Amidst the soft vibrations of a turbo engine and the sound of rain pelting against the car as swept through tree-lined roads, I fell asleep. Screw sleeping pills, if anyone needed to knock me out cold all they had to do was put me in a car and drive me aimlessly around for a good couple of minutes. My mother was the one who figured it out first. My heart grew warm at the thought of my father and her driving a two-year-old me around the block in the middle of the night and suddenly realized that that was exactly how I felt now. I felt protected and cared for, peaceful and safe enough so that I could sleep and know I would wake up at my destination looking into the eyes of someone who loved me as much as my parents did. 

"Ri Ah-ya, wake up. We're here." Ji Yong's voice broke into my unconscious and my eyes fluttered upon at the touch of his fingers as he swept back my hair.

"Where?" I mumbled, only seeing the darkness beyond the headlights of the car. It was still light before I slept, how long had it been?

"Somewhere where no one can find us," he said in all seriousness. I arched my eyebrows up at him inquisitively, trying to hold back my smile.

"I'm pretty sure I've read this somewhere before. The boyfriend brings the girlfriend up into an abandoned mountain, then kills and buries her alive there, never to be found."

"..."

"No?"

"So you saw the shovel I put in the boot?" he asked, finally deciding to play along.

"And the rope, and the blind fold."

"Ah. That's for something different." I swear I blushed a red I never knew I could before as Ji Yong just started laughing his head off. "You asked for it," he quipped as he saw me bury my head under the blanket he had kindly covered me with somewhere during our long journey.

"Not in that way, you ert!"

"You get shy for the most unreasonable things Ri Ah. Come on let's go inside, it'll be warmer." He grabbed our two duffle bags from the back of the sedan in one hand, then uses the other to lead me through an invisible path in the snow. The way he confidently plunged his boots into the soft white ground and zig-zagged between the trees and bushes in the darkness, I could tell that he's been here plenty of times. It wasn't long before there was a warm orange glow in the distance, coming in and out of view as we made our way across the terrain. It was a colour that promised warmth, a good meal and a comfortable bed, and my pace unconsciously quickened towards it. Only when we were close enough did I realize that that glow was actually made out of smaller lights which bathed a strange building perched near the bank of a large river. It was as if a giant baby had decided to randomly stack white cubes on top of each other, each one turning into a single room that could be rented out to guests. 

"No wonder you like coming here, it's totally your style," I mused.

"It should be, I designed it with my tastes in mind."

"Hmm?" Come again? He designed what now? Ji Yong pointed to the pension and grinned at me.

"It's my parents' pension which I helped build."

"Oh." It was all I could really say. Sometimes, just sometimes, I forget how amazing he is. Sure, he's a composer, a producer, an artist, an icon, a trendsetter, a model, a stylist; I don't know why I never thought to put pension-owner on the list. "Have I ever told you how much of an inspiration you are to me? I don't just love you, I respect you alot; for your dreams, your determination... everything."

"Like you are to me then," he said, then leaned over to kiss me on the cheek. It's tender moments like these where I think to myself, what do I have to be ashamed of? To have found love? To be lucky enough to find that one person who turn the world inside out for me? So what what were we doing now, hiding from everyone as if what we had done was a sin? 

In one of the larger kitchen areas which immediately faced a large electric fireplace, the two of us settled down to a nice warm meal of beef stew and warm white rice. He had told me that apart from the two of us, and a groundskeeper in the adjacent building, there was no one else around.

"It must be bad for business," I said, especially considering that tomorrow was the 31st of December, a day to get away and welcome the upcoming New Year.

"It's worth it," he answered. "You can't see it now since it's pitch black outside, but through those windows are endless mountains sitting behind a large river down below." I looked through the blackness from the floor-to-ceiling windows on our right, and tried to paint a picture with his words.

"Do you know what I can't wait to see?" he asked me, looking straight into my eyes. Butterflies, after four bloody years they're still there. 

"What..."

"The sun rise coming from between those mountains and its morning light bathing your body as you sleep soundly in my arms." I choked, like on my food, not the running away type. That's what I get for trying to get in a spoonful of warm rice into my mouth when he's obviously trying to set the mood. I was aroused for a split second. All I wanted to do was get away from the burden that were my clothes and fulfil his wishes until morning came but the next thing I know, I can't breathe and I'm bent over the sink trying to dislodge food from my throat. Great job Ri Ah, seriously.

"Dammit, you can't just do that!" I finally exclaimed, after I chugged down my second glass of water which Ji Yong handed over to me. There was a wetness on the corner of his eyes, from tears of laughter not of sympathy I assure you. 

"What? Say my thoughts?"

"No, try to when I have beef and rice in my mouth. It's confusing for me to be aroused when I'm eating stew."

“Why not?” I ignored his question, which my muddled head couldn’t really handle answering at that moment, and went to clear the plates away from the marble bench top. Every day he surprises me with his actions, and I’m left at a loss as to figuring out which one is the real him. There’s this direct and straight forward Ji Yong, then suddenly he’s sensitive and then before I know it he turns into a child trapped inside a 30-year-old man’s body. But then, as I looked through the kitchen windows into the balcony outside, where Ji Yong was now talking to the groundsman, a sixty year-old ahjussi wrapped in layers of coats and gloves, I see his mature side. Together I saw them make their way to the ahjussi’s living area, where Ji Yong is carrying a box filled with things from Seoul inside of which I knew was a brand new snow coat.

“He used to live with his wife there, thinking that the both of them just needed a place to live quietly and make enough to get by, but she died a few years back. Now he has nowhere to go,” he had explained before. “And no one to go with.”

“Did you ask him what he wanted to do now?” I had asked.

“He said his too old to think about that, all he wants to do I live a peaceful life until he can meet her again, and so I told him to stay and let me take care of him. He’s got a bad back and he can’t do much and my dad still needs to call other guys to plough the snow and maintain the place… but I don’t want him to go. I feel like this place and the ahjussi are one and the same.”

I placed the last of the dishes in the drying rack, just as Ji Yong walked through the foyer all covered in snow and grinning from ear to ear.

“So glad I got him the black one. When I asked him how he’d feel about a neon yellow jumper he whacked me on the back of my head,” Ji Yong said excitedly, while trying to brush off the white spots from his shoulders. I shook my head at the ice that fell onto the timber floor and imagined the puddle that would be in its place in the next few seconds, but made no move to clean it up. That was the last thing on my mind. I walked towards him, wiping my wet hands on my apron before reaching up to touch his face.

“Come here, you must be freezing,” I said warmly, and then placed my warm lips on his cold ones, the contrast surprising me a little. It was there that I decided to make his wish come true.

I opened my eyes to Ji Yong’s awaiting smile and the warmth of the morning sun spreading on my as it shone through the glass windows. He didn’t need to say anything, I don’t think he even wanted to, Ji Yong was just content. This was happiness to him and to me. Nothing more, nothing less. Well maybe one thing could make this moment better.

“I want to be your wife.”

“That’s what this is for,” he said, motioning to the ring on my finger.

“No, I mean now. Let’s get married.”

AN: *runs and hides behind a tree* It's... you know... a little overdue. Classes took up more of my time than I thought, but I'm back to a regular uni schedule now, so I'll try my best. Enjoy! And thanks for sticking by me for so long.