以下的这些对话都是围绕一个“小孩”开始的；

一个希望可以简单的说话，简单的做事，把一切都变得简单的生活，然后发现这压根就不可能实现却又特别渴望能变成现实的家伙...

一个可以沉默得一言不发，也可以搞笑得淋漓尽致的家伙...

一个你可以说她笨但绝不可以说她傻，宁愿你说她丑也不愿意假装漂亮，偶尔可恶之极却也不乏可爱一面的家伙...

烟：真是不容易啊~在聊天以前，请允许我先感谢一下，首先...

乐言：Excuse  me？你能不能先告诉我，你获得了什么奖项，然后再发表感言？   （菲儿和小艾笑...）

菲儿：Excuse  me都出来了，O～你怎么不秀一下你的韩语？

乐言：我从来不当众展现我还不拿手的事情。  <菲儿：!!!>

烟：果然是早点铺里传说中的伶牙俐齿4人帮啊...之前因为时间空间的关系，很少能跟你们碰上，所以很多事情都是听说的，今天终于有机会证实一下了。耳听为虚，眼见为实，机会终于降临到我头上了。

乐言：4人帮今天少了1个，不过跟我们聊天结束以后回去不要做噩梦就好了...  （菲儿和小艾狂笑...  哈哈哈哈...）

菲儿：传说中的...恩，果然是好奇心害死人，不过3缺1，应该不会是噩梦...

小艾：如果不是3缺1，回去会做噩梦的应该是乐言...   <乐言：!!!>  （菲儿和小艾笑...）

烟：有没有感觉他们4个人聚在一起是经常打麻将的？3缺1的啊...     （4个人同时笑起来...）

菲儿：不是，小艾和小懒她俩不会打麻将也不会打牌，她俩都是好孩子，恩...   （小艾：＾＾）

烟：不管怎么说，既然今天被我逮到了，那我就不客气了，当然你们也要实话实说，要不然就是在浪费时间咯～

乐言：对于你们来说是浪费时间，对于我来说就不是了...

小艾：是，对于你来说简直就是在浪费青春啊～哥哥啊，青春不等人的啊～　（菲儿和烟狂笑...  哈哈哈哈...）

乐言：所以你不用客气，我们也不会客气的，今天就当是有仇的报仇，有冤的报冤，过了这个村就没有这个店了...

菲儿：放心，我最讨厌在做节目的时候撒谎...

（安静，一下子安静下来...在沉默了10秒之后，乐言突然笑起来...小艾也跟着笑起来...　　＾＾）

小艾：哎～看来今天有人是准备好了要下地狱的...（有点像自言自语...）

乐言：考验你的时候到了，菲儿，你不下地狱谁下地狱？！

菲儿：为什么每次都是我？风水也应该轮流转的吧？！

烟：你们私下都是怎么称呼她的？有没有什么特别的昵称？

菲儿：私下的啊？...泡面，很少当众这样叫她。

乐言：你当众这样叫她没问题，问题是她会不会答应你...   （4个人同时笑起来...）

菲儿：料到她不会答应我的，所以当众我也不会这样叫她...（笑...）她有句名言有必要说一下：＂泡面恒久远，一包永流传。＂（小艾和乐言笑...）你们俩怎么还笑？！好象没有哪次你们俩是不笑的...

乐言：你一说这个，我就想起＂泡面头＂...所以...哈哈哈～

烟：所以一说起泡面，你就会想起她的＂泡面头＂...

乐言：对，现在是一看到泡面或者是有人提起泡面，我的第一反映就是她．

小艾：有时候我看到钻石的广告都会想到她，为什么呢，因为她说的那句话的原版是一句钻石的广告词＂钻石恒久远，一颗永流传＂...

烟：所以你也叫她泡面？

小艾：饼干或者米花糖，就看她当时在吃什么了...

烟：吃着饼干就叫饼干，吃着米花糖就叫米花糖...那要是没有在吃东西呢？怎么办？

小艾：那就叫她饼干．

乐言：经常见她吃饼干，应该更喜欢饼干...

烟：乐言怎么叫她？

乐言：小子．第一印象，先入为主...

烟：你们都是怎么认识的？

乐言：我自己都不知道是怎么认识她的...（笑...）我只知道三个人里面，我是最先认识她的...

菲儿：乐言告诉我的，然后就认识她了...（乐言笑...）你干嘛又笑？！　（小艾和烟也跟着笑起来...）

乐言：没有没有，我想起了别的一些事情，你们继续说...

小艾：我认识她应该是在茶馆的时候，但是也搞不清楚是怎么认识她的...

烟：乐言，刚才你想起了什么，笑成那样...

乐言：哦~那个...我已经不记得了...   （小艾大笑...）

小艾：我就知道他会这样说的，每次一说到关键的时刻，他都这样的...  （乐言笑...）  有诈，绝对有诈...

乐言：没有，刚才想了一下，应该是因为《篇篇情》才有机会认识她，一个很不错的广播节目...

烟：你们经常聚在一起就像现在这样在Q上聊天么？

菲儿：以前都还在学校的时候，时间多经常聊，有时候会聊到半夜，现在是不行的了...

小艾：那时侯他们严重影响了我的学习...　　＜乐言：!!!＞

乐言：哎哟，真是冤枉死了～那时候我就料到她总有那么一天会这么说的，看吧，现在就是...小艾小朋友，难道你就不怕6月飞雪啊～

小艾：切～我也料到了就算是我这样说了，你也不会承认的，我还怕什么6月飞雪啊～　（菲儿笑...）

＜乐言：!!!＞

烟：她跟陌生人说话么？

菲儿：她基本不跟陌生人说话的，除非是必须要答话了，也是用最简单的几个字，几乎不跟陌生人聊天...

乐言：她的话本来就不多，更何况还是陌生人...听说有这么一件事情，在火车上，因为她长时间不跟别人说话，除了点头就是摇头，偶尔微笑一下，所以别人以为她是哑巴。

小艾：不会吧？这样都会误会啊～

乐言：有机会你们可以找她证实一下的...

烟：那你们怎么还能认识她？难道之前你们不是陌生人或者是通过别人互相认识的？

小艾：她不主动跟陌生人说话，并不代表她不说话嘛；如果有陌生人主动找她说话，出于礼貌也不会一下子就拒绝的．

乐言：只要不讲废话，有话题她还是会跟你聊天的，说白了就是一回生二回熟的问题，就怕你第一次跟她聊天就被她吓住了...

烟：那么熟悉的人呢？话多么？

小艾：每一次我们刚开始聊天的时候还能看到她说几句，但是经常是聊着聊着她就不见了...汗...

菲儿：其实大家在一起聊天的时候也挺多的，只是她参与的时候比较少而已...小艾说的那种情况经常发生...

小艾：有一次录节目，就像现在这样，她是应邀作为嘉宾参与录制的．开场白之后，我们就围绕节目主题展开讨论了嘛，刚开始的时候她还有说几句，但是不知道在什么时候，她就不说话了，当时我们居然都没有发现，三个人还说的不亦乐乎的...一直到后面因为NT的一句话把我们逗乐了，听到她的笑声我们才发现，在那么长的一段时间里我们漏掉了一个人都不知道....郁闷死...　　　　（乐言笑...）

烟：她都多长时间没吭声？

小艾：大概有半小时这样吧～后来他们做特辑的时候有算过，那期节目时长为50分钟，她说话的时间也就10分钟...

乐言：她好象更喜欢听，所以心情不好或者有心事的时候，她是一个很好的聊天对象，她不一定会帮你怎样怎样，但是她愿意听你说而且很认真的听你说，这就OK了～

烟：想起以前经常被提及的一个人物－知心姐姐～

乐言：……　　（小艾和菲儿笑...　＾＾）

烟：你最害怕什么？

小懒：我最害怕三件事：生病，孤单，离别...生病的时候，我就会有一种世界上只剩下我自己一个人的恐惧感...（乐言鼓掌...菲儿和小艾笑....）

乐言：你们知道我最害怕什么吗？

菲儿：什么？

乐言：贫穷，离别，还有就是小懒...

小懒：!!!  ...我有那么可怕么？

乐言：绝对不是因为小懒在这里所以就针对她，事实确实如此...

小懒：巨汗...我哪里让你觉得害怕了？我哪里有那么可怕啦？

菲儿：我刚才就说了，他们两个才是冤家...  （小艾和烟笑....）

小懒：刚才你们都说了什么啊，不会是有仇的报仇，有冤的报冤吧~  （众人皆笑：这话一开始乐言就有说过...）

烟：什么时候最让你觉得孤单？

小懒：晚上下班一个人坐公交车回家的时候...有时候车厢里会有很多的人，但是我一个都不认识而他们也不认识我；车窗外灯火辉煌，但是我就是个过路人而已...

烟：那你觉得孤单的时候你会做什么？

小懒：听音乐，听广播...所以我的包包里总会有MP3或者随身听...

烟：他们说你很喜欢听广播？

小懒：是，我很喜欢听广播...上初中的时候就开始听广播...

烟：广播有什么特殊的魅力吗？让你那么着迷？

小懒：我喜欢蔚蓝的天空，也喜欢璀璨的星空，我觉得那是来自天空的声音...电台里播放的那些歌，在我MP3里也有，但是听MP3和听广播的感觉是不一样的，听MP3是自己听，听广播是和大家一起听，感觉会温暖很多，至少不会觉得孤单...

烟：那你有没有想过要成为一位电台NJ？

小懒：很久很久以前曾经有过这样一个梦想，不过后来发现这分明是一件遥不可及的事...（笑...＾＾）...但这依然是我很喜欢的职业...

烟：为什么？

小懒：因为这是一个只闻其声不见其人的职业，即使没有光鲜靓丽的外形也一样可以从事的职业，可以和别人分享也可以替别人分担，使自己不会觉得孤单也不会让别人觉得孤单的职业...或许我可以驾御文字，但我并不善于用语言表达，而NJ是需要会说话的，似乎我距离这个还比较远....所以我更倾向于做那种只要是一个人就可以完成而不需要接触太多人的事儿~

烟：你很讨厌拍照？

小懒：（笑...）对，相当的讨厌...最讨厌三件事：拍照，考试，别人问我要照片...因为我不喜欢拍照，很少有照片，所以别人问我要照片的时候我都没有，但是呢，他们都以为我不愿意给，这很让我郁闷...

烟：为什么不喜欢拍照呢？

小懒：...没有为什么，就是不喜欢...（笑...）有时候就像我很喜欢一个男生，但是有人特不理解的问我为什么喜欢他，我也会说没有为什么，就是喜欢他一样...

烟：你喜欢什么样的男生？或者说你希望你的男朋友是什么样的？

小懒：像我老爸那样的...但是不要像他那么倔就好了...

烟：是一个怎么样的形象？

小懒：...不可意会也不可言传...有那个形象，但是说不出来...

烟：到目前为止，在你的人生中，对于你来说最重要的人是谁？

小懒：老爸和老妈...

烟：什么样的人会成为你人生中最重要的朋友？

小懒：真心实意地把我当成朋友的人，他们将会是我这一路走来最宝贵的财富...

烟：现在都有谁是你认为最重要的朋友？

小懒：一直都看着我的人，即使他们什么都不说...

烟：你最讨厌什么样的人？

小懒：...不知道...（笑...）会让我产生厌恶情绪的人一般不会成为朋友，也就是说跟我没什么关系，那我为什么要去讨厌他...

烟：那你觉得最有魅力的人是谁？

小懒：周恩来...

烟：你最喜欢的明星是谁？

小懒：有很多耶...柠檬、小凡、李柯、王力宏、梁静茹、夏雨、阿诺、金善雅、孔侑...

烟：覆盖的范围还真广，NJ、歌手、演员都有了，选三个...

小懒：比较困难...柠檬...王力宏...孔侑...最酷的三个人...（笑...）

烟：如果要你从这三个人里面选一个做你的男朋友，你会选哪个？

小懒：我一个都不选...  （乐言笑...）

烟：那从他们当中选一个做你的哥哥，你选哪一个？

小懒：从来都没见过柠檬，我说英文王力宏不一定能听懂，孔侑的话，根本就没有办法交流的...怎么选啊~

烟：忽略掉这些因素，语言啊，国籍啊...

小懒：孔侑...这样每一场有他参加的电影我都可以看首映...  （乐言笑...）

烟：柠檬、王力宏、孔侑、乐言，这四个人里面选呢？做你男朋友...

乐言：晕啊，怎么又是我？！

小懒：乐言...  （小艾和菲儿笑...）

小懒：只有他的可能最大啊，其他三个人那是想都不用想的啊~

烟：有没有人说过你们两个像情侣？  （小懒笑...）

乐言：没有...真的很奇怪，居然会没有...

小懒：但是总有人问我乐言和菲儿是不是情侣...

菲儿：!!!  ...我跟他有好到那种程度了么？！

小懒：那我哪儿知道啊～　（笑...）

烟：乐言，要是让你从她们三个人当中选一个做女朋友，你选哪一个？

乐言：小懒...　（小懒笑...）

烟：为什么？

乐言：如果我说我选菲儿的话，岂不是默认了别人的想法？

烟：那你说你选小懒，别人就不会误会了吗？

乐言：即使我跟她以相同的着装出去，别人都不会误会我们是情侣，最多问我一句“你哪里找来个跟班的~”（小懒笑...）更何况到现在为止，都还有好多人以为她是男生...（笑...）

小懒：我怎么越来越觉得我们在玩速配啊...　（众人皆笑...）

烟：小懒有生气的时候么？

乐言：有，不过很少见...她很少生气的，她的脾气很好的...

烟：小懒，最让你生气的是什么事？

小懒：遇见没有责任心的人，而我还必须要跟他合作，然后他还表现得不懂装懂，说不上来的东西就喜欢忽悠过去，有的时候真的很让我抓狂的...

烟：你生气的时候你会做什么事？

小懒：都很生气了还能做得成什么事情啊，睡觉啊！　（烟笑...）

乐言：没有，如果你非要她做什么的话，给她一颗阿尔卑斯的棒棒糖就可以了...　（众人皆笑...）

烟：啊？真的可以？

小懒：这个是可以的...（笑...）当然多给几颗我也不会拒绝的，最好多给我几颗...

烟：刚才乐言说你很少哭，那什么样的情况会让你掉眼泪？

小懒：老爸老妈哭的时候...睡不着一个人听歌的时候...还有看《饼干老师星星糖》的时候...

烟：你在看电影或者电视剧的时候，会经常因为故事情节而哭吗？

小懒：很少...有一部电影叫《暖春》，这是最容易让人掉眼泪的电影，我的同学看的时候都是哭得一塌糊涂，但是我没有哭，后来被他们说成是冷血动物，这让我很郁闷...曾经能够让我看得掉眼泪的电影我也想不起来了，在看《饼干老师星星糖》的时候有掉过眼泪...

乐言：有时候她可以微笑着看完一部悲剧...

烟：你会因为感动而掉眼泪吗？

小懒：会，但是我也会努力不让眼泪掉下来...

菲儿：其实她是很容易被感动的...

烟：什么样的事情会让你感动得掉眼泪？

小懒：老爸和老妈无论是谁生病了，看到他们很细心的照顾对方的时候，我的视线都会变模糊，无论什么时候...在我最无助时有人拉我一把的时候，无论是朋友还是陌生人...危难得到帮助，误会得到解除，错误得到原谅，付出得到回报，分离得到团聚...能让我感动的事情有很多，哪怕那感动只是一瞬间...

烟：你最珍惜的东西是什么？

小懒：老爸老妈留给我的邮票，好朋友送给我的礼物，我喜欢的书~

烟：属于你自己的东西呢？你喜欢收藏什么？

小懒：火柴，阿尔卑斯糖纸，《篇篇情》的心情故事...

烟：现在你拥有最多的东西是什么？

小懒：书...

烟：什么样的书最多？

小懒：有关考研的书最多～　（笑...）

烟：你不是最讨厌考试吗？

小懒：可是也只有通过考试才可以提高自己啊～

烟：你觉得自己最有魅力的地方在哪里？

小懒：最有魅力的地方？不知道...我不觉得我有可以吸引别人的地方...  （笑...）

烟：那你们觉得小懒最有魅力的地方是什么？

乐言：直率，有种说话不经大脑的感觉～所以一不留神就有得罪人的可能...射手座的典型特征...

小懒：有什么说什么是我的习惯，有时候不说出来我就会觉得憋的慌...知道我的人都不会计较这些，不知道我的人会很讨厌我的... （小艾笑...）

小艾：这就是我觉得她可爱的地方...不太喜欢那种很圆滑的人，通俗点说就是见人说人话，见鬼说鬼话的人...太假...

菲儿：魅力...执著就是她的魅力，她也因此而美丽...就是这样...

小艾：觉得她像男生，算不算魅力？  （小懒笑...）

菲儿：觉得她像男生但是又有女人味算不算魅力？

小懒：换个话题吧...再继续我不确定乐言会玩出什么花样来...  （小懒笑...乐言也笑...）

  Chapter 1, titled “Eun Chan’s 25th Hour,”
Han Gyul is introduced as a “dandy boy.”
Han Gyul has bought Coffee Prince from Mr. Hong, who’s never had success running the cafe. He sent Mr. Hong specifications for a hiring notice, which requires potential part-time workers (males only!) to: have a killer smile, be the type to be popular with older girls, have excellent skills, be single, be over 175cm tall, have a good body. (Eun Chan sees the notice, finds that it’s the perfect job for her, since she meets all the qualifications — except the gender part.)
Eun Chan has a good-looking, boyish face that the girls love. She doesn’t like being called “oppa” despite that the neighborhood girls like to follow her around. She’s so popular with the girls that they pick numbers to stand by to wait for her. Buuuut… as I’m only through chapter 1, I’m not positive if all those girls know she’s a she. I would assume they do. But they call her “oppa” (in fun) anyway. It’s a weird situation, that’s for sure.
Eun Sae, always getting in trouble for ditching school to go on singing auditions, is the type to do well at home but choke in the actual audition performance, and thus has not yet been successful.
Mr. Gu, the butcher, is a failed poet who writes verses about meat (and meat-related life issues). Ha!
Eun Chan loves nothing more than meat. She drools at the thought of it, and when eating, blocks out everything else. Even other “important” issues are pushed to the side with thoughts of food, which always dance around in the back of her mind. The only two things in the world that can rouse her from the stupor induced by food are her mother and her sister.
In the PROLOGUE, Dandy Boy Han Gyul strolls into the rundown Coffee Prince to inform Mr. Hong he’s the new owner who’d bought the cafe. He’s well-dressed and arrogant, and Mr. Hong finds him insufferably rude, but serves him anyway. Eun Chan bursts in looking for her sister, who’s ditched classes yet again, probably to go on yet another singing audition.
Eun Chan reads the hiring notice posted (specifications sent in advance by Han Gyul) and laughs at the ridiculous requirements (good looking, popular with the ladies, single, tall…) but also notes she’s perfect for the job. Oh yeah, except she’s not male. But most people think she is, so she doesn’t let that change her mind. She’s shocked to hear Mr. Hong tell her he sold the cafe.

In CHAPTER 1, titled “ONE MONTH PRIOR, EUN CHAN’S 25th HOUR,” we’re introduced to Eun Chan’s family, her role as a Taekwondo instructor, and the other people in her life like Mr. Gu the butcher (and frustrated poet) and Mr. Hong.
We already know Eun Chan loves to eat, but I like little tidbits that show us a little more detail. For instance:
Her young Taekwondo students order pizza to eat in the studio after class, and invite Eun Chan to partake. However, when the pizza delivery arrives, Eun Chan feels embarrassed at letting the young kids pay for the meal (which they ordered when she wasn’t around), but at the same time doesn’t have money to spare, and pretends to be busy while the kids pay. Then, although she’s dying to eat up right away, she resists because if she didn’t pay, it would be kind of inappropriate for her to dive in, even though her student doesn’t mind sharing.
“The instructor did have pride. Eun Chan deliberately fussed around on her desktop. However, she could only hold out a few seconds, because of the pizza smell wafting through the air. On top of that, the children ate with such smacking sounds, she thought her ears would start drooling.
[…omitted…]
Seung Kyung took up a large slice and held it out to her. Ah, such a pretty little thing.”
Then, called away by Eun Sae (requesting the aid of her”oppa” to deal with an annoying, uncouth guy, Min Yub), Eun Chan arrives to engage in her jajangmyung-eating showdown with Min Yub:
“She ate with her face practically buried in the bowl, but her mouth remained undirtied. Eun Chan felt it would have been a waste of the jajang sauce to leave any on her face.”
Coming home, Eun Chan’s appetite is still unsatisfied and she digs around for some of her mother’s cooking — Eun Chan’s mother is a good cook of Western cuisine, particularly Italian (and she has a keen sense of smell). Eun Chan’s only complaint is that the portions are too small. Things come to a panicked halt when Eun Chan’s mother realizes she’s lost an expensive diamond ring borrowed from a friend. Crap.

 In Chapter 2, we first meet Han Gyul, who’s just returned to Korea after spending the past few years in the States. Almost immediately, he avoids his family, which also includes a dutiful older (married) brother who’s gone into the family company.
Han Gyul has a bit of a distant relationship with Han Sung, although it’s not necessarily bad:
“Of all of Han Gyul’s cousins, he was most comfortable with Han Sung. He was also the one with whom he would’ve been furthest apart, but he wasn’t prickly or awkward with him. … In a phrase, they were both the type who could be friends even as they fought.”
Instead of a strong-willed granny, however, Han Gyul is mostly at odds with his extremely demanding father. This time, the ultimatum his father delivers is to either enter the family company or get married. Han Gyul doesn’t want to enter the company:”It was scary and he disliked it. He had no desire to run onto that brutal, isolating, and harsh battle turf.” His mother delivers the order and gives him a day to decide which it’ll be: work for his father, or get married.
“He saw no escape. … The company or marriage? Why don’t they just tell him to die instead, dammit!”

  CHAPTER 3: “ISN’T THIS A SCAMMER’S SET-UP?”
First off, Eun Chan’s mother loses a 2 karat diamond ring of a friend when she tried it on briefly — the friend was called away from the meeting in a hurry, the mother didn’t have a chance to return the ring, and somehow, somewhere, lost it.
As a result, the family’s thrown into panic over what to do over such a large debt. With nothing else of value, Eun Chan’s mother considers selling her beautiful mink coat — the last remaining gift from Eun Chan’s father from better-off, bygone days. Eun Chan can’t allow that, however — her mother has already sold off all of the other items of value (jewelry, handbags) given to her by her husband. It made him happy to give his wife the mink — when she wore it, he felt at last he was able to fulfill his promise to treat her to luxury.
Eun Chan recalls her father’s death — injured in a car accident, she was by his side at the hospital, when he took her hand in his own bloodstained ones and asked her to promise to look after her mother and sister, as the new head of the household, so he can die in peace. (Might be a nice dad, but it’s kind of a dick move, isn’t it? Way to leave a soul-crushing burden on a loved one as you die just to ease your last few seconds of life. Her father otherwise gives no indication of being anything less than a lovely man, but I didn’t like this about him.)

Meanwhile, I don’t like Yu Ju here either, although my dislike of her is starting to wane (mostly cause I don’t care). But consider that her very first reaction after being mugged by Min Yub is:
“My handbag! I got that in Paris… what a waste.”
*_*
Still, we get a small sense of her and Han Gyul’s connection — they met when he was eight and she was ten.
At that time, if you’d asked Han Gyul what he hated most in the world, he would’ve said milk, piano, and his father. He was made to drink milk even though he insisted he was fine not growing any taller, and he hated being forced to play the piano even though he said he didn’t want to become a pianist. And most of all, he hated his father, who imposed his will on him. That day, his father had punished him for pouring milk over the piano he’d played for two years. Just then, a customer arrived, and he ran to his room in embarrassment. He was so ashamed, he couldn’t stop crying. At that moment, seeing Han Gyul, Yu Ju, who was tall, long-haired and played the piano well, entered.
“Hey, do you want to be my kid brother [dongsaeng]?”
What a strange girl, he thought.

Despite this somewhat sympathetic background info, I find the novel version of Han Gyul kind of assy. It’s amazing what casting does — the drama version of Han Gyul is supposed to be cold and inflexible too, but seeing an actor’s living, breathing interpretation of a character makes him more accessible. Sympathetic.
For instance, after Eun Chan goes out of her way to help Yu Ju in her purse-snatching incident (before finding out it’s Min Yub), instead of any gratitude or even civility, Han Gyul insults her scooter with a sneer:
“In what arts and crafts store do they sell these? … Do they even bother to repair these?”
Futhermore, he doesn’t actually see Eun Chan and Min Yub collude to steal the purse — he just makes that assumption because it seems possible. In order to trap Eun Chan, he promises her/him a hefty reward for her good services, and gives her his number (scrawled on the back of the photo of his prospective blind date, showing just what he thinks of that). He tells her to call, and although Eun Chan tries to turn him down, he dangles the promise of an offer she can’t refuse — an entire month’s salary.
Eun Chan would dearly love to throw his arrogant offer back in his face, but she looks at her mother’s mink, thinks of the ring, and swallows her pride to call Han Gyul. Han Gyul then has the audacity to be surprised she actually called, saying he didn’t think she would.
He directs her to his hotel: Room S11.

  CHAPTER 4: “What Happened in Room S11″
Han Gyul resumes his assholery right away as Eun Chan arrives at his VIP hotel room. The instant she steps inside, he tells her (sarcastically):
“Killer fashion sense you’ve got.”
Really? Eun Chan looked down at her clothes in puzzlement.
“Are those cleaning rags, or old scraps?”
Damn him!
At Han Gyul’s cold treatment, Eun Chan starts to think she made a mistake coming and makes a note of his physical appearance:

His eyes stretched sideways to look like Mashimaro [to your right], and they made an even triangle with the high bridge of his nose, while his upturned lips looked like Angelina Jolie’s. Whether it was from suntanning, his skin color all over was like a nicely broiled fish… Ah! Some broiled mackerel would be great. In any case, on the whole, he looked kind of slick, and irritating. He must’ve been about 5 foot 11 or so.

But still, she isn’t immune to his half-naked state of dress, as we can all imagine Mr. Gong Yoo similarly attired, even if she couches her reaction in annoyance:
What’s with him going topless? If he’s going to dress himself, he ought to do it fully. Not like this with only his jeans, and even then they were hanging perilously loosely to reveal his pelvis. Did he want to freeze to death? What kind of fashion is this?
Han Gyul does catch Eun Chan in an incriminating slip of the tongue when he asks how old the escaped criminal was (Min Yub), and she automatically answers that he’s twenty. Realizing she shouldn?t know that, she backtracks and says he looked like he was twenty, but that only confirms Han Gyul’s suspicions. He threatens to send her to the police station, and because Eun Chan is so insulted by him in general, she makes it a point not to correct his misconception that she’s male. It’s like her own little rebellion.
Eun Chan decides she’s had enough and turns to leave, but accidentally knocks into him with her shoulder as he’s taking a sip of water. The cup overturns and water spills all over Han Gyul:
Eun Chan stretched out her hand. Her intention was to dry the water from his chest. So without even realizing, she found her hand reaching out to wipe the water. However, the moment her fingers touched his skin, the strangeness of their pose struck her. The man looked at her, startled, and at the same time Eun Chan stiffened. At that moment, a shriek sounded.
“Oh my god! What in the world…?”
With her hand touching the man’s chest, Eun Chan turned her head. There stood a woman with a dumbfounded expression, with her two hands raised to her mouth.
“Wh…what are you doing? A-a-and… with a man!”

We then jump straight to Han Gyul’s matchmaking date with a perfectly proper but oh-so-dull woman. As planned, Eun Chan arrives and sits nearby, and Han Gyul makes it a point to stare fixedly at Eun Chan, to discomfit his date. But in doing so, he notices Eun Chan’s features……
He couldn’t be more than about 5 foot 8 or 9. White skin, round eyes, unusually red lips. He looked like the lead singer of a pop idol group he’d seen somewhere. These days, guys who were so pretty they could be mistaken for girls at first glance were all the rage. Go Eun Chan was that type. If he’d only sit still and keep his mouth shut, he’d have a splendid air about him. What a waste of his good looks. Dick would drool if he saw him.
It seems Dick is a gay friend of Han Gyul from the States (all inferred, not explained as of yet), and hello, Obviously Suggestive Name!
Han Gyul’s date finally asks the question, wondering who Eun Chan is, and Han Gyul excuses himself to say hello. Although the twosome appear to meet on friendly terms, underneath the show, Eun Chan and Han Gyul bicker, as Han Gyul initiates Step 1. Eun Chan prepares herself and puts on her game face:
Han Gyul placed his hand on Eun Chan’s arm, resting atop the table. Just like affectionate lovers.
“Smile, man.”
“This isn’t something to smile about.”
Han Gyul smiled weakly. As he moved his torso forward a bit to close the distance between them, Eun Chan’s crooked smile distorted even more.
“Are you a pervert?”
“Are you fooling around?”
Despite their bickering, they keep up the act, and Han Gyul gives Eun Chan instructions about Step 2, and gets ready to leave.
Before standing, Han Gyul reached over with his hand to stroke Eun Chan’s hair. In an instant, he stopped. That wasn’t in the plan……
Han Gyul returns to his date, who’s clearly unsettled but too polite to say anything. Strangely, his hand feels an odd sensation from touching Eun Chan on the head, and thinks how black and smooth and soft his hair was. But why did he touch Eun Chan’s head? He tries to convince himself it was to keep up appearances. Yeah. That’s it.
Han Gyul also watches Eun Chan eating away enthusiastically, with a happy smile as she packs it away:
Thanks to him [Eun Chan], it was even more tedious watching his date eat. She’d cut up her tiny steak, much smaller than the size of her fist, into 2-percent pieces.
At an appointed time, Eun Chan rises, knocking over a water glass loudly in the process. Han Gyul races to her side to ask with concern if she’s okay. With effort, the two “act” their way through the lovers’ quarrel, and Eun Chan bursts out:
“Go, get lost! You don’t have to worry about me anymore. We…we’re over, you jerk!”
She pushes him aside and walks off, leaving Han Gyul calling after her with sadness, “Chan! Chan!”

After this incident, Eun Chan returns to her normal activities, like teaching Taekwondo. She even receives an entire stash of chocolates from high school girls on Valentine’s Day. I think her student Seung Kyung has a crush on her, because when Eun Chan asks who the girls were who brought the chocolates, she tells her: “I don?t know, but they were really ugly, fat, and probably stupid.”
Eun Chan gets a call from Eun Sae’s teacher informing her that her sister’s once again gotten into trouble, and Eun Chan readies to find (and kill) Eun Sae, turning down offers of free meat (to her everlasting dismay) because her female admirers want to take her out. However, she’s interrupted by a phone call from Han Gyul. Without preamble or explanation, Han Gyul orders Eun Chan to meet him (he’s on another date) in ten minutes flat. Eun Chan tries to turn him down, saying she’s in an urgent situation, but he doesn’t care and orders her to come. Now.
Pissed off at his cavalier attitude, Eun Chan fumes as she storms out, muttering how she’ll go, but he’d better watch out! On her way out, she gives a few furious kicks to the brick wall. Her exit leaves her admirers sighing in her wake:
“Did you see, did you see? Wow, he’s so cool!”
“He’s awesome. He’s so tough. Such charisma!”
“Oh, our Chan! My love Chan!”

  CHAPTER 5: “Can’t Disappoint the Witch”
So Eun Chan is angrily on her way to see Han Gyul, who’d so officiously demanded her presence at a certain party at the last minute. As it’s Valentine’s Day, the party is for singles, but also serves as a de facto welcome-back-to-Korea gathering for Han Gyul.
At the party, he’s harassed by his friend’s little sister Ye Rang, whom he dubs the Anaconda for her voracious man-eating personality. I’d left her out of a previous chapter because it seemed a pretty small point, but essentially she’s obsessed with Han Gyul. When he wakes up from a night out with her in his hotel room, she claims they slept together. He insists he didn’t touch her, but he’s inwardly a teeny bit worried that he might have even though it’s likely she’s lying. But because she’s his friend’s sister, he’s worried she’ll spread the gossip and cause trouble for him.
Anyway, Ye Rang keeps pestering him and it occurs to Han Gyul that he can kill two birds with one stone. Or, rather, with one issue (that he’s gay), he can rid himself of two women (his blind date and Ye Rang). So he calls Eun Chan to the party.
Arriving, Eun Chan forcefully tells Han Gyul she’s done with their arrangement, and Han Gyul agrees: “Today’s the last day of this show. We’ll finish this decisively today…” That suits Eun Chan, though Han Gyul doesn’t divulge the plan slowly forming in his head…
All right! Today, he’d do it definitively. In front of all these people, he’d have his coming out. With such loose lips, there’d be no reason to hold back and the rumors would fly. Although his old man would flip out hearing about it, he wouldn’t have to deal with clinging women for at least a few years. This was a lucky chance.
“Han Gyul pushed over a glass of tequila. Eun Chan, bewildered at the situation she found herself in, accepted it. Han Gyul clinked his glass to Eun Chan’s and tossed back the liquor. He’d borrow some strength from alcohol in order to loosen his nerves. Eun Chan felt the same anxiety. Han Gyul remembered the time in Seattle when his openly gay friend Dick had grabbed him in a sudden kiss. You could say he thought the kiss wasn’t horrible.
Just then, the partygoers start up a game called the witch game, where a man and a woman basically groove on each other onstage and one gives the other a lapdance. The “game” gives them an opportunity to play the roles of tyrant and witch (it’s okay to be skanky if you’re “acting” as a witch?). After one couple goes, Ye Rang goes up onstage and announces her partner: Choi Han Gyul. He turns her down as unsuitable and is in turned named the witch, and told to pick his lady partner.
Sulky and bitter, Ye Rang comes up with an idea to stick it to Han Gyul. She looks around the room and sees the guy with Han Gyul, and calls out slyly, “The partner doesn’t strictly have to be a female, does it?” Ye Rang points to Eun Chan and says, “That guy over there.” The crowd stops for a second, then (somewhat jokingly) reacts with excitement and calls out for a kiss.
Han Gyul looked at Ye Rang, who was giving him a look that said, “Come on, see if you can try it,” and gave her his thanks. This was going better than he’d thought. This way would be a hundred times better than presenting Eun Chan, shabbily dressed like some idol star, and saying, “Actually, I’m gay.” Since it was a game, it wouldn’t seem artificially planned, but the effect would linger. It would leave people wondering if he was gay, but provide no definite answer. The rumors would run even wilder.
Han Gyul put his game face on and spoke in a low voice to Eun Chan.
“Show time.”
Han Gyul gets onstage and tells Eun Chan to come up, inciting excited murmurs through the crowd:
“Is he really gonna do it?”
“Wow, he’s so cute. I just want to bite him!”
“Look at those cheeks. I think I’ve seen that guy around somewhere. Is he in Dong Bang Shin Ki?”
“Who’s that guy? I haven’t seen him before.”
“I dunno. He must be Choi Han Gyul’s sweetheart.”
“Sweetheart? Is that a girl, or a guy? That bastard sure is pretty.”
Eun Chan’s stunned, while Han Gyul starts feeling nervous. He’s only ever kissed a guy once, and that was a surprise kiss from a friend. “Dammit. What if he threw up?”
Han Gyul catches Ye Rang’s eye and sees that she suspects he’s just putting on a show. He realizes he’d better go all-out, because if he doesn’t, it won’t be convincing and he might wind up in the hands of the Anaconda. He’ll just go for it.
Casting aside his misgivings, he grabbed Eun Chan’s head and pulled it toward himself. Eun Chan had gone stiff, and he pressed his lips to hers.
Amid the catcalls of the crowd, Han Gyul has a wayward thought:
Whoa, he’s soft.
Without realizing it, Han Gyul’s hand had naturally made its way to Eun Chan’s waist to pull her to him. The hand holding Eun Chan’s head held on even tighter. At Han Gyul’s increased pressure, Eun Chan pulled her waist away, little by little. Unconsciously, Han Gyul cocked his head, fitting his lips to hers like perfectly matched gears. He kept moving his lips softly against hers. Stillness hung in the air, as silent as though someone had pulled the pin out of a grenade. The kiss, which was deeper than anyone had expected, had frozen everyone still.
Forgetting everything about his surroundings, Han Gyul found himself engrossed in the kiss. Suddenly, Eun Chan’s eyes flew open like they’d fall out of their sockets. The instant Han Gyul met her eyes, he was struck with the realization. He’d pushed his tongue in her mouth.

CHAPTER 6: “Would You Like Some Bubble Wrap?”
Han Sung still harbors antipathy toward Yu Ju for the way she left him three years ago — she broke things off while they were engaged. When she calls to ask him to meet, she merely says, “I have something to say to you. Let’s meet there.” Han Sung’s bitter reaction to that:
Han Sung hated the fact that the “there” she spoke of still existed. Even if it was still there, Han Sung had had to erase it from his memory. But that “there” still existed, like it always had. Just as he remembered.
He doesn’t want to, but goes to the bar anyway; Yu Ju’s news is that she’s been offered a position working at the Dong Yi Group’s art gallery by Han Sung’s grandmother — Dong Yi Group being his family’s company. Han Sung finds himself growing angry at her just being there, and treats her coldly and harshly. (Not that she doesn’t deserve it.)
For instance, she tries to maintain a civil conversation, but he cuts it short, saying rather carelessly, “If you’re done talking, you can leave.” She asks if he has plans, and he says he does. She says, getting up to leave:
“You could ask me once how I’ve been.”
Han Sung looked up at the now-standing Yu Ju.
“However angry you are, however much you’re disappointed or hate me, you could think of the time we spent together and ask me that.”
“I could. But I don’t want to.”
“Why not?”
“It’s a waste of time.”
Hurt and disappointed, Yu Ju’s words grow heated as she tells him she thought that when she left, he’d at least call to ask why, and where, she was going. She knows he must’ve been angry that she jilted him (you think?), and she didn’t expect him to hold onto her, to hold her back, but she thought he’d say something. But he never once called, he never once came looking for her. (It’s called dignity, honey. Even when you’ve tried to do your best to trample on it.)
Despite Yu Ju’s tears, Han Sung looks at her without any expression and says:
“I went to the airport. Nobody was pushing you to go. You walked with your own legs and left. And how easily they did.”

After Yu Ju leaves, Han Sung meets with one of the company’s trustees, and we get the skinny on the family situation. Han Sung’s father inherited the company from Han Sung’s grandfather, being his eldest son, making Han Sung the next successor. However, when his father died, his younger brother (Han Gyul’s father, Han Sung’s uncle) stirred up dissent among the corporate board, and in the end the company was handed over to Han Gyul’s father. Now, Han Sung runs one branch of the company, heading their manufacturing, while Han Gyul’s mother and older brother oversee the vast majority of the enterprise, which is in the food service industry. Han Sung feels this is unfair, and has been biding his time, observing and lining up his ducks in a row. He’s got something up his sleeve.

After the trustee leaves, Han Sung downs his Chivas Regal, drinking more than usual because of his agitation over seeing Yu Ju. He notices an employee carrying out a drunken male patron on her back, breathing heavily from the exertion of holding up someone twice her own weight. He likens it to a fox carrying a bear, and finds it amusing.
Getting his bill, he leaves, but finds on his way out that the ground isn’t as level as he’d thought. Or rather, he’s drunker than he thought. The employee offers her assistance, holding his arm as he walks out. Han Sung notes her appearance, and wonders if it’s because he’s drunk that she looks like a (good-looking) boy.
Han Sung suddenly feels ill, and vomits on the ground. Eun Chan fetches him some water and they sit while he collects himself. They chat, and Eun Chan talks freely about herself — how it’s only her second day on the job, but she’d broken so many dishes and plates that she was told not to come back anymore. She sighs that nothing seems to be going right these days. Her mother lost a ring, her sister’s getting into trouble at school to get money to enroll in singing classes, her Taekwondo classes have been losing students, and even her bike won’t cooperate when she goes on her early-morning milk deliveries.
She’s been politely calling him “Sir” (more literally, “guest” or “patron”), but when he offers her a cigarette, she says, “No thanks, but ajusshi, go ahead if you like.” Han Sung thinks:
She switches from “sir” to “ajusshi” naturally, she grumbles about her troubles unreservedly to a stranger. What an interesting girl.
Eun Chan also grumbles on about someone to whom she does not attribute a name, calling him “the worst kind of perverted caterpillar-like punk.” Han Sung wonders what she’s talking about, and she goes off on her rant:
“Ajusshi, have you ever seen a caterpillar? I saw one once when I was a kid, while digging up cabbages in the garden in front of our house. I wasn’t too startled, but it was really disgusting. But that guy — he was just like that caterpillar. And he was a total pervert. Crazy bastard. Agh! Pain in the ass!”
She makes a spitting noise. As she talks, she holds some kind of plastic in her hands. “Whenever she swore, it made a loud, pop! pop! snapping sound.”
Han Sung looks at it, curious:
“Is that fun?”
“Hm? Oh, the bubble wrap?”
“Bubble wrap?”
“Yes. Do you want to try it with me? This is the best for relieving stress.”

   CHAPTER 7: “Good Dogs Don’t Rebel”
Now that Han Gyul has decided to take on the Coffee Prince cafe, he instructs Manager Hong to interview potential employees according to his stringent requirements. Manager Hong thinks Han Gyul is out of his mind — he wants to hire three employees to work in this minuscule cafe? He’s even more surprised when the employment notice turns out a fair amount of applicants. The resultant situation resembles auditions for movie roles more than a part-time cafe job.
Still, he picks out three satisfactory guys, then finds out from Han Gyul that there will be four — the last one is Eun Chan. Manager Hong remembers Eun Chan’s vitriolic reaction to the mention of Han Gyul (presumably after the kiss): “That he was a pervert, that he was a disgusting jerk, that he’d better be afraid to meet him in his dreams. It was the first time he’d seen someone’s face so shuddering with dislike. But to think she’d work under this guy? It seemed absurd.”
Han Gyul lists his reasons for hiring Eun Chan:
“He’s a little on the short side, but I can use him, since he’s got a face women’ll love. I’ve watched for a few days and it seems like this place’ll do well with females in their twenties and thirties. People who sit drinking coffee in cafes are mostly women, so we can assume that will be our clientele. Young and good-looking male employees are just the type that these women prefer, and are comfortable conversing with. Go Eun Chan fits right in. Since he’s a metrosexual.”
Manager Hong doubts Eun Chan will agree, but Han Gyul tells him to call Eun Chan and say he still has their “slave contract” and will be enforcing it. Although Manager Hong doesn’t understand the full situation, he feels sorry for Eun Chan and tries to induce Han Gyul’s sympathies by bringing up Eun Chan’s hard life. She (or rather, “he”) has been head of his family since his last year of high school. Father died in a car accident, mother’s rather senseless, racking up tons of credit card debt, and younger sister’s just like the mother. Eun Chan works multiple jobs to take care of everyone.
Han Gyul asks about his extended family (doesn’t seem to have any), and whether he really teaches Taekwondo (yes) instead of food delivery (she does both, and milk delivery too). Han Gyul muses, “Then, he’d probably do any kind of work for money.” He asks if he’d do anything unscrupulous like thievery, and Manager Hong is emphatic — Eun Chan’s absolutely not that kind of person.
After the deliberately ruined blind date, Han Gyul was summoned by his enraged father, who had heard all the rumors. His father had let his fiery temper loose, while his mother had caught on and pretended it couldn’t have been true. But in any case, thanks to Go Eun Chan, he wouldn’t have to deal with those incessant dates.
What, a pervert, a caterpillar? Punk, who says it wasn’t disgusting for me either?
Han Gyul thought back to that incident and smirked.
Well, it was a pretty crazy thing to do. Why’d that go in his mouth, dammit? Not even Dick had used tongue. But why’d his tongue go in his mouth? Damn it to hell.
Go Eun Chan had reason enough to be surprised. He admitted it. That’s why he took all the abuse Eun Chan had heaped on him.
Han Gyul has made a deal with his grandmother to run Coffee Prince: “If you triple the sales in three months, you can do whatever you want. Whether that’s playing basketball, or wandering around the world for the rest of your life, I won’t say a word. … But if you don’t, you have to come into the company.”

Meanwhile, Eun Chan hears the message that Han Gyul still has their contract and reacts with fury. He was supposed to rip it up when they finished their agreement! She bursts into the Coffee Prince, ready to give him a piece of her mind. But Han Gyul merely tells her to be quiet and listen. He gives the newly employed Coffee Princes an introductory speech, and Eun Chan notices how good-looking everyone is. First off is Nak Gyun:
The guy wearing the black horn-rimmed glasses spoke up. Eun Chan caught a glimpse of him and gulped. What’s this? Who’s that guy? Why is he so handsome? Ah, geez. I can’t meet his gaze.
Then, Ha Rim:
This time, it was the yellow-haired guy who spoke. His voice was extremely energetic and bright. She found herself automatically looking over at him. With his bright yellow hair, enormous eyes, and small face, he was the most radiant guy Eun Chan had ever seen in person.
And lastly, there’s Sun Ki:
He was right next to Eun Chan, but she couldn’t dare turn to look at him. Even just taking a look by moving her eyes a little made her heart thump. For a while, she’d been conscious of his wonderful scent. On top of that, he had that shiny black hair. Ah, I’m dying! Is he even human? The ridge of his nose is art. He’s like a sculpture. I wonder if this is what it feels like when you see a movie star. Hell, what star did this good-looking trio come from?
Finally, Eun Chan faces the stoic Han Gyul, preparing as though for combat. She demands to know why their contract is still around, and Han Gyul admits he doesn’t have it. So is Eun Chan gonna work for him or not? She turns him down flatly.
“That time, on Valentine’s Day, we mutually agreed to end everything. Even if we happened to cross paths, we’d pretend not to know each other…”
“Then pretend you don’t know me. That’ll work.”
Eun Chan tells him how just thinking of their last meeting makes her nauseous, and that she’s been haunted by nightmares because of him. Han Gyul tells her to forget his offer, then, and gets in his car to leave. At that moment, Eun Chan realizes maybe she ought to be practical — she’s just kicked away a job that rolled right into her path. With the Taekwondo studio losing students, the owner had decided to close shop and return to the countryside. And now, she’s just thrown away a hope that had dropped right into her lap. She gets in his car and asks if he’ll stop thinking of her as a thief now, and they go on an errand to look for kitchenwares.
On the way, a reckless driver cuts them off, inciting the excitable Eun Chan into a competitive spirit. She spurs Han Gyul on to regain the lead, to show that punk who’s boss, and they weave in and out of traffic in an ego contest. When Han Gyul slips through a yellow light that the other car gets stuck behind, they high-five and Eun Chan rejoices, hooting with laughter.
At Bon China, the luxury kitchenware supply store, Eun Chan looks around in wonderment, not even aware such places existed. Han Gyul inspects various items with meticulous attention, surprising Eun Chan with his seriousness. (Cutely, she sees a price tag in alarm and tries to warn Han Gyul — does he realize how expensive that coffee cup is? Telling him not to be too alarmed, she informs him It’s not 12 dollars, it’s 120! A hundred! Twenty!)
She asks him, “Do you have that much money?” and Han Gyul knows her well enough to know the best way to deflect her attention:
“Let’s go have lunch.”
Ooh, food!

As they leave the store, inside which Eun Chan has been too afraid to touch anything lest she break it, they ride in an elevator with an arguing couple. The spoiled girl pouts to her guy that her mother would have paid for everything, but clearly the guy has put his foot down — if he doesn’t buy it, they’re not getting such ridiculously expensive kitchenware. He tries to tell her to calm down and be quiet, but the girl keeps whining.
In the underground parking lot, Han Gyul is already seated in his driver’s seat when Eun Chan, lagging behind, turns around at the sound of quickly approaching footsteps, and BAM! Something crashes into her. It’s the other girl. Although Eun Chan’s physical training allows her to remain standing, the girl sprawls flat on the ground. Worried, Eun Chan asks if she’s okay — and from a distance, her pissed-off boyfriend storms at her: “What the hell are you touching, bastard?”
Without giving her a chance to react, he punches Eun Chan in the eye and she falls to the ground.
“What are you doing? What the hell?!”
Oh, that voice! Surprised, Eun Chan got right up. And she couldn’t believe the scene in front of her eyes. Wasn’t that him, that guy slamming his car door with enough force to crumple it, running toward her?
“You bastard, what are you bitching about? Who touched who?”
So now, in times like these, he shows his chivalrous side. Eun Chan rushed at him and held him back at the waist.
“Ajusshi!”
Luckily, his fist just connected with empty air.
“Let go of me, punk!”
Shouting, Eun Chan held tight to the enraged Han Gyul. He really looked nearly insane. Not at all like a well-bred pedigree dog.
“Run away quickly! Before I let go!”
“Stay right there! You can’t just piss me off and run away like that!”
“Come on! Get a grip, ajusshi!”
Her eye hurt like hell. Dammit.

   CHAPTER 8: “ESPRESSO — Coffee That Gives Me Courage to Stand Up to the Boss”
For once, we pick up right where we left off — Han Gyul fuming over the belligerent stranger who’d punched Eun Chan in the face. He’s so worked up that even Eun Chan finds it out of the ordinary. When he takes it out on her, telling her to shut up before he loses it, she protests.
“I was the one who got hit, so why are you the one who’s so angry? That guy was a hundred times more in the wrong than me, and I could’ve settled things on my own anyway…”
“Hey! You punk! If you could settle it, why do you have a raccoon eye, huh?”
But Han Gyul slowly calms down, and asks if Eun Chan is okay. She says she is, but he doesn’t buy it, saying she’ll get a black eye — it’s a good thing the cafe hasn’t opened yet, because she’d scare off business.
Psh. I thought he was concerned about me. But of course he’s just worried about business.
Just then, Han Gyul gets a call from a friend insisting he join them at a friend’s vacation home on the resort-filled Jeju Island. Although Han Gyul is reluctant, his interest is piqued when his friend mentions the presence of a former Miss World contestant, who’s got a killer body, and is educated to boot. Han Gyul: “What time was the flight again?”
Han Gyul forces Eun Chan out of the car, leaving her streetside with instructions to take a taxi back, reneging on their lunch plans. Eun Chan can only yell in vain protest after his departing car. Looks like he’s pretty straight to me.

Eun Chan chats with the butcher Mr. Gu, who’s heard that Eun Chan’s going to be working at the Coffee Prince with that strange new owner. Mr. Gu expresses doubt over Eun Chan being able to fool everyone into thinking she’s male, and she points out that most people think she is anyway. Even Mr. Hong thought she was a guy for a year — and the only reason he found out was when he saw her emerge from the ladies’ bathroom and kicked up a fuss. If she’s just careful with bathroom situations, she’s confident she’ll be fine.
However, Mr. Gu points out that the Coffee Prince is bound to be a failure — it’s a tiny shop, and employing four guys will eat up their profits. Although Eun Chan protests over his negativity, his comment bothers her, and she wonders if Han Gyul has some ulterior motive. If he doesn’t make money, how will he pay his workers?
She brings it up with the other Coffee Princes while they oblige Han Gyul’s instructions to taste-test their varieties of espresso. The others aren’t that worried over Han Gyul’s reasons — they’re workers, they do as they’re told. They figure that, judging from Han Gyul’s expensive car and designer-label wardrobe, he’s just running the cafe to alleviate some rich-boy boredom.
Eun Chan looks over at Ha Rim’s cell phone, which has pictures of him and Sun Ki modeling the various uniform choices:
Anything the two of them wore looked great, just like they were real models. Eun Chan saw the picture and held back a small sigh. It bothered her.
Will I be able to be a part of this Pretty Boy Project or whatever it is? Honestly, I’m a little on the short side, and that famous face picture of me on the Internet was one Eun Sae had Photoshopped.

Meanwhile, Han Gyul actually has a strategy for winning over his employees, which seems to be working — if he entrusts them with tasks, they’ll feel personally invested in the success of the cafe. That’s why he tells them to pick uniforms, taste the coffee, etc. They’re in the middle of one such discussion while eating together — all except Eun Chan, who’s focused solely on (what else?) meat.
Han Gyul goes around asking for everyone’s opinion on uniform colors, and when he gets to Eun Chan, he thinks:
Everyone’s got their own taste. Would Eun Chan suggest pink? If Eun Chan wore a pink shirt, he’d look like cotton candy. Han Gyul imagined the sight and laughed to himself before stopping short. It was because the memory of the Valentine’s Day nightmare had resurfaced. But the subject of his thoughts was preoccupied eating his meat.
He calls Eun Chan’s name, but dismisses her from the discussion, seeing as she’s not paying any attention. Everyone else votes for white, while Ha Rim is the lone dissenter who’d like red.
“Is Ha Rim the only one who wants red?”
At that, Ha Rim poked Eun Chan’s side, who sat next to him munching away. Not knowing what she was participating in, she raised a hand holding a chile pepper.
Then, when a cell phone rings, everyone automatically reaches for their phones… and when the ringing doesn’t stop, they look to Eun Chan, who’s busy: “Shoving a lettuce wrap into her mouth with one hand, Eun Chan took out her phone and turned it off without even looking at it.” When asked why she didn’t answer, Manager Hong explains that Eun Chan doesn’t answer the phone while eating. We also witness the scene of Eun Chan eating meat off the floor, explaining that it’s a waste when they can just put it back on the grill to recook it.
At that disgusting sight, Manager Hong explains how Eun Chan is famous for a school trip where everyone got food poisoning from seafood and had to go to the hospital. Eun Chan was the only one unaffected — and not only that, while friends were lying in agony in hospital beds, Eun Chan finished off every last bit of the food.
Han Gyul addressed the giggling Ha Rim.
“Keep close watch over him. Make sure he doesn’t eat a coffee cup.”

After a few drinks, a happily drunk Ha Rim crawls around the table, trying to kiss everyone on the cheek. He gets Manager Hong, figures he won’t be able to take Nak Gyun, and goes after Sun Ki who does his best to hold Ha Rim at bay. Eun Chan looks up at the last minute and sees Ha Rim approach in surprise.
For some reason, Han Gyul had a wayward thought. Seeing Ha Rim approach Eun Chan, he wanted to take his head and snatch it away.
Even Ha Rim is surprised when his lips and Eun Chan’s happen to meet (he was going for everyone’s cheek).
Everyone stared in astonishment, and even Ha Rim’s eyes opened wide in surprise. Han Gyul wanted to give the back of Ha Rim’s head a good whack. His mood soured and he grew angry. He hated the sight of the two of them stuck together. His mind was saying, “This isn’t right” while his chest was saying, “Those lips are mine!”
Eun Chan starts yelling at Ha Rim, attracting the attention of the other diners, so the quickest thing to calm her down is —
“Chan.”
“What?!”
“The meat’s burning.”
With that one sentence, the situation was over. Eun Chan, who’d been shouting so loudly as to make everyone in the restaurant stare, quietly sat back down as though nothing had happened and flipped the meat on the grill. Han Gyul lost his appetite. He felt like tearing off that guy’s head.

After dinner, Han Gyul notices women’s reactions to the four good-looking Coffee Princes and thinks maybe business will be all right. He takes everyone to a cafe and makes them order a different coffee drink (for learning purposes), and quizzes the guys on their espresso-tasting earlier that day, but nobody has a very good understanding of coffee.
Han Gyul tells Manager Hong it would behoove him to learn more about coffee, which is insulting since Manager Hong has been in the business for ten years and takes pride in his great-tasting coffee drinks. Han Gyul is shocked that nobody knows what a barista is, and tells Manager Hong to do his best for now because he’ll be out of the cafe in three months, once Coffee Prince has tripled sales. The guys wonder why, and he explains, “I made a bet with someone.”
He explains that he has no intention of continuing the cafe and will sell it back to Manager Hong at its original price. Surprisingly, Eun Chan grows angry to hear about the bet and her temper flares:
“You perverted caterpillar-like son of a bitch! How superior do you think you are? Just a month ago you were an unemployed loafer, and now with some money you think you can just treat people like they’re insignificant?! You say you’ll triple sales? That’s playing around with money, not skill! You think Mr. Hong can’t do as well as you? … Who are you to test everyone and keep tabs? You piece of garbage!”

  CHAPTER 9: “There’s No Vienna Coffee in Vienna”
After blowing up at Han Gyul about his attitude toward the cafe, Eun Chan spends the night beating herself up about it. If only she’d kept her mouth shut, if only she didn’t talk back to the boss…
She walks into the Coffee Prince with her eyes averted, dreading the inevitable encounter with Han Gyul. She’s worried all night, and comes in looking haggard and tired. To her surprise, he’s nowhere to be seen. According to Manager Hong, he won’t be coming in today. She tries to ask if Han Gyul said anything regarding her, and Manager Hong merely gives her some tasks, then adds:
“Still, the boss isn’t a horrible person.”
“Why not?”
“He said you were spouting nonsense because you’re a weak drinker, and it was the liquor talking, so we should cut you some slack.”
Eun Chan pricked up her ears and looked at him.
“And so?”
“He says he’ll have to do some taming.”
“Huh? Tame what?”
“He said he knows a good method for training bad-tempered dogs.”
“A dog? So he’s saying I’m a dog?!”

Seeing Nak Gyun and Ha Rim getting along better, and the taciturn Sun Ki smiling, Eun Chan wishes she could appreciate the sight more:
Ah, my heart! I should be in heaven, to be stuck between these three handsome guys, but ah, why am I so sleepy?
Eun Sae and her school friends drop by Coffee Prince, calling Eun Chan “oppa” and being all sorts of annoying. They ooh and ahh over the three other hot young men, gushing about their good looks. Eun Sae whispers to Eun Chan and uses the word “unni,” which freaks Eun Chan out because she’s afraid of being overheard. Heart thumping at the idea of being discovered, she shoos the girls out.
Meanwhile, the troublemaker Min Yub also drops by to challenge Eun Chan once again. This time he won’t settle for a measly eating battle, and demands that Eun Chan fight him. She tells him that as a Taekwondo master, she won’t use her skills in such a frivolous manner, and proposes a fighting-game battle instead. Min Yub takes up the challenge, but quickly loses. To his credit, he accepts his loss with grim silence and zooms off on his motorcycle.

We get a good look into Han Gyul’s psychology as his older brother sits him down for a talk one morning (they both live in the same luxurious house with their parents). His brother, Han Kyu, tells him to come into the company, which Han Gyul doesn’t care to hear. He tells his brother that he’s made a deal with their grandmother and he’ll be sticking to it. Besides, he has no business going into the company — he lays out his unsatisfactory education, saying he went to the States to party and have fun and meet girls. He hardly got any studying done. Who’d want a guy like him in the company anyway?
Han Kyu says one name — Chris Choi — and startles Han Gyul. He’s the top earner at the investment banking firm Morgan Stanley. He doesn’t outright say it, but it’s clear that Han Gyul has been hiding his business acumen from his family, preferring to appear careless and untalented.
“So there was a reason Grandfather favored you. When we were young, don’t you remember him asking us all those questions when he was bored? Like, what would you do if you have a thousand won [a dollar] but wanted to buy hundred-thousand-won [$100] skates? Whenever all us cousins got together, he’d invariably ask those questions. Do you remember what your answer was?”
“I don’t know, can’t think of it.”
“You said Grandma would buy them for you, since your birthday was coming up. So with your thousand won, you’d buy the helicopter you wanted.”
“I made such an ordinary answer?”
“But Grandfather liked it. Said you were a guy who didn’t want to part with either your thousand won or the skates. No matter how much you say you aren’t anything to the company, Grandfather always had you in mind. Whenever he drank and the topic of his successor came up, he said, ‘Only Choi Han Gyul will do’ and the mood would become strained. Younger Uncle, the cousins, even the shareholders know this. That’s why you’re needed right now.”
Han Gyul brushes his brother off, who tries to make another appeal, saying Han Sung seems to be up to something. At Han Gyul’s indifference, his brother bursts out, “Punk, Dad might even be investigated!” Han Gyul sardonically notes that there are lots of things their Dad might get caught for — tax evading, slush funds, dummy accounts. He says given how their father took over the company after their uncle’s death (Han Sung’s father), “Han Sung has reason enough to be resentful.”
Han Kyu accuses Han Gyul of taking the wrong side, and Han Gyul rather maturely answers that there’s no such thing as sides when they’re all family. They all share blood — but he thinks to himself, “Except me.”
He’d overheard his parents arguing years ago, and came to understand that he was adopted from some poor, pitiable life in the countryside.
I think this has everything to do with why Han Gyul is resisting the company and has been living as a frivolous indolent, playing around and not caring to work. He doesn’t feel he belongs in the family company and won’t take his place there. Aside from the possibility that it honestly isn’t his cup of tea (or coffee), he doesn’t feel he has the right.

At the cafe, Han Gyul continues to train his Coffee Princes in learning more about coffee. He’s gratified to see everyone starting to show their newfound knowledge. The title of this chapter comes loosely from the fact that his drink demonstration here is on how to make a proper cafe Vienna. All are gathered around, except for Eun Chan, whom they seem to have lost while the guys were out handing out promotional flyers. They just figure she’s probably out eating somewhere.
Leaving the cafe, Han Gyul drives his car through the rain, and practically has a heart attack when a dark figure appears in front of his car. He slams on the brakes, heart thundering, and gets out to see if he hit anything. There Eun Chan crouches, picking something up from the ground. She looks up and apologizes. Recognizing her face, Han Gyul yells at her for being careless, awash in relief and growing anger at the near-miss.
Han Gyul sees the flyers in Eun Chan’s hands and asks if she’s been out all this time, handing them out. She says no, she finished that.
“Then what?”
“But those people just threw them out on the streets. I thought it might look bad for our cafe’s image, so I picked them up. We put so much effort into planning this. We used the best paper and made it all nice, so it’s such a waste. We should dry these and hand them out again tomorrow.”
“So you mean you’ve been walking around in this rain all this time, picking those up?”
At that moment, Han Gyul stared intently at the rain-soaked Eun Chan. Seeing his soaked hair and face, he felt a strange feeling. An impulse that he shouldn’t be feeling, a heavy lump in his chest that made him want to give him a hug, suddenly arose.
“Geez, you dummy.”
In an effort to hide this strange feeling, Han Gyul exaggerated his rebuke.
Han Gyul orders Eun Chan into his car. When she declines, saying she has to go home for dinner, he tells her he’ll buy her food, and hands her a towel from his trunk (from going swimming the day before) to dry off. She smells cologne on the towel and balks when he says he used it, although he insists it’s clean.
Han Gyul snatched the towel from the grimacing Eun Chan and carelessly rubbed it over her hair.
“Ah! I’ll do it myself.”
“Stay still. Don’t even think about complaining how you can’t come to work because you caught a cold. I’ll fire you right away.”
“I won’t catch cold over that… Hey!”
“Anyway, you’ve got really thick hair. Dry it off completely.”
Han Gyul handed over the towel and started the car, and drove toward the hotel. The fingers grasping the steering wheel tingled again. Every time he touched that guy’s hair, it was like electricity was flowing……

  CHAPTER 10: “Lemon Coffee for a Hangover”
After nearly hitting Eun Chan with his car in the rain, Han Gyul takes her with him to dry off and get something to eat. She initially thinks to decline and make a fast getaway when Han Gyul notes she has no facial hair, fine (though abundant) hair, and no Adam’s apple, but Han Gyul impatiently tells her to follow along.
They arrive at his special VIP quarters at the hotel, Room S11, where Han Gyul tosses her some clothes and tells her to wash off. Inside the luxurious bathroom, she showers and changes, disgruntled to find that the waist of the pants fits hers perfectly.
Unwilling to believe they have the same size waist, she asks leadingly:
“Are these pants from your high school days?”
“I graduated from high school ages ago. You think I’d still wear the same clothes?”
“Then, are they too small for you to wear?”
“Hey kid, if you want to keep them, just say you want to keep them. What kind of guy beats around the bush like that? I won’t wear them anyway after you’ve worn them, so take ‘em.”
Han Gyul orders an expensive gourmet dinner from the hotel’s Italian restaurant, named My Ex-Wife’s Secret Recipe. Eun Chan dives in: “There was a ton of expensive and delicious-looking food on the tabletop. But she didn’t bother worrying about where to start eating, since she was gonna eat it all anyway.”
Eating steak and drinking wine, Eun Chan starts feeling relaxed and languid: “The feeling wasn’t bad, it was nice and comfortable.”
Eun Chan and Han Gyul have an interesting conversation that reveals both of their mentalities. She asks why he isn’t interested in marriage — is he a misogynist? Han Gyul responds plainly:
“Why would I hate women? How would I handle thinking about sex every thirty seconds if I hated women?”
Caught off-guard and embarrassed, Eun Chan coughs and reddens, thinking back to their kiss, trying to avoid looking at his lips. Han Gyul muses, “Well, I suppose there’s a way to manage that with men too.” More awkwardness from Eun Chan, which Han Gyul misinterprets as her fear that he’ll come on to her again. He assures her that he was as put off by their kiss as she was.
Han Gyul mentions one gay friend who only ever thinks about sex, and says at least gays don’t have to worry about getting a woman pregnant. Eun Chan says they have to worry about AIDS, though, and Han Gyul says not all gay people get AIDS: “Condoms weren’t made to be used as balloons, you know.”
Han Gyul suddenly looks closer at Eun Chan, unsettling her.
The breath suddenly caught in her throat. It occurred to her all at once that they were the only two people in this hotel room. She may have looked like a boy on the outside, but inside she was a normal girl. It was only natural that her heart would thump at being with a good-looking, stylish man. Nervous, her heart beating fast, Eun Chan’s words came out in a tremble.
“Why– why are you looking at me like that?”
“Condoms… never mind. At your age, it can’t be that you’ve never used one, right?’
Totally nervous and flustered, Eun Chan changes the subject. Does he dislike marriage because he doesn’t want children? Han Gyul suddenly turns serious and asks if she can imagine taking care of someone else’s life for twenty years.
“From time to time… no, often, it becomes hard enough caring for your own body. That’s life. Do you think anything changes at the age of forty, fifty? In the end, it comes to this — in time the world becomes dirty, your mind wears down, your body ages and tires, and you feel you need to lean on someone… people get married and have children in preparation for that time.”
He drank his wine with a cynical expression. As though watching a movie on a large screen, his appearance caught her eye. The wine that entered his mouth without staining the perimeter… the fingers holding the wineglass… the cheeks that sucked inward when he drank… the gaze lowered at a 45 degree angle. Eun Chan let out a small sigh. She had to admit one more time that he was a handsome man. It’s a female instinct to be drawn to attractive men. It’s not because she had any particular feelings for him……
Han Gyul and Eun Chan argue about the roles of parenting. He says if you make mistakes and regret things on your own, what right do you have to inflict that upon your child? Eun Chan replies:
“Parents are human, so of course it’s natural they’d make mistakes too.”
“To their children, too?”
“Come on. I’ve done a lot more wrong to my parents than they’ve done to me. Sure, when you’re young you feel hurt, but as you grow older, you come to understand. When you become an adult, you realize adults aren’t perfect.”
“If it ends merely with hurt feelings, that’s a good thing. Like it or not, you can also ruin someone’s life, whether it’s through poverty, pain, or like your father, dying suddenly in an accident.”
“My father?”
Eun Chan sobered instantly.
“So you’re saying my father ruined my life, is that right?”
“I didn’t say it was ruined. I said it could have been.”
“That’s the same thing!”
“Don’t yell, man. I’m in the middle of telling you that marriage is like life’s grave.”
“Wow, you’re really twisted.”
“All right, no more drinking for you.”
Eun Chan defends her father, bringing up the instance where she was playing around on a balcony and fell, and her father caught her. Not even aware of his own pain at having broken his arm in the process, he rushed her to the hospital. If not for his selfless act, she wouldn’t be alive. Naturally, Han Gyul sees it differently:
“A kid doesn’t know the dangers of playing around on a balcony. The adult knows, but still is careless. If you weren’t born to this world, you wouldn’t face that kind of danger. Do you know why a newborn infant cries in fear the moment they’re born? It’s because they know that birth means doom. They’re shouting, ‘Don’t just bring me into this world and walk around blissfully! This is hell. You’ve lived, so you should know!’ A person knows, the moment they come into contact with a divine force, that this world is no different from hell.”
Eun Chan doesn’t buy his cynicsm (although personally, there seems to be a ring of truth to it……) and wonders, “Did someone hurt you severely when you were growing up?”
The conversation reaches a conclusion when Han Gyul’s phone interrupts. When he finishes the call from his mother (telling him to come live at home instead of staying at the hotel), he finds Eun Chan lying on the couch, sleepy from wine. He tries to rouse her, but she mumbles that she’ll get up in two hours. Exactly two hours. She tells him to wake her up then, because she has to go on her milk delivery run… and then, no amount of prodding will wake her as she’s out cold.
Han Gyul takes a blanket and covers her, and watches as she sleeps:
The guy, sleeping so peacefully, looked cute enough. Is this how he’d feel if he had a younger brother? Adjusting the blanket, for some reason he felt something like sympathy, or pity.
The guy sure has creamy skin. Look at that peach fuzz. How could he not have any facial hair? He must have had poor growth, probably from not eating enough when he was growing up. That’s why he’s such a voracious eater now. There are guys who have their growth spurt late, too. How can a guy’s skin be so……
His hand reached out toward her cheek. The instant his finger touched her skin, Han Gyul started, and quickly withdrew his hand. In his moment of confusion, he touched her hair. He felt that sensation the last time too…… He shuddered again, and in his sudden surprise, his finger got tangled in her hair.
“And still, he doesn’t move a muscle. Geez, sleepyhead.”

Eun Chan wakes up at dawn, alarmed that Han Gyul didn’t wake her, in a hurry because she can’t miss her milk delivery run. Surprisingly, Han Gyul’s already awake (though half-naked in only his boxers), and hands her a cup of something to help with hangovers. She takes it (since he got up at daybreak to make something for her — he goes back to sleep afterward), and though it looks like coffee, it has a sweet-sour taste to it.
After her milk run is over, Eun Chan notices the lights turn on at the cafe, and wonders who it could be, since they’re hours from opening. Entering cautiously (what if it’s a robber?), she sees that Ha Rim has taken up temporary residence inside. They go out to breakfast together, and Ha Rim explains that he left home yet again. It’s a recurring scenario — his father wants him to go to medical school, and he wants to go to art school. He was crashing with a friend, but ever since the friend got a girlfriend, Ha Rim has had to find other places to go.
Eun Chan asks what he wants to do with his life, and Ha Rim answers that he wants to be an art director. When watching a movie, other people are moved by the actors or the directors, but he feels affinity for the locations, the props.
Eun Chan notes grudgingly that he’s given a surprisingly concrete answer, and reevaluates her opinion of him. After they finish eating, she pays for the meal (she’s older, thus the “hyung”) and gives him some extra money to go to the sauna.
Hearing that Ha Rim was sleeping at the cafe caused her to worry about a lot of things. She hadn’t known him for a long while, but already she felt like he was a younger brother. I hope he doesn’t catch cold……

  CHAPTER 11: “This Is How Much Our Store Has Changed”
The cafe has its grand opening, after all the renovations have been implemented — painted walls, matching patterned tables and chairs, a computer terminal, a mini-garden. However, although the Coffee Princes give out free coffee to lots of passers-by out in front, they find that not many actually enter the cafe itself.
Eun Chan nearly runs into a newly arrived guest, and apologizes, acting the part of attentive server. When she looks up at him, however, his face registers a flash of recognition, which triggers her own. Instinctively, her face breaks out into a smile, before she remembers how she knows him — it’s that guy!
“Bubble… bubble wrap…”
At that, a faint smile appeared on the man’s face. Eun Chan felt a sense of fear at what his recognition meant. This man knew Go Eun Chan’s true gender. Even if he unthinkingly happened to call her “miss,” it would all be over for her.
Adding to her uneasiness is the realization that the bubble wrap man seems to be on familiar terms with her boss. She fidgets, trying to figure out what to do, when all of a sudden, Han Gyul’s face brightens. Yu Ju has arrived. She’s dressed in stylish, expensive clothing, has long hair, and looks pure and lovely. And she seems familiar, somehow…
Straining to continue observing the scene, Eun Chan talks with Mr. Gu, who’s dropped by for the opening, and uses his presence as a cover to listen in on the odd trio. Although Han Gyul looks happy (now that Yu Ju’s there), bubble wrap man and the woman are awkward with each other: “It seemed they knew each other, but their expressions were lukewarm.”
Yu Ju brings a gift — a wreath made of bean-like berries strung together in the shape of a star. Han Gyul notes that Han Sung also brought a red-colored wreath (in the more traditional flower form): “You two must be on the same wavelength today.”
Eun Chan watches Han Gyul take her present to hang:
He hung the wreath on the glass entry door with a satisfied expression. It hadn’t seemed empty and lacking, but once he hung it there, it looked much nicer; it created a lovely ambiance. But seeing him smile at that woman soured her mood immediately. It would hardly take any effort to put together a little thing like that.
Han Sung makes an early departure, citing a meeting as his reason for leaving. Still nervous at what he might say, Eun Chan reacts late, and runs after Han Sung as he’s approaching his car. As soon as he calls her “miss” — thankfully out of anyone’s earshot — she claps her hands over his mouth and shushes him.
“Please don’t call me miss. I… anyway, I have a reason for it. Right now, I’m supposed to be a man.”
The man wrinkled his brow, then immediately nodded his understanding. He had appeared smart to her, and it looked like he was in fact quick on the uptake.
“It’s pretty amazing you managed to trick Han Gyul. He’s a pretty sharp guy.”
He admits that the first time he saw her (the incident of Yu Ju’s purse-snatching), he thought she was a guy. Even now, knowing she’s female, Eun Chan does appear to be male. She answers, “I hardly ever look like a girl to people…” Han Sung has a nicely worded reply: “Then I’m lucky to have witnessed that rare occurrence.”
Eun Chan pleads with him to please keep her secret, and he teases her by pretending to have to “think it over,” before he offers his quid pro quo — if she doesn’t mention having met him before, he won’t let her secret out either. Thankful for his cooperation, Eun Chan expresses her gratitude:
“Oh! I won’t say anything. I didn’t see a thing. I didn’t see you staggering along because you were drunk, and I didn’t see you throwing up either.”
“Ha. Really.”

Eun Chan sees her mother with a expensive, brand-new scarf and immediately scolds her. She doesn’t believe her mother when she says it was a gift from a friend, having heard that too many times before. She can’t believe her mother would be so frivolous, knowing how they’ve got debts, and that every bit of extra money should go to helping Eun Chan repay the debt (that she incurred to help her mother).
After launching into a tirade about being the family’s workhorse, Eun Sae cuts in and tells Eun Chan that she’s jumped to conclusions. It really was a gift — from Mr. Gu. Abashed and feeling sorry for yelling at her mother, Eun Chan apologizes. Still, there’s something strange in the back of her mind — why would Mr. Gu be buying their mother expensive gifts? Was he going to ask a favor of Eun Chan?

With the cafe opening behind them, the Coffee Princes find themselves with an empty cafe and nary a customer. On a warm, languid late-spring day, they’re all are listless and bored; they haven’t served a customer in the last fourteen hours.
Ha Rim suggests to Eun Chan that they hop on over to a nearby basketball court — a game’ll wake them up. Eun Chan hesitates — what if Han Gyul came back to see them gone? — but Ha Rim assures her they can just say they stepped out for a minute to go to the store.
Leaving the others to mind the store, they play some one-on-one. Out of the blue, Eun Chan hears the familiar sound of a motorcyle and sees Min Yub arriving at the court:
How is it that the guy would appear just when you forgot about him?
Not even bothering to entertain his demand for a real, man-to-man (ha) fistfight, Eun Chan instructs Min Yub to play as her substitute against Ha Rim while she rests. Furthermore, he’d better do well, since she’s bet Ha Rim a meal on the game:
“This is man to man, a battle of pride. Take that slick-looking yellow-haired guy over there and crush him. Okay?”
Then, suddenly, she feels a thwack on the back of her head. She turns to see Han Gyul, and thanks her lucky stars she didn’t curse aloud as had been her impulse. Han Gyul accuses her of corrupting the younger Ha Rim in taking him out with her to play hooky, but she convinces him to play a game with them. As incentive, she tells him if she loses, she’ll dance the Jjang-gu dance (a silly butt-shaking dance based on a cartoon character).
Han Gyul accepts, and they play two on two (Eun Chan and Min Yub versus Han Gyul and Ha Rim). Surprisingly, Han Gyul is better than she thought. She loses.

After the game ends and Min Yub takes off (without a word of goodbye), Han Gyul stares after him, and suddenly recalls why he looks so familiar. Eun Chan hopes for dear life that he doesn’t remember the exact circumstances (that Eun Chan went easy on Min Yub when he tried to rob Yu Ju), and prays:
“God, please make him forget. Take Min Yub’s image from his memory and wipe it away.”

As Han Gyul approaches, Eun Chan does the best she can to avoid the topic by shoving her head under the faucet that they’ve been using to wash off. Han Gyul tells her to stop before she gets herself sick, and she realizes, when the water soaks her head and the upper part of her shirt, that she’s made a mistake — the water makes her chest bindings much more noticeable. She prays he doesn’t notice.
Instead of noticing, Han Gyul just admonishes her for being careless, and hands her a small handkerchief to dry her head off with.
The handkerchief was much too thin and small for drying off her head, but still, she was moved by the gesture. Carelessly wiping off her hair with the handkerchief, she got up. Next to her, she heard the sounds of Ha Rim’s laughter.
“Oh, you’re even sexier when you’re wet! We have to add this to the definition of ‘Eun Chan-like’ — to give off a sexiness that charms men even while being a man.”
Han Gyul tells Ha Rim and Eun Chan to come along — he’s got a Jjang-gu dance to watch — but just before, he stops and turns to Eun Chan:
Before he started walking away, his hand reached out toward Eun Chan. It was just for a moment, but his hand brushed her jaw before falling away again. He’d wiped away a drop of water from her chin, but something felt odd about it. Eun Chan stopped in the middle of wiping her hair with the handkerchief.
Why’d he wipe the water away? It’s my chin. But my heart… my heart’s racing. Her heart had held up well over the past twenty-four years, but this was a sound she hadn’t heard before. The sound rang in her eardrums… Thump-thump-thump… thump-thump-thump…

  CHAPTER 12: “Resistance With a Reason”
The chapter starts off in a hilarious manner, with Eun Chan listening attentively at the door of the bathroom (from the inside), waiting to hear someone approach. Why? So that, just as they step inside, she can jump in front of the urinal, pretend to “adjust” her clothes, and flush.
The necessity for this arises when Ha Rim wonders curiously why Eun Chan never changes into her uniform in front of anybody. He speculates the reason — does she have a tattoo? Some kind of scar?
In order to dispel such suspicion, Eun Chan starts these exaggerated displays — “She especially needed to safeguard herself against Ha Rim’s constant idle chatter about how she was sexy, or some other weird comment.”

After the Taekwondo school where Eun Chan teaches closes, Eun Chan gets an email from her cute student, the one with a crush on her. The email is so ridiculous with cutesy emoticons (some of which I’ve never seen; I particularly like the little angry fists) that I just HAD to reproduce it here. This is an actual scan from my copy of the novel:
Which translates to:
Hellooo~ Master*, it’s me, Seung Kyung.
Thanx for teaching us so well all this while! Because you taught us so well, my body’s become a lot healthier. Now that I won’t be able to see you every day, it makes me saaaad. My mom is enrolling me in the other Taekwondo school, and it would be great if you could come to that school. Even though this school is closed, I’ll visit you lots. Please take care of yourself and always be ha~ppy. I really like you, Master! I’ll try to become a good person like you. Goodbye! Have a nice day. I’ll email you again.
love Seung Kyung
* The word “Master” is what Taekwondo students call their instructors.
Eun Chan wipes away tears reading the message: “Ah, damn. It’s touching.”

Nak Gyun stops coming to work, raising curiosity among the others. They find out that he told Han Gyul he needed to quit, without giving any explanation. Naturally, Han Gyul hasn’t thought to bother asking for one. Eun Chan’s eldest-daughter mentality (i.e., she has a need to look after others) doesn’t allow her to leave the matter alone. She tries to talk to Han Gyul, but grows annoyed at his indifference.
She asks to see Nak Gyun’s file — she just wants his address — but Han Gyul dismisses her:
“Quiet. Go feed the fish.”
Eun Chan jutted her jaw and clenched her fists as she went to feed the fish. And then, her gaze landed on the vases, carefully lined in a row. An interesting idea popped into her head. Eun Chan changed her mind and a smile appeared on her face, as she cackled under her breath to herself.
Eun Chan’s mode of attack — really more a battle of attrition — is to assault Han Gyul’s extreme neat-freaky personality. His control-freakish meticulousness dictates the chairs and tables be exactly a certain distance from each other, and the lined-up vases contain black and white stones, separated by color, which are NOT. TO. BE. MIXED. When Han Gyul demands to know who messed with them, she feigns ignorance. Her nonchalance infuriates him more, and she asks him pointedly:
“Why does this little thing bother you so much? You don’t even have a speck of interest in your employees’ problems.”
Finally, in exasperation, he tells her to hurry and change; he’s going with her. She’s surprised that he’s coming along to see Nak Gyun (she just wanted the address), but goes along.

A few days later.
Han Gyul has drinks with Yu Ju, but he’s too distracted to pay her much attention. He thinks of his family’s business developments, the lagging sales of Coffee Prince, and most of all —
On top of that, a bigger issue had surfaced. Go Eun Chan. For some reason, it was becoming more and more confusing trying to figure out how to handle the guy. From time to time, the guy was too…… and so…… Dammit! He saw him as attractive. It’s all because the guy was entirely too pretty-looking. Han Gyul’s mind was all in a chaotic mess.
Yu Ju has a problem of her own, and Han Gyul tells her to say her problem first. She expresses her difficulty in getting Han Sung to not hate her anymore.
“There’s really not much to talk about. He still despises me. I realized too late that I regretted my actions, and it hurts me that he still thinks of me hatefully. That’s still the situation. There’s been no progress.”
Han Gyul (thankfully) isn’t blind to her flaws, and does point out how she was the one who jilted Han Sung and cut off their engagement. Even if she were able to win Han Sung back, his family would keep resenting her.
“I know that. Even if he forgave me, his mother wouldn’t approve. But still, as long as there’s life, there’s hope.”
“Han Yu Ju, you’ve really matured. I think it was a really good thing you went abroad to study. In the past, you had Han Sung so wrapped around your finger, I wondered if he was your doll, or a puppet.”
“You sure know how to say things nicely. Sometimes, I think you and he are incredibly similar. You both talk coolly, and disregard other people.”
Han Gyul thinks back to the time when Yu Ju called off the engagement. Actually, her family was going through some issues, because her father, a member of the National Assembly (i.e. a congressman), had run into implications of bribery. He had insisted on cutting ties in an act of integrity (so as not to bring down Han Sung’s family as well), and sent Yu Ju abroad to study.
And from there, their love had cooled. But in Han Gyul’s opinion, it seemed like the feelings bridging the two hadn’t been disconnected. Rather, it was just that they’d frozen together, and were no longer able to flow……

Yu Ju changes the subject to Han Gyul’s problem, and instead of talking about his real problem (regarding Eun Chan), he says one of his employees is going through a rough time. When he went to see Nak Gyun, he found out his father runs a food stall and had recently injured his hip badly. He has a younger sister in her first year of high school, so Nak Gyun has taken on the burden of running the stall entirely alone — going shopping, cooking, selling.
But in actuality, that isn’t the source of his preoccupation. He thinks of how Eun Chan saw Nak Gyun’s situation and jumped right along to help out — working at the cafe from early morning, then helping at the food stall late at night.
Yu Ju wonders if he can lend Nak Gyun some money, but the answer is an emphatic no.
“Absolutely not? Who said that?”
“Go Eun Chan. According to that guy, that’s the worst way to trample on someone’s pride.”
“Is that true?”
“He says he knows because he’s been there. That whatever happens, he’ll be the one to keep watch over his own family. According to what he said, tossing a stash of money at someone out of pity is one of his worst pet peeves. How stubborn is that? Right? I mean, what kind of pride is that? Genuine pride accepts help from others, and if you pay them back in turn, you’re fine. But that guy says it’s a man’s natural instinct to protect his turf. Whatever, he sure can talk.”
Yu Ju gives Han Gyul an interesting look, and he wonders what she means by it. She asks, so Han Gyul just went along with it because Eun Chan said so? He answers, “You don’t know because you’ve never had to face him.”
“Do you know this? You said, ‘according to that guy’ twice, like you were quoting Confucius or Mencius or something. This is the first time I’ve seen you repeating someone else’s words like that. I’d like to see what kind of person he is.”
“That guy’s probably at the food stall right now. Seriously, his sense of meddling’s as huge as the Pacific Ocean.”
The kiss he couldn’t erase suddenly flashed across Han Gyul’s mind. So did the image of that guy’s face, wet from washing off after playing basketball. And the sensation of reaching out and touching his chin, without even meaning to…… How could a guy be so soft? There was something suspicious about him going off separately to change clothes in the bathroom. Even at the hotel, he’d thought the guy was exceedingly feminine, from his faintly sweet scent, to his softness, and warmth……
“Yu Ju, I’ve gotta go somewhere really quickly.”
“Huh? Where?”
“Sorry. I’ll see you next time at your work party. Careful on your way home.”
Han Gyul grabbed his jacket and immediately left the cafe. Taking a taxi, he headed toward Nak Gyun’s food stall.
Cute, ja?

   CHAPTER 13: “Happy To Be a Woman”
Eun Chan hurriedly changes her clothes in the bathroom to get ready to go to Nak Gyun’s stall for the night. She gets her hair caught on a shirt button — and while she’s stuck trying to get her hair free, Ha Rim walks in. In her hurry, she’d forgotten to lock the door, and Ha Rim gapes at her in shock, seeing her in only her undershirt, which doesn’t completely hide her curves even with the wrappings flattening her chest.
Shocked speechless, Ha Rim doesn’t know what to do, what to say, where to look. Eun Chan tells him he’s dead if he says a word, trying to act calm, but inside she curses her luck:
Why’d it have to be Ha Rim? Of all the guys, it had to be the one who talked most carelessly.
Ha Rim panics, not knowing how to react, and Eun Chan forces herself to be calm and assuring. She asks him nicely to please, please not tell anybody about it. Ha Rim makes a big deal, partly because he’s really shocked, and partly to exaggerate and make fun of her. He babbles on in agitation:
“I thought something was weird. Is that why you wear your uniform a size larger? And I thought you were going for some kind of hip fashion. Now I get it. I’d just figured that was ’cause you were such a small guy to begin with. But man, I couldn’t tell at all.”
Ugh, hold back. Resist. If I want to keep this talkative guy’s mouth shut, I’ve gotta hold back. Why couldn’t it have been Sun Ki instead?

Han Sung arrives at the cafe, but when Eun Chan informs him that Han Gyul’s out, he surprises her by saying he came to see her. He offers her a ride to wherever she’s heading, while she tries figure out what he wants from her.
Han Sung: “Remember how last time, you asked me to keep your secret?” Instantly, Eun Chan grows disgruntled, assuming he’s going to hold that over her head to extract a favor. She doesn’t bother hiding her dissatisfaction as she shoots him a look, but he just continues:
“Set aside some time for me one day — no, one evening.”
“What? Why? You aren’t going to make me do your housekeeping, are you? I can’t do anything like that.”
Eun Chan shook her head vigorously as she explained.
“I may be a female by gender, but I don’t know how to do any of those things that women do. I can’t cook, I can’t do the dishes, I can’t do laundry, and if I clean, I end up breaking things. You saw yourself how I got fired on my second day at the bar. I had to be pretty bad for that to happen.”
“It’s nothing like that, so don’t worry. Just think of it as going on a date with me.”
“A d-date?”
Eun Chan is so flummoxed that her reaction in turn surprises Han Sung, who has to laugh. He sets the date for the day after tomorrow at 3pm. When he asks for her phone number so he can contact her, she casts him a suspicious look, not sure of his motives.
Eun Chan felt like she was entering a trap, but without knowing what else to do, she punched her number into his phone. She didn’t consider the idea that he might like her, or that might be feeling friendly toward her.

Arriving at Nak Gyun’s food stall, Eun Chan’s attention is diverted when four roughneck hoodlums burst on the scene, yelling at Nak Gyun and his father (still injured) that this is their turf. She springs into action:
Eun Chan flew into the air with a brilliant side kick, running lightly, and whirling into a spinning kick.
“Ai-ya!”
This kind of occasion may have been the reason she started learning Taekwondo in the first place. So she wouldn’t have to watch good, upright people victimized at the hands of others. But this was only violence in the name of stopping more violence. And so, her intention was to end this fight quickly by attacking decisively.
Interestingly, Han Sung rises to the occasion — as does his sense of chivalry — as he launches into the fray, pushing Eun Chan aside. He tells her to step aside since he’s the guy and he should be doing the defending — and is actually a pretty good fighter. (It’s kind of gallant, and a wee bit chauvinistic — but Eun Chan doesn’t have a problem with it, and she admires his skill.)
Just then, she sees Nak Gyun fighting and runs to help him — just as another angry voice enters the mix.
Han Gyul, who’d rushed out early from having drinks with Yu Ju, has arrived on the scene. He immediately joins the fight, getting punched in the face in the process, and the thugs finally disperse at the sounds of a police siren. Eun Chan turns to help Nak Gyun and his father regain order, while Han Sung deals with the police report. Meanwhile, Han Gyul hot-headedly dashes off in pursuit of the punks.
Han Gyul comes back soon enough, out of breath and exhausted. He’s got a bloodied lip and a slight limp, and sits down tiredly. After asking if he’s all right, Eun Chan turns to Han Sung, and asks if he’s okay.
Feeling grateful, Eun Chan spoke to Han Sung in a gentle voice. She wet a tissue and wiped the back of his hand.
“Hyung, what are you doing here?”
Han Gyul’s angry voice cut in suddenly. With an infuriated look at Eun Chan’s hand holding Han Sung’s, Han Gyul grabbed her arm.
Eun Chan cries out, as he’s grabbed her where she’s formed a dark bruise. Han Sung sees it and asks her if she’s okay, approaching to take a closer look, and Han Gyul immediately grabs her by the shoulder to pull her away. He insists on taking her to a hospital. Han Sung offers to drive her, and he curtly says, “It’s fine. We’ll take a taxi.”
He drags her away as she shouts back her thanks to Han Sung, and Han Gyul grumbles over why Han Sung’s there in the first place. Eun Chan doesn’t know why he takes her to a hospital further away when there’s one in the neighborhood, and instead of going to the ward for minor injuries, he drags her to get nicer, more attentive treatment. When his injuries are treated, Eun Chan’s surprised at how swollen his hurt ankle is. He, however, takes the treatment stoically, with no hint of pain.

At work, Ha Rim starts butting in to take over certain tasks, telling Eun Chan, “A guy should be doing this.” She finds his behavior annoying, but can’t do much about it, and is reminded of a phrase in a commercial that goes: “I’m happy to be a woman.”
Nak Gyun’s food stall had been trashed, requiring him to find work elsewhere, such as in construction, so everyone’s surprised when he comes back to Coffee Prince. He explains, “The boss had the food stall fixed for me.”
Eun Chan wonders about the thugs — won’t they cause more trouble? Nak Gyun: “They’ve all been caught.” (In astonishment, Eun Chan’s eyes open round, and Nak Gyun laughs: “Hyung, do you know when you make that face, you look just like a girl?”)
Eun Chan asks how the troublemakers were caught, and Nak Gyun answers that they all turned themselves in. He couldn’t believe it either, but they apparently all surrendered themselves under the condition that they wouldn’t be further charged. And on top of that, they’ve agreed to help out at his father’s food stall.
Han Gyul interrupts to bark at them to get back to work.
Like a ghost, he’d appeared suddenly. He hadn’t come to work the day before, saying he was busy, and she’d assumed he couldn’t come because of his ankle injury. But it looked like he’d been busy after all, getting those thugs to turn themselves in……

Because it’s the day of her date with Han Sung, Eun Chan asks to leave early. Han Gyul first says no, so she explains that her mother is sick. He gives her the afternoon off, to her excitement, and she thanks him with a wide smile.

When Han Sung picks her up, Eun Chan is finishing up a phone call with someone, telling him not to worry about her mother. Han Sung recognizes Han Gyul’s voice: “Eun Chan bubbled with laughter at whatever was being said on the other end. Shockingly, he could also hear Han Gyul laughing. He’d never heard Choi Han Gyul conversing so comfortably with anyone on the phone before.”
Eun Chan finishes her call, and explains that she’d lied about her mother being sick: “But now he’s telling me to take her to the hospital. He says he’ll even call them for me — isn’t that really overreacting?” Han Sung notes that it seems she and Han Gyul are getting pretty chummy, and she answers:
“Friendly? We fight all the time and yell. These days, things are pretty rough between us. We must be a bad fit. You know how everyone has chi energy? Ours must not get along well.”
As they drive on in a conversation lull, Han Sung thinks to himself:
After meeting Eun Chan at the bar, he’d thought about her occasionally. It was probably because she was so cheerful and lively. Seeing Yu Ju that night had upset him, and although he’d thought to vent his frustration with some liquor, it only made him feel sick in both body and pride. But then, talking with this girl had lifted his spirits considerably, and strangely, made him feel much more at ease. She was so fascinating, popping her bubble wrap as she laughed……
Han Sung asks Eun Chan how business is going, and Eun Chan says unfortunately it’s not going well at all. She feels bad for Han Gyul, who’d invested so much into the place. Han Sung, however, knows of Han Gyul’s arrangement with their grandmother, and suspects his grandmother is forcing Han Gyul to do this work to get him to realize he’s got a skill for it…

Han Sung wonders how long she’s going to keep acting as a male; she can’t hide it forever.
“Phew, I don’t know either. Sometimes, I want to just tell him straight out, but whenever that happens, we always get into a fight. I even wish that he’d figure it out on his own, but I’m also afraid of being caught. My mind goes back and forth.”
“He’s not a dumb guy, it’s strange that he doesn’t know.”
Eun Chan tells him it’s quite normal for people to mistake her as a guy. If Han Sung hadn’t first met her at the bar, he would’ve taken her for a male, too. Han Sung sees her point: “Sure enough, he could see her as an impish young guy, so it made enough sense that Han Gyul would be mistaken.”

Just then, they arrive at their destination — a beauty shop, where Han Sung entrusts Eun Chan to the stylist he’d called in advance. While waiting, he muses on Han Gyul’s behavior, which runs contrary to what he knows about his cousin.
Being generally disinterested in others’ affairs and behaving coolly was a family trademark. But it was truly surprising that Han Gyul would go so far as to pay attention to the health of an employee’s mother. For someone who wasn’t merely dismissive of normal civilities but downright arrogant, to engage in someone else’s business — and for that person to be Han Gyul — was a truly big deal.
Han Sung thinks, “How interesting. Things are bound to get even more interesting once we’re at the party.”
Having finished with her hair and makeup, it’s about time for Eun Chan to be picking out her clothing, and Han Sung gets up to see her progress……

   CHAPTER 14: “Cafe Latte, Soft and Warm”
Eun Chan arrives at the party with Han Sung, amazed at her transformation but slightly encumbered by her new feminine accoutrements. She feels the hem of her dress swishing around her legs, soft and cool. It’s the first time she’s ever worn anything so thin, soft, and clinging. She’s been made up, given a wig with long flowing hair, and dressed in an expensive dress with high-heeled shoes.
But some things never change, and that’s her uncanny ability to forget all else in the presence of food. Han Sung loses her to the hors d’oeuvres table.
“So this is where you’ve been.”
Eun Chan wasn’t in a position to respond. Not only was her mouth stuffed with food, but both hands were also full, holding a canape in one hand and a piece of bread with anchovies in the other. Han Sung furrowed his brow at her attempt to murmur through her full mouth. With a small, embarrassed smile, she held out one hand and offered its contents.
As you may have guessed, the novel version of Han Sung isn’t quite as soft and sensitive as the drama version. (Honestly, I think the book is great with Eun Chan and Han Gyul, but didn’t really bother developing Han Sung or Yu Ju that well. In that respect, the drama has given those two much more breadth of character. Plus, the instant you put a face to a character, they suddenly spring to life, and feel real — so it’s only natural that I like the characters better in the drama.)
He’s brought Eun Chan for a reason, to stick it to Yu Ju. The first step is greeting Yu Ju’s parents, the national assemblyman and his wife. He’s not completely without compunction — he’s just beyond it:
Han Sung thought it was possible that he might regret this later. But he wanted to face the assemblyman squarely this once, even if you called it a futile willfulness, or immature pride. He felt he had to, to finally end this.
Yu Ju’s parents feel the sting but cover it up with civility. Han Sung walks away with Eun Chan without sparing a glance at Yu Ju, who watches from across the room. Eun Chan feels Yu Ju’s gaze boring into her back, and nearly collides with Han Gyul. She’s alarmed to run into him, but Han Sung whispers that he’ll handle everything — all she has to do is stay calm and not speak, since her voice will give her away. Flustered, Eun Chan tries to remain composed:
Seeing Han Gyul looking at her, Eun Chan quickly lowered her gaze. She felt if she met his eyes, she’d unknowingly send him a signal announcing, “It’s me, it’s me!”
Eun Chan is introduced merely as Han Sung’s friend. Yu Ju joins them, and Han Gyul tells her appreciatively:
“Wow, you’re dazzling, Han Yu Ju. Makes me wanna snatch you away.”
The moment he said that, Eun Chan felt heat rush into her face. Her mood suddenly soured and she inexplicably grew ill-tempered.
Eun Chan looks at Yu Ju surreptitiously, noting her elegant, beautiful appearance, and suddenly wants to run away, her feelings turning gloomy. Seeing the way Yu Ju smiles, Eun Chan decides she’ll have to go home and work on her own smile.
Eun Chan watches Yu Ju and Han Gyul comment over the artwork, and notices how close they seem:
Eun Chan watched how the two looked at each other with familiarity. They chattered on, and her insides felt like they’d been set ablaze. Without realizing it, she blew her bangs out of her eyes. At that moment, Han Gyul looked straight at her. Her eyes grew round at the same time that suspicion flashed through Han Gyul’s. His sharp look seemed to pierce right through her.
Thankfully, Han Sung notices and quickly makes an excuse for them to leave. Unused to her heels, Eun Chan’s ankle twists and she stumbles — and both men each grab one arm. Shaking off both arms, she walks away, with a limp:
But suddenly, her body rose up into the air. Han Sung had lifted her up. Unexpectedly finding herself in his arms, Eun Chan was so flustered, she didn’t know what to do. Just then, she looked behind Han Sung to see Yu Ju’s expression. Her face betrayed her shock.

Poor Eun Chan — although Han Sung is doing this mostly for show, she’s embarrassed to see his temples beaded with sweat over the exertion of carrying her. But outside, away from the others, Eun Chan bursts out in anger, mad at Han Sung for a few reasons. For one, it’s cold-hearted of him to manipulate people like that — she didn’t come to be used just so Han Sung could show up his ex-girlfriend. Also, she’s upset at seeing Han Gyul with Yu Ju.
Yanking her wig and taking off the cumbersome heels, she swears and grumbles while telling Han Sung she’ll be returning everything to the salon. At one such curse (she calls him garbage and a bastard), he warns, “Don’t talk so carelessly.” She retorts: “So what if I talk carelessly? It’s a hundred times better than treating people carelessly.”
Han Sung tells her he’ll take her home, but she doesn’t want to go with him, and storms off. Or, she tries to — because at that moment, she stops short. Yu Ju stands there, looking at Eun Chan without her wig, taking in the sight.
Son of a bitch! How long has she been standing there? How much did she hear? More and more people are finding out the truth. Dammit to hell, the problem just keeps growing!

The next morning, Eun Chan goes into work with trepidation, unsure if Han Gyul recognized her the day before. She’s conflicted, uneasy that he’s figured out the truth, but disappointed at the thought that he didn’t. “If he confronted her with his suspicion, she thought she might just spill out the whole truth……”
Han Gyul arrives while she’s doing the morning cleaning, and treats her as normal. He doesn’t understand why Eun Chan seems upset about something, sweeping the ground as though she’d dig a hole through it with the broom. He asks about her mother and makes small talk, and Eun Chan answers curtly, thinking of Yu Ju and unable to hold back her resentment.
The funny thing is, although Han Gyul doesn’t know what’s got her in such a bad mood, he does know how to get rid of it — he cuts in and changes the subject abruptly. Completely caught off guard, Eun Chan has no idea why he’s bringing up coffee, but answers his questions. In her confusion, her anger fades.

Han Gyul tries a new strategy to open early to service all the morning foot traffic as people go to work. The idea’s a hit, and they’re swamped in the morning rush.
Ha Rim notices that of all the Coffee Princes, Han Gyul seems to be the most popular with the ladies. Eun Chan pricks up her ears curiously when Ha Rim mentions a particular woman who’d asked about Han Gyul, and she’s secretly pleased to hear his cold answer that the woman could use some plastic surgery. “It was okay for him to be rude in these instances.”

Feeling optimistic due to their first busy morning in, well, ever, Eun Chan volunteers to make everyone sandwiches for lunch. (This next part had me laughing out loud.)
She was busy making tuna sandwiches when the phone rang. Mechanically, Eun Chan reached out to grab the phone and answered.
“Yes, this is the delicious Coffee Prince.”
At that moment, all of the employees, scattered around the cafe doing various tasks, stood up at the same time. They all stared at Eun Chan, spooked as though they’d seen a ghost. What was with them? Not knowing the reason, Eun Chan looked at Ha Rim as she repeated:
“Hello?”
Strangely, the phone kept ringing. But still, nobody made a move to answer it.
“Aren’t you gonna answer the phone?”
“Ch-Chan…”
Mr. Hong turned around, and shouted:
“Don’t move!”
She couldn’t figure out what the heck was going on. Frustrated, she started to ask again.
“Don’t say a word and stay still!”
Han Gyul shouted to prevent her from doing anything. Seriously, what was going on?
Eun Chan could see the tense mood, and the strange expressions on everyone’s faces as they looked at her, and her heart started racing. They all stood still, feeling the tension in the air. Their reactions were so odd and anxious, it unnerved her. She felt like shouting out loud, but being prevented from doing anything made her even more uneasy.
“Don’t turn your head…”
Han Gyul was approaching slowly, carefully, and suddenly snatched away the phone in her hand.
At that, everyone let out a sigh of relief.
“Hey!”
“Hey… Go Eun Chan, you…”
“Seriously, this hyung is gonna drive me mad!”
Mr. Hong collapsed into a chair, Ha Rim shouted in anger, Nak Gyun was about to tear out his hair. Seeing the unflappable Sun Ki shaking his head made her think something huge must’ve just happened. And it had something to do with her. But what the heck was it?!
“You..!”
Thwack!
“Ow!”
Han Gyul hit her upside the head, causing her to cry out in indignation.
“Why’d you hit me?!”
“You, come out from there.”
“That’s right, Go Eun Chan, you’re barred from the kitchen. You’ll just break cups anyway, so don’t even bother entering.”
“Geez, seriously…”
Han Gyul held up a sturdy-looking kitchen knife in front of her eyes.
“Is this a phone, you idiot?! Don’t answer the phone from now on either! Got it?!”
There were beads of cold sweat on the sides of Han Gyul’s nose. Only then did Eun Chan realize that she’d picked that knife up from the cutting board and answered into it, “Hello?”

In a lull during the day, a middle-aged woman arrives alone, and everyone looks in surprise when Ha Rim exclaims, “Mom!” The other Princes leave them to talk, and Eun Chan brings her some coffee:
Eun Chan served her a cup of warm, soft cafe latte. If there was any bad blood here, she hoped it could be solved softly and warmly, like this cafe latte.
Everyone eavesdrops as Ha Rim’s mother pleads with him to return home. She promises to talk to his father, but Ha Rim’s heard this before and doesn’t want to go back. He knows that even if he went back, his father would be unyielding, and Ha Rim would just end up leaving again. Everyone’s shocked (except Eun Chan) to find out Ha Rim’s a runaway.
Surprising everyone, Han Gyul strides out to Ha Rim and his mother to say: “Jin Ha Rim. Pack your things immediately and leave.” Eun Chan rushes out to intervene, but Han Gyul is firm:
“Fix things with your father and then come back. Before you reach a compromise, don’t step foot inside my cafe.”

CHAPTER 15: “Marine Boy”
The Coffee Prince cafe finds its footing entering its second month of operation, with their early-morning strategy proving to be a hit. It’s so successful that they end up having to open a second counter.
They even have regular customers: Every day, a girl comes around to flirt with Eun Chan. Actually, there are lots of female customers who come looking for Eun Chan, but this one is especially persistent.
Every day at 4 o’clock, she’d come to try to seduce Eun Chan.
Han Gyul had a hard time concentrating on what Mr. Hong was saying. It was because of that girl, who’d come by like always, wearing a shirt with a plunging neckline and a miniskirt, making eyes at Eun Chan. Han Gyul found himself constantly looking over to check if Eun Chan was taking notice of that girl’s chest. He hated himself for it and it drove him crazy, but he couldn’t help it. He kept glancing over in that direction.
The girl, who works at a nearby karaoke place, keeps inviting Eun Chan over (Eun Chan always deflects with “next time”), and calls Eun Chan “oppa” even though she looks much older. Han Gyul, preoccupied by glaring at the girl, doesn’t notice that Mr. Hong has noticed and is looking at him strangely.
The girl invites Eun Chan to a midnight movie screening, and Eun Chan stops to consider it — if it’s an action movie, she might be interested. Just then, Han Gyul yells Eun Chan’s name, interrupting, and Eun Chan tells the girl, “Sorry, gotta go. Maybe next time.” Han Gyul scolds Eun Chan for chattering too much with the customers. She feels he’s unfairly picking on her, and even though Han Gyul knows it, he can’t help himself.
Are you crazy, Choi Han Gyul? What’s wrong with you? Why are you so concerned with that guy? Ah, I’m gonna go crazy, seriously! I hate everyone who’s around that guy, male or female, old or young. I hate when he treats other people well, too. But that guy treats everyone well. He talks too much!

It’s been a few days since Ha Rim left the cafe, and Han Gyul’s holding out for a few more days to hire a replacement, in hopes that Ha Rim will settle his family issues and come back soon. (What a difference from when he let Nak Gyun go.) He suggests to Eun Chan that they all go out to dinner together, which of course excites her. Seeing her so happy, Han Gyul clenches his teeth to keep himself from smiling too.
The cafe’s doing so well now with morning as their busiest time, so they close around 9 or 10 at night. If there are very few customers toward the end, Han Gyul sends his employees home and handles closing the cafe himself, because he feels sorry for how hard everyone’s worked: “Han Gyul hadn’t known until now that he could feel that way toward his employees. Gratefulness mixed with sorriness and created more affection. It was the first time he’d felt this kind of remarkable feeling, but it wasn’t bad.”
Han Gyul sees Eun Chan and Sun Ki whispering to each other closely — the taciturn Sun Ki talks more with Eun Chan than any of the others — and immediately his mood worsens.
A feeling he couldn’t express in words started to creep up on him yet again. Nearly every day, just seeing Eun Chan caused that feeling to envelop him, and threw him into chaos.

Finally, Han Gyul is driven to asking for advice from his friend’s brother, a doctor. He cites a problem his “friend” has been having recently, who wonders if he’s got some kind of psychological issues. The doctor friend asks for the symptoms, which include:
“Well… he’s gotten to know this other guy recently, who looks like a good-looking girl. From the way that guy acts and talks, he’s definitely a male, but he’s twenty-four and he looks like a pretty boy. But whenever my friend looks at that guy, his heart beats faster, the guy looks attractive to him, and he wants to t-touch him…… Anyway, that’s what he says. It’s ridiculous, huh? He’s not even gay.”
The doctor wonders if it’s a case of realizing one’s homosexuality late, and Han Gyul answers, “You think he’s gay? But he’s never had anything like this happen before.”
The doctor answers that it could help to have the friend try initiating some light physical contact, just to see how he feels. Even if he feels the impulse to touch him, if he actually tried to hold or kiss the guy, he might find it unappealing. He might just be fantasizing or be feeling curious, but it’s possible he wouldn’t find it desirable in real life.

Han Gyul thinks back to the party where he’d met Han Sung’s date, because her habit of blowing her bangs out of her eyes made him think of Eun Chan.
Seeing that woman’s face, it had briefly overlapped with Eun Chan’s, but the image dispersed when Han Sung carried her away. Looking at Yu Ju’s distraught face, he’d forgotten about it, but now, watching Eun Chan, he thought back to her again. To compare that glamorous woman with Go Eun Chan created total unbalance. That woman had long hair, large eyes, sensual lips, rounded breasts, long legs, and a heavy fragrance emanating from her supple body…… Go Eun Chan was a long way from that. Now you’re imagining all sorts of strange things, Choi Han Gyul. Have you finally gone crazy? Are you lost in your fantasy? Dammit.
Han Gyul gets an unexpected call from Yu Ju, who’s recommended the Coffee Prince to a reporter for a profile in a magazine, thinking it would be nice to help Han Gyul out. She’s on her way to the Coffee Prince now, so Han Gyul reluctantly says okay, and tells the others to go on to dinner without him, which disappoints Eun Chan. He hands her his credit card to pay for the dinner and tells her not to eat too much.
Eun Chan wonders why he can’t come along, asking if he’s got a date. Han Gyul replies, “Yeah, so what?” At that, Eun Chan’s face registers her disappointment, and she whirls around and stalks outside without a word, making Han Gyul wonder:
“What’s with that guy? Why does he look so unenergetic all of a sudden? Is he hungry?”
After the employees left, Han Gyul was alone in the cafe. One her way out, Eun Chan didn’t say goodbye or look him in the eye. Han Gyul wanted to call her back to ask why, but held back, because it would’ve looked weird to the others.

At dinner, Mr. Hong suggests that Eun Chan tell the truth herself, and she wonders if that’s the best thing. She thinks back to the party, where Yu Ju overheard her argument with Han Sung. Worried over how much she knew, she called Han Sung afterward, and he’d told her the bad news that yes, Yu Ju did know about it, but assured her he’d talk to her and make sure it didn’t become a problem.
So, Eun Chan tells Mr. Hong: “If he kicks me out, there’s nothing I can do about it. I’m planning on telling him sooner or later, when the opportunity arises.” She tells him she’d never been bothered by being mistaken for a boy — when she was young, she found the kids’ reactions fun. And after her father died, she had no time to think about it. Mr. Hong asks:
“But it bothers you now?”
“It’s more that I hate lying to someone. But why are you suddenly telling me to reveal the truth? Do you think the boss might’ve caught on?”
“No, it’s just…… It seemed like there was something between you two.”
“Huh? What’s that?”
“Never mind. Let’s go back inside.”

Meanwhile, Han Gyul has dinner with Yu Ju. Now that she’s aware of Eun Chan’s gender, Yu Ju asks a few leading questions about Han Gyul’s employees. (Naturally, Han Gyul’s obsession causes him to misinterpret Yu Ju’s intentions…)
“You closed the cafe early tonight. I’d wanted to say hi to your employees.”
“Why, are you interested in one of them? If you are, tell me. I’ll hook you guys up.”
“No, it’s not that. It’s just… that one named Go Eun Chan…”
Without meaning to, Han Gyul looked up and stared at Yu Ju sharply.
“He’s the one who found my handbag that time, right? I never got to properly thank him. I couldn’t see very well that night because it was dark, but he’s quite pretty, isn’t he? For a guy…”
“I thanked him already so you don’t have to.”
“Do you think Eun Chan is Han Sung’s type?”
“What?”
“Uh, no, what I mean is, if he were a girl, since he’s as pretty as one. He’s lively, unpretentious, honest, and courageous.”
“Since when have you understood that guy so well?”
Han Gyul became conscious of the edge that had crept into his voice, and closed his eyes firmly. Get a grip, Choi Han Gyul! This is Yu Ju, Han Yu Ju. She has nothing to do with Go Eun Chan.
Han Gyul points out that Yu Ju ought to be Han Sung’s type, and she says guys can change. Don’t guys like dating a wide range of diverse types of women? Han Gyul admits that’s probably true, although Han Sung’s different from most men. She asks:
“What about you?”
“Me? I agree with popular opinion, so I like variety.”
Han Gyul paused for a moment, then added with a tone of self-scorn:
“I don’t discriminate on gender, either.”
Yu Ju’s eyes widen at his words, but before they can say anything more, Han Gyul gets a phone call — it’s Han Sung, telling him to come to the hospital immediately. Han Gyul’s father had heart problems and was rushed in.

At the hospital, Han Gyul finds his mother, grandmother, older brother, sister-in-law… and he’s most aggravated at the fact that Han Sung got there first — it’s his father. They explain that Han Sung was working with his father when he collapsed.
It’s late, and his father wants to go to sleep for the night, so the family is told to go home. Han Gyul tries to force his way in to see his father, but Han Sung stops him firmly.
Han Gyul finally unleashes all his pent-up issues with Han Sung and insinuates that Han Sung wants him to suffer because this is what happened with Han Sung’s father. Reaching for anything to hurl at his cousin, Han Gyul brings up Yu Ju as well: “Do you think that succeeding as president will get Assemblyman Han to hand Yu Ju over? You wouldn’t dare ask for her again with your noble sense of pride…”
Yu Ju slaps Han Gyul and stalks off with tears in her eyes.

Out with the Coffee Princes (but having no fun), Eun Chan finds herself at a karaoke room when Han Gyul calls.
(On a side note, Sun Ki amazes everyone by taking the mike and sounding like a true professional — he looks cool and sounds amazing. Everyone looks at him in awe. In the bathroom, Eun Chan overhears someone saying they heard a familiar voice, and peeked in the room, and saw “Marine Boy.” “Oh my god, what’s he doing here? I thought he was quitting, but he shows up here?” The other girl says, “I thought I heard that Madam was looking for him…”)
When Han Gyul calls, he’s drunk.
“Twisted Boss, why are you calling? Is your date boring?”
“Date? Sure, let’s date.”
What was he going on about?
“Boss, you’ve been drinking, haven’t you?”
“No. I’m still drinking. Hey, Go Eun Chan!”
“Ah, geez, you’ll burst my eardrum. What is it, boss!?”
“Come over.”
“What? Now?”
“Yeah. Come here.”
“I’m having tons of fun, why would I leave? No, I don’t want to. If you’ve got something to tell me, you can say it tomorrow. Or, you can come over here. You should see Sun Ki sing…”
“Sun Ki? Oh, Noh Sun Ki. Are you with that guy right now?”
“Of course. We haven’t had a group dinner like this in ages. Would I leave someone out?”
“Don’t hang out with that guy! Who needs him? Get rid of him and come over.”
“Are you at the hotel right now?”
“Yeah. My hotel.”
“Do you know what time it is? If I went over, when would I get any sleep? Aren’t you exploiting your employees too much? I’ve gotta go on my milk delivery tomorrow, and it’s not like I’m your secretary…”
“Hey, you punk! Can’t you just come if I say so?”
“Ah, really…”
“I need you right now.”
In shock, Eun Chan’s breath caught in her throat.
“I said, I need you……”