"I was still using that number from 20 years ago, so we were able to meet again." Koo Jun-yeob and Seohee-won's love story was like a movie.
On the 3rd, the episode of 'The secret of the celebrity soldier' covered the dramatic narrative of two people who miraculously reunited and became a married couple after 20 years apart, only to be separated again by death.
Seohee-won, who had married a businessman in 2011, faced a breakup after 10 years, and upon hearing the news Koo Jun-yeob summoned his courage and called the number he had saved 20 years earlier.
Regarding why first love remains more deeply etched in memory, Dr. Lee Nak-jun analyzed, "The Zeigarnik effect, in which the brain more strongly remembers unfinished business, likely influenced the two people's reunion." The memories of their most intense first love in their late teens and early twenties ignited again across the years.
The reunion process was like a movie. With foreign entries restricted due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Koo Jun-yeob proposed over a video call, saying, "If we become family, we can meet." After registering their marriage in Korea, Koo Jun-yeob immediately went to Taiwan, and upon the end of his quarantine he had an emotional reunion with Seohee-won. Seohee-won's younger sibling Seohee-je testified about their happy married life, saying, "After meeting my brother-in-law, my sister began to smile like a child again."
After marriage, Koo Jun-yeob's life changed 180 degrees. He continued active DJ work and commercial shoots in Taiwan for his wife and even earned nicknames such as "the nation's brother-in-law" and "the nation's son-in-law." Unlike his past indifference to money, he showed the devoted role of a husband working to provide a home for his family and protect his wife.
But the happiness was all too brief. Three years after their reunion, in 2025, Seohee-won died as her chronic illness worsened. Although Seohee-won passed away suddenly, Koo Jun-yeob still visits her grave every day even now, one year later. The lingering impression left by a love that even death could not separate moved living room viewers deeply.
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