortable in a situation and relates to someone on a personal level, she isn't guarded and worried about how she is being presented via fashion, but when she is unsure and feeling vulnerable, she relies on putting on an air of sophistication as a coping mechanism.

When she first moved to town she pointedly tried to show how she was used to living a certain lavish lifestyle. The way she insisted that "brands are very important to her, and how she described designing her ideal apartment with luxury goods from around the world. However, when she truly relates to people on a personal level, and she lets go of some of her detachedness, she stops caring as much about her armor and how she looks and she becomes a much softer and more genuine person. Even in the first episode when she was making friends with the fish restaurant owner, she only became self conscious again when someone noticed that she was wearing the cheap, disposable shoes. Or how she balked at wearing the apron to clean squid, but then ended up enjoying herself with the grandmas.

Based on this dichotomy, it seems like a lot of her own judgmental behavior is actually learned and socialized behavior from having to fend for herself so much of her life. Pretty sure she learned early on that to avoid being looked down upon she had to be seen as prestigious, and thus her fixation on keeping up appearances was born. It was most likely a defense mechanism borne against being seen as the poor helpless girl without a mother, so she worked hard in school to become a top student and then chose a prestigious profession where she could be relatively independently wealthy and be someone beyond reproach. This way she could stand on her own without the need for a family or connections to rely on and also free herself from societal judgement.

But this protection she puts around her also leaves her alone. She has literally one friend, none of her dental colleagues gave her a chance after she quit the Seoul dental clinic, and all her classmates were judging her at the wedding reception. The objects she buys, the fancy clothes she wears, are ways of her comforting herself. She hasn't had human care as a comfort device (even her dad seems emotionally absent), so the material goods she accumulates are physical manifestations of how she has been able to be a success all on her own. She buys these objects as comfort devices. And maybe Hyejin goes a bit overboard with her purchases, but as she has had to rely on herself so much, she just wants to be prepared (battle ready) and give herself comfort in the way she knows how to, in a way that doesn't rely on other people (people who might not even be there). This is her way of self-reliance.

To someone like Dusik, it can seem like mindless consumption. Like he said, why would she need so many clothes if she only has one body? That's because unlike Hyejin, he expressly rejects any air of pretentiousness as part of his own persona. Because he doesn't care what he looks like first then no one can judge him for it. Instead of finding luxury goods sophisticated, he finds focusing on opulence unnecessarily snooty instead. He has no desire to fit in with the elite and he proactively rejects any notion of being seen as elite expressly through his rejection of fashion as a way to denote his self-worth. To him, there's nothing to be gained from something beyond its utility. He has no shame wearing the slides from the bathroom in public because their label doesn't make them any less useful as shoes. If something can be useful to him, why does it matter what it looks like to anybody else?

But it's this rejection of optics in favor of a focus on utility that he uses as his own defense armor. And just like she does, he collects his armor too. His armor is just different than hers. If he can be a jack-of-all-trades, then he doesn't need to rely on anyone either. If there's a problem, he's the one that can fix it. He doesn't have to wait for help from someone that might not show up because they don't exist. He'd rather be relied upon than do any relying for himself, because that gives him his own sense of control. And there is control in being the go-to person in a small town rather than another faceless nobody in a large city like Seoul. This is his way of self-reliance.

Dusik's penchant for utility is reflected in the clothes he wears too. Rather than surround himself in extravagance, he focuses on utility and convenience that he can provide himself. A t-shirt is easier to move around in among his various jobs than a dress shirt. Jeans and work pants are more durable than slacks. All the pockets and zippers on his fishing vest give him the space for all the doo-dads and whats-its he might need to produce at any moment in order to fix various incoming problem. He might be a "fashion terrorist," but that doesn't mean he is entirely careless about his clothes. Rather, he expressly chooses to not care about the fashion aspect of what he wears as a way to separate himself from the part of society who would judge him for that. This is a choice he makes to present himself to the world in much the same way as Hyejin does, they just approach it from different angles.

Which plays into what Hyejin said about how they are a penguin from Antarctics and a polar bear from the Arctic. Yes, they are from opposite ends of the world (i.e. social standing), yes they have lived different lives whose harsh conditions impacted them in different ways (she chooses high-brow, he chooses to do minimum wage work), but they both understand what it is like to come from from a specifically cold and barren climate without parents and without the comfort of a familial safety net. A penguin and a polar bear may never originate in the same place, but that doesn't mean they can't relate to each other. The "frozen tundra" of the world is something they have both had to learn to navigate by themselves, and their own self-reliance--and by proxy, their pain and loneliness--something that they can recognize and understand in each other as well.

#hometown cha cha cha #kdrama #meta #my meta #homcha meta #also!#i couldn't find a neat way of including this in this essay #but it's so interesting how the times we see dusik wearing dress shirts are a) when he is visiting the clinic in seoul #and b) in the last scene of the morning routine montage with hyejin and their restaurant outing together #there's definitely some subconscious wanting-to-impress-her feelings brimming to the surface in his clothing choices for sure #i wonder what other gems eps 5 and 6 will unveil

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sexyglances · 3 years

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Dusik's Self-Isolation, the "Doorkeeper" Poem, and Hyejin's Presence

It's been said many times before about Dusik, but episode ten once again showed how he has dedicated his life to a series of active choices that results in purposeful denial of providing love to himself. He deliberately distances himself from others and tries to deny his love for anything and anyone as a way for repenting against his past 'sins' of loving people who all died too soon.

To Dusik, his love has been nothing but a condemnation to others and himself, and he feels like he must live a life in limbo purgatory as penance, neither giving nor receiving too much companionship, lest he condemn another person via his love. Is his carefree lifestyle that carefree? Or is it his way of willfully keeping himself from attaching to anything? Because life has taught him that if he has strong emotion for something, then that is a harbinger of destruction for what he loves.

All the people he cared for most in his life died too suddenly and too early in his life, before he could process how to say a proper goodbye. And he feels directly responsible for at least one of their deaths--we see him say so explicitly to both his therapist in general and in more detail to Hyejin about his grandfather. To Dusik, his grandfather died because he let himself love soccer more than being vigilant, even though he didn't know there was anything to be vigilant for at the time. Then after his last loss in his mysterious five years away from Gongjin, it seems like Dusik abandoned direct expressions of love for anybody. He learned that vigilance is the only expression of love that he should offer other people.

Staying vigilant of other people's needs while also staying vigilant of not getting too close is his way of protecting other people for their needs and from himself. This is partly why he tried to deny his feelings for Hyejin for so long, dancing between the friend zone and something more. (As an aside, this focus on his own vigilance may also play into his love for photography. He seems drawn to capturing moments to look back on, not wanting moments to pass by unnoticed.)

As part of his vigilance, Dusik created a life for himself back in Gongjin as an unemployed jack-of-all-trades, a fix-it man, an unofficial neighborhood chief that can show up at a moment's notice when help is needed. Dusik has made himself into a person that can be reliable in any situation. And he threw himself into that role by learning as many trades as possible so he could fix any problem, from HVAC repair to barista certification to fruit carving and anything in between. But even though he wants to be known as a reliable entity in town, he also makes sure to position himself as a periphery figure only. He only shows up from outside other people's routine lives. He purposefully does not live on any fixed schedule that is permanently tied to anyone else, and he surrounds himself with a thick air of detachedness. This is how he ensures he can't become an albatross to anyone's life again. He can't be accountable for destruction of life if he's simply a hired part-timer and a neighborhood helper; and nothing with any inherent responsibility that can't be explained away by utility rather than love.

Sure, he's a chief that other people turn to for help, but he rejects anything more official than being a helpful neighbor. He refuses to express his love for individual people because experience has taught him that his love can destroy lives, so he only shows his love for the people of Gongjin as part of a whole entity, detaching himself from anything that can be seen as preference for individual people. This is something Chunjae noted in their conversation the night Juri ran away. Dusik accepts other people's problems and their joys, but he doesn't actively share his own in full-fledged reciprocation. The exception seems to be halmeoni Gamri, at least to some extent, but even then he tends to frame any explanation of him going above and beyond for her as a way of paying back for how much she cared for him growing up. Dusik lives in his own manufactured limbo where he has made his existence entirely fixed as an untethered entity.

Dusik has turned his pain into a lifestyle where he knows he must keep his heart guarded from other people by becoming too attached, keep himself from sullying his hometown and the people he's dedicated himself to with the infection that is him asking for reciprocity. His infectious disease is spread through baring himself and his full-fledged feelings to other people, and thus he quarantines that part of himself from anyone. Denial of love is his love. So he flits from job to job, works for minimum wage, and tries to pretend that he does not attach himself to anything or anyone but himself. It's easier for everyone this way. That way he cannot drag anyone down into the surf that is his destruction.

He has decided that it's better for him to be a solitary observer, taking up space in a manmade shipwreck away from others, both literally and figuratively, as is shown by how he made the choice to keep his grandpa's boat out of the water, perching it on a hill so high and isolated that he could barely get it up there in the first place. Even if it is incredibly difficult to do, he is determined to meet his goal of self-exile. It's the only way he knows how to protect himself and everyone else, through self-imposed isolation.

But like the poem Dusik read to Hyejin, once she entered his life, she would not stop showing up for him. She didn't willingly ascribe to the rules he set forth for other people. He told her to cross lines freely, as if she had already been doing so. She may have verbally pontificated about not crossing lines, but her actions said otherwise, and she was crossing Dusik's boundaries before he even knew it. She didn't fit perfectly into Gongjin or Dusik's life, and her stretching the limits of what is 'acceptable' is what he needed to open himself up to a new perspective other than steadfast solitude. It was through her own actions, stepping into his circle of solitude and making her presence known, that he began to question if isolation was really what he wanted and preferred.

From the very beginning, Hyejin asked Dusik to stay with her, literally tugging on his shirt to keep him from leaving on the beach the first day they met. And she hasn't stopped holding onto him. First it was out of helplessness, then when she held onto him and asked him to stay before her first town hall meeting, it was her asking for his support, then when she ran into his arms when she was scared, it was her showing her deep trust for him, and now most recently, in her half-asleep state on the couch, it was her desire to emotionally connect with him in a way more profound than he does with others. Her presence is her way of asking him to open the door to his heart.

And like the poem said, and what Dusik realized as he was reading it, his staunch gatekeeping betrayed him and he fell in love because of his own stubbornness in refusing to leave his post. He found someone who reliably showed up to his post as dependably as he does. Or rather, she showed up and found him in Gongiin. He was always there to keep his metaphorical door closed, and she was always there to check if it was still closed. Dusik was so sure that gatekeeping would keep him safe, so sure that his constant monitoring and vigilance would keep him protected, that he failed to realize what would happen when he began to rely on his denial. His continued refusal became something reliable in itself, though not because of him, but because of her showing up. After all, what is there to refuse if there is not someone knocking at the door every day? His vigilance betrayed him because he forgot that actively guarding his heart was also keeping his heart active.

Dusik tried to deny Hyejin entrance inside his heart, but then her existence in Gongjin took up space all around him. She became like the sea itself, constant and deep and reflective. And just like Gongjin would feel incomplete without the presence of the sea's waves lapping on its shore, so too is Dusik starting to feel incomplete without Hyejin's assured presence. So much that when she's gone, as he said at his grandpa's memorial ceremony after she left, he misses her so-called noisiness and disruption of his habitual silence. He misses her. Without him realizing it, the silence he used to crave has started to feel like an empty void, and it's no longer silence he seeks. Instead, it's the steady sound of her waves crashing against his shoreline that has started to bring him comfort. Her tides coming and going, leaving bits of herself behind with him and changing his coastline with her presence is more dynamic and interesting than the unvarying landscape of the dry hilltop perch he made for himself.

Dusik's gatekeeping has evolved in that its purpose is no longer about resolute solitude and staying away from others, but about taking up patrol in order to be near her. Subconsciously Dusik found himself willing to abandon his sentry, not even noticing that he was walking away from his guard post and leaving himself wide open to her. This is so interesting coupled with the line Hyejin said a few episodes earlier, "He's always around when you least expect it." Both in that she too unexpectedly became a part of his life like she claimed he did with hers, and also how in some ways the reason he is always present is because he actively finds ways to show up around her and enact his gatekeeping. Just like the lines from the poem, Dusik became the doorkeeper whose "job is to wait for you the next day to deny you. / My job is to wait for you the next day and fall in love with you."

And then Hyejin confessed, and Dusik made the conscious choice to abandon his barricaded doorway to go be with her and kiss her. Because his barricade wasn't worth keeping up if she was baring herself to him so openly and and unguardedly. Isolation and vigilance lost their meaning in the face of the buoyancy he feels when he is with her. Hyejin tried to say that he could leave his door closed. She put her hand up to his mouth, and with that she meant she didn't expect anything in return, that he could leave his door closed, and she would still be there, her feelings unwavering. But her bravery made him brave as well. And he made the active choice to pull back his own door, lower her hand, and kiss her. Now, his doorkeeping is meaningless without her. And after all these years, his carefully cultivated isolation is worthless if it means isolation from embracing Hyejin's presence as well.

The poem said, "denying my love is my job," but Dusik finally realized he was ready to accept more than just denial in this life with Hyejin. He was finally ready to make the active choice to accept someone in his heart again. Hyejin's presence made Dusik acutely aware of the weight of his isolation and he knew it was again time for him to firmly reject something. But this time instead of rejecting another person, instead of rejecting the feelings of reciprocal love, he rejected his own self-isolation. His rejection was in favor of love rather than against it. Hyejin knocked, completely content with the closed door of Dusik's existence, but this time he flung his door open and made the move to kiss her and return her feelings back. His purpose is no longer to deny his love, it's to accept love and give love back to her.

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And just in case you wanted to read the poem in full, I've pasted it below:

"Doorkeeper" by Kim Haengsook

It's my job to say, "You shouldn't do this here."

It's my job to deny your purpose.

It's my job to deny you the next day.

It's my job to wait for you the next day to deny you.

My job is to wait for you the next day and fall in love with you.

Thus, denying my love is my job.

I will not cry because of my vocation, he wrote. I cried sometimes when I wrote a diary.

#hometown cha cha cha #kdrama #meta #my meta #homcha meta #also the full poem is under the cut at the very end of this post #once again i am incredibly late with my meta bc i am bad at dedicating time to revising and reformatting for tumblr #this sat in my drafts for DAYS #this meta is long and full of metaphors and the tenses are kind of all over the place but i'm proud of it #me writing better essays on tumblr than i ever did in school lol #fyi the part above the cut is sad but it gets a lot more hopeful at the end once hyejin is introduced

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sexyglances · 3 years

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How Hyejin and Dusik Provide Gifts of Care and How They Receive Gifts of Care

Thinking about how Hyejin and Dusik approached receiving healing gifts from each other, and once again, I am struck that despite Dusik being introduced and presented the one with all the right answers and perfectly open and friendly with most people, he is slowly being shown as the one that is actually much more closed off than Hyejin is. He is comfortable only giving to other people, but has so much trouble receiving anything in return. Whereas while Hyejin has some hesitancy as well, she genuinely does both much more easily than she is given credit for. The medicine they gave each other is a great example of this, both in how they receive the gifts and how they give the gifts.

Notice how Hyejin receives the Acanthopanax - she accepts the gift, tries to invite Dusik into her home as she received it, but he refuses (because he feels like an awkward third wheel, even though she was not trying to make him feel that way), and then afterward she immediately looks up the how to use it and brews herself a cup of tea, drinking it through its bitterness. She did this despite not knowing how much effort he put into preparing that for her, only knowing that he had it "to spare."

Contrast that with Dusik, who is actually both wounded and sick in a way that requires immediate attention (as opposed to Hyejin's long-term ailment), and yet when Hyejin showed up with first aid, he did not want to accept it or let her in, preferring to suffer alone and untended. She had to insist on 'invading' his home, stating, "it's sad when you're sick alone. Everyone knows that, why don't you," before he acquiesced. She had to directly spotlight his isolation before he allowed her in.

And then even after she went inside, he was begrudging about accepting her help. It was only after her insistence that was backed up with the incontrovertible facts that he had both a temperature and a wound that he finally accepted what she was giving him. And then still, he had to undergo an arduous evolution of attitude from a crumudgeonly reluctance of accepting her care to truly embracing it. He did this first with the antiseptic that he objected to because it stings, but then after she administered it and he got over the initial pain, he watched her with an enchanted look on his face as she was blowing on it to make it dry. This was her care in action and he was mesmerized by it. Mesmerized by how it felt to be taken care of. Taken care of without her expecting anything in return. There was nothing transactional about her doing this for him.

And, it should be pointed out, this is indicative of most of her care acts, even with other people. As in, she doesn't require emotional or monetary compensation before she does something, relying instead on her morals to guide her. She does this when standing up for the mother of her neighbor at the beginning of the series against price gouging, and again with the neighborhood lady when Hyejin wouldn't let the police officer victim blame her for the voice phishing scam. When she does ask for money, it's used as a deflection tactic to disguise how caring she is being, like with Gamri's and Juri's dental procedures she gives a deep discount on. The money was a secondary motivation to helping them. Dusik also uses money or a tit-for-tat transaction in his acts of service and care, though he tends to ask for compensation up front rather than as a deflection tactic afterward. His acts of service often come with a premeditated defense mechanism attached. Though interestingly, the Acanthopanax he gave Hyejin didn't come with a price, and instead he pretended as if it was a trivial gift of spare product, negating his actual effort involved and using a pretense of nonchalance instead.

The way Hyejin approaches providing care and also Dusik's reluctance to accepting said care is illustrated again with the food Hyejin insisted he eat to get over his cold. As is typical with Hyejin's other initial responses to a problem, she wanted to avoid the path that required more effort in a skill that she was less than confident in (in this case, cooking), so initially, she wasn't going to make anything and tried to get delivery food instead. But since the easier route of getting delivery food could not provide an adequate solution for what he needed in the moment, she made the decision to put the effort forth and try and make the porridge herself. This is how she approaches so many interpersonal challenges in her life. She may want to find an easy way out at first, but she always comes around relatively quickly and puts the work in where it's needed.

As for Dusik, his acceptance of help was also indicative of his character. He complained almost the whole time while she made him nourishment, grumbled about how she was clanking and clattering about, ruining the perfect order of everything in its place in his kitchen (this mirrors her disruption in his life and psyche via her arrival in Gongjin as well). But what she provided--a filling bowl of porridge--is exactly what he needed, and he fell asleep amongst her chaos, finding it more comforting and less discordant than he realized. The porridge she made ended up tasting sour and bad, but he ate every bit while smiling, filled with bemusement over its nonconformity to what he was expecting. If he had imagined what comfort would taste like, that wouldn't be it. Yet after he had it, he found a new type of comfort in it. Narratively, this shows how Hyejin brings something completely new and invigorating into Dusik's life.

The porridge may not have been easy to get down and there may be a bit of messiness involved around Hyejin's arrival with the leftover disorder and dishes she left behind, but just because she doesn't fit in effortlessly and perfectly, doesn't mean she isn't welcome. The "medicine" Hyejin offers by being in Dusik's life is not something he welcomes easily into his life, but everything she offers is exactly what he needs to heal and grow, both in the porridge moment and in his life in general. Ultimately, what she provided was soothing to him, even if he did not expect it at first taste. After all, he absolutely felt better after he ate it.

And then he received another reward from inviting her in and sharing his vulnerability with her: he got to enjoy the sweetness from the tangerines she left the next morning, savoring them more than he expected as well. She brings unexpected joy and sweetness into his life, when he didn't even know he wanted it as much as he did.

#hometown cha cha cha #kdrama #meta #homcha meta #my meta #posting meta about an old episode right before a new episode drops and therefore guaranteeing 0 views? it's more likely than you think!#but i wrote it and it took effort so w/e i'm posting it

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sexyglances · 3 years

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Hyejin is not the "bad guy" in the fledgling relationship between her and Dusik. Her actions don't exist in a vacuum devoid of any context. Their back and forth is a two-way street, and just because her words can be severe and cutting doesn't mean she is not also being hurt by Dusik's more discreet rejections as well.

Yes, Hyejin and Dusik have a natural chemistry that allows both of them to let go and effortlessly enjoy each other's company as long as they are free from any other expectations outside of the moment. But once any pressure is put on them that makes either of them doubt the other's sincerity, they both retreat into their own comfortable shells of solitude and preemptively push each other away lest they let their vulnerabilities be exposed.

We've seen Hyejin do this several times, and very explicitly so, every time she tells Dusik she is drawing the line between them because of class, status, demeanor, and approach to life. Yes, she can be overly harsh, but she is also an emotionally wounded person who has learned through the various rejections in her life that this is how people separate themselves from her. She is just mimicking their behavior before she can be hurt herself. However, Dusik is just as guilty as Hyejin of retreating before he reveals too much of himself, albeit he does so more subtly than she does, but it's just as guarded.

The seaside rain scene between Dusik and Hyejin is a perfect example of why their relationship keeps starting, stopping, and breaking down. They were away from others and living in the moment with each other. He led her to the ocean, to show her that even things aren't perfect, one can still have fun if it's raining. That everything doesn't need to be structured and rigid and there can be carefree beauty in the chaos.

But unstructured chaos cannot last forever. Living in the moment can be fun, but also only looking at the present and never at the past or the future is a dismissal of something deeper. Moments of candor are too fleeting to hold lasting significance when one rejects the greater context around them.

So when Hyejin tried to turn things even more heartfelt and ask about what happened that night, have a clear-headed and honest conversation about their kiss, Dusik emotionally backed off and lied rather than admit that he might reciprocate her feelings. She wanted honesty from him and he couldn't give it to her, so she literally stepped back. He held the umbrella out for her to join him under, but it was too late, she was already wet from the rain. Like she said, it was fun now, but the consequences of standing in the rain could mean a fever/less than ideal conditions tomorrow if she doesn't take care of herself first.

How can she accept their chemistry as the truth when he won't admit the truth to her himselt either? Even Miseon pointed out that initiating a kiss is a big step for Hyejin. It's not something she normally does she keeps taking big steps for her, so when she feels rejected and defensive, of course she is also going to take big steps back as well. So she puts up walls, creates lines to not cross, because she has to protect herself emotionally as well. In her own way, she is reciprocating his feelings, it's just that this time the reciprocity is coming from rejection of rather than the acceptance of their magnetism towards each other.

#hometown cha cha cha #kdrama #meta #my meta #homcha meta #this was originally part of a much longer essay but felt disjointed from the rest so i made it a separate post #also i will defend hyejin till the end #if you don't see her and dusik as two sides of the same coin then you are reading it wrong

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sexyglances · 3 years

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How interesting that Dusik uses banmal/casual speak with Hyejin's father the whole time he's speaking with him because it's Dusik's philosophy to behave/speak as friends with everyone he meets, regardless of their status in relation to him. And yet when Dusik and Hyejin's father are alone together after lunch, Dusik briefly switches to speaking in honorifics while praising Hyejin, admitting they're not dating, but still wishing her to find someone warmhearted to love her. It's almost as if Dusik's sincerity for Hyejin's wellbeing is so strong, it supercedes any preconceived "life philosophy" that he usually approaches his interactions with other with.

Also since this happened right after Hyejin's father told her not to date Dusik because he has no family, it directly played into Dusik's insecurity that he must be destined to be forever alone. As if part of why he admitted they are just friends is because he didn't want their play acting to even have a whisper of a side effect of burdening her with his baggage either.

#hometown cha cha cha #meta #my meta #barely counts as a meta post but w/e #the switch to honorifics was definitely ~significant #homcha meta #now how to get dusik to get over his life philosophy of being forever alone so he can welcome hyejin into his heart fully and openly #how refreshing that this drama actually uses therapy as a healthy and valid coping mechanism

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sexyglances · 3 years

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The Ways in Which Hyejin Moves Forward and Dusik Steps Back

The spotlight is often on Hyejin and how she keeps drawing lines in her relationships with others, but what is also narratively noteworthy is that even though Dusik rebukes Hyejin for stepping back (and her seeming lack of compassion because of her sometimes biting or harsh words), it's the very same habits he criticizes her for are also often the same ones he engages in with her as well. But since he does it with an air of hapless helpfulness, he's easily forgiven, or not seen as prickly as her own defensiveness.

Dusik tells Hyejin to cross lines freely, yot always keeps his own boundaries in all his relationships with people. He accuses her of being narrow-minded in how she deals with people, yet he is always trying to tell her to do this the way he thinks is best (and his way of doing things is not always the best! For example, Hyejin was correct about giving Juri space away from her dad for the night). For all the times that he has admonished Hyejin for drawing the line when lines aren't necessary, he takes just as many steps back when she moves forward. Of course, she is obviously emotionally guarded as well, but she does have the courage to take the lead when it comes to her feelings. It's only when Dusik doesn't meet her back halfway that she falls back as well and has her own bluster about lines and boundaries that should not be crossed. She is reacting to his own guardedness in kind.

Another thing Dusik says is that one should be direct and "apologize for spilling milk rather than avoiding [the people it affected]," yet he deflects and comes up with (*ahem* the dumbest) excuses as to why he lied to Hyejin about their kiss. For all his bluster, he too, is used to creating space and distance between him and other people. He may be capable in many ways of practicality and usefulness, and he may be the person who other people turn to when they need help or are in trouble, and he may be the go-to person to fix any issue someone else has, but the issue he needs to learn to fix the most is his fear of his own vulnerability. And the first step to doing that is getting over his own mental block of allowing someone into his life where he might want to rely on someone else as much as they can rely on him.

Dusik's most overarching dichotomy is how wants to be a savior but cannot accept the possibility of being saved himself. He is incredibly uncomfortable when he is the one being taken care of and being put in the position of being reached toward rather than him being the one reaching forward. If he reaches forward first then he can set the parameters and maintain control of the situation. He has the control to draw back whenever he wants rather than being at the mercy of the whims and desires of another person. Since he can only control himself, he only wants to rely on himself. We see Hyejin reach forward over and over again, but the power dynamic in which she reaches forward has changed as well, as she goes from being someone that needs him (when she first showed up to town and needed help), to someone that wants to spend time with him (looking for him, creating situations to see each other and spend time together), to someone that requires more of him (needs him to verbally recognize his attraction to her), and because she is the one trying to move things along then that is where Dusik starts to falter in response. She's not just reaching forward, she's pushing.

Hyejin is the one that directly confronts their feelings and asks if he likes her, she's the one that kisses first, she's the one who presumably moves from the bed during their drunken night to be next to him (hence why she did not have her own pillow on the floor). Even when she literally reaches forward to wipe the sauce off his mouth, he is taken aback and uncomfortable. Not that she did anything wrong, but he has a complex about being taken care of. He'd rather pull every relationship back into transactional territory as a way of keeping himself from looking (being?) too emotionally attached than admit emotional dependence in any way. If everything he does is a favor or has a price or is transactional in any way, then he can live in his self-reliant fantasy. He obviously does harbor a lot of feelings because he is often passionate despite his clear desire to maintain a cool outer demeanor, but it's not something he wants the world to see. It's his main defense mechanism--to separate himself from others and deny any deeper feelines that can't be explained away with whimsicality.

If Dusik keeps himself from being too attached to anyone else then he can live in denial forever never recognizing his loneliness or acknowledging the fledgling desire for anything more. Again, he has this compulsion to be the one that is needed, and not to be the one that needs. Companionship, equality, dependence--they scare him. He wants to be an island of one, creating his own ecosystem of reliability, providing anything he might need for himself. But a healthy ecosystem cannot thrive without the symbiosis that others provide. A person needs real, reciprocal relationships to survive, but Dusik is in deep denial about that. So he creates artificial distance between him and other people.

And not only does he create these distances, he also creates unequal footing between them. Obviously, this is visually illustrated by Dusik catching both Hyejin and Sunghyun from falling, but also how he carried the grandma on his back when she hurt her ankle, and even how he usually wears an apron when he goes to the café so as to literally illustrate how he is hired to be there, even though not even the owner wears an apron while working. Dusik instinctually creates this separation as a way to shield himself from emotional attachment. Now, does this work? Of course not! He is absolutely completely emotionally attached to everyone in Gongjin and also already to Hyejin. You can see it in how he always shows up to help even beyond the parameters he sets, how he runs to the dental clinic when he hears about the creep, how he finds ways to help Hyejin make up with the townspeople, how he jumps on stage as an impromptu backup dancer with her. Being smitten isn't enough. He wants to believe it is enough. He wants to believe treading water and pretending icy exteriors don't exist is the key to a happy life. But both Hyejin and Dusik's subconsciouses are demanding more from their relationship with each other.

But for now, Dusik is asking for more of Hyejin than he is willing to put up himself. She may be hesitant, but she is trying. And she is actually so brave! She may be prickly like a hedgehog at first, but she DOES take people in. She steps outside her emotional bubble over and over again. She opens her home to Miseon and has her move in with her, she takes in the kids the hedgehog when they ask her for help, she has a very personal conversation with Juri and relates to Juri (and learns from Juri as well! She is not so snobby as to not learn an emotional lesson from a child) when Juri runs away from home. These are all things that Dusik would not do. He insists on living alone, he says he does not take care of living things, and he wanted to drag Juri home right away without listening to her. Yes, these examples above illustrate how he and Hyejin differ, but also show how he has his own ways of keeping himself closed off.

However, what this episode ilustrated the most was that human connections are important, and how forging those bonds and nurturing those bonds make one's life vastly more fulfilling. Every instance where someone faced a situation alone was greatly improved by the support of others around them. The entirety of the concert had people in the community hyping the people on stage and making the performances more fulfilling in doing so. And then once again someone was saved from falling onto the rocks, but this time it was Dusik being saved. Even the doesn't want to, he is going to have to face being vulnerable and a person that reaches forward not just to help someone else, but who has to reach forward for help in order to move forward in his own life.

#hometown cha cha cha #kdrama #meta #my meta #homcha meta #once again i am asking you to consider that hyejin is fucking fantastic #and also dusik is not all perfect either #also it's bc they are both imperfect which is why their story and how they are coming together is so compelling!

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kalena-henden · 3 years

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Dusik offers to be her fake boyfriend for free which is a big deal. When Seonghyun asks if his job is done, Dusik calculates the exact time and money he ‘got paid’. Though it actually cost him time and money, he did it because Hyejin is worth it to him. And when Seonghyun says that the job appears to be ongoing, Dusik responds that maybe it is because he’s seriously considering dating her for real.

This is different than how the day started. While being her boyfriend is something he wants, it’s something he thinks he doesn’t deserves. He doesn’t try to use this opportunity to press Hyejin for any publicly appropriate physical touch (hand holding, etc.). Nor does he try to impress her parents through his achievements, knowledge of their daughter, or using honorifics. Dusik treats them exactly the same as everyone he meets, warts and all. He knows this goes against what most of society thinks is polite. He knows it will make it easy for Hyejin to have an excuse to dump him after they leave. But he’s also protecting his heart from rejection. If they don’t like him for who he really is, then it’s easy to tell himself that he and his precious Hyejinie are not meant to be. In the end, it’s his openness and honesty that wins over the parents to the point that her father lets him know that he could be the right man to love Hyejin. Dusik contemplates this for several days. After production goes on hiatus, he decides to take the next step but it looks like his worst fears about losing those he loves is going to wreak havoc before he can take it.

#hometown cha cha cha #kdrama #homcha meta #my meta #my post

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kalena-henden · 3 years

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#hometown cha cha cha #kdrama #homcha meta #my meta #my post #i tried to post this as text twice but it won't show up in the tags #so i'm posting as a pic

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kalena-henden · 3 years

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While the show has given some Cinderella-eque moments to Hyejin, like returning the lost slipper, there may be a greater case for Dusik being The Cinder Boy. He was orphaned at a young age and is smart and well liked by the village. He then went to the Kingdom’s Ball (aka Seoul) where opportunities to improve his life circumstances abounded. From what we can glean, he seemed to do well at a top university and professionally after graduation. All the outward markings a charmed life. But for yet unknown reasons, Dusik fled the Kingdom’s Ball, returned to his hometown, and is running himself ragged working at minimum wage and suffering from an intense grief he can’t seem to overcome. Interestingly, Dusik has specifically called Hyejin out several times for “Princess syndrome” for putting herself above others. What if this is also the writers trying to note that Hyejin is the “Prince” character in the typical Cinderella story?

Another big part of the fairytale is that Cinderella is clothed in the wealth of success at the Ball and that she would be nearly unrecognizable to the Prince in her natural habitat. Hence, why the Prince needs to the slipper to fit to confirm her identity. If the new popular ‘fortune plant blooming every 7 years’ theory is true (aka Dusik x Hyejin meet every seven years), then it’s likely two of those meetings took place in Seoul: one in college and one as professionals. Joanna Beveridge on Twitter (see link to thread in replies) put together a good case for Dusik recognizing Hyejin when she came Gongjin for her mom’s birthday. When asked by Chunjae how they know each other, a bewildered Dusik said “I don’t know how to answer that.” and Hyejin responds, “We do know each other. We met once before.” Dusik quickly side steps her answer and asks Chunjae what’s going on. Then later when Hyejin is about to ask Dusik for money, she said, “So I’m not sure how to bring it up.” and Dusik looks visibly uncomfortable until she asks for money. What happened during the times they met in Seoul? Why does he remember but she doesn’t? What lost slipper will confirm to “Princess” Hyejin that Dusik is her Cinder Boy?

#hometown cha cha cha #kdrama #homcha meta #my meta #my post

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sexyglances · 3 years

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The use of shoes as a metaphor is pretty intriguing in Hometown Cha Cha Cha. We've seen it play out on screen where Hyejin's fancy shoes are seen as both out of place in the more working class seaside town, and also as a hindrance in getting around the more difficult terrain not found in Seoul. But I think the focus on shoes is also interesting in context of the Korean notion that if you give a pair of shoes to your significant other, it means they will use those shoes to run away from you.

However, those sparkly shoes Hyejin coveted weren't given to her by anyone else, she bought them for herself in a fit of impulsiveness after she quit her job. She was putting herself first in her life. And then she wore them for the first time when visiting the town that started her journey of moving away from Seoul and starting her own clinic, so she did use those shoes to run away, but she ran away from a life where she was unsatisfied at work and fairly isolated (as illustrated by being rejected by most of her dental colleagues and only having one close friend) to a place where she can start anew, and though she may not have really realized it yet, a place with a tight-knit community that supports each other even during difficult times. Instead of running away from a relationship, she gave herself shoes that drove her to what will eventually be a more fulfilling life with many relationships (via the community) in it.

The other compelling thing is that not only did Dusik bring her high heel back when her shoes got washed into the sea, but when she said she would be barefoot if she didn't get the other shoe back, he gave her the shoes he was wearing. Yes, they were the complete opposite of her fancy shoes, they were cheap, worn, and unstylish. These shoes were ostensibly so unimportant that they were considered so unimportant and disposable that even the owner of the restaurant from where they were from told her to throw them away.

But, interestingly enough, these shoes given to her by her love interest didn't drive her away like the superstition says will happen, but instead ended up taking her on a trek around the town where she went from visitor on a day visit to someone temporarily stranded overnight, and then to a voluntary resident. Something that she didn't ever expect to do with her life brought to her via shoes that were seen insignificant by everyone who passed them along. The narrative is saying there can be deep meaning in things people are dismissive of.

These insignificant shoes made of cheap plastic gave Hyejin enough protection to discover a new path for herself in the same town that her love interest lives in. Her expensive heels (and thus her fancier life in Seoul) may have gotten her to a place where she was independent enough to travel and eventually move to the small town, but ultimately the pretension held her back and was more useless than it seemed, and it's not until she sheds her pretensions that she will be able to fit in with the culture of the new town and her new life. What's the point of pretension and fanciness if it holds you back from meaningful connections with people?

I think it's significant that while Hyejin was hesitant to wear those plastic slides at first, she DID make the active choice to put them on. And after she willingly put them on, she wore them unhesitatingly until someone else noticed them on her. Perhaps her self-consciousness was learned social behavior as a way to fit in? Regardless, she may still have a penchant for pretension and fancier things (as she wore those black shoes with the elaborate buckle even after moving to the town), but I think her willingness to wear the disposable slides also shows that she will be able to integrate into her new community well, she just needs to get over her own mental block and get used to a different lifestyle and way of approaching life first. And how she presents herself (and the shoes she chooses to wear) will be integral to the narrative journey she takes in this story.

#hometown cha cha cha #kdrama #meta #kdrama meta #my meta #is homcha gonna be my new run on where i just dump tons of meta on tumblr about it?#🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️ we'll see i guess...#i just like getting invested in a full length well-written kdrama bc it is ripe for interpretation

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