How does Im Sol’s time travel work in Lovely Runner?

Lovely Runner is a new K-drama rom-com that has Im Sol travel back in time to save her favorite K-Pop idol, but recent episodes leave confusion about how her time travel works.

The 2024 K-drama focuses on Im Sol, a die-hard fan of a group called Eclipse. Her favorite idol is lead singer Sun-jae whose kind words saved her years ago. But when he dies by suicide, she somehow manages to go back in time to her high school days to save him.

Armed with what she knows about the future, she tries her hardest to change his path. Along the way, their love story unfolds as it’s revealed the two knew each other all along but never actually met.

Lovely Runner has many confused about how Im Sol’s time travel abilities work. Here’s what we know so far. Warning: Spoilers Ahead!

How does Lovely Runner’s time travel work?

Im Sol was able to go back in time using Sun-jae’s watch, but the watch seems to have its own powers that she’s not 100% aware of.

The K-drama takes a turn when Im Sol learns about Sun-jae dying by suicide. While trying to go and see him, she falls into a nearby lake unable to move as she’s paralyzed from the waist down. When Sun-jae is declared dead his wristwatch, which Im Sol has, glitches and marks three as the hour.

Im Sol cries clutching his watch and presses the side buttons that seem to activate it. She wakes up 15 years in the past in high school. Based on what we know, the watch has a connection to Im Sol’s ability to time travel. It activated on its own when he was declared dead.

What are the rules in the past? Im Sol knows Sun-jae will sustain a shoulder injury and quit swimming. It’s one of the cataclysmic events that led him to become an idol in the present time. An act that she’s helpless to stop. By the end of Episode 3, the mystery gets bigger.

Im Sol and Sun-jae kiss and he confesses his feelings, but she doesn’t remember due to her being drunk. At school, she doesn’t hear his confession which was accidentally recorded on her MP3. Why? Because Tae-sun decides to confess to her as well and ask if she wants to date.

Due to the past version of Im Sol having had a crush on him, it takes over and she says yes. Leaving a distraught Sun-jae. At that very moment, the watch activates and marks down to two. Im Sol wakes up back in the present with Sun-jae dead.

This can only mean that because Im Sol failed to stop his shoulder injury and hear his confession, the watch counted it as a failure to change his fate. In Lovely Runner Episode 4, more details are revealed.

Im Sol’s actions in the past did change parts of the future. The photo she took with Sun-jae suddenly appears on his table. It’s also revealed that whatever happened in the past is ongoing. While adult Im Sol is in her present, her younger real past version continues the timeline unaware of what her future self has done.

This means Sun-jae does fall in love with her and is forced to see her be with Tae-sun. Even Tae-sun comments the Im Sol he’s been getting to know is different from who he’s been dating. The present idol Sun-jae, is the one from the changed past. While the Im Sol he met before he died doesn’t remember him because the time travel hasn’t occurred yet.

In the present, the watch glows at midnight, allowing Im Sol to press the button to return to the past. But by then, 10 days have already gone by.

My Lovely Runner is available on Viki, and you can keep tabs on Netflix’s upcoming 2024 K-dramas.