"JinHai ah! Na-ui chingu ah, Eoremaniya! [JinHai, my friend! It's been a while!]"

JinHai kept his face blank as Il-Sung walked up to him and dragged him into a rough hug. "You...you're the reason why I'm forced down here. Couldn't you take care of this by yourself?"

Il-Sung's expression lost its playfulness. "You should've switched places with me. I had heard that this area would be rough, but the house that had been occupied before was bombed twice and because of that, we're here." Avi glanced around and took in the surroundings of the military barracks where they all stood.

"You...you look familiar."

She glanced over at him and gave a slightly forced smile. "I live in Poinciana." Il-Sung snapped his fingers in realization. "You're the one who speaks Korean, aren't you?"

She looked over at JinHai in hesitation before nodding her head, he grinned. "Daebak...hya, JinHai ah, I sarameun, johahae? [Wow, amazing. Hey, JinHai, do you like this person?]" Avi nearly choked on air.

"Dakchada. [Shut up.]"

Avi frowned. "You don't...speak like a North Korean. Neither of you do." Il-Sung chuckled, but she could see his eyes darken a bit. "Is there a way for North Koreans to speak?"

"Aniyo...there's none."

He shook his head at that, reaching into his pocket to pull out a phone; an android. "Here's the deal; we found phones on most of the dead protestors' bodies, we went through them and found this one to be the most interesting. Look."

JinHai took the phone from Il-Sung. "Did it not have a password?"

"Neh...we cracked it."

Avi walked closer to JinHai and peered over his shoulder as much as she could, struggling to see the messages he read. "What do they say?"

"He messaged his cousin who was at a military base in Puerto Rico and a friend at Cuba. Both were generals...it seems that we should be waiting for more attacks now."

Avi glanced up at him. "You mean that they're coming?" JinHai smirked before turning to face her. "I'd ask you to wish me good luck...but that would be too much, wouldn't it?"

....

She heard screaming before she saw him open the door. "Waegurae?" He snickered. "You'd be surprised...come on, and be prepared for blood."

Avi hesitated before following him.

She hadn't been prepared for blood.

The man was seated rather limply, his leg torn to the near bone and his face disfigured with blood and muscle. The bullet shot in his arm was still lodged there and Avi felt like vomiting at the sight.

She nearly jumped when JinHai's hand pressed itself against the small of her back. "He can't speak English...and he can't speak Spanish as well."

"He's Haitian."

"Yup."

She turned to glare at him. "Then why don't you speak to him instead? Why make me see this?" JinHai sobered up. "He'll be more comfortable speaking to another Haitian than to a Korean soldier who happens to speak his language...go, I brought you here for this didn't I?"

It was then that Avi looked around to see the soldiers standing there expectantly. Both she and him knew that this wasn't the real reason why she had been brought to Miami. She was smart enough at least to go along with it.

With a sigh, she closed her eyes to prepare herself before opening them again and squatting down to look the man in the eye. "Eske ou Haitien? (Are you Haitian?)"

He looked up slowly, wincing at the pain from the movement before trying to respond. "Wi. E ou menm? (Yes, and you?)" She nodded, fighting the tears that began to push their way out. "Poukisa ou la? (Why are you here?)"

"Because I called my brother in Cuba."

"What's so bad about that?"

"He's friends with some people at the Pentagon...he said that he already knew what was going on and that they were prepared to take some steps to attack."

"Did he tell you what those plans are?"

The poor man couldn't even shake his head. "No."

"Do you know anything else?"

"No...but they don't know that."

Avi sighed before looking up at JinHai. "You heard him...there's nothing he knows."

"He could be lying."

Avi scoffed out loud. "Oh don't be st-. Are you serious? The state he's in now is impossible." JinHai exhaled loudly before nodding for her to get up.

...

"You never answered my question, do you like her?"

"I did answer, I told you to shut up."

Il-Sung propped himself against the desk and nodded. "I guess that is an answer then...so, are you planning on going through with it?" JinHai flipped another paper in the file. "I said shut up." Il-Sung nodded again. "You know how dangerous that would be if you did right?" When JinHai didn't respond, he pressed further. "Say shut up if you know."

"Shut up."

Il-Sung crossed his arms and glanced around the desk. "Does she know?"

"Yes."

"And what did she say?"

JinHai took off his glasses and stared up at his friend. "That it was dangerous." Il-Sung chuckled at that. "She's smart...too smart, I like it." He didn't respond and rubbed a hand over his face before yawning.

"Does she know?"

JinHai froze for a moment before sitting up in his chair. "No."

"Are you going to tell her? You shouldn't...you know that right?"

"Shut up Il-Sung."

Il-Sung stood up and reached over to pat JinHai's shoulder. "Glad to know you understand." Before he walked out, he continued. "Be careful when you're going back to the bunker...those cocktails usually fly at night the most."

He left without another word.

..

"Did you take care of the wound?"

Avi gave him a startled expression before nodding. "I did." JinHai stalked up to her and frowned. "Let me see." She shook her head, further pulling her shirt downwards. He reached out and grabbed her wrist before she could finish, Avi only turned to glare at him. "Stop it...please."

"You hate me...don't you?"

Avi raised a brow at him. "What?"

"You hate me, don't you?"

She sighed for a moment before moving to sit on a bunker bed and lifting her shirt for him. JinHai moved forward and kneeled in front of her, studying the bandage to make sure she had done it well.

He didn't know that she was a medical student...in fact, he barely knew anything about her at all.

She didn't know anything about him either. "I'll answer if you answer me this first." He didn't bother looking up. "What is it?"

"Why am I still alive?"

At that, he paused, and she continued. "I'm a no one. I'm a person whose home was taken over by you at war. I'm a prisoner of war, and you're a war general. Why am I still alive? I defy you, talk back to you, act as if you owe me something and...even if it may be true because you raided my home, aren't you a soldier? Why are you putting up with me?"

...

The answer was simple for him...he didn't simply like her. If he had just liked her then the boundaries she had crossed would have caused him to stop a long time ago. The answer was that Avi wasn't just a fling.

He loved her.

JinHai took the helm of her shirt and pulled it down for her, his arms then reaching out and wrapping around her waist. He pulled her closer to him and stared her in the eye. "I...trust you." Avi huffed. "That's why?"

"Avi...I don't trust a lot of people in this world, not even the people some would expect that I should. So believe me when I say that the people I trust get a lot more leeway than normal. It wouldn't exactly be smart of me if I just made that small puddle of people even smaller...would it?"

Avi looked at him for a moment, silently assessing his face. And he let her. "If you trust me...then tell me how I won the bet."

He knew that this would be coming, he simply exhaled deeply and looked down, completely in disbelief in the position he was in. He, Min JinHai, was on his knees in front of a woman, holding her close and about to place his entire life into her hands.

He must have loved her a whole lot to do this.

..

"I was born in Busan, my mother was Chinese, my father Korean...and I moved to Florida when I was four."

Avi found herself leaning closer to him as he swallowed back his...nervousness. He was actually nervous, and she just couldn't believe it. "It was five of us. My mom, my twin older sisters, JiSaek, and me. She had come here for us to get an education and to get away from all the rumors that she faced back in South Korea."

"Why rumors?"

"My father had been a journalist...one time, when she was pregnant with me, North Korea had opened their borders on special occasion and let journalists go in for touring and whatever. Mom had told him not to go...he was too curious not to. He never came back."

JinHai took a deep breath, Avi simply rested her hand on his arm and squeezed tightly. "People first thought that he had been arrested and tortured, then thought that he died. Then someone decided to say that he had actually been a North Korean spy and had decided to stay back there...guess that the others had simply wanted a good thriller to believe. My mom couldn't take it, so we moved here."

"Where?"

"Kissimmee, I had an uncle who already lived here so she joined him."

She still couldn't believe that he was opening up to her. "How did you find yourself in North Korea?"

"My grandmother died back in Busan, so we all had to travel back for her funeral. Imagine my mom's shock to find my father greeting the family and bowing at of grandmother's funeral. He looked perfectly fine, no bruises, no weight loss, nothing...mom almost began to believe the rumors."

"What had happened?"

"He didn't tell us at first. I was seventeen by that time and didn't even recognize that man as my father. Without an explanation, he told us that he'd be taking us on a tour to the local sites in the North. Mom had said no immediately, and I remember them being in a room for hours arguing. By the time they came out, mom told us that we'd be going on a trip."

Avi frowned. "You never came back..."

"Turns out that my father had been arrested back then, and tortured. It had nearly caused a stand-off between North and South had they not released my father and allowed him out of prison...but they didn't let him back to South Korea and drafted him into the army. He didn't want to return either."

"Wae?"

"His parents...his real parents, lived in North Korea. They had been stranded there since the Korean War. He had been raised by his uncle. So now that he had united with them...he didn't want to leave. When we entered North Korea with him...the government wouldn't let us back out either."

"So you were stranded there."

JinHai nodded. "By the time I reached my eighteenth, both JiSaek and I were drafted into the army. We refused immediately, I even told the commander in charge that I wasn't a North Korean, I was a South Korean and I wouldn't betray my country. They retaliated...and they did it on my sisters."

Avi gasped slowly, knowing what he would say but not wanting him to say it. "They tortured both and killed Mirae...Norae was on suicide watch by my mother for five years before she finally had a will to live...and it was all pointless, we joined the military anyways."

JinHai inhaled, getting up on his feet before looking down at her, Avi found herself standing as well. "You hate them...you hate this army, you hate this war, you hate your father-."

"And how did you come to that conclusion?"

She looked at him knowingly. "He's the one who went to the North in the first place, he's the one who wasn't there for your first seventeen years of life. He stayed, he joined the army without a fight...and he chose the parents who didn't raise him over the family he created. And all of that caused your sister's death and the other's sanity. It cost your freedom too. You hate him."

He didn't respond, she knew that he couldn't. "Are they still alive?" JinHai nodded. "They are...and they're the only reason why I'm still in this army. When I get promoted to Sargent, I'm bringing them here."

Avi found herself fighting her urge to stroke his face. "And then what?"

"I switch."