The present may not be able to change the past, but it can bring perspective and understanding to the future. Sometimes the greatest way to express love is to share the pain. The Korean BL Once Again was short but profoundly pulled together.

Tormented by the death of his beloved senior, Kang Ji Hoon (Lee Hyun Jun), Shin Jae Woo (Moon Ji Yong) returns to the past to save him, only to discover the man he once adored as a child is now the man he falls in love with as an adult.

While the romance inside Once Again is beautifully shot and told, the real heart of this drama is the past trauma Jae Woo faces. Trauma isn’t an easy thing to overcome. For many, like myself, it’s not possible to move past it, but it is possible to make peace with it.

The last few years have unleashed a bevy of fun and light BLs, which has been a delightful escape from the depressing darkness the pandemic brought to many and the social divide it created. And while I have loved the laughs and smiles these lighter dramas brought, I’m always looking for dramas that touch that inner part of me seeking a different kind of storytelling. I’m not looking for tragedy or brokenness; I am looking for heart.

And there’s been a lot of heart in some recent dramas. Once Again is one of them.

While there is an air of tragedy to Once Again, the biggest takeaway it gives viewers is hope. In a quest to avoid possible unhappy endings, many miss the hope that bittersweet endings often offer. Love isn’t always this great big thing that brings only happiness. Instead, it can often be this great big thing that brings insight and healing.

In Once Again, Jae Woo faces the demons that have chased him for fifteen years. Although he is only a child when Ji Hoon is killed trying to save him, Jae Woo suffers heavily from the survivor’s guilt. When a shocking turn of fate takes him back into the past, he’s desperate to change the course of history, even if that means dying himself.

Fate is something philosophy, films, books, and humanity have bantered about since the beginning of time. While fate always seems inevitable, I think it is also possible to change how we view that inevitability. In Once Again, what happens to Ji Hoon is unavoidable because the only way for him to live is for Jae Woo to die. But the most remarkable thing Ji Hoon has experienced is his love for Jae Woo, a love that won’t allow him to accept a world without Jae Woo in it.

Therefore, the great love story between them isn’t about erasing the pain that brings them together; it’s about embracing it, holding onto it so that the loop of fate that brought them together will continue to do so.

When I first tuned into Once Again, I hoped that Jae Woo would have the power to change the past. As a viewer with trauma I wish I could erase, it’s nice to find a story where that’s possible. But it’s even more cathartic and therapeutic finding a story where the past can’t be changed, but how we look at it can.

I fell in love with Jae Woo and Ji Hoon’s need to save each other. There’s a lot of pain in Once Again, but the greatest love stories are the ones where they share their pain as openly as they share their hearts.

While I don’t seek out dramas that will emotionally destroy me, I do seek out ones that put a lot of thought into how they tell a story.

Once Again told a good story, leaving me feeling as hopeful as it did heavy.

For a drama that challenges fate while also learning to accept it, check out Once Again on Gagaoolala and Viki.

Rating- 4.5 out of 5