Once the rain stops, the quietness wakes her up. Chill had settled in her bones, sweat clamping her hair against her skin, Ha Jin wakes up to a parched throat and his faint touch. She feels his finger tips ghost over her hair and recalls the rough hands of that man - greedy, brutish, overpowering. Had he tainted her so much that So finds it repulsive to touch her? The thought wrenches her heart so painfully that it makes her flinch and even the faint touch is retreated at once. Her eyes snap open, just as he is rising from her side, her hand seek and hold him on their own volition - unrelenting and desperate.

“Water -” she croaks, the other hand massaging her throat. He pours her a glass and move closer to help her upright. They both feel the shudder that runs down her spine when his palm makes contact with her back, and he is quick to put distance between them. As he holds the glass to her lips, So avoids her gaze determinedly.

It breaks her heart as she is reminded of a darker threat, spoken by a man long gone.

“He will flinch before touching you once I’m done…”

“Look at me,” she demands, her voice hesitant. Tears brim her eyes as minutes pass without him complying. Broken, she feels hollow, worn and torn. “So please…” unchecked her tears drain down, she tastes them on her lips but makes no move to wipe them away. Instead she notices the bruises on his face, the clothes on his frame.

“Are you leaving me here?” She wishes she does not sound so timid, so hopeless. But she does, a broken sob punches the end of her sentence and she clasps a hand over her mouth. He is leaving, that much is stark on his appearance she chokes on her own breath.

“I need to go,” he sounds detached, his eyes still focused on her hand. “I can’t stay here.”

This time when he rises she does not hold him back. So bites his lip and prays she lets him go. His presence is a weight he doesn’t wish to impose on her, not when his face brings her worst nightmares to the surface. It was his greed that had him linger for so long, but his love would not let him remain and scar her. The circle of fate, brings them back to that point - where walking away is the only way to keep her safe. This time he is not the fool he was, this time he would deal with everything that threatens to harm her before walking away. He clutches his fist, wills himself to move away when all he wanted is to hold her and never let go. He must - he tells himself. He must.

That is why the banging on his door takes him by surprise, just as the rain starts its ballad, and the thunder rattles in distance. As if conjured out of his longing she stands there - puffed eyed, tousled haired a reflection of his own desperation.

“Ha Jin - ah?” He murmurs her name, pulls her in without a second thought. But as soon as the door is shut and she stands leaning against it, with her comes all the half healed wounds he had caused on her fate. “What are you doing here?” He demands. If Yo has a hand in this - God forbid, his brother is going to face his ire. They had talked this out, had decided it was he who had to do this - see this to the end - Yo had promised him.

She doesn’t reply, instead tears brim her eyes and her lower lip tremble. Whatever courage that had brought her there - seemed to fail her, when the confrontation comes. Unable to help himself, So strokes her cheek with a cautious hand. His guarded eyes remain on the edge, waiting to withdraw the moment she flinches, daring the pain her rejection would cause him. Guarding her against him was only one of the reasons - guarding himself against that heartbreak was the other. He couldn’t bear to see the evidence of the ruination he had caused her - a girl who was once so whole and pure.

“He touched me…” her voice is a whisper, but sharp and cutting as a shred of glass. He wonders if it is meant for him or for herself, but the words plunge into his heart. “I don’t know what he did - but I know it was him. Every night - he was there. And I couldn’t stop him.” Her sigh is restrained, as if she is choking on the memory. “Does that - is that what disgusts you?”

He inhales sharply, thralled by her fears. She looks up at him with tear stained eyes.

“I’m scarred, dirty -” she rubs at her arms, at the healing cuts crisscrossing her pale skin bringing to his notice that she wears no cover against the chill. “You are right to feel that. But I can’t have you walk away like that - I deserve a goodbye, I want to know that - that you are alright. Mun Seong was saying strange things - I couldn’t sit back and wait not knowing - are you - are you going to put yourself in danger?”

She struggles against him when his arms come around her, not out of fear as he had predicted earlier - but out of self disgust.

“Don’t touch me! I’m dirty, I - I -”

He tucks her into his embrace and buries his face on the crook of her neck, breathing her in, allowing himself that little comfort. He rubs her spine cautiously as if she is made of something delicate.

“You are precious to me,” he tells her, hoping she would understand all that he couldn’t find words to express.

“But you left,” she says softly. “You left because you can’t bear to look at me.”

“Ha Jin - ah,” he brushes sweaty hair off her face and kisses her fevered brow. “My presence hurts you.” He speaks almost hesitantly, not wanting her to recall those feverish nights when she had screamed at his touch, thrashed in the throes of her nightmares, confused between Soo and Ha Jin - then and now.

She had mumbled about Tae, about Wook and that man with his face. Then she would drown deeper and reminisce about Jeongjong - about the time when he had left her to her own devices under the reign of a mad king. Her fears were always same, always bitter. They were stories he had never heard from her lips before - he had never learned the horrors she faced at his brother’s hands, forced to serve him - cater to his every whim. It must have been a struggle - it must have been the battle that took lights out of her eyes, the color off her cheeks - he realizes it now, thousand years too late. So knows, it was not desire that drove his brother, it might have been an elaborate scheme to get her to write him - to bring their connection to light - to prove that his detachment from her is nothing but a ruse.

Oh how she must have suffered!

Her hands cup his face, fingers gently stroking his cheeks, eyes drinking him with a greed that pulls at his restrains.

“Do you still love me?” She sounds so broken that it hurts him. Unsure - and small, ready to withdraw the moment he confirms her fears. As the pause stretches, her lips tremble once again the girl who believed he was too good for her. He takes her face gently with both his hands and lowers his mouth to hers, hovering there - a breath apart - still halted by the recollections of her fears. He would do nothing that would invoke the memories of that monster - instead he waits, against every nerve in his being that yearns to touch her, taste her, once again - he waits for her to cross that hair breadth of distance.

Her hands slide from his cheeks down the sides of his throat, her fingers cold as ice - even when her skin is burning. They curl on the material at his shoulders, and she breathes through her mouth, her lips finally resting against his, gentle and hesitant. She sighs into their kiss, giving into the need that simmers between them, allowing him to hold her closer, kiss her deeper, until her senses are filled with him and tingling with beginnings of desire.

She still shudders when his palm moves over the raw skin of her arms and So stills abruptly, his eyes seeking her flushed face.

“Aren’t you afraid of me?”

She shakes her head and moves closer to press her lips to his jaw. His fingers tangle in her hair, massaging her scalp, as he looks down at her.

“I see fear in your eyes Ha Jin - ah,” his voice is a whisper. “I remind you of him, don’t I?”

Her hand splayed over his heart curls at the thought.

“I know he is not you..” she says softly. “I’ve always known. I fear -” she gulps, hands slipping around his waist, head buried against him. “I fear rejection. I thought you - I thought -I - I just can’t stop it - I’m sorry!”

His touch is so soft that it brings new tears to her eyes.

“There’s nothing to be sorry about,” he assures her, his voice low and warm, his thumb caressing her cheek. “Look at me - look - take a breath, I’ve got you.”

“Do you still want me?” There is a touch of wonder to her tone that is his undoing. There is a hint of uncertainty at the edge of her words, he had waited for thousand years, she couldn't possibly ask him to wait more. Broken she is, but time is not the only thing that would heal her. She needed him, but with nothing to give in return - her eyes fluttered and fell not willing to admit to that weakness, not daring to hope. She needed no magic, just his arms around her and to know that he is real - to feel that he is real. It suddenly seemed too much to ask for. 

He kisses her hard in reply, hands digging into the heated flesh at her waist, trailing his fingers across the expense of smooth skin, tracing patterns that sets her senses on fire just as his lips glide over her jaw, down her throat in search of her pulse. Warm and solid and real. 

He pauses looking at her questioningly.

“Am I allowed to?”

She doesn’t reply immediately and he presses a reassuring kiss on her temple, letting her slither against his chest, cheek pressed against his throat.

“Love,” he calls her reverently, she lets his voice wash over her, eyes closed and inhaling his scent, the earth and spice that is so soothingly him. “Let's take it slow. Nothing has changed, nothing will change. You are still the girl I fell in love with, a little messy, a little ruined and too good to be real. We were friends before we became lovers, and we still are...” His breath fans over her as she opens her eyes. "Tell me what you want."

"I can't sleep," she says slowly, burrowing deep into his warmth as he kisses her hair.

"Lie with me," he murmurs, gently. "We'll talk until you fall asleep." His lips wander over her throat and she unfolds in his arms like a love note read in secret. Heat blooms as if she had been cold her entire life and her arms wrap around him, he finds his home when their lips meet again.

“I love you -” he sighs, against her skin, against her fluttering pulse. “Always have, always will.”

**

The rain falls at its earnest, dulling the sounds of the background into a sleepy hum. Ha Jin lies awake, splayed across So, drawing lazy circles on his chest. He had just finished recounting the events lost to her and she wonders how he could be so indifferent about the doom hanging over him, unaffected as his fingers dance across her spine absentmindedly.

“I still can't believe she tried to kill you so many times...” She whispers, “after all that she would blame it on you - on Miss Oh?”

He doesn’t reply, so she props up on her elbow, looking into his eyes.

“Why would you think of surrendering?” She thinks of Mun Seong talking about him being bugged, but watching him bruised and battered she fails to bring herself to ask that question. Instead it is her fear that she voice her gaze never leaving his. "Why would you allow her win?"

“Ha Jin - ah,” his knuckles ghost over her cheek. “She can’t find me unless I want to. The only way to get this over once and for all is to take her on her own field. Once Yo gets his hands on the CCTVs of Omoni's office - I have to hand myself over.”

She holds his gaze for a moment longer, thinking uncomfortably of an eve of a battle thousand years ago - of a dead king, grieving queens and a threat of an army looming over them.

“You sound as if…” she lets the word trail off. “What about the bug?”

His lips tug upwards, a faint smile playing across them.

“I’ve handled the technical aspects of Aboji’s security for a while now Ha Jin - ah, I know how to handle bugs.”

“So it is true. How did you find out?”

“He gave us a chase when we were escaping,” he recalls softly, “followed us with incredible accuracy, up until the moment I set off a jamming signal.”

“But must you be the bait?” She tries to keep the ghosts away from her tone, but fails when she sounds bitter with anticipation. "They are ruining you So!"

“Yes.” He says softly. “She has made the move - that is the only way to trap her. Often very smooth people works up a false sense of security, she would too, when I lower my guard. But I would do that once we are ready setting up the defence. I won't go down silently as she wishes."

"Where are the CCTVs?" 

"I got into Hwang Hospital systems - with Eun's help and looked into it. It was Yeon Hwa who brought those photographs into My Hyung's office. Yo and I believe it's in the safe keeping of Haes."

She lies back, head against his shoulder when he starts to stroke her hair. Her eyes close listening to his voice. 

"Yo already has Myung Hee's case open, he is going to use it to investigate into Haes by using the inheritance angle and shifting the doubt. It has nothing to do with our family so no one can bar him off. He is going to do a search on them soon."

She shivers recalling the dark horrors of the Hae manor and his lips grace over her hair. 

"They won't touch you again - I promise," he mutters. " And that leaves only one thing for me to work out -"

“What?”

He stretches his forearm, so that the red traces against his skin are visible to her. They make crude numbers, scratched on his skin.

“Yeon Hwa made that - it must be a clue that leads to whatever she knew. Yo believes it will give us evidence on the look alike. We need to know who he was before his face was made, when his face was made...Things Aboji failed to find.”

“How much did he know from the beginning?” Ha Jin muses aloud, a finger tip tracing the scratches that are only scars now. She tastes guilt on her mouth when she thinks of Yeon Hwa, a thought she pushes away to ponder upon later.

“He did try to find him,” So says thoughtfully. “I don’t believe him heartless enough to treat that way to a child. He must have said it in the heat of the moment. He didn't reject Yo - he wouldn't have rejected another kid.”

“Still, it would have been better to let him be adopted out - that one misstep ruined a man.”

"And I have a hand in that -" So bites his lip, his eyes as dark as the thought crossing them. "He did it for me."

"You always blame yourself," she buries herself against his warmth and chides softly. "Think of what they did to you..."

There is a pause in which So continues to lazily stroke her hair before running his fingers down her spine. 

“I didn’t remember being kidnapped until recently,” his voice draws distant and his hand rests still on her back. “I had no idea why I was sent home from that school - I believed, like a fool that I must have done something.”

“Wook told me once -” she tells him cautiously. “I didn’t believe him.”

“He never makes false claims,” he nods. “It was true. Until I met you - I believed them. I believed that I did horrible things sometimes.”

She reaches up to caress his face, trace a finger over those lovely features.

“You were worried you might hurt me.”

He catches her hand in his, kissing her fingertips.

“It was in US that I realized they must have lied.” He tells her. “It was one of the things Aboji knew - he believed when I said things that had no proof. Like when I was beaten. Omoni would say I made up stories.”

“Those times when you turned up with raw knuckles I thought you were beating up people.”

A chuckle vibrates through him and his hand strokes her hair.

“More like coach Park would beat me up. Aboji put him into it - to teach me how to survive. It’s a silly thing actually - he thought they might kill me in secret and replace me without him ever realizing. He smooths the creases between her brows with a finger, prompting her too look up at him.

“At first I thought you were someone else,” she says softly. “Could it be - Could it be the same person?"