I yearn for you so much - but I can’t be near you… she wakes up to tear stained cheeks and the words stuck in her head. The night spent in wistful dreams of his hands ghosting over her skin, his lips murmuring against her ear, leaves her feeling as if there’s a gaping hole where her heart is supposed to be.

She drags herself through the day, washes, dresses, smiles and breathes, does it all on loop until she is too tired to continue and numb from repetition. Then she prays and hopes.

She hopes Miss Oh would tell him the truth, she hopes her own words were enough to snap whatever threads bound him to her - enough that he would start hating her.

I’m afraid I left you with hate instead of love. But this time that is what she wants. For she knows anger numbs the pain. She had chosen the words carefully, the sharpest, the most venomous. Hate me she wishes fervently. Don’t hate yourself.

It is her who ruined him. She thinks back to Miss Oh’s words - punctured by her sobs. Thinks of how she had almost snatched a son from a mother who never had the chance to cuddle him.

And Wook is blind she thinks at first, stumbling out from her uncle’s study, where he lays down his terms, in his icy calmness. A life for a life. For her love to live, Ha Jin must end - Hae Soo must return.

At first she wonders at his oblivion for she knows she is not that great an actress. Her pain is stark clear on her eyes and the last time they met should have impressed upon him the intensity of her feelings. He is either blind or he enjoys watching her uncle pulling her strings. And he is a puppet too, doing as her uncle dictates.

A puppet not a monster. She tells herself. Not yet cruel enough to plot the demise of his own brother. It is peace that she sacrifices herself for, so the devil is not roused, blood is not spilled.

You drank poison for me - she thinks unmindful of the tears that blur her visions - there it must stop. This vicious cycle should not continue. But I yearn for you so much…

And Wook keeps touching her - it feels like a sin. She can’t look at his smiling face without thinking - you lied to him all his life - you made him believe he was dying -

She muses if Wook thinks there’s no connection between what her uncle made him do and her sudden return. If a man could ever be such a fool, even after she had told him that she was in love with his brother. She slaps away his hands the first time he tries to embrace her - there are spiders crawling up her spine when she meets his eyes and catches that gleam of victory.

No. She thinks. You knew exactly what you were doing. World may believe you a puppet, but you are your own master. The thought makes her shudder and the words swim back to her. “I will make you come back to me.” And this act of blissful ignorance is to show me how insignificant it all was - whatever I had with So, you think it makes no difference.

It was not a mere threat. He believes that she will return to him. The realization makes her shiver, this is the man who erased So from her mind once - no matter how selective they say her amnesia was - and Ha Jin fears, if the chance was given, he would do it again. And she staggers backwards before his arm comes to steady her.

His grip is a vice, tightening around her wrist until she can hardly feel her fingers, his eyes are cold taking in the sight of her broken self. She knows not of this man who poisoned his brother for a woman who has no feelings for him.

For a moment she sees Tae in him - the same madness clawing at his eyes and she wishes for So, for his embrace, for him to tuck her into his arms and whisper soothing words. But Ha Jin is no longer a teen and her screams of plea are silent. Instead she meets his eyes with the tear stained ones of her own. She might be broken, but still sharp.

“Don’t touch me!” Her voice cuts across whatever illusion Wook has of his situation. “I know what you did and I will never forget. Don’t touch me!”

He sighs, as if she is a child. His hand still rests at the small of her back.

“Take me to him -” he says warmly, but his voice makes her shiver. “He doesn’t have much time Soo - yah.”

There it is the silent threat. A life for a life. The deal she had just made. For each shuddered breath So suffers she hates Wook more. Her hand lingers against his heart, praying - pleading. On his skin her lips trace a secret she would never get a chance to confess.

“When I was in coma -” she hears her own voice, muttering against him a truth she is yet to come in terms with herself. “I dreamed that I went back in time - it was a crazy dream with all the faces I’ve known from here thrown into a historical drama.” The sound of her laugh is uncertain and swiftly lost in her own tears. “Only I didn’t remember them - it was always nagging in the back of my mind - like a forgotten face from your kindergarten year book, it never came to me until now. But it made me afraid.”

“What happens in this dream?” She imagines that he plays along, his tone mildly curious.

I fell in love with the wrong man. She thinks combing back his hair with trembling fingers. I dreamed that all I had to offer you was pieces of a broken heart that cut both of us until I couldn’t take it anymore. But she doesn’t speak of those words. It feels like dark magic - that if she takes the name of the monsters she created they would jump at them from the shadows. Instead she shakes her head, musing why she raised that particular topic in the first place and her conscience answers aloud.

“I’m afraid my dream has followed me to reality -” that it will repeat itself. That I’ll be too late to save you. “That’s why I must go -” the greed makes her linger yet, her cheek pressed against his heart and listening to it beating, steady and alive. “I must not let my mistakes ruin you.” But I yearn for you so much…

She wonders if he heard her - if he knows how it hurts. A part of her reaches out, the other part prays to be left behind.

The fabric rustles, when she pulls it over, the many folds drowning her petite frame for a moment before falling into place. When she stands in front of the mirror - in an exotic hanbok of crimson, gold and blue - the familiarity of the vision as well as the ache in her heart strikes Ha Jin. It feels as if she had mourned for thousand years and yet the pain of losing him is still the same.

Slowly with the tips of her fingers she touches her reflection and wonders - was my heart breaking the last time I wore this? Her subconscious offers no answer, so she closes her eyes and presses the tears away, they trickle down her face as she gasps for a breath leaning her palm against the cold surface of the full length mirror.

That dress feels like her future - expensive, smooth and suffocating and this is only the fitting. She tries not to think about the approaching engagement - Goryeo themed - where they expect her to wear that.

Look at me - she whispers to herself - going to marry the man who almost killed you.

“I always wondered how you would look in that.”

Her eyes snap open and collides with his in the mirror. For a moment Ha Jin forgets to breath and the burn in her lungs brings tears to her eyes. He holds her when she falters, a hand at her elbow that effectively breaks any hopes she had of him being one of her illusions.

She drinks him in forgotten how ruthlessly she had ended things between them, she basks in the gaze of his dark eyes softening now that they hold her gaze.

He touches her cheek with his knuckles, a whisper of a touch that has her involuntarily pressing her face against the back of his palm, and drags them down the side of her neck. His eyes darkens, as if an approaching storm has dimmed away all the stars in a night sky and it breaks the trance that holds her in place.

Ha Jin steps away pulling breaking eye contact at the same time.

“What are you doing here - So?”

“Giving you a chance,” he says briskly and smirks when the words make her eyes drift back to his.

No - begs her heart. You are supposed to hate me.

“I thought things over and I see what you wanted to do. You want me to hate you. So I want to give you a chance to do a thorough job once and for all - go on - make me hate you.”

“I don’t have time to play games with you Hwang So - I -” Her voice breaks when he leans down, bringing their eyes to the same level. His breath fans her face and she takes a instinctive step backwards. “I don’t care what you feel.”

“Hmm?” He pushes an escaped strand of hair behind her ear with his index and traces the same over the shape of her earlobe. The faintest touch makes her shudder at the intensity of longing it seems to evoke. “Not good enough.” He breathes against the side of her neck, and she has to remind herself to breathe.

“I’m going to call Yeon Hwa -” she places a palm against his chest and lightly tries to push him away.

“Shows how desperate you are.” His reply doesn’t miss a beat and is accompanied by a dark chuckle that curls around her spine. He snatches the hand that hopelessly lies against his heart and brings it to his mouth, kissing her palm.

“So -” she struggles with her senses, her words and her heart. “Please - no.”

She knows she won’t last against his seduction and she cannot afford to break down. There are too many secrets inside her that she can no longer spill with no care. So instead she begs, for courage to sacrifice herself, to be left behind. “Please - please!”

Each of her words is punctured by a harsh gasp, as he kisses inside her wrist, before placing that hand on the back of his neck and pulling her closer.

“I’ve never played with you - Ha Jin.” He says against her hair as she leans her forehead on his shoulder and closes her eyes. “I have no intentions of starting now. I respect you more than that and I believe you would feel the same.”

His hands pry her face away from him and makes her look at him, a thumb lazily stroking her cheek.

“Don’t pretend what we had was a game, where you wanted to taste one possibility before choosing the other. No - because I was there - I saw how you looked at me.”

His touch is distracting, almost too comforting that she closes her eyes to the sound of his voice and memories his words invoke. “Don’t try to reduce yourself - to a woman who would come apart at the hands of any man because I know - I know what it meant to you.” The words are muttered against her skin, as he trails his mouth long the line of her jaw and down her throat.

For a moment her fingers comb through his hair, unsure of whether to pull him closer or drag him away and her heart is loud in her ear - almost drowning the voice of her conscience.

It is then that she realizes the magnitude of the power he wields over her and that he wanted her to appreciate the same. If it is a seduction she wants he will give her one and make her lose her mind with a whisper of a touch - if it was a game - she had lost a long back. Had he wished he could make her do anything he wanted.He could make her come back to him - if he wishes.

You are not allowed to leave - you are not allowed to die - without my permission… The words return with a memory, etched somewhere in the back of her mind with stark clarity.

And yet he chooses not to be her puppet master. Instead he offers her the freedom from all strings - even those that bound them to each other. So pulls away just as her resolve is reduced to tatters and pats on her hair, adjusts her clothes.

“I want you so much -” he says as he straightens the lines of her Hanbok, “Always have, always will. And if you think by hurting yourself you are making me feel better - you don’t. It just makes us both bleed. Just remember that.”

She shakes her head, denying his claim even as words fail her and he steps back.

“I got the TUE, and if you think I don’t realize how it came around - you must believe me a fool.”

“So -” she doesn’t know what she wants to tell him, but the word hangs in the air just as the hand she had raised. She wants to tell him not to choose between his dreams and her. That she is not worth it. She wants to demand that he leaves and at the same time she fears that he would listen. He laces his fingers through hers and kisses the back of her palm.

“No -” his voice is gentle but firm. “Come back to me when you are ready to tell me the truth. I won’t have your sacrifice Ha Jin - ah, I won’t have your apology either and I won’t leave unless you give me a good reason to. Not this time - not again. If you want to play this charade lets do that - I’ll stay around and watch just how far you are willing to go.”

He turns away and a sob chokes her - she thinks of her uncle - his cold heard voice - she thinks of Wook and his sinful hands - she thinks of the Hwang home where So just resolves to stay and the shadows of both their fears that lingers within it and she can’t take it anymore. She crooks an arm under his and presses her face to the back of his shoulder.

“My uncle will kill you -” her words are muted against him, her palm flat against his heart, taking strength in how steady and powerful it beats. Now that she has started to speak, it seems there is no stopping. “He’ll kill you just like he killed Unni - just like he almost killed you.” Sobs wrack her frame as she thinks back to the moment when he could have died in her arms and she muffles the sound against him, his hand rests atop hers for a moment before he pulls her around to face him.

“Ha Jin - ah…” he strokes her face and takes her name with a reverence that she knows she does not deserve. She had almost killed him - no - she does not deserve it. Her hands take hold of his to pry them away from her face but instead she holds them there, greedy of his touch.

“He poisoned you and you - you let him.”

So rests his forehead against hers and lets their breath mingle.

“Come with me -” he breathes against her lips. “Let me take you to U.S.”

The escape he offers is as tempting as his lips brushing against hers, with her arms locked around his neck and her exhale becoming his inhale - it feels so right to agree.

But then - the memory comes unbidden.

“ If I say it’s marriage it is marriage.”

“A prince offering marriage to a musuri - who has ever heard of such a thing?”

It’s Wook again, with his steel sharp eyes, lips pressed to a line and voice condemning. The memory replays, the duel, the swords, the blinding sun - and the gleam of the blade as it sinks in -

With a harsh gasp Ha Jin pulls away.

“No! This can’t happen - no!” Trying to catch her breath, she backs off to rush out of the room, away from temptation - away from heartbreak - away from So. But only, he is too fast for her. Instead his arms come around and lifts her off her feet, bodies flush together, he holds her as she gasps for breath.

“Come…” he says, his voice low but firm. “Let's get you out of here.”

There’s a pause in which her eyes widens, and her heart pounds in her ears. The wheel of fortune begins to turn and she wonders, briefly, if it had ever been a choice, for neither of them has ever mastered the art of living without the other. A thousand years later he still wants to steal her away from the walls her own choices has entrapped her into. Thousand years later, she still allows him to.