A/N: Consider this long chapter my apology for the leave of absence. I know everyone's really mad at Yi Jeong right now (understandably so and thanks a million for the reviews), but don't get too worried! I write sins, not tragedies ^^
One Month Later, Late August
Another unbearably mundane day at the porridge shop passed as slowly as the drip-drop-drip of the shop's leaky faucet. After a quiet morning, a few regulars had straggled in around lunchtime before taking off again to their respective jobs. Ga Eul had offered to take Jan Di's shift since Jun Pyo would be flying out the next morning, and so, unfortunately, she was stuck at the shop alone save for Master the entire day, unfolding and refolding napkins to keep herself occupied. Such had been her life for the past month—a flurry of mindless activity designed to keep a certain scheming playboy out of her head. No matter what she tried, however, she couldn't block out the images of that night.
After she left the club, she had walked along the strip of shops and restaurants a good distance until her feet gave out and she wearily sat down on a bench outside of an expensive jewelry store. At some point, she had gotten up to peer in the front window at the fancy diamond necklaces, bracelets, and rings on display. A pair of couple rings gleamed from a pedestal in the very center of the window, Ga Eul's distorted image in the larger one mocking her.
When she had messaged her parents to tell them she was at Jan Di's house and would be home late, her mother had replied, "OK," and that was the end of it. Ga Eul's family, save for her grandmother, didn't really follow her movements. She'd tell them when she expected to be home, but rarely would they tell her she couldn't go somewhere or that she had to be in by a certain time. Perhaps they thought they had gone overboard with her brother and were now making up for it by being so lenient with her. She usually liked their laissez-faire parenting style, but that night it had irritated her if for no other reason than that she knew no one was really looking for her to be anywhere, not even at home.
When she had stumbled in at around two in the morning, her house was dark and silent, but when she had finally collapsed onto her bed, the noise in her head had kept her awake all night long.
Surprisingly, she hadn't cried. She had cried when Su Pyo had hurt her, but the pain she felt over Yi Jeong was different. Instead of ripping her heart apart, he had shot it through with anesthetic—rendering her all but dead to the world.
On her break now, Ga Eul ate her two-day-old rice slowly, picking up a few morsels at a time and wondering how she could make it through the entire bowl. The rice tasted like cardboard, dry and stale, just like she knew it would when she ignored her mother's comment about cooking a fresh batch of rice that morning.
The doorbell rang, signaling the entrance of a customer and the end of Ga Eul's break.
Glad for the distraction, she got up from the booth, turned around, and greeted the customer—bowing swiftly. As she leaned over, her eyes caught on the stylish pair of black dress shoes approaching her.
She straightened up immediately—too quickly for her own liking—but the man in front of her was not Yi Jeong but his brother.
"Miss Ga Eul, good to see you again," he said with a warm smile.
"Ah-ah, yes," Ga Eul stammered. "So Il Hyun-ssi, good to see you also."
"You can call me Il Hyun Oppa if you like. I'm sort-of a big brother to the F4. Could I speak with you outside for a moment?"
Ga Eul glanced over at her awestruck boss, who had unwittingly lowered his newspaper into his bowl of porridge.
"I'll be right back, Master, I promise," she assured him. Still, she could feel his eyes intensely following her as she walked out of the door with Il Hyun and over to Il Hyun's mini cooper—a rather modest car by F4 standards-which had been parked directly in front of the entrance.
If she had expected to be dragged off somewhere, she was pleasantly disappointed. Il Hyun stopped in front of the passenger side and turned toward Ga Eul.
"I didn't want to say this in front of your boss, but this was the only place I knew of where I might find you. Would you like to come work for me?"
Ga Eul stared at him for a moment—taking in his pleasant but serious facial expression and the half-upturned collar on his otherwise perfectly pressed and pleated gray sweater.
"E-excuse me?" she finally stammered.
"You've been to my café before. I need a new barista, and I know you have a lot of restaurant experience. As far as making coffee goes, I can teach you everything you need to know."
Ga Eul opened her mouth to speak, but she must have been taking too long to take him up on the offer because Il Hyun pulled out a small piece of paper from his pocket and jotted something down on it.
Holding up the paper, he continued, "This would be your starting salary." He smiled again. "Of course, there's also free pastries thrown in from time to time."
Ga Eul blinked. The figure in front of her was time and a half what she currently made at the porridge shop, and she had been working there for three years. Actually, she wasn't really sure how Il Hyun paid his baristas that much and stayed in business.
"Look, if you want some time to think about it, that's fine," Il Hyun said, flipping the paper over and writing something else on it. "But just let me know by this weekend." He held the paper out to her. "And this is the number I can be reached at, day or night, but, please, no midnight calls. I'm not up as late as my brother."
Ga Eul gingerly took the paper and stuffed it her apron pocket.
"Thank you…Thank you, but…there's something I should tell you. I'm not Yi Jeong Sunbae's girlfriend." Her voice slightly cracked over that last statement, but Il Hyun seemed not to notice.
"Yes, I know." He nodded his head.
"You know?"
"He told me before he left."
"Oh, I see." Ga Eul's heart sank even further down.
"But he said you were a good friend of the F4, so I thought we could be good friends too. Maybe you can give me an update on my brother every once in a while. He doesn't always keep in touch."
Ga Eul clutched the paper a bit tighter and glanced nervously to the side and then down at the pavement. After a moment, she looked back at him with the widest smile she could muster, knowing she wouldn't take the job no matter how much he paid her, and answered, "I'll think about it. Thank you so much for the offer." Dipping her head, she pulled away to go back inside when she felt a hand gently grasp her arm.
When she looked up, Il Hyun's expression had turned completely serious.
"I don't have a right to ask you this," he said, "but please, whatever you do, don't give up on my brother. He needs good people like you in his life." He let go of her arm. "And, please, do think about the job I offered you."
Late September
Yi Jeong finished drying his hands and threw the towel down on the workshop floor. Pressing his hands onto the counter, he leaned over the sink and let out a frustrated sigh. His hand wasn't recovering as quickly as he had hoped. The doctors said he had already made good progress just in the past two months, but he honestly couldn't tell any difference. The one activity that had always soothed him before now pained him if he worked on it too hard or for too long. This should have left him more time to study for his college classes, but it only served to throw him back into one of his more somber moods where he got next to nothing done. He hadn't started drinking again, though. Each time he thought about it, he remembered that was the whole reason he had gotten himself into this mess. This, of course, resulted in him not going out clubbing or to parties the way he had been used to—although the real reason, as much as Yi Jeong hated to admit it, was that no European model could even remotely remind him of a certain country bumpkin he had left behind in Korea.
He had been surprised when she hadn't shown up at the airport the day he left and even more surprised when she hadn't called him after he arrived in Sweden, even just to ask him how his flight was. That seemed like the type of thing Ga Eul would do, and he had wondered if she was okay, enough to casually inquire about her to Woo Bin but not enough to actually pick up the phone and call her himself. He didn't want to give her the wrong idea. Four years was a long time, and he couldn't give her any real hope of anything even after he came back. There was the part of him that loved being around her, that almost couldn't resist the opportunity to tease her and said stupid things he could never really promise her, like he did that last night they spent together.
And then there was the part of him that had walked out of his grandfather's office the day after that night, angry and scared as hell.
Two Months Earlier
There had been a long meeting between Yi Jeong, his father, and his grandfather about the future of the museum, and Yi Jeong had just gotten up to follow his father out of his grandfather's office.
"Yi Jeong, stay a moment." The elder So motioned for his secretary to leave, and Yi Jeong slowly sank back down in his chair.
"I trust you understand your reasons for going to Sweden," his grandfather began, shuffling some papers and removing them from the top of his desk. "First for your medical treatment, of course. The university you will be attending is excellent. It will also be a great place for you to make contacts in the art world. All of this, of course, will serve a greater purpose. I plan to retire within a few years, and at that point I would like you to take my position."
"Shouldn't that go to my father?"
His grandfather shook his head.
"Your father is a potter, not a businessman. If I wanted this museum run like a circus, I would have let him have it years ago. Sometimes favor skips a generation. But let me be perfectly clear." He produced a stack of large photographs from underneath his desk and started laying them out in front of Yi Jeong. They all featured the same two people—himself and Ga Eul—in various places from the events that had taken place in the past three years. The earliest photo had been taken at the club Yi Jeong had taken her to where he helped her get back at Su Pyo.
"For the next four years," he continued in the same level tone, setting a photo of Yi Jeong and Ga Eul holding hands at the skating rink down directly in front of Yi Jeong, "you may do whatever you wish abroad. I won't stop you." The pictures snapped against the desk as he laid them down, one by one. "But the moment you resume your duties here in Korea, you also resume your responsibilities here. All of them. Do you understand?" He set down the last of the photos and spaced them evenly, meticulously, with his fingers. Never once did he glance up at Yi Jeong's face but kept his focus on the shiny images of Ga Eul. Ga Eul glancing nervously to the side. Ga Eul looking up at something in awe. Ga Eul laughing hysterically.
Otherwise, he might have seen the glimmer of barely concealed rage beneath Yi Jeong's careless words.
"Harabeoji," he began, "you know how many women I date. What's so special about this one? You're wasting my time showing me the same photos, over and over. Besides—"
"I haven't finished." His grandfather slapped another photo down on the desk. This one showed the two of them late at night in the middle of a residential street. Yi Jeong had his arms around Ga Eul and his eyes closed and a contented smile on his face.
Then another photo went down over that one—a photo of just Ga Eul in front of her house. From the bookbag she wore, it looked like she was either coming from or going to school. Another photo slid over the top of that one. This one must have been shot from across the street by a long range lens, and it showed Ga Eul balancing a tray of dishes inside the porridge shop, her hair spilling out of a messy bun on top of her head.
"You may think that no one is watching you. But there is always someone. This time it was me." He looked up for the first time. "Let it not be a reporter."
"Harabeoji—"
"What you do on Korean soil is just as much the museum's business as it is yours. Do not forget that." He picked up one of the photos and inspected it. "She seems like a bright girl—"
Yi Jeong's expression darkened.
"Don't you dare do anything—"
"Do?" He glanced up. "Do what? I'm not threatening her, and I'm not threatening you. At least not yet. But do keep this conversation in mind. Four years goes by fairly quickly. You can have these photos if you like." He started gathering them up. "They're cluttering up my office."
At present, Yi Jeong took out one of the photos from the stack that lay hidden inside one of his workshop drawers. In this one, Ga Eul was all bundled up and cleaning windows on the outside of the porridge shop. She wore the same red coat she had been wearing the night they went on their horrible third date, a night of which there had, unfortunately, been plenty of photos.
He hadn't bothered denying anything else after that last photo of them together had been shown to him. His grandfather could always see through everyone's bluffs anyway; it was what had made him such a smart businessman.
Yi Jeong had to be smarter.
Ga Eul had to be like these photos, locked up safe somewhere so far beneath his grandfather's notice that he would forget her existence.
But still Yi Jeong kept pulling out the photos and looking.
Always looking.
Looking for a message on his phone.
Waiting for a package of pottery that never arrived. Had she forgotten their deal?
Hoping for some word from someone that she had asked about him, that she hadn't forgotten him and moved on that quickly. Or that she had decided to take the job at his brother's café, at least.
Pulling out his phone and finding her number, his thumb hovered over the call button, wondering if today was the day he would turn out just like that idiot Jun Pyo.
Early October
The first call came on a Monday while Ga Eul sat in her 2:00 PM photography class, which she was taking for her art credit. Fumbling around in her bag and cursing under her breath while Miss A's "I Don't Need a Man" reached a crescendo, Ga Eul turned her phone off without even looking at the caller id.
A day passed, then two.
At the end of the week, he called again.
Then the next day, then the next.
When he called on Saturday, she was getting ready to go shopping with Jan Di. This time, when she didn't answer, he called a minute later while she pulled on her leggings. Then twice more while she applied her makeup and put her hair up in a ponytail.
She wanted to put the phone on silent, but she knew she would miss Jan Di's call if she did. Unfortunately, she couldn't bring herself to block Yi Jeong's number, as much as she didn't want to talk to him.
Although part of her did want to talk to him.
Part of her wanted to strangle him with the pale pink hair ribbon she held between her thumb and index finger.
Her phone rang.
Honestly, this was too much.
Picking up the phone, she snapped a "hello" into the receiver.
"Ga Eul-yang?" Yi Jeong's voice answered, sounding almost eager.
Argh, he could melt butter with that voice.
Shaking off that thought, Ga Eul replied, in as firm a tone as she could manage, "What is it, Sunbae? I'm busy, and I'm fairly certain you have Jan Di's number, so if this is about her or Jun Pyo Sunbae, I suggest you call one of them directly."
A short silence followed that directive, and she almost thought Yi Jeong was so taken aback he had hung up.
Then he spoke again in a more tentative tone.
"Actually, I was just wondering how you are doing. Is…everything okay there?"
"Here?" Ga Eul glanced absently out of her bedroom window. "It's sunny, and there's a light breeze."
Another pause.
"So…you're outside? You're not going around barefoot again, are you?" His tone took on its more usual mischievous coloring. "You're going to cut your feet up on something, and then you're going to have to explain that to your mother."
As if you care, Ga Eul thought.
"Commoners don't play around outside, Yi Jeong Sunbae. We have this thing called work that keeps us inside most of the daylight hours."
"Ga Eul-yang." She could hear him laugh rather nervously on the other end. "Are you sure everything's okay? You seem kind of stressed. Am I disturbing you at the shop? You can go back to your customers."
He actually sounded concerned with that last set of statements, a fact which both disturbed and bewildered Ga Eul. She could feel herself about to say something like, "Oh no, Sunbae, you're not bothering me at all. You're never a bother. You can call me anytime."
Then she remembered herself choking in a room full of fake smoke and fake people while he ran his hands over a faceless woman in a tight red dress, those hands that had always held her at arm's length.
She remembered her resolve.
She bit back, "Unfortunately, we have some very shabby looking female customers in the shop today, nothing to interest you. So why don't you go back to whatever Swedish model you have sitting on your lap at the moment and leave me to my misery? Goodbye."
She hung up the phone and tossed it onto her dresser. Her hands shook, and she semi-collapsed onto the bed behind her, unsure of what she had just said or how she had said it.
A moment later, her phone rang again, and she stared at it for a moment, swallowing hard as she realized this was the chance she needed to end this.
"Look, I don't know what you've been reading in the tabloids," Yi Jeong said when she answered, "but—"
"Tabloids?" Ga Eul laughed humorlessly. "Who needs pictures when you can see it for yourself?"
"Ga Eul-yang—"
"So Yi Jeong-ssi, I don't know what type of sick game you're playing at, but you better find somebody else to amuse yourself with because this is the last time you'll be hearing from me."
With that, she hung up and, scrolling through her list of calls, blocked his number.
Acting as if nothing in the world was wrong between them, the nerve!
Just like he had acted the day after he took her out for that horrible date, she realized. Like she was supposed to play along whenever his mood favored her.
She remembered him smiling all sweet and charming at her while they painted Jan Di's house and played Truth or Dare.
Truth or Dare.
He wanted truth? Fine.
Truth: She'd never been able to resist that smile. She'd been captive to it from the first moment she met him. That smile that had wooed and won countless women before her and would continue to do so long after she faded from his memory. That smile that said 'you are wanted by the great Casanova.' And when someone like that wants you, you'd follow them anywhere, even to your own private hell.
But not Ga Eul.
Not today.
Not anymore.