Jin I-Soo and Lee Gang-Hyun are the main protagonists of Flex X Cop. The first season ends with the two beginning as enemies but ends with them just a few chapters shy of being lovers.
The first time that they meet, Lee Gang-Hyun mistakes Jin I-Soo for a ruffian beating up an innocent man.
She breaks his nose and arrests him before learning that he is retaliating against the very elusive killer she and her team have failed to capture for months.
Jin I-Soo is the second son of the chairman of the Hansu Group. Lee Gang-Hyun is the leader of the Violent Crime Investigation Team 1 at Gangha Police Station.
The erroneous detainment of a chaebol would wreak havoc for the police station and Chief Hwang Sung-Gu is incredibly vexed, to say the least.
I-Soo becomes a cop
Gang-Hyun faces a suspension, or worse, but thankfully, Jin I-Soo’s elder brother enters the picture and brokers a deal with the police wherein all the parties get to dodge the blows their reputation would have otherwise suffered from.
Jin I-Soo is made a special police officer and it’s announced in the press conference that he’s been working undercover to arrest the brutal killer for months.
This facade needs to be kept up for a while unless they risk their cover being blown. And so I-Soo becomes what he’s only ever been while larping and cosplaying.
Early impressions
His foray into the detective world isn’t welcomed by Lee Gang-Hyun, who does admit her mistake but she can’t take a chaebol with such a loud and abrasive social media presence seriously.
Lee Gang-Hyun and Jin I-Soo are two ever-butting heads who can’t be on the same page, and I-Soo’s antics and shenanigans constantly get on Gang-Hyun’s nerves.
However, reckless as he consistently is, I-Soo has a genuine talent for reasoning and sniffing out clues where they might elude the radar of other detectives.
Couple that with the vast resources and information that his wealth brings at his disposal makes Jin I-Soo possibly the most important part of any case.
His team members, including Gang-Hyun, begin realizing that soon, even if it’s to their dismay. And even if she’s irate most of the time, she genuinely worries for his safety that he much too often compromises on his own.
The shift
The change in the scenery comes when I-Soo puts himself in peril to help Gang-Hyun solve a case and nab a dangerous criminal, all in order to give justice to her father, who was wrongly framed for bribery when he tried to chase after the aforementioned criminal long ago.
The two end up drowning inside an underground chamber that’s flooded by the criminal’s men. I-Soo manages to perform CPR and save Gang-Hyun’s life afterward.
He not only helps get her father the justice he deserves but also saves her life. She becomes visibly more amicable and affectionate towards him after that, and the bond between the two only gets stronger.
She lends him support and an ear when he faces a familial crisis and shattering revelations about the death of his mother. I-Soo loses all his family members one way or the other.
He doesn’t wear the uniform for quite a while after that and Gang-Hyun keeps waiting for him, along with the rest of his team members. In the meantime, she never submitted the resignation application he had previously given to her.
Jin I-Soo finally returns to Gangha Police Station, having given the helm of Hansu Group to his trusted former secretary, Mr. Cho. Gang-Hyun delights in welcoming him back to the detective life.
Do Jin I-Soo and Lee Gang-Hyun fall in love?
No, their relationship doesn’t turn romantic till the end.
Before the credits roll on season 1 of Flex X Cop, Jin I-Soo and Lee Gang-Hyun go through quite an interesting spectrum of dynamics and chemistry.
However, with the second season already announced, there is a huge possibility that their relationship finally takes a turn for the romantic hereafter.
They’ve already become great friends, and they have also shared some almost flirtatious banter between them. Not to mention, I-Soo has also impressed her father while her mother absolutely adores I-Soo.
It’s not a stretch the suggest, then, that the two might become a couple by season 2, although what exactly happens is subject to speculations and hopes as of now.