Warning: Major spoilers for Spooky in Love Episodes 1–12.
One ghost stands above all the others in Netflix’s Korean drama Spooky in Love.
Kang Ji-hwan.
He died in a yacht accident 12 years before the main story, after jumping into the water to save Cheon Yeo-ri.
But his death did not end his connection to her.
For years, Yeo-ri continues to see ghosts. Strange water-related supernatural events follow her. Ji-hwan appears to interfere with important moments in her life, and the drama gradually suggests that his death is connected to far more than a tragic accident.
So why is Ji-hwan still haunting Yeo-ri?
Is he jealous?
Is he trying to stop her from falling in love?
Or is he actually protecting her?
By the finale, the answer completely changes how we understand their relationship.
Ji-hwan is not simply haunting Yeo-ri. His unfinished death is the reason her supernatural life exists in the first place — and he ultimately stays long enough to help free her from it.
Who Is Kang Ji-hwan in Spooky in Love?
Kang Ji-hwan is Yeo-ri’s deceased college friend and the biological son of the Kang family.
His brother, Kang Min-hwan, was adopted.
Twelve years before the main events of Spooky in Love, Ji-hwan and Yeo-ri were involved in a yacht accident.
Yeo-ri fell into the sea.
Ji-hwan went into the water to save her.
Yeo-ri survived.
Ji-hwan did not.
For much of the drama, that appears to be the simple explanation for his death.
But it is only part of the truth.
Ji-hwan’s death becomes one of the central mysteries connecting Yeo-ri, Min-hwan and prosecutor Ma Gang-uk.
Is Ji-hwan the Ghost Haunting Yeo-ri?
Yes.
Ji-hwan is the mysterious ghost associated with Yeo-ri’s past.
The drama gives viewers clues long before explaining everything directly.
One of the most obvious is water.
Ji-hwan died in the sea, and his supernatural appearances are repeatedly associated with water.
This is why some of the early haunting scenes feel different from Yeo-ri’s encounters with ordinary ghosts.
Ji-hwan is not simply another spirit asking Yeo-ri to solve a problem.
He belongs to her own unresolved past.
And unlike many of the other ghosts Yeo-ri encounters, he has remained connected to her for 12 years.
That immediately creates another question.
Why hasn’t he left?
Why Does Ji-hwan Haunt Yeo-ri for 12 Years?
At first, jealousy seems like a reasonable explanation.
Ji-hwan appears to interfere with Yeo-ri’s romantic life.
When another man attempts to become engaged to her, terrifying supernatural events drive him away.
That makes Ji-hwan look like the classic jealous ghost:
a dead man who cannot accept that the woman he cared about is moving on.
But then something strange happens.
Ma Gang-uk enters Yeo-ri’s life.
Gang-uk becomes increasingly close to her.
If Ji-hwan simply wanted to prevent Yeo-ri from loving another man, Gang-uk should become his biggest target.
Instead, Ji-hwan does not treat him the same way.
That was one of the biggest clues that jealousy was never the full explanation.
Ji-hwan’s connection to Gang-uk is different.
And eventually we discover why.
Was Ji-hwan Protecting Yeo-ri?
Ultimately, yes.
But the drama deliberately makes his intentions ambiguous at first.
Some of Ji-hwan’s supernatural actions look frightening.
That makes Yeo-ri — and the audience — question whether he is protecting her or trapping her inside the past.
The finale changes the meaning of those earlier scenes.
Ji-hwan’s final actions show that he does not want Yeo-ri to remain imprisoned by guilt.
He wants her to live.
He wants her to return to Gang-uk.
And most importantly, he is finally willing to leave her.
That means the ghost who initially appeared to prevent Yeo-ri from moving forward eventually becomes the person who allows her to move forward completely.
Ji-hwan Did Not Simply Die in an Accident
This is where the ghost mystery connects to the crime mystery.
For much of the drama, everyone believes Ji-hwan died because of the yacht accident.
That is not the whole truth.
The later episodes reveal what actually happened between Ji-hwan and Min-hwan.
During their confrontation on the yacht, Ji-hwan fell overboard.
Min-hwan initially grabbed him.
He could have continued trying to save him.
Instead, Min-hwan deliberately released Ji-hwan’s hand.
Ji-hwan fell into the water and died.
This is crucial to understanding why his spirit could not simply disappear.
His death contained an unresolved truth.
The world believed one version of what happened.
Ji-hwan knew another.
His death was not merely a tragic accident.
Someone made a choice.
And the truth remained buried for 12 years.
Why Did Min-hwan Let Ji-hwan Die?
Min-hwan had spent years carrying resentment toward Ji-hwan.
As the adopted son of the family, he believed his parents favored their biological son.
Ji-hwan represented everything Min-hwan believed had been denied to him:
belonging,
recognition,
inheritance,
and his place inside the family.
When Ji-hwan fell from the yacht, Min-hwan faced a horrifying choice.
For a moment, Ji-hwan’s life was literally in his hands.
And he let go.
That single decision becomes the hidden crime underneath much of Spooky in Love.
The yacht accident therefore connects the drama’s supernatural story with its family and inheritance conflict.
Ji-hwan is not only Yeo-ri’s ghost.
He is also the victim of the secret that Min-hwan has spent years hiding.
Why Is Ji-hwan Connected to Gang-uk?
This is the drama’s biggest supernatural connection.
Gang-uk received Ji-hwan’s heart.
After Ji-hwan died, his heart was transplanted into Ma Gang-uk.
Suddenly, several strange connections begin to make sense.
Gang-uk was not simply a random prosecutor who happened to enter Yeo-ri’s life.
Part of Ji-hwan literally continued living inside him.
That does not mean Gang-uk is Ji-hwan reincarnated.
They are separate people.
Gang-uk’s feelings for Yeo-ri are his own.
But the heart transplant creates a symbolic and supernatural bridge between Yeo-ri’s past and future.
Ji-hwan belongs to the life she lost.
Gang-uk represents the life she may still be able to have.
And Ji-hwan’s heart connects those two worlds.
Did Ji-hwan Want Gang-uk and Yeo-ri Together?
The finale strongly answers this question.
Yes.
Ji-hwan does not try to take Gang-uk’s place.
He does the opposite.
When Yeo-ri stands between life and death after the truck accident, Ji-hwan finally meets her directly.
This moment resolves the misunderstanding that has haunted Yeo-ri for years.
She has carried guilt over Ji-hwan’s death.
He died after going into the water to save her.
For Yeo-ri, surviving meant living with the feeling that someone else had died because she lived.
Ji-hwan finally releases her from that burden.
And rather than asking Yeo-ri to remain with him, he encourages her to return.
To Gang-uk.
To life.
Why Can Yeo-ri See Ghosts?
Ji-hwan is also connected to another mystery:
Why could Yeo-ri see ghosts at all?
The finale reveals that Yeo-ri’s supernatural ability is tied to what happened during the accident 12 years earlier.
Yeo-ri should have crossed the boundary between life and death.
But Ji-hwan’s fate and her survival became intertwined.
From then on, she existed with an unusual connection to the dead.
That is why seeing ghosts is not simply a random magical power given to the heroine.
It comes with a cost.
For 12 years, Yeo-ri has lived partly connected to a world she was not supposed to see.
She helps restless spirits resolve their unfinished business.
But she is also carrying her own unfinished connection to Ji-hwan.
Why Does Yeo-ri Stop Seeing Ghosts at the End?
Because Ji-hwan finally leaves.
After Yeo-ri is hit by the truck while saving Gang-uk, she falls into a coma and enters a space between life and death.
There she encounters the spirits she has helped over the years.
Then Ji-hwan appears.
This time, his role is no longer mysterious.
He prevents Yeo-ri from crossing over.
Instead, Ji-hwan boards the boat and leaves.
Yeo-ri returns to the living world.
And after Ji-hwan finally crosses over, her ability to see ghosts disappears.
The supernatural connection that began 12 years earlier is finally broken.
Yeo-ri wakes up free.
Why Is Ji-hwan’s Final Goodbye So Important?
Because it reverses the meaning of his entire storyline.
At the beginning, Ji-hwan seems like the ghost preventing Yeo-ri from living normally.
At the end, he is the ghost who gives her normal life back.
At first, his presence appears frightening.
At the end, it becomes an act of love.
Most importantly, Ji-hwan does not ask Yeo-ri to continue mourning him.
He tells her, in effect, to live.
That is what makes his farewell more than a supernatural plot resolution.
For 12 years, Yeo-ri’s relationship with the dead has been connected to guilt.
She survived.
Ji-hwan did not.
The finale finally allows her to understand that survival is not something she needs to apologize for.
Ji-hwan’s Ghost Explains the Entire Story
Once the finale reveals the truth, Ji-hwan becomes the character connecting almost every major part of Spooky in Love.
His death connects him to Min-hwan’s crime.
His donated heart connects him to Gang-uk.
His lingering spirit connects him to Yeo-ri’s ability to see ghosts.
His unresolved death connects the supernatural mystery to the yacht accident.
And his final departure allows Yeo-ri and Gang-uk to live without the curse that has separated her from ordinary human contact for years.
Ji-hwan therefore was never just “the ghost haunting Yeo-ri.”
He was the bridge between her past and her future.
So Why Did Ji-hwan Really Haunt Yeo-ri?
The simplest answer is:
Ji-hwan remained because both his death and Yeo-ri’s survival were unfinished.
His death contained a hidden crime.
Yeo-ri carried guilt she could not release.
His heart continued living inside Gang-uk.
And Yeo-ri remained connected to the spirit world.
Only when the truth about Ji-hwan’s death is exposed and Yeo-ri reaches the boundary between life and death can their connection finally end.
Ji-hwan does not take her with him.
He lets her go.
And then he leaves too.
That is the final twist in the ghost story at the center of Spooky in Love:
The ghost Yeo-ri feared was not ultimately trying to keep her among the dead.
He was waiting until he could finally send her back to the living.