How long had it been?
Days?
Weeks?
Months?
It was more like an hour, and Tae-won had settled himself in one of the plastic chairs, his head tilted back and his eyes closed, patiently waiting for a rescue he was certain would come. He was, after all, a big-shot celebrity. People were going to miss him if he didn't reappear. Rose wasn't quite so sure a full-scale rescue operation would be mounted for someone with such a terrible personality. As such, she hadn't left her spot. Knelt in the filthy gravel without a care for the state of her jeans, she continued to beat her fist against the wooden door. Her voice was hoarse from shouting for help and tears pricked the corners of her eyes. Every time they threatened to fall she took a sharp breath through her nose and blinked them back, too stubborn to let her feelings show.
Even if she didn't, it was obvious to anyone that she was starting to lose hope.
Naturally, she would be missed. Yuta and Hitomi would notice her absence once they searched the building and checked back at the apartment, but what would they do about it?
Would they call the police?
Her parents?
Would they assume that she'd run out into Seoul and had been snatched off the street or mugged in an alley?
Their minds would flit between every terrible possibility before they settled on the idea that she might be stuck on a rooftop with one of the biggest idiots of all time; an idiot who hadn't even apologised for kicking the door stop out of the way in the first place.
Defeated, Rose rested her forehead against the door and pressed her palm to the peeling paint. No matter how much she wanted to hear Yuta's voice from the other side, or willed them to find her, it wasn't going to make a heroic saviour materialise.
'Given up?' Tae-won asked without opening his eyes. 'You were giving me a headache.'
'Doesn't this bother you?' Rose shot back at him. 'Don't you want to go back?'
'My manager will look for me.'
'And you think he'll look up here?' she countered. 'He'll just think you went home.'
Tae-won shrugged. 'It won't rain tonight. We can stay up here until morning.'
'It's cold,' Rose complained. 'And I don't like being stuck anywhere.'
'Take it easy, Japan. Someone will open that door.'
The way Rose's luck was going, she highly doubted it. Besides, she really wasn't a fan of being isolated in one location without any sign of an exit. Like a restless animal in a cage, she was soon on her feet, and began prowling around the rooftop in search of a way back down. The buildings were packed tightly together, but she was hardly athletic, and didn't want to take a flying leap over onto the neighbouring block only to find that she was just as trapped there as she was on the studio. If they'd been in a television drama a passing helicopter full of Tae-won's wealthy friends would drop down and four handsome men would climb out and tell her that they'd been worried about her, but real life wasn't like that.
And – you know – she totally didn't watch those sorts of shows.
As she peered over the ledge and took in the distance between their position and the ground, Rose couldn't help but feel queasy. She wasn't as bad with heights as her mother, but the prospect of falling into the street and turning into a Jackson Pollock painting on the sidewalk didn't appeal. Tracing the ledge with her fingertips, Rose circled the rooftop, looking for anything at all which might catch someone's attention or convey them to the ground safely. Her sore knuckles bumped against a rusted, flaking metal pole which, upon further inspection, proved to be a fire escape ladder. It passed between the windows on the next floor down and ended in the alley below, and Rose wondered if she could knock on the glass to gain someone's attention and direct them to the roof.
'What are you doing?' Tae-won asked as she threw her leg over the wall and onto the top rung. 'You're crazy!'
'Do you want to get down, or not?' Rose asked.
'Aish, what's wrong with waiting?' he asked. The man was on his feet, crossing the roof in a bid to stop her. 'Do you want to die?'
'It's a fire escape. They do safety checks on this sort of stuff.'
'When?' he asked. 'Huh? How do you know?' Rose had both feet planted on the ladder and her hands on the ledge. She tested the next rung and, satisfied that it was sturdy, stepped down. Tae-won grasped her wrists and tried to pull her back up, telling her, 'It's not safe!'
'You pulling me isn't safe!' she argued. 'Let go!'
'Climb back up!'
'I said, let go!' Rose demanded, tugging her wrist hard.
Pulling away from a person is never advisable when standing on a ladder hanging from the side of a building, especially when it has a questionable safety record. The metal creaked and groaned, and Rose felt the rung beneath her feet slip and scrape. Terror coursed through her body, electrifying her nerves and tensing her muscles. Like a rabbit in headlights, all she could do was freeze and hold on for dear life when the rung dropped away, clanging down the rest of the ladder and banging against the brickwork until it came to a resonating stop in the alley below, almost hitting a man who'd come outside with a phone in his hand. He leapt out of the way and swore loudly, turning to look up at the dangling girl in shock.
'Hang on!' Tae-won told her, grabbing her by the shoulders awkwardly so she wouldn't fall backwards.
Frightened or not, Rose wasn't incapable of sarcasm. She shot back hysterically, 'Oh, you think?!'
'Rose?' the man on the ground called up at them. 'Rose!'
'Si-woo?' Rose asked, recognising his voice. Her situation must have looked far worse from his position, especially when faced with the prospect of her falling onto him if she didn't make it back up over the ledge.
'What are you doing? Are you crazy?!'
Apparently so, given he was the second man to accuse her of being unhinged.
'Help me!' she cried hysterically.
'Stay there! Just – just hold on!' Si-woo commanded, as if Rose had any intention of letting go. She was rather fond of being alive and, in hindsight, now saw that climbing down the ladder was a severe risk to her continued existence. The man ran inside, the door from the alley slamming behind him.
Well, at least someone knew they were on the roof at long last.
The side of the ladder creaked, and the structure shifted sideways. Rose yelped and dug her nails into the ledge but couldn't find enough purchase on the rungs with her feet to push herself onto the roof. Pathetically – desperately – she sobbed at Tae-won, 'Pull me up! Please?!'
Tae-won dug his fingers into her shoulders. There was no way he could get the leverage he needed to bring her to safety without moving his hands. 'If I let go you might fall.'
'If you don't then I'll definitely fall!' Rose cried. 'Perv – Tae-won! Help me!'
The man took a deep breath and released her shoulders. For a split-second, Rose feared he wouldn't grab hold of her in time. The ladder broke away from the mortar and brick before it began its descent to the ground. Before Rose could follow it, Tae-won wrapped his hands around her delicate wrists. His foot pressed against the ledge as an anchor, he heaved the girl onto the rooftop, covering her beautiful clothes in orange rust and scraping the fibres on the coarse stone. He fell backwards onto the gravel, dirtying his own designer, one-of-a-kind suit, and Rose collapsed on top of him, breathing rapidly and clinging to his shirt as if it might be the only thing keeping her from flying off the rooftop again.
'Oh my God,' Rose sobbed. 'Oh my God!'
'I told you! You're crazy, Japan!'
'I'm sorry, I'm sorry!' she wailed into his chest.
Tae-won patted the back of her head awkwardly. 'Aish... Stupid, crazy girl. What if you'd been up here alone, huh?'
Difficult though it was with Rose on top of him, Tae-won manoeuvred himself into a sitting position. With the frightened, crying girl sat upon his long legs, he took hold of her hands and turned them over to examine her grazed, bleeding palms. With no medicine available to soothe the throbbing wounds, he leaned down and blew streams of warm air onto the injuries.
'What are you doing?' Rose sniffled.
'My mother did this when I fell.'
'Off roofs?'
'Idiot,' he chided. 'I wasn't a stupid crazy person who played on rooftops. Only you do that, Japan.'
Rose sniffed. 'I'm sorry. I ruined your suit and – and I'm sorry!'
'If you're sorry then do the shoot.'
She balked, 'How are you still thinking about that after –'
'After I saved your life?' Tae-won asked. 'They won't sue me for scaring off Seo-yeon if you do it. Besides, you're interesting, Japan.'
Rose didn't have time to give him her reply. The door flew open and Si-woo hurried through. Behind him, Eun-young held it open so no one else would be stuck with them, and Yuta barrelled past her with the mixture of anger and concern one would expect from a father or older brother. Si-woo might have helped Rose back to her feet so that Tae-won could stand, but it was Yuta who brought her into a crushing hug, chastising her in rapid Japanese and kissing the top of her hair as if afraid she might fling herself over the ledge again if he didn't make her feel loved and appreciated.
Never far behind, Hitomi was ready to take over comforting Rose when she began to cry in an ugly fashion; her wails loud and her tears fat and relentless, rolling down her cheeks in rivers of fear and sorrow. Hitomi, too, began to cry because she was incapable of feeling nothing when her friend was so shaken and hurt. And, possibly, because she didn't like to be left out. It was always difficult to tell with Hitomi, because she so often did exactly what Rose did.
'Your clothes,' Yuta said to Tae-won.
'The shoot,' Si-woo added.
Rose was ready to leap in and defend Tae-won. Not because she liked him – oh, no, never that – but because it had been entirely her fault that the piece from the new line was ruined. If she'd thought to throw something down into the street to catch the attention of a passer-by then she wouldn't have tried to descend the ladder, and Tae-won wouldn't have been forced to play the hero.
'No,' Yuta said. 'If he'd been worrying about the clothes, Rose wouldn't be standing here like the idiot she is!' Rose flinched, burying herself in Hitomi's arms so she couldn't see how furious Yuta was at her for putting herself in such danger. Yuta took a deep breath, trying to soothe his nerves, and calmly stated, 'We'll carry on the shoot without it and try to make another one in time for the locations.'
'And the rest of today?' Si-woo asked.
Yuta cast one glance over Tae-won's dishevelled appearance. 'We'll be behind by a day. We can make up the time. Go home and come back tomorrow morning for nine so we can start over again.'
'What about the model?' Si-woo pressed. He took one look at Rose and added, 'I think we should find someone else.'
'She agreed,' Tae-won said. 'Right, Japan?'
Rose bristled at the name, but what could she do?
Already she'd insulted him on the plane, thrown water all over him, led him around the building in a merry chase, brought him to a rooftop where they'd ended up stuck together, and had made him ruin his clothes to save her life.
'Yes,' she said bitterly. 'I agreed.'