Korean Web Drama Summary & Review: Romance Talking (2020)

It’s been a long time since I’ve actually watch a drama in its entirety but today I stumbled upon a web drama with 8 episodes at about 10-15 minutes per episode. I can commit to that, lol. I got pulled in and by the 4th or 5th episode, I was fully invested in everything that was happening.

The drama is about a university student named DaYeon, who works part time at a bar. A few months ago, she started following the channel of a Youtuber, HyunWoo, who does daily live streams where he interacts with his viewers. DaYeon would often use an anonymous ID to chat with him while developing a mini crush on him.

It starts with DaYeon having a dream that she met HyunWoo in real life and they kissed. She wakes up only to find out that it wasn’t real. She gets a call from her best friend, MinJi. It sounded like DaYeon was going through a rough patch and took some time off of school, just only now returning to school. MinJi reminded her of a back-to-school event that evening. When DaYeon tells her that she can’t go because she has to work, MinJi tells her that she knows. Then MinJi threw out the bomb that the event is at the bar DaYeon works at because only her place of work was big enough to hold the event. Unfortunately for DaYeon, her ex-boyfriend shows up because he’s the student body president. HyunWoo also shows up but DaYeon doesn’t notice him because she was hiding from her ex-boyfriend.

DaYeon’s ex-boyfriend and his friends are gossiping about DaYeon. They asked him if he remembers her and he pretends like he doesn’t at first before making a motion across his mouth with his hands, he said “Oh, ‘train-track’?” DaYeon had braces when they were dating and apparently he was the kind who kiss and tell. He told everyone that it hurts when they kissed because of her braces but also alluded to something sexual as well.

DaYeon recalled something HyunWoo said during his live stream the night before about not letting people walk all over her. Thus, she decides to confront her ex-boyfriend head on. The encounter goes well, with her making innuendos regarding his dick size, leaving him speechless. HyunWoo witnessed this and became interested in her. While she was taking her break up on the roof, HyunWoo shows up to sit next to her, surprising her because she recognizes him. But before she can say anything, they are interrupted by her ex-boyfriend who’s now drunk and seemingly want to get back with her. HyunWoo asked for her phone but she is confused about his plans. She finally relented. The ex-boyfriend sees this and wants to warn her about HyunWoo but his friends pull him away. HyunWoo puts his phone number in DaYeon’s phone and ask her to call him using the excuse that he lost his phone. Although this was just his way of getting her phone number.

The next night, DaYeon is having dinner with her friends when HyunWoo shows up too. He just changed his major to the same as theirs and are also friends with her friends. Since she took some time off from school, she didn’t know. Scenes of the group hanging out and HyunWoo’s live stream later that night runs parallel. There are several things that happened that evening they made DaYeon confused as to whether HyunWoo is interested in her or not. So she decides to ask him using her anonymous ID whether the things she’s experienced mean that “the boy” likes her or not. For example, she tells HyunWoo that “the boy” made soju cocktails for everyone but for hers, he put less soju (as to show he’s concerned about her). HyunWoo comes back saying that it doesn’t necessarily mean that “the boy” likes her. Maybe he was just drunk and being careless, forgetting to add more soju. LOL. For every reason she had, he has a counter reason which greatly annoyed her.

Someone took the opportunity in the live stream chat to ask HyunWoo what his type is. He tells them that typically people are attracted to others who have the same taste as them, for example liking the same food or music. DaYeon feels disheartened as she remember that someone brought up mint chocolate and HyunWoo said that he doesn’t like mint chocolate. When the question was directed at DaYeon, she wanted to say she also does not like but before she can answer, MinJi interrupted saying that DaYeon loves mint chocolate! LOL. And then afterward, when they went to the karaoke bar, he asked if she knew a certain song, if so, for them to sing together. While singing, she actually didn’t know the song and MinJi took over the song to sing with HyunWoo.

While DaYeon is feeling bummed about not having anything in common with HyunWoo, a song comes on in the background of HyunWoo’s live stream. It happens to be the song she was singing that night at the karaoke bar. However, this brief burst of happiness quickly went away when she remembered that HyunWoo and MinJi left in the middle of her singing. They went for a long time. She made an excuse that she needed to use the bathroom. When she went outside, she bumped into them. They told her they went to the corner store to buy ice cream for everyone. As the two walk back in together and seeing how close HyunWoo and MinJi seems to be, DaYeon reflected that she was delusional about his interest in her and had gotten her hopes up for nothing.

Of course, HyunWoo is a master of mixed signals! When his viewers are saying that his answers are too vague, he tells them that if they want more specifics, then he likes ponytails, especially because he likes a girl with a nice neck. She automatically think to the fact that she always have her hair up in a ponytail around him. We get a scene towards the end where while she’s still outside thinking about her delusions, HyunWoo comes back out to give her the mint chocolate milk he bought her.

The next day, she appears at their school. When MinJi sees her, she asked her what she’s doing there. DaYeon tells her she’s looking for someone. HyunWoo appears and asked her if she’s looking for him, causing her to hiccup out of nervousness. Then HyunWoo’s ex-girlfriend, Mihwa shows up and DaYeon sees that Mihwa also has her hair in a ponytail. MinJi tells DaYeon that HyunWoo is such a friendly guy and he gets along well with everyone. He’s even friends with his ex-girlfriend. DaYeon feels that HyunWoo is too flirty and probably the type to casually date around.

During a live stream, HyunWoo is taking calls from some of his viewers. When one of his viewers said something, he remembered a small detail (probably something that was mentioned in the chat a long time ago). This lead DaYeon to think that just because he remembers a small detail (like her liking mint chocolate) doesn’t mean that he’s interested in her. DaYeon decides to call into his live stream. It takes a long time before she reaches him but as she’s about to hang up, he picks up. Before we get to see what happens, the scene cut to another day where DaYeon is sitting in class (watching an old live stream of HyunWoo’s). She almost got caught by him when he appears. Apparently they are in the same class. They sit together. He noticed that her hair is down and he asked why she put it down when it looks better in a ponytail. The two began to pass notes in class.

Back to the live stream, DaYeon finally answers HyunWoo. He asked her to introduce herself and she tells him her anonymous ID. He responds that he’s seen her on a lot recently. He asked her what worries she has. I guess he’s answering calls from his viewers to give them advice and help them with their problems. She tells him that she wants to know why some guys would lead others on. She then tells him that she feels like he’s the type of guy who would lead others on. He laughs and asked her to explain the situation. So she tells him that there’s a guy that she’s not really close to and maybe he’s just being nice but he acted like he was interested in her, only to leave her hanging. He tells her that since he’s not that type of guy, he’s unsure why this guy would do something like that but follow up by asking if she was disappointed. This stumped her leading her to hiccup (dead giveaway). He asked her if she’s worried that she’s not special to him and that he’s just nice to everyone. He advises her that she should avoid guys like that or if she really wants to know if she’s special to him, she should make a bold move. So DaYeon asked him if he’s available tomorrow and want to meet up. We see HyunWoo cutting off his sound so his viewers can’t hear. He tells her to wait a minute and she said that she’s going for a bold move. He respond that they’re on live stream. She tells him that she was just joking with him like “he” did to her. She apologized for interrupting his live stream. Just as she’s about to hang up, he asked her if she’s saying that this is how he is. He hangs up on her through the live stream before calling her personal phone. When she picks up, he calls her name and tell her that he’s available tomorrow. She asked him since when had he knew it was her but he only reply for them to talk in person.

The next day, while HyunWoo is doing a live stream, DaYeon is at the bar working. She’s watching him but the two are also texting each other. HyunWoo can’t help smiling leading to his viewers wondering who he is texting that’s making him so happy. DaYeon’s manager, WooJae sees that she’s dressed up more than usual that day and allowed her to leave work early as he assumed she has something going on. During the live stream, HyunWoo gets a text message from DaYeon that she’s outside his door so he cuts the live stream short. The two are hanging out playing Jenga (though the show makes it sound like they are doing more). HyunWoo loses to DaYeon so she makes him look silly while he does his live streaming. At the same time, she’s crouching near his feet and tickling his thighs out of view. This lead to HyunWoo telling his viewers he’ll be right back. HyunWoo chases after DaYeon and they kiss. As they are kissing and the live stream is still going on with no one in front of the camera, we pan to Manager WooJae who’s also watching the live stream and thinking about DaYeon whom he had caught earlier watching HyunWoo’s live stream.

HyunWoo and DaYeon start hanging out together alone. Though both mutually like each other, they haven’t defined their relationship. While watching a movie together, DaYeon gets a call from MinJi but she doesn’t pick up as she just wants to spend time with HyunWoo. Afterward someone calls HyunWoo and he picks up. Initially HyunWoo tells that person that he’s not interested in going out. But something that person said made him agree to meet up. After he hangs up, DaYeon asked him who called. He tells her that it’s Kyungshik. The group is all hanging out and MinJi is there too. Then he asked her didn’t MinJi call her too? She looks at her phone and confirmed that she did get a call. He tells her to give MinJi a call back. She sends a text message to MinJi who tells her that they are all going bar-hopping and for DaYeon to come out. She turns around and see that HyunWoo is already getting ready to go. So she asked him if he was going to go. He said that it sounded like the group really want him there. He asked if she’s not going to go and if not, she can stay at his place a little longer if she wants. She decides to go. He tells her for them to go together but she tells him she’ll go first.

DaYeon arrives at the bar first. MinJi tells her that it’s so hard to see her these days. HyunWoo follows shortly after. The two secretly smile at each other. As DaYeon pulls out the chair next to her for HyunWoo, he passes her by and sit next to MinJi. However, he starts to play footsies with her. MinJi tells him that she also has not seen him in a long time and asked what he’s been doing. He tells her he’s just been at home. She asked him what he does at home. He looks at DaYeon and asked her what he does at home. The group looks at her with interest but HyunWoo said he live stream on Youtube. This lead the group to realized tht DaYeon already knew he does live stream. While the group are discussing the perks and downfalls of being a Youtuber, DaYeon tells the group that HyunWoo is actually really popular and have a lot of fans. The other boys tells MinJi that they think she would be really good at live streams so MinJi ask HyunWoo if he have guests on his live stream.

We cut to one of his live streams where he did indeed invite MinJi on as a guest. MinJi is lowkey flirting with him telling his viewers that HyunWoo is good looking and popular. When one of his viewers asked MinJi if her heart flutter when she met HyunWoo for the first time, she jokingly asked the viewers if they make a cute couple. Another viewer commented that they are probably holding hands under the table. MinJi holds his hand and bring it up for the viewers to see. She jokingly said that she guessed they should be dating now. DaYeon gets jealous and changed her ID name. She writes negative things about the two of them (i.e. that they don’t make a cute couple at all). It gets pretty bad to the point that HyunWoo ends up banning DaYeon’s ID and MinJi and HyunWoo leaves the live stream to take a breather as MinJi becomes very upset. DaYeon thinks about the time MinJi and HyunWoo left in the middle of her singing and went to the store for a long time. When they return, they seem flirty.

We cut back to the bar scene after MinJi asked if she can be a guest on his live stream. DaYeon tells MinJi that she doesn’t think it’s appropriate and that maybe her appearing on his show would lead people to think that MinJi is using HyunWoo’s fame to further her own fame and that MinJi should start her own live stream first before being a guest on someone else’s live stream. MinJi and the other two guys tell DaYeon that she’s being too serious and going overboard. HyunWoo doesn’t say anything and just helplessly look at her. DaYeon then goes to the bathroom and MinJi approaches her asking her what’s going on and why DaYeon have been acting differently. DaYeon is pretty mean here. She tells MinJi that MinJi wouldn’t know because she only cares about her own feelings. She tells MinJi that in the past she’s never complained. When MinJi asked for an example, DaYeon tells her about the back-to-school event and that even knowing that DaYeon’s ex-boyfriend would show up, she still choose to have the event at DaYeon’s workplace without considering DaYeon’s feelings. MinJi tells her that they can solve whatever issue there is between the two of them and that they didn’t need to make it awkward for HyunWoo. DaYeon then asked her if she likes HyunWoo. But before MinJi can answer, she tells MinJi that it makes sense because MinJi always ask HyunWoo to come out and isn’t that the reason she’s asked everyone to come out tonight. MinJi tells her that she asked everyone to come out because it’s her birthday today and she knows that although DaYeon have been MIA, she thought DaYeon wouldn’t forgotten her birthday.

We see DaYeon leaves her house after MinJi and HyunWoo leaves the live stream. She runs towards HyunWoo’s apartment while trying to call him on the phone. She then bumps into the two on the street. DaYeon realized that she has turned into someone she doesn’t recognized anymore. She turns around and runs away. HyunWoo wants to go after her but MinJi stops him. DaYeon wishes that nothing happened between the two of them in the beginning.

The next day, DaYeon is at work and we see that Manager WooJae is obviously interested in DaYeon but she’s oblivious. There are some female guests at the bar who takes an interest in Manager WooJae. One of the girls asked him for his phone number. He tells her that he’s sorry but he’s working with his girlfriend at the moment while he looks at DaYeon. Later on, DaYeon is peeling an apple when Manager WooJae asked if she’s upset. She asked him why he told them that she’s his girlfriend. He makes an excuse and she accuses him of using her. He then asked her what’s up with her today. She’s thinking about how after she fell in love with HyunWoo, she seem to have lost herself. She gets distracted and cut her hand while peeling the apple. Manager WooJae tries to help her put a bandaid on but she gets angry and does it herself. Manager WooJae is disheartened.

During HyunWoo’s live stream, Manager WooJae writes to HyunWoo as “Manager Do” and tells him that his friend has been feeling down. Nothing he does would make her happy and she won’t tell him what’s going on. He doesn’t know what to do. HyunWoo tells “Manager Do” that perhaps the reason she won’t tell him what’s going is because he’s the reason she’s feeling down. As HyunWoo continues to talk, he seems to be talking about his own situation with DaYeon as well. We see HyunWoo looking at his phone and that DaYeon has not been answering his phone calls. While closing the bar together. Manager WooJae and DaYeon have a talk. She apologized for being all over the place recently. Manager WooJae is happy that DaYeon is finally opening up to him. As DaYeon goes to the backroom, HyunWoo walks into the bar. Manager WooJae tells him that they are close but upon realizing who HyunWoo is (since Manager WooJae also watches his live stream), he invites HyunWoo in to have a beer. DaYeon shows up and asked HyunWoo what’s going on. He takes DaYeon’s hands and begins to pull her outside with him, wanting to talk with her. Manager WooJae steps in and tell him that DaYeon is not finished closing yet. The two gets into a back and forth argument. Manager WooJae tells him that he probably makes DaYeon uncomfortable so she’s avoiding him. When HyunWoo turns around, DaYeon is gone. HyunWoo thinks out loud why she’s been acting like this. Manager WooJae tells him that if she’s not telling him why she’s acting like that, then HyunWoo is probably the reason why she’s acting like that. LOL. Pretty much giving back to HyunWoo the advice that HyunWoo gave him earlier on the live stream.

While DaYeon is walking home (after leaving HyunWoo at the bar to spar with her manager), she bumps into her ex-boyfriend. He asked her why she hasn’t returned any of his text messages. He tells her that he’s worried about her being ghosted because he knew that she had a hard time after the two of them broke up. She has no idea what he’s talking about and as she tried to leave, he holds onto her hands and won’t let her go. He tells her that if she’s just going to hook up with assholes, she might as well come back to him because they were good together. She is then rescued by Manager WooJae. The ex-boyfriends tells Manager WooJae that he is just talking to his girlfriend (DaYeon) then Manager WooJae tells him that DaYeon is his girlfriend. Hearing this, the ex-boyfriend tells DaYeon that it seem she no longer gives a shit because that asshole had ruined her. He then warns her to be careful or else she’ll show up on that forum. When she asked him to clarify, he tells her that it’s about HyunWoo. He wonders who DaYeon is to HyunWoo that she doesn’t even know about it. After the ex-boyfriend left, Manager WooJae apologized for telling him that she’s his girlfriend and that she’s free to “use” him if she wants and that if she ever need someone to help her out, he’ll be there for her. But all DaYeon can think about is HyunWoo and if he’s waiting for someone to comfort him like Manager WooJae is comforting her.

At home, she finally checks the forum about HyunWoo. The forum talked about HyunWoo being a player, dating many girls at the same time. It even talked about how while he already had a girlfriend, he took another girl to his place. Some commenters demanded that HyunWoo does an explanation broadcast explaining his actions. After this came out, HyunWoo is no longer doing live stream and he’s been missing from school for a few days. DaYeon thinks about him and she said that although he confused her, not once had their relationship been mixed up (I think she meant that not once did he showed interest in another girl while they were “together”). She wonders if he’s waiting for someone to understand him. As she gets up from her seat and looking like she’s heading to find him, she bumps into his ex-girlfriend Mihwa.

She sits down with Mihwa and asked her what happened between her and HyunWoo. Mihwa replied that there nothing happened between the two of them and she doesn’t need to be concern about her. So DaYeon tells her she’s not concerned about her, only concerned about HyunWoo. Mihwa asked her why? So she tells Mihwa that HyunWoo has been missing from school for several days. Mihwa wants to know what’s between HyunWoo and DaYeon and proceed to tell DaYeon that she’s more concern about HyunWoo than DaYeon is. Mihwa explains that HyunWoo is the type of person who makes you have feelings for him, leads you on until you become obsessed with him. Then you become exhausted. She tells DaYeon that DaYeon should understand. After all, the two of them are in the same boat, like all the women he’s been through. She tells DaYeon that HyunWoo deserved this and if he didn’t want to suffer from being exposed then he should have been a good person to begin with. At the end, DaYeon tells her that since the both of them are in the same boat then Mihwa should also know that HyunWoo is not the kind of person they say he is. And the least that Mihwa can do is help him out by explaining clearly.

We see Mihwa doing a live stream where she tells the audience that she wants to explain about the recent controversy involving HyunWoo. She tells the viewers that she is someone that he used to date. She tells them that she didn’t get the channel owner’s permission to do a live stream (I guess she’s using HyunWoo’s channel) but she wanted to clear some misunderstandings.

During Mihwa’s live stream, we see a flashback of Mihwa and her classmate sitting in a classroom. The classmate asked Mihwa if she’s dating HyunWoo. The classmate tells her that everyone’s been talking about HyunWoo and how he brought a girl back to his place so she wanted to know if it’s Mihwa. Mihwa denies that they are dating. The classmate tells her that after the group project, for her to stay away from HyunWoo otherwise she’ll ruin her image. We cut to another scene where HyunWoo and Mihwa are hanging out together. He tells her that another girl asked him out to have a drink. She asked him with who else? He tells her just the two of them but he had already told her no. Mihwa asked him why? HyunWoo tells her that it’s because he already has a girlfriend (Mihwa). HyunWoo then asked her when she’ll tell people that they are dating.

She revealed that she kept their relationship a secret and by the time it came out that they dated, HyunWoo had already left (he changed major). She said she lost him, hurt him, and regret it. After the two had already broken up, we see Mihwa watching HyunWoo’s live stream. She was the person who asked him what his type is. When he said he likes ponytails, that’s why she showed up to school the next day with her hair in a ponytail. As Mihwa is about to explain further regarding the controversy on the forum, her live stream gets cut and HyunWoo comes on.

HyunWoo apologizes for the controversy. He explains Mihwa’s live stream as an accident and said that he’s at the center of a discussion and will take responsibility for everything. He explain that he’s actually different from what they all think of him. He’s actually not very sociable and not good with relationships. He said that he’s good with listening to other people’s worries and giving them advice but when it comes to himself, he doesn’t know what to do. He tells the audience that the reason he decided to do a live stream today after a long time wasn’t just because he intended to apologized for the controversy but that there’s also something he wants to say. He said he doesn’t want to make the same mistakes again so therefore he wants to say what he wants.

At the same time, Manager WooJae is walking DaYeon home when she gets a notification on her phone indicating that HyunWoo’s live stream is about to start. DaYeon watches the live stream and turns around to go to HyunWoo. Manager WooJae stops her and asked her not to go.

Back to HyunWoo’s live stream, the door bell rings. He gets up to open the door and see that it’s DaYeon. He asked her why she’s there and she asked him what it is that he really wants to say. He tells her that he’s live streaming right now and she asked if that’s really important? He still hesitates but has internal monologue with himself. Just as she looks crestfallen, he tells her that he likes her. The two starts kissing.

Some time later, HyunWoo is doing a live stream and DaYeon comes on as a guest. He introduced her as his girlfriend. Someone asked about MinJi and DaYeon tells the viewers that MinJi is a close friend of hers. We see MinJi also watching the live stream but MinJi still look hurts. She flashes back to the time she stopped HyunWoo from going after DaYeon. It was only to remind him that he was still live streaming. But the way MinJi looks surely show a bit of heartbreak.

We end the show with Mihwa at the bar where DaYeon works and she’s talking to Manager WooJae about daytime drinking.

I actually really enjoyed this web drama. It was short enough to keep my attention but still leaving me wanting more. Every character is flawed and human. I think that’s what I liked best.

DaYeon is not afraid to go after what she wants but experiences jealousy like most of us do. When she starts behaving in a way that she no longer recognizes, she stops and hides away. She’s smart enough to not believe what others say about HyunWoo because she, herself, have experienced what it’s like being with him. I’m also glad that she chose HyunWoo in the end. Manager WooJae is also a nice guy but it wouldn’t have been fair to him when she wasn’t over HyunWoo.

HyunWoo is a typical nice guy that all the girls love. I start to understand him a bit more after hearing about his relationship with Mihwa. Though he’s still such a frustrating character, he’s pretty realistic too. Though he’s interested in DaYeon, they are still just friends. When they are hanging out with friends, he tries to involve her but he’s also hanging out with his friends and that’s probably their dynamic before DaYeon came along. He probably also does not realized that what he’s doing is leading girls on, he probably just think he’s being nice. Because Mihwa didn’t want to tell people about their relationship when they were dating, I think this lead to HyunWoo being careful with his relationship with DaYeon, especially when DaYeon didn’t want to go to the bar together with him.

I felt kinda bad for MinJi. I really think that MinJi was interested in HyunWoo. What DaYeon said to her in the bathroom was really hurtful. The last scene we saw of MinJi, I couldn’t help but hurt for her.