Chapter One

"You're dismissed for lunch," Naomi Taylor told her older students in careful English. She would be working on conversational speeds with them next week, giving them oral exams. She set down her chalk and tucked her hands behind her. The chalk dust was gritty on her fingers. "Go stretch your legs and eat," she added in Korean with a kind smile; her students told her that she was pretty when she smiled. "You have half an hour."

The scraping of chairs across the floor accompanied the growing murmur of voices, most switching automatically to Korean while others tried a few halting sentences in English. Naomi crossed to the doors of the classroom and opened them, stepping into the corridor and the fresh air. The classroom's windows didn't open, which was a crying shame. The sun made the room a greenhouse, and she had told her students in no uncertain terms that they were to remove their blazers if they got too hot. She was considered odd among the teachers for such considerations for her students, but they seemed to appreciate it. Even as a new teacher, they had rallied around her when she received news of her father's death of a and rarely acted up to test her. She knew of another teacher who had quit after her first semester because she couldn't keep a rein on her kids.

"Taylor-seongsaengnim[1]!"

Naomi looked around the bodies of students filing out to lunch in the courtyard or down to buy drinks to see a fourth-year student - one of last year's pupils - struggling toward her in the throng. She reached out and latched her fingers to the sleeve of a student head and shoulders above her. "Min-Hyo-ah," she asked him sweetly, "would you mind helping me reach Eun-Mi please? She's having problems with the crowd."

Min-Hyo bowed his head slightly to his teacher and moved off with ease, clearing a path which Naomi followed before it closed. She gave him a bright smile when she reached her former pupil and thanked him. The boy favored her with a rare smile - he rarely smiled since his mother had passed away - and wandered off to the courtyard with his lunch bag dangling absurdly like a toy from his large hand. She paused to marvel at his fortitude and felt a swell of pride in him. When he was assigned to her class, he was a delinquent who hated school. Now, he had a line on a good university scholarship; he wanted to go to America to learn how to practice medicine.

"You needed me, Eun-Mi-yah?" Naomi asked the girl who looked like she was about to explode with excitement.

"Seongsaengnim!" Eun-Mi cried, practically bouncing like a kangaroo on crack. "There's someone in the office asking for you! Hurry, hurry! He won't say what he wants, but he said he'll wait until you aren't busy!"

"Slow down, Eun-Mi," Naomi admonished gently. "Slow down. My Korean is not that good yet."

The few students still trickling past laughed. "Seongsaengnim," they said together, "your Korean is wonderful!"

"Yah, off to lunch with you," Naomi scolded with a smile. She couldn't make herself be stern with them.

"Come quickly!" Eun-Mi said urgently and, grabbing Naomi's wrist, she hurried back down the hall with the woman stumbling along behind her. Naomi was silently glad she had worn her brown slacks and sensible shoes today; otherwise she might have tripped due to the force with which she was swept along.

The office was empty save for the secretary - a middle-aged woman name Kwon Cho-Hee - who sat at her desk shuffling papers that didn't need shuffling. All around her in the silence hung an electric atmosphere of excitement that Naomi didn't understand. Upon seeing her, Cho-Hee bounced up and led her by the arm into a private conference room.

"She's here, sir," said Cho-Hee once she had shoved the hapless teacher into the room. The door shut on her, and silence enveloped the room again.

Naomi looked around the seemingly-empty room, noting that the tall chair at the head of the conference table was turned with its back to her. She tipped her head, confused, and walked slowly around the far side of the room.

The chair turned, and there sat a man with piercing eyes, blonde hair, and a very familiar presence. She squeaked sharply and stumbled over her own feet. "T-T.O.P-sshi!" she gasped, bowing quickly to disguise her embarrassment. "You surprised me! I thought I was going to be reprimanded." Naomi swallowed her urge to ramble and kept her eyes on the table before her.

"Call me Seunghyun," he rumbled, getting to his feet. He wore jeans and a collared shirt under an ped hoodie. "I'm glad you remember me." He was speaking slowly, and Naomi realized that he didn't realize how good her Korean was.

"Of course I remember you," she said. Her lips parted in a smile. "Seong-Li hasn't stopped talking about your date. You made her very happy, so thank you. She deserves it after her boyfriend cheated on her with a student. Her self-confidence is in shambles."

He blinked. "Your Korean is very good. How long have you lived in Korea?" he asked, not addressing her statement about her coworker.

"This will be my third semester teaching, so over a year. Can I ask what brings you here in the middle of the day?" Naomi pulled out a chair and sat beside him, looking through the fringe that hung over one of her brown eyes.

"I was going to ask you to lunch," he replied, smiling at her. Her heart leapt up into . "You have half an hour for lunch, don't you?"

She nodded. "Yes, but I usually let them have fifteen minutes of quiet study afterward."

"Would you like to join me for lunch?" he offered, looking awkward. He stretched out his hand while his other one tucked into his pocket. "It would be a pleasure to be able to speak with you some more."

Naomi took a long moment to process the implications of the invitation before she smiled shyly - an expression which made his pulse quicken considerably - and placed her hand in his. "I'd love to. Let me just retrieve my purse for my classroom."

He shook his hand, fingers closing securely on his. "My treat," he said, and it was hard for him to ignore the heat that crept up his neck as the pair left the conference room.