The sand is cool under her feet and the stars are silent overhead. The pounding that drowns out her thoughts comes from her own pulse. Ha Jin begins to learn what it means to find their way to the other - for she had not been the one left behind in their equation before. It was So - it had always been So who waited - then and now and again until she found her way back to him.

Instead fate turns on her - it seems like the repayment of a lifetime he had spent longing for her. But still not - for he is not entirely free from the suffering either. The waves crash against the shore, and she hugs herself against the salty wind - feeling insignificant alone in the vast emptiness of the night. Without his hand in hers, his shoulder brushing against hers, or his breath touching her skin - the charm of that spot was lost to her.

Closing her eyes she draws in a lungful of salty air, chilled in the night and humid as it swept across the sea. In her mind a younger So grins, bronze skinned and sparkling eyed - the first time he ever brought her there. The trip that ended in the darkest way imaginable and had broken them apart for so many long years.

"What were you doing?" She asks him, trying to see what he was hiding in his hands, clasped behind his back. There is nothing, other than the sand that coats his arms. "What were you hiding?"

He grins sheepishly, reaching out to take her hand.

"It's your birthday present," he admits, looking into her eyes. There is a trace of that same insecurity of the boy who had brought her the peony pendant, the hesitance that she finds endearing. "Ha Jin - ah," he mutters, tucking an errand lock behind her ear and allowing his touch to linger. "I want you to dug it out, yourself - will you promise me to do that?"

"Why - you -" she swallows her words, her throat suddenly tight. "You won't be here for my birthday."

"I -" he lets go of her hands, in favor of resting his palms atop her shoulders. Sun shines behind him, casting a halo around his head and he looks so beautiful that she finds it hard to breath. "I want you to call me when you do. Tell me what you think - huh? Promise?"
"What is it anyway?" She tries to lighten the mood. They were not supposed to think of his leaving until the moment comes. "Is it something valuable?"

"You tell me -" he says, drawing her closer, his sand coated fingers trailing along her arms. "When you find it."
"I'm getting curious -" she replies.

"Um hmm -" he murmurs nuzzling against her jaw. She turns her face away when he tries to steal a kiss.

"Tell me what it is?"

"A bottle -"

"What?"

"A message in a bottle. Message for an eighteen year old Ha Jin."

The last of his words fade away to her thoughts and Ha Jin walks towards the rocky edge that he had pointed out. At the foot of the cave, she knows where her gift is hidden. Though the eighteen year old Ha Jin had never gotten the chance to dig it out.

It feels oddly symbolic - and a little ironic that in the biggest storm of their life she is looking for his message in a bottle. The effort takes away some of her bottled up emotions, the rage that her own incapability - the helpless frustration. Until something solid emerges from the sand. Ha Jin holds her breath as she lifts out the little metal box - latched shut, and inside as he had promised is indeed a tiny crystal cut bottle. She uncorks it and empties it on her palm.

A ring with the single most beautiful pearl she had ever seen slips out, attached to it a scroll of tightly wound paper - yellowed with time. His writing, neat, slender and stylish, fills the little piece of paper - calling for her through the blurred vision of her eyes. Ha Jin allows the tears to fall, clutching to the words he had written so long ago.

"Some say pearls mean tears. But it needs a lot of patience to hold on to a grain of sand even when it hurts. Like you held on to me - even when I was a fool, even when the tides were bad. For me pearls mean you. For you it is a promise - that I'd return the vow at the altar one day - if you'd allow me to take you to church."

"So..." she breathes out a tear washed sigh. "So - yah..."

It hurts, it hurts so bad that she curls into a ball, clutching the ring and the little message against her - clasped in her hands. It hurts seeing his face and knowing its not him - it hurts watching from sideline unable to do anything as they steal everything that is dear to him - the glory that belongs only to him - bit by bit. It hurts that she couldn't cry as she was dying to - she could only cry like that in his arms. What escapes her lips instead is a mere whine - weak and pathetic. "So - yah!"

She gulps another painful breath and exhales through her mouth, choking back a dry sob.

"Forgive me -" she mutters to the night. "It might be foolish. But I cannot wait - I'd rather fight it to the end. For us. For you."

**

She knows its not true when the man proposes it. Ha Jin has long since mistrusted her uncle. But she knows it when the man speaks truth. He does know where So it - but tell her - he will not. Instead the man sets out his terms, terms that would finally allow him to possess his family fortune. The cursed money - she fills the gap in her mind.

She would get them when she marries - and she is to marry who the world believes to be So. Once the transfer is complete, she is to return them to his name - the real owner - he doesn't forget to remind. Finally - his eyes gleam in greed - the shackles of her grandfather would be undone. Finally her uncle would get his hands on the wealth he had been lusting after his entire life. In return he holds her life in his fist. Attorney Yoo owes him that he says convinced - for he had stepped in just in time before Wook - had committed a irreversible damage. Ha Jin would not have wanted it now - would she? He adds, with a dark chuckle.

And she returns to her life with Haes, the doll they dress up and display to the world. Only the man by her side has changed. They make her sit beside him in the press conference and she bites the inside of her cheek until she could taste her blood - simply to keep the words she wants to utter at bar. One slip of tongue - she would lose So - Yoo Myung Sung had been quite clear on that point.

"You are too good for them Noona - too good for us..." she recalls Jung's words, when she had made him swear not to utter a word in contrast. He simply stands by her side, forced into silence by his loyalty to her, her fear for her love. A guard that serves no purpose as everything she cherishes is stolen gradually. She winces when Jun entwines his fingers with hers, a gentle smile playing on his lips - his eyes lit up in adoration.

She is blind to it - blind to him - for all she hears - all she sees is how brutally the crush the only thing that had helped him live when they had denied him everything. He has no right to do it, to step down from a position that had never been his - but he does and she curses him. Curses him again.

"A beautiful pair aren't they?" The old man - Hong Ha Jin chortles. "I should have seen it before - it was right under my nose."
The man has the penchant for violence that runs through his son, the need to crush people under his sole. He looks at the young man who makes no response, his eyes still on the television. "Doctor Lee I think you've overdone your duty this time - isn't our patient behaving a little too well today?"

"Leave him be -" snaps the man in the far corner, his voice burning in repressed rage. "You've had your share of fun."

"It has been fun - for all the trouble the bastard had caused!" He spats and bends down, leering a little. "How does it feel Hwang So - watching your own retirement telecast on screen? Good - huh?" He gets no response yet. "What? Not going to spit on me today? No tantrums? Or are they reserved for Wook?"

"Rot in hell," mutters the other man, fisting a bunch of material from Hong Ha Jin's collar. "Leave!"

"Of cause Doctor," the man pushes him away, dusting his grip off his clothes. "Along with you. After all it wouldn't have been possible without your contribution. How many things you've helped me with - managing Jun - over the years and now this."

The man curses and Hong Ha Jin grins darkly.

"Lower the dose - I'd rather have him conscious to watch the wedding video."

And he leaves, in the darkness a door opens and closes, a bolt ticking into place. The room is swallowed by shadows and silence - time ticks away.

"Sometimes I wonder what it is that you are made of -" says the old man, switching off the TV.

"She is wearing the ring -" So replies slowly.

"Huh?" The man turns, an eyebrow curved. Though they both had been so far parties to the act, he knows the young man prefers his silence. He was not paralyzed as Dr. Lee had led Hong Ha Jin believe, on the contrary his injuries had healed in the meantime. It had taken only a combination of drugs to control pulse and pressure and credible pretence on So's part to persuade Wook. Things had been going smoothly since.

"You are him -" So had said the first time they met. "That man - who helped me escape all those years ago."

He keeps to himself that it had been his repentance, for he was the one who set the dice rolling. Had it not been for his failures there would be none to replace him with. He takes his fate as his punishment, for being so easily deceived into a trap that ruined his family, took his love and now stretched its dark tentacles towards other innocent lives. He takes it as an imprisonment a self made cage. There is no point of escaping when his wife and child are gone - from one empty life to another - he cannot bring himself to leave. Instead he becomes the guide in hell, the light at the end of the tunnel for whoever is seeking.

"That ring - with pearls - it can't be her engagement ring from Jun. It' s mine. I - I must go."

"No!" He protests at once.

"You can't - your leg - it is not completely - no - if something goes wrong - let along swim you won't be able to walk!"

"I need to go." His tone does not change, instead his eyes sparkle after so long - with life that he has never seen before. "She knows he is not me. I must go before she does something stupid and puts herself in danger. I must go."

**

She accepts his hand for a dance she cares not. Her eyes are elsewhere, her mind preoccupied. She thinks of everything that is not his hand trailing down her back. The cold feel of metal on her finger, soothes the pricking of her skin. She watches how the light catches the pearl as they twirl around.

"Happy birthday!" He mutters in her ear, fingers running down her spine and bows his head to nuzzle against her throat. "You are beautiful tonight..."

She closes her eyes and tries not to think of the last time she had his arms around her. How So had murmured the same words, with a tantalizing brush of his knuckles along her jaw.

Jun has the same tenor to his tone - but his voice is not So's, there is no breathless wonder when he tells her that she is beautiful. He doesn't make her blush, or drop her gaze to avert his heated eyes, he doesn't make her heart skip when their gazes collide. He is no So - and he cannot make her smile.

"Thank you!" she replies with tasteless words, bidding her time, waiting - and waiting.

Any minute now - any moment - any -

"Hwang So Ssi?" The perfectly professional tone interrupts them. They still on half completed step, her hands sliding off his shoulders, his still on her waist.

Jun does not recognize the man that Ha Jin has seen before. He is one of the anti doping agency people - for the routine OCT." "Can we talk?"

He hesitates for a moment before following the man. Ha Jin holds her breath for a moment longer before exhaling slowly. It wasn't supposed to happen - now that he has already made his intention to retire public. But Yo had helped her pull that particular string.

"Go on Jun," she can't help but think. "Give them your blood - let me rip that mask off your face."

**