Late on a Friday afternoon, Park Leeteuk was only half paying attention when he lifted the receiver.

“A long-distance call for you, sir” Charlie from the front office told him. “A Kang Sora from Busan.”

Kang Sora.

Just like that, Leeteuk was zapped from his demountable office in the busy city of Seoul to Busan. He was eighteen again and standing at the edge of a rolling surf, gazing into a lovely girl’s laughing brown eyes.

T had been twelve years since he’d left the province and hadn’t seen Sora in all that time, but of course he remembered her. Perfectly.

Didn’t every man remember the sweet, fragile magic of his first love?

So much water had flowered under the bridge since then. He’d finished his studies and worked in foreign continents, and he’d traveled joyous and difficult journeys of the heart. Sora would have change a lot too. No doubt she was married. Some lucky guy was sure to have snapped her up by now.

He couldn’t think she would be calling him after all this time. Was there a high school reunion? Bad news about an old schoolmate?

Charlie spoke again, “Sir, are you going to take the call?”

“Yes, sure.” Leeteuk swallowed to ease the unexpected tension in his throat. “Put her on.”

He heard her voice. “Leeteuk?”

Amazing. She could still infuse a single syllable with music. Her voice had always been like that – soft, sweet and sensuous.

“Hello Sora.”

“You must be surprised to hear from me. Quite a blast from the past.”

Now she sounded nervous, totally unlike the laughing, shy girl Leeteuk could remember. A thousand questions clamored to be asked, but instinctively, he skipped the usual how are you? Preliminaries… “How can I help you, Sora?”

There was an almost inaudible sigh. “I’m afraid it’s really to explain over the phone. But it’s important, Oppa. Really important. I… I was hoping I could meet with you.”

Stunned, he took too long to respond. “Sure,” he said at last. “But I’m tied up right now. When do you want to meet?”

“As soon as possible?”

This obviously wasn’t a high school reunion. Leeteuk shot a quick glance to the window of his makeshift office to the untamed bushland that stretched endlessly to ancient red cliffs on the distant horizon. “You know that I am in Seoul, don’t you?”

“Yes, I have learned that you are managing a government remote housing project for a certain community.”

“That’s right.” The project was important and challenging, requiring a great deal of diplomacy from Leeteuk as the President of his small firm. “It’s almost impossible for me to get away from here just now. What is this all about?”

“I could come to you!”

Leeteuk swallowed a shock. Why would Sora come to him here? After all this time? What on earth could be so suddenly important?

His mind raced, trying to dredge up possibilities, but each time he drew a blank.

He pictured Sora as he remembered her, with long light brown dyed hair, milky white limbs, more often than not in a bikini with a faded sarong loosely tied around her graceful slender hips. Even if she cast aside her sea nymph persona, she was bound to cause an impossible stir if she arrived on the all-male construction site.

“It would be too difficult here,” he said. “This place is too… dangerous.” 

“Can’t you entertain visitors on the site?”

“Unauthorized personnel are not allowed in the site.”

“Oh.”

Another eloquent syllable – and there was no mistaking her disappointment.

Grimacing Leeteuk scratched at his jaw. “You said this was very important.”

“Yes, it is.” After a beat, Sora said in a small frightened voice. “It’s a matter of life and death.”

They agreed to meet in a cozy restaurant in Seoul overlooking the Han River, an idyllic place for a reunion, especially at sunset on a Saturday evening at the end of a balmy winter. The sky above glowed bright blushing pink shot with gold.

Not that Sora could not appreciate the view.

She arrived too early on the hotel balcony. It was very crowded and she saw immediately that Leeteuk wasn’t there, so she sat at the nearest free table, with her legs crossed and one foot swinging impatiently, while her fingers anxiously twisting the strap of her shoulder bag.

These nervous habits were new to her and she hated them. Having grown up in a free and easy community, she’d prided herself on her relaxed personality.

Her serenity had deserted her, however, on the day she’d needed it most – when the doctor delivered his prognosis. Since then she’d been living with sickening fear, barely holding herself together.

Sora closed her eyes and took a deep breath, then concentrated on imagining her son at home with his grandmother. He’d sprawled on the living room carpet, playing with his solar-powered robot while his grandmother is preparing dinner.

Already Sora missed her boy. She’d never been so far away from him before and, thinking of him now, and the task that lay ahead of her, she felt distinctly weepy. She dashed tears away with the heel of her hand. Heavens, she couldn’t weaken now. She had to stay strong.

You can do this. You must do this. For Vincent.

She’d do anything for Vince, even tell Park Leeteuk the truth after all this time.

That thought caused another explosion of fear. The process of tracking Leeteuk and making the call was an easy part. The worst is yet to come. Leeteuk still didn’t know why she need him.

A tall, flashy handsome waiter passed Sora, carrying a laden tray with drinks. The smile he gave her was flirtatious to the point of predation. “Would you like something from the bar, madam?”

“Not just now, thanks, ‘m waiting for …” the rest of the sentence died as closed over.

Beyond the waiter, she saw a man coming through the wide open doorway onto the balcony.