Yona has changed into new clothes Yun made for her, and he even helped out even her hair before Yona was about to do it herself with an ax. We learn that Yun knows how to do many things like this, and cooking, and medicine, and that he’s also a genius, which he happily admits himself (gotta love that self-confidence). He has a photographic memory and can memorize an entire book. But unfortunately he doesn’t have many books.
And that’s where we learn Ik-su’s request to Yona. He wants her to take Yun with them on their journey. He wants him to leave and see the world, and not stay cooped up in the middle of nowhere forever. But Yona sees how Yun is attached to Ik-su, and she tells Ik-su she won’t take Yun unless he says he wants to go. Yun overhears this conversation between them and becomes angry with Ik-su.
Backstory time. Yun lived in a tiny village where no crops were growing. As a child, we see him alone in his home. Either his family is dead, which is a good guess, Yun was always alone. He’s starving to death and plans on stealing food or money from the next person he sees and kill them. That person just happened to be Ik-su. Yun throws a large rock at his head, and Ik-su just collapses and says he doesn’t have anything, he gave his last bit of gold to another child. He stays the night, and because Ik-su had been bleeding because of the rock, Yun applied medicine on his head while he slept, without knowing he was actually awake. Ik-su brings Yun a potato while exchanging his sandals for them, in thanks for the medicine. Not having sandals, Ik-su makes them from straw and teaches Yun how to make them. Like mentioned before, Yun is extremely intelligent and he makes his first pair of sandals perfectly, while Ik-su who has done this before, his sandals look awful.
They both talk, and when Ik-su mentions going to the capital, Ik-su goes on about wanting to visit there, leave his home, read many books, and experience the world. Ik-su has to leave, but he promises Yun he’ll bring many things for him. While he’s gone, Yun gets awfully lonely for him. But in the meantime he’s using his new taught skill of making sandals as a little money maker, and trades them for food so to not resort to stealing. Ik-su finally returns, but tells Yun he has to leave faraway because he was driven out of the capital (for the reasons we know last episode) and gives one last farewell to him. But Yun doesn’t want him to leave, and instead he says he wants to go with Ik-su instead, to learn more things, and because he’s the one to apply his medicine, and Ik-su is a wreck, and such.
But in the end, Yun ends up going with Hak and Yona on their journey. Yun understands that Ik-su wants better for him, so that’s nice. The backstory was really sweet and I love their friendship. Some people say this episode was boring, and while it didn’t have any action it had a lot of substance for the characters. Plus, it looks like we might get action next episode. I don’t think they should have left this episode out or incorporated this segment into last episode because we would have missed out on good character development, so I didn’t mind this episode. It’s just that people are excited to get to the four dragons, and honestly I am too, but there are gonna be over 20 episodes so let’s just be patient.
