Synopsis
This is the story of five pairs of lovers and their families.
The principal pair are Lee Sang-tae (Ahn Jae-wook) and Ahn Mi-jung (So Yoo-jin). Sang-tae is a widower who has raised two children with the help of his overbearing in-laws, the parents of his deceased wife, played by Choi Jung-woo as Jang Min-ho and Song Ok-sook as Park Ok-soon; while Mi-jung is divorced with three young children. Her husband, Yoon In-chul (Kwon Oh-joong) had cheated on her with her former best friend Kang So-young (Wang Bit-na). She does not tell her children or her feisty grandmother, who lives with them and looks after the children, that her ex-husband and best friend have got married. Instead she pretends he has been working in America. However, when he and So-young, along with So-young's mother, open a bakery not too far from Mi-jung's apartment, it becomes inevitable that the secret will come out.
Sang-tae, who is gentlemanly and reserved, is a team leader of the marketing group in charge of the Fantom sportswear brand; early in the series, Mi-jung, who has a somewhat fiery temper, meets him when she becomes an assistant manager in the same group. Both are highly capable at their jobs. Sang-tae somewhat involuntarily becomes involved in Ahn Mi-jung's family problems. Gradually, the two fall in love with each other, but their relationship is not well received by their families. In particular, Sang-tae's in-laws have come to treat the widower of their deceased daughter as if he were their own son and they resist the idea of his dating or marrying, lest he move out and take his children with him to a new home. Meanwhile, Sang-tae's parents would like him to remarry, although before meeting Mi-jung he had shown no inclination to do so as he and especially his children are living comfortably with his in-laws. But when his mother finds out that Mi-jung is divorced with three young children, she also opposes the couple's developing relationship.
At the same time, Sang-tae's shy younger sister, Lee Yeon-Tae (Shin Hye-sun), has had a secret crush on her university classmate, Kim Tae-min (Ahn Woo-yeon), for seven years but has never had the nerve to confess to him. Tae-min had a crush on her for a time but could never penetrate Yeon-tae's wall of shyness. Just as Yeon-tae finally musters up the courage to confess, Tae-min meets Sang-tae's sister-in-law, Jang Jin-joo (Im Soo-hyang). Jin-joo is beautiful, outgoing, although an academic lightweight whose wealthy parents largely ignore her in favor of Sang-tae and his children and try to buy her affection with a car and credit cards, which they try to use as means to control her. She easily befriends Tae-min and the two fall for each other, leaving Yeon-tae heartbroken. Yeon-tae later gets drunk at a club and by coincidence ends up in a car with Kim Sang-min (Sung Hoon), Tae-min's brother, whose cellphone she accidentally walks off with. This results in a series of prickly meetings between the two, during the course of which Sang-min, who is a successful pro golfer and former fashion model, falls hard for Yeon-tae. He vigorously pursues her but she at first and for a long time rebuffs him. Complicating matters for Sang-min is that he has an endorsement deal with Sang-tae and Mi-jung's company, Fantom, and he is a famously difficult celebrity, but he is forced to moderate his behavior as he comes to realize that Yeon-tae is Sang-tae's sister. Another key plot point is that neither Yeon-tae realizes that Sang-min and Tae-min are brothers nor does Sang-min realize that Yeon-tae and Tae-min, having just graduated from teacher training school, are friends and working at the same school (which four of the five children attend - Mi-jung's youngest is too young to be in school).
The final pair is Sang-tae's younger brother, Lee Ho-tae (Shim Hyung-tak), a film director who runs out of money to make his movie and has become homeless and unemployed and so forced to return home, where he is not welcome, and Mo Soon-young (Shim Yi-young), a former dancer who now waits tables at the Lee family restaurant, although she doesn't realize that he is her employer's son and he somehow doesn't realize that she works for his parents.
The series takes us through the love lives of the five couples, the difficulties they face from their various parents, and, in the case of Sang-tae and Mi-jung, their challenges in bringing their five children together, which prove problematic even though four of the children were already friends at school.
