Eight months later . . .

A lot of things had changed. Dara confessed she had been in love with Seunghyun all this while. G-Dragon was heartbroken, but decided to stay for Dara’s sake. Seunghyun and Chaerin fell in love. The younger kids were becoming more mature. Jonghyun and Hyuna were married, much to Dae Sung’s great disappointment.

And they never heard from Mi Hwa at all.

One day Seunghyun and Chaerin were talking in their room about setting up new defenses to tighten the security. They weren’t getting any break-ins, but they needed to be cautious. They were just finishing the conversation when Mi Hwa out of nowhere appeared in front of them.

Chaerin started to yelp in surprise but Seunghyun quickly covered . “Shhh, it’s all right. Don’t panic.” He was used to Mi Hwa turning up out of the blue.

“She — how — but —?!” she spluttered, trying to gather her thoughts together.

“I’m a teleporter,” Mi Hwa explained, trying not to laugh at Chaerin’s shocked expression. She didn’t blame her, though. That was always everybody’s first reaction. “I teleport here and there, wherever I want to go, wherever I want to appear.”

“Mi Hwa, what are you doing here?”

They looked at her properly and gaped in shocked.

“You’re pregnant?” Seunghyun exclaimed, not believing his eyes.

“No, I’ve just grown some weight while I was away,” she replied sarcastically, rolling her eyes, her hands at her bulging stomach. “Of course I’m pregnant, you blur box head!” It was an insult they always call each other. Seunghyun smiled.

“But how? Okay, I know how but who is the father, Mi Hwa?” Chaerin asked.

Mi Hwa looked as though she wanted to cry. “It’s . . . GD.”

Chaerin gave a little gasp, covering , finally understanding everything. “You mean all this time when GD was with Dara, you’ve been pregnant?” she said.

“He doesn’t know about it,” she replied. She burst into tears. “But I needed to tell you, oppa. I had to tell you. I had to tell somebody and you’re the first person I thought of.” She looked at Seunghyun.

“He’ll freak out when he hears about this,” was all he managed to choke out.

She shook her head. “No, please don’t tell him,” she begged him. “I don’t want him to know just yet. Please, don’t.”

Seunghyun groaned and covered his face with his hands. “Mi Hwa, please do not be like Dara.”

“I’m nothing like that witch,” she retorted defensively. “I’m doing this for him. That’s why I left. I didn’t want to make him confused, make him feel as though he’s forced to choose between me and Dara — even though Dara would have been his choice.”

“She’s got a point,” Chaerin agreed, shooting a cautious look at Seunghyun. “But, Mi Hwa, you still could have stayed with us. Where were you all this time?”

“Two hundred and fifty miles away from here, which is not much different, except for the fact that there are no villains unless you count the everyday thieves and the adults are not as abusive as the ones we have as parents with new technologies being built every day. It’s actually quite a friendly, nice place to live in.” She shrugged miserably. “I lived in the orphanage and the people there are really nice but I’ll be getting out of their hair soon once I give birth.”

“Why won’t you stay with them after giving birth? I am sure they wouldn’t mind taking care of another one,” Seunghyun asked.

But Mi Hwa just shook her head. “I don’t want to trouble them. I’ll teleport to someplace else,” she reasoned.

“Why don’t you stay with us?” he suggested, reaching out to pull her to him. She sat on his lap and he hugged her. He tugged a few strand of hairs. “Please? I’ve been worried sick all these months, wondering where you’ve gone. For goodness’s sake, why didn’t you tell me you were pregnant? I would have gone with you! You couldn’t handle it alone.” He kissed her cheeks.

But she pulled away. She could not afford to weaken. “I managed to handle it alone, right?” she replied stubbornly. “Besides, let you come with me and miss out falling in love with Chaerin unnie? Not a selling point.”

He decided to ignore that remark. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“All the more you would have pleaded for me to stay,” she answered plainly. “Then you’ll tell GD, who would feel guilty even though it was my decision to leave.”

“Again, she has a point,” Chaerin spoke up. She liked Mi Hwa. For a young girl, she sure was wise.

“Whose side are you on?” Seunghyun asked her, annoyed.

She held up her hands. “Cool your jets; I’m on no one’s side,” she replied. “I agree with what Mi Hwa did, although I do agree with you that she should have stayed with us. Better with people who actually knows you and would take care of you than the orphanage.”

Mi Hwa sighed. “I only came back to tell you guys I’m having GD’s baby. I don’t want to stay here. I’m not staying here.”

Seunghyun knew they couldn’t convince her to change her mind. She was always so stubborn. “So, what are you going to name the baby?” he asked, changing the subject.

She frowned thoughtfully. “I never gave it much of a thought about the names. But if it’s a girl, I think I’ll call her Ji Hwa, and if it’s a boy, probably Ji Yong. He or she would be named after both of us, or just after the dad.” She closed her eyes, biting her bottom lip.

“Are you okay?” he asked worriedly. He was scared she was going to give birth.

But she gave him a tight smile. “I’ve got to go, that’s all,” she told them. “They’d be wondering where I am.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to stay here?” Chaerin tried again. “You know you’re more than welcomed to stay here with us anytime.”

“Thanks for the offer, but I’ll pass this time. It’s best if I go now. It’s almost sunset.” She hugged her before turning to Seunghyun, who kissed her rosy red cheeks.

“Take care,” he murmured, hugging her tightly. He never wanted to let go.

“Uh . . . Oppa, you can let me go now.”

He reluctantly did but managed to ruffle her hair affectionately and she giggled. She hugged him again, smelling his warmth scent before taking a step back. “Please don’t tell GD,” she asked of them and they nodded.

“Visit us again to let us know whether it’s a guy or a girl,” Chaerin called out just as she vanished.

Once she was gone, they turned to face one another, not sure of what to say. They were still shocked at Mi Hwa’s news. Seunghyun stood up to leave.

“Uh, where are you going?” Chaerin asked, looking after him.

“To tell Ji Yong he’s going to be a father again,” he replied, heading for the door.

“No, wait!” She stood up and grabbed his hand to stop him from taking any more steps. “You can’t! We promised we wouldn’t tell anyone, especially not to him!”

He turned around to face her, his eyes flashing dangerously. “He would be angry to learn that all this time he had a child and not know about it,” he said. “And he’ll be even angrier when he finds out that I, his own brother, knew about it and didn’t tell him.”

But Chaerin was not scared. After all, she was just as equally fierce — maybe even more. “So you’re just going to betray Mi Hwa just like that? Are you crazy? You’re practically the only family she has left, Seunghyun!” she reasoned with him. “She’s already lost so much. She’s lost her brother, her parents, and now even G-Dragon. Don’t make her lose you too.”

He hung his head, knowing she was right, and she hugged him from the back. “It’s hard to keep secrets from your brother, I know. But for once, for Mi Hwa’s sake, don’t tell him about this. She’s not doing this because she wants to cut all connections from him. She’s doing this because she loves him and doesn’t want to see him hurt. Besides, even if you tell him, what’s the point? We don’t even know where she is.”

He sighed. “I just wish my brother had chosen her over Dara,” he confessed, her arms.

“Seeing her now, same here,” she admitted, hugging him tightly. “But we can’t change the past. And I’m sure she certainly doesn’t want that, if we can change it.”

“She is the least selfish person I know,” he said quietly, sitting back down. He chuckled. “I grew up loving that brat. She thought she could time-travelled and tried to teleport to the land of the predators.”

Chaerin was shocked. “Are you serious?”

“Oh yeah, to the New York Museum, where they show-cased their bones.” He cracked up at that memory. “Apparently she can’t time travel, only teleport.”

She laughed as well and was a little bit relieved. “I bet she was disappointed when she found out,” she said, trying to picture Mi Hwa’s face. She giggled.

“You bet she was,” he said, chuckling.

“Hey, what are you guys talking about?” G-Dragon asked from the doorway curiously.

Seunghyun tried to stop laughing. “I was just telling Chaerin about the time poor Mi Hwa tried to go back to see real dinosaurs,” he managed to say after awhile.

G-Dragon laughed, too, sitting on the edge of the bed. “Nah, the best was when she came back, all excited,” he countered, “telling us she shook Michael Jackson’s hand so Young Bae went there and came back saying it was true! That was epic!”

They all laughed.

“Or what about the time when we stood on top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris?” Seunghyun recalled. “That was a load of strong wind. And the sight — wow!”

“Wow, sounds like you guys had a lot of adventures,” Chaerin remarked, laughing as the brothers went on about their childhood with the two teleporters.

“It’s never boring when the two of them were around,” G-Dragon agreed, reminiscing of all the good memories. He lied back on the bed, smiling sadly.

Seunghyun studied his little brother. He looked miserable, depressed and he’s lost a little bit of weight ever since Dara told him she didn’t love him. “Ji Yong?”

“Yeah?”

He started to say something about Mi Hwa’s news but something stopped him. So instead he said, “She’s going to be okay, you know. Wherever she is, she can take care of herself. You know she can.”

G-Dragon sighed. “I just feel bad about it,” he admitted. “I mean, I told her I loved her and that I would never leave her a day before I left her for someone who was in love with you, who left me in the first place. I just wish that if she was here, we could go back in time to change it.”

“You know that can’t happen,” Chaerin said.

“I know, because even if she suddenly appears here, she’ll refuse to come back to me because I have a baby to take care of,” he said bitterly.

She put her arm around his shoulder. “Hey, don’t be so hard on yourself,” she told him kindly. “You didn’t know. You had a baby and her mother to think about. Besides, would Mi Hwa really let you choose her over a baby?”

“No, I guess not,” he sighed. He stood up. “But if anything happens to her, I will never forgive myself.” He said as he walked out of the room.

“We can’t tell him,” Seunghyun said quietly. “It’ll just break his heart even more.”