MY GIRLFRIEND IS THE MAN- Episodes 9-10

My Girlfriend Is the Man – Episode 9
“The Sea, a Kiss, and the Truth That Won’t Stay Buried”

My Girlfriend Is the Man – Episode 10
“The Girl Who Came Back, the Boy She Won’t Leave, and the Kiss That Wasn’t Mine”

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Cold-open on the beach: the suitcase Yun Jae hurled into the sand last night is now a tide-washed metaphor.

 

Ji-Hoon wakes up feverish, half-dreaming he hears his mother’s voice saying “It’s time.”
When the fever breaks, the body in the bunk above Yun Jae is no longer broad-shouldered, just Ji-Eun, hair fanned across the pillow like spilled ink. Yun Jae’s first reaction isn’t joy; it’s panic that the version of his best friend he just learned to love might have been erased overnight.

 

 

Cue the slow-motion hallway reveal: Ji-Eun steps out in Yun Jae’s oversized hoodie, sleeves swallowing her hands, and every pair of eyes in the beach house goes comically wide.
Min-Ju drops her cereal bowl, literal crash, milk waterfalling over her bare feet.
Her first words: “Where’s Ji-Hoon and what plastic surgeon did you use?”
Ji-Eun, still shaky, answers with the only thing that matters: “I’m back. And I’m still his girlfriend.”

 

The mid-episode montage is pure fanservice: Yun Jae teaching Ji-Eun how to re-tie her own ponytail because her muscle memory forgot the motion; Ji-Eun stealing his hoodies again; the two of them falling asleep on the bus ride home, her head on his shoulder, the window fogging around their reflection. But every time Yun Jae looks at her, there’s a ghost of Ji-Hoon in his eyes, equal parts relief and mourning.

 

Back in the city, Min-Ju corners Ji-Eun on the rooftop of their share-house, brandishing the spare key Ji-Hoon once gave her like it’s Excalibur. “You disappeared for three weeks, left him with a guy who looked like a runway model, and now you expect everything to reset?” Ji-Eun doesn’t flinch. “I never left. The packaging changed, the contents didn’t.” Min-Ju tries one last Hail-Mary: she kisses Yun Jae’s cheek in front of Ji-Eun, hoping jealousy will detonate the reunion. Yun Jae wipes the lipstick off with the back of his hand, calm but lethal: “Don’t use me to prove you’re the main character in a story you’re not writing.”

 

The emotional gut-punch lands in Ji-Eun’s grandmother’s kitchen. Halmeoni pours barley tea, then slides an old photograph across the table: a young woman in bell-bottoms who looks exactly like Grandpa. “I stayed a man for forty-seven years. Your grandfather was my choice, not my prison.”
Ji-Eun asks the question she’s never dared: “Did you regret it?” Halmeoni smiles, lines folding like origami. “I regretted hiding. Never loving.”

 

Outside the window, Yun Jae is helping carry in persimmon boxes; he pauses, hears everything, and later that night tells Ji-Eun: “I’ll miss Ji-Hoon sometimes. But I’d rather miss parts of you than lose all of you.”

 

 

Final scene: Ji-Eun stands in front of her closet, staring at the row of Ji-Hoon’s abandoned shirts.
She keeps one, folds the rest into a donation bag, then pulls out the couple ring Yun Jae gave her pre-transformation. It still fits, just barely, on her newly slender finger. She snaps a selfie, sends it to Yun Jae with the caption: “Same model, upgraded OS.” He replies instantly: “Good, because I already told Stanford I’m deferring a year. Someone has to teach you how to be a girl again.”
She laughs, and for the first time the sound doesn’t shake.

 

Fade-out on the ring catching the light, a tiny circle promising that the next episode won’t be about choosing between bodies, but about building a love big enough for both.

DramaZen's Opinion

I thought I was ready. After eight episodes of cheeky gender-bending and slow-burn pining, I walked into Episode 9 armed with popcorn and emotional riot gear. I left Episode 10 a soggy mess on the carpet, clutching a couple-ring I definitely don’t own and whispering “they deserved this” to my cat.

Episode 9 – The Beach House Breakdown
If Episode 8 was the show’s nervous laugh, Episode 9 is the moment it looks you dead in the eye and says, “Actually, this is about fear.” The truth-stick game is the cruelest party idea since Squid Game’s red-light-green-light, and Min-Ju’s impulsive kiss is the match that finally ignites all the unspoken what-ifs. I’ve never wanted to yeet a second lead into the ocean so badly, yet the show refuses to let her be a simple villain. Her tearful “I didn’t know how else to be seen” is the first time a rom-com made me empathize with the girl who literally stole a kiss.

And then there’s Ji-Hoon, still broad-shouldered, still terrified, delivering the line that will live rent-free in my head: “You deserve a girlfriend, not a guy roommate with my face.” The fact that Yun Jae’s response is to confess his own cowardice (hello, Stanford letter he’s been hiding in a ramen pot) flips the usual “I’m letting you go for your own good” trope on its head. Turns out the real obstacle isn’t the body; it’s the mile-high wall of noble idiocy both of them keep bricking up. Cue me screaming at the screen in 3 a.m. subtitles: “JUST TALK TO EACH OTHER—oh wait, they are. Holy crap, healthy communication in a K-drama?!”

Episode 10 – The Body Returns, The Feelings Stay
I was prepared for the comedic re-entry: Ji-Eun waking up, hoodie sleeves flopping like overcooked ramen, everyone gasping in unison. What I wasn’t prepared for was Yun Jae’s micro-expression the second he realizes the body he’d finally learned to love is… gone. Park Jeong-min acts the hell out of that beat, half smile, half funeral. In 0.8 seconds he mourns Ji-Hoon while reaching for Ji-Eun, and I felt my soul crack like a poorly made meringue.

The show does something sneaky here: it lets us grieve Ji-Hoon too. The suitcase dragged back from the tide isn’t just a prop; it’s a coffin for a version of love that had to die so a bigger one could live. When Ji-Eun keeps one shirt and donates the rest, it’s the most elegant wardrobe purge in drama history, an acknowledgment that identity isn’t either/or, it’s yes-and.

And can we talk about Halmeoni dropping the emotional A-bomb? “I regretted hiding. Never loving.” Boom. End of discussion. Suddenly every comic body-swap gag is reframed as intergenerational trauma and queer allegory, and I’m crying into my kimchi jjigae like it offended me personally.

The Min-Ju Redemption Arc I Didn’t Know I Needed
Yes, she’s still the girl who kissed someone else’s boyfriend, but Episode 10 lets her sit with the mess she made. Yun Jae’s quiet “Don’t use me to prove you’re the main character” is the most respectful shutdown ever filmed, and it gives Min-Ju the first genuine growth spurt of her life. I’m actually excited, terrified, but excited to see who she becomes when the story stops letting her be the obstacle and starts letting her be the author of her own arc.

OTP Status: Achieved, But Not Concluded
The deferred Stanford year could feel like a gimmick, yet it lands as the exact opposite of the toxic “I’ll throw away my future for you” cliché. Yun Jae isn’t abandoning anything; he’s choosing to experience life at the pace of the person he loves. Ji-Eun’s selfie with the ring, captioned “Same model, upgraded OS”, is the perfect metaphor: this relationship just installed vulnerability 2.0 and it runs smoother than ever.