Loneliness feels like an old friend and she clutches at her heart. It twitches painfully, filling her eyes and tightening her throat. 

“Noona?” Eun calls her cautiously, his grin slightly dimmed. He reads her too well and frowns. “What is the matter?”

She doesn’t reply for words fail her. Instead she inhales slowly, feeling the life that thrums against her skin. Unconsciously she allows a palm to rest against her still flat stomach - where another life grows - too precious, too small. The perception settles over her shoulders like a shroud. 

She won’t see him again. 

It is too much to start hoping once more. The memories of waiting and waning too real to be overlooked. It was not his fault then. It is not his fault now. It seems like a fated ending that they can’t overcome - a defeat etched in stone. 

In another world - another time - I thought I’d be able to love you. 

But shadows of that world seems to follow behind. 

Again I’ve lost you. 

She makes Eun promise to secrecy before leaving the rest of reports in his care. She feels guilty for dampening his spirits, both of them had been overjoyed when Eun had discovered her pregnancy as a result of the tests he had performed on her. But some burdens - Ha Jin is determined - she should carry alone. 

Have I lost you - again?

She yearns to see him and with each day that passes and each bit of So that Jun manages to steal, she feels herself suffocating with secrets. And with each spiteful night of battling her own nightmares - she is a bit more certain - So is gone. 

She takes only the sonogram - the first black and white glimpse of their baby and a sliver of hope that she refuses to forgo. 

Even if we never see each other again…

She does not dare complete the thought, for her soul twists with unbearable agony.

Even then - I would love you.

She replaces his box with a message of her own. Uncertain if he would ever read it - still that first glimpse of their child, Ha Jin would share with no one else. She buries the box once more - buries her heart along with it. 

If the battle demands that she steps into it, she would - with her utmost. 

Yo takes it all in stride. She feels grateful for he offers no comfort, he knows - she is certain - that he would fail to console her. Instead he gives her what she needs, truth and support. 

“We could play around and get his DNA - but still, Omma would have already thought of that. The samples we took for the case, I’m sure with Uncle Hwang Shik Ryeom being in charge it is a child’s play to get rid of them.”

“What about the samples in USA?” She asks him silently, indifferently. 

“You’ll need a strong reason to apply for them to be brought - and it takes time.”

“That reason - I will give you.” She rises, seeing no further use of their conversation. But he holds her wrist, holds her back. 

“Sister in law,” she stills in her tracks for Yo had never called her so formally, for so intimately. “Hyung would never allow you to do this - if he was here.”

“But he isn’t…” she bits her lip to restrain a sob and Yo squeezes her hand. “He isn’t. I must do this for him - before they announce the retirement. If they do that - if they - they wouldn’t have further use of him. Before that we must act.”

Yo says nothing for a long while, but he has let her hand go. He sighs after a moment. 

“You need to get him to acknowledge the baby first before rising the identity issue. Otherwise he can refuse paternity and end it at that.”

His words sink into the abyss of her thoughts and she presses away the last of her tears. The waves are loud as they crash into the shore and she allows the salty wind to dry off the salty tracks along her cheeks. It feels wretched to expose her baby to such danger and she strokes where she sleeps nestled in her body with gentle fingertips. 

“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 could only hope she would succeed in saving him, before the evil swallows him whole. But in that eve of battle, Ha Jin feels lost. And she thinks of her own message in the box, the one perhaps he would never read. 

Together we’ve made a pearl of our own…

**

She wakes up to that thought and shadows creeping up on her. There is little light and Ha Jin feels disoriented. The ground shifts underneath her and her skin prickles with cold. The first tendrils of fear begins to creep up her spine. 

“Awake - are you?”

She knows that voice and spends no time placing it, when the owner himself crouches down to look into her eyes. 

“Hello - Hae Soo!”

A man dead to the world caresses her face with his knuckles and she feels breath hitching in her throat. There is no pretence of gentleness about him, instead he looks sinister - a beast in his lair.

“Wook..” she rasps. 

“Who would have thought you could play a game of your own?” He seems to care little for her response, and she curls away from him, away from his sinister aura. She is still wearing her dress from the party and goosebumps dot across her exposed shoulders. The ground is freezing and the darkness seems to press her from all sides. “What you have forgotten is - you can never outsmart us.”

“What do you want?” She sounds stronger than she feels and she holds his gaze, it seems to amuse him for some reason. He bends down again to tuck an escaped lock behind her ear - the silver of a needle gleams in his hand. 

“No -” she recoils from his touch, her eyes darting towards the needle. He smirks bluntly. 

“For a woman keeping secrets - you are awfully clumsy darling.”

They know - her heart sinks into ice. She had been trying to play Jun - the weakest link of them all and instead they had caught on. Fear clogs on her airway and makes it hard for her to breathe. 

“Don’t cry -” he brushes a finger tip down her cheek, gathering a stray tear as he move. “You brought this upon yourself - my mother does not believe in second chances.”

“No -” she stutters. “Please -”

“You can have another baby,” he tells her gently - cruelly tearing at her heart. “This one is just too dangerous.”

“Please - I’ll do anything..”

He seems a little pleased at that and his grip curls into her hair, holding her gaze in place - savoring the moment.  

“Anything?” He hisses back and his painful grip eases. She gasps for air as if he had throttled her instead. “Then perhaps, you are ready to bargain after all.”

He sets down the syringe ominous as it is, her eyes never move from it. Instead Wook pulls out a mobile and thrusts it into her hands. It effectively breaks her trance and causes her to look at him questioningly. 

“Choose,” he says. “The baby or its father.”

**

Yoo Myung Sung thinks she has charted all the alternatives. She thinks there is no ways left unguarded. She dares to breathe - she dares to pause. And fate springs back at her. Perhaps as everyone else, she had underestimated Jun or the power of infatuation in the hands of a simple minded man. She appreciates it fully, when the cold barrel presses itself against the back of her neck and her hands tightens around the steering wheel. 

“Jun - ah -” a glance at the rear view mirror confirms her doubts. But Jun does not respond to her affection, instead he clenches his jaw and the cold metal presses harder. 

“Take me to her.”

“Jun listen.”

“Take me to Ha Jin,” he sounds terribly firm, just like the hand that unlocks the gun. Yoo Myung Sung holds her breath, she does not doubt it anymore. Jun - brought up in shadows - craving love - sharpened as a mindless weapon - is indeed capable of carrying out his words. She does not doubt his love or his cruelty. 

“Now.”

**

Our pearl

Dr. Lee grips his arm, when he stumbles. For a moment too long he stares at her words. Something claws at his insides and fear grips him in its tight vice. For a moment So despises himself. He had waited too long - again. He had left her to her own devices for too long - so long that she started to believe she had no one left - that she needed to fight for herself. He had been healing and she had been wounded again and again. He had bidden his time too long. He had been too focused in winning - avenging - in retribution - once again. 

No - he mutters to himself again and again. I refuse to lose you again. I refuse. I refuse. 

Escape had been far too easy, when in the minds of their captors it was one man who would not escape and one who cannot. Both of them had been too late - too wrong. That escape is a blur in his mind, for he had been burning to get to her, hold her, save her - and the failure eats away at his soul. 

Still - he manages to get to the right place. At least the right place to begin. He goes to Eun for he wants Dr. Lee to finally realize how misguided and fruitless a life he had lived. And there - he contacts Yo. 

So does not wait to savor their reunion, or witness the moment when the man realizes his daughter lives - only to snatch that momentary happiness by telling him she is lost to them again. Instead he heeds the call of the shore where he knows her words for him awaits. He does not doubt that she had dug out his ring, something tells him it might be where she had started her own battle. She would have buried her fears - he knows - he feels - she would have buried her heart. 

He had failed her. Again. 

He waits for the call for the game to play itself. The threat hardly means a thing - it is her voice that he is dying to listen. If they had given him the choice - he would not have hesitated to die. But he knows making that choice would kill a part of her. 

They call Dr. Lee. He takes it to mean that they are yet unaware of how much of a progress they had made - who they had met. It amuses him in a dark way to think they would gamble so much on his love for Ha Jin and the child to be certain that he would do exactly as they demand. 

Too certain - too confidant. Something dark twists inside him. 

“So - yah?” Her voice is a breathless whisper, still he taste the hope in it - clutches it tighter, presses it harder against him. 

“Ha Jin - ah.”

He hears the breath that she exhales. Imagines the tear that trickles down her face - the relief she does not allow herself to feel. She was still the woman who had waited for him until her last breath. 

“Don’t come.”  

“Nothing will happen to you Love.”

“Don’t come.” He hears the wince that she tries to mask and his nails draw blood from his palm. They were hurting her - again. “Go to Yo - find Jun. Use the time. It’s all - All I -”

The line goes dead. And his heart grows cold. It’s all I can give you. He completes what she leaves out. Something cracks inside him - the very thin wall that separates So from Gwangong.

“We can track her can’t we?” He says abruptly and Eun looks up suddenly excited. 

“Of cause!” He slams a fist down on the table. “The tracker is planted on her knee.”

But his eyes have already looked past Eun, to Yo who broods silently. So knows what goes in his brother’s head - he was inwardly blaming himself for not protecting her enough. There had always been that tacit understanding between them. Growing up believing they were twins must have formed that sort of mental connection. He looks up immediately when So settles his gaze upon him. 

“Get Hong Ha Jin,” he tells Yo. “Dr. Lee’s testimony should be enough for you to act upon. We can’t have him pitching in for their support again. Get him to confess it all out - where Wook is, what their plan is - that would give you ample reason to get me reinforcement.”

A blank moment passes. 

“No.” Yo says as he stands up. 

“What -?” Jung scrunches up his brows. 

“He is going to comply.” Yo says simply. “Don’t be a fool brother!” The last of his words are reserved for So who presses his lips into a firm line, already at work to find their location. 

“Nothing will happen to me,” he says quietly. 

“How can you be certain they won’t kill you on sight? 

“They won’t see me.” His hands stop on the keys and he looks up at Yo. “I’m going to swim.”

**

She makes the choice the very moment he gives her hope. There is little that Wook’s unforgiving grip on her hair as he drags her to stand could do. Instead she brings the hand with the mobile across the air, hitting and breaking his nose. Blood gashes and makes her flinch, but his grip falters on her - making her stumble back, putting distance between them. 

The floor beneath shifts again and she realizes it with a sinking heart, making her way through the disorienting darkness. They are in water - in some sort of a vessel. The metal bolt slips under her clammy hands and Wook, cursing, groaning in pain - grabs hold of her. She kicks him, a scream tearing through her throat, even as he pulls her away - back into the shadows the door opens with a click. 

They stumble back and a sharp pain runs along her spine when she hits the ground. He gives her no reprieve as his hand swathes around her throat, clawing at her airway. She chokes and the pressure mounts. It was the same man who had once cared so much for her - the same man who had promised her safety in an unknown world - but now devil lurks in his eyes and she struggles for her life. 

“What has happened to you?” She rasps. “Wook - Wook!”

“You - you caused it all.” He replies with fury. “It took me too long to realize. You ruined me.”

There is no love - unrequited or otherwise. She realizes as dark spots dance along her vision. The silver of a needle flashes again. He hates her. Perhaps it was a hatred that he brought along for thousand years - that he had nurtured back then, trapped and wasting away - recounting his life - his decisions - he might have started to rue the day they met. 

“Please -” her voice dies in her throat when his grip tightens. 

“Why couldn’t you love me - as I loved you?” He demands, but needs no answer. 

**

The water is dark, even though a flash skimmed it from time to time. Diving has never been his main focus, but he knew enough. The gear he chooses is lightweight, barely enough to cover the distance he wants to and it is a dark suit that would camouflage him in the night. 

The water - salty and impure, icy and dark. It is not the comforting embrace that he is familiar with, instead it reminds him of the dark green depths from which he had barely saved her once. He can only hope to do it again. The dark water tears silently and ripples shut the dent he made, trapping him within its folds. 

The yacht is still a dark shape in the horizon - unmoving and ominous.

The chill settles in his bones as he gathers momentum, pushing away from the docks. The water weighs down on him, presses against him and his muscles starts to burn with effort. 

Yet he does not stop, until the he breaks the surface yet again, a hand against the cold surface of the yacht.

**

At least she thinks she had saved So from the demon she had created. This was how it was supposed to happen. It began with Wook and her and so would it end. 

But he is thrown off her and a crunch sounds in the darkness. 

For a moment - for one fleeting moment, she thinks it is So but then Wook curses aloud. 

“You mad dog!” 

He comes back to strangle Jun and the two ends up in a tangle of limbs. In the darkness, she hears them rather than she sees. The bloody rage that Jun vents upon Wook. 

“You hurt her!” he growls as he punches Wook. “You hurt mermaid.”

“No - Jun - No!” Yoo Myung Sung screeches, unsure where she should point her gun. “Wook - stop!”

Wook grins, finally managing to overpower Jun’s murderous fury for a moment. Blood grips from his teeth, he pauses for a moment as if to test his mother’s priorities and Jun’s knuckles dig into his jaw once more.

Instead of either of them Yoo Myung Sung reaches for Ha Jin and pulls her back to her feet, by painfully tugging at her hair. The barrel she presses against her throat. 

“Stop - or the girl dies.” 

Silence covers them like a shroud and both men stills staring at the woman heaving for breath. She moves back, dragging Ha Jin with her. 

“I never cared for her anyway. She has always been an obstacle in my plans. To save both of you - it is best that she dies.” She continues to speak, watching how the two of them began to approach her tentatively. The click of the safety unlocking itself makes her wince. 

“Omma -” Jun begins to plead. 

“I don’t think so - Omoni.” 

She screams when his projectile hits her wrist, but she had already lost the grip of the gun, it is tossed away across the darkened deck. Yoo Myung Sung who thought she had calculated all the alternatives finds herself backed in to a corner once more, by the man that stands behind her with ice in his voice and weapon of his own pointed at her. 

He could have shot her - she thinks fleetingly. Still he chose to hit her instead, but there is no trace of mercy in his eyes as he reaches to support a collapsing Ha Jin. His attention shifts for a moment as he holds her. 

“Ha Jin - ah?”

She stares at him blankly, her eyes unfocused. A hand bunching the material at his collar. 

“So -” she exhales. “So - yah.”

He moves with her as her knees give out, easing her into the floor, but never letting go. 

“Are you hurt?” His voice trembles as he pats her cheek. “Ha Jin! Ha Jin - ah! Look at me - why is there so much blood?”

“Seol -ie,” she hisses through clenched teeth, her pale face twisted in pain. “I - I couldn’t -”