Name: The Interest of Love season 1 episode 15
Director: Jo Young-min
Released: 2023-02-08T23:38:42

In the fifteenth episode of The Interest of Love, Mi-gyeong leaves the country, and Sang-su unexpectedly runs into Su-yeong. The episode is now streaming on Netflix.

Recap

Sang-su tries to find a way to contact Su-yeong, but he fails. He requests Ms. Seo to lie to Mr. Noh about Su-yeong being on a vacation, as that will buy her 10 days in case she wants to return.

Mr. Yuk tells the employees that Mi-gyeong is getting transferred to the Washington branch as per her request. She assures Sang-su that she is not leaving because of him. She inquires about Su-yeong and admits that the news is not as satisfying as she assumed it would be.

At her farewell party, she tells the employees that she broke up with Sang-su because she cannot manage a long-distance relationship.

She later approaches Gyeong-pil and questions him about his past actions. He finally admits with tears in his eyes that he liked her, but he was told that he could not like her. He thought it was better to ruin everything because he was not brave enough to be with her.

Mi-gyeong advises him to stop pretending like he does not care, as it makes him look desperate, and eventually, it will become visible to everyone.

At karaoke with the employees, Mr. Ma kisses Ms. Bae in front of everyone and makes their relationship public.

The next day, Gyeong-pil asks Sang-su to eat with him. When Gyeong-pil talks about what happened between him and Su-yeong, Sang-su tells him that he does not think it was Gyeong-pil’s fault, but he also does not want to discuss the incident with Gyeong-pil.

Gyeong-pil gets the woman who opened a restaurant where Su-yeong’s parents’ restaurant used to be to reveal where Su-yeong’s family went. She tells him and Sang-su that they went back to Tongyeong.

Mr. Jeong tries to contact Su-yeong, but finds out that she has changed her number and moved out of her apartment. He even goes to the bank, but Sang-su tells him that she does not work there anymore.

Gyeong-pil sends the full recording of his conversation with Su-yeong to Sang-su, which reveals the whole truth. He asks Sang-su to listen to it, but Sang-su, who does not know that Gyeong-pil and Su-yeong lied to everyone, cannot bring himself to do it.

Mi-gyeong is leaving the country. While having the last meal with her parents, she tells her father that she broke up with Sang-su and thanks him for giving her everything. She now sees that giving her materialistic things is his way of showing affection.

Mi-gyeong asks Sang-su to drop her off at the airport and bids him a final goodbye.

Back in her hometown, Su-yeong meets her brother’s friend. He tells her that he was the one who saw her mother with another man and told her brother about it the night he died.

A shocked Su-yeong goes to meet the woman she saw with her father that night and finds out that her father never cheated on her mother; it was the other way around.

Her father had gone to meet that woman because she was the wife of the man Su-yeong’s mother loved. She was suing her mother for adultery, but her father begged her to settle because he wanted to protect his children from everything.

Su-yeong cries, thinking about all the things she said to her father that he did not deserve. When she talks to her father about it, he admits that he does not know why he stayed with her mother, but now the most important thing for him is to see Su-yeong happy.

Mi-gyeong’s mother goes to visit Sang-su’s mother. She wants to continue meeting her and being her friend despite their children’s breakup.

Sang-su gets drunk with Seok-hyeon and deletes the recording that Gyeong-pil sent him without listening to it.

Su-yeong chooses not to confront her mother for letting her father take the blame for her mistakes. Instead, she convinces her to get her leg treated, and her mother agrees.

She then goes to the beach and sees that her sand castle is still there. A drunk Sang-su also comes there instead of going to work and cries when he sees her. Gyeong-pil and Ms. Seo cover for Sang-su at work.

Sang-su tells Su-yeong that he did not expect to see her at the beach; he just came there because he was drunk. He has brought her new ID card along with him from the bank. He hands it to her, and she admits that while working at the bank, she badly wanted it, but it does not matter anymore.

He tells her that her resignation has not been processed yet, so it is not too late. However, she says that she throws out things before it is ever too late, and throws her ID card into the sea. Sang-su gets into the water and successfully fishes it out.

The two spend the rest of the day together, visiting various places. After saying goodbye to Sang-su at night, Su-yeong comes back to the guest house, where he is staying, to have drinks with him.

Sang-su suggests they play the truth game this time. He questions her about her reasons for running away, and she truthfully answers that she was scared, as whenever she pushed him away, he came back to her.

She then asks him about his reason for hesitating before coming to their date in the past. He finally tells her that he hesitated because he did not know if he could be responsible for another person.

When she asks him if she was a misfortune to him, he replies that she was a variable. Su-yeong then kisses him, saying that something like this is a real variable.

As Sang-su leaves for Seoul the next day, Su-yeong apologizes to him for running away and thanks him for coming to her. Sang-su asks her to think about quitting her job once again. Su-yeong promises to call him when she comes to Seoul.

Sang-su, as the narrator, says that this was his last moment with Su-yeong.

Review

This episode was dedicated to the growth of all the characters and their healing process. Mi-gyeong makes up with her father and Sang-su before beginning a new life; Sang-su and Su-yeong are honest with each other; Gyeong-pil gets closure and a reality check; and Mi-gyeong and Sang-su’s mothers reconcile.
However, this episode had its fair share of surprises. The truth about Su-yeong’s parents came as a bombshell. What was even more surprising was Su-yeong’s decision to leave the past behind, not confront her mother about it, and forgive her.
Even with Su-yeong admitting to her self-destructive tendencies and Sang-su implying that he never gives up on people, their future together looked bleak throughout the episode, and yet the cliffhanger was so brilliantly executed that no one saw it coming.