Set after the events of the last episode.

After having bought the building, Geumja felt like the torturous weight sitting on her chest for the past decades has finally disappeared. She and Yoon Heejae immediately worked on moving the team, and Choong, to their new building. Although strangely enough, neither of them wanted to give up the old space, so they settled on transforming it to a private office for the two of them. 

Their relationship showed more progress, seeming to also be finally climbing out of ambiguity. Heejae was very patient with her, as he has always been, and carefully treaded on the topic of putting a label on the relationship between the two of them. He didn't need an answer right away--- because although Geumja normally sees Heejae as the little kid between the two of them, he was mature enough to know that prodding too much on such "label" will only push her away farther. Before he knew it, the thick ice walls that kept him at a long distance from her had long started to melt away. Ever since transferring to Choong, and living day by day beside each other, he got to know so much more about her, and Geumja looked at him with softer eyes, lowering her guard bit by bit.

Geumja looked up and met eyes with the man who was looking at her with tender eyes from the sofa. Her brows furrowed a bit with a question, but she had a small smile on her face. "What are you thinking about?" she asked.

"The usual," he answered in his calm and confident tone.

"And the usual is?" Geumja lifted a brow up, with a feeling she already knew the answer.

"You," Heejae replied with a grin. Geumja scoffed and felt butterflies dancing in her stomach anyway.

Turning the old Choong space to their private office was a two-way deal with Heejae, and the other condition was that she lived in with him. If it were the Jung Geumja two months ago, she would have resisted the idea at all costs, but now she didn't even need to think twice. She ponders upon that thought and thought herself funny. At the moment, she sat on the floor of his living room (she was still embarassed to say theirs, although Heejae had been insisting that the place is now hers too), two cups of iced tea and a box of her favorite pizza sat on the coffee table in front of them. Go Iman's LP was playing softly through a turntable he bought with her in mind, and Heejae just leisurely snacked while fondly watching her busy herself on the rugged floor. She was going through the box filled with stuff that Heejae wanted to bring over to their private office, just out of her usual curiosity. She flipped through files of cases, smiled at the classical music casette tapes.

And then she froze. What did they say about curiosity and the cat, again? Beneath the mundane stuff, hidden deep in the box as if it weren't meant to be seen, she held it in her hand and looked up at Heejae who was still watching her fondly, unfazed.

"You...knew?" Geumja felt as if she was just showered with cold water. She felt relief, anxiety, confusion, delight, and annoyance all at once--- and it showed in her face. Heejae reached out his hand and caressed her cheek.

"I always told you, right? The person you are in the past, the person you are now, and the person you will be in the future--- to me are one and the same--- because to me you are the person I love," he hummed in a voice that subconsciously calmed her down. Heejae felt better when she saw Geumja's tense shoulders relax at his touch.

"Why didn't you say anything?" her voice cracked as she spoke.

In Geumja's hands was an ID picture of her with her short hair, and Kyeongseon High School's 45th batch yearbook. She figured that the yearbook was something Heejae got his hands on himself, but the ID picture was something she had brought herself here when she was still under the guise of Kim Heesun. 

"You left them on purpose, right? Inside the pages of The Girl and the Frog, well hidden. One by one, the ID picture appeared, Ha Chanho's business card appeared, and then Choong Law Office's Jung Geumja's business card appeared. You were hesitant to make love, but you showed me your scars. After I saw you that day on court was when I thought- ah, it must have been the wig," he pauses after a small laugh. He looked at her deep in the eyes. And at that moment, although staying still and quiet, Heejae saw Geumja bear her most vulnerable eyes when she held his stare. It made Heejae's heart even more tender.

"How am I supposed to believe," Heejae continued, "that you were never sincere with me even for a moment? When you thought the book that wasn't really getting attention in this house anymore, but the book that somehow connected you to me, was the perfect spot to hide all the tiny specks of Jung Geumja you wanted me to see--- you wanted me to see right? You wanted me to find you out. Until you didn't, because you thought I never saw them. And the day before the trial, you must've hastily tried to retrieve them back, because you missed your ID picture," he chuckled. His gaze softens once more.

"Did you want me to find you out and be mad at you? To curse you and kick you out, so that you wouldn't be able to use me anymore? Did you feel guilty?"

Geumja felt a lump formed on and hot stream of liquids fell down her cheeks. For so long, she hid. All of her emotions, which she was surprised she still had, she pushed it all down, and concealed it- but at her most vulnerable moments she wanted to subtly let Heejae know. That when one day he finds out how she betrayed him, she wanted him to know that at least her affection for him wasn't a lie, wasn't fake. Miryeon. Foolish feelings. That was what she said, and that, too, was trying to subtly tell him that it was because of their starkly different circumstances that she could never entertain a relationship with him. Not because she didn't want him.

Now she looked up at the man who she thought was just foolishly infatuated with her, and pitied for her the life she led. But she was wrong. This man, idiotically, stupidly, naively loved her, from then till now, from Kim Heesun to Jung Eunyoung to Jung Geumja. He has long decided to love and embrace every single part of it, cared for it with not one bit left behind. Because all of it was her. That's how you are in the past, that's how you are now, and that's how you will still be in the future. At that time she didn't fully understand his conviction when he uttered these words, but now she understood. She felt like Heejae just hammered through the layers of shell that enveloped her from the time she stood at the top of the building she now owns.

Paganiniana by Milstein. Variations on the Caprices by Niccolo Paganini. Recording by violinist Go Iman. How could one tune birth to so many different melodies? Geumja's eyes teared, but she smiled big and was happy. From this moment on, she could be fully vulnerable with Yoon Heejae. Now more than ever, she felt like Jung Geumja, like herself. She knew for sure that nothing was going to change- her rough demeanor, her foul mouth, her dodgy work practices, her short fuse of a temperament. But she felt assured that finally, in the arms of Yoon-byeon, her Atty. Yoon Heejae, she could come home and be the playful Jung Geumja, the affectionate Kim Heesun, and the innocent Jung Eunyoung- all at once. 

Heejae gently wiped the tears on her cheeks with his thumb, and mumbled about how pretty she is when she smiled and her nose whiskers showed, making Geumja roll her eyes. Shaking her head with a peaceful beam, Geumja wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. She picked up the ID picture, which was still mint albeit being taken some few years ago, and held it up beside her face.

"I know, I'm gorgeous. I look the exact same, right?" She winked at Heejae with her signature grin. All Heejae could do was chuckle, throwing his head back, before leaning down to bring his face closer to Geumja's who was still looking up at him from the floor, and gave her a kiss on the nose.

Geumja gave him a bored face, and just like any other day, she grabbed him by the collar and crashed her lips onto his. Heejae smiled through the kisses, knowing for sure this was something that wasn't gonna change.