Meant to be: 15 romance K-dramas with a serendipitous childhood connection

Unlike most of the couples in this list of romance K-dramas, Yoon Se-ri (Son Ye-jin) and Ri Jeong-hyeok’s (Hyun Bin) initial encounter happened in adulthood, about a year before the official time period of Crash Landing on You. 

Yes, the accidental paragliding crash into North Korea is iconic enough, but CLOY doubles down on destiny by revealing an earlier connection in Switzerland, where Jeong-hyeok unknowingly saved Se-ri’s life. First, Jeong-hyeok stops Se-ri from jumping off a bridge to ask her to take a photo of him and his arranged fiancée. Then Se-ri, while on a boat, hears a man on the dock playing the piano. The tune gives her hope, and she spends her days trying to find the name of the piece. The drama isn’t content with one miraculous meeting; it insists love works across borders, ideologies and time. What seals the deal is that when the pair meet again, it’s back in the Land of Milk and Honey.

Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha may look like a quirky seaside rom-com at the outset, but it deepens into a story of healing and inevitability. Yoon Hye-jin’s (Shin Min-a) brash city ways clash with Hong Du-sik’s (Kim Seon-ho) easygoing charm, until the past reveals that their paths had already crossed in a moment of vulnerability years earlier. The most touching example was when Yoon Hye-jin, as a child, visited Gongjin with her parents, including her dying mother. A boy and his grandfather walk past to help them take a family photo. Hye-jin, worried about her mother, refuses to smile, but the boy, who later turned out to be Du-sik, made funny poses to make her laugh.

Their reunion reframes the narrative: she wasn’t just destined to find comfort in Gongjin—she was destined to find love.

Lee Young-joon (Park Seo-joon) may have known who Kim Mi-so (Park Min-young) was all along, but she doesn’t. The high-gloss office rom-com What’s Wrong With Secretary Kim hides a darker story. When she discovers he was the boy who saved her during a childhood kidnapping (and the same boy she proposed to at age five), their flirtatious workplace banter transforms into destiny revealed. Their workplace banter was a lifelong entanglement after all. This remains one of the top romance K-dramas because the pair’s love story proves that the people we “meet” in adulthood might actually be people we’ve been drawn to by fate.

Serendipity stretches beyond coincidence into reincarnation and myth in Goblin. Ji Eun-tak (Kim Go-eun), who can see ghosts, is destined to be Kim Shin’s (Gong Yoo) “goblin’s bride” and end a centuries-old curse. Even her childhood scar connects back to him. Their romance stretches beyond coincidence into reincarnation—a love story scripted not by time, but by eternity.

My Love From the Star made alien romance chic by grounding it in fate. Do Min-joon (Kim Soo-hyun), an extraterrestrial stranded on Earth for centuries, once saved a young girl during the Joseon dynasty—a girl who looks suspiciously like modern-day actress Cheon Song-yi (Jun Ji-hyun). Their romance feels electric precisely because it’s not their first encounter; it’s a continuation of a love story spanning lifetimes, galaxies and reincarnations.

Mermaids and con artists make an unlikely pair in Legend of the Blue Sea, but their story is anchored in a centuries-old connection. Back in the Joseon era, a magistrate (Joon-jae’s past self) and a mermaid (Cheong) shared a forbidden love that ended in tragedy. When fate brings their reincarnated selves together in modern Seoul—her (Jun Ji-hyun) still a mermaid, him (Lee Min-ho) now a smooth-talking grifter—their bond carries flickers of memory and unresolved longing. The drama uses that echo of the past not just as backstory but as a constant tension, blurring the line between destiny and choice in their present-day romance.

Long before serendipity became a shorthand for K-drama romance, the tearjerker Stairway to Heaven made childhood connection the cornerstone of its story. Han Jung-suh (Choi Ji-woo) and Cha Song-joo (Kwon Sang-woo) grow up side by side, sharing small promises of forever that feel unshakable. But when Jung-suh is struck by tragedy and later suffers amnesia, their bond is violently fractured. What makes the drama compelling isn’t just their adult reunion, but the way those childhood memories (carousel rides, secret vows and a sense of being each other’s safe place_ keep resurfacing, tethering them together even when identity and circumstance try to pull them apart.

The King: Eternal Monarch is a time-travel, parallel-universe epic that thrives on the idea that destiny transcends dimensions. Emperor Lee Gon (Lee Min-ho) slips through a portal into modern Korea and meets detective Jung Tae-eul (Kim Go-eun), the woman whose ID card he’s carried since childhood. Their relationship balances romance with metaphysical intrigue, making the point that fate isn’t confined to one reality. Perhaps, sometimes it insists on playing out across many.

In It’s Okay to Not Be Okay, Go Moon-young (Seo Ye-ji) is a wildly creative, bestselling children’s book author with a flair for the dramatic—and a self-reinforced armour around her emotions. Moon Kang-tae (Kim Soo-hyun) works at a psychiatric ward caring for his older brother Sang-tae, who has autism and is dealing with trauma. Their connection starts in adulthood, but it unravels into something deeper when it’s revealed that Kang-tae recognised Moon-young as the “odd little girl” from his childhood—the same strange girl who was part of an incident tied to both their mothers. As both navigate their shared wounds, resentment and grief, they gradually rebuild their bond, not just through romance, but through healing the past. The show handles mental health with sophistication and the revelation of their childhood link adds a punch: love isn't just about chemistry, but about forgiveness and growing up.

See more: Love thy neighbour: 10 K-dramas where love was found living right next door

After a tragic accident at a mall leaves them both irreversibly changed—Lee Kang-do (Lee Jun-ho) with bodily injury and financial ruin, Ha Moon-soo (Won Jin-ah) with survivor’s guilt—the two drift apart. Years later, their paths cross again, stitched by shared trauma. Kang-do struggles to rebuild his life, while Moon-soo’s guilt over having survived weighs heavily on her. Their connection, rediscovered, is raw and complicated. Memories of that day linger not only in the background but actively shape their fears, hopes, and the way they mend. The past isn't just revealed: it informs their present, their insecurities and the beauty of their eventual togetherness.

See more: 9 crossover cameos that prove the K-drama multiverse

Sung Duk-mi (Park Min-young) is a meticulous curator at an art gallery. Her public life polished, while her private life big with passion for K-pop idols. On the other hand, Ryan Gold (Kim Jae-wook) is the new museum director, poised and buttoned up. As they clash over work, they also gradually reveal overlaps in their pasts. Ryan’s childhood in Korea included family connections that intersect with Duk Mi’s mother; there are long-buried memories that tie them together before they ever properly date. The serendipity here isn’t extreme (no one falls into ice, no childhood kidnapping), but the realisation that their lives have been orbiting the same social gravitational field all along adds subtle tension—one of those “small world” moments that feel like fate.

In Kill Me, Heal Me, Cha Do-hyun (Ji Sung) suffers from dissociative identity disorder, with multiple personalities arising from unresolved childhood trauma. Oh Ri-jin (Hwang Jung-eum) enters his life as a plastic surgery resident. As their relationship develops, Ri-jin’s involvement in Do-hyun’s therapy unwinds bits of his past, and with them, the revelation that she was connected to him before: childhood memories, cruel events, shadows that have shaped who he is. Their connection isn’t just about love, but about confronting what they tried to forget. Not one of the lighter romance K-dramas, the serendipity here isn’t gentle. It’s jagged, painful, but when it unfolds, it gives both characters depth and stakes beyond romance.

Kim Bok-joo (Lee Sung-kyung) is a the titular youth weightlifter with big dreams, confidence, but also doubts. Jung Joon-hyung (Nam Joo-hyuk) is a swimmer, supportive but loaded with his own burdens. They were in the same elementary school, though Bok-joo doesn’t remember Joon-hyung at first. The childhood memory is fleeting but meaningful. As they grow older, their paths diverge, their ambitions sharpen and then serendipity brings them back. This is one of those romance K-dramas that is refreshing: lightness plus the idea that even forgotten links can matter, that hearts may recognise something even when memories are lost.

Lee Hyun (Seo In-guk) is a genius criminal profiler haunted by a shadowy past; Cha Ji-an (Jang Na-ra) is a detective investigating him in ‘Hello Monster’ / ‘I Remember You’. Their adult lives intertwine through a case, but there’s more: both share memories of a childhood event that has left its mark—loss, betrayal and separation. As they work together, love blossoms amid suspense, but it’s the revelation of that forgotten past that gives their relationship unexpected emotional weight. It’s not only about solving the crime; it’s about understanding how the past shaped them, and whether love can help them transcend it.

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