Liar Game

We rewind a bit to the morning of Lee Joon’s release as Sunhwa and Daniel find a small crowd gathered outside the prison—apparently, they’re not the only ones who want a word with Lee Joon.
Sunhwa is nearly trampled down when the crowd runs after a man they think is Joon, only for the real genius to take his first steps as a free man without the burden of being bum-rushed.
When he passes by Sunhwa checking herself for injuries, he extends his hand to help her up in stoic silence. But no sooner does she tilt her face up to him that he recognizes her from Liar Game, and retracts his offered hand before she can take it.
It’s only when Daniel calls to ask her if she saw anyone else come out of the prison (since the man they chased was a fraud) that she follows Lee Joon to a solitary bus stop.
Since she has no idea what he’s supposed to look like, she asks Joon his name and whether he was just released from prison, prompting him to sardonically wonder why she doesn’t just ask him what crime he committed
Chastened, Sunhwa instead asks if he knows the man she’s looking for (everyone calls him Professor Lee), because she has a favor to ask him. “I’m telling you this because you seem like a nice girl. It’s better that you don’t meet him.” Lee Joon replies.
Thinking that he somehow knows Joon, Sunhwa asks why he’d say such a thing, only for Joon to reply that meeting him would only cause her unhappiness—that man killed someone who trusted and depended on him.
In fact, he thinks she’d be better off making a deal with the devil than meeting Lee Joon. Sunhwa is left perplexed as Joon prepares to board his bus, but he’s still got one piece of advice for her: “Oh, and Professor Lee hates people like you the most.”
“What kind of person am I?” Sunhwa fires back. Joon turns back to her with that same stoic expression as he replies, “Someone who confuses stupidity for niceness.”
It’s only after Joon boards the bus that Daniel calls to give her a description of their target, who’s handsome in an annoying way and always wears a bracelet made of Buddhist prayer beads.
Sunhwa remembers seeing it when Joon extended his hand, and chases after the bus. Surprisingly, the driver stops to let her in, which Joon is not happy about. He even cuts her off before she can ask him her favor by giving her his answer: “No.”
He gets off the bus to try and lose her, but Sunhwa doggedly follows him until he agrees to hear her out if it means getting rid of her. But then he asks to use the bathroom first—Sunhwa, did you learn nothing from your last episode encounter?
Apparently not. Even though she must know she’s been ditched, Sunhwa stays rooted to the spot where he left her and waits. And waits. And waits.
Day turns into night, giving Joon enough time to visit a memorial for the person he presumably killed (though we still don’t know who). Even after seeing that Sunhwa is still waiting, Joon continues on his way.
But since nothing good ever happens in a dark alley, Sunhwa finds herself in a sticky situation with two drunkards who try dragging her away. That’s when Joon makes his presence known, and threatens to personally deliver the men to the closest police station or fight them right here, right now.
“Who are you?” one of them slurs. Joon puts his arm around Sunhwa: “Me? I’m the one she was waiting for.”
After the drunkards run off, Joon immediately turns on Sunhwa to ask her what the hell she thought she was doing. “You told me to wait!” she says in her defense, which sucks some of the wind out of Joon’s sails.
He’s confused by the fact that she’d wait just because someone told her to, and that she kept waiting even though she knew she’d been deceived. Is she stupid? “Then were you lying when you asked me to wait?” Sunhwa asks, wounded.
That answer’s obvious to Joon, as he mutters that this is the reason she always gets taken advantage of. Sunhwa’s eyes fill with tears: “Is it so wrong for people to trust one another?”
Her question sends Joon into a nightmarish flashback of the moment his mother attempted to jump from a building. He’d barely managed to catch her, but as his grip started slipping, his mother posed the same question as Sunhwa: “Is it so wrong for people to trust one another?”
Sobbing, Joon tried to hold onto her, but was left gripping only her bracelet—the same one he now wears—as his mother fell to her death.
In the present, Sunhwa asks him if he can help her get the money her teacher stole from her. Joon wonders if she realizes that asking a newly released criminal to commit crimes on a reality show is as insane as he thinks it is.
Sunhwa is desperate, and takes his hand in an attempt to get him to listen—but he angrily swats her hand away and tells her to get lost. “I don’t want to help an idiot like you.” She runs away in tears, unaware that she’s dropped the contract PD Dasom gave her.
Joon takes time to read over the contract that night, and he is not happy about what he sees.
Sunhwa is finally able to confront Teacher Kim the next day, still hoping against hope that this was all some giant misunderstanding. But Teacher Kim positively gloats in how he pulled one over her so easily, and crushes her perception of humanity just that much more when he laughs that he’ll be able to net the grand prize if all the other contestants are as stupid as she is.
Her hopes aren’t the only ones to get crushed that day—Daniel finds out from his boss that Sunhwa’s life is practically over. Because she was stupid enough to go on a TV show where big money is the prize, all the creditors after her father will tear her apart for it.
Unsurprisingly, Sunhwa finds a group of angry creditors outside her home, all demanding she sign away her prize money to them to make up for all her father’s debts.
Sunhwa is helpless as the Liar Game cameras watch every second of her own personal hell unfolding… at least until Joon appears to pull her away from the mob.
This time, when a member of the mob asks who he is, Joon declares, “She’s mine.” He points out the legal reasons why they can’t get her to sign over her prize money so easily, using the lie that she’s already signed a contract with him.
The contract he waves before they can catch a good enough glimpse is just the one Sunhwa dropped, and he expertly manages to sic the creditors on the Liar Game crew after convincing them that the recording can be used as evidence against their unlawful attempt to collect from Sunhwa.
But when one of them asks if he can actually see the contract Joon is waving around, Joon grabs Sunhwa by the hand and makes a run for it.
Once they’re alone, Joon asks her if she actually bothered to read the contract, since she pretty much signed her life away. Sunhwa proves to be a horrible liar when she stutters that she totally did read it, but she’s not fooling anyone.
However, she doesn’t need him to tell her what she’s gotten herself into—she at least had some idea what she was doing. “You’re the one who doesn’t know anything. Do you know what that money means to me?” she asks, tears in her eyes.
“With that money, my dad and I could sit at the same table and share a meal about one or two times a week together. I need that money so I can at least light a small candle on my birthday. It’s just a normal life, but I can’t throw it away,” Sunhwa cries.
He takes her arm before she can storm off. “I’ll help you.” She blinks at him. “I said I’ll help you.” But he does have two conditions: If he helps her now, this show better be it. Oh, and she has to give him half the prize money.
It’s funny when he interprets her scrunched expression as dismay, especially since it’s anything but—she’s fine with splitting the earnings. But she has her own condition, and holds out her hand for a pinky swear: “Promise me that you won’t ever betray me.”
Joon scoffs at the gesture, but Sunhwa is dead serious and wants him to pinky swear. So he does, albeit reluctantly. Now they’re a team, and Joon instantly drops to banmal with her. YAY.

Notes

Sorry about the late update!
But I hope you like it ;-P