To say that I first met her in a dream would be stretching the truth. Throughout the years I've learned that the 'extras' in my dreams are actually real people, ones I briefly met before or saw in the street. I didn't make them up - I just conjured them from my subconscious to fill the pretty streets and parks I explored in my sleep. I think it is best to say that I noticed her in a dream.

I didn't even intend to lucid dream that night. I was in Busan, I had just flown in from Seoul. to visit my father, and since I arrived at 2 AM, I decided to stay in a hotel for the night and not to bother him until the next morning. I was dead tired, so I collapsed onto the clean-smelling, cold hotel bed half dressed and fell asleep right away.

I found myself in a strange village, a kind that you would see in the mountains of Eastern Europe, or somewhere around there. I gawped for a while at the unnaturally green grass and the snowy mountaintops piercing the clouds all around. Unwillingly, I started to question my consciousness. "Am I awake," I asked myself, "or am I dreaming?" I turned my head upwards, and saw the sun and the moon plastered side by side on the sky. It was my dream sign, and it was infallible. From that moment on, I was in control.

I wandered up and down the unpaved streets of the small settlement, absorbing every sight with genuine curiosity. I was walking down on a muddy, winding path when I saw her, walking beside a gentle cow. She was barefooted, her mahogany hair falling down to her shoulders, heavy and smooth.

When I woke up in the morning, I could only think about the dream as an achievement. I had been practicing lucid dreaming for quite awhile, but this one was the most effortless experience I had had so far. I was immensely pleased that it was starting to become a routine, and I basked in my success for the rest of the day. Her face only came back to me in the evening, when I was watching the sunset from my father's jungle of a backyard. It was something in the way the sun bathed the clouds in its dark red rays that made me think of the light sliding down her hair in a sheltered Czech village - I now remembered reading about one on the plane ride.

While I tried to keep her face deeply engraved in my memory, I decided not to go out looking for her. I went home three days later, and carried on with my life. Soon, my day-to-day problems settled like dust over her image, layer by layer, until her face faded from my mind, at least for the time being.

During the following three months, I practiced dreaming as much as I could. My dream journal got bulkier by the day, the images in the morning were more vivid than ever. I tried to gain as much control over my dreams as I possibly could. Soon, I could manipulate the scenery without screwing up very much, and I had decent control over the course of events.

Sadly, the more enthusiasm I had for lucid dreaming, the less I took my job seriously. I took every kind of zest from reality, and put it into dreaming. And while real life was dull and colorless, my nightly visions were beautiful and fascinating, and they had everything daytime was lacking. I spent so much time with my head in the clouds that I barely realized my job was hanging by a thread.

Thankfully, my father saved the day even before tragedy struck. He called me up one day in the office, and said, "I'm done with this hole. Help me sell this goddamn house, I'm moving to Europe."

I wasn't as surprised as your average person would be upon hearing something like this. My father got these crazy ideas from time to time, and got no rest until his hunger for adventure was fulfilled. In fact, I was one of his crazy ideas, too. Considering this, it was inevitable that wanderlust would take over him again in his early sixties.

Me, I didn't take after him as much as he would have liked - I only lived an interesting life when I was asleep - but I certainly knew a good business when I saw one. He had bought the house on a whim years ago, in a despicable state, and fixed it up quite nicely. If I could strike a good deal, and my chances were high, then he could live happily in France for a while, and I could bask in the glory and probably keep my job, too.

That is how, exactly two days later, I was on board of a plane to Busan. Staring at the upper side of the clouds, spread all around like a sea of cotton candy, I thought that I should take the plane more often. This might just be might rightful place after all - my head in the clouds, literally. A velvety voice broke me out of my reverie: "Your drink, sir."

A cup landed in front of me full of - probably - apple juice. My eyes rested on it for a moment, then wandered upwards over a pair of uniform-clad s, and finally settled on a face I certainly hadn't expected to see. It was her. It was the face I had seen in my dream, the face I tried to remember and the face I almost forgot. And she was real, ofcourse her wings weren't (blame my crazy imagiantion). I'd always known she was real, I just had no idea that I'd ever meet her. But it was all clear now, it hit me- I had seen her on my previous flight to Busan, and then I dreamed of her. And now she was right there in front of me. My god, she was beautiful.

"Daehyun," I croaked. "My name's Daehyun."

She just smiled indulgently, and walked away. That's not very polite, I thought, the flight attendant etiquette shouldn't allow that. They shouldn't let her walk away from me like that.

I spent the rest of the flight looking out for her, but I only managed to catch a glimpse once or twice. I was downright furious. I found it absolutely unfair that I should lose her forever, after dreaming of her like that. It was likely that I wasn't the only person to ever dream of her, but that didn't even cross my mind in that moment. I considered her mine, she belonged to me, because I met her in a different world, a plane of consciousness superior to this miserable world. How dare she walk away and avoid me all night?

This little incident kept bothering me for the rest of my stay in Busan, and just like my dreams, it took its toll on my performance. I took family after family into my father's house, and while all of them entered with intention of buying it, they all left frowning, and called the next day to decline politely. Day after day, I had to meet my dad's disappointed gaze.

A young man called Zelo announced one day that he would like to see the house. We made an appointment, and the next day he arrived on the dot, in the company of a young lady. The young lady. I watched them approach with synchronized movements, and I instantly felt a mild burst of jealousy. “Chill,” I said to myself, “you don't even know this girl.” And while this was a hundred percent true and quite obvious, I couldn't ignore the relief washing over me when I realized that they were brother and sister – the similarities were striking.

My voice was little shaky as I gave them the tour of the house, but Zelo was genuinely interested in buying it, and not even my awkwardness could change his mind.

“Are you both moving?” I asked him after I showed them all the rooms.

“No,” he shook his head, smiling. “My sister is here to prevent me from doing something stupid. I think this is the first house she approves of. Is that right, Eunj