The Days of Sungkyunkwan Scholars (Scenes)

Sungkyunkwan Scandal Scene 1: Meeting Lee Sunjoon, Part 1


[If you've read the 'List of Major Differences', you'll remember, but just to remind you again, Yoonhee wants to get higher paying gigs at the bookstore, but no matter how well learned or talented "Kim Yoonshik" is, if she does not take the state exam to higher her status (not taking it equates to ...hmm, I guess not having graduating high school?), nobody will ask her to help them do more difficult homework / help them cheat on tests. Since her brother is about the age to take the exam and is unable to because of his illness, the family agrees that it might be okay for Yoonhee to go ahead and take it.]

[Also, I split this scene into two because it was a lot longer than expected.]

The day of the exam, Yoonhee waits among a crowd of men for the doors of the exam site (which is the Sungkyunkwan Bicheondang) to open, but even long before the doors move, everyone is pushing and pulling (they want to get the best place to sit), and Yoonhee starts being thrown around within the chaos. Yoonhee tries with all her strength to stay close to the doors, but she can't help being pushed farther and farther away. She is about to trip on one of the men's ankles, and she braces herself to be trampled all over, when somebody's hand reaches out to grab Yoonhee's arms and pulls her towards him.

Yoonhee, even after she finds her balances, is still shocked from her almost-fall, and finds comfort in the hand grabbing her arm, even though she doesn't know who it belongs to. Because of that hand, she is able to resist the pushing and pulling. After a while, the crowd becomes calmer and Yoonhee looks to the person holding her arm. Her eyes go to his white neckline, an then to his adam's apple. She thinks to herself that it's normal for men to have an adam's apple, and lowers her head to cover her own neck, before she can see his face.

"Whoever you are, I was saved, thanks to you."
"There's no need for thanks."

Even as the man speaks, he doesn't let go of her arm.

"I-I'm okay now, so you can let go."
"There's no saying the crowd won't stir up again, so it's better if we stay like this until we can go in."
"A-ah, but, that's... I don't want to bother you..."
"If we stay together, I won't be pushed away by the crowd either. Let's just help one another."

Everyone else is so busy taking care of themself, but this person holding her arm feels so different. Even though all the other men are worked up and anxious, for some reason, this person is so calm. His presence helps her forget that she is here to take an exam, and she becomes calm as well.

Curious as to what he looks like, Yoonhee raises her head. She herself is pretty tall but this man is so tall that even when she raises her head she can only see from his wide shoulder up to his neck.

But the crowd now relaxes and Yoonhee can reach her face up farther. She can see his face. As soon as she sees it, she is so surprised and lowers her face right away, because his face is so beautiful that her face reddened the moment she saw it, forgetting that she is dressed as a man.

"You look very young. Is this your first exam, too?"

Yoonhee is startled at the question.

"Ah, yes. It is."
"It's nice to make your acquaintance. It's my first time as well."
"N-Nice to meet you, too."
"I noticed you didn't bring a mat to sit on, and that's why I thought it might be your first time."
"That's because I couldn't get it, not because I didn't know."
"Then let's use mine together. There's a lot of people, and I was going to feel guilty sitting on this large mat by myself."
"N-no, I don't want to trouble you further--"
"It's fine."

Yoonhee looks up to the man again. But before she can even see his face, her eyes go to another face that's looking at her, one that looks like it belongs to a monster.
Yoonhee screams, startling both the man and the monster. The man looks behind him too see the monster's face and smiles knowingly. The monster says to Yoonhee, "Why did you get so surprised? You were so pretty I just wanted to see you up close... I thought you just looked like one but I guess you get scared as easily as a girl, too. "

"Soondol! How can you be so rude? Are there any men who wouldn't get surprised if your face just showed up in front of them like that?"
"But he looks so weak as well--"

Yoonhee gets ahold of herself and pulls her arm away. I'm not a woman right now, I have to be a man, she thinks to herself. When Yoonhee pulls her arm away from him, the man mistakes her to be angry.

"I've been ill since childhood, so I look weak. That's why I've never been taught at a 서당 seodang or 과부학당 gwabuhakdang (kind of like the prep schools of the day), and I had to study by myself. I barely could come today with this body..."
"I'll apologize for Soondol. He might look this way and he says things without thinking, but he by no means has any bad intentions. He was just trying to say that you are indeed very pretty, so please, I hope you won't get angry."

Even at first glance anyone can see that this man is well-taught and well-off, but there isn't a trace of arrogance; on the contrary, he is quite humble! Because of this Yoonhee becomes embarrassed about how she must have come off.

"I didn't pull away because I was angry. I was just surprised--"
"It's only natural you would be. Everyone is, when they first see his face. But despite his looks, he is quite innocent."

Soondol looks a little apologetically at Yoonhee, and she can't help but smile at him. Soondol was giant and scary-looking, but as the man said, Yoonhee could feel that his eyes are kind. It's likely that the two of them could withstand the crowd because Soondol was helping with his strength.

"You have quite the 선접꾼 seonjupkun (it's like a servant who does bodyguard-type jobs)."
"Seonjupkun?"

The man stares at Yoonhee, puzzled. Then he sees that she is looking at Soondol, and realizes what Yoonhee means.

"Ah, that's not it. Soondol is just here until I get into the site (the seonjupkun usually goes in and saves the spot, fighting off other people)."
"Oh. That's a waste--"
Yoonhee is about to ask why he would send Soondol off, but before she can say anything, Soondol protests to the man, "I can't do that, doryunnim!"

Doryunnim? That means he isn't married yet. A strange feeling tickles Yoonhee's insides.

"Your father ordered me to follow you in and find you a good spot. It was so dangerous just now--what if it gets even more out of control in there? If you get hurt, I might die of sadness..."
"You don't know where the good spots are, so what aro you going to do when you get in there? Don't worry about it and go back."

Soondol tears up. "It's because I'm so dumb, I can't remember where I was told was a good spot... Your father told me, but..."

The man sighs. "I should have come alone. It's my exam, and you shouldn't be troubling yourself."
"But I have to do as your father told me to do! He might kill me otherwise."
"I'm sure all the seats inside are about the same. Don't worry about it."

It's a strange conversation. Soondol is definitely the man's servant, but it's hard to see a man treat his servant so kindly. And from his tone, he doesn't seem any worried about passing the test.

Yoonhee, knowing Soondol's potential strength, doesn't want to send him off, so she slips into the conversation.

"Not all the spots are the same. There are definitely good and bad ones in there."

Soondol widens his eyes as he lowers himself to Yoonhee's face.

"Where is that?"
"You said your name was Soondol?"
"Yes, pretty Sunbinim!"
"I can tell that you are strong, but are you fast?"
"Of course. Although I'm big, I can run very fast."
"Then as soon as the door opens, don't wait to follow your doryunnim, but run ahead in first, before anybody else!"
"What? But what about you two? What if you are hurt because I'm not around?"
"We'll run as fast as we can behind you, and we should be fine as long as we don't fall. So don't look back and run as fast as you can."
"I will!"
"And now, listen carefully. The place you'll run to is on the right side of Bicheondang, at underneath the second tree from the building. If you spread the mat and wait there, nobody should try and take the spot."
"But why not the first tree? Isn't it better to be more in the front?"
"You'll know when you sit there and look up at the sky, so do as I say."
"B-but..."

Soondol still seems to think that closer to the building will be better, but the man says, "do as he says."

Before Soondol can protest, the doors open, and Yoonhee exclaims, "Soondol! Run!" Before she knows it, Soondol's gone. As he runs, the crowd splits and Yoonhee hurries to take this chance to run through, only to be held back by the same hand that grabbed her arm earlier.

"What are you doing! You should run after him, too!"
"Didn't you say that you are ill? I didn't think that you should overwork your body..."
'Ah! I forgot!'
As Yoonhee is about to respond, the split that Soondol left behind him is closed up again by the crowd. Yoonhee shouts over the noise, "you should at least go on ahead alone!"
"How can I leave when we've agreed to help one another? Even if we get there a little later, Soondol will be waiting for us in that spot."

The man places his body so that he is right in front of Yoonhee, to protect her from the moving crowd. It seems as though he really believed that she is ill.

Soondol, without realizing that he lost the two, hurries to the tree Yoonhee pointed out. People run out of his way, scared, and he arrives at the second tree. There are already some people who've settled there, so Soondol sets the mat slightly to the side. Even though the site is full of people fighting for their seats, there isn't anybody who dares to pick a fight with Soondol.

Sungkyunkwan Scandal Scene 2: Meeting Lee Sunjoon, Part 2


Soondol starts getting worried about the two he left behind. He gets up, but sits back down, remembering the pretty sunbinim's words. Afraid that the spot will get taken, he gets up and sits back down repeatedly. But soon he sees the two arrive, and he stands up to wave his large arms at them. The two, exhausted, sit down.

"Doryunnim, are you alright? How about you, sunbinim?"
"I'm okay. Hm! I've never experienced such chaos. How can one even call this an exam site? It's more a battleground. I'm already so exhausted, before even the 시제 shijae (the subject that they are supposed to write on) is put up--it must be hard for you, when you're fighting an illness."

Yoonhee smiles at him. She's so tired that she can't even thank him or tell him she's okay. If her brother was here instead, he might have really died. She sees Soondol looking up at the sky.

"What are you doing?"
"You told me that I would know why we should sit under the second tree if I look up at the sky. But I can't even see it--there are so many leaves... Is it because I saved the spot a little too much to the side?"

The man looks up along with Soondol and smiles knowingly. It's a good spot exactly because the sky is covered. The first tree has too few leaves and when the sun rises high up, they'll be protected by the shade. And the trees on the left side would cast a shadow the wrong direction of the exam site, so this was indeed the best spot.

His eyes turn to Yoonhee. Yoonhee's eyes go to him as well. She notes his sharp features--his thick eyebrows and eyes, nose, and lips all come together to make a flawless face, and she can't help but evade his gaze.

She also observes his clothes. She can tell by his face and presence that he must be from a rich background, but he's not dressed that way at all. It's not as old or ratty as her own, but his clothes, hat, and even the fan he carries look inexpensive. If anyone were to look at him passingly, they would probably think he was from a common family. Because of this, Yoonhee feels more at ease with him.

He tidies his clothes and smiles in thanks to Yoonhee. Soondol asks Yoonhee, "I thought it was your first time taking the exam, but you look very used to all this."

Soondol is the one to ask the question, but Yoonhee answers for the man to hear.

"Ah, since it's my first time, and since I couldn't even bring a mat, I thought I should prepare by asking other experienced people. I don't have a seonjupkun or anything, so I'm very lucky to be able to sit here. It's all thanks to you."

It's an excuse, so Yoonhee looks to the man nervously, only to find that the man seems like he doesn't seem suspicious at all. And if she thinks about it, he's believed everything she's said since they met, and therefore even Yoonhee feels that what she has been saying could be the truth.

The test starts and Soondol leaves. As soon as the shijae is put up, everyone runs up to the scroll to see closely what they are supposed to write on, but the two stay seated calmly, looking at the shijae from where they're sitting.

Yoonhee copies the shijae down onto her own scroll, and starts jotting down what comes to her mind on extra blank pieces of paper she's prepared. Then her eyes go to the man, and she sees that he is already writing on his exam scroll. Even the most intelligent examinees practice on another sheet beforehand, but he starts right away on the final sheet. And even without having practiced, he is writing line by line calmly at a steady pace. There's only one scroll sheet, and it would be disastrous to make a mistake.

As she is about to tell him to be careful, she's silenced by what she reads on his scroll. His writing is flawless, almost as if he had written a rough draft. He is definitely not of the norm. Her heart beats, and she becomes even more nervous before. She feels that her writing, compared to his, is hopeless. What if everyone else in here are just as good as he is? And she has to take a second exam, and she becomes worried that she'll have to compete with people as intelligent as him during that, too. Even though she had built her confidence because the people she helped at the bookstore were always buying her help to do their writing, there is no telling that the men in the exam site are of the same kind. The anxiety she felt when she left her home this morning doubles, and she starts shaking.

But she can't fall apart now. She has to calm down, for her mother and brother. She concentrates, and starts writing on her extra pieces of paper. She examines them over and over again.

Even though she fixes it again and again, she can't help but feel that her writing is no good. She can't believe she even tried at this exam, at this level. She's filled with shame that she even asked for higher paying jobs at the store. She gives up on revising any further and starts writing on her exam scroll.

After the man finishes, he looks towards Yoonhee, who is concentrated on her writing. He observes her moving brush. Her brush moves fast, but creates beautifully written characters. He's surprised at her skill. He thinks to himself, he's so young! How many words must he have read and written to acquire such a talent?

He doesn't go to turn in his own exam, and waits until she's done. Even though Yoonhee is dissatisfied with her writing, she finishes and sits up to see the man, who is folding his fan. He asks, "Are you finished?"

Started, Yoonhee responds, "i-if you've finished, you should go and turn it in! Don't you know it's better to turn it in early?"
"I was going to turn it in when you've finished, so we can go together. I thought it would be better to wait, so you don't get nervous that I've already gone. It would be rude to make you worry, and you might have made a mistake."

It's true--her anxiety would have further increased if he had gone ahead to turn the exam in. She can't believe what kind of a person he is; how can he be so kind to someone he's just met? She sees that a few people are turning their exams in, so she gets up.

"I'm finished as well, so let's go turn it in."
"Your ink isn't dry yet. It's fine to read over it one more time and turn it in after."
"No, it's okay. It's actually better not to mess with it any further. Let's go turn it in."

The man gets up as well, and the two walk side by side to turn in their scrolls. As soon as they get back and tidy up their spot, others flock to take it. The exam site is still filled, from those focused on their scrolls to those who are almost just having a picnic, eating and drinking. There's also a worker going around carrying out water to drink for the examinees.

The man goes to get a bowl of water, and after drinking half of the bowl, gives it to Yoonhee. Yoonhee is taken back, because he's offering her the water he's put his lips on. She thinks to herself, there's nothing weird about it, since both of us are supposed to be men, and I can't ask him to give me a new bowl, and I am thirsty, so it's not like I can refuse it... So she takes the bowl and drinks it. The water is sweet, and she can't tell if it's because she was thirsty, or because his lips touched it.

As they leave, Yoonhee thanks the man.

"Thanks to you, I was able to get through the exam safely. I don't know what I would have done if I didn't meet you."
"We helped each other out, that's all. Are you taking the second exam the day after tomorrow?"
"Yes--"
"Where?"
"I think I was told it was at Yehjo."
"I am at Yehjo as well. Then, we will meet again, day after tomorrow."

Yoonhee is rejoiced at the news, but to hide her expression, she turns her head towards the other way. The man smiles as he says, "I'm relieved we are at the same site, but it doesn't seem like you are as happy about it as I am."
"N-no, that's not it! Why wouldn't I be happy?"

The conversation is too awkward for Yoonhee, but thankfully they're interrupted by Soondol, who's ran to greet them.

"Doryunnim! How come you've come out already?"
"I came out because I've finished. Why are you still here?"
"I was waiting for you!"

Soondol takes the things from the man's hands. The man turns to Yoonhee and says, "I want to be here with you a little longer, but I don't want to burden you when you're unwell, so I'll say goodbye."

Yoonhee doesn't want to say bye yet, but she bows, and says, "then have a safe trip home."

He bows too. "I'll see you the day after tomorrow at Yehjo."

Yoonhee after bowing one more time, starts walking away. Soondol, as he observes Yoonhee walking away, says to the man, "do you think that sunbinim wrote anything correctly? I'm sure he hasn't read much, since he looks so young, and he seems too weak to even hold up a brush..."

The man stares towards Yoonhee and answers quietly. "I can't even explain it. I couldn't believe it with my own eyes."

Soondol looks at the man, puzzled. The man smiles.

"Soondol, can you explain to me the beauty of that sunbi?"
"What? How could I?"
"I can't either. And his writing that I saw was just as inexplicably beautiful as his face. Soondol. I didn't decide to take the exam because of those pressuring me, but because I thought I've read and learned a good amount. But now I know. I think I came here so I could make a good friend."
"But doryunnim, I know you are kind to everyone, but why do you seem so overly concerned with someone that you've just met?"
"I'm overly concerned?"
"Yes! It's almost strange how much."
"Ah is that so? Was I?"



"Ah!"

The man starts running towards where Yoonhee disappeared. Soondol, surprised, follows. The two find Yoonhee, trekking not too far away. He reaches out for her arm and turns her around, and Yoonhee is barely able to stop herself from screaming.

"I forgot something."
"What is..."
"We didn't even introduce ourselves."

Yoonhee had realized this earlier, but she had kept quiet, as to be not found out as a woman. Soondol grins and mutters, "Humph, I thought it was something important. I told you that you're overly concerned..."

"My name is Lee Sunjoon."

He also tells her his township and that he's twenty years old. Yoonhee also introduces herself as Kim Yoonshik, eighteen years old (Yoonhee is nineteen, but Yoonshik is eighteen, so she uses Yoonshik's age).

After smiling widely, Sunjoon leaves. Yoonhee stares as he walks away. Even though he looks small next to Soondol, he is a tall man, with wide shoulders and thin waist--he was perfect.

"Lee Sunjoon..."

The Days of Sungkyunkwan Scholars

A - Night of the sports competition, after the DongJae Victory

[DongJae wins, and there is a grand party, along with the Gisaengs from MoRakGahn (including Chosun). There are many women and Gisaengs surrounding each member from the JalGeum Foursome.]

The night comes, and they light the place, and all the people are now looking at Chosun, who is dancing as she approaches Sunjoon and Yoonhee, who are sitting next to one another. Yoonhee is sure that Chosun is coming to her (Chosun, prior to this, has been very blunt about her affection for Yoonhee, who she thinks is a man) and is contemplating on what to do, but to everyone's surprise, she goes to Sunjoon, and lures him to the dance floor. Sunjoon, who's been pushing away all women the whole night, follows Chosun without hesitation, and everyone is so surprised that the crowd splits to make way for the two.

Yoonhee can't believe her eyes (first, because of Chosun, then because Sunjoon followd her so willingly), but she's not the only one so shocked. Chosun hides the fact that she is really surprised; she thought that if she tried to seduce Sunjoon to dance, Sunjoon would struggle, and that Yoonhee would get jealous and try to pull Chosun to him/herself. She didn't think that Sunjoon would follow.

She doesn't have the time to be flattered, because as she leaves with Sunjoon to dance, another handful of women surround Yoonhee. And Sunjoon's eyes are cold, and he does not move to the music. Chosun asks him what he was thinking, in following her, and he replies, "that's what I want to ask. Why did you approach me?" Chosun hesitated in answering, and Sunjoon is fast to say,

"Even a Gisaeng's loyalty spans at least one night. Because you danced with me, you shouldn't go the scholar sitting next to me, isn't that right?"
Chosun is baffled, and stops dancing. She doesn't understand. "You did this for that reason? Why? Aren't you a man?"

Sunjoon thinks to himself, I am a man. That is actually the reason of my misery.

"You and I both know I am a man." "Then why?"

Sunjoon thinks, don't ask that, because it pains me that I can't answer. He makes up an excuse saying that he wants to protect Yoonhee and Yoonhee's name, to which Chosun doesn't accept. And then Sunjoon cuts her off, saying,
"Let's make this clear. I didn't approach you tonight, you approached me. You are the one who betrayed Kim Yoon Shik!" Then he turns his back to her, and sees Yoonhee approaching the dance floor, still surrounded by women. Yoonhee evades his gaze, and he interprets it as anger for taking Chosun away from him (he thinks that Yoonhee likes Chosun). As Yoonhee and her crowd of women pass Sunjoon, Sunjoon grabs her wrist and drags her away from the dance floor to underneath the canopy. And Yoonhee (who is a little tipsy from drinking) says, "I know all the women must love you, but isn't this too much? And with my woman.. to my woman.."

Sunjoon feels a stab in his heart as he contemplates, he likes her so much as to call her "my woman"? Without showing any expression, he grabs her shoulders and forces her to sit, and Yoonhee struggles, trying to break free. When she calms down, he sits next to her, and says "don't get up." And with his words, she folded her knees and buried her face in them, unable to explain what had just happened.

Chosun is speechless watching the two. She thinks that Yoonshik (Yoonhee) is definitely a man, but Sunjoon is treating Yoonhee as if she was his woman (ha!). She seems to have picked up that that the two aren't your normal friends. She's sure that there was something going on between them.

To quell her feelings, Yoonhee keeps drinking, and thinks stuff like, there are so many women clamoring for Sunjoon already, and now I have to worry about Chosun too? (so cute). Sunjoon is suffocatingly silent, and Yoonhee looks around for Yongha, who would usually find them and break the mood, but alas, Yongha has disappeared with a Gisaeng.

A man comes looking for Sunjoon, and Yoonhee recognizes him as Hyo-eun's servant. The man tells Sunjoon that Hyo-eun is waiting outside Banchon (The marketplace you saw in the drama right outside the actual walled SKK Campus) and that she asks to see him. Sunjoon tells the man to go back first, that he would soon follow, and Yoonhee, having heard this, is not very happy. She is drunk, and when Sunjoon gets up to leave, she stares for a while, and decides to follow.

She is super tipsy and keeps falling over as she follows Sunjoon (at some point, Chosun helps pick her up, but she pushes her away by going through the cafeteria, since Gisaengs cannot enter). After a while, she catches up to him, and says "I caught you!" She's still very tipsy. He says that she drank too much, to which she replies, "don't act like you're worried about me!"

"Are you going to her? She is a very pretty woman, and such a great family background! You must be very in love, to leave a victory party so fast!"

And Sunjoon thinks, this looks like I am going for the woman? No, I was just trying to run away from you.

Yoonhee keeps trying to pick a fight, saying "you're gonna give Yeorim (Yongha) a run for his money! going from one woman to another..." And she falls to him, and he tries his hardest not to catch her (because he is afraid of what he would do) and she does not fall because she hugs his waist to stand back up. Sunjoon thinks that it might be easier if he did just move from woman to woman so easily. Yoonhee says,

"The wish! My wish, there's a wish I can use, right? That wish, I want to use it now. My wish is that you don't meet that woman..." and as she says this, she is knocked unconscious and faints, and both of them fall to the ground. And Sunjoon says,

"if that's your wish, I won't meet her."

And he says it genuinely, but she's completely knocked out. He's saddened and angry, and shakes her, yelling, "Make that your wish! Please, make that my excuse!" (He means that if yoonhee does wish that, he doesn't have to meet Hyo-eun, since all this time he's so conflicted as to why he is not in love with Hyo-eun, who is a beautiful woman and a wonderful catch, wants an excuse as to not love Hyo-eun). Yoonhee murmurs something. He sticks his face really close to her to see what she was saying, and he's entranced by her face, and he is overcome with the desire to kiss her.

He's stopped when Jaeshin calls out to the two (Jaeshin has been looking for Yoonhee). He notices that Yoonhee is passed out, and jokes, "You guys were doing the unspeakable at a place for saints and their relics?" (They were near a temple) (also Jaeshin does not know as of yet that Yoonhee is a girl)

Sunjoon knows it's a joke, but it hurts a lot more this time, and yells, "how can two men do such things?!" and Jaeshin jokes, "If two men want to, they can do whatever they want. If you're curious as to how, just ask me" (lolol)
Then Jaeshin checks on Yoonhee, and as he tries to pick her up to take her, Sunjoon takes Jaeshin's hands off of her, and clutches her to himself. "Why? you think I'll do something to him?" And Sunjoon says, "no, it's not that..." And Jaeshin replies, "I'll take him to the room. You were going somewhere, so go on ahead." Sunjoon says that he will take him, and Jaeshin takes Yoonhee away by force, and says, "it's not that I'm taking him for you; Your hand will start bleeding again (Sunjoon hurt his hand during the sports competition) so go on."

Sunjoon watches them goes and thinks that if Jaeshin did not come, he was sure to have met his lips with Yoonhee's. He is now more conflicted than ever and asks himself what he should do.



As Jaeshin is carrying Yoonhee, Yoonhee murmurs, "Garang (Sunjoon's nickname) Hyungnim, don't go..." and starts crying. Jaeshin spits out, "I know you follow Garang everywhere you go when you're awake...but to look for him even in your dreams? Why am I so angry? Dammit, I should just throw you to the ground." But he doesn't, and thinks to himself that Yoonhee is very light, and carrying him doesn't feel gross, it feels actually very nice. Jaeshin catches himself, saying "if this goes on, I may really become gay."

Jaeshin sets Yoonhee down in the room and decides to undress her. His heart starts racing as he starts undoing her clothes (to which he is baffled as to why) and he is startled to find the cloth that is wrapped around her upper body, around her breasts. Even as she is unconscious, Yoonhee clutches to her clothes as to hide what's inside, and Jaeshin jumps up from the shock, backing away from her towards the door. He stares for a long time, and then paces around the room, and he becomes sure that she's a woman. He says, "how did I not know?" and Yoonhee murmurs, "Garang hyung.." and Jaeshin says,

"Why are you calling for him?! What are you thinking? Why did you come here? Do you know what would happen if..."

B - The Happening At BiBokCheon

[First, things that happened between Scene A and Scene B: Jaeshin clothes Yoonhee, and sits outside the room to think. Sunjoon comes back and tries to walk in the room to sleep, to which Jaeshin stops him. I think Jaeshin is drunk and confused and Sunjoon is just sad and angry as of then, and Jaeshin doesn't want Sunjoon going in the room so they start throwing punches. Yongha comes to try and stop them, but they keep going, until Yongha wakes up Yoonhee and Yoonhee comes to try and break the fight. They stop, unable to explain why they fought. Sunjoon storms off to sleep, and Jaeshin similarly storms out, but out of SKK. Nobody hears of Jaeshin until this next scene.]

[Yoonhee has been bathing at BiBokCheon in the very late hours of the night so she isn't seen; The lower level students try to scare her and approach the place, and she hears them, and then scrambles to get her things and run into the nearest storage warehouse, where everything is dark. Jaeshin, who was resting there (he was hurt from a fight) sees her silhouette, with her hair in a mess, with straws in it, and thinks he is seeing ghosts, and faints (I think also part of it was because he was severely wounded). Also the lower level students who were near the storage house hear Jaeshin's voice and flee, but then wonder what Jaeshin and Yoonhee are doing together at the storage warehouse this late at night. And the rumor starts...]


Yoonhee dresses herself completely and sees that Jaeshin is still unconscious. She shakes him, telling him he should sleep at the room, but he doesn't wake up. She checks if he is drunk, but she can't smell any alcohol. She punches him lightly, and starts getting worried. She starts hitting him harder and then find that he is bleeding from his side. Shocked, she stammers, "you're ... you're not dead, right? open your eyes! Just a little bit, please..."

Jaeshin opens his eyes slowly. "Are.. you... shik.."
"Yes! I am shik. I'm daemul Yoonshik!" "Why are you.. here?"

Yoonhee starts crying. "Thank goodness..Thank god.." Her mouth forms into a smile even as she is crying.

Jaeshin says, "Punk, you were beating me up so freely when I was out, and now that I am awake, you're gonna cry?"
"Ah! since when were you awake?"
"Since you started giving me a beating. Anyone would wake up to that."

Yoonhee gets up, and says that she will bring a doctor, to which Jaeshin grabs her wrist, and tells her that she can't tell anyone. She tries to leave, but Jaeshin yells, "I told you you can't!" And with that shout, his pain comes back and he puts his hand on the wound on his side. Yoonhee cries and says that then she will just bring Yongha, and Jaeshin yells, "You can't tell Yongha! You can't tell Garang (Sunjoon)! You can't tell anybody, even if I die!"

Yoonhee cries, but realizes that if she can't tell anybody, she'll have to treat him herself.
"I'll be back with things to wipe your wound."
"Just go; pretend you didn't see me."
"If you don't want me to punch you again, then stop saying things like that!" Yoonhee runs out the door, and Jaeshin smiles weakly.

Yoonhee comes with water and clean towels. When she comes back, Jaeshin is sitting up, trying to stay conscious. He smiles at her as she starts undoing his clothes. He says,

"Calm down. If you keep pushing me like this, I might actually do something to you."
"In this state?"
"My side is hurt, but my stuff is still fine." (lol, Jaeshin is so awesome)
"What would you have done if you hurt that great mouth of yours?"
"Are you going to keep talking back like that? Where did the crybaby that was just here go to?"
"And are you the man who was just struggling to stay alive? I should have beat you more when I had the chance."

Yoonhee wipes the blood off his body; his chest, stomach, and arms are fine, but his side almost seems like the organs will pop out of it. She wipes the wound carefully, and frowns, to which Jaeshin says,

"Sorry."
"what?"
"I know you can't look at wounds and blood very easily."

But as Jaeshin says this, he realizes that it isn't because Yoonhee can't handle blood, it is because she is a woman that she kept refusing to tend to his wound on his butt back in the beginning of the school term.

Yoonhee asks how he got so hurt, and he evades the subject by asking her if she was playing ghosts here, with her hair all messed up like that. Jaeshin slowly takes his hand to get straw out of her hair, and doesn't take his hand out of her hair. So soft--so this kid is a woman. It feels so much different than my hair, he thinks. Yoonhee is busy tending to his wound, and doesn't notice the change in his gaze. So she answers, "hair is different from person to person, as personalities are." Jaeshin becomes really sensitive to her touch on his body, and pulls her to him, catching her in a hug. This catches Yoonhee by surprise, and she tries to push him away, but he is holding her too firmly.

"What do you think you're doing! Let me go!"
"How are you so ...soft?"
"I.. I'm a man! Why are you doing this!"
"How are you so soft, even though you are a man?"
"Let me go!"
"You're so soft; why should I even care that you're a man? It's fine if it feels this good to hold you."

Yoonhee struggles for a while, and Jaeshin finally lets her go. Yoonhee backs away from him, and says, "This time your joke went too far! If you held on any longer, I would have hit where your wound was." Jaeshin smiles, "that's why I let you go." He laughs.

The next day, Jaeshin has again disappeared without a word.

C - Yoonhee, Sunjoon, Jaeshin, and the Tree

[Yoonhee and Sunjoon are in their room, contemplating on Jaeshin's long absence.]

Sunjoon closes his book, and lays out blankets, including Jaeshin's, in case he comes back. Sunjoon sighs as he looks at the empty spot--Jaeshin has been gone at least ten days. Yoonhee says, "It's not that he's not coming back because of you."
"How do you know?"
"Uh... Well, I just know that he's not so narrow-minded like that."

Yoonhee smiles at him to comfort him, but he evades her gaze and gets changed and ready to sleep. Sunjoon gets underneath the blanket and asks,

"Are you sleeping late again?"
"Yes, I'm just going to look at this longer. I didn't have time earlier because of that other scholar..."
"Ah, the scholar who wanted to look at your writing. I would really like to see as well."
"It's not that great..."
"But don't work too hard; it's already so late."
But Yoonhee replies that there are so many tests to study for, to which Sunjoon says that her skills are already very good. Yoonhee says that it's not good enough for the eyes of the king (the king would come to read and ask about the test held the next day). "Anyway, what will Gul-oh (Jaeshin) Sahyung (sunbae/older person) do if he fails?"
Sunjoon doesn't know either, and tells her to not worry too much, so that she won't be too nervous in front of the king tomorrow. He settles in to sleep.

Yoonhee thinks, he's always so properly punctual. How can someone always go to sleep and wake up at the same time every night? She steals glances at his sleeping face.




The shadow of the campus ginko tree suddenly had a human silhouette--it's Jaeshin. Jaeshin looks towards DongJae and counts down the doors until he finds his room. He sees that the room is still lit by candlelight and realizes Yoonhee is still not asleep. He rests on top of the tree, looking towards the room, as though he is looking at her.




Yoonhee, to stop herself from looking at Sunjoon's face, turns off the light, but the moon is so bright that his face is still well lit. She decides she might as well close her eyes then, and wiggles into the blanket. But as she goes into the blanket, the back of her hand touches Sunjoon's. Sunjoon, seemingly deep asleep, shows no reaction, so Yoonhee takes this chance to touch his hand. It's so warm that she could cry. She touches finger by finger, and even his palm. She holds his thumb and sticks her head out of the blanket too look at his face. She thinks,

His face is so close. The face that I'll miss so painfully that one day we can't see each other anymore, it's so close to me now.

She touches his forehead, and then his nose, and with her fingers touches his lips, as though she is kissing him. She is entranced by the touch and how different it is from just looking. Before she knows it, she's slowly put her lips on top of his, because she wants to know how different it feels on her lips than her finger. Balancing her weight on top of him, she steals a kiss. And just as feeling his lips with her finger is different from just looking, the feeling on of his lips on hers is different than on her finger.


Jaeshin, having noticed that the lights have gone off, starts throwing pebbles at the door. Yoonhee, who's just had her lips on Sunjoon's, is startled and gets up. She opens the door and Jaeshin pops in, whispering, "Come out. Let's play.." Yoonhee shouts as softly as she can. "Do you know how much we worried about you?" She makes sure he is well, and he seems so (he even has new clothes on! To impress a certain person?). He gets close to her and says, "I said, come out! Isn't it sad to let such a well lit night go by?" Yoonhee tries to protest, mentioning the test tomorrow, but he takes her away by force.

"w--wait!"
"Shh! You're going to wake up Garang." Jaeshin puts his own shoes on her feet, and drags her away barefooted. "I want to show you something. Come."




After Yoonhee and Jaeshin leaves, Sunjoon slowly opens his eyes. He looks at his hand, which is shaking. He can still remember her touch. He touches his lips with his hand, and his heart races.



Yoonhee, as she is being dragged away, asks Jaeshin quietly, "Have you healed alright? Where have you been? Are you okay moving around like this?"

"You talk too much. I'm moving around because I'm okay. If I'm dead, how could I be dragging you around like this?"
"Why didn't you come back? You should think about those worrying about you."
"Did I tell you to worry about me? Don't get so upset over something I didn't even tell you to do."
"You disappeared in that state! How was I not supposed to worry?"
"Shh! How will I stop that mouth from shooting off? Should I attack it with my own?"

Yoonhee shuts her mouth. But she is happy to hear his jokes once again. Jaeshin takes her to the huge Ginko tree and hoists her up. She tells him that she can't climb trees, and Jaeshin offers his shoulders. He stands with her on his shoulders until she grabs a branch. Then Jaeshin climbs up the tree and then pulls her up. They repeat this until they are very high up on the tree.

Yoonhee looks out to what seems like the world to her. Because of the bright moonlight, she can see all SungKyunKwan and the palace far away. Jaeshin is satisfied looking at her awed expression, and says, "I told you you would regret it if you didn't come."

Yoonhee says, "Thank you. This is blowing all my frustrations away."
"You're frustrated? because?"

Yoonhee doesn't answer. Jaeshin says, "if you're up here, you can see all the things you can't see down there. And you can even hear it. Close your eyes."
Yoonhee closes her eyes, and she can hear what sounds like the breeze, like animals wandering the night, like the water... And something else she can't quite make out.

Jaeshin speaks. "Can you hear it? That's the sound of SungKyunKwan breathing."
Yoonhee thinks, if this place could breathe, it could also be angry. She thinks back at what she just did to Sunjoon, and that if this place was alive, it'd be fit to punish her. She shakes herself back to reality.

"Ah! about the test tomorrow.."
"I know, I'll probably fail. It's not anything new, not even to the king."
"But your family... wouldn't they have high expectations for you?"
"Just because someone can write a few words doesn't mean they'll make for important people. It's useless, all of it."

Jaeshin looks down at Dongjae, and continues,

"...is what I thought before I met Garang. After I met him, I realized that you can indeed write a few words with the right mind, instead of the right brain. Words aren't so useless then after all. It's so surprising. He's something else. Even if I stayed here forever I might not have realized this. Don't you dare tell him that I said this."

Yoonhee smiles widely and nods.

Jaeshin says quietly, "You must like him, right?"
"What?"
"Nothing."

Jaeshin stares far away, and murmurs, "Ah, I hate Garang. I can't do anything about it, but I hate him so..."

Yoonhee thanks Jaeshin for taking her back to the room the night of the victory party. She asks, "Did I ..do anything?"
"Isn't getting knocked out on the street something already?"
"Ah.. I'm just wondering.. why you just left me in the room like that. I woke up with the same clothes on..."
"look at you. You're saying I should have changed you, too? I took you to your room even though I just wanted to abandon you somewhere on the street!"
"No I didn't mean it like that! I just meant.. Thank you."

Jaeshin starts, "But I guess someday I should get a gander at that great thing of yours!" (Daemul means literally big wealth/treasure, but it more or less implies "big penis". lol. The nickname sticks because Yoonhee is the great man who was able to get Chosun's affection.)

Jaeshin breaks out in laughter. After he says it, he realizes the hilarity of the matter. The person rumored to have the biggest penis is actually a woman! How did that rumor even start? He starts even tearing as he laughs.

"Why are you laughing so much?"
"Ah.. I was just thinking about the fighting ring... (He pretends he is getting hurt getting into things like wrestling matches people bet over)"
"You're lying about going to those places right?"
Jaeshin coughs. "What? I'm lying?"
"Yes, Garang Hyungnim said that you're not the one to go to places like that."
"You'll believe anything Garang says, dammit!"

Jaeshin suddenly, in anger, climbs down from the tree. Yoonhee slowly and carefully climbs down branch by branch, but reaches a point where she can't go down further.

"You can't just leave me here! How do I get down?"

Jaeshin looks up from the ground and says, "if you jump from there, you might break something."
"So can you offer your shoulder like last time..."
"I never told you I would help you get down."

With that Jaeshin goes towards DongJae, pretending not to hear Yoonhee. He shouts as he walks away, "By the way! It's forbidden to climb trees on campus. Don't get caught!"
"W--What!? wait!"

Yoonhee stays in the tree stuck. "I wondered why he was being so nice! If I get down, the first thing I'll do is to kick where he was hurt."




Jaeshin arrives at the door of his room, and sees that Sunjoon is waiting outside, looking around. Jaeshin says, "I came back. Aren't you going to greet me?"
"Yes, about that time..."
"That time, I hit you first. So I should apologize, isn't that right?"
"No, I am sorry."
"In any case, I wasn't gone because of you. I kept trying to come back but there were things to take care of.
Sunjoon smiles.
"You weren't sleeping?"
"I woke up, and Daemul was gone, so I came out looking for him."
"You think he got kidnapped or something? Maybe some women dragged him away. Hmm, but his shoes are here, so I guess there is reason for worry."

Sunjoon knows he is lying. Jaeshin's the one who took Yoonhee away, but he's come back alone. Where did he leave him?

"Where is he?"
"How would I know?"
"Where is he!"
"Why are you asking me? You think I know?"
"Where is he!"

Sunjoon's shout is cold, although it's not loud enough to wake others.

"Ah, you were awake. I left him hanging at a tree!"

Sunjoon grabbed Jaeshin's arm. "A tree? What tree?"

Jaeshin frees himself from Sunjoon's grasp and heads into the room, saying, "look for it yourself. He won't be able to get down by himself from that tree."

Jaeshin slams the door shut, and contemplates on telling Sunjoon about Yoonhee's identity...





Sunjoon hurries to the tallest tree at Daesungjeon. Yoonhee sees Sunjoon and is so surprised to see him awake that she forgets to call out for him. Sunjoon calls out to him and Yoonhee snaps back to reality, and calls out to him. "Garang hyungnim! Over here!"

Sunjoon finds here and looks up. Worried, Yoonhee asks, "..w-weren't you sleeping?"
Sunjoon answers, "I woke up, and you were gone, so I couldn't go back to sleep. And your shoes were there, so I was worried." Thank god, she thinks. She is assured that he wasn't awake when she kissed him.

"Jump down, I'll catch you."
"You might get hurt."
"You don't trust me?"

Yoonhee looks down and smiles. "Gul-oh Sahyung is right. I would believe anything you say."
Sunjoon becomes desperate. For some reason, with the moonlight on Yoonhee, it seemed as though she would fly away into the sky like a Sun-nyeo (a wood nymph), forever gone. He shouts, "please! come down!" and with that, Yoonhee jumps down into his arms.

Sunjoon and Yoonhee both fall into the ground. "Are you okay?" "Are you all right?"
But both of them are startled to realize the awkward position they are in. Both of them are down, but Sunjoon's waist is between her legs. Yoonhee tries to get up pushing against his chest with her hands, and sits up, but the position is not any less criminal: it was almost as though she is riding a horse. Under her bottom was his...thing, separated by only a few layer of clothing! The feeling is so strong that it almost feels like its piercing her body, that she can't even move.

Sunjoon is similarly taken aback, and tries to get up himself, only to be sitting up with her on his lap. His thing seems similarly surprised--if she were to get up now, so would it.

Their eyes meet, and both of them try to pretend that they're not so affected, and ask each other if they're hurt. Yoonhee slowly gets off of him. Sunjoon, so that the state of his lower body is not found out, sits with his back turned to her.

"It's..it's late. We should sleep." Yoonhee starts getting up, but Sunjoon pulls her back down. "Let's stay a little bit longer." It's because Sunjoon is in no state to get up, but Yoonhee doesn't know, so she asks, "are you hurt?"
"ah, no, it's just.. that.. the stars are so beautiful tonight."
It's just an excuse, but when the two looked up at the sky, the stars are indeed very beautiful, so the two stay.

The two lean against each other on their backs, and Sunjoon starts, "When are you going to use your wish?"
"what wish?"
"The wish that I'm supposed to grant you."
Sunjoon thinks, if you tell me not to meet Hyo-eun, I won't. He wants it to be that wish. If that was the wish, he has an excuse to enjoy his time here with Yoonhee than to spend it with Hyo-eun.
"If I had a wish.. It would be that later, when we are away from this place, that you would not forget me. Should I make that my wish?"
"I can't accept that. Even if that wasn't your wish, I will not forget you."
I won't forget you, Sunjoon thinks. Even if we are of different class or party, we'll be together.

Sunjoon says, "why do you always keep talking like we will separate? Even if we are not taking classes here, it's not like we will never meet... You always act as though we have just a short amount of time."
"You don't know what will happen."
"I want a different wish."

Yoonhee thinks to herself, should I ask him not to meet that woman? But how would she explain herself?

"If I can't make that my wish, I don't have one as of yet."
"You can save it up and use it anytime, even if it's after 10 years, or 30 years."
Yoonhee closes her eyes. "10 years... 30 years..."




The two head back to Dongjae, and as she enters, Yoonhee kicks Jaeshin's bottom.
"What the-- who do you think you're kicking!?"
"You should be thankful I'm not doing more. You are just too much."

The three settle in to sleep, and Jaeshin says that she's got some guts kicking him, when everyone else in Sungkyunkwan is deadly scared to even go near him. Jaeshin sleeps with his back to her, and she's surprised to see that he is wearing his underclothes to sleep.

Why? even when it is cold, he always sleeps with most of his clothes off. Yoonhee deduces that it's to hide his wound, and goes to sleep.

D - The waterfall

[Before this:

The lower level students, who blame Yoonhee for keeping Sunjoon at Dongjae instead of Seojae, spread the rumor that Yoonhee and Jaeshin have been fornicating at Bibokcheon late at night. Yoonhee and Jaeshin confront the lower level students, and all the students gather as the lower level students accuse them of being "disgusting" and tell Sunjoon to leave his roommates immediately.

Jaeshin is super angry, and Yoonhee is extremely upset to have dirtied her brother's name. Sunjoon, similarly angry (but he tries not to show it), ask how they know that Jaeshin and Yoonhee were doing those things, to which they answer that they were at Bibokcheon late at night. Sunjoon is like, so you didn't actually see them do anything? You just deduced that they were because they were together? And the lower level students respond, what else could they have been doing together at Bibokcheon that late? Sunjoon fires back, saying, "if you think they were doing it because they were together at Bibokcheon that late, isn't it fair to claim that since you all were there together, too, that you were doing the same?"

The lower level students are all startled, but claim that they were there just to scare Yoonhee. Jaeshin tells them that he went looking for Yoonhee as well to scare her for fun, because it was too awkward to be alone in the room with Sunjoon after their fistfight, which people accept as reasonable. Yoonhee wonders why Jaeshin is lying, because she knows he was there to rest because of his wound. Then another student pipes in, saying that he saw Yoonhee on top of another man underneath the tree at Daesungjeon. Everyone is like, yeah, what's that about?

Sunjoon says that it was him, to which the lower level students (who are all very enamored of Sunjoon) exclaim that that's a lie; he must just be covering for Jaeshin! Jaeshin gets angry because of the discrimination lol. Sunjoon tells him that he was just helping her get off the tree, and the witness is quick to accept it, since Yoonhee was not on top of him for very long. Yoonhee is quiet, because even though there really isn't anything between her and Jaeshin, she does not have the conscience to defend herself regarding Sunjoon. All the lower level students have no more to say, and they pale as Jaeshin growls that he's going to have to take care of them for what they've done.

As Sunjoon and Yoonhee leave the confrontation, Sunjoon is quiet because he's sure that Jaeshin was not at Bibokcheon that late just to scare Yoonhee; there must be something between them that he doesn't know, and it bothers him. Yoonhee is curious as to why Jaeshin is lying.

Additionally, on their day off, Yoonhee and Yongha go to Morakgahn. Yoonhee meets Chosun, and Chosun, just to tease Yoonhee, tells yoonhee that her relationship with Sunjoon makes it seem almost like Yoonhee is gay. Yoonhee is caught off guard, and she doesn't defend herself, to which Chosun is extremely surprised. She also gets kind of angry and when Yoonhee tries to leave, saying that she isn't fit for Chosun anyway, Chosun goes kind of insane and tells Yoonhee that she will cut off Yoonhee's ...thing... before any woman or man can get to it, and grabs a knife. Thankfully Yongha comes to the rescue and both of them flee the place, back to Yoonhee's room in Dongjae. ]


Yoonhee, Sunjoon, Jaeshin, Yongha, and other boys from Dongjae go to play at the water and look at chrysanthemums. They all settle down at the bottom of a medium-sized waterfall. The scene is described as very picturesque, with big trees extending their branches over the water, providing them with shade. Some of them start putting their feet in the water, and others set up the food and alcohol.

Jaeshin goes to lay down on a rock. Someone asks, "you came all the here to sleep?", which Jaeshin ignores. But he gets up to drink a bit, to settle back again. The same student congratulates Yoonhee on advancing to a higher level student status (I think the students do this depending on the results of their tests) and offers her a drink. She just responds that she's lucky. The student leaves, and Jaeshin extends her legs to tap her on the shoulder.

She says, "What?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing, he says."
"You're still below me, though."
"What? In what?"
"I already advanced from those levels, before."
"Did I say otherwise?"

Then he pushed her waist with his foot. He turns his back to her, and sighs, "If you graduate and leave this place (SKK) before me, I'll haunt you forever and never leave you alone!"
"Maybe you shouldn't try and hold me down but study hard!"
"Hey! I--I've been reading! A little."

Yoonhee is taken back because when does Jaeshin ever stuttuer? She smiles at it, and Jaeshin having seen her smile, buries his face into his arms to hide his own. Another student approaches them to give Yoonhee more congratulatory drinks. Yoonhee hesitates on taking the drink (because of last time) and Jaeshin sits up and snatches the drink, and gulps it down. He yells at the student who offered the drink : "There's not even that much alcohol! Stop giving so much to this kid." He chases the student away. Jaeshin tells Yoonhee, "Don't drink a drop more. If you get knocked out last time, I'm not carrying you back! I'll just leave you here in the water, got it?"



Sunjoon, who has been surrounded by scholars, gets up to go to Yoonhee and Jaeshin. Sunjoon hangs his hat on a tree and takes Yoonhee's to do the same. He goes to the water and raises his pant legs to dip his foot. He tells Yoonhee to do the same, and Yoonhee, who doesn't want to reveal her hairless foot and legs, just touches the water with her hands.

A pebble gets thrown their way, and it's Jaeshin. Other scholars, including Yongha, who see Jaeshin throwing pebbles on top of the rock, they sneak up on Jaeshin and grab him, then throw him into the water. Everyone laughs. Jaeshin comes back up, yelling, "who was it! I'll kill you all!" But the scholars are already heading for their next target: Yoonhee. When Yongha and Jaeshin see this, both of them scream.

"Not him!"
"You can't!"

All the scholars are surprised and Jaeshin shouts, "he's so weak, he'll probably get sick and we're the ones who'll have to take care of him! It's your turn!"
Jaeshin takes the attention off Yoonhee and goes after another student. All of them, excluding Yoonhee, all get into the water and play.

Amidst all the commotion in the water, Sunjoon quietly steps out and gestures at Yoonhee to follow him. He climbs up the rocks next to the waterfall and she follows, until the two are above the waterfall. It's quieter because it's farther from the sounds of the fall hitting the water.

"Why did we come up?"
"It seemed like you couldn't dip even your foot in the water because you're worried that the students might do something. You should be fine here. I'll be here."

The weather is hot, and Yoonhee, if it weren't for the others, would take her clothes off and jump into the water. Sunjoon starts undressing to squeeze the water out of his clothes, and when she's sure he is not looking, she takes off her buh-seon (they are kind of like socks, you saw Yoonhee trying to take them off Sunjoon in episode 4) and dips her foot in the water. She raises her pant leg to dip her leg in even more, and she revels in the feeling of the cold water.

Sunjoon undresses more and leaves his clothes on the rock, goes back into the water to wash his hair. Yoonhee looks up, and she's shocked to see his butt facing her way! Even though he has his underclothes on, they are so wet that they are sticking completely to his body. And it leaves Yoonhee to think about what it must look like in the front (lololol) and screams silently in her head. Agh! And the rest of the students on the bottom of the fall only have their underclothes on, too! How many butts will I have to face?! She screams into her head even more.

Jaeshin climbs up with a watermelon in his hand, saying "You guys were here! Let's eat--what the!? What do you think you're doing?!" Jaeshin runs through the water to kick Sunjoon into the water. "Where do you think you're sticking your butt? Hey, did you see anything?" Jaeshin turns to Yoonhee, and Yoonhee shakes her head violently. He gives her the watermelon, and Sunjoon comes out of the water, saying, "That was dangerous!" Jaeshin replies, "how can a scholar show that much skin so easily? Hmph!" Yoonhee is like, look who's talking... lol.

Yoonhee keeps her gaze on the watermelon, and Sunjoon comes out of the water and puts some clothes on. He sits down near Yoonhee and sees her small foot. He thinks to himself, so strange. At age nineteen, some are already fathers, but he is still so small. His hands and feet are so small! Was he too embarrassed to show them?

Sunjoon catches himself getting nervous at the sight of just the bare skin of her foot. What is he going to do with himself?

E - Sunjoon and Yoonhee in the Water [updated]

The sky clouds up. Jaeshin, who is at the top of the waterfall with Sunjoon and Yoonhee, yells down towards those playing at the bottom, "Hey! it looks like it's going to rain!" Nobody can hear, so he decides to head down to ask. As he climbs down the fall, it starts to rain.

Sunjoon puts on his outer clothes and Yoonhee puts her buh-seon back on. Jaeshin yells from the bottom, "get your things! let's get out of here!"

Sunjoon waits for Yoonhee, who, as she's scrambling for her things, gets her sangtoo (the updo all men are sporting) stuck in a branch. She tries to get it out, but she has a hard time because she can't see it.

"I'll help you."

Sunjoon comes over to grab the branch.

"It's okay. It'll come undone soon."
"Stay still. It's going to get even more tangled."

They hear Jaeshin shout from the bottom, "I'm taking your hats! Do you remember the place we were at before we came here? We'll be there, so catch up!"

Sunjoon yells back that they will soon be there, and goes back to taking her sangtoo out of the branch. Yoonhee stands there frozen between his arms, which are raised around her to reach her hair. She can't step back because she will fall into the waterfall. She looks at Sunjoon's neck and remembers the first time she met him, when she didn't think she would ever see him again.

Her clothes start getting more and more wet. But his hands are slow and careful. She can't get her clothes wet, but she doesn't want to hurry him. She wants to stay like this for longer, if she could.

Sunjoon's hands have stopped. But her hair is still caught on the tree. She looks up to his face. His own hair and rain are running down his face, and his eyes are looking at her. It's different. His eyes don't look like the first time she's met him. It looks like hers.

Why? Why is he looking at me like this?

Tears start running along the hair and rain on his face. All the emotions he's kept hidden start flowing out.

"Even if I do away with your sangtoo, you are still a man..."

Yoonhee is pained just to see his sadness that she doesn't decipher what he means. She wants to pretend that she's not seeing him like this; it's just the wind and the rain making him seem sad, she wants to believe.

She missteps as she tries to back away, and the wind blows her sangtoo free; she loses her balance, and waterfall suddenly becomes louder. She reaches out a hand, but she feels him getting farther away, and she can only see the clouds in the sky. But after a moment, the sky is covered by Sunjoon, who's leapt to grab her. They catch each other in an embrace and fall into the water, like the rain, like the waterfall.

The water sucks the two in, and in the water, Yoonhee can see Sunjoon's eyes. She can't see the tears, but she can see that they are still falling. His hair weaves through the water, as does hers, until they get closer and closer to be one, in a hopefully neverending embrace. She can't breathe. Not because she's underwater, but because his lips are on hers. They float in the water as though they're in a dream, as though they're above the skies, as though they are babies in a mother's womb.

There's no world underneath here. Since there is no world, there's no rules, or duties. There's only these two people. Only their lips. They share their warmth through their lips, in this cold, small, world-less place.

But the water spits them out. As they come out to the world, they are torn apart, and Sunjoon's lips are far away. They stand where the water is shallow. There is no one else. Sunjoon evades Yoonhee's gaze.

Yoonhee can't believe what just happened under the water. She thinks it's because of the shock of falling that she made it up in her head. Or it's because he was trying to help her breathe, to save her, that he did that.

Sunjoon turns around to walk out of the water. Yoonhee, somewhat out of it, follows, but the water is unruly under the rain and she keeps falling. When she reaches a point where most of her body is above the water, she finds that her clothes are almost completely see through, and she's lost the cloth she keeps to cover her breasts in the water. She quickly puts her arms around her chest.

Sunjoon, who is almost out of the water, suddenly turns around and walks towards Yoonhee. He kisses her passionately. The warmth that was there underneath the water isn't there anymore. Instead, he is drinking her heat with all his emotion through their lips. Yoonhee is unable to even understand what is going on, so she doesn't push him away, or embrace him. She just stands there with her arms around her chest. Her knees go weak and the water tries to push her. Sunjoon grabs her firmly and pushes his tongue through the small space between her lips. He kisses her as if he is searching for something, as if there's an answer there, as if there is a way for them to be together. Tears fall from Yoonhee's eyes.

Sunjoon, unable to find what he's looking for, stops, and turns around. He doesn't look at her, and Yoonhee, scared that he will run away, grabs the tail of his clothes. Sunjoon says,

"I won't say that I'm sorry."

She wants to answer, but no words come out of her mouth.

"I'll leave SungKyunKwan. I no longer deserve to be there."

Yoonhee shakes her head, but he can't see. Yoonhee walks through the water so she stands in front of him, but Sunjoon turns his head, and closes his eyes.

"You didn't do anything wrong."
"I don't think I did anything wrong, to you. But I've wronged everybody else."

Yoonhee leans her forehead onto his chest and starts sobbing as she says,
"Everything is my fault! You didn't do anything..."
"I'm the one who wanted this! Even if you say you wanted me too, I'm the one who wanted you more, and therefore I am more at fault."
"No!"

Yoonhee takes his hand and she puts his hand onto her breast.

"Are you still at fault? Please, don't blame yourself..."
Yoonhee bites her lips, with her hand holding his tightly. She can't raise her head.

Sunjoon's senses come back to him, and he realizes what he's holding in his hand. This is a woman's breast. Shocked, he takes her arms off her chest and he sees a woman's body through wet clothes. Her hair falls down with the rain.

Sunjoon's hands shake as he undoes her clothes. Her clothes fall, one by one, to reveal the body underneath. The rain falls on her to run down her body. When all her clothes are off, Sunjoon finds that Yoonhee is wearing a 허리가리개 (This is the underwear bottom that all the women wear... > >) Sunjoon can't believe his eyes.

"Wha--what is.. Is something wrong with my eyes?"

Yoonhee covers her body with clothes and shakes her head.

"So you deceived me?"
"I didn't intend to lie to you."
"If you didn't lie to me, what is this?!"
"I didn't deceive you! There was nothing I hated more than standing in front of you as a man! I would deceive the entire world, but I wouldn't deceive you.."
"W--wait. I don't understand anything. I don't understand what you're saying."

Sunjoon shakes his head in confusion, then looks at Yoonhee. Then he puts his arms around her. He doesn't think about anything else, but he feels pity that she's had to dress as a man.

When he is hugging her, he is sure that he is embracing a woman's body. Suddenly the water gets more out of control because of the rain. Sunjoon takes Yoonhee by the hand and head the opposite direction of where they are supposed to meet the other students.

F - Together

[WARNING: 17+]

The two sit on top of a boulder. Sunjoon paces in front of her. They can no longer hear the sound of the water. Sunjoon suddenly stops and speaks.

"You're really a woman?"

Yoonhee buries her head into her knees and answers with a small voice. "Yes."

Sunjoon shakes his head. It seems like the world flipped upside down after they fell into the water. Or did he fall on his head? Maybe he pulled out this fantasy from the pain he was feeling before the fall? Sunjoon puts puts his arms around her head and says, "n-no.. This can't be. This is too cruel a dream. If I wake up from it, I don't know how I could go on living."

Yoonhee can't tell him it's not a dream. She can't really believe this is all real, either. Sunjoon asks again.

"Who's Kim Yoon Shik?"
"He's my younger brother."
"Then who is the person in front of me?"
"She's Kim Yoon Shik's older sister."
"Then who was the older sister that I saw that time?"
"That was also me."

Sunjoon sits down. He laughs, and sighs, "this is indeed a dream. This is too much like what I wanted, like what I fantasized."

Yoonhee can't believe what he is saying. She can't believe he's fantasized about this, and about her being a woman.

Sunjoon runs his hand slowly down her hair. She's beautiful.

"You're really a woman?"
"Yes."

He touches her cheek.

"And I can love you as much as I please?"

Tears start coming out of Yoonhee's eyes. His thumb touches her lips. Sunjoon's hands slowly run down her neck, past her collarbone, into her clothes, and to her breasts. They are still there. Yoonhee and Sunjoon kiss. Sunjoon's lips follow his hand's path down her body, but he stops when he reaches her breasts.

"What's wrong?"

"Being together before marriage makes us no better than beasts. It's no matter to me, but I can't do that to you."

His breath is warm. Yoonhee pulls his head to her and says,
"If being with you right now makes me a beast, then I'll choose to be a beast. If I don't now, I will die forever regretting that I didn't become one."

How can she ever dream of marrying this man? It's better to just become a beast. Sunjoon is trying hard to hold himself back. Yoonhee breathes into his ear, "A man and woman's lust is the will of the skies("gods" is a more appropriate translation, but Koreans usually interchange "Sky" and "God"), whereas propriety and discretion are the teachings of man. Man can disobey man, but he shouldn't disobey the sky."

Her whisper kills all the reason in him. His lips move once again and they land on her breasts. She leans back to lie down on the rock. She looks up at the sky, and rain droplets fall between tree branches onto her face. The drops aren't cold, not because the rock is warm, but because of Sunjoon's mouth. Yoonhee doesn't close her eyes, because she's afraid that she'll wake up from this dream.

Sunjoon pulls her clothes away and looks at her small, pale waist. He is about to pull down her bottoms but stops. He is scared: what if he pulls them off to find a man's object waiting to taunt and scare him awake?

He looks at her face, and even though he's felt this way before, she looks more womanly than ever. He can't even believe he saw her as a man until now. It doesn't matter anymore. Man or woman, he doesn't care. Having someone that he love so much in front of him, like this, is enough.

He quickly pulls off the rest of her clothes, and puts his face between her legs. There isn't anything. There isn't a trace of the famous Daemul (Daemul means "big thing/big wealth/big object/big treasure"...you can guess what that means, if you don't know already.), nor is there even a Sohmul ("Soh" means small--you can make the connection). Grateful, he kisses where it should have been, and drinks her body.

After a short while, Yoonhee raises her waist. A cold pain penetrates her body. She closes her eyes. It's not a dream, because she doesn't wake up. She takes in the pain because it means that she is taking Sunjoon's body into hers. Amidst the rain, the two share their bodies. Sunjoon's personality is calm and reserved, but his body is not. Sunjoon, unaware of Yoonhee's pain, doesn't stop, and he goes on for a long, long time.




Jaeshin impatiently plays with Yoonhee and Sunjoon's hat, putting them on top of each other, taking them out. (coincidence?)He's worried. He throws the hats onto the floor and yells, "Why haven't they come back yet?!"

Yongha says carefully, as to not anger Jaeshin, "They'll come. They probably stopped somewhere to avoid the rain."
"The rain's stopped now! Why aren't they coming?"
"How would I know? It's not even that far in; they couldn't have gotten lost. They'll come."

Yongha shuts his mouth after he sees Jaeshin's angry eyes. He picks up the hats and dusts off the dirt. Jaeshin spits to the other students, "Hey! Aren't you guys worried?"
"Of-Of course we are!"
"Aish! I shouldn't have left them there..."

Jaeshin starts putting on his shoes, and Yongha stops him.
"You're gonna go? What if you just miss them?"

He's right. Jaeshin takes off his shoes and sits down again. He's worried. Not because he thinks they are lost, but because the two are alone together. Jaeshin lies down, and imagines Yoonhee's face on the ceiling. He starts imagining Sunjoon's face next to hers. Anger fills up his throat.

Somebody yells, "Here they come!"

Jaeshin jumps up. Yoonhee, who's put her hair nicely back into a sangtoo, and Sunjoon, whose hair is down, are walking towards them, with their clothes mostly wet. Yongha murmurs, "was there a typhoon over there?"

Yongha shouts out to them, "Hey! We came here to avoid the rain. What's the point if you are all already soaked?"
"Sorry we're late."
Sunjoon greets Yongha, and then the other students.

"Daemul Doryung fell into the bottom of the waterfall; that's why we're late."

Yongha, surprised, says, "What? he wasn't hurt, was he?"
"No, just a little shaken."
"Why is your hair that way?"
"I lost my Mang-gun (the band around their head). I looked everywhere, but I couldn't find it, and I came because I didn't want to make everyone wait."

Jaeshin is the one who waited the most impatiently, but after their appearance, he takes a glance at Yoonhee and lies back down again.

Yoonhee, after greeting the students, sits down to lean against a pillar. She still feels a strong pain and soreness in her lower body. It was hard just walking over here; how will she walk all the way back to SungKyunKwan? On top of that, it's hard to pretend she's not in pain.

Yongha looks at her face and asks, "Daemul! Are you okay? Why do you look so pale?"

Jaeshin gets up suddenly to listen to the two.

"N-no, I'm okay. I'm just a little shook up. I think the water was a little too cold."

Jaeshin kicks her side. "Hey! Are you sure you're okay?"
With Jaeshin's kick, Yoonhee feels the pain in the lower body spread throughout her system. She tears up a little, and nods painfully.

Sunjoon is quiet because he knows, and he sits down next to her. He is worried, but can't ask how she is because of everyone around, or hold her.

G - Back at DongJae


"Are you feeling okay?"

Sunjoon says this in a small voice, finally free of having to watch out for others listening. He's had to hold back his concern on the way back to Sungkyunkwan, and even as he laid out Yoonhee's blankets back in their room in Dongjae, mostly because Jaeshin would not leave their side, with a suspicious look on his face. Sunjoon finally can attend to her, since Yongha has pulled Jaeshin away from the room to talk.

Yoonhee answers his question with a smile. Sunjoon is dissatisfied with her answer, so he lies down close to her and whispers into her ear. "I didn't realize you were so unwell."

His undone hair touches her face. Soon someone will bring him a mang-gun, but Yoonhee likes his hair this way for now. She whispers back, "The one who's unwell is my brother."

Sunjoon whispers even softer, "If you're well, what is this fever?"
"I said that I was well, not that it didn't hurt."

Sunjoon realizes what she means and his face reddens. Yoonhee's face reddens as well. Yoonhee's mind travels back to when she was pushing Sunjoon to go ahead and take her. It's not something a woman should do, even if she wasn't in her right mind in that state. Yoonhee feels shame filling her body. She tries to hide her reddened face underneath the blanket, which Sunjoon pulls back down. She tries again, and they repeat this tug-of-war cycle.

"Why do you suddenly want to hide?"
"I'm embarrassed."
"Why are you embarrassed all of the sudden?"

Yoonhee pokes her head out the blanket and asks, "You must not see me as a proper woman, right?"

Sunjoon whispers back, "do you think a proper woman tells a man to submit to lust before moral conduct?"

Yoonhee's eyes fill with disappointment. Sunjoon tries to hold back his laughter.

He reassures her, "what's important is not whether you are proper or not, but the person I've been looking at all this time."
"I.. I lied to you about something."
"Is there something you didn't lie to me about?"
"Huh?"
Sunjoon smiles.
Yoonhee confesses, "I.. I don't do stitching or anything like that. I'm not good at it."
"But you're good at everything that I like. I like that better."

Yoonhee smiles widely, and Sunjoon smiles back. He wipes her forehead with a dry cloth, and puts a cube of ice in her mouth (They did this to lower fevers; not sure that it works). Yoonhee thinks about how he's been this gentle, even back when they first met.

There are only the two in the room. Even though it's hot out, the two lie adjacent to one another and whisper.

"I'm okay with everything, but I wish that you wouldn't call me Hyungnim when we're alone."
"Then what do I call you?"
"Whatever it is, I want it to be from Kim Yoonhee, not Kim Yoonshik."
"But.. what if I accidentally call you that in front of the other students?"

Sunjoon is hesitant because he's embarrassed, but he comes out to say, "there is something you can call me so that they don't notice... It sounds a lot like my nickname..."
"Ah! Ah-rang (what a woman calls her husband or lover)!"

Yoonhee's face reddens as she smiles. But suddenly she's hit with worry. It seems the more and more happy she is, the sooner the bad parts will strike. She imagines Hyo-eun's face.

"To Hyo-eun.."

Sunjoon kisses her eyes, then her ears. He whispers in her ear, "that time I went over there with Soon-dol (his manservant), I told her how I felt. Since then, we haven't met or spoken. It was hard to meet her when all I could do was think about you."

But Yoonhee is still worried. A noron and Nam-in, the wall between them is too big. Yoonhee runs her hand down his hair. Maybe she shouldn't worry about the tomorrow....wait. Tomorrow?! Yoonhee suddenly gets up, only to be pulled back down by Sunjoon's hand.

"I--I have to get up."
"You can't yet. Tell me--I'll get you anything."
"I have to prepare for the exam tomorrow. I can't be lying down like this..."
"Rest tomorrow. If you say that you're unwell, Professor Jung will understand."
"Resting is fine, but it will be too hard for me to catch up to the next lesson. I don't have the leisure of wasting a day."

Sunjoon grabs the book before she does, and he lays back down. "Come lie down. I'll read it to you."
Yoonhee complies, and says, "You can start at 일음일양지위도--where they say that yin yang and karma is the 도 (do, the character meaning "road"). I can decipher the characters, but their meanings are always hard to grasp. I think it's harder to understand when the phrases get simpler."
"There's a lot of meanings to the character '도', but here it's understood as 'law' or 'rules'."
"Law? so it's nature's law... You explain it well."

He speaks as though he's whispering. It seems like he's trying to get her to sleep.

"Everything about the universe is in duality. If there is a front, there is a back, and if there is a man, there is a woman. There's nothing with one side. There is a saying here: 'The world is a stage in mid-performance. There is only two performing all these thousands of years. One is woman, one is man.' Nothing can be done with just one. Just as I am nothing without you, and you without me."

Yoonhee laughs out loud to that last sentiment.

"This is the way of the world. If there is peace, there will be pain, and if there is pain, there will be peace."

Will there be a time when this happiness will end to allow for pain to come? Then will happiness come again? Yoonhee doesn't know the amount of pain that will strike, or the magnitude of the second happiness, but she can't imagine that they will be as great as the happiness she is experiencing now.

"I have to memorize the characters for Fuxi as well..."
"It'll be easy to just practice drawing it."

Sunjoon grabs Yoonhee's hand and puts his finger on her palm.

"Ah! That tickles!"

Yoonhee tries to pull her hand away, but Sunjoon holds it down firm.

"Wait! I will draw you each character on your hand. First, 건괘."

There's nothing to draw about 건괘, Yoonhee thinks to herself. It's just six lines. Anyone would know that there isn't anything to memorize there. It's just Sunjoon's desire to touch her that he's pretending to help this way. Sunjoon gets a little bit greedier.

"Recite the eight characters to the left of that."
Yoonhee recites them.

He puts his hand into the blanket. Yoonhee is startled, and tries to pull her waist away.

"What are you doing? We don't know when Gul-oh Sahyung will come back in."
"Your palm is too small to write all eight of them!"

Yoonhee is speechless at his tactic. He could just as well easily write each of them separately on her palm. Even doing this, Sunjoon's face is calm as ever. "I'll start from 쾌."

And he starts moving his finger softly on her stomach. It seems like he doesn't even remember why she wasn't not feeling well in the first place. Or he thinks it's okay, as long as he's not doing more. But with each touch, Yoonhee's lower body becomes more and more sensitive, and her face gets hotter.

Jaeshin suddenly bursts the door open and enters, spitting, "I can't believe he pulled me away for basically nothing! Why haven't the ghosts taken care of that guy yet?"

Yoonhee's face becomes beet red, but Sunjoon has already pulled out his hand, paying attention to the book he holds, as if nothing has happened. Jaeshin sits down next to her and asks, "what were you doing?"
Sunjoon answers, "he wanted to prepare for tomorrow's exam, so I was reading for him."

Yoonhee's face doesn't move.

"Why is his fever still so high?"
"I don't know... maybe it's still hot. I'll give him another piece of ice."

Sunjoon gets up to pull out the bowl of ice, when Jaeshin puts his large hand on her forehead.

"Why is your fever so high? We should get you treated, or at least get some medicine."
"I'm okay. It's just that it's hot."

Sunjoon reaches out to Jaeshin's hand and pulls it away, then puts the bowl of ice in its place. "The ice melted, and this is what we have. It should help lower the fever, though."

Jaeshin feels weird. It's not like Sunjoon pulles his hand away with any type of attitude, but Jaeshin feels as though something is up. He feels a little twinge of anger. Even though Sunjoon does not show it, he's burning up with frustration. Soon the three will have to sleep, and the thought of Jaeshin sleeping next to Yoonhee is making him explode inside. But it's not like he can suddenly propose to change way they've been sleeping. He thinks back to the first night, when he proposed that Yoonhee sleep in the middle, and wishes he had kept his mouth shut then.

H - An Angry(?) Yoonhee (I giggle that this scene is scene H. You will see why.)


[Between the last scene and this one: The government's still out on a search for Hong Byuk Seo (That's what they call Jaeshin's batman character) and they've come around to deduce that he must have some relation to SungKyunKwan, so people are sent in to check books and writings in the students' rooms to see if anyone has anything suspicious, like the red notes that Hong Byuk Seo always leaves. The students wait outside until the search is over, and Yoonhee, Sunjoon, Jaeshin, and Yongha all come back into the three's room.]

The books that Yongha has left in their room is in a mess, and to lighten the mood, Yongha grabs one of them and hands them to Sunjoon.

"Garang, why don't you take a look at this? It's very precious to me, so I don't let anyone take a look at it, but I'll take you for a special case."

Sunjoon opens the book without thinking, and then closes it suddenly. It's a book of drawings of sexual relations and teachings (kama sutra, if you will). Jaeshin opens another book in the series as well and opens it--he then smirks, looking at Yongha. But only momentarily: he goes back to explore the book. Sunjoon does so, as well. Sunjoon turns each page slowly, as though he's learning from the book. Yongha puts his hand on one of the pages Sunjoon has turned to.

"Wait! This one."

The picture is of a man on top of a woman who is laying down on her stomach.

"This is the so called Tiger-walk position. All the women say that they're embarrassed to do this one, but all women enjoy it. They'll go crazy for it. Even if they pretend that they don't, women actually like it more than the men do."

Yoonhee, who's initially curious as to what they are all reading so intently, stops reaching for the books when she hears Yongha. This is definitely a perverted book. She's speechless at Sunjoon, who is ever so calm as he says, "Ah, is that true?"

"It's because it'll go in real deep even if the man's not very big. And the spot it reaches is usually unreachable normally!"
"I suppose that makes sense."

Yongha sighs, "You have to be careful doing it to your wife, though. I tried to get my wife to do it, and you wouldn't believe the hard time she gave me for it. Kept going on about how it wasn't proper! After that I was so disheartened I wasn't the same."
"I could see that happening."

Sunjoon flips to another page, and asks,
"I didn't know that there was so much variety. They are all possible?"

Yongha is excited that Sunjoon is so interested, and grabs Jaeshin and says, "Hey, Gul-oh! Let's show Garang if it's possible or not. Get in position."

Yongha falls down with a kick in the head from Jaeshin.

"Why would I do that with you?!"
"Because Garang is curious! It's not like I can show him using Daemul--he's sick!"

Even if she was healthy, she wouldn't do it. Yoonhee is so in shock that she retreats to the other corner of the room and pretends she is paying attention to something else. In this setting, she wouldn't be able to look at Sunjoon and not be found out.

Yongha licks his lips as he says, "I guess you'll just have to try and find out for yourself. Since you feel different things in different positions, it's good to change it up when you're having sex. If you have enough energy, that is! Sex isn't there just to make babies, you know. It's not like you to have many women, Garang, so you'll need it more than me. There's more--you can read them when you have time."
"Give them here."

Yoonhee is again speechless at Sunjoon, whose speech is still calm and reserved. Sunjoon, after all, is a man. Jaeshin throws a book at Yoonhee and jokes, "Hey, you should look at it, too. Being big isn't everything."
"A-Ah, that's alright. I'm not feeling too well..."

Even though she is actually sick, she pretends she is even more so to avoid this situation. She tries to get into her blanket when a very perverted picture appears right in front of her eyes. It's Yongha, holding the book in front of her head. She tears her eyes away, but she's already seen everything.

"I-I'm really sick. And I'm getting tired, too..."
"I'm just curious, Daemul. How big is it anyway? Is yours as big as the one in this picture?"

Yoonhee suddenly remembers Sunjoon's back from earlier that day. Even though she only saw it momentarily, she's startled to find that she can remember it so well.

"U-Uh... It may have been...Ah, no, it's.. you can't compare..."

Yoonhee thinks to herself that it's now way too late to even seem like a proper, discreet woman to Sunjoon. She feels dizzy. Her lower body is still sore, and her fever heightens. And it seems like if these boys don't get out of the room soon, she'll faint. Jaeshin looks at Yoonhee, who's working up a cold sweat, and tries to hold back his laughter, hiding behind his own book.

Yongha puts his hand on Sunjoon's shoulder and laughs as he says, "Honestly? I think the real Dae-mul in this room may very well be you, Garang."

Yoonhee silently screams into her blanket.
'Dae-mul?? Guh-mul (Dae = big, Guh = Giant, lmao.), maybe!

"Even so, I'm sure mine won't measure up to Daemul's," Sunjoon responds jokingly.

Yoonhee hides in her blanket and tries not to hear, but the conversation doesn't escape her. It's especially hard to listen to Yongha.

"Looking at this picture, it makes me think of a poem.
Their waists meet together,
I raise the two legs.
I'll do the moving and shaking,
and you take care of the deep and shallow."

The poem keeps making Yoonhee think of what happened earlier that day. She can't bear it any longer.

"Yeorim Sahyung! Please stop. Isn't it inappropriate for scholars to talk about such perverted things?"
"What? Daemul, you're the perverted one. This poem is simply about cutting paper with scissors! (LOL.) Why would you imagine such things?" Yongha starts laughing.

Even though Yongha can't be doing it on purpose, it seems like he is making fun of her for what happened that day. He keeps going.

"But position isn't everything, either. One shouldn't put things in and out the same way forever! Sometimes with strength, and some times quick and fast. There's even mashing, rubbing... (O_O)"

Too Yoonhee, it seems like the room is on fire. She tries her hardest not to listen to them by reading and memorizing another book.




After that, Yoonhee is angry for a few days. Even though she should have been sick only a couple days, she was unwell for five, because of how they were playing around in her room. Yoonhee is especially cold to Sunjoon, even when they're alone, like now. Sunjoon, who's been looking for a chance to get near her all this time, goes near Yoonhee, who's looking for a book. He tries to grab her wrist, but she moves her hands away to anotehr bookcase. Sunjoon looks around to see if anyone is there, and says carefully, "don't be angry."

Even though he tries to appeal to her with a regretful voice, she doesn't change her expression. He gets real close to her and says softly,

"I don't know why you're angry."
"That's even worse."
"Ah, but..."
"Just because of that book... How are all men like that? Hyungnim is no different."
"I told you I don't want to be called that when we're alone--"
"Do you think I would call you Ah-rang in this situation?"
"Ah--okay. I'm sorry. I was wrong."
"I can't accept an apology from someone who didn't even know that they were wrong."
"I can't see why looking at that book is such a big deal..."
"It's not because you were looking at the book--how could you be like that when I was obviously in pain? I thought that when the other two were going on and on, you would stop them and let them leave me in peace. Why was I in pain in the first place? If I think about it, you, Garang-hyungnim, are as much a philandering pervert as Yeorim Sahyung."

Sunjoon can't say anything. He had forgotten about the state of her body, because of those books.

"Ah--but--he's always just joking like that, that's nothing new, and that day I thought that if I did anything too obvious that they might find out and I was trying to act like nothing happened on purpose..and..and why I did that was..."

Sunjoon stammers as he puts some books back onto the bookcase and dusts off his hands. He's like a kid, getting chastised by his parents. Yoonhee finds this amusing, because it's a new side to Sunjoon. She tries her hardest to hold back her smile. But Sunjoon sees her expression, and stealthily steals a quick kiss from her, and runs away from the library. Yoonhee is dumbfounded, but amused and happy. She hides her lips with a book and starts giggling. She follows his path back to their room in Dongjae.




(Note: This scene was by far the hardest to translate. It was way, way too hard trying to put all the innuendos in the right euphemisms. Also I was laughing too much.)

I - SJ comes back


[Important to note: This is after the supposed climax of the novel--the gist of it is that Sunjoon's family rejects the proposal from Hyo-eun's family, and in what I personally think is sort of a stupid move, the 병판 (Hyo-eun's dad) frames Sunjoon to be 홍벽서 (HongByukSeo, our batman), imprisoning him until (spoiler) the rest of the foursome come to his rescue! Its a long and involved plot point, and since it will be an important chunk of the drama, I won't be the one to ruin it, so no asking! Just keep in mind, this next scene happens a good while after our last scene. Everyone's been through a lot, so try to paint the best you can how hard they all had it and how much they missed each other.]

[Additionally! These aren't being translated chapter by chapter---a lot of these shorts are at most barely maybe a quarter or third of a normal chapter. Just thought you should know.]


"Garang is coming!"

Even before the messenger finishes his words, Soon-dol runs out the door of Sungkyunkwan to greet Sunjoon. Even though Yoonhee is in her male attire, she tries to tidy her clothes and hat, so she is the last to come out of Sungkyunkwan to welcome Sunjoon back. Before she knows it, she can hear the noise of the crowd near the 면륜당 (the cafeteria). She arrives there, to see Sunjoon. Among a group of students was Sunjoon, smiling widely. She thinks back to when he told her that he'd be back soon. Even though it wasn't soon, he did come back, she thinks to herself. She wants nothing more than to run into his embrace, but the wall of students is so thick she can't get past them.

Sunjoon looks around to the students who are all wearing the same uniform--then he sees Yoonhee. As soon as their eyes meet, he can see tears welling up in her eyes. She is still stuck behind a group of students, trying to get past them. Sunjoon feels tears coming up, himself. Was she always that small, and was she always so thin? She is so beautiful to him that he wants to wrap her in his arms, and hide her so that no one else sees that she's a woman. But out of politeness he remains stuck within the students, who come one by one to welcome him back. It's not that he didn't want to see them, it's just that she's the one he wanted to see the most.

By the time Sunjoon's smile becomes more and more forced, Jaeshin appears, having pushed away student by student. Sunjoon doesn't even expect many words, but Jaeshin surprises him by giving him a big hug. Sunjoon is shocked, but not as much as all the other students watching.

"Thanks, for coming back in one piece."

This short phrase and his hug says more than they could. When Jaeshin lets go of Sunjoon, Sunjoon automatically looks towards Yoonhee again. He starts to go to her, and just as he is about to reach her Yongha jumps into his arms. Yongha, similarly stuck behind the crowd of students, was eager to greet Sunjoon, and unaware that he's getting in Sunjoon's way, holds on to Sunjoon, almost tearing up.

Sunjoon smiles at Yongha, and then tries to go to Yoonhee again, this time, determined to put his arms around her. As soon as he reaches out his arms to meet Yoonhee's, the 대사성 Daesasung(He's the school official who is always buttkissing in the drama) appears. Expectedly, the Daesasung lingers long to converse with Sunjoon, and Sunjoon, unable to betray his manners, stays put. About the time the conversation ends, everyone is ordered to go accept the food and drinks bestowed by king.

Everyone becomes busy arranging tables and food that Yoonhee and Sunjoon don't get a chance to even say a word to each other. Thankfully they end up sitting next to one another, but the timing to welcome each other is lost, because it is too late to hug each other without anyone else thinking that it is strange. They can't hold hands, because of the obvious. Both sigh as everyone drinks.

As the students drink, Sunjoon and Yoonhee get separated even farther by a crowd of students who come to talk with Sunjoon. By this point, Sunjoon starts to lose his patience and thinks of a plan. He gets up to say, loud enough that Yoonhee can hear, "I'm going to go for a walk for a bit. I have some things to take care of..."

Yoonhee is aware of Sunjoon's intention, so she tries to get up, but before she does so, a few students get up along with Sunjoon, telling him that they will accompany him.

"Ah! I forgot, I haven't even changed. I'll go by my room first."

Thankfully, with that statement, the students sit back down and let him go. As soon as Sunjoon can't be seen, Yoonhee gets up, but Yongha pulls her back down to sit.

"Hey Daemul! You had it pretty rough because of all this; lets drink it all off!"

Even though he jumped in between Sunjoon and Yoonhee unknowingly last time, he was definitely doing it on purpose now.

"N-no, it's okay. I have to--"

She tries to get up again, to be stopped by Jaeshin.

"You should drink. It's wrong to refuse drinks provided by the king, too. Drink just a little bit."

He passes a cup to her and pushes her to drink. Yoonhee, trapped between Yongha and Jaeshin, fails to follow Sunjoon.



When Sunjoon gets to Dongjae, Soondol is waiting for him in tears. He goes on and one about how much he missed him, and how worried he was. Sunjoon sighs. He wanted to hear these words so, so much, but not from Soondol. It seems like he's had more conversations with everyone but Yoonhee; he hasn't gotten a chance to talk to her, or to hold her or her hand. It's almost as frustrating, if not more, than when he was imprisoned. Sunjoon changes his clothes, waiting, but she does not come.

Sunjoon, dejected, gives up and starts his way back to the feast. He's stopped by four men, who ask for Jaeshin.


[Spoiler alert: this has to do with Jaeshin's involvement in saving Sunjoon, so it might be confusing... At least, by this point the main crew know of his night job and etcetera--this is also surely going to be a big part of the drama, so just bear with me when I tell you I will not be the one to tell you.]


Sunjoon gets back to Yoonhee, who is sitting with Yongha and Jaeshin.
"Gul-oh Sahyung, there are servants asking for you back at Dongjae."

The three sitting down look at each other nervously. Jaeshin gets up, dusting off his clothes. Yongha tells him, "just go home for a little bit. You'll just get a beating, probably."

"But what if--" Yoonhee looks worried, but Jaeshin pushes her head lightly with his fist and says, "even so, I'm his son; it's not like he'll kill me. My house is close by, so I'll be back. See you later tonight."

"You're going home in a while, so stay there for a while. You should make up with your father..."
"I'm gonna come back soon! I can't miss classes, can I?"

And with these words, Jaeshin leaves.



The feast nears its close and Sunjoon and Yoonhee pretend to be tired. They start to leave, hopeful that they'll get some time alone, when Yongha decides to join them. Even Soondol is keeping watch in front of their room at Dongjae. Soondol and Yongha, excited about Sunjoon's return, go on about their adventurous rescue, mentioning what they did, what Yoonhee did... And Sunjoon's face starts to harden. Yongha realizes that Sunjoon is angry, and also that he and Soondol have said too much. Sunjoon is angry realizing the danger Yoonhee could have faced potentially.

He starts chastising Soondol. "The reason I sent you here to Sungkyunkwan was none other than to keep Daemul Doryung safe!"

Yongha decides to flee the tense atmosphere, leaving the three after starting the mess. Yoonhee doesn't say a word as Sunjoon yells at Soondol, because she knows that he is actually chastising her. But Yoonhee doesn't think she was wrong. She wants to think that he is yelling at Soondol so that Soondol will eventually leave to leave the two alone.

"Please stop; he didn't do anything wrong."
"He doesn't stop you, and on top of that he decides to jump into it to help! Did I send you here so you could do that?"
"I'm so sorry, doryunnim (도련님, "young master"). It was all my fault."

After a long talking to, Soondol is sent away back to Sunjoon's family. They were finally alone.

They both enter the room, and Yoonhee, nervous, sits carefully in front of SUnjoon. If he were to hold her now, it would undo all the hardships they've had to face up till now. But even now, Sunjoon is still angry. He is even cold. Was he really angry? He wasn't pretending? Yoonhee steals a glance at his eyes and they meet hers. They're cold.

"U-uh. Garang Hyungnim...."
"How can you be so careless? What would have happened if something were to go wrong?"
"But I couldn't just do nothing. And nothing went wrong..."

Yoonhee starts getting angry herself. Finally they're alone, and she feels that Sunjoon is ruining the moment. They should be crying and laughing, telling each other how glad they are to see each other. He should be thanking her for what she did, telling her that he'll remember it for the rest of his life. But what kind of situation was this?

"Garang Hyungnim! Is that something to get so angry about?"
"It's not about me being angry; its the fact that it makes the hairs on my back stand to think of you in that situation. You have to promise me. You won't do that again."
"I don't want to. If the same thing were to happen, I will do what I did."

The mood is tense, and the two are cold.

"I want to ask you one thing."
"I won't answer anything unless you promise me that you won't do something like that ever again."
"It's a matter of reason, of logic. What's worse? Losing your loved one and so ending your life, or risking your life to save your loved one before you lose him?"
"I'll ask you something too. It's not about logic, but about me. If something had happened to you because you were trying to save me, what would I do? Do you think that I could have gone living like that?"

The two are silent for a long time. This isn't anger. This is a silly lover's quarrel. To the two of them, it's wasting their precious time together. Yoonhee starts to smile. Sunjoon is unable to fight his smile and he goes to her, putting his arms around her. Yoonhee grumbles, "it wasn't as dangerous as you thought. I was mostly stuck here because Gul-oh sahyung threatened me to. I could have done better than Yeorim Sahyung..."

Their hats touch. Their lips meet. Both pair are dry and rough. Sunjoon pulls away to look at Yoonhee, whose face, in the light, has bruises and scars that have not yet healed. Yoonhee, unaware of the state of her face, looks questioningly at Sunjoon, who looks at her with mixed feelings of affection and worry.

Their lips meet again. Even though their lips are rough, the scent is still present and strong. After a long time, the two pull away and whisper the word they forgot.

"Thank you, for being safe."
"That's what I want to say. Don't take it away from me."

Sunjoon looks at Yoonhee as she responds. The answer makes him all the more aware of Yoonhee's presence as a woman, and with that thought, his hand goes to undo her clothes. His lips move to meet the undone ribbons of her clothes and Yoonhee reddens, not because of his hands or his lips, but because of the way he is looking at her. Sunjoon pulls away at his clothes and hers, and his hands find way to the woman's body hidden within. Yoonhee whispers to him carefully,

"they said the walls are really thin here..."

Sunjoon, without any words, takes off her hat and pulls the blanket over them to buffer them from the walls.

He can't see anything. He can only feel with his lips her lips, and he can feel with his hands her body. It's a summer night, and underneath the thick blanket, the two share their heat, overlapping their lips and their body. Sunjoon moves his hand to undo her underwear...

"Gul-oh Sunbaenim! You are back!"

The two jump when at the exclamation from outside their room. They kick away the blanket. They can hear Yongha running out to greet Jaeshin.

"Our Gul-oh! I'm so grateful you came in one piece, and real quick, too!"
"I told you I'd be back soon. Move! I'm going in."

Yoonhee is moving nervously trying to put all of her clothes back on, and Sunjoon says calmly, "you can just put on what you're going to sleep in. We can just say we were about to go to bed."

The two tidy their sleepwear and their hair, when the door opens.

"Welcome back, Gul-oh sahyung."

Jaeshin doens't notice anything different and asks, "it's dark out. What were you guys doing, not even lighting the room?"
"The two of us were tired, so we were just going to sleep."

Yongha pops in.

"You guys are done?"

Yoonhee, startled, answers back. "D-done with what?"
"What? your quarrel, I mean."
"We didn't even start," says Sunjoon. The discontent in his voice shows that he is obviously referring to something else, but only Yoonhee notices.

"Ah, it seems like Garang is still angry."
Jaeshin settles into the room and asks, "angry? you two fought?"

As Yongha explains everything to Jaeshin, Sunjoon's thoughts go to Bibokcheon (Yoonhee's bathing place), where at late hours, he and Yoonhee won't be interrupted. After listening to Yongha telling Jaeshin about Sunjoon finding out how he was rescued, Sunjoon bows to the two. "I'm sorry that it's so late. Thank you. For going through so much for me, and keeping Daemul safe.
"If you're thankful to us, why did you get angry at Daemul?"

Jaeshin's tone is grumpy. "And is Daemul yours or something? I did it out of my own accord; I don't know why you have to thank me for keeping it safe. Hmph! It makes me kind of angry, really."

"I'm sorry if it sounded that way."
"There's nothing to be sorry or thankful about. It was all for me, anyway. I should probably be the one thanking--well, let's just omit formalities. We don't need it, our relationship."

Yongha asks, "relationship? What kind of relationship is that?"
"H-Hey! I won't be the one to talk about being friends and stuff like that! Dammit!"

Jaeshin scratches a his neck--even though it is dark, it is obvious that his face is red. He is aware of it as well, so he spits out, "Ey! I shouldn't have done it. I could have just used this chance to get rid of you for good, Garang. Why did I give it up? It would have been like sneezing without getting my hand dirty."

Jaeshin looks at Yoonhee, who is smiling widely. He continues grumbling, "I was crazy. I lost my chance."

As though it was getting hard to look at her face, Jaeshin turns his back to her. Yongha laughs and changes the subject. "Anyway, what happened when you got home? Was he really angry?"

Jaeshin points to his butt. "Ask this."
"Eh! Beat with sticks?"
"Try bats."
"Lets see how much you were beat. Show us."

Jaeshin pushes away Yongha, who seems like he'll actually pull down his pants. Sunjoon and Yoonhee laugh out loud at the sight, but underneath his laughter, Sunjoon's insides burn up with the desire of being with Yoonhee, and he fills his head with the possibilities of Bibokcheon.

J - Mosquitoes

[Between the last scene and Scene J:

After Yongha and Jaeshin come in, interrupting Sunjoon and Yoonhee, the king visits Sunjoon. He is foremost looking to see that Sunjoon is alright, but he's also there to try and recruit Sunjoon, Jaeshin, and Yongha to work (all three are from pretty important backgrounds and were already expected to do great things--the King has actually been trying to get Sunjoon to start working for him since the beginning of the novel, but Sunjoon refused, saying that he still has a lot to learn.)

The King tells Sunjoon that he would allow him a wish, and Sunjoon asks for access to the books in the 개유와 Gae Yoo Wah, which is a part of the 규장각 Gyu Jang Gak, which is the king's library (it's also where the Jalgeum four will work in the second series), and the King tells Sunjoon that he can get access to any books there if he agrees to work at Gyu Jang Gak. The king tells him to think about it and leaves.

The three (Sunjoon, Jaeshin, Yongha) contemplate on the prospect of working at Gyu Jang Gak, thinking that it might be the right thing to do, and Yoonhee is saddened by the idea that she will probably be left at SungKyunKwan all alone. ]


"Aagh! Lets go inside before the mosquitoes eat us up."

Yongha and Jaeshin both get up to go back (the four and the king were conversing outside), but Sunjoon stays put.

"Go ahead in. I have some things to think about."
"Then, me too..." Yoonhee moves to sit next to Sunjoon.

Yongha grins and says teasingly, "Didn't you say you were tired? You guys are going to stay here at this hour? Alone?"
"You two can stay as well..."
Jaeshin spits, "are you crazy? And be bitten to death by these mosquitoes? I'm gonna go in and sleep."

As Jaeshin starts heading back, Yongha follows Jaeshin, obviously disappointed that he can't stay to tease the two more. He tries to convince Jaeshin to stay, but Jaeshin won't have it, and all Yongha can do is yell back at Sunjoon and Yoonhee, "Come back fast! If you don't, I'll spread the rumor that the two of you are doing it! And when I spread a rumor, it doesn't stay within SungKyunKwan, it'll be the talk of the country!"

Yongha's laughs disappear as the two get farther away. Sunjoon and Yoonhee are left alone in the calm night air. Even though they are alone, Sunjoon's eyes are looking at the stars in the sky. Yoonhee glances at his hands and thinks back to how hurriedly they were trying to undo her clothes earlier that night. She can't help hate the king a little for interrupting her night. She looks up at the stars, too, a little miffed.

She asks,
"Are the stars that beautiful?"
"Do you think only the stars are beautiful?"

Yoonhee waits expectantly for his follow-up, but all she gets is:

"The moon is beautiful as well."
Sigh.
"Since your eyes are busy with the stars and the moon, I might as well just turn in..."

Yoonhee turns her head away from him.
Sunjoon smiles.

"I couldn't see them in the prison."
"And you could see me in prison?"

Sunjoon laughs. Yoonhee softens at the sound of his laughter, and asks him if he will indeed take the exam to star working at the king's library. She says hesitantly,
"Do you have to take it so soon? You could stay here a little longer..."

She can't get the words she wants out of her mouth. Couldn't you stay a little longer here, with me? She can only mutter, "even though you'll start your career, I won't be able to, and I would like to stay here a longer, so when initiation comes, I could do to the new students what was done to me, and...Ah!"

Yoonhee slaps her arm. She's bitten by a mosquito.

"What's wrong?"
"I got attacked by a mosquito."
"Where?"

Yoonhee points at where she was bitten, and Sunjoon, without warning, puts his mouth there, and licks the spot. He pulls away.

"Were you bitten anywhere else?"

Yoonhee reddens and points her finger at her lips. Sunjoon smiles, and his eyes seem like they're calling Yoonhee a liar, so she becomes embarrassed. "I mean, I wasn't bitten there, but, ah, the moonlight, and, uh, Arang's eyes..."

Sunjoon lightly bites her lower lip. "Now you're not lying."

And he does the same to her lips as he did to her arm.

Yoonhee says to Sunjoon, "the one that bit me on the lips is so much bigger than the one that bit my arm--shouldn't you be putting your mouth on it that much more? When are you planning on using the math we learn here?"

Sunjoon laughs loudly. He puts his arm around her waist and pulls her to him. He whispers, "you want me to be satisfied spending the rest of the night kissing you?"
"It's better than spending the rest of the night looking at the stars!"

Sunjoon gets up and dusts himself. "I wonder if anyone's at Bibokcheon right now..."

Yoonhee gets up, too, knowing what he means. Her face brightens and the two head down, hand in hand.

They arrive at Bibokcheon, and Sunjoon jumps the wall first. As Yoonhee is about to do the same, she hears Sunjoon's voice.

"What are you two doing here?"

Yoonhee freezes. She hears Yongha's voice.

"Can't you see by the way we're dressed? We're trying to wash ourselves."

Yoonhee hears another voice that she recognizes as Jaeshin's.

"Why are you here?"
Sunjoon stammers, "A-Ah, well, I thought I should wash as well..."
"Didn't you wash after you got out of the prison?"
"Ah, well, I thought I could use another wash..."
"And Daemul?"
"He went back already."

Darn it! Yoonhee swallows up her frustration and tries to get away as silently as possible, when she hears Yongha.

"Hmm! I hear some noises there behind the wall."

Startled, Yoonhee gets down low and runs as fast as she can back to their room. Sunjoon hides his disappointment as he goes to the well to wash himself alongside Jaeshin and Yongha.

Jaeshin complains, "Yeo-rim suddenly dragged me here, telling me that we should wash, out of nowhere. He's always making me do whatever he wants to do..."

Yongha grins as he looks at Sunjoon. This night, all Sunjoon can do between the two men is wash himself of his sexual frustration away with each pour of water on his back.


(HEH. Yongha is the unfailing cckblck)

K - Contract


It's late at night at Bicheondang (a communal study space for the students). Students file away one by one, but Sunjoon stays firmly planted in front of his book. It's as though he doesn't even notice Yoonhee's presence. Sunjoon had started being this way as soon as the 증광시 Jeung Gwang Shi (It's an exam held every time the country is celebrating something significant, and held every 30 years or so... It's a pretty freaking big exam, the second biggest that you can take in the Joseon era, if I'm correct. Basically, through such an exam the students can become officials for the King and graduate from SKK) was announced. Everyone is studying hard, including those who are just trying to catch up on their classes.

When the two are left alone, Yoonhee closes and opens her book several times to try and get Sunjoon's attention. He doesn't even flinch. She drapes herself over her desk and raises only her head, to see Sunjoon's shadow cast on the wall. She takes the shadow of her own hand and motions it so that her shadow is punching the shadow of his head.

It's as though he felt the punches himself, because Sunjoon looks up. He's finally looking at her! Happy, Yoonhee sits up nicely and smiles at him. He gets up and approaches her. She doesn't want much; she would just be happy if he will hold her for a bit. But he picks up her book and tosses it into her lap. Then he forces her up and pushes her outside Bicheondang, locking her out.

Yoonhee doesn't even register what just happened. Tears start coming out of her eyes as she comes to her senses.

"Garang Hyungnim, why are you doing this?"

She can hear Sunjoon say from the inside, "You're distracting me."

Yoonhee sits down on the steps in front of the door and wipes away at her tears.

"It'll be time to take 회시 Hwe-shi(the first of the two levels of exams--so they basically have to do two separate testings), then the 전시 Jeon-shi (the second test, where the topic they write about is directly given by the king, who then picks the best "tests". The tests are more like essays written in the format of a poem), and then..."
"So that's all the more reason you should stop distracting me."

How could he be so mean? Yoonhee wants nothing more than to stay at Sungkyunkwan longer with him, but all he wants to do is take the exam to get out of here. There's so little time left. He's wasting away this precious time, looking at his book instead of her.

Yoonhee tries to protest, telling him that he is wasting what little time they have, but Sunjoon shuts her out. Yoonhee looks at his silhouette from the door, and mutters to herself, "He's so frustrating! Ch! I hope you live happily ever after with your stupid books!"

Snow starts to fall, and Jaeshin, wrapped around a blanket with a book in his hand, approaches Yoonhee, who is now covered snow.

"Ugh, it's so cold. What are you doing over here?"
"Ah, Gul-oh Sahyung! I came out here to try to wake myself to focus..."
"Garang is still studying? It should be freezing in there, because they don't heat it. Garang is pretty intense, staying there to study."
"I think he's staying there on purpose because he might fall asleep if it's warm."

Yoonhee looks back to Sunjoon's silhouette. Sunjoon is blowing hot air into his hands as he turns the pages of his book. Other students pass by, remarking that Sunjoon is the same as everyone when it comes to the king's exam, that he cares about his own promotion and career as much as the next person. Some even whisper rumors that the King told Sunjoon himself that he'll punish him if he does not graduate out of Sungkyunkwan through this exam. Another rumor is that since there are ghosts of students that never graduated, one of them must have Sunjoon under a studying spell. Sunjoon is completely unaffected by these words and he goes on turning the pages of his book.

"Daemul, if you're sleepy, leave Garang here and go back to the room where it's warm. The blankets are laid out already."
"It's okay. I'm going back in. He must be cold, and more bodies will make it warmer..."
"You're going to get sick."

Jaeshin looks at Yoonhee, who is shaking in the cold, and makes a worried expression. He turns his head as he says, "Don't shiver like that in front of me."

Because you're making me want to hold you, he thinks to himself, but he can't get the words out of his mouth. He looks over towards Sunjoon's silhouette.

"Whoever becomes his wife, she's going to have a troublesome life. Pft, to be honest, he may be good looking, but I've never seen anybody that stubborn. If I had a sister, I'd never let her marry him."

Yoonhee laughs, and sees Yongha arriving with his books, dressed in fancy, thick, leather outerwear. Following him are is a servant, carrying a lot of things other than his books.

"Damn you Gul-oh! If you want to study, you should do it alone! Why would you wake me up and force me to come with you?" He sneezes.

Even the servant seems sleepy. Yongha motions him to leave the things inside the Bicheondang. The servant does so and leaves. Jaeshin, by force, takes off the leather coat from Yongha and puts it over Yoonhee's shoulders. She says that it's okay, but he puts it on her nonetheless.

"You're giving my coat to Daemul?"
"You're already well covered up anyway. Why'd you bring so many things? I told you, just books and a blanket. You look like you're moving in here."
Yoonhee interrupts them. "Wait. Are you two going to study here?"
"Why? Is there a reason we can't?"
"Ah, no, but... He might throw us out if we are even a little loud..."

Yongha, with a yawn, stealthily takes the coat from Yoonhee and wraps himself with it.
"Let's go in before we freeze to death. I'm never even awake this late unless I'm with a woman! hmph."

They enter, and see that Sunjoon is still focused on his book. Sunjoon greets them with a quick smile, and turns back to his studies.

Jaeshin mutters about what a bookworm Sunjoon is, when Yongha suddenly takes out a 화로 Hwaro (it's like a bowl they would put flames in, like a small stove). The four end up studying around the Hwaro. Yongha doesn't study though, and instead takes out a bag with some sweet potatoes.

"This is why I brought this stove."

He boils water on top of the Hwaro and passes around a cup of hot water to everyone. Sunjoon glares at Yongha, as though he's warning him not to distract him, but Yongha doesn't notice. Yoonhee is scared that he'll chase them out, but Yongha doesn't care: he even takes out some rice cakes and starts cooking them on the Hwaro. He definitely is not here to study. Jaeshin is also wary of Sunjoon's glare, so he tries to stop Yongha, but Yongha starts passing around the now cooked sweet potatoes.

"We have to warm up our body so we can focus, don't we? Let's eat this before we study. We're all going to get sick because of this exam if we don't take care of ourselves."

Sunjoon lets this go, worried that Yoonhee might be hungry. Yoonhee, relieved, bites into the sweet potato. Yongha flips the rice cakes on the Hwaro and says to Sunjoon, "You know, with your skills, you're not going to have any problem passing the exam. Why would you go through so much trouble to study, risking your health? We're the ones who should be staying up to study."

Sunjoon lowers his head, and makes fists with his hand. "How can you say I'll get through it so easily?! I'm as worried as everyone else!"

The three can hear his voice shaking. They're surprised, and Yongha asks, "What? Why
would you be so worried....?"

Sunjoon doesn't answer.

The smell of the rice cake cooking fills Bicheondang, and the four silently study, wrapping themselves in their blankets to bear the cold.





Yoonhee sits at the testing site, unable to rid herself of her nervousness. She breathes in and out. She doesn't think she can even write properly, because her hands are shaking so much. She looks at Sunjoon sitting next to her. His face seems as though it's aged, because he's studied so much that it was almost as though it took the life out of him. But thanks to him, she could focus on her studies just as much. Jaeshin studied hard for the first time since his entrance to Sungkyunkwan, and Yongha, who didn't have anyone to play with, studied alongside them too.

But Sunjoon's been strange. He's closed his eyes, sitting properly, as he's always done, but his hands are shaking. He's never been like this for other exams. He's never shown any sort of nervousness before, and she doesn't understand why he's so afraid this time. She's also a little angry, because even now, he won't even say a word to her.

Yoonhee looks at Yongha, who sits behind Sunjoon. She grins when she sees his fancy outfit; he's obviously using every trick in the book to try and pass. There's a rumor that if he wears the inner clothes of a student who's successfully graduated he will meet the same fate and pass, too. Yoonhee is laughing because she knows that inside those fancy clothes is someone's old inner clothes. Jaeshin, who's sitting behind Yoonhee, gives her a light kick.

"You must not be worried, seeing as how you're smiling like that."
"Ah, it's not that..."

Yongha glances at Yoonhee and smiles, aware that she is smiling because of his secret. Even with his smile, it's obvious how nervous he is. Jaeshin too. Yoonhee looks at Sunjoon one last time, but Sunjoon does not even glance at her.

The testing starts, and the three start writing.



The four return to Sungkyunkwan after they're done, but Sunjoon, without a word, heads to Bicheondang with his books to study for the second testing. It seems as though nothing matters to him, except this exam. Yoonhee, Jaeshin, and Yongha all look at him, worried.

"I think he is really under a spell or something. He can't possibly be like this unless he has a ghost on him. How can he be so hard on himself?"
"Yeah, there's only the Jeon-shi left... Why is he studying so hard?"

Yoonhee starts packing her books to follow Sunjoon, but Jaeshin stops her.

"Why are you going too? the Hwe-shi just ended! We can rest today, at least!"
"I can't leave Garang Hyungnim alone--"
"Just forget about him! He's already a lost cause."
"Don't kid around like that."

She gets up, but Jaeshin pulls her down by her wrist and throws the blanket on top of her. He yells at Yongha, "Go and bring Garang back! I'm going to force Daemul to sleep."

"How will you put him to sleep like that? He'll suffocate first."
"Now!"
"How will I bring him back? He's so stubborn."
"Just do something!"

Yoonhee tries to get out of the blanket. "Let me go! I'm going to study!"
"Shut up and stay here! I've been too nice lately. You should listen to your Sahyung!"

Yongha leaves, and Yoonhee calms down. Jaeshin rests his head on the lump of body under the blanket, and says calmly, "I've seen a lot of students go just as crazy before an exam. I understand that it's good to graduate to start a career. It's commendable to study hard, but doing it today is a bit much. He's out of his mind."

After a moment of silence, Jaeshin speaks again. "Garang is probably going to graduate this time around. What are you going to do then?

Yoonhee doesn't say anything. Even if Sunjoon graduates, even if Sunjoon, Yongha, and Jaeshin graduate, or even if she graduates along with them, she can't escape the goodbye she'll have to face. She's been trying to run away from this thought for so long. She wonders if Sunjoon is thinking that way too. Is that why he hasn't even tried to look at her? Yoonhee, buried under her blanket, doesn't know that Sunjoon is outside the room, listening to the conversation. She swallows up the tears that come up. She feels as though her insides will explode of sadness.

[Soon after is the Jeon-shi. Everyone looks beat up and tired because of the nonstop studying, and Sunjoon still seems surprisingly shaken at the exam site, but the four finish the testing in without falling ill. The results are to be announced later by the King. Announced will be 3 갑과 Gap-Gwa (The three top tests, the first/best tier of the examinees), 11 을과 Eul-Gwa(the 11 next best tests, 2nd tier), and 23 병과 Byung-Gwa, (the 23 tests after that, 3rd tear), a total of the 37 of the best tests (its basically picking the smartest 37 people out of the country).

Before the results, all the students are given their day off. Yoonhee returns home and dresses as a woman again, and she gets a visitor. It's a woman who claims to be a merchant. When Yoonhee tries to tell her nicely that she has no money to buy anything, the woman tells her that it's okay, and that she just wants to have a conversation with her. Yoonhee thinks it's strange how elegant and well-mannered this merchant is, and takes interest in what she has to say.

The woman seems very interested in Yoonhee and engages her in a story. She tells Yoonhee about how when she was younger, she took the name of her brother and tried to test for school, but failed. Yoonhee is glad to find someone like her and tells her that it's unfortunate that she failed, but the woman laughs, saying that she was lying. How could a woman even take a test? The woman gives a comb to Yoonhee as a present and goes on her way, leaving Yoonhee dumbfounded. The woman, when she comes a good distance away from Yoonhee's house, gets into a carriage waiting for her, and directs her servants to take her back to Bookchon. (That is where Sunjoon lives, if that's any hint to who this woman is.)


That's scene K! It's a little dry in the romance, but there's a reason for that! I assure you Sunjoon's not turned into an ass :D ]

[I forgot to mention, all of the four passed the preliminary testing (the Hwe-shi), which means that the four all successfully graduated from SKK. The results they are waiting for is the Jeon-shi, the testing where you get acknowledged and basically hired by the King.]

[Also, while at home, her mother tells Yoonhee that when she comes out of Sungkyunkwan she should get ready to wed. Yoonhee convinces her mother to postpone her marriage, and tells her to reject any proposals that are sent to their house. Yoonhee's mother and Yoonshik note how sad Yoonhee looks, and her mother wonders why, especially when Yoonhee will now be safe from danger after she gets out of the school.]

The day of the results, the newly graduates gather at the Gwanghwamoon, the southern gate of Kyung Bok Palace. Yongha and Jaeshin are fooling around even in their green uniforms, but Sunjoon stares up at the sky as though someone’s sucked the spirit out of him. Yoonhee stares at his face. She won’t be able to see him anymore. She can’t waste a second looking at anything else.

And then! She sees him shake a little. She can’t believe her eyes. He’s never even flinched at Jaeshin’s threats, or in front of the King. It’s not like it’s cold anymore, so there isn’t any reason for him to shiver.

Sunjoon still does not look at Yoonhee, and keeps staring at the sky with a hardened expression. It’s as though he’s praying for something. It’s been a long time since they got together, but he’s still off in his own world.
Jaeshin watches Yoonhee and scowls in jealousy. He approaches her from the back and takes his hands to cover his eyes, then whispers into her ear, “Are you crazy? Why don’t you just announce to the world that you’re gay? If you keep looking at Garang like that, people will start talking.”

Before he can finish, he finds Sunjoon glaring his way. Jaeshin backs away from Yoonhee, and says, “Okay, I got it! I’ll stay away from him. If you’re going to be that scary, you should have thrown him a glance so he wasn’t staring at you so longingly.”

Yongha laughs. “I agree. I thought he was going to burn a whole in your face, Garang.”

Even though she finally has his gaze, Yoonhee can’t help turning her head away. Jaeshin shuffles his feet as he says to Sunjoon, “Garang! Let’s try to see more of each other. I mean, we were in the same room until now, but we’ve graduated and we might separate depending on where we go. Some of us might be sent into the faraway parts of the country, so we might not see so much of each other.”

Yoonhee feels tears welling up, and she tries hard to suppress it.
Yongha looks at Sunjoon and says, “ey, it seems like he’s still under his studying spell. I can’t even tell what you’re thinking.”

Right then, a lot of the gathered graduates bow towards someone who is coming their way. The four bow as well, after seeing that it’s none other than Sunjoon’s father, the left court minister. After greeting everyone else, Sunjoon’s father goes to the four. He gives a quick glare to Jaeshin and a kind smile to Yongha before recognizing Yoonhee. He seems surprised, but he congratulates her. “You must be the one who surprised the Jojeong (the king) by graduating at such a young age. Everyone is watching you with the highest of expectations, so keep working hard.”

Yoonhee nervously thanks him for his compliment. Sunjoon’s father looks at the pretty “boy”, who he assumes is a Nam-in, then turns to his son.

“Are you confident?”
“Please, keep your promise.”
“I told you that I won’t go back on my word. But you have to keep your promise as well.”
“I will.”
“It’s no easy thing to be one of the 괴과 (one of the three best examinees). Even at your level, you’re still too young to achieve such a feat. You’re brilliant for your age, but I don’t think you are quite there yet.”
“I know that you made me the promise because you knew that it would be difficult.”
“It’s good that you know. My son is not a fool, after all. In any case, I am proud of you just for graduating. I don’t expect anything else. I will see you when the results come out.”

His father starts to leave, muttering to himself, “I wonder whose test his majesty has picked to be the best. Ha ha ha…”

The two men’s conversation is a riddle Yongha, Jaeshin, and Yoonhee can’t solve. Jaeshin puts his arms on Sunjoon’s shoulders and jokes, “I thought your father was much different than mine, but they’re almost exactly the same. That’s too bad; they might have been good friends if the situation was different…”




[The King announces the result of the tests. Yoonhee and Yongha both make it to 을과 Eul-Gwa, the second tier of the tests (which is still pretty high). Both of them are assured that Jaeshin and Sunjoon are then 갑과 Gap-Gwa (the best three tests)--then it's announced that Jaeshin is the 탐화 Tahm Hwa(the third place out of the three best).

Then the King announces 장원 (Jang Won, and you've heard this word said at the Dae Sa Rae, it means first place, or the best one), Lee Sun Joon. His father clenches his fist because he is so proud of his son, and he almost forgets that he is in front of the king because he might have shouted in happiness. Sunjoon get up to the king, and King tells him that he's glad, because he was waiting for him. Jaeshin is supposed to put the 어사화 Uh-Sa-Hwa (it's a long arching flower ornament they put on a hat) on Sunjoon, but Jaeshin's hands are big and stubby and he fidgets with them, careful as to not snap it. Yoonhee and Yongha are about to burst into laughter at the this sight, because it's not every day you see a man as gruffy as Jaeshin trying to handle flowers.

But Sunjoon doesn't laugh, because it seems like he's still thinking about something else. Jaeshin's face reddens with embarrassment while Yongha is planning on how to tease him about this later. ]



Sunjoon's father comes to him with his arms open and embraces his son.
"I'm proud of you! My son, Jang-Won!"
"Father, you must keep your promise."
"Of course! You achieved Jang-won, how could I go against my word?"
"Then, please, send someone right away."

His father pulls away from the embrace.

"Right now? Why are you in such a hurry? There's a lot of things to prepare..."
"Please, if you just send someone, mother told me that she will take care of everything. She's already prepared for it."
"Huh, you two have been planning this without me, is it? You know that I can't say no to your mother..."
"I'm sorry."
"Hahaha! I understand. I will send someone right away."
"Thank you."
"I promised you. I can't betray my son."

His father leaves happily. Jaeshin's father similarly congratulates Jaeshin, lightly hitting him on his head. Jaeshin's father looks towards Sunjoon in acknowledgement, and disappears as well.

Yongha and Yoonhee appear. Yongha starts teasing Jaeshin right away, and Yoonhee can only stare at Sunjoon.

A feast is held for the recently graduated, with the food and drinks provided by the king. The Gisaengs come and dance and everybody parties. Yoonhee is smiling on the surface within all the noise, but she's upset, and to try and soothe herself, she heads away from the feast. When she is out of the gate, she thinks about how much time she has left now. She will have to say goodbye soon. It's as though Sunjoon was thinking the same, because he's followed her out.

Yoonhee sees Sunjoon and asks, "Why did you come out?"

It seems like Sunjoon's ghost is finally gone, because he is grinning widely. Yoonhee is a little angry because she can't believe how happy he looks. Sunjoon looks around, and grabs her and takes her behind the building. Yoonhee can't smile even as she is being dragged away. After Sunjoon makes sure that nobody is around, he kisses her. It's been so long since she felt his lips. She won't be able to feel them for much more longer. He pulls away.

"I really can't keep secrets."

Where did that come front? Yoonhee is dumbfounded. It's so out of nowhere that a small smile escapes her.

"I can't bear it any longer. Ahh.. Should I just say it?"
"Say what?"
"Ah I should wait! You will find out soon when you head home... I was going to keep quiet until then, but I'm just so impatient..."

Yoonhee is speechless. How could anyone be more frustratingly patient than he is? She is peeved, and says, "well, I'm impatient. I'm curious, so just tell me."

"Soondol and my 집사 Jip-Sah (head servant) will be heading over to your home soon."
"What? Why?"
"To send my proposal."

At first, Yoonhee doesn't understand. Then her eyes widen and her jaws drop.

"What? A proposal? A proposal proposing that we, uh..."
"You've written a proposal at your store before, haven't you? You know what it is."

He smiles widely, but Yoonhee's still in shock.

"Then, is the promise you made with your father--"
"Yes. This was all so I could marry you."
"Then does your father know about what I've been doing? It doesn't seem like he knew, from when he talked to me earlier."
"He doesn't know that it's you, but he knows that it's a daughter of a Nam-in family. I also told him about your family's situation."
"And he gave you permission?"

He smiles again, but Yoonhee can't smile. She hangs her head, as she says, "I can't marry you."

Sunjoon's face drops. "What do you mean?"
"I can't marry you. There's still time before my brother can regain his name, after the memory of me as Yoonshik is well enough faded, because only then I can go back to being Yoonhee..."
"You can wait that time after marrying me!"

Yoonhee shakes her head. She can't. Sunjoon raises his voice, which is now mixed with a little anger. "Fine, then we won't wed!"

He grabs her hand. "But I have to at least verify that we will marry, in a contract. (He's basically telling her that he wants to make their marriage registration in advance). Let's go right now to get some paper and a brush!"
"What? W-wait!"

Yoonhee struggles to stop Sunjoon from dragging her away, because she can see that he's not joking around.

"To me, you're already my wife and I am already your husband, and I need a contract that verifies it until you marry me, if you're going to postpone the wedding! How can I just let you go? How will I trust you? You can't just leave me!"
"That's not what I mean--"

Sunjoon pulls her into an embrace. He whispers to her, "Don't ask me for anything more cruel than to wait for you. I don't even think I have the strength to wait."
"Then, if we do make the contract, will you really wait for me?"
"Of course. I'll post the contract for everyone to see, and wait for you, whether it's raining or snowing, so you won't have a choice but to come back to me."
"Wha-- you're going to wait like that?"
"What, you thought I would keep it to myself? I still think you should marry me first, then wait."

Yoonhee tries to free herself from his grasp, but his arms hold her tighter.

"Let me go. People might come."
"Agree to a contract, or marry me. I won't let you go before you answer, even if his majesty himself shows up. If you know how much effort I put into study to make this happen, you should know that I'm not lying right now."

She stops struggling. "Why are you threatening me with such happy choices? If you don't let me go, I might just nod and go along, without thinking of the consequences."
"I'll take care of the consequences, so just please, do nod and go along."

She raises her head and looks at his eyes. She doesn't nod or shake her head, but her eyes tell Sunjoon that she agrees.

"You should have agreed from the beginning. Why do you always make me so nervous?"

But Yoonhee responds, "this is nothing compared to what you put me through lately!"
She suddenly feels all the sorrow she's tried to suppress the past month, and can't help but start sobbing. She collapses on the spot and buries her head into her knees, and cries loudly.

"Wh--Why are you crying? Please, stop crying--"

Sunjoon is taken back and he doesn't know what to do.

She sobs, "if you were going to do this, you should have just let me know!"

Sunjoon lowers himself next to her to try and calm her. "I-I didn't know if I could do it, and I didn't want to tell you just in case..."
"You wouldn't even look at me!"
"I-- It's not because of you! It was because whenever I looked at you, I'd get distracted and ... I'm sorry! It's my fault, I was wrong. I beg you, stop crying, please?"

Sunjoon puts his arms around her. "I wanted to be with you. And I wanted to hold you. Everytime I lost confidence, I thought about just giving up and running away with you. I thought about leaving my family, and leaving my name."

Yoonhee tries to wipe away at her tears, but they keep falling. "How could you think of making such a bet with your father?"

Aware that people might come around, the two pull away from one another, and Yoonhee is able to barely calm herself down. They both get up and start heading back to the feast, when Yoonhee stops. "I forgot! Mother!"

"Is something wrong?"
"I told my mother to reject any proposals sent home!"
"Soondol knows what's going on, so he'll wait it out--"
"But your Jipsah doesn't. If your father hears that our family rejected your proposal..."

After hearing this, Sunjoon becomes worried as well. He worked so hard for his father's permission; he has to make sure that nothing goes wrong. The two run back to the party, to say goodbye to everyone so that they can then hurry to Yoonhee's home. Yongha asks why they're in such a hurry.

"Something's come up at home, and we've got to go."
"Both of you?"
"Ah, I think I'll have to go along with him..."
"It seems like it's pretty urgent. Take my horse. I rode it here because I was late. It's outside the gate."
Yongha leads them to his horse, and Sunjoon and Yoonhee follow, hand in hand.
Sunjoon lifts Yoonhee onto the horse first, then gets on. They promise Yongha to return the horse, and they leave.

Yoonhee, stuck between his arms, jokes, "If I come home to my mother with you like this, I can't imagine how surprised she'll be."

She imagines the happiness on her mother's face, and she feels tears welling up.

"I can't imagine that she'll be more surprised than my father when he sees you. I'm curious as to how he'll react."
"Do you think he'll recognize me? I wonder what your mother will think..."

Sunjoon smiles. It seems as though he's not at all worried.

"How can you be so calm? I'm so nervous."

Still, Sunjoon can't help grinning.





The sound of the two riding the horse fades away, and Yongha heads back to the party, when he sees Jaeshin walking towards him with the uh-sa-hwa in his hand.
"Oh hey! Tam-hwa!"
"Hey! stop with the Tam-hwa business!"
"Why are you coming out?"
"Did those two leave?"

Yongha smiles and puts his arms around Jaeshin's shoulders, which hang in misery. Jaeshin tries to shake his sadness away and spits, "Let's go drink."

"Yes, let's. Let's drink until the day breaks!"

The two walk away, with Yongha still teasing Jaeshin for how he looked handling the flowers, and he doesn't stop, even after Jaeshin throws a punch.









[That's scene L! I chose this one to be the last because it's actually the last of what we see of the four together, because at the very end of the book, Yongha and Jaeshin are in front of the king, telling him that Sunjoon and "Yoonshik" cannot come because Sunjoon is marrying Yoonshik's sister, Yoonhee. The novel ends with Yongha and Jaeshin hurriedly heading over to the wedding.

I always feel a little sad finishing up a novel I like, but I'm actually more sad finishing up the translations for you guys. I hope it was as fun for you all as it was for me (this > schoolwork).


But this is not the end! At least, I hope. I'm having trouble getting my hands on the second series, because the store I got my books from doesn't have it, and I've never downloaded files via torrent. But I started re-reading the beginning of the first series to see if there are any good parts left to translate. Otherwise I'll try to post some brief summaries of what's been happening between each scene. I want to try and keep this going until the drama ends so all of us have something to try and entertain ourselves with with each week's wait. Please, if you have any suggestions on how to obtain the second series (meaning book 1 and 2 of 규장각 각신들의 나날 The days of Gyujanggak Gakshins, not book 2 of 성균관 유생들의 나날, The Days of Sungkyunkwan Confucian Scholars), leave comments and I will try to contact you! Thanks so much! ]