Mystic Pop Up Bar Ep 5 Recap (and who on earth is the prince)

Kangbae wakes up to Weolju chopping away and making him porridge. She’s gotten him medicine and everything, but Kangbae’s too moved to eat it. He says it’s the first time anyone cooked for him. Weolju looks sad for a second but grouses that he has to hurry up and eat so he can hurry up and work. Kangbae wolfs down the porridge at that, complimenting the food. Weolju soaks up the praise and asks Kangbae for his favourite food, to which he says ‘dumplings’. They argue over the merits of dumplings and fresh versus frozen and thus starts episode 5!

The next day, Kangbae’s coworkers and Jindong inform him that he is to participate in the company’s in-house couple dance contest. They insist that it’s because he’s the fittest one of them and the grand prize is $2,000 to spend on a team dinner, and they beg to allow them all to eat beef for once. Plus, how well Kangbae does at the dance will be considered in his performance review (what kind of shoujo manga situation is this!!! I love it)  Kangbae pleads for a reprieve but they insist and he finds himself being forced to pick a partner for the dance. Yeorin stares at Kangbae grumpily at the ‘pick a partner’ session and Kangbae makes googly eyes. We can already guess who Kangbae’ll be paired up with. Meanwhile Weolju’s on a run with Manager Gui (I ship, I ship!!!). She’s comments that exhaustion makes her highly irritable and Manager Gui mutters that it isn’t the exhaustion she just has a nasty temper. Luckily for him, Weolju doesn’t hear it.

He complains that she made Kangbae porridge and doesn’t care about him. She tells him to take care of himself and work out. They compete while running and manage exhaust themselves to the point where neither is sure they can make it to the mart to get ingredients for dinner. Weolju insists that Manager Gui give her piggyback ride but a couple riding a tandem bike pass by, giving them a better solution.

(How pretty is Hwang Jung Eum here btw, I still feel like she hasn’t found the right styling to bring out how pretty she is)

HAHAHAHA. Poor Manager Gui pedals away while Weolju does heck all and just enjoys the ride. Manager Gui doesn’t look annoyed though. He smiles despite muttering about how heavy she is. They have corndogs together after and honestly look like a cute couple.

She gets that bite too and likes it so much she wants to trade. She gets that trade too. Manager Gui continues to smile. The lovely-dovey mood cracks when Grim Reaper Yeom shows up and asks if they’re on a date. Weolju yells saying that’s disgusting while Manager Gui looks disappointed and chokes on his food. Grim Reaper Yeom’s droppe dby to ask for their help in locating a soul who escaped another grim reaper. Weolju’s unwilling until she hears that the soul has something she wants resolved and that finding the soul and hearing her out will add another person to Weolju’s quota.

Kangbae comes by after work looking depressed and tells Weolju about the couple dance contest. She’s aghast that people might find out about his condition, especially since she needs him in top notch form for her customers. Yeorin hasn’t agreed to be Kangbae’s partner so he’s pretty worried. Weolju tells him to get Yeorin as a partner no matter what, and they prep for the next customer, our case of the day, OH SANG-GUN who loves dumplings and loves his wife and departed mother dearly. Turns out his mother’s the missing soul. She loved dumplings as well and her last meal before passing consisted of some dumplings his wife made. Kangbae says it must have been hard for him. Oh Sang-gun shakes his head saying it was harder on his wife to take care of her sick mother-in-law. Is this going where I think it’s going? Weolju asks if anything strange has been happening around him. Oh Sang-gun just looks confused. She sends Kangbae to do this thing but…his ability doesn’t seem to work on him!

Kangbae tries again to no avail. Weolju’s horrified, but they have to send Oh Sang-gun on his way when he’s done because they have nothing to go off of. Manager Gui asks around and hears that Sang-gun used to come home late all the time but now comes home early after his mother’s death. Weolju wonders whether Sang-gun’s mother’s spirit has attached itself to his hose. Manager Gui pretends to be a maintenance man and fabricates a water leak to check out the guy’s home. He checks every bit of the house, even the master bedroom, but finds nothing. Oh boy, that’s because she’s literally floating outside the window in a mass of ominous black cloud.

The trio reconvene and wonder why Kangbae’s touch isn’t working. Weolju’s worried given that this is the second time this has happened: Yeorin and now. Kangbae feels bad and wishes he could see ghosts so as to help them. Manager Gui cracks a quip that if Kangbae could see ghosts in addition to his present power then he should just quit the mart and rake in dough as a shaman. Weolju gets uncharacteristically serious as she disagrees saying being a shaman is not all it’s cut out to be, and that people can come at you with knives. Kangbae’s shocked and asks how she knows this, while Manager Gui…looks like he knows? (idk this could be me just projecting,but doesn’t it seem like he knows?) He just watches her with this solemn look on his face while she deflects the question saying she’s been alive for 500 years so of course she would know.

Having come to no answers, the trio decides to shadow Sang-gun’s every action to see when the spirit will appear around the man. Weolju and Manager Gui send up on a bus driven by what appears to be a madman because it swerves at every turn. One swerve almost knocks Weolju off her feet, which is when Manager Gui puts his arm around her and pulls her to his side. We get slowmo romantic music and Weolju makes googly eyes at Manager Gui so much that he has to tell her to focus! THIS SHOW IS TELLING ME TO SHIP SO I MUST.

She shrugs off his arm at that and says ‘it must be nice to be tall’. They arrive at Oh Sang-gun’s stop by he doesn’t get off. Instead, a man with fiery red eyes gets on. Manager Gui immediately notices that the spirit has possessed a man and touches Weolju some more to let her know (no i’m serious, he literally grabs her head. The’re very touchy feely). The spirit realizes that they know and runs off the bus, Weolju and Manager Gui follow. Weolju isn’t so great at running so she’s far behind. Manager Gui and his police training get him pretty far and he catches up to the evil spirit in an underground parking lot and strangles the man/spirit, trying to get the spirit out. This is a pretty evil spirit because the man has black veins all over his face, red eyes, the whole shebang. Weolju finally catches up and doesn’t get to see Manager Gui’s fighting skills, but she does see that this isn’t the spirit they’re after. The spirit breaks loose of Manager Gui’s hold, hurting him in the process and runs for Weolju. She stands her ground to try and stop him and Manager Gui yells at her to get out of the way. He draws that gigantic fiery blade of it and sends it flying towards the advancing evil spirit. The blade strikes true and the evil spirit bursts into a ton of flames and turns into one of those red spheres like the one Manager Gui collected last episode.

Weolju is very clearly disconcerted and worried about the cuts on Manager Gui’s hands but hides it under sarcasm as usual saying that the life of a ghost cop is clearly harder than peeling garlic for her so he better not complain in the future. Manager Gui heads over the afterlife to hand over the soul. Weolju goes to Oh Sang-gun’s office, where he arrives late after getting off at the wrong stop. he immediately heads to a meeting. Weolju sees a black spirit following him and runs after it to convince to come with her. She gets personal saying she also left behind someone she loved and lost people she loved but hovering around the people you love isn’t going to do any good. Weolju promises to settle the soul’s grudge and is so close to getting the soul to cooperate but is kicked out of the building by management.

Meanwhile, Kangbae tries to convince Yeorin to be his partner. She’s uncomfortable beavuse of his whole hidden CIA operative thing. He tells her she’s special to him and she looks surprised and flattered for a second until he clarifies that she doesn’t feel anything when he touches him and then threatens him with bodily harm. Kangbae relates this to Jindong and the coworkers who sigh that he just doesn’t get women. They proceed to give him terrible advice on what women like in men (‘bad boys’) and how to seduce one in 3 seconds (kabedon LOL). Kangbae doesn’t seem convinced and imagines him trying to kabedon Yeorin and getting kicked in the nuts. Nope, he insists, that’s not the way to get her to agree. Turns out the way is being a decent human bring which Kangbae always has been. He runs into Yeorin at a restaurant at lunch and sits with her much to her annoyance, when a blind man and his guide dog come in. Another customers makes a big deal about what an inconvenience the dog is and how a dog shouldn’t be prized over a human’s (her) comfort. The blind man tries to leave when Kangbae goes to him and says he shouldn’t feel like he has to leave. Kangbae gently explains to the customer that the law permits seeing-eye dogs. The customer continues being a bitch and Yeorin snaps at her that humans are considered to be the top of the food chain because we have the ability to understand and care for one another. She yells at the customer saying that she should act like a human if she wants to be treated like one and the woman shuts up immediately and apologizes to the blind man.

Both Kangbae and Yeorin are equally taken by each other at this point and chat about law animals on the way back to work. Yeorin discusses Kangbae with a friend who wonders whether she’ll pick Kangbae, but Yeorin’s still grumpy at his very unromantic reason for wanting her as his partner. Speaking of romance, Weolju’s bandaging and blowing on Manager Gui’s hand. He’s more than pleased about the treatment, while she insists that she’s only doing it because he needs that hand to work. He’s about to peel onions when she almost shyly asks him with he wants to eat meat today. ASKS not orders, she ASKS. When he wonders why she’s being nice, she orders him lol.

Meanwhile, Sang-gun’s arrived home but can’t seem to remember his passcode. He tries 4 times until his wife opens the door. They seem to have a very loving relationship but the spirit following him silently glowers in the corners. Weolju and Manager Gui debate on who’s sadder, the mother’s soul or Sang-gun. Weolju thinks it’s the mother’s soul, holding onto this life even in death, yearning to be with the people she loves. Manager Gui disagrees. He says Sang-gun must think everyday of what he was doing when his mother passed. He probably thinks of what he was doing and wonders if it was worth it. Was it worth being at the office while my mom died, was it worth being at a team dinner? Manager Gui grows somber as he continues, the words sounding like they’re coming from him now. “But in her final moments, I didn’t know anything.”

Kangbae interrupts the conversation and starts drinking because Yeorin rejected him as a partner. Weolju disses Yeorin, but Kangbae fiercely jumps to her defence called her super cool etc etc. Manager Gui asks what Kangbae told Yeorin and Weolju and him roll their eyes back in their head when they hear Kangbae’s idea of a plea. Manager Gui advises him not to beg a woman saying ‘I need you’ but rather say ‘I want to be someone you need‘. Weolju pauses at that and flashes back to her price saying the same thing to her many, many years ago. (Okay so we’re 95% certain that Manager Gui is the prince at this point and I better get a KISS, A FIERY KISS). The flashback is super sweet, the prince wants to stay with her for the rest of his life but Weolju insists that isn’t possible because she isn’t highborn. She says he’s recovered and doesn’t need her by his side. The prince insists that he doesn’t want to marry her because he needs her but because he wants to become someone she needs. Weolju says that he doesn’t owe her a debt because it was just a job. The prince says it might have been a job to her but it was love for him and that she owned his heart the moment he heard her voice in his dreams. Weolju looks super spaced out in the present and Kangbae waves a hand in front of her face to get her to snap out of it. He turns to Manager Gui to ask him what Weolju’s doing but Manager Gui’s also spaced out! He’s the prince. He’s the prince. If this show tries to pull some shit to pretend he isn’t the prince, I’m slapping someone.

Meanwhile, Sang-gun’s not having a good day at the office. His spacing out continues to the point that he loses a lucrative deal from China. His boss asks him to resign, saying that he’s going to lose his job either way when the company undergoes restructuring before his work’s incoherent and he’s been acting weird. Sang-gun pleads not to be laid off saying he can finally afford to send his wife on a trip abroad. His boss sighs saying Sang-gun’s worse than he thought and asks if Sang-gun’s really forgotten what happened to his wife. OH NO WAY. Sang-gun runs out of the building in a panic and we see a flashback of an accident, his wife dying and Sang-gun being diagnosed with vascular dementia! His wife was the ghost! His wife not his mother!!!

He returns to his apartment to find his wife waiting for him with dumplings and eats them. How does a ghost make dumplings though? He cries while eating them and looks up realizing he’s alone in the apartment. The black cloud around the soul finally clears up and we see the wife as the soul. As the wife leaves Sang-gun’s place, Manager Gui’s waiting and brings her to Weolju. The wife only wants to bid her husband farewell. The trio enter Sang-gun’s mind, which’s essentially like a tv with bad reception at this point due to his dementia. His wife enters his dream and fondly talk about all they’ve been through this time. She sighs that this is actually their last time together and asks him to accept that he’s not well and receive treatment. She apologizes for not being about to keep her promise of being with him forever. He cries, regretting that he was unable to do for her, terrified that his dementia could make him forget and she promises to remind him all over again when she sees him again. It’s the sweetest saddest dream. Sang-gun sleeps with a smile.

The next day, Yeorin sees a customer shoplifting alcohol but when confronted his bag is mysteriously empty. The customer raises a fuss demanding that Yeorin apologize on her knees. With her boss breathing down her neck, Yeorin’s about to apologize when Kangbae stops her and touches the guy. This has to be the first time he’s used his power for something he wants! The guy immediately shares every detail of how he pulled it off (with an accomplice who switches bags) where he’s stashed the stolen goods and gets in trouble. Yeorin’s vindicated. Kangbae approaches her with a cold drink. She asks why he did that when he could’ve gotten in trouble. He said he did it because she needed him in that moment. She trusted him when they first met without knowing who he was. So he promised himself to do the same for her and to be someone she needed. He’s about to leave when she asks him to her partner. He’s elated and she’s very very impressed with him lol. 

Meanwhile, Sang-gun stops by at Weolju’s bar before heading to a nursing home where he eats some dumplings (without knowing that his wife, who’s also in the store, made them). He says they taste familiar but that he can’t place them. Weolju and Manager Gui look at him with sorrow. Manager Gui offers to drive him to Yangpyeong (the city Sang-gun’s moving to). Once they leave, Grim Reaper Yeom and Sang-gun’s wife come out of their hiding places. The wife thanks Weolju for letting her say goodbye and for letting her see her husband eat one last time. The wife notes that Weolju acts tough but her eyes show how lonely she is. The wife sweetly says she hopes that Weolju can reunite with the person she loved and left behind. Weolju looks heartbroken for a second. We flashback to the past and the prince coming to visit Weolju with a jade ring. Presumably to propose. Weolju, fresh off her mother’s death, sees the prince waiting for her at a distance but doesn’t go to him. “If fate exists, we will meet again,” she says and leaves to hang herself. Only there’s someone watching her and the prince, a young man with hard eyes.

I KNEW THIS SHOW WAS MAKING IT TOO EASY! Is Manager Gui supposed to be this evil-looking dude? I’m so curious!