The men ran to the edge of that broken pier, just before the gap, and dove into the ocean after her.

Jong Kook swam as fast as he could, using all of his strength to get to Ji Hyo before she was lost forever in the blackness of the sea. A sudden flash of the dream he had the night of Jennifer’s service came back to him. How long can you hold your breath? How long… He saw movement in the water, Ji Hyo’s thin arms flailing. He reached toward her, grabbed her by the waist, and pulled her up to the surface. The storm was diminishing just as quickly as it had developed, the waves calmer now. Jong Kook flung Ji Hyo on his back, her arms around his neck as he swam to shore. He crawled onto the beach and carefully let Ji Hyo down in the sand where she then coughed up the seawater that she had swallowed. Jong Kook panted beside her, his eyes never leaving her face. She rolled over, letting the rest of the seawater out, and then flung her arms around Jong Kook.

“Jong Kook-ah, I knew it would be you,” Ji Hyo said. “It has always been you.” She held him close, feeling his strong body pressed against hers and knowing that he would always protect her.

Gary made it back to the shore just then, seeing his fiancée crying in Jong Kook’s arms. He cried now, too, as he watched them. He was hurt, feeling as though everything he had lived for was gone. But as he watched her now with him, how content she seemed, he realized that he had not lived for Ji Hyo to be his wife; he had lived for Ji Hyo to be happy. And if she was happiest with Jong Kook, then he could move on. Something had been guiding her toward Jong Kook, something beyond his understanding. It seemed meant to be. It seemed fated. And maybe he knew that all along. He had said once that, in the end, it would be him and Gil, talking and drinking about the memories of old times and dreams they had left unfulfilled. But even though he lost Ji Hyo, even though it seemed like those old words of his never rang truer, he didn’t believe in such a lonely end to his life. Ji Hyo had shown him the happiness the world had to offer. She had opened his eyes. And he knew that he now wanted to pass that on, to pay it forward, to show someone else just how much happiness was possible.

Gary stood up and Ji Hyo looked up at him then, her head still on Jong Kook’s shoulder. She stood up then, too, and walked over to him. “Gary-ah–”

“It’s okay, Ji Hyo-yah,” he said, the rain merging with the tears that streaked down his face.

“But…”

He nodded. “I know,” he said. “And it’s okay. I’m okay.”

She didn’t know what to say and so she looked down at her hands, realizing then that her ring was gone. “Gary-ah, the ring! I must have lost it in the water.”

Gary looked down at her bare ring finger. “It’s just more proof, Ji Hyo-yah.” He sighed knowingly. “When you lost the ring the first time, I didn’t want to see it as a sign. But now... now I know.” He looked over at Jong Kook, who was still sitting in the sand. “You take care of her,” Gary said.

Jong Kook stood up. “I will, Gary-ah. I always will.”

Gary looked back at Ji Hyo once more. “Everything has been leading to this moment, Ji Hyo-yah. I have no doubts about that. This is the way it was meant to be.”

“Thank you, Gary-ah,” she said. “Thank you for letting me go.” She hugged him and he then walked away, leaving Ji Hyo and Jong Kook to have their moment on the beach.

Ji Hyo walked back toward Jong Kook and collapsed in his arms. They held each other for a moment, the rain still pouring down on them. She felt such comfort in his arms.

When their bodies parted, he wiped the hair from her face and peered into her eyes. “All of my feelings for you, Ji Hyo-yah… all those years, I can’t believe this, it just, this feels like a dream.”

“It’s not a dream, Jong Kook-ah,” she said. She reached for his arms, lifting them toward her. “This is real.” She smiled widely, her cheeks shining and her eyes squinting in the rain as she looked up at him.

The happiness he felt was overwhelming. It was almost too much for his heart to bear. He didn’t know he could feel like this again. “Ji Hyo-yah...” he began to say.

“Kiss me, Jong Kook-ah,” she said.

He gently held the back of her head, running his hands through her hair as he leaned down to kiss her. Their wet lips explored each other’s slowly at first, captivated by the newness of being together, but the kiss soon grew in intensity, both of them wanting this for so long and unable to control their desire for each other. She wrapped her arms around his back, grabbing onto him as she pulled him even closer, and he then reached down underneath her legs and lifted her up into his arms, cradling her and kissing her madly.

Ji Hyo called Gary the next morning, knowing that his flight should have arrived in Korea just a few minutes earlier.

Gary had just stepped off the plane and was walking through the terminal in Incheon Airport when his phone rang. He saw Ji Hyo’s name on the lit-up screen, took a deep breath, and then answered.

“Gary-ah? Did your plane land yet?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Just got here.” Gary kept the phone to his ear, making his way through the arrival gate as he waited for Ji Hyo to speak, but when she didn’t say anything, he decided to break the static silence. “I only want you to be happy, Ji Hyo-yah. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

“I want you to be happy, too,” she said. “Will you be okay, Gary-ah?”

He saw Gil just ahead, waiting in the meeting area. “Yeah, Gil’s here to pick me up.”

“I don’t mean okay now,” she said. “I mean really okay. Forever okay.”

Gary glanced away, his gaze unfocused in the distance. He thought about his life, his music, his future, everything… it all made sense. “Ji Hyo-yah, this is my fate. I think, this experience… in the end, I will make some beautiful songs about this.”

Ji Hyo said her last goodbye and Gary wished her the best, closing his phone afterward and slipping it into his pocket as he walked over to meet Gil.

“No Ji Hyo, huh?” Gil asked. Gary’s earlier phone call to Gil had been short. He hadn’t told Gil what had happened. He had only asked him to meet him there, in the airport at that time.

“No Ji Hyo,” he said. 

“You okay?”

Gary shrugged. “I will be.” He was wearing the same clothes that he had worn when he drunkenly decided to go to Hawaii. He hadn’t brought back the new clothes that Ji Hyo had bought him while he was there. He had left Hawaii just as empty-handed as he had arrived. But Kaimana h