Thank you to everyone who has left kudos and bookmarks on this story! We greatly appreciate your support! :) Term for this chapter: Sijo: a traditional Korean poetic form comprised of three lines averaging 14-16 syllables each (these lines are sometimes broken into two parts for a total of six lines); these poems were originally meant to be songs and typically explore cosmological, metaphysical, and pastoral themes.

We hope you enjoy! :)

What cause did I give you
To expect me to appear?
I never meant for you to believe
That I would disturb the fallen leaves at midnight.
Why blame me?
It is the autumn wind that influences your delusion.
- Hwang Jini's reply to Seo Kyung Duk

Ga Eul had been trying—and failing miserably—to forget about So Yi Jeong.

But how could she forget him when he kept popping up at the most unexpected times?

At the porridge shop.

At her university.

At the park.

She'd also had an awkward encounter with him when she'd gone to his studio to return some of Cha Eun Jae's tools. She would have refused the errand entirely, but that may have made her pottery teacher ask questions, and it would have been too awkward explaining the depth of her attachment to Yi Jeong when clearly the two of them had reconnected and were most likely dating.

This series of incidents made the latest development in Ga Eul's life all the more distressing. Her art history teacher had given her class an assignment to go to the special sijo exhibition currently being held at the Woo Sung museum and to write a report on one of the poems featured there. Ga Eul had picked a piece by Hwang Jini, the famous Joseon-era gisaeng. She had already written up her report, and she would have avoided going to the exhibition entirely had her professor not required her to bring in a ticket as proof that she had actually gone.

Even if she didn't run into Yi Jeong at the museum—and she would with the way her luck was going—she simply didn't want the museum to remind her of him. Which was silly and hypocritical, considering that she was still taking pottery with his first love and had even signed up for art classes at her university because of him. She was a walking jumble of contradictions.

Stretched out on her stomach in bed, Ga Eul sighed and set aside her art history textbook, which she'd only been half-reading in anticipation for a quiz the next day.

How had she gotten herself into this mess?

Ga Eul buried her head in her arms. She wished she could hide in her room until she stopped thinking about Yi Jeong every other minute. Out there in the world, where she could run into him—and had kept running into him—she was scared of herself, of what she might do if he gave her one of his charming smiles and tried to tug her gently but firmly back into his orbit. He wasn't any good for her. She knew that. She knew that he'd only almost-kissed her before because surely that was what he did anytime he had a girl in his arms, at his mercy. The kiss must have been a mere reflex; he hadn't tried to kiss Ga Eul after that moment.

She also knew that she could never replace his first love—not after she'd seen the way he'd looked at Cha Eun Jae. It was like something out of a romantic movie, the way they'd met again after all that time. It was fate, and Ga Eul had been the hand of fate reaching out to push them back together. And that was it. That was all. Ga Eul was nothing more than a helping hand, as always.

She didn't mean to feel bitter about that, but she did. Just a little. She'd like to be chosen, for once. She'd like to be the one that got pushed into her soulmate's arms.

Her phone buzzed beside her on the bed, sending vibrations through the mattress, and Ga Eul groaned in protest but eventually looked at the caller ID when the vibrations didn't cease.

Of course the caller was 'Yi Jeong Sunbae :) .' Of course it was—he wouldn't leave her alone! But what could he possibly want with Ga Eul at eleven o'clock on a school night?

Unless…

"Yi Jeong Sunbae? Is everyone okay?" Ga Eul asked as soon as she picked up the call. She hoped there hadn't been another accident, remembering how scared everyone had been when Gu Jun Pyo got hit by a car and temporarily lost his memory.

"What?" Yi Jeong asked, sounding caught off-guard. There was silence on the other end for a few seconds and then a low, raspy laugh that sent shivers down Ga Eul's spine. "No, no, everyone's fine. Nothing happened."

"Oh." Ga Eul sat up cross-legged in her pale pink cupcake pajamas and tried to ignore the slow unfurling of butterfly wings in her stomach. "Why are you calling then?" she asked, adjusting her red headband.

Please don't ask me to go on another date with you. Even if it's fake, I can't take it.

"I stopped by the porridge shop today, and Jan Di mentioned you need to go to the Woo Sung special exhibit for your art history class. There's supposed to be a huge crowd this weekend, but I can get you in after hours on Friday, and we'll have the whole museum to ourselves."

The museum?

With him?

Alone with him?

Of course, at the very moment she'd been worrying about running into him there, he'd called her with an invitation. Her luck was really something lately.

Still, she didn't understand why he was offering. Why spend a Friday night showing her around his family's art museum—which he'd surely seen a thousand times—when he could be out with Cha Eun Jae or with the F4 or partying at a club?

He was showing off—that must be it. Typical Yi Jeong.

Blabbermouth Jan Di.

"Oh...um…" Ga Eul reminded herself to hold firm