Lovely Runner – Ep 9 &10 Recap

This is the review + recap page for episode 9 & 10 of the 2024 kdrama Lovely Runner.

TRIGGER WARNING - this kdrama contains depictions of self harm and worse.

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Episode Recap

SPOILERS BELOW

Episode 09 Recap

Episode 9 gets right into it. Im Sol has just seen the news that Seon Jae was injured. As the news broadcast elaborates, we're shown what actually happened. The evil taxi man had a key and let himself in, where he fought with Seon Jae. Seeing that he wasn't going to win, he stabs Seon Jae and...ran away. It sounds like he's still at large.

Im Sol is stunned, but all she can think about is going back in time. She races to Seon Jae's apartment and searches frantically, but is interrupted by Seon Jae's friend/band mate. He tells her that Seon Jae lost the watch years ago and hadn't been able to find it.

Crushed, Im Sol goes home and hears another broadcast about the news that changes her perspective. The evil taxi man had assaulted her a second time, and Seon Jae had once again saved her. So she reaches out to Tae Sung's dad, the detective, for the case details. Through this, she learns that Seon Jae was at the right place at the right time. He saw her books discarded, called her, and ran after the sound. There, he found Im Sol and fought with the evil taxi man.

She was in even more shock after reading all of this, and more desperate to get the watch back. Searching through the pages, she finally found a picture of it. Calling the detective to ask what happened to the evidence, she finds out that the watch had been given back to her, not Seon Jae. She frantically searches the house but it's the grandmother who has it. Seemingly stricken with dementia, the grandmother seems to know exactly what Im Sol is going through. She says softly that she kept it safe for Im Sol.

Im Sol takes it and goes to visit Seon Jae. She apologises, and promises to make it right. At midnight, she presses the watch which now says 1:00 (down from 3:00). Immediately, she wakes up in 2009 on top of a horse statue. While panicking about getting down, she slips and falls...only to be caught by none other than Seon Jae.

But as soon as Im Sol realises she's unharmed, she jumps out of his arms and runs away. We find out that she's scared to face him because she feels responsible for his death in the future. Immediately, Im Sol hatches a plan to make some changes and runs off to execute it.

She goes to the police station and reports that the evil taxi man had abducted her not long ago. A report hadn't been filed back then because she didn't remember, so she made sure to give them lots of details. She then also purchases a bunch of self-defense items (baton, taser, pepper spray) just in case she has to defend herself.

Meanwhile, Seon Jae is already working on his song. His friend comes in and makes fun of it, telling him that he should get over her already. Seon Jae asks what it means when someone runs away instead of avoiding or ignoring. He felt like something was different, but couldn't figure out why. His friend is unhelpful and says it's not a good thing, and then plants the idea that Seon Jae should put some distance between them to help himself get over her.

Im Sol, on the way out of the self defense shop, runs into none other than Tae Sung! He's holding money out to a high schooler, and Im Sol misinterprets the situation. She hits him with the newly purchased baton, until finally the high schooler clarifies the situation and runs off. Tae Sung had only helped him find his money!

They go get a coffee together and catch up. Tae Sung is smart, and catches on that she's back to her "old person" self. She realises he can tell the difference, and tries to play it cool. We find out he's been running a popular clothing business, and he's still interested in her. More over - he thinks that *she* is still interested in him.

The next day, Im Sol wakes up because her friend came to get her. They were supposed to go on a freshman trip that day! Im Sol gets a message that a criminal investigation is starting, and she feels relieved. The friend, however, is trying to get her moving and ready. They finally do (after realising there was a bag mixup with Tae Sung the night before), and both of them are on the train in no time.

The only problem? Seon Jae is on the same train! Some of their classmates talk about a legend for this trip: anyone who ends up kissing on this trip, even same-sex, usually end up married years later. Everyone has mixed emotions about this, including the pretty girl next to Seon Jae. Im Sol acts like she's glad that he has someone other than her, so that he won't die because of her.

Once they arrive at the trip location, Im Sol thinks she's safe from having to hide...only to find out that Seon Jae's group is right next to hers! While they're doing their intro activities, she's not feeling it and wants to leave. She tries to get her stuff and run away, but her group comes filing in right after. She pretends to sleep as they start their drinking game, and inches closer to the door.

But at the last minute, the senior catches her and forces her to participate! She loses right away, and has to go dance in front of Seon Jae's group. At first, she doesn't see him and thinks it's okay. But...he was just laying down. He pops up and sees her, which makes her run away. She grabs her stuff, and the senior student tries to stop her. But her older self kicks in and she gives him an earful. She tells him to take care of the junior students, and not to make them drink too much, and to leave her alone.

Then she runs off towards a natural area where there's lots of boars, and gets lost. She forgets that her phone doesn't have a map. Just then, Seon Jae comes up behind her! She hits him with the taser, and tries to run. But she gets caught in a boar trap and is dragged up into the air by her ankle. Seon Jae, who wasn't actually tased, comes to her rescue. He explains that she hit a vital point, so he passed out, but that her taser has no batteries.

They return and Im Sol's brother, who is the senior student for Seon Jae's group, sees them. He warns Seon Jae to stay away, and gives a pep talk about what girls like and don't like. Then, in complete contradiction to what he just said, he asks to borrow Seon Jae's phone...and calls his girlfriend. He finds out the girlfriend moved on, and is distraught. He goes and drinks a lot.

Im Sol also drinks a lot, and gets totally smashed. She walks out to a cute open cabin area and stares at the sky for a while. Seon Jae sees her, and watches. When she sits up and almost falls forward, he rushes towards her to save her yet again. She wakes up and gives him an earful, telling him to stay safe and stay away from her. He misunderstands, thinking she doesn't like him.

But we see in the epilogue that three other things happened in this moment, too: Seon Jae and Im Sol accidentally shared a kiss; she began singing the song he was working on; and she admitted she was from the future. He tried asked her how she knew it, and what she meant, but she was too drunk to answer.

Before we see the epilogue, though, we also find out that Im Sol's brother had run off into the boar forest because he was drunk and wanted to go convince his girlfriend to come back to him. Im Sol's friend, who has a crush on him, went running after him. He also got caught in a boar trap and was hanging upside down, and kept repeating his girlfriend's name. Im Sol's friend got upset, and kissed him! He finally went quiet.

Meanwhile, the police tried searching the location that Im Sol had given them. But the evil taxi man knew they were coming, and burnt it all down. We don't see how he knew, but the fire was already pretty big by the time the officers got there.

And then Seon Jae's friend is having more drama with their lead singer. They aren't getting enough sales, and might get fired soon if they don't improve. So they want to go on a singing show. He asks Seon Jae about the song he was writing, and asks if he'll join their band again for the show. Seon Jae asks his friend if he told anyone about the song, or let someone listen to it, and the friend was confused. Seon Jae only just created it!

So the next day, Seon Jae waits for Im Sol by her front gate. Im Sol runs out because she's worried that the evil taxi man will come find her and run into Seon Jae...But Seon Jae has other concerns. He asks for clarification on how she knew the song, and if she's headed back to the future.

Episode 10 Recap

Im Sol told him the truth about coming from the future, and Seon Jae listens! But whenever she tries to share things that will happen, time still stops. Because of this, he thinks she's not being completely genuine and tells her that he's going abroad for rehab. Once again, he asks the people around him what it means when someone says they're from the future. They tell him that it's just an excuse to blow someone off.

Im Sol is shocked about the rehab news, but goes and tells Seon Jae's dad to send him asap. She's worried that the taxi man will harm Seon Jae, and thinks this is a good way to keep him out of harms way.

Meanwhile, Seon Jae's friend (in the band) gets the call that they've been offered an audition for a show. They want to ditch their lead singer, though, because their audition tape that got attention was from when Seon Jae sang with them. The friend goes to Seon Jae's house intending to beg him to join them.

But at dinner, Seon Jae's dad mentions that Seon Jae plans to go to rehab. The friend is distraught and doesn't mention the band. We also see Seon Jae is shocked that Im Sol was so insistent about sending him away quickly.

The detective calls in Im Sol to verify some more details. Specifically, he's trying to figure out what the taxi man might be driving now. She identifies a white truck, but can't remember the license plate or anything.

Im Sol and her bestie go out for drinks and food, and Seon Jae arrives with the pretty girl from last episode as well as another friend. As Im Sol is about to leave, she drops a bunch of coins just as the restaurant turns out the lights for a birthday celebration. One of the coins goes all the way over to Seon Jae's table, where the pretty girl has sat beside him in the darkness. She leans in as if to kiss him, and Im Sol - under their table by that point - witnesses it and misunderstands.

Suddenly the lights come back on, so Im Sol grabs a trash can and runs out with it over her head. Seon Jae chases her but loses her. Seon Jae's friend follows, and finally this is someone who gives some good advice! He says the angle was perfect to look like a kiss (Seon Jae pushed her away), and that Im Sol is probably jealous. Seon Jae begins to think about this seriously, despite all the bad advice he's received from others before.

Im Sol, meanwhile, goes home and gets drunk alongside her brother on the rooftop. They're both commiserating about their situations, without knowing the details. It sounds like her brother was freaked out that Im Sol's friend had kissed him, but he's starting to accept it. Seon Jae, on his way home, overhears some of the loud convo. Im Sol's shoe goes flying down towards him, and she realises the problem after she goes to retrieve it.

He asks her if she ever liked him in any of the timelines. She lies to him and says no. He tries to accept it, but both of them are sad about this. The next day, Seon Jae's band friend begs him to sing for them, and Seon Jae agrees.

Then at school, Seon Jae oversees Tae Sung approaching Im Sol with flowers. He gets jealous and misunderstands. Turns out, the flowers were given to Tae Sung by someone who confessed to him before he met up with Im Sol. He wanted to meet with her because he was worried after hearing that she had been abducted.

Im Sol gets an idea during their meeting, too: she asks him if he can get his dad, the detective, to keep an eye on Seon Jae in the future. Time stops and she has to find a vague way to ask him. He's confused, so she tells him about her time travelling. He doesn't seem convinced, but she continues to ask for his help earnestly as he walks her home. He guesses the reason she's asking for his help, but she can't confirm anything.

When they reach her home, they find out that a pipe had burst. Seon Jae is already there helping to hold up the water buckets. Tae Sung joins in and the two boys hold water buckets side-by-side. As Im Sol's family steps out, the two of them get jealous of each other and start a fight. The fight knocks a light loose, and a live wire keeps sparking above them.

Im Sol and her grandmother come back, and get scared! Im Sol races up to turn off the power, while her grandmother begs them to stop fighting because they're about to be the end of everyone (as if she knows everything about the time travel). They magically stop as if they understand the seriousness suddenly, and the light above falls in that moment. Im Sol just barely got the power turned off in time.

The mom offers Tae Sung a place to stay for the night, but Seon Jae is too jealous to allow that. He offers to let Tae Sung stay at his place instead. Once there, Tae Sung does the coolest 2nd male lead thing ever: he says that Im Sol must like Seon Jae a lot, since she kept asking if he could help save Seon Jae.

Seon Jae finally gets it. But then he also finds out that his dad booked him to fly out in just a few days (the same day as the band's audition!). The band auditions without him, and Im Sol thinks that Seon Jae has flown away. But little did she know, Seon Jae saw a sign that said "time capsule" and it made him race back to the tree, missing his flight. There, he dug up the time capsule and went to confront Im Sol.

On her way back, Im Sol sees a white truck, and she gets scared that it's the taxi man. It starts up just as she gets near, and she starts running away. It follows her. Suddenly, Seon Jae appears! She's more scared for him than herself at that point. She starts demanding to know why Seon Jae came back, but the truck passes by without issue.

She collapses once she realises it's fine. Seon Jae confronts her about why she keeps pushing him away. He says he knows that she likes him, and that she's been trying to protect him. He shows her the stuff from their time capsule and asks her to stop running away from him, and he is fine if he has to die protecting her.

We then get kiss #2!!

Earlier in the episode, we had also see that the band got through their audition without Seon Jae. And then in 2023, we see the news broadcast change: Eclipse is now a three member band, and the news about Seon Jae's attack is gone.

My TMI for this recap:

I DID NOT SEE THIS COMING! The teasers posted on X were so misleading!! I agreed with others that it looked like she was avoiding Seon Jae because of the whole..."they kissed and became a thing in the future, but only she remembered".

BUT THIS IS SO MUCH WORSE. She totally shut down after finding out that he got hurt because of her, and she's scared to let him get close, now. But omg if she doesn't take this chance, she'll regret and always wonder about it!

AND THAT CLIFF HANGER FOR ep 10?! SEON JAE FOUND OUT ABOUT THE TIME TRAVEL?! Ugh I'm wondering where that's going to go, and it's cool that he was able to find out instead of the whole "no future info allowed" thing. I thought they were going to go the miscommunication route with this, and I was bracing myself (I'm not a fan of that trope), but...this looks so much healthier, and I'll be so glad if he's actually in the know for some of this now!

Although...the preview for 10 looks a bit dark, again. Is Seon Jae leaving? Does Im Sol lie to him about the future thing, which indeed makes it the miscommunication trope? I hope not, and I hope they can reconnect properly and have a little bit of peaceful cuteness like they had in the future!

Ep 10 update: whoaaaa the writer totally threw me with these two episodes. I thought for sure Im Sol was going to lie to Seon Jae about the time travel, but surprisingly...she was honest about it. AND I LOVED EVERY SECOND OF BEING WRONG! It created such a cute story for this episode that it was just delicious the whole way through, too.

I'm really looking forward to some cute moments for 11/12, but also worried that the taxi man is going to make a big scene somehow. I'm really thinking that there's someone in the police force who's tipping him off or working with him. Otherwise - how did he find people (and their addresses) so easily in the second timeline? He knew almost as soon as he had been released, which is fishy to me.

If you're also watching this drama, let me know what you think over on X (Twitter)!