Rachel made sure that she was seen by everyone on her last night. She took great care picking out her outfit-her favorite skirt that showed off her long legs, her pristine white blouse that practically sparkled under the glowing lights of the restaurant, and the sequined headband that actually did as it held back her perfect, long dark hair.

She had chosen this place for her last meal for multiple reasons, the most important being that it was the kind of place where people knew who she was, the type of place where at least someone would remember seeing her the next morning and whisper to their friends how fabulously unaffected she'd looked in her last hours. It didn't hurt that the place made amazing western style steaks that her mother always frowned upon as bad for Rachel's figure.

Rachel ordered the biggest one they had and ate the entire thing slowly and methodically one tiny, prim and proper bite at a time.

She also helped herself to several glasses of expensive wine, and the waiter didn't so much as blink when she ordered it or hesitate in bringing it to her she noticed to her satisfaction. Though why would they when her platinum credit card was so clearly within easy reach in her exceedingly expensive and stylish clutch bag?

By the time Rachel left the restaurant she was a little unsteady on her feet but not so much her well practiced grace couldn't keep her traveling in the right direction. She sunk into the empty backseat of the car she'd called for and closed her eyes, willing her heartbeat to slow. This was no time to start getting worked up. She'd spent her entire young life feeling crushed by a sense of panic underneath her cool exterior she certainly didn't plan to go out the same way.

She must have drifted off because she was startled awake what seemed like moments later when the driver announced that they had reached her home. Rachel didn't bother to respond to the man's statement merely shoved a large wad of money into his hand and dragged herself out of the car, her head still feeling fuzzy from the wine and the knowledge of what she intended to do next.

Rachel let herself into the house that suddenly seemed even bigger and emptier than normal. The lights were off and if any of the staff were still here they were certainly making themselves scarce. Her mother wasn't there of course. She so rarely was that Rachel could hardly be surprised though she allowed herself a brief moment of disappointment.

She tried to picture a different scenario, one in which her mother had been sitting up, perhaps in the kitchen with a cup of tea, waiting for Rachel's return. She would have made up a cup for Rachel, gathered her in for a hug and asked her about her day.

Rachel couldn't help but chuckle mirthlessly at the ridiculousness of the mental image. She and her mother hadn't really talked since Rachel was about 12, back in the days when Kim Tan was just the pretty second son who was nice to her…

Rachel shuddered.

Maybe if he had never become more than that, never become her fiancé, never become her entire hope for a different future than the loveless ambition that was her mother's life, maybe this wouldn't be happening.

Maybe, maybe, maybe…

I thought if I didn't want to marry you later I should at least get engaged to you now.

Rachel hated Kim Tan for being so cavalier about what had been her desperate play for a life worth living.

She hated herself more for giving him that much power over her in the first place.

She'd never had much control over her own life-what she would eat, what she would wear, who she would be friends with, who she would marry-but she would be damned if she wouldn't have control over the decision to end it.

So she'd gone against her mother's wishes and willingly ended the engagement to Kim Tan. She had not endured. She had not grabbed Cha Eun Sang by the hair or by the throat and shaken her until she had shrunk back to whatever hole she crawled out of and left what was rightfully Rachel's alone.

She had also not exposed Cha Eun Sang as a member of the social care group but that hadn't stopped Kim Tan from cornering her and accusing her of just that. It had been the final straw in Rachel's mind, the final piece snapping into its' inevitable place.

It didn't matter that she hadn't done it. Kim Tan had made up his mind about Rachel a long time ago. It didn't matter that he had been her fiancé when he met Cha Eun Sang. It didn't matter that it had been her father's company before her mother took most of it in the divorce. It didn't matter that she spent every waking moment for as long as she could remember trying to be perfect. None of it mattered and none of it ever would again. At least she knew that now.

Rachel made her way up to her room, running her hand along the smooth banister on the way. Suddenly everything was imbued with meaning now that she knew they were all lasts. The grain of the banister, the click of her heels on the steps, the slight breeze from the air conditioning, all sensations to be experienced for the last time, all reminders of her dwindling ability to feel anything at all.

Rachel reached her room and sat lightly on the edge of her bed, removing her heels and placing them neatly to the side. She reached for the bottle of pills she had procured from her doctor weeks ago claiming that she couldn't sleep. It wasn't a lie, but it was hardly a recent development and he had barely let her get through her rehearsed story before he was shoving a prescription towards her anyway.

Rachel unscrewed the cap and shook a handful of pills into her palm. She wondered briefly if she should leave some kind of a note but quickly dismissed the thought.

She despised those who tried to make their case after their death as though everything could be explained and quantified with a few sentences on paper. It was better to maintain her perfect veneer, keep them guessing and not dignify with a response in death those who had dismissed her pain in life.

Rachel took the pills one at a time with a glass of water she had prepared for this purpose earlier. She swallowed them quickly and without hesitation before pulling her legs up and curling delicately around one of her pillows. Even now she couldn't entirely turn off a life of habit. She wondered how she looked in this moment, wondered if she would maintain her cold beauty in death or if it would fall away the instant her soul left her body, leaving an ugly shell behind.

Soon everything was drifting away and Rachel felt her lips lift in an almost smile. There was some relief in feeling herself disconnect from this body that had never let her feel at home in it.

Buzz buzz buzz buzz

Rachel tried to squeeze her eyes closed tighter to separate herself from the noise disturbing her final moments but in the aching silence of the house the vibrating of her phone echoed too loud to be ignored.

Without opening her eyes Rachel reached out sluggishly and struggled to grasp her phone in her semi-numb fingers, thumbing the answer key and mumbling a groggy "what" as she pressed it to her ear.

"How's my favorite sister?" A mocking voice greeted her and Rachel considered rolling her eyes before her tired brain decided it was entirely too much work.

"Choi Young-do," She mumbled, her voice sounding weak and foreign to her ears. "You can stop calling me that now. My mother dumped your father remember? So many broken engagements…"

She trailed off not wanting to think about her own broken engagement any more, not wanting to think of anything any longer, hating Young-do for making her do so.

"Rachel?" If Young-do's suddenly serious tone wasn't enough to convince Rachel that he'd realized something was off, the fact that he actually used her name certainly was. "What's wrong?"

Rachel let out a small laugh that sounded more like a cough.

"People like us don't get to ask questions like that, do we? Too many answers no one wants to hear," Rachel muttered curling further in on herself suddenly feeling extremely cold.

"Where are you right now?" Young-do's voice was flat and insistent, she recognized it as the voice he used when ordering around his minions or those who worked for Zeus. It was a tone that brokered no disobedience.

"Shut up," Rachel mumbled, tears bubbling up and a sob catching in her throat. "Just shut up, shut up, shut up. You're ruining it. Just like everything else, ruined, ruined, ruined."

Any illusion of disinterest disappeared. "Ya! Rachel cut the crap and tell me where you are!"

"I'm not Cha Eun Sang," Rachel whispered. "You don't get to save me. You don't get to pretend to want to."

"Ya! Rachel…"

Rachel let the phone slip from her hand the muffled sounds of Young-do's shouting the last thing she heard as everything finally went blissfully dark and quiet.

The next thing she saw was an incredibly bright light and part of Rachel's mind reeled with surprise. This couldn't be right. She didn't really believe in an afterlife of any sort, let alone the shiny, white light version for good, sinless souls who had left the earth too soon.

Not for her anyway.

But her eyes soon adjusted and the bright light gave way to an ugly tiled ceiling and the incessant beeping that could only mean she was alive and in a hospital no less.

Rachel tried to muster her strength to sit up but found her right arm unexpectedly heavy. A glance in that direction from her still groggy eyes made the reason for the weight plain, there was a large hand enveloping her own. A hand that was connected to an arm, an arm that belonged to Choi Young-do.

Rachel tried to recoil out of habit but Young-do held on to her hand firmly his eyes searching her face though what answer he hoped to find Rachel didn't know.

"What are you doing here?" Rachel demanded, her voice weak and scratchy, each word burning and causing enough agony that her free hand flew to her throat.

Young-do rolled his eyes, and leaned closer his hand still gripping hers tightly.

"Really Rachel? What are you doing here? What were you thinking?" He shook his hand without waiting for an answer. "What did I ever do to get stuck with such a stupid sister…"

"I'm not your sister," Rachel whispered, trying to ease the strain on her throat even as tears sprung into her eyes despite her best efforts to withhold them.

"That's right, you're not," Young-do reached out much to her surprise and wiped a tear off of her cheek, seemingly unfazed by the fact that she flinched under his touch. "But I'm the guy who's here. And I'm not leaving so you can drop the ice queen act, ok?"

"Why did you have to stop me?" Rachel asked bitterly. "You of all people should know how I felt."

Young-do clenched his jaw and Rachel tensed. She could see the temper his father displayed so often boiling just below Young-do's surface but she could also see the raw emotion in his eyes and the combination was disconcerting.

"Because I want you to wake up, Rachel! I want you to say screw Kim Tan! I want you to realize that he doesn't get to decide how much we…how much you are worth."

"It wasn't just him," Rachel countered softly. "My mother…"

"Screw her!" Young-do interrupted briskly.

"Cha Eun Sang…"

"Screw her!" Young-do supplied without hesitation, and Rachel blinked back at him in surprise but didn't press the issue.

"The whole school…"

"Screw them!"

"The whole god damned world…"

"Screw them, screw them all!" Young-do waved his free arm enthusiastically and practically shouted his last condemnation causing Rachel to shush him embarrassedly but also crack a small smile in spite of himself. Young-do responded with his own signature crooked grin.

"Screw them all," Rachel mused quietly, trying out the feel of it on her tongue.

"Every last one of them," Young-do reached out and stroked her cheek and this time she didn't flinch away. "Me and you. We'll figure this shit out. You don't get to quit on me, Rachel."

Rachel had a lot of things she wanted to say to that.

She wanted to ask where Young-do had been while she had been walking around aching inside every moment of everyday, why he had been chasing Cha Eun Sang when he could have been holding her hand all along. She wanted to ask if he would ever really be able to stop caring what Kim Tan said or thought, the same way she was pretty sure she never would. She wanted to tell him how sorry she was about his father's problems but how happy she was that their parents' marriage was off. She wanted to kiss him and hit him and insist that he didn't get to save her.

But he had, hadn't he?

And she couldn't quite bring herself to hate him for it, at least not in that moment with his eyes sparkling and his mouth laughing and his hand not relinquishing its grip on hers.

"Screw them?" She asked instead.

"Screw them." He responded.

He'd bought her time for the rest.