Couples in the Republic of Korea Spend Time Near the Water Like This

He watched her get up from the bench and walk over to the railing on the river's edge and he forced himself to stay still. Six months of shooting this drama with her had made his whole body so attuned to her movements, her scent, the sound of her giggles, the soft way she would murmur her lines to herself, and even the blur of her ponytail as she would flit from one part of the set to another. Wherever she was, he could always find her. And any time his eyes landed on her, the rest of his body would soon follow and he often found himself walking towards her – like gravity.

Like now. Even though he had told himself to give her a little breathing room, that resolve only lasted about half a minute. They were about to shoot a tender couple's moment by the riverside so he really should go to her and make sure she's comfortable. He was older, the one with more experience in the business. It was his duty. He had plenty of other excuses in his pocket but he deemed those two to to be enough to justify why he was now standing beside her.

"Do you miss the water?"

He made no secret that he had been lurking about on her Instagram and found all her posts of beaches and sunsets that nearly matched all of his.

She turned to him, her delicate face breaking into a tired but fond smile. "Yeah, I do," she murmured as she turned back to gaze at the river glittering with the reflection of city lights. "I bet you miss it just as much."

That gave him a start. So she had looked at his Instagram, too.

Then she continued, "Maybe when the shooting for The King ends and all the press work are done, I can go back to the beach and maybe go diving again..."

At the mention of their time together ending, his felt his heart clench a little. He couldn't imagine a time when he would long for the sight of her face in the middle of a fit of giggles or the scent of her hair in the breeze, turn, and not find her. Like his character, he could feel time pressing down on him with this portal to a magical world with her about to close soon.

"Don't go somewhere nice without me. Think of going together."

Her lips quirked in a goofy smile and her eyes sparkled as she turned to him, recognizing that what he said was her own line from episode 9. And because she was a consummate actress, she knew his next line and threw it right back at him, "I think I'm going to miss you so much!"

Then she made a sad face, a parody of the sad one he had given her on that episode. She loved making fun of him whenever they had to do a serious scene. She often pulled him to the side just to show him her version of his serious Pyeha face. The entire staff had found it funny but it would be one of the rare moments when he could feel the heat of her small hand wrapping around his wrist so he endured the teasing and laughter just so her hand would stay just a little bit longer on his skin.

His heart ached. Then it told him to be brave and jump. "Will you?" he asked her softly. "Will you, really?"

She held his gaze even as her face stuttered for a few seconds. Her eyes searched his and he let her see it – his whole heart laid bare. Her mouth, always so soft, opened slightly as he heard her sharp intake of a breath.

She understood.

"It took me 33 years to find you," he started.

"No, Lee Gon says 25 years," she says automatically, cutting him off.

"No. It took me," he said, his voice low and his pause, patient, long enough to let it sink in, "33 years to find you. You don't know, or maybe you do, how being with you, even just near you, has made me so happy it's almost as if I never knew what happiness was before you. I don't know why it took so long but I think, maybe, it's because I had to deserve you first. I'm not saying I deserve you right now, right this second but—"