“Rules are meant to be broken, after all,” he said, gazing at the orange and pink streaks of the sunset. The private beach, just behind his house, was quiet without the hordes of tourists they had blended into earlier that day. “You have to admit; today was fun.”

“I think you and I have very different versions of fun,” she teased, her laughter dissolving into the humid summer air. “Today was… decent, I guess.”

“Decent?” he repeated, as if scandalized by the thought. “We’re in Los Angeles, the City of Angels. Obviously, that means we had to be a little… devilish in our actions.”

“I miss Seoul,” she sighed. “And you made me lose my phone today, so I couldn’t call my friends and ask where they were. I was looking forward to shopping on Rodeo Drive.”

He casually stuck his hands into the pockets of his jeans, before an exaggerated expression of surprise came upon his face. He pulled out a white smartphone and offered it to her. “Oh! Look what I found.”

“Yah!” She yelled, snatching it from his hands and standing up from her spot on the sand. “You…! I can’t believe you!”

“Sorry,” he shrugged. “Desperate times call for desperate measures. Besides, I have to keep up my reputation for devilish actions, right?”

She could only sigh, before sitting down again next to him. “My last day in America, gone just like that…”

“You should be honored to have spent it with me,” he drawled. “And at least it was decent company.”

“That is true,” she agreed, before looking at him more meaningfully. “You’re really lonely here, aren’t you? You live alone in this big house, by yourself with only a few maids coming in and out. And that one weird blonde friend of yours…”

“Jay isn’t a friend.”

“What I mean to say is,” she spoke loudly, drowning his words out, “you knew it was my last day here, so you tricked me into spending it with you. I should’ve known.”

“It’s not that often you meet Koreans here that can afford to stay at the Beverly Hills Zeus Hotel,” he shrugged. “Maybe it was fate that we bumped into each other.”

“You never told me why you were there in the first place, either,” she wondered, looking up to the darkening sky. “You have this house, which is much bigger and more comfortable than even the biggest penthouse suite; why…”

“We agreed, from the start,” he interrupted, “to not tell any names, and certain things about our personal lives. This is one of them.”

Just then, her phone vibrated in her palm. Knowing that it was probably Rachel or Bo-na wondering where the hell she was, she unlocked her phone and looked at the text message.

Rules are meant to be broken.

Her blood ran cold. Something was very wrong here. Hadn’t she seen this somewhere before…?

“Jagiya. Choi Eun-sang. Are you okay?” He asked, his tone one of concern. “Is the baby feeling unwell again? Maybe we should head back inside.”

Jagiya? Baby? Choi Eun-sang? “I thought we said no names…” Just then, a glinting object in her peripheral vision caught her eye. She looked down.

There was a diamond ring sitting on her finger.

In that moment, Cha Eun-sang finally woke up.

- : -

“It’s a prediction of the future!” Lee Bo-na wailed the next day, as all three girls were on their way to school. “Cha Eun-sang, you officially set your life in stone. Fate has spoken!”

“Just yesterday you were saying that Choi Young-do would for sure back off,” Rachel intoned, rolling her eyes.

“But… fate has spoken! Fate!” Bo-na hissed. “You can’t defy fate, I tell you.”

Eun-sang sighed. Bo-na had, unfortunately, always been the most superstitious one out of all three girls. She attributed this fact to how Bo-na’s fortune cookie had once declared she would meet the love of her life, and a few hours later, Eun-sang officially introduced her to Chan-young. And although it was amusing at times, this really did not fall into the category of one of those times.

Eun-sang was pretty sure it wasn’t a sign from fate. However, the nightmare - yes, it was a nightmare; no way would she dream of that jerk! - made her realize how close to reality it could have been. She could easily marry Choi Young-do in the future and give birth to the most wealthy and powerful babies in Asia.

Actually, no. There was no way she would ever willingly submit to him.

As the car slowly pulled to a stop in front of Jeguk High School, Bo-na offhandedly asked, “Eun-sang-ah, you’re doing the morning announcements today, right?”

- : -

“And again, good luck to everybody on their midterms! Signing off, this has been Cha Eun-sang.”

“Good work, Eun-sang,” Lee Hyo-shin acknowledged. “Can you lock the door behind you? I have to go talk to a teacher before the next class starts.”

“Of course, Sunbae! I need to wait for Rachel anyway, we agreed to meet here,” she replied, sitting down at the table.

“Tell her I said hi,” Hyo-shin called on his way out. The metal doors shut behind him, and her attention immediately turned to the English notes she had in front of her. She had to excel in the tests coming up and maintain her top-three spot behind Chan-young and Rachel.

Just a few minutes later, the sound of the door opening broke her concentration. “You’re early,” she said, looking up from her notes-

- into Choi Young-do’s unsmiling, serious face.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” she declared, immediately standing up. “You’re not authorized to enter the broadcasting room.”

“Rules are meant to be broken, right?” he recited, looking directly into her eyes.

“I told you, forget about it.” Her fists clenched at her sides, as if itching to land a hit on him. She stepped “In my mind, it didn’t happen -”

“- but it did,” he interrupted. “It did, and now you spend every waking minute thinking of me, am I right?”

“Stop it.” Eun-sang walked to the door, but stopped short when he roughly grabbed her arm and spun her around.

“Are you really so quick to stop playing, Cha Eun-sang?” His eyes gleamed, but she wasn’t sure if it was playfulness or just pure malice. “We had so much fun in California, didn’t we?” He looked up through the entrance window and swiftly locked the door of the room.

“What the - yah, Choi Young-do! Open the door!” Rachel’s voice could be heard as she shook the door handle and banged on the cold metal. “Let go of her, you !”

“Aish. Now I understand why they say sisters are so annoying,” he called out to her, before once again turning his attention to Eun-sang. In his few seconds of distraction, she had managed to free himself from his grip and was glaring at him.

“I’m calling Yoon Chan-young!” Rachel yelled through the door. “You better unlock that door before he gets here!”

“Choi Young-do,” Eun-sang said coldly. “What do you really want from me? We’re different people from who we pretended to be in America.”

“Hm.” He stared at her for a second, before shaking his head. “Why are you so scared of me, Cha Eun-sang?

"I’m not scared of you,” she defended. “That’s just ridiculous.”

“Then why are you pushing me away? Why do we have to start over when we can start where we left off?” he asked, smirking devilishly. God, she wanted to smack it off of him so badly.

“What you did yesterday wasn’t starting where we left off. That was a declaration