Amber had exhausted all her excuse with the coaches. She was able to gain two weeks of reprieved from Kikwang, but now she doesn’t know what to tell the coaches. She has to face him sooner or later, but right now she had chosen the later.

Maybe it’s all Donghae’s fault. He had kept what happened in the US a secret from her – to protect her – but after he told her the truth all her memories came rushing back to her. She naively followed Kikwang’s plan, but it was wrong of him to trick her. Donghae’s voice echoed in her head when she thought of the whole situation, “Kikwang, he always had a tendency to be extremely obsessive over you, Amber. When I realized what had happened, it was too late. I allowed you to follow him to the States and everything went downhill from there. I’m sorry ... sorry that I wasn’t able to protect you.”

After their conversation Donghae had gone on his long business trip. Maybe he is avoiding her, but she understood, she did ignore him afterward. She was not entirely mad at him. She understood where he came from, but she was disappointed with him, disappointed that he kept such an important matter from her. She wished that he would have told her – no matter how much he wanted to protect her – the fact that she was married to Kikwang was a matter that he should not had kept from her.

She had contacted the city hall where they had gotten married in the US and what she found out relieved her stress level. However, her anger toward Kikwang had reached its limits. He had tricked Donghae into thinking that they were still married, when in actuality the marriage had been annulled within two weeks of their marriage. It was her that filed for the annulment, but she couldn’t remember it because of what happened.

Lost in her own thoughts, she didn’t notice the car that had stopped beside her and the two figures that jumped out of it. Things happen so fast she didn’t have time to react. A large hand holding a cloth filled with some kind of chemical covered her nostril and mouth. Her eyes felt heavy and then the street lights and the headlights of passing by cars turned pitched black.

[*][*][*]

Jonghyun had a tray filled with coffee cups in one hand and a bag filled with snacks in the other, as he walked down the busy street trying to get back to company. Being the new trainee, he had been asked by his seniors to do all the menial tasks for them. It was like before, but had to start somewhere.

That was when he noticed Amber ahead of him, as he opened his mouth to call out her name two men jumped out from a car that had just parked next to her. One of them placed something over , which caused her to go limped in his arms. The other man grabbed her by the leg and the two of them carried her into the parked car and drove off. 

Jonghyun dropped everything in his hands and jumped onto the street to hail a cap, “After that car! Quick!” He pointed after the car that had taken Amber.

[*][*][*]

“Make sure that she can’t escape,” a male voice echoed. “Hyosung wouldn’t like it if her little pray escaped.” The echoed of his footsteps faded away as he walked further away from her.

“Are you sure we can just leave her here?” another male voice asked. Amber felt his breath just few inches from her face.

The sound of an old metal door creaked opened, “Hyosung wants to deal with her herself. Come on, we’re going to miss the party!”

She felt the rope tighten around her wrist, rubbing against her skin and giving it a burning sensation, “Coming!” The man yelled after his friend, as he ran after him his footsteps echoed loudly around them and then the sound of the door being slammed shut notified Amber that she was alone.

She opened her eyes slowly. Her head felt like it weight a hundred kilos. The dark room spun around her. The only source of light was the light bulb hanging above her head. Its orange light gave the room a menacing glow. It took a while for the room to stop spinning. She looked around and noticed that she was in what seem like an abandoned warehouse.

She was seated on a wooden chair. Her legs tied to the front two legs of the chair and her arms tied around its back. She wiggled her arms, but it just caused the rope to rub against the skin of her wrist. She winched at the pain. She looked toward the door at the other end of the room and with what strength she had left; she slowly hopped and dragged herself and the chair toward the door.

She only went a few feet when she felt something sharp and cold against her bare neck, “Are you trying to get away from me, Amber? How can you do that to your friend?” The owner of the voice removed the knife from her neck and walked around to face her. “Remember me?”

By then Amber’s eyes had adjusted to the dimness of the room, “Hyosung, what do you want?”

“Finished what I’d started,” she ran the flat side of the knife against Amber’s cheek. “You should have died when I pushed you down the stairs. Instead you lost your memories and I was given a restraining order against you. How can you do that to your friend?”

Amber glared at her, “How can you call yourself my friend after what you had done to me, Hyosung. Besides, we only knew each other because of Kikwang. I could hardly call you a friend.”

Hyosung slapped Amber across the face, “Don’t say his name! You don’t have the right to say his name! Think about what you done to me! You stole him from me. You married him when you knew that he and I was in love.”

“He asked me to help him out,” Amber the blood from her lips. “He said that you wouldn’t leave him alone even after he ended things with you. As his best friend I only ... I naively did what he asked of me.”

“Lies!” she slapped Amber across the face again, so hard that the chair that Amber was tied up in toppled onto the floor along with Amber. “He loves me and you took him away from me! You forced him to marry you!” Hyosung lunged at Amber with the knife.

What the two women didn’t noticed was that Jonghyun had opened the door to the warehouse during their conversation. As Hyosung lunged at Amber with the knife Jonghyun jumped in and grabbed the blade from Hyosung’s hand, which cut his palm, but he didn’t let go of the blade, “Don’t you dare hurt her.”

Two policemen rushed in after Jonghyun and grabbed hold of Hyosung. As they pulled her away she cursed and yelled, “You will pay for this, Amber! This is not over!”

Jonghyun used the blood drenched knife to cut the ropes that bounded Amber to the chair, “Are you okay?” He kneeled in front of her.

Amber nodded and then she noticed his hands, “Your hand!”

“It’s fine.”

“No it’s not! We need to get to the hospital,” Amber tried to help him up, but Jonghyun held her down by shoulders.

“Did I do well?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Did I protect you well?”

 She looked at him in awed, but then wrapped her arms around him and pulled him in for a tight hugged, “You’re crazy, but you did well and thank you.”

[*][*][*]

Inside the ambulance Amber held on tight to Jonghyun’s hand. He smiled and looked over at her, “Tell me who that girl was and why she wanted to hurt you so badly?”

Amber looked down at him, “She used to be Kikwang’s girlfriend, but she was extremely possessive of him. She would leave him alone even after they broke up. That was when Kikwang asked me ... asked me to marry him to get rid of her. I ... naively agreed. After when she found out she pushed me down a set of stairs, but instead of killing me like she wanted to, I only lost my memories.”

“You’re married?” Jonghyun smiled turned into a frown.

She shook her head, “It appeared that I wasn’t as naive as I thought. I had filed for an annulment a few weeks after the marriage.”

He tightens his hand around her hand “I’ll always stay by your side."