The dust-covered pavement was disturbed by the force coming from above.  A duffel bag fell from the sky, and soon the owner reunited with it with a thud.

In the middle of the night, around midnight, one Wednesday in the last week of March, a young lady jumped off an open window of a bedroom on the second floor.  She landed with a thud and cried out almost automatically as her sneakers. .h.i.t the ground. 

"Ouch! Shhh!" She mumbled a cry of pain first, followed by her self-righteous, correcting voice. Though she landed fairly well, her ankles were not exempted from feeling the pain.  At the very least, she did not incur any more physical damages, and could still walk fine.

And so, she took a cab away from the Chen house.  Guilt-stricken, Kang Sola stared at the last sight of the Chen dream house where she had spent the last few months. 'I am so ungrateful.  Linyun-ge has every right to get furious at me.'

She sighed as she stared ahead at the taxi's winds.h.i.+eld.  She had given out an address to the driver.  

After just a few minutes to an hour, she had arrived at her destination.  It was a large house akin to a building, with straight and angular black and gray metal furnis.h.i.+ngs.  At a glance, anyone could sense that the inhabitant was from the male species.

She scanned the facade of the edifice, her heart engrossed with nervousness.  At this very instance, she was simply defeated by impulse, yearning, and recklessness.

She knew it, yet, she still did it.

She rang the doorbell several times, a few seconds interval after the last.

"No one seems home."

She sighed, then sat down at the gutter beside her duffle bag.  

She didn't realize that she had dozed off in front of the empty house, her head leaning on top of her duffle bag.

At around two in the morning, she woke up by the glaring headlights of an oncoming car and its honking noise.

She unthinkingly protected her eyes from the blinding lights with her palm.  The car stopped at an angle, seemingly in its early steps of taking a turn towards the automatically operated sliding gate, into the premises of the house.

s.h.i.+ Fan Hai disembarked from his BMW sports car.  His face revealed his utter displeasure by the young girl's surprise visit at this unG.o.dly hour.

"What are you doing here?"  He bellowed roughly.

"C-Can… Can I stay here?"

Kang Sola sprung up at her feet.  She had courageously sneaked out in the middle of the night and went here.  She only needed a little more of that courage to push for what she wanted.

"No.  Go home."  s.h.i.+ Fan Hai straightforwardly shattered the girl's hope.  Her face fell as if it was the end of the world for her.

"I don't want to."

"How did you know I live here?"  Was the man's cold answer, not minding her response at all.

"Mister Yamazaki gave the address to me."

"What a busybody." He grunted, frowning so much more. "Go home." 

s.h.i.+ Fan Hai turned around, intending to return to his car.

Kang Sola grabbed the hem of his dress s.h.i.+rt, stopping his stride. "Oppa.  I have nowhere to go.  I don't want to trouble Linyun-ge anymore.  Can I stay the night?  I promise I will be out by the morning.  I just want to see you for a little bit, maybe, and catch up.  I'm counting on you."

s.h.i.+ Fan Hai inclined his head arrogantly.  If it were other people, he would already be mistaken as haughty, just like the devil he was taken for.

But not this girl. 

She saw him defensive, alright, because he's wounded.  She had seen him kind and humane before, yet cold.  She had high hopes that he would bestow even the slightest percentage of that kindness to her.  After all, they were siblings.

When she had learned this one single fact about them, she was elated.  At least one person from her childhood in South Korea was actually a family member.  

'Maybe he had been looking after me when I was just a tiny little kid.  Doesn't matter if he knew whether we are blood-related or not.'

However, right now…

That very same man was in the midst of turning her away.

"Oppa."

"Fengyu-Oppa."

She bit her lower lip.  IT was her first time to go out deep in the night, alone.  She knew it was dangerous outside, and she had already made up her mind that she's going to spend the night at her oppa's place.  And maybe they would chat about all the years they were separated.  Maybe they would be happy hearing the other's stories of adventures and misadventures.

Maybe she had unnecessarily made herself believe that she's welcome in his home.

s.h.i.+ Fan Hai inclined his head upward even more and glared at the young girl.  However, it did not affect her.  She wasn't scared nor intimidated.

If it ever had an effect, well, it made her clasp on his hem si much tighter.

She appeared like a little tiger cub who was yearning for her mother tiger's affection.  It did not matter to her if her mother tiger was the scariest of them all.  She just wanted a family.  That was what he is to her.

Unintentionally, she wanted to cling to him so badly.

She couldn't do the same with Chen Linyun or any other person.  In fact, she had a hard time building a close relations.h.i.+p with him even though they had been good to her.  It was because she was always aware of this feeling of becoming too burdensome to 'other people'.  There was always this s.p.a.ce between them which was defined by formality and social awkwardness and difference in position and status.

With her Fengu-Oppa, those things do not exist at all.  Well, in the Fengyu-opp in her memories, those things were non-existent.

And so, if she needed to beg for him to take her in, she would, ever so gladly.