A/N: And now for the chapter we've all been waiting for…hopefully…

Ga Eul was having the strangest dream.

In her dream, she had just closed up the porridge shop, and she was walking to her bus stop when Yi Jeong's orange Lotus suddenly pulled up beside her. When the passenger side window had been rolled down, she saw Il Hyun smiling at her from the driver's seat and beckoning her to get in.

Il Hyun handed her an invitation written in a foreign language that she couldn't read even in the dream but that she somehow knew was an invitation to Yi Jeong's wedding.

Pulling out some boxes from the trunk of the car, Il Hyun stacked them into Ga Eul's arms and said, "Here's your battle armor."

The next moment, she was in a ballroom full of people she'd never seen before but who seemed to know her. Everyone kept staring and pointing at her, and that's when she noticed that, unlike them, she wasn't wearing a ball gown but her porridge shop apron over a t-shirt and jeans. At some point, she thought she spotted Yi Jeong standing beside an unfamiliar lady in a beautiful wedding dress. When she got closer, though, she saw that it wasn't him, but the bride smirked at Ga Eul as if she knew who Ga Eul was looking for.

Then Ga Eul was standing in a field of wildflowers at night—alone but with the distinct feeling of waiting for something or someone. She had on her bridesmaid's dress from Jae Kyung's wedding, and she kept twirling around in it because she liked the way the skirt billowed out beneath her and the feeling of being dizzy and the hope that she might wake up if she kept twirling around fast enough.

The ground spun around and around under her feet until finally the grassy field turned into crumbling rock, and Ga Eul found herself falling over the edge of a cliff into the ocean below…falling…falling…falling…

Ga Eul awoke with a gasp as she fell back into the chair she had fallen asleep in.

The lights in the plane were on, and she realized that the plane must have hit the runway around the moment she had woken up.

"You're finally awake," Woo Bin announced from a chair diagonal to Ga Eul as she sat up straighter and tried to calm her racing heart.

"Ah…yes," she managed, glancing at him.

Ga Eul had just finished packing her things to go to the airport when Woo Bin had shown up at her house, claiming that Jun Pyo had already whisked Jan Di away on an earlier flight and that she would be flying with him on another private plane. Ji Hoo, apparently, could not tear himself away from his medical duties.

The flight had taken a lot longer than Ga Eul remembered, but, then again, she had only been to New Caledonia once. Looking around and expecting perhaps to see the beautiful ocean glistening in the sunlight, she noticed that all of the windows had been covered.

"Sunbae, couldn't we see out of the windows before?"

Ga Eul reached over to push one of the covers up.

"Ah, don't worry about those." Woo Bin came over and, grabbing her wrist, pulled her out of her chair and over to a cart laden with breakfast food. "I closed them so the light wouldn't wake you up. You seemed pretty tired."

"Oh?" Ga Eul gently extricated her wrist from his grasp. "Well…Thank you, Sunbae."

Woo Bin grinned charismatically.

"So, do you want anything? Of course, we'll have plenty of food once we—"

"Oh, no, that's okay."

"Are you sure you're okay? You look kind-of pale."

"I'm fine. I'm just tired. I guess I better gather my things up."

Woo Bin shrugged and sat back down. He picked up a cinnamon roll from the cart and ate it slowly as he watched her move about the cabin, fiddling with her purse and stuffing things back into her carry-on. He wondered what she had been dreaming about. He'd seen her fidgeting in her sleep, and when she'd woken up she looked a bit distressed. In fact, she had been fairly silent most of the plane ride until she had fallen asleep. From the little conversation they did have, though, Woo Bin could tell she was distracted by something or someone. And if the most recent conversation he'd had with Yi Jeong were anything to go by, that person seemed quite taken with her as well. Their relationship—whatever it was exactly—struck Woo Bin as strange, but, at the same time, it made sense: a classic case of two opposites attracting.

The plane finally came to a halt, and shortly thereafter the announcement came that they were to disembark.

Ga Eul headed for the exit first, eager to get back out into the fresh air and away from Woo Bin's studious gaze. In fact, the idea had come to her while she sat on the plane that maybe Jan Di had the right idea. She just needed a break—to get away from everything, to relax, to rejuvenate herself and come back as a stronger person.

Then a gust of cold wind slapped her in the face as she stepped out of the plane entrance and into the blinding sunlight.

"Sunbae, why is it so…cold…"

They had landed in front of what looked like a private airplane hanger, and Ga Eul saw nothing but bare fields for miles stretching out in front of her. Her eyes finally came to rest on a shiny black Cadillac sitting on the runway next to the plane. Yi Jeong was leaning up against the car—his hands in his pockets, his eyes squinting in the sun's glare—but when he saw her emerge from the airplane, he stood up straight. He smiled and waved at her.

Abruptly, she turned around to get back inside the plane but found herself shoving against Woo Bin, who blocked the entrance.

"Woo Bin Sunbae! What is this?!" she demanded.

"I think it's an airplane ramp. You're supposed to walk down it." She could hear a slight tone of amusement in his voice.

"You tricked me!" she exclaimed, jabbing her finger at his chest.

Brushing the place where the tip of her finger had hit him, Woo Bin cleared his throat and answered, "I thought you'd be pleasantly surprised."

"Well, I'm not. Woo Bin Sunbae, let me back on that plane this instant!" She stamped her foot for emphasis and tried to shove her way back in again, but Woo Bin caught her arms and pushed her back toward the ramp as she kept struggling.

"I'm afraid I can't do that."

"This is kidnapping!"

"Ya, do you see any kids around here?"

"Where's Jan Di?" Ga Eul tore her arms away and flung them down to her sides. "Was she in on this too?"

"Aniyo, Jan Di is with Jun Pyo in New Caledonia."

"Ya, you guys are really insane."

"Ga Eul-yang," Yi Jeong called out from below, "The plane has to refuel. I think you two better get off."

Ga Eul turned her body sideways to glance back and forth at each of them.

At the car, someone in a black suit—one of Yi Jeong's staff, she guessed—loaded her pink suitcase into the Cadillac.

In the entrance to the plane, Woo Bin slowly shook his head and widened his stance.

Great, she was caught between two egotistical maniacs.

Letting out a large, audible sigh, she tramped down the rest of the stairs and headed toward the car. Passing by Yi Jeong and the passenger door he held open for her, she walked around the car, got into the backseat on the other side, and slammed the door.

Ga Eul still wore her hair the same way Yi Jeong remembered—long and straight and held back with one of her many colorful headbands. She had pulled on a long gray cardigan over her simple collared white blouse, but he knew her bare legs must be cold, being left exposed by her high-waisted jean shorts. Perhaps he should have made her change into some of the winter clothes he had in the house, but as she seemed intent on ignoring him, he doubted she'd take anything at this point, no matter how cold she was.

He'd taken the three of them back to his house, and lunch had been served—jjajangmyeon, prepared by the Korean cooking staff he'd brought with him from home. Woo Bin dug into his without hesitation, remarking on how nice it was to have good Korean food in a foreign country.

Ga Eul stared at hers for a moment when the maid delivered it, then took to gazing out of the window at the walled garden on that side of the house, leaving her food untouched. Yi Jeong nodded and gave some short, vague responses to whatever Woo Bin was going on about, but he kept studying her profile in the light filtering in from the window. She'd been so angry before, but now he couldn't read her—whether she was simmering to a boiling point again or drifting into a melancholy state or simply becoming more and more anxious to leave.

Then Ga Eul stood up and slid her full plate to the center of the table. Looking only at Woo Bin, she announced, "I'll just be in the garden over there. You can call me when you're done, and then we can go back to Korea." Ga Eul went out of the sliding glass doors, leaving one of them slightly open and letting the cool air in from outside.

"Bro, what's gotten into her?" Woo Bin asked when she had disappeared. He stuffed the last of his noodles into his mouth.

"How should I know?" Yi Jeong shoved his own half-finished plate next to hers. "I called to ask her how she was, and she just went off on me. Don't girls like that sort of thing?"

Woo Bin took a swallow of his beer and chuckled. "I thought you knew everything about girls."

"I know everything about women! Girls like that…" He waved his hand toward where Ga Eul had disappeared. "Girls like that…" he trailed off again.

Ga Eul reappeared in Yi Jeong's line of sight for a moment. She had already found Milo, the orange and white striped cat that made his home on the grounds. Milo hardly ever let anyone touch him, but Ga Eul was holding him in her arms and stroking the fur on top of his head. She sat down with the cat in a wooden rocking chair that had been placed outside and started rocking in it, leaning forward instead of back into the chair. She huddled over the cat for a while, staring at her sandals instead of at the sky.

Woo Bin left, and the maids came to clear away the dishes, but Yi Jeong told them to leave everything and take the rest of the afternoon off. He grabbed a brown plaid blanket scarf that had been thrown onto one of the coat hooks by the doors. Sliding the doors open again, slowly and quietly, he slipped outside and approached Ga Eul from behind.

If Ga Eul noticed him coming out, she didn't show it. Her hands still clutched the cat, but she had stopped petting him. A light breeze blew against them then, and she shivered and tucked her arms further against her sides.

"Aren't you cold?" Yi Jeong asked, stepping up right behind her chair and placing the scarf around her shoulders.

She stood up abruptly. The scarf fell from her shoulders onto the chair, and the cat jumped out of her arms and scampered away.

"I'm fine," she muttered, tucking some hair behind her ear. Without looking at his face, Ga Eul stepped hurriedly around him and walked back inside the open doors.

"Where's Woo Bin?" she called out.

"Ah, him?" Yi Jeong stepped back inside also, noting how she inched away from him slightly as he did so. "He's on his way back to the airport."

Ga Eul should have seen that coming, but that realization didn't make her any less angry about being stranded there.

"That's not fair, Sunbae."

"Do you mean to say you're being fair to me? You haven't said two words to me since you walked in the door."

"Ah, yes, you're the gentleman here. I'm just the country bumpkin who doesn't know how to speak properly."

"Was that sarcasm or is that just the way you talk now?"

"You're one to talk about what's fair. You must think you're real clever," Ga Eul continued as though she hadn't heard him. "First you kidnap me and take me to your workshop. Then you trick me into thinking my best friend is dying and take me to the airport." She turned to face him then, and he could see the irritation building in her face, along with something else he couldn't figure out. "And now you've gotten me onto a plane and delivered me to an entirely different country without my knowledge. Sunbae, let's try counting the number of times in our relationship that you haven't deceived me into getting something you want."

Yi Jeong reached over as though to touch her arm, and she pulled back.

"Don't touch me!"

He dropped his arm but stepped toward her.

"Ga Eul-yang, you wouldn't have come if you knew where you were going."

"Of course not!"

"Why? Why did you block my number? I wouldn't have had to drag you all the way here if maybe you could answer the phone like a civilized member of society."

"Civilized?"

"Yeah, civilized. You know, maybe we ought to talk about this…this…whatever this is like friends normally do."

"There is nothing normal about a friendship between someone like me and someone like you, Yi Jeong Sunbae."

"What's that supposed to mean?!"

"What do you ever mean?"

"See, there you go again. Avoiding the question." He took another step closer to her, so that there was less than an arm's length between them. She tried to back away, but he grabbed both of her wrists and held her there. "But Ga Eul-yang, you aren't leaving here until you tell me what the hell is going on! And after that, you can leave, and I'll leave you alone for the rest of your life if that's what you want. But I want an explanation, and I want it now!" His voice grew firmer. "Did someone threaten you? Did anybody hurt you?"

"You hurt me!" Ga Eul pulled one of her arms free and slapped him across the face. "Don't you think you've done enough, Sunbae? Don't you think I've gotten the message by now?!"

Yi Jeong, surprised by her sudden outburst, let go of her other wrist. His cheek stung pretty badly, but he was more concerned by her assertion that he had done something—something apparently worse than the night he had taken her to meet his father, where he had gotten off with a mere glass of water thrown in his face. He looked her over for a moment before replying.

"Ga Eul-yang…What are you talking about?"

Marching over to the dining table, she snatched her phone from out of her purse and, after flipping through it for a moment, held it out to him so that he could see the screen. A message on the screen read: Hey Ga Eul, Woo Bin is throwing a private going-away party for me at this address. Give them your name at the door, and they should let you in.

"And don't tell me you were too drunk to remember anything," Ga Eul continued. "You weren't too drunk to send me that text."

A look of utter confusion descended upon Yi Jeong's face.

"I didn't send you that. Where is that, anyway? What's the address for? Cheongdam-dong? What were you doing there?"

Ga Eul scoffed.

"What? It came from your phone, Sunbae. Don't try that with me!"

Yi Jeong held up his hands.

"Honestly, I've never seen that, and believe me, I didn't send that to you."

Ga Eul stared at him, an incredulous look on her face.

"Don't you think you're taking this act a bit too far?"

"What are you talking about?"

"What were you doing the night before you left for Sweden?"

"The night before I left?...I was with Woo Bin and—"

"You mean to tell me that you weren't out partying with Woo Bin the night before you left?"

"The night before I left I went to dinner with the F4, and after that we were at our old hangout all night. It was just us. I was beating Woo Bin at pool!"

Ga Eul felt like she'd been struck by a blunt object as Yi Jeong continued, his voice rising incrementally, "You can ask Woo Bin, and if you don't believe him, you can ask Jun Pyo or Ji Hoo! Or even Jan Di. She'll tell you. She came over to say goodbye, and I didn't think Jun Pyo would let her leave!"

Ga Eul's face had turned as pale as the white napkins on the dining room table. She trembled a bit as she looked from him to her phone and then back at him.

Then some realization seemed to sink in, and she collapsed back into the chair behind her, still trembling.

"Ga Eul-yang...Ga Eul-yang! What happened?!"

She didn't say anything, just fiddled with her phone and looked around uncertainly. In fact, she looked so forlorn that Yi Jeong wanted to pull her out of the chair and hold her in his arms, but he wasn't sure how she would respond to that.

Instead, he cleared his throat and said softly, "Ga Eul-yang, talk to me. Can you tell me what's wrong?"

After a moment, she lifted a pair of uncertain eyes up to him and answered, her voice barely above a whisper, "Sunbae, I…I don't know. I don't know what's going on anymore."

"Well, I sure don't, but maybe if you tell me about it, we can figure out this…this…misunderstanding."

He looked so bewildered in that moment that Ga Eul thought she must be going crazy, so she explained where she had gone and everything that happened once she got there and how the guy she had seen looked so much like him, except that now Ga Eul realized she had only seen him from the side…and in the dark at that…with a crowd of people pushing and shoving against her.

"Did you talk to anyone?" Yi Jeong asked when she had finished. "Did anyone say anything to you?"

Ga Eul shook her head.

"Just the bouncer. He let me in after I told him who I was."

Shifting in his chair, which he had placed facing hers, Yi Jeong frowned. He didn't know what disturbed him more—what had actually happened or the fact that Ga Eul so quickly believed what she thought had happened.

"But Ga Eul, why did you think I'd want you to see something like that?"

"I just thought you were making fun of me."

"And why would I do that?"

Ga Eul shrugged.

Reaching over, Yi Jeong tentatively grabbed one of Ga Eul's hands and held it between his own two hands, rubbing the back of her hand with his thumb.

"Ga Eul-yang, why don't you tell me what's really bothering you?"

Now that the shock had passed, contrition had settled in. She could hardly believe it when he took her hand like that and held it so gently—the same hand that had slapped his face not too long ago. They sat so close together now that their knees almost touched.

"I already told you about the club," she answered shakily.

Yi Jeong shook his head.

"No, not that. You were going to stop talking to me before that. At Namsan, remember?"

Ga Eul glanced up at him and back at her lap. A long silence ensued.

Finally, she said, "You almost kissed me, remember?"

Yi Jeong gripped her hand a bit tighter and nodded slowly.

Ga Eul smiled, still looking down at his hands clasping hers.

"That was like a very nice dream. But Sunbae, what do you think would have happened if Eun Jae hadn't been engaged to your brother? No matter where I am with you, I'm always second. I'm always just the silly commoner who follows you around."

"Ga Eul-yang, I think you're underestimating how many girls follow me around."

Ga Eul looked up at him curiously.

"Do you think you're the same as everyone else? Look around. Do you see anyone else here?"

"But, Sunbae, I—"

"Ask me again."

A new intensity had come into his eyes, and Ga Eul shifted nervously.

"Ask you what again?"

"Say, 'Will you go out with me?'"

"Why?" she asked softly.

Yi Jeong smiled—not in the charming way he normally did but in a genuine way that Ga Eul thought very few people must ever see.

"Because some bad guys like good girls."

"And do you like me?" she whispered.

Yi Jeong nodded slowly and, leaning over, kissed her.