lovely runner x taylor swift lyrics:

💙: "is this funny to you?"

💛: "yes, it's so funny."

💙: "i've never seen you laugh before..."

(ryu sunjae & im sol, ep. 14)

"please don't ever become a stranger / whose laugh i could recognize anywhere..."

(taylor swift, from 'new year's day')

“Dogs don’t know what they look like. Dogs don’t even know what size they are. No doubt it’s our fault, for breeding them into such weird shapes and sizes. My brother’s dachshund, standing tall at eight inches, would attack a Great Dane in the full conviction that she could tear it apart. When a little dog is assaulting its ankles the big dog often stands there looking confused — “Should I eat it? Will it eat me? I am bigger than it, aren’t I?” But then the Great Dane will come and try to sit in your lap and mash you flat, under the impression that it is a Peke-a-poo… Cats know exactly where they begin and end. When they walk slowly out the door that you are holding open for them, and pause, leaving their tail just an inch or two inside the door, they know it. They know you have to keep holding the door open. That is why their tail is there. It is a cat’s way of maintaining a relationship. Housecats know that they are small, and that it matters. When a cat meets a threatening dog and can’t make either a horizontal or a vertical escape, it’ll suddenly triple its size, inflating itself into a sort of weird fur blowfish, and it may work, because the dog gets confused again — “I thought that was a cat. Aren’t I bigger than cats? Will it eat me?” … A lot of us humans are like dogs: we really don’t know what size we are, how we’re shaped, what we look like. The most extreme example of this ignorance must be the people who design the seats on airplanes. At the other extreme, the people who have the most accurate, vivid sense of their own appearance may be dancers. What dancers look like is, after all, what they do.”

DISCLAIMER: readings are used as a guide, but the decisions you want to make for yourself are YOUR RESPONSIBILITY. this is for entertainment purposes only.

"the earth was made for lovers — " and no purer lovers exist than sol and sunjae. fate fell in love with them at first glance: and how could it not? it knew what a miracle it was witnessing: two souls bound to each other beyond the reaches of death and life. forever intertwined. "how could you make me live without you?" sunjae asks — the devastation in his eyes almost a living thing; a bleeding heart. how indeed? how can two people that neither time nor evil could separate stay apart any longer? and then, right after: "i'm sorry i'm late." this boy — this beautiful, beautiful boy. after finding out that sol erased his memories, that he DIED for her — his first instinct is to apologize. TO APOLOGIZE for not remembering her earlier. and the childlike surrender in sol's sobs — because HER sunjae has finally returned. has remembered her. will no longer let her be alone: how she instantly reaches for him. how they reach for each other. a lifetime's worth of love, finally fulfilled. the fact that they got to celebrate just being with each other, savoring the sweetness of each other's company: it meant the world to me. when you walk with pain as your constant companion, ordinary moments like being held in someone's arms, waking up to the face of the person you love most — they take on a kind of holiness. and you can see that blessing bestow itself over both their heads; the profound relief and joy shining in their faces during every scene. because nothing can keep them apart any longer. the callbacks during this episode were beautiful: it means so much to me that sunjae put aside his proposal to let sol pursue her dream. it's the pinnacle of love — he's willing to wait as long as it takes. and why shouldn't he? they have all the time in the world, now. taesung's last scene being him smiling at a happy sol — wishing her well from the bottom of his heart. being the key to their freedom at last. never has a second lead storyline been resolved so gently, with so much kindness. i was in tears for the entire hour: i think my body broke into blossom, it was filled with so much pleasure seeing sol and sunjae be happy together at last. i've always been a reluctant cynic, but i felt my imagination bloom, soften into pink watching sunjae propose to sol while the cherry blossoms looked on, witnessing the weight of three timelines fall away at last — make space for the radiant future: a bride and groom with eyes for no one but each other. love is real. love is reachable, attainable, capable of pouring sunlight into the darkest recesses of the soul: only someone who truly believed that could have made this show. i have loved every second of lovely runner; and no second more so than their expressions at the very end: incandescent with joy, finally free of all fear. they are safe in their love for each other; in the sanctuary of each other's arms.

poet joy harjo said it best: "i am not afraid of love / or its consequence of light."

they couldn't have written a better ending.

the fact that across three timelines; fifteen years worth of erased memory, and a lifetime of experience, sunjae's wish has remained the same: to never be separated from sol.

to stay by her side forever.

the fact that he put aside all his plans for a showy proposal, because he didn't want to take away from the importance of sol's first time directing a movie: recognizing that she had poured her heart and soul into saving him before and this was her time to shine.

the fact that he waited until she was finished with her film before proposing again: with a simple walk in the park, the cherry blossoms bright with love, remembering the long history of the lovers underneath their branches.

'look,' you can almost hear the petals say, amused and fond. 'here they are, still wishing for the same thing.'

and this time, their wish is granted. :') 🤍

just thinking about how sacrifice is the silk cord that runs through every aspect of sol and sunjae's love story. sol is ready to give up the use of her legs and re-live the most traumatic experience of her life if it means that sunjae will survive. she's willing to let go of the last few golden moments that are her time with sunjae, to let him believe she's gone back, and endure the grimness of her fate alone. sunjae is ready and willing to die if it means that sol will remain safe. he's willing to give away his entire future, if it means that sol can have hers. religion isn't a part of the show at all, but i can't help but think of how 'sacrifice as the ultimate form of love' is one of the foundational principles of christianity. offering yourself up at the altar in service to your love is the final and most selfless act of sacrifice one can perform, and that's what sol and sunjae are prepared to do for each other. the point i'm trying to make here is that this is what the magnitude of their love feels like: almost biblical. kdramas are often dismissed as too "saccharine," too "trivial," too "superficial" — (and from a feminist perspective, there's a conversation to be had about why media consumed by women is derided so often) — but nothing about sol and sunjae feels at all insincere or contrived. their love has gravity and weight — substance that's rare to see in a rom-com. there's a dignity to their emotions, a sense of grace. i think they have one of the most touching, intensely tender, intricately designed love stories that i've ever had the privilege to see.

just grateful i got to witness this in real time.

“Oh, look, here’s a big bee just tumbled out of an apple tree. Just think what a lovely place to live - in an apple blossom! Fancy going to sleep in it when the wind was rocking it. If I wasn’t a human girl I think I’d like to be a bee and live among the flowers.”