Park Eun-bin recovers memories; is Ong Seongwu linked to Kang Ji-hwan's death?

As Park Eun-bin begins to recover lost memories of a yacht accident from 12 years ago, suspicions surrounding Ong Seongwu have intensified. With the revelation of a scene where her deceased friend, Kim Min-chul, had a heated argument with Ong, the truth behind the past—previously known as a simple accident—has entered a new phase.

In the 9th episode of the tvN weekend drama 'Spooky Romance' aired on the 15th, Cheon Yeo-ri (played by Park Eun-bin) was depicted recalling parts of her memory from the yacht accident 12 years ago.

After the yacht accident 12 years ago in which her friend Kang Ji-hwan (played by Kim Min-chul) died, Cheon Yeo-ri once stopped breathing before being revived, and since then, she has possessed the ability to see ghosts. However, she had not been able to remember the specific circumstances of the accident she experienced.

But a change has come to Cheon Yeo-ri. After becoming engaged to Ma Gang-uk (played by Yang Se-jong), her past memories have begun to resurface bit by bit.

The first scene to come to mind was a warm memory with Kang Ji-hwan.

On the yacht 12 years ago, Kang Ji-hwan handed Cheon Yeo-ri his grandmother's necklace, which was said to ward off ghosts. He placed the necklace on her himself, looking at her and saying, "I think it suits you much better than me. A necklace like this should be worn by a beautiful person."

When Cheon Yeo-ri worried about what might happen to Kang Ji-hwan if she took the necklace, he instead calmly replied, "If I can save you, I'm okay. If something happens, you live. I'll die instead."

Those words have taken on an even more tragic meaning as they overlap with the actual incident later.

As the yacht shook and Kang Ji-hwan went inside to find tissues, Cheon Yeo-ri also remembered the scene where Kang Ji-hwan and his twin brother, Kang Min-hwan (played by Ong Seongwu), were having an argument.

Cheon Yeo-ri was at the center of the conflict between the two.

Kang Ji-hwan discovered a couple ring and a photo of Cheon Yeo-ri in Kang Min-hwan's bag. He realized that his brother also liked Cheon Yeo-ri just as he did.

Kang Ji-hwan confronted Kang Min-hwan, asking, "Have you been deceiving me all this time?" He felt a sense of betrayal at his brother's attitude, questioning if he had confessed to Cheon Yeo-ri and accusing him of overreacting over a couple ring.

However, Kang Min-hwan avoided the conversation, stating there was no reason to explain his feelings to his brother in detail. When Kang Ji-hwan pressed him, asking, "Why do you always avoid me?", Kang Min-hwan also let his suppressed emotions explode.

Kang Min-hwan raged, saying, "Do you want me to tell you why I'm avoiding you? No matter how much I fight with you, the result is obvious," and asked if his brother knew how the family viewed him.

There was a long-standing wound behind Kang Min-hwan's actions.

Kang Min-hwan grew up believing that he and Kang Ji-hwan were twins, but during high school, he discovered that he was the only one who was adopted. The subtle rift between the twin brothers with the same face and the sense of alienation he felt within the family had been accumulating inside him for a long time.

Those suppressed emotions finally erupted during the argument with his brother.

Kang Ji-hwan countered, "Brother, do you have some kind of victim complex?", and at that moment, the yacht shook violently. Following this, as the two men stumbled, Kang Ji-hwan fell into the sea.

Based on the facts revealed so far, Kang Ji-hwan's death looks like an accident. However, the fact that Kang Min-hwan still possesses the pendant Cheon Yeo-ri received at the time is difficult to view as a mere coincidence.

Cheon Yeo-ri asked Kang Min-hwan, "Do you remember Ji-hwan's pendant from the accident 12 years ago?", asking if it wasn't left among the belongings. To this, Kang Min-hwan replied, "If you were wearing it, didn't you lose it while falling into the water?"

However, viewers already know that the necklace is in Kang Min-hwan's hands. In other words, Kang Min-hwan's answer is an obvious lie.

What is even more suspicious is the fact that Kang Ji-hwan discovered Cheon Yeo-ri's photo and the couple ring in his brother's bag just before his death.

Ultimately, this episode focused less on the simple mystery of "who killed Kang Ji-hwan" and more on why Kang Min-hwan had to hide his feelings from his brother, and how those emotions exploded on the day of the accident.

In particular, the setting that Kang Min-hwan is not simply a character consumed by jealousy, but someone who has long harbored the feeling of not being 'real family' within the family, makes the meaning of the incident even more complex.

His younger brother, Kang Ji-hwan, was the beloved twin, while he is a person who discovered late in life that he was adopted. The possibility grows that a tragedy occurred when the invisible discrimination and inferiority between the two brothers with the same face collided with their shared love for Cheon Yeo-ri.

However, the exact process of how Cheon Yeo-ri ended up falling into the sea has not yet been fully revealed. What happened to her after Kang Ji-hwan fell, and where Kang Min-hwan was at the time of the accident, remain key questions.

As the memories sealed for 12 years resurface one by one, it is increasingly likely that Cheon Yeo-ri will face a truth entirely different from the past she thought she knew.

Was Kang Ji-hwan's death truly an unavoidable accident? Or was it a tragedy created by someone's lies and hidden emotions?

As Cheon Yeo-ri recovers her final memories, the truth of that day on the yacht 12 years ago is expected to finally come to light.