The next morning, Hajin's feeling letdown. She gets two days-off from work a week - Tuesdays and Saturdays - and as it's a Tuesday, she was really looking forward to spending some quality time with So, except he just informed her that he wouldn't be free until much later in the afternoon. She counts the number of hours 'til then and pouts in dismay. Ten hours. Ten more hours until she can have him exclusively to herself. It feels like a lifetime. Sighing, she ends up rolling around in bed, pathetically going over his messages again.
"Yah!" her mother yells, bursting into her room, her hair still in curlers. "Where were you last night? And the night before that?"
Hajin flinches. "Good morning to you, too. And I thought I texted you. Didn't I text you?" she asks sheepishly.
"Oh yes, that's right! 'I'll be back soon'. That's all you said," her mother growls. "Did you not see my next texts? Who were you with? Where were you?"
"Umma," Hajin wails, desperately trying to think of a way out of the situation. "I'm 27-years-old. How am I supposed to find myself a boyfriend if I'm constantly being babied by you? I just... wanted to try going out for once. It's been almost a year since I woke up! I wanted to test the waters again, to see if I could handle it; have a few drinks and er... get to know some people!"
Her mother seems temporarily at a loss for words. "I know this is hard for you," she says at last in a calming voice, sitting on the edge of her bed. "And you know we're very proud of you for trying to save that little boy... but we do worry about you, you know? You could have done that while informing us, we wouldn't have minded! We just want to make sure you were safe."
Hajin's feeling guilty. She's considering confessing everything when her mother continues with, "Even your aunts and uncles keep asking about you! 'Does Hajin have a boyfriend yet?', 'When is Hajin getting married?', everyone's worried you'll end up an old maid."
She groans and buries herself under her covers.
"Yah, is this about that stupid ex-boyfriend of yours?" She prods, patting her shoulder sympathetically. "I know today is supposed to be your anniversary but it's about time you forget about that good-for-nothing. You know, there are many men out there! You're still young and beautiful, you shouldn't waste away your life waiting for someone like that. And anyway, from what I hear, he and Jihye don't have the most stable relationship. Always fighting and getting back together and then fighting again, serves them right for-"
"Umma," Hajin says, sitting upright and sighing. "I've already told you, I'm not interested in hearing about those two. And the only time I do end up thinking about him is when you mention him!"
"Well then, are you just going to lie in bed all day?" she retorts. "If you're not depressed over him, then what is it?"
Hajin doesn't know what to say. Her mother's right... if she and that jerk hadn't broken it off, today would have been their anniversary. She scowls, thinking how unfortunate that it should fall only two days after her reunion with So.
So. Pyeha. Unconsciously, she smiles again. Maybe she could spend the day looking for something to give him.
"Why are you smiling?" her mother asks suspiciously, peering closely at her face.
"Wh-what? I'm not," she quickly rearranges her expression and gets up, heading for the bathroom.
"You were!" her mother insists, following her in. "You were smiling like..." she gasps. "Omo! Are you... in love? Is that why you've been away for practically two days? How long have you been together? Have you been..." She gives her a meaningful look.
Hajin keeps her face carefully blank as she pushes her mother out the door. "I'm going to shower before going out."
"But where will you be going?" she shrieks. "Since you're not denying it, is it true? Who is he? Hajin-ah! Yah!"
Hajin shuts the door firmly on her face and locks it, biting her lip to prevent herself from laughing out loud. Pressing her ear to the door, she can hear her mother's excited footsteps retreating until she's out of the room. Well, that solves one little problem... now the bomb won't be so huge when she finally decides to drop it. A ping makes her look down to see she's got a new message from an unknown number:
Unknown: Hajin-ahhhh! I got your number from hyung! You know what this means?
Even though there's no mention of his name, she knows exactly who it's from. Amused, she saves his number and states the obvious to tease him, "We can start texting each other now?"
Barely two seconds had passed before she receives another message, "We can play together! He says you're free today. I'm free too! How about it?"
A day catching Pokemon. She thinks about it and shrugs. Why not? She really had no concrete plans for the day, anyway.
She finds him approximately an hour later standing beneath a tree, looking strange as he points his phone upward, apparently in hot pursuit of a flying Pokemon. Playfully, she comes up behind him and says, "It better be more worth it than a pidgey."
He jumps in surprise and spins around. "Hajin-ah!" he cries happily. "It's not a pidgey, it's better than that! Quick, get your game out, it's a-" he turns his attention back and gasps, "Omo! Where did it go? Ya! Don't tell me it despawned! Can you see it on your screen? I can't find it anywhere on mine!"
Hajin holds up her phone apologetically to show him the loading screen. "I'm sorry. Was that my fault?"
He shifts his gaze mournfully between his screen and the tree for a moment before sighing. "No, it's my fault. I wasted time trying to get a good picture of it. It was a chansey! Do you have one of those? That would have been my first ever."
She tugs at her earlobe. She's never heard of a chansey before. "No, I haven't. I suppose they're very rare."
"Very," he says. "One of my friends managed to hatch one though, from a 10km egg. I'm incubating one now. I hope it's something good and not another pincer!"
Her game finally opens and she shows him. "Okay, I'm ready."
Eagerly, he stands beside her and peers at her screen. "You're only level 12?"
"I don't really play much," she admits sheepishly. "I only played for about three weeks and stopped maybe... 2 months ago?"
"Oh. So you're not really a gamer?" he asks, his face falling.
"It's because I mostly catch rattatas and pidgeys!" she explains glumly. "And the highest level I have is a staryu at CP 300. Some Pokemon at the gyms are over 2,000! One hit and my Pokemon die instantly."
Eun nods in understanding and grabs her by the shoulders. "Don't worry, Hajin-ah. The master is here. I will teach you everything you need to know! Which eggs are you hatching now?"
"Er... are there eggs in this game?"
He looks positively scandalized. "You've gotten to level 12 without hatching a single egg? Yah, this won't do. We'll have to start from the basics."
An hour later, and Hajin thinks she's got it. They've been walking around the park, doing nothing but getting Pokestops, increasing the mileage on their eggs, and looking for Pokemon. All the while, Eun's been guiding her, giving her advice and explaining to her the functions of the different parts of the game. There were a lot of other players around, too. She could tell they were playing the same game because they kept swiping away at their phones. At one point, someone had screamed, "VULPIX!" from out of nowhere and caused absolute mayhem. Hajin had never witnessed a stampeding herd of wildebeests before, but she could have sworn that's what they looked and sounded like. Eun had grabbed her by the hand and dragged her over, and she caught her first ever vulpix after one try.
"It's so cute!" she gushes, eyeing her screen. Sure, it's only CP 50 compared to Eun's 540, but it's better than nothing.
"You should see its evolution!" he says, positively skipping with delight. "Set it as your buddy so he can start collecting candies. You remember how to do it?"
She nods and demonstrates. She can't help but feel proud at how much she's managed to learn in just an hour, a pride clearly reflected on Eun's face. "Yah, you learn so fast," he says admiringly.
She smiles smugly. "That's because I'm someone who learns one thing and picks up ten more! Plus, I've found myself a really good teacher."
He giggles, looking embarrassed. They're sitting side-by-side on a bench by the lake, taking a moment to rest their tired legs and feet. He glances curiously at Hajin to see her sorting out the Pokemon in her inventory, reading the descriptions out loud, her eyebrows drawn together in concentration. He doesn't understand why it was so easy for him to befriend her when he had always been so awkward around girls... he supposed it had to do with knowing she was So's girlfriend. Anyone who can handle his cousin's cold, intimidating aura must be some sort of saint.
Well, whatever it was, he was glad he chose to get to know her. She was easy to get along with and seemed genuinely interested in getting to know him too, the latter being a quality he has yet to encounter in other girls.
"Ah, I'm thirsty," he says with a yawn. "There's a cafe to the south side of the park that I think may be a gym. Shall we go there?"
"Sure." She grabs her things and gets up to follow him.
For a time, they walk in companionable silence, broken only when a Pokemon pops up on the screen. "So, I've been curious about something..." Eun begins hesitantly after they've caught their third pidgey in a row. "But I don't know if I should ask it."
"What is it?"
"You won't tell hyung I asked?"
She's looking at him strangely, almost as if she knows what he wants to say. But she only nods and says, "I promise. What is it?"
"It's just that... hyung's so cold and serious, and you're so fun to be with. How on earth do you two even get along? To be honest, I don't see it happening." He frowns in contemplation.
Hajin's taken aback by the question, but it makes her smile. "You probably won't believe me, but your cousin's not all serious when we're together." When he looks even more skeptical, Hajin laughs. "I'm not lying! Baek Ah's a pretty fun guy too, how come he and So are best friends?"
"Ah, well," Eun shrugs. "I always thought that was because of Baek Ah's past. Hyung's been looking out for him in the company since we were younger, so naturally, they've become good friends."
"Er... Baek Ah's past?" Hajin prods tentatively.
Immediately, Eun flushes. "Y-you... you don't know? I- I assumed that you..." He shakes his head and looks determinedly ahead. "No, forget I said anything."
"You can't do that! How am I supposed to just forget something like that?" she asks, exasperated. "What happened to Baek Ah?"
When he continues to stare straight ahead at nothing in particular, she glares at him and pokes him in the ribs. He gasps and jumps in surprise before turning an accusatory glare at her. For a moment, they exchange glares, sizing each other up, and then they attack simultaneously.
"Stop, stop! Yah-haha!" Eun shrieks, trying to grab hold of both her hands while keeping one of his own free to counter-tickle.
"I will- once you- omo! Once you tell me!" she grits her teeth and tries harder. Not surprisingly, gamer Eun isn't built for force... and she's had plenty of experience tackling a much larger opponent.
"If you don't-" he gasps, edging his body away from her and instead bumping into a tree. In a panic, he tries to go around it, but she's surprisingly strong and keeps him in place, looking satisfied. Flushed at having been defeated so easily by a girl, he puffs up his cheeks and growls, "If you don't let me go, you're dead!"
"Come on, I don't want to have to do this either," she grunts.
"If I stop, will you let go?"
"If I let go, will you promise not to have revenge?"
Eun narrows his eyes briefly, then nods. "Deal."
"Deal."
They both stare at each other for a long time - either one willing the other to back down, neither giving in - until somewhere near them, someone clears his throat and then a familiar voice says, "What are you two doing?"
Immediately, Eun jumps as though he's been scalded and bows a greeting. "Hyung-nim!"
"You're here!" Hajin exclaims in delight, letting Eun go and running up to give So a hug instead.
He's eyeing them both suspiciously with narrowed eyes. "I was able to get some time off. So what's going on between you two?"
"I just asked him a question," Hajin shrugs innocently. "He wouldn't give me an answer, so I was trying to force it out of him."
Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Eun inflating, ready to voice out a retort, but he seems to think better of it and deflates again. She turns her attention away from him to see So bending over her, lowering his voice, "If it were any other man, he'd be dead by now."
"You don't trust me?" she asks indignantly.
"I don't trust other men," he says simply. "What did you want to know?"
She lowers her own voice and looks at him seriously. "Baek Ah."
She doesn't need to explain what she means; he understands and nods. "I'll tell you later. When we're alone." As he says this, he cracks a mischievous smile, causing her heart to flutter in anticipation and her cheeks to grow hot.
"I have about an hour," he says out loud, straightening up and checking his watch. "Were you two going to do anything else other than... wrestle?"
"Drinks!" Eun says at once, remembering. He clears his throat, looking suddenly self-conscious. "I was thirsty. There's a cafe somewhere over there."
So eyes the direction he's pointing at before exchanging glances with him. Hajin finds this behavior strange, but before she can ask what's going on, So nods and entwines his fingers with hers. "Baek Ah says you've got an idea about the cosmetics," he says to Eun as they begin to walk.
Immediately, there's a smug smile on Eun's face. "I have a few tricks up my sleeve. I'll let you know when I have more than just an idea. It'll impress even you, hyung."
So smirks. "I'm sure it will."
"How'd you know where we'd be?" Hajin asks curiously, wondering if she'd mentioned it in her texts earlier.
"Eunnie told me."
She glances at Eun in surprise. He narrows his eyes at her first, clearly still sour over the outcome of their brief fight, but then he shrugs and cocks his head in So's direction as though that ought to explain everything. She glances at So instead to see him on his phone again.
"I thought you said you were free."
She makes to snatch it away, but he's got quicker reflexes. Holding it well beyond her reach, he grins, "Free to be here, yes, but I still have a lot of things to take care of. Don't be greedy."
She rolls her eyes and sighs. "But you'll be free later, right?"
"I made sure of it," he replies, to her satisfaction. She happily hugs his arm as they continue to walk.
"Hajin-ah! A squirtle!" Eun exclaims, already attempting to catch his.
"What!" she says, letting go of So to check her phone. Sure enough, there's the squirtle. She clicks on it and begins trying to catch it.
"You're choosing a turtle over me?" So asks, peering over her shoulder.
She rolls her eyes. "It's a squirtle?" she corrects, pointing at the name.
"It looks like a turtle."
"Because it's a turtle Pokemon."
"So it's a turtle."
"Ugh," she says, exasperated. He chuckles and grabs both her arm and Eun's as they cross the road to the other side.
"Needs improvement," Eun grumbles, scowling at his phone. "What about you?"
"The best!" she says happily, marking it as her favorite. "But it's only got 200 something combat points."
"That's alright, you've got a lot of stardust anyway. Just don't level him up until you evolve him. The cafe's over here," he says, gesturing to the one on their left. "They make the best frappes for miles around! You've been here before, right, hyung?"
"I think so."
They follow Eun and wait for him to open the door, but before he could, it opens from the inside and someone steps out. Hajin inhales sharply and grabs So's arm. An image has just flashed through her mind... this has happened to her many times before - in Goryeo: she had seen flashes of So doing things that hadn't happened yet... of him killing Eun at the latter's request, to him becoming the 4th King, Gwangjong.
This time, the vision isn't about him... it's about the two people who were currently looking at each other. There's Eun, smiling bashfully in a tux, and her...
"Deok," Hajin breathes. Soon Deok in white, with flowers in her hair. The image lasts only a few seconds, and Hajin has to shake her head to make sure she's still in the present. The next time she looks, Eun is back in his polo and shorts, and Deok's in her gym outfit.
So touches the hand squeezing his arm and looks down at her, trying to gauge her reaction. She's looking both astonished and shaken... but also somewhat confused. He wonders what's on her mind.
Deok's eyes travel all over the group and she greets them formally first before turning around and calling to someone inside. "Jung-ah! Your brother and cousin are here." She turns back to the group and eyes Hajin, but Hajin's too stunned to introduce herself. Deok... and did she just say...
"Hyung!"
Jung.
And break :D
As always, thanks to all your kind reviews! I'm sorry it took awhile for me to update, but I heard the official DVD might not include the deleted scenes we've been asking for so desperately, so I fell into another depression and spent the past day or two making fanvids again to help me deal with my grief (╥_╥)
Kira: Whoa, 2 reviews, thanks a bunch! Yeah, that "elephant" lol it's a huuuuuge elephant, which means they likely won't be dealing with it anytime soon. Hajin's still grieving, she'll need time to sort out her feelings ;D About Yo, Wook and Queen Yoo... I have plans for two of them, but I won't say which *evil snigger*
Guest Ch5: Haha thank you! I had fun writing that chapter so I'm glad you enjoyed it!
nn: You're very welcome! Yeah, since it's only been 2 days, she still calls him Pyeha and he still calls her Soo xD
ChocolateandRoses: So many of you were asking for more SoSoo, so I obliged :D I'm glad you liked it!
Lady Silvermaine: I read the update to your story after posting the update to mine haha thanks for your suggestion! I have no cause to make So jealous just yet because... someone hasn't appeared yet, but because you asked, I added a bit of So possessiveness into this chapter. And we all know Soo has the biggest elephant to be sorry for, but I won't be dealing with it just yet :D PATIENCE IS A VIRTUE :3
Guest Ch9: I'm glad you feel that way because heartwarming and a lot of feels were exactly what I was going for :D
Nath Tsubasa Evans: Yes! CR's death was like... a huuuuge blow to Soo. It was after she died that she went to Baek Ah and told him to tell Jung she wanted out ( TT A TT ) I knew I had to address it, and found the perfect opportunity to do so in Chapter 9!
ChildlikeEmpress: I agree haha I'm glad we see eye-to-eye! And I love looove your review for Chapter 9, thanks so much! ^^ I'm gonna sound like a total noob but... what is AO3? lol
wynteralchemyst: At So's mysterious musings... *evil snigger* you'll seeeeeeeeee. And for guessing Deok, YOU WIN A PRIZE! ^o^b
Second Guest Ch9: SoSoo good, eh? haha yes, I see what you did there! Thanks for the review, I'm glad you like it ^-^