Episode 5 of Dear Hyeri opens with a flashback to Hyeri and Eun-ho’s childhood, where the photo of them camping together was taken. In the present, Eun-ho wakes up to find Hyun-oh, who takes her out for a meal. She asks if the events of the previous day, including their kiss, really happened, and Hyun-oh confirms they did.
The following morning, Eun-ho again wakes up to see Hyun-oh. The scene shifts to a past confrontation where Eun-ho asked Hyun-oh about marriage, only for him to break up with her abruptly after eight years, despite the lightheartedness of their relationship. This paints Hyun-oh as the one in the wrong for leaving so suddenly.
In the next scene, Hyun-oh initially plans to leave, but seeing Eun-ho cry in her sleep changes his mind. Meanwhile, Hyeri has disappeared, leaving Joo-yeon worried. He visits a parking booth, where another attendant gives him the phone Eun-ho had dropped before fainting and transforming into Hyeri.
Elsewhere, Hyun-oh takes Eun-ho to her psychiatric clinic, where she discovers she has dissociative identity disorder. The doctor explains that Hyeri, her alter, had been attending sessions. Eun-ho finally reveals that Hyeri is her younger sister, who went missing years ago.
Through flashbacks, we learn that their parents died in a car accident when they were young, and their grandmother raised them. While Eun-ho focused on becoming independent, Hyeri was shy and introverted. Eun-ho forced her to go on a graduation trip to make friends, but Hyeri vanished. Shortly after, their grandmother died, leaving Eun-ho alone.
Eun-ho later found Hyeri’s diary, revealing the first signs of her split personality. Eun-ho spent three years as a parking attendant, living as Hyeri to fulfill her sister’s last wishes. This also led her to turn down many job opportunities at night, possibly causing her career to stall. After leaving the clinic, Eun-ho and Hyun-oh spend more time together, cooking and enjoying each other’s company. She tries hard to hide what she learned from Hyun oh.
Meanwhile, Joo-yeon and Hye-yeon work on a project about travel stops, but Hye-yeon faces challenges with a senior colleague who resents her for stealing the spotlight. This leads to a broader conversation about how age affects women’s careers in a patriarchal society. The senior tells Hye-yeon she should be grateful for any screen time due to her age. Eventually, Hye-yeon compromises by sharing her script. There’s also a rumor that Hye-yeon uses unethical methods to advance her career, which she denies.
As this unfolds, Joo-yeon has a tough time. He takes a taxi from Busan to Seoul to visit Hyeri, only to find Eun-ho and Hyun-oh together, seemingly as a couple, leaving him heartbroken. He had learned about Eun-ho from Jae-yong, who appeared on a rival broadcast station’s show in a humorous segment.
Later, Eun-ho wakes up to find Hyun-oh missing and panics. He returns with groceries, but in that brief moment, Eun-ho felt her world fall apart. They later go out for her favorite meal, but Hyun-oh gets a call about a grandmother being hospitalized, abruptly leaving Eun-ho behind once again. This brings back painful memories of their breakup, where Hyun-oh had told her that she would want to marry someday, and he couldn’t give her that. His decision was logical but heartbreaking, as Eun-ho had expressed her wish to marry before she turned 40.
Back in the present, Hyun-oh returns and knocks on Eun-ho’s door while in the rain. He asks her to allow herself to be vulnerable sometimes, but Eun-ho, now ready to move on, says she will never get sick again and closes the door, symbolically ending their relationship.
In the epilogue, Hyun-oh attends a funeral, where it’s revealed that he does want to marry. However, his responsibilities to care for the grandmothers conflict with his personal desires. He believes Eun-ho wouldn’t be able to handle his family obligations, which might be true, as she needs someone who makes her a priority.
Episode 6 of Dear Hyeri starts with a flashback to the early days of Hyun-oh and Eun-ho’s relationship, focusing on a pivotal moment when Eun-ho brought up marriage. Hyun-oh firmly told her he had no plans to marry. Fast forward to the present, Hyun-oh rushes out, sitting in his car and noticing a necklace hanging from his rearview mirror. This necklace, a gift from his mother before she abandoned him and his father, holds deep sentimental value.
We are then given insight into Hyun-oh’s troubled childhood. Despite his father’s gambling addiction and a chaotic home life, Hyun-oh worked hard to keep his promise to his mother that he would succeed. He wasn’t alone in his struggles; childhood neighbors Moon Ji-on and Su-jeong faced a similar fate, with their family in debt and their mother abandoning them as well. Together, the three kids frequently returned to the gambling house to pay off their family debts.
When Hyun-oh’s father died in a fire, leaving Hyun-oh burdened with debt, a gambling house owner offered him a deal: she would cover his expenses, including university fees, if he agreed to care for the elderly women at the house. Hyun-oh accepted the offer and even managed to get Ji-on and Su-jeong to live there with him. Over time, the storage room where Hyun-oh slept transformed into a home, and family photos began to cover the walls, symbolizing the makeshift family they had become.
When one of the grandmothers passed away, Hyun-oh began to reconsider his stance on marriage. Eun Shin-Young, another woman living with them, noticed that the elderly women hoped Hyun-oh would marry and start a family. However, she doubted whether Eun-ho could fit into their unique family dynamic, where the care of elderly women came first.
In the present, Hyun-oh reflects on the significance of the necklace, which Eun-ho had once found and returned to him. He rushes back to her and asks her to sometimes need him, but with a gentle smile, Eun-ho declines and closes the door, leaving Hyun-oh heartbroken. He heads to the hospital, where he finds out the grandmother he cares for has only fractured her leg and is otherwise alright.
At work, Hyun-oh faces another disappointment. He’s passed over for the coveted 9 PM news slot, with Jae-yong taking his place. It’s revealed that Hyun-oh made a deal with the Press Director to keep Eun-ho in her 12 PM news slot in exchange for stepping down from the main news. When Eun-ho learns about this, she’s furious, feeling betrayed. She tearfully tells Hyun-oh that although she might have disappointed him, she had always tried not to interfere with his career. She leaves the office in tears, and the elevator ride down shows a flashback to the happier times when they were deeply in love.
Meanwhile, at Media N Seoul, a scandal breaks out involving Joo-yeon and Hye-yoon after a photo of them outside a hotel room surfaces. Despite Joo-yeon’s explanation that they had only shared soju, the scandal spreads. Hye-yoon takes the brunt of the backlash, forced to apologize and removed from her evening news slot. A senior colleague, who had previously mistreated her, visits to offer an apology and advises Hye-yoon to give a formal apology to help the public move on from the scandal. This act of solidarity offers a brief moment of hope amid the controversy.
The next day, Eun-ho decides to assume the role of Hye-ri again and meets with Joo-yeon. In the epilogue, Joo-yeon runs into Eun-ho at a professional event and is startled to recognize the bandage on her hand, adding another layer of mystery to their relationship.
Episodes 5 and 6 of Dear Hyeri deliver emotional depth and character development, focusing on the complex relationship between Eun-ho and Hyun-oh. Episode 5 explores Eun-ho’s dissociative identity disorder, revealing the tragic story of her alter, Hyeri, and how Eun-ho has lived in her sister’s memory. The flashbacks highlight the heartbreak of their breakup, with Hyun-oh’s refusal to marry at the center of their unresolved tension. Themes of career struggles, particularly for women, add layers to the story.
In Episode 6, the focus shifts to Hyun-oh’s backstory, where we learn about his troubled childhood and the burden of caring for elderly women in exchange for covering his debts and education. His hesitation toward marriage is made more understandable, deepening his character. The episode also heightens the tension between him and Eun-ho, especially after she discovers he sacrificed his career for hers. A subplot involving a scandal with Joo-yeon and Hye-yoon adds workplace drama, reflecting societal pressures. Both episodes balance emotional struggles with broader themes, leaving viewers eager for resolution.