Because This Is My First Life
この恋は初めてだから
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
A contract marriage between a broke writer and a house-poor engineer becomes a quiet manifesto on what marriage is for.
Yoon Ji-ho is thirty, a Seoul National University graduate who has spent five years as a poorly paid assistant screenwriter and has never had a boyfriend. When her younger brother's pregnant girlfriend moves into the flat they share, she has nowhere to go. Nam Se-hee is thirty-eight, a designer at a dating-app company, who lives with his cat and a thirty-year mortgage and has no intention of marrying. He needs a tenant, and takes Ji-ho on the strength of her record, assuming she is a man.
When a fellow assistant director tries to sexually assault her, Ji-ho gives up screenwriting and boards a bus home to Namhae. Se-hee comes after her with the script she left behind, and she accepts his proposal instead: a two-year contract marriage. He keeps a tenant who suits him and gets his parents off his back; she gets a home. For their families' sake they go through a traditional wedding. Living as landlord and tenant, they grow close. He is jealous when she takes a job in a café, he goes with her to Namhae to help her family make kimchi, and they kiss for real.
Ji-ho's school friends are working out marriage too. Yang Ho-rang, who dreams of being a wife, splits from her long-time boyfriend, Sim Won-seok, over their different ideas of marriage. Woo Su-ji, who puts up with harassment in a well-paid office job to support her mother, is courted by Se-hee's boss, Ma Sang-goo, and demands an apology from the man who harassed her.
Ji-ho is offered work by a production company run by Go Jung-min, Se-hee's first love, and learns why he shut himself away: as students Jung-min became pregnant and miscarried, and his father's rejection of them ended the relationship. Loving Se-hee has made the contract feel false, and Ji-ho ends it. On its last day they shake hands as they did when they first met, and she leaves. Se-hee sells the house and goes to pieces.
Months later they find each other again, both living in borrowed rooftop rooms, Ji-ho in Ho-rang's and Se-hee in Won-seok's. He is angry that she stayed silent, and at last says how much he missed her. They agree to live by their own rules rather than marriage's. Ho-rang proposes to Won-seok; Su-ji quits to start her own company and moves towards marriage with Sang-goo. In the last scenes, three years married, Ji-ho is writing dramas, and she and Se-hee renew their marriage contract, as they do every year.
Starring
Jung So-minas Yoon Ji-ho
A thirty-year-old assistant screenwriter left without a home, who agrees to a contract marriage with her landlord.
Yoon Ji-ho’s story
Ji-ho graduated from Seoul National University and has spent five poorly paid years as an assistant screenwriter; on her thirtieth birthday she has nowhere to live. She rents a room from Se-hee, who had taken her for a man. When a fellow assistant director tries to sexually assault her, she gives up writing and boards the bus home to Namhae; Se-hee follows with her script, and she accepts his proposal of a two-year contract marriage. Living as his tenant, she falls in love with him. Offered work by the company of Se-hee's first love, Jung-min, she learns why he closed himself off, feels the contract has become a lie, and ends it with a handshake. Months later they find each other again, and three years on she is writing dramas and renewing their contract every year.
Lee Min-kias Nam Se-hee
A thirty-eight-year-old designer with a cat, a mortgage and no wish to marry, who proposes the contract.
Nam Se-hee’s story
Se-hee is thirty-eight, lives with his cat, Uri, and a thirty-year mortgage, and has no intention of marrying, though his parents keep pressing. A tidy, reliable tenant suits him, so when Ji-ho, whom he had taken for a man, leaves town, he follows her with her script and proposes a contract marriage. He goes through the wedding for their parents, takes his first day off ever to help her family make kimchi in Namhae, grows jealous of a young man at her café, and kisses her for real. When she learns how his student love for Jung-min ended, after a miscarriage and his father's rejection, and then ends the contract, he sells the house and falls apart. Finding her in a rooftop room months later, he shouts that he missed her, and they agree to live by their own rules.
Esomas Woo Su-ji
Ji-ho's friend, a capable office worker enduring harassment to support her mother, who wants to run her own firm.
Kim Ga-eunas Yang Ho-rang
Ji-ho's friend, who dreams of becoming a wife and breaks with her long-time boyfriend over marriage.
Park Byung-eunas Ma Sang-goo
Se-hee's friend since university and the head of their app company, who pursues Su-ji.
Kim Min-seokas Sim Won-seok
Ho-rang's long-time boyfriend, a struggling start-up founder who is not ready to marry.
Why it matters
Because This Is My First Life treats marriage as a contract because, for its characters, that is what it already is: a matter of housing, money, parents and who owes what to whom. Ji-ho and Se-hee begin with a mortgage and a rent-free room, and the series is candid about what the arrangement asks of women: fathers who favour sons, a friend who wants nothing more than to be a wife, the harassment Su-ji swallows to keep a salary. The lovers find each other only when they stop pretending the contract is enough, and the story ends not with a wedding but with a renewal clause. A Japanese broadcaster presented it as a Korean counterpart to The Full-Time Wife Escapist and named the issues it raises: people turning away from marriage, the scarcity of jobs, harassment at work. The question it leaves is whether two people can write their own terms and still call it love.