Dear X Episode 4 Recap: The Truth Behind Suk Gyu’s Death

In Dear X Episode 4, it opens in silence. Ah Jin stands before her father’s body. He begs her to save him, but she coldly says it would have been better if he had never woken up. She looks at him one last time and says goodbye. Then he dies.

She cuts off the beanie she once gifted him and flushes it down the toilet to destroy any proof. The moment is quiet, yet heavy.

Choi is soon arrested for killing Suk Gyu. Ah Jin, lying in a hospital bed, admits during questioning that Choi hit her father. Choi confesses too, saying he thought Suk Gyu was the stalker in the beanie and hit him out of anger. But the detective notes there was no beanie at the scene. Ah Jin denies ever seeing one.

In truth, after Choi struck Suk Gyu, he tried to call an ambulance. Ah Jin stopped him, revealing that the man was her father. She begged Choi to leave, promising she would handle it. The detective calls that an attempt to flee. Choi, guilty and shaken, keeps apologizing for what he did.

The lead detective, however, doubts Ah Jin. She took three hours to call the police. He believes she might have finished what Choi started. Ah Jin overhears them talking from her hospital room. Now she knows she’s a target.

The detective tries to shift the blame onto Ah Jin, but he also wants to protect Choi, the basketball player about to make his comeback. His agency secretly pressures the detective to close the case. Ah Jin begins collecting proof. She records his conversations and gathers evidence of bribery.

The agency owner bribes the detective to keep the scandal quiet. But Jun Seo, quietly following the detective, sees everything. He watches him visit Ah Jin’s house, where he secretly scrapes her toilet paper and finds a small fiber. That clue is used to arrest Ah Jin as a suspect.

Choi panics when he hears this. He still believes he is the one who killed Suk Gyu.

A web of lies and broken truths

At the station, chaos unfolds. A famous actress, Lee Na, arrives for questioning over a drunk driving case. Everyone watches her. She insists her manager was driving. The detective, again pressured by higher-ups, must bury her case.

Meanwhile, all the evidence piles up against Ah Jin — the text messages, the beanie fiber, and her delay in calling the police. The detective tells her Suk Gyu didn’t die from one hit but several. She stays quiet. Then she calmly asks for a female detective, saying she has her period.

When the female detective arrives, Ah Jin gives her photos and recordings — evidence that proves the lead detective took bribes. His career is now at risk. Officers search his car for the missing cash, but it’s gone. He realizes Ah Jin moved it and mocks her, saying he won’t be removed from the case.

Later, Lee Na’s manager, who saw Ah Jin at the station, secretly approaches her. She offers her help and gives her a card. Ah Jin doesn’t respond but takes it anyway.

Jun Seo then walks into the police station. He shocks everyone by confessing. He says that two days before Suk Gyu’s death, he was arrested for attacking him. Jun Seo calls Suk Gyu a terrible man. He even lies that he was stalking Ah Jin — just to protect her.

Jun Seo claims he went to a motel to kill Suk Gyu, but didn’t find him there. Then, at Ah Jin’s house, he saw her passed out, and Suk Gyu still alive. He admits he hit him with a bat. Because of this confession, Ah Jin is released.

Later, a flashback reveals what really happened. Jun Seo arrived after Ah Jin had already hit her father and fainted. Shocked by the scene, he found the beanie remains in the toilet and cleaned the bathroom. He wiped the bat and hit the body again to make it seem like his doing it.

The Lie and the Last Warning

The next morning, the motel worker said Jun Seo came around 1 a.m. — after Suk Gyu’s death. The timing didn’t match. The detective catches the lie. Jun Seo loses his temper, shouting that Ah Jin did nothing wrong. He says he loves her and begs them not to ruin her life any more than it already is.

The agency owner later calls Ah Jin. He tells her the bribery case against the detective has been caught, but warns her to stay away from Jun Seo. In return, they will protect her. Ah Jin agrees to cut ties.

Jun Seo goes to meet her anyway. He’s desperate. She yells that he should have stayed out of it. She says she doesn’t need pity. He promises he will make her happy, but she snaps that if he really cared, he would have killed her father long ago.

Anger and pain mix. Jun Seo curses her, saying she will live a miserable life. Yet he still hugs her, whispering that he’ll share her punishment.

Ah Jin looks cold. She says she’ll be reborn and rise to the top.

The episode ends with her becoming a rising actress. Choi, behind bars, watches her on TV. His eyes show guilt, confusion, and disbelief. Everything has changed.

Conclusion: The Anatomy of a Cover-Up

Dear X episode 4 is ultimately a masterclass in how a single crime can unravel—and redefine—multiple lives.

• Ah Jin’s Calculated Rise: Her arc is no longer about escaping abuse but about mastering the corrupt system that failed her. Her deal with the agency is a Faustian bargain, trading her soul for power. The final shot of her on TV isn’t a victory; it’s the birth of a new, dangerous player.

• Jun Seo’s Tragic Love: His character embodies the theme of “desperate love.” His actions, while legally wrong, are framed as the only form of justice he can offer Ah Jin. His fate is a tragedy of good intentions paving a road to hell.

• The Cost of Truth: The episode proves that the truth is malleable. The legal truth (Jun Seo is the killer) is established, but the moral truth (Ah Jin’s culpability, the system’s corruption) is what continues to haunt the characters and the audience.

Dear X episode 4 full story explained shows how truth bends under pressure. Every character lies for love or survival. Ah Jin becomes stronger, but not cleaner. Jun Seo’s love turns into a sacrifice. The detective’s greed eats his career. And Choi sits alone, paying for a crime built on half-truths.

It’s a haunting reminder that in this story, no one is innocent — just desperate.

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