Oh, our past selves, the selves we thought eternal

The use of Jaurim's "25, 21" in the show "Twenty Five, Twenty One"

For a show taking its title from a well-known and beloved coming-of-age anthem, Twenty Five, Twenty One plays the titular song only twice throughout the entire 16-episode run. If you were a close listener, you’ll have noticed that Jaurim’s “25, 21” plays in the second episode and the penultimate episode, both in the concluding scenes of each episode, almost as if to bookend the series — and to bookend Yi-jin and Hee-do’s relationship.

While watching my timeline set itself alight in some gnashing teeth and cries of “endgame!” following the 16th episode, I noticed a repeated complaint — that the show had escalated the troubles of their relationship too abruptly, that the breakup came without warning, that it felt like the writer had squeezed in an incorrect conclusion. And while I think everyone is entitled to their opinion and I sympathize with those nursing some crushed hearts (and ships), I want to point to the use of the song “25, 21” as an indicator of how incredibly deliberate the writing has been throughout the series.

—

The final scene of the second episode takes place at the school track. Hee-do has just found Yi-jin living through one of his worst moments, making the hyperbolic promise to never be happy again. The problems of their era, of the adult world, have already seized Yi-jin and changed him profoundly from the carefree, privileged boy that he was at Hee-do’s age. They’ve already made him desperate in his longing for the past, a longing that is partially satiated by vicariously experiencing Hee-do’s youthful fearlessness.

“What do you miss?” Hee-do asks, and Yi-jin replies, “The problems I used to have.”

In coming-of-age narratives, it is often the adult characters who take the protagonist by the hand to introduce them to a new world. In this show, it is the reverse. Hee-do, despite her entitlements and naivete, already knows that there’s nothing she can do for Yi-jin, nothing she could say to offer relief or comfort or even the reassurance of knowing sympathy.

So she takes Yi-jin by the hand and brings him to the school fountains, and she turns them on to erupt over their heads like a cracked geyser.

Nam Joo-hyuk plays this scene beautifully in his initial hesitations and then in the almost contemplative way he lets himself become young again. He gazes at the running water as if solving a problem, and then he turns on all of the spouts, multiplying them into a waterfall.

“I never thought of doing that!” Hee-do screams. “Adults really do think on a larger-scale!”

And then the song plays.

It’s worth noting that this scene takes a step away from Hee-do and steps closer to Yi-jin; we see him look at Hee-do for the first time, really look, as she jumps in elation. And as the song plays, wistfully, almost mournfully, we recognize that this is a memory. It’s Yi-jin’s memory almost more than it is Hee-do’s, and it is probably the first of many memories that they’ll remember with the intense, throat-closing pang of the song in the background.

Later, after escaping the security guard to their tunnel, Hee-do tells him with the largest grin on her face, “This era made you give up on everything; how can you also give up on happiness? But you already made a promise to those ahjussis, so let’s do this. From now on, just be happy when you’re with me; we can keep it a secret."

And Hee-do, as we see her now, is as lovely as she must be to Yi-jin. As he stares at her, she says decisively, “When it’s just us two, let’s be happy without anyone else knowing. This can be our secret.”

And Nam Joo-hyuk gives one of his most masterful performances in the show with the way his expression changes. It’s love, but in the way relief and joy can be love, in the way happiness can be love. Despite all of his adult burdens, it’s here where Yi-jin looks his youngest, his 22-year old self briefly forgotten.

The scene and the episode end as the song ends. It’s summer, and Hee-do and Yi-jin are 18 and 22. They are still mostly unimpacted by the other; they are still not the versions that they will craft from each other.

—

The second time the song plays, it’s winter. Hee-do is alone, now 22.

Unlike the first scene, the song plays as Hee-do narrates; it is her memory that we’re dealing with now.

“I’m still sending you my support. But the more I do, the farther apart we grow.”

The scene follows one of Hee-do and Yi-jin’s last conversations as an actual couple, the conversation where Hee-do realizes that her support no longer holds the same meaning for Yi-jin, that it no longer reaches him. It’s a quiet realization but a momentous one; they’re no longer able to be the person that the other person needs. And Hee-do, who is no longer 18, knows what this means.

She goes to the hill where they had stood the year before, when they embraced and promised to come back the year after, and the year after that, and the year after that. “Let’s be eternal,” Yi-jin said. “Let’s,” Hee-do replied.

An ocean away, Yi-jin stands in his newsroom and remembers the same memory. His face is ancient; the memory no longer provides hope or support for him. We don’t know what else he’s feeling — does he miss Hee-do? Does he wish he was back in Seoul? Does he regret taking the correspondent job? Does he blame himself? Does he blame Hee-do?

The fact that we don’t know, that Hee-do doesn’t know, tells us enough. This scene serves to cement Hee-do’s conclusions about their relationship, and the song playing in the background is a reminder that this too is a memory, that these are all memories, and their time together is over. At 22, Hee-do’s completely left behind childhood; she’s no longer the person who promised secret happiness to Yi-jin. At 26, Yi-jin is entrenched in a new version of adulthood that has revealed to him both an undeniable calling and a savage, violent world. He’s no longer the person who can get by on an 18-year old’s promise of happiness.

The distance matters, of course; Yi-jin’s work-life balance matters, Hee-do’s past trauma matters. But perhaps most fundamentally, this scene shows us how Yi-jin and Hee-do have changed into different people, even in just a year’s time.

When the song ends, the screen still shows the younger Hee-do and Yi-jin, planning their future together from the hill-top. The screen fades to black and white, and again, we’re reminded that this is a memory. And like all memories, there’s not much hope for return.

—

The second verse of “25, 21” goes like this:

The sea that day was full of affection
I still feel like your hand is in reach
You and I exist in the warm burst of the sun
I dreamed a dream so happy, my chest aches
Oh, the wind is carrying the song from that day
Oh, our past selves, the selves we thought eternal

In the final episode, Yi-jin dreams of Hee-do. It’s after their break-up, the messy conversation in the tunnel, after a little time has passed. He’s at the beach, witnessing Hee-do at 18, during their fake field trip. She beams at him as if nothing is wrong.

It’s a devastating scene, perhaps more so because Yi-jin goes from sadness to relief to joy in a few short seconds, and then wakes. But what we realize through this scene is not only a sense of mourning for Hee-do, but for their youth together. If he only missed Hee-do, he would dream of her as she exists in the present. Instead, he misses who they were at 18 and 22, when she could smile at him like nothing at all was wrong, when he could accept such a smile and have it lead him to happiness.

So he dreams of her as she exists in his memories, missing her just as he once missed himself as an 18 year-old child.

However, missing is not regret.

I think a common interpretation, and thus complaint, of the finale and of modern-day Hee-do (and the nonexistent modern-day Yi-jin) is the idea that there is regret, that the characters are left to a heartbreaking ending because they regret their break-up. I wholeheartedly disagree.

I think what Kwon Do-eun has tried to accomplish through this drama is capture the emotion of Jaurim’s song as a full narrative. That emotion is not regret. It’s melancholic and wistful and even mournful, but it’s in acknowledgement that this is inevitable. Time continues and we move on. The inevitability is what keeps everything bearable, even when it feels like grief.

To introduce regret is to negate this idea from the song, because regret keeps time from flowing. Everything is up to individual interpretation, of course, but Hee-do doesn’t regret their break-up or how life has continued. Even in the thick of the break-up, she tells her mother in the hospital that she thinks it was right for them to go their different ways; she only wishes she had spoken to him differently.

It’s why we don’t see her husband or even her current relationship with her friends, because it doesn’t matter how they exist now. The show is dedicated to the idea of memory. It’s about what we feel when we recall the people we once were, the people who we loved in the past. It’s what we feel when we realize that time has passed and is still moving forward.

Perhaps the betrayal felt towards the ending comes from our expectations that this was going to be a happy story. I think part of that blame lies on the audience; Kwon Do-eun never promised a “happy ending” in the same vein as Lee Woo-jung’s Reply series. I think she was consistent the entire way through; there were never any “gotcha” moments or wink-wink hints. The husband is never shown because he’s irrelevant to Yi-jin and Hee-do’s story; he’s irrelevant to Hee-do’s youth because he was never a part of it.

On the other hand, what makes this an unhappy story? The ability to feel sad about a memory, a loved one who is no longer in your life, would not be possible if you had not experienced happiness with them in the first place. This particular sadness comes from the fact that something joyful has passed; it is an unavoidable human truth. But what is important is the joy experienced in the first place.

Yi-jin broke his original promise. He was happy; Hee-do was an important source of that happiness for a long time. Once he realized that she could no longer be that person — that she no longer was that person — his sadness was measured out according to the amount of happiness he had felt with Hee-do. It’s important to remember that it doesn’t exist separately.

Similarly, Hee-do’s one regret is how she was unable to fully tell him how happy he had made her, and how grateful she is for his role in her life. And in the end, the show concludes by showing us that she did tell him, that he had known all of this time. Her final small regret about Yi-jin is resolved.

—

I stopped talking to a close friend of mine last May. We had been bonded through time more than anything else; our years spent as friends was our singular source of commonality. Still, I considered her a close friend, an important friend. We had shared so many memories together.

We stopped speaking gradually, until it no longer made sense to initiate conversations. I remember I would pick up my phone every so often to text, and then remember that our conversations had stalled, that she no longer seemed very interested in continuing them.

I don’t know if I would call myself devastated or even particularly sad; it felt like a long goodbye was finally drawing to a close. I don’t regret how we stopped talking; I don’t regret that we don’t seem to be friends. She and I no longer need each other that way.

But I still think about her every so often. I wonder if she’s doing well, if she is living well. I wish her happiness. I have a picture of her framed and hidden behind some books; I think about her when I eat a certain food or listen to a song she recommended me all those years ago. I am sure she is the same.

There is love there too, in its own way. Perhaps my only regret, similar to Hee-do, is that I didn’t get to tell her one last time that I was thankful for our friendship, that I will always care about her. And like Hee-do, perhaps I can tell her one day.

But for now, I’m happy to remember her, and I am sad when I remember her. I don’t think I’d have it another way.