First-love return 첫사랑 재회 (Cheot-sarang jaehoe)

First-love return (첫사랑 재회) is the structural opposite of the meet-cute. Where a meet-cute starts a story, a first-love return resumes one - often years after the audience expected it had ended.

The pattern in Korean drama:

• The first-love arc is told mostly in flashback. A signature device of the genre is keeping the past and present in active dialogue across episodes, not finishing one before starting the other.
• The returning lover is often unaware (or pretending to be unaware) of the first relationship. The asymmetry is similar to memory-loss plots.
• Resolution is rarely "and they got back together because nothing changed." Korean drama tends to insist that the time apart has to count for something - careers, family, grief, or growth - and the romance has to clear that.