Image of the drama’s promotional poster was taken from Idol Romance’s official Twitter account and reproduced under Fair Dealing for educational purposes.

The latest Korean BL (Boys’ Love) webseries to impress me with a new and interesting approach is Happy Ending Romance (펜스밖은 해피엔딩, Idol Romance, 2022), which looks at the common love triangle plot from a different angle than usual and explores the links between work, self-esteem, and love.

Usually in a drama with a love triangle plot, the romantic relationships are oriented toward the future. When the story begins, the central character has not yet had a romantic relationship with either of the love interests. By the time it ends, the character has chosen to pursue a relationship with one love interest, and the potential relationship with the other never materializes. In Happy Ending Romance, both relationships happen, and the story takes place in the moment where one is ending and the other beginning. Photo from Idol Romance’s official Twitter account, reproduced under Fair Dealing for educational purposes.

After accusing a big-name writer of corruption, debut author Cha Jung-woo was blacklisted from the publishing world and his dream of a writing career was crushed. His friend and fellow author Kim Jung-hyun stayed by his side, and in the midst of all the turmoil, the two admitted their romantic feelings for each other and began a relationship. Now, three years later, Jung-hyun has written three best-selling novels, while Jung-woo leads a quiet life where he has gotten used to what he once feared: not being able to write and being forgotten by the world.

Karam plays Cha Jung-woo, who is afraid to take another shot at a writing career because he thinks it will cause suffering to the people who support him. Photo from Idol Romance’s official Twitter account, reproduced under Fair Dealing for educational purposes.

Jung-woo’s life gets shaken up when indie publishing CEO Han Tae-young comes to find him and offers to publish his next book. The fact that Tae-young recognizes him from his short-lived career as a writer and addresses him with the appropriate title, 작가님 (jakka-nim), astonishes Jung-woo. He quickly refuses Tae-young’s offer, but we then see him pondering the question of whether he should try to make a comeback.

Ha Jong-woo plays Han Tae-young, who quit his job at a big publishing company because he couldn’t stand the politics that destroyed Jung-woo’s career. Now the CEO of a small publishing company, he just wants to help good writers like Jung-woo bring their books into the world. Photo from Idol Romance’s official Twitter account, reproduced under Fair Dealing for educational purposes.

Jung-woo’s reaction to being recognized as a writer raises many questions that might resonate with viewers, as they did with me. He was a writer, and the book he published still exists in the world, but if he isn’t working as a writer anymore, can he still be called one? What if he’s writing but never showing anyone his work? What if people do read his work but they don’t know it’s his? The idea of writing under his own name keeps coming back, gaining new significance after the midpoint reveal that Jung-woo has in fact been writing steadily since his career-ending incident, but publishing his work under Jung-hyun’s name.

At that point, Jung-woo’s desire to make a comeback under his own name becomes the focus of the plot, and Jung-hyun’s story becomes more compelling as well, as his character’s complexity and contradictions become more evident. Jung-hyun repeatedly attempts to sabotage his boyfriend’s chances of a career comeback using his industry contacts, while engaging in psychological manipulation, alternatively encouraging Jung-woo to go for it if he wants to and discouraging him by predicting that everything will go wrong again like it did the first time. He is clearly guilty of possessive and controlling behaviour, gaslighting Jung-woo by saying that he only wants to protect him and that everything he does is for Jung-woo’s sake. But at the same time, he is the one who asks Jung-woo if he is happy and wonders if they are making each other miserable and should break up (“너 행복하니? 내가 널 불행하게 하는 걸까? 네가 날 불행하게 하는 걸까? 우리 그만 하고 헤어질까?”). He knows that their relationship, both personal and professional, has become toxic, but he struggles to find the courage to let it go.

VIXX’s Leo (Jung Taek-woon) plays Kim Jung-hyun, whose attempts to help and protect Jung-woo become destructive for both of them. Photo from Idol Romance’s official Twitter account, reproduced under Fair Dealing for educational purposes.

It might be tempting to paint Jung-hyun as a total villain, interpreting the ghostwriting arrangement as proof that he was just exploiting Jung-woo to achieve career success that he couldn’t have achieved on his own, especially after Jung-woo explains the situation to a colleague, saying he did it because he trusted and loved his boyfriend (“형을 믿었고 사랑했으니까”). But Jung-woo stresses that Jung-hyun was doing his best to protect him and that he was so desperate to keep writing that he also thought that the ghostwriting arrangement was the right thing to do at the time. In a different scene, Jung-hyun tells the colleague that he made up his mind to do anything in his power to help Jung-woo and there wasn’t anything else that he could do for a person who couldn’t write but who couldn’t live without writing. Letting Jung-woo publish under his name was the best he could do for him (“그게 내가 정우를 위해서 할 수 있었던 최선이었어”). Only now have they both realized how miserable it made them for neither of them to be recognized for their own work.

Jung-woo and Jung-hyun argue and blame each other for how miserable they both feel. Jung-woo is the first to admit that he has reached his breaking point and that something needs to change. Photo from Idol Romance’s official Twitter account, reproduced under Fair Dealing for educational purposes.

This is such an interesting backstory that I would have loved to see some scenes of Jung-hyun and Jung-woo happy in love at the beginning of their relationship, and then see how it fell apart when Jung-hyun started to receive acclaim for Jung-woo’s work, which slowly ate away at their individual self-esteem and undermined their unity as a couple. Alas, with only eight half-hour episodes, there is no time to show any of that, and we meet the characters at the point where there is nothing left between them but misery and regret. The series posits that their relationship is too bound up with their careers, offering no possible solution whereby they could resolve their professional issues while staying together as a couple. It is sad that they never get a shot at romance at a time when both are confident in their work and enjoying success as individuals. However, in the drama’s closing scene, which takes place after a little time has passed, we learn that both of them are now doing very well with their writing under their own names, Jung-woo has found love again with his publisher Tae-young, and Jung-hyun will join them at the company for his next project. We see more affection between Jung-hyun and Jung-woo as friends and colleagues than we ever did when they were a couple, so the end of their romance has had a happy outcome.

The drama’s OST, to which both Leo and Karam contributed tracks, does an excellent job of highlighting the atmosphere and themes of the story. Leo’s track, “I Still,” expresses Jung-hyun’s desire to protect Jung-woo, which has been the defining characteristic of their relationship throughout the story. When he finally realizes that his way of protecting Jung-woo from one sort of pain unintentionally hurt them both in a different way, Jung-hyun lets go of being Jung-woo’s boyfriend, but not before making sure that Jung-woo’s career and his heart are in good hands with Tae-young. As the lyrics say, though their relationship has flowed like the seasons from friends to lovers and back to friends, Jung-hyun will still look out for Jung-woo until the time when their painful past is forgotten (“계절이 지나 겨울이 와도 나 그대만은 지켜낼게요. 상처뿐인 우리의 지난날들이 모두 잊혀질때까지”). The drama’s final sequence suggests that they have now had time to heal and Jung-hyun can finally be the warm and comforting presence he always wanted to be in Jung-woo’s life (“I still 나 언제나 그대만을 따뜻하게 감싸주는 햇살이 되어”). Photo from Idol Romance’s official Youtube account, reproduced under Fair Dealing for educational purposes.

One thing I remarked about the series, and which might cause viewers to be impatient, is Jung-woo’s passivity as a lead character. For much of the series, he seems to walk around in a daze, and it isn’t until the midpoint that he actively starts approaching other characters and making things happen for himself. But I thought these directorial choices and Karam’s pensive performance suited the character, who is only now taking his first steps back into the world after retreating into anonymity for three years. Similarly, the understated approach to Jung-woo and Tae-young’s first kisses and love scene felt appropriate to me, considering that Jung-woo had just gotten out of a three-year relationship where he hadn’t felt that kind of affection and attraction in a long time. It would have been nice to see more of them as a couple in the final scene after the time jump, but fans can use our imagination to fill in what happened after the camera fades to black.

Tae-young confesses his feelings to Jung-woo and asks permission to pursue him, then they share their first kiss. Photo from Idol Romance’s official Twitter account, reproduced under Fair Dealing for educational purposes.

The drama’s Korean title, 펜스밖은 해피엔딩, means happy ending outside the fence, referring to Jung-woo finally venturing out to find happiness on the other side of the protective walls that Jung-hyun built for him during the three years of their relationship, which had become more of a prison than a refuge for both of them. But it also nicely sums up what this drama is doing with its new perspective on the love triangle plot and its exploration of the links between work, self-esteem, and love. Happy Ending Romance goes beyond the confines of what we know and expect from a BL story, pushing the development of the Korean BL genre another step forward, and that makes at least this one critic happy.