Like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, things were slowly starting to fall in place.

But, if their lives were to be compared to a puzzle, then the puzzle had to be complicated and frustrating and the pieces were all jumbled up so that it would take time—surely, it would take time.

Seunghyun was there to enjoy every minute, though. Nari was opening up to him more: they shared smiles, once in a while they touched hands, and when he would dance with Hana he would end up twirling Nari (who would let herself be twirled very reluctantly) and all in all, slowly their lives were starting to mould around one another’s. He was right when he’d told Nari that they had been bound in some way by their daughter… He didn’t know he’d come to love it like this, though. Each day he looked forward to coming home from work: Nari would cook for him since she could think of no other way to pay him back for what he’d done for her, and some nights she would even sit with him in his office after Hana had fallen asleep, helping him with paperwork.

He knew that their daughter was bright, and even a little cunning—she knew exactly how to get what she wanted from her father… Seunghyun couldn’t believe he failed to note how smart the mother of his child was, too. But when he did realise, he couldn’t stop admiring her. Nari was a woman he found charming, witty, and breath-taking all at once.

What did she think of him?

It would be safe to say he wouldn’t be finding out any time soon. Nari was very clever in hiding what she thought, much to Seunghyun’s displeasure.

It was a quiet afternoon in the Choi mansion. Having rained heavily all morning, the skies were glum and moody; all seemed grey. In the lounging area, though, nothing was moody. Since it was the weekend and Seunghyun liked to take double days off now (he was entirely smitten with his family), he and Hana had tired themselves out playing games and having battles with rubber swords. Only after Nari scolded Hana for not doing her homework did they eventually put a stop to their loud activities, and Hana spread out across the floor to do her clearly laborious homework of writing her name ten times and drawing a picture of what she thought was ‘happiness’.

When she had finished, she showed her parents who were sitting side by side on the sofa, who both smiled. Seunghyun looked at Nari who’d glanced away a little shyly from his warm stare. It was a drawing of the three of them: Hana in the middle, and Nari and Seunghyun on either side. All shared huge smiles as did the big sun in the corner. Even the flowers were grinning, too. It was almost comical.

“Wow,” Seunghyun commented, taking it from her. “I didn’t know we had an artist in this family!”

Nari quipped, “Better hide your talent quickly, sweetheart—he’ll force your young hands to make art to fill his galleries soon.”

Hana decided that it was ‘grown up’ humour since she didn’t understand, and watched as her father nudged her mother with a bit of a surprised grin. Deciding that she was sleepy now, she opened her arms up to Nari who pulled her into her lap. Rocking her resting body back and forth, Hana fell asleep quickly, little snores coming from her in a pattern. Seunghyun watched with a relaxed expression, and Hana’s small fingers.

Like always, they fell into conversation easily. Seunghyun enjoyed talking to Nari: every bit of her radiated cordiality, and she had an addictive personality that he hadn’t ever known others to have. The more time he spent with her, the more he realised how evident the gap was between rich and poor. Not only were ‘his’ people arrogant and cold, there was nothing honest about their interactions with one another. Everything was money based, everything was about gain and profit more than anything else. But Nari… Nari was sweet, and her heart was almost like a safe place. Now that she’d somewhat offered him a place, he didn’t want to leave.

He was, of course, 27. It was natural that he wanted to put an official name on the family that he had found and made his. Of course, he wasn’t going to ask her to marry him all of a sudden or anything… But now that he was for sure beginning to catch feelings for Nari, he wanted to make her his.

More than that, though, he wanted to show her off. Seunghyun was a man who’d been born with a name already famous in the world of the rich. Nari initially thought that he was only the CEO of his designer firm which dealt with interior design and architecture both, but further he actually owned galleries and was planning the launch of a new one in the heart of Seoul. His love life was constantly pressed into by reporters that appeared at every event he held… And now he wanted to introduce her as his girlfriend.

Seunghyun wanted Nari to be in every aspect of his life.

Some would say he was crazy. Crazy to impregnate her, and then abandon her. Crazy to spend three months thinking of her and their child after a chance encounter. Crazy to make her come live with him. Utterly crazy.

He might as well have been crazy, then.

Crazy for her, and he hadn’t even realised it.

“It’s weird to me,” Nari said to him. They were talking about his business, about the money he earned through the firm and the galleries both. “I’m sitting next to someone with so much power.”

Seunghyun scoffed teasingly. “You’re just now realising it, Nari? Where have you been all this time?”

“God, Seunghyun. Shut up,” she chuckled, smoothing Hana’s hair with her fingers. Now that their lives were balancing out with one another, and now that Nari was no longer overwhelmed by him and no longer so depressed about everything, it was clear that they were comfortable with each other. They joked around, and time was paid no attention to when they were together.

“Can I see your building one day? The very top… That’s where your office is, right? How does the city look from all the way there? I bet it’s mesmerising.”

Seunghyun sat up quickly. “You’d come to my workplace?”

“Uh… Actually, on second thought—probably not? I mean, no one knows about… Our… Situation. You can’t just bring a random woman to your office, right? Unless…” Nari trailed off. What if he did? What if Seunghyun brought women to his office, and he—no. She couldn’t think of things that weren’t her business. It didn’t concern her what he did with his love (and ) life outside of the house that they now shared. After all, he did tell her that he didn’t bring women home. He took them elsewhere.

To his office.

Obviously.

This irrationality of her mind Nari didn’t even realise until Seunghyun cupped her cheek suddenly. “Unless what?”

She’d been so caught up with thinking of what he potentially would do with women he wanted to sleep with that she hadn’t even finished her sentence.

“Nothing. Never mind. Let’s talk about something else.”

“No, don’t switch subjects. Finish what you were saying.”

Nari squeezed Hana to her tighter as if Hana was her protection, or something. Seunghyun removed his hand from her cheek, but inched closer to her. Nari almost kicked him away.

“Unless you actually do, and no one says anything, because you’re their boss.”

Seunghyun’s jaw tightened.

He didn’t say anything.

That confirmed everything for Nari, who’d bit her lip in a little surprise.

“Aish,” she suddenly said lightly, flicking his nose. “Why is your mood so dark now, Seunghyun? I’m not mad. I mean, I was a random girl and we… You know…”

Seunghyun’s lips twitched into a slight smile. He could only recall faintly the feel of Nari’s body under his. He was drunk, and she was the first girl he’d seen who attracted him even back then. It occurred to him finally that Nari must have felt some attraction to him, too, since it took both of them to, well, .

And the result of it lied sleeping in her arms. She didn’t regret it at all, and truthfully, neither did he—he just regretted how he was a bastard and didn’t do anything to provide for her. How he left her for five years to do everything on her own.

Gods if he didn’t hate himself still.

“I haven’t since I saw you,” Seunghyun admitted coolly, voice coated with some sort of distance. “No other woman have I touched since I saw you and Hana that day. None.”

“I don’t know if you want me to be thankful, or whatever, Seunghyun. It doesn’t bother me,” Nari told him. But it did. It made her stomach flutter, after all. “Let me go and lay her down,” she said and quickly got up, carrying Hana up the stairs, giving her time to gather her thoughts together. So he hadn’t been with anyone for a number of months, then. She grinned behind her hand, feeling… Feeling like an idiot, really. What was going on with her?

Coming back downstairs, she saw Seunghyun hadn’t moved at all from where he sat. He just stared ahead. Nari waved her fingers in front of his eyes.

He grabbed them out of nowhere, and pulled her into him.

“What are you—?!”

“Shh,” he held a finger to her lips. Nari was in his lap.

Her heartbeat quickened. Memories of this exact position years ago flooded back to the front of her mind. It started like this. In his lap, her arms around his neck, before their lips met and they kissed each other hungrily; hardly breaking apart even as they took clothes of one another, even as he entered her. This was how it started.

“It doesn’t bother you, Nari? It doesn’t bother you if I think of other women? If I touch them?”

“It…”

“You’re telling me that it doesn’t upset or anger you? If I touch them like this?” His fingers trailed up her thigh, he grabbed her jaw and brought her face closer to his, smirking. “And what if I kiss them, Nari? That doesn’t bother you either?”

Their lips were close. So close.

Nari made the mistake of looking at his almost expectant, inviting lips. His breath was warm and steady while hers was jagged and unsure.

Was he toying with her?

The truth was that she, too, was attracted to Seunghyun. More than she’d ever been to any other man in her life. And how could she not? He exuded an untouchable air of self-assurance, and she was taken by just that confidence alone. Physically, how could someone not be attracted to Choi Seunghyun? His dark, alert eyes, and his strong jaw and cheekbones. His lips that so often turned up in a smirk or a sweet smile for her. His voice, most of all…

But Nari was still, after all, a world apart from him.

She looked at him sadly, admitting to him: “It would bother me, Seunghyun. I know you probably expected me to say no, no, no to everything—but… I’m sorry.”

Seunghyun finally lost the arrogant smirk, instead his heart beat wildly at the sheer words that yes, it would bother her. He couldn’t even explain how right it felt to hold Nari like this, to have her body on his lap, to stare into her eyes like this. “Why would you be sorry about that?” he asked gently, touching her jaw.

“I feel embarrassed because of what I feel.”

“And what do you feel?”

Nari made a noise of protest, looking elsewhere, breaking the intense eye contact. She mumbled nonsense and swatted at him which lightened the tension momentarily between them. The brief pause melted away quickly though, as in a low tone, he urged her to look at him again.

“I have feelings for you, Seunghyun. I’m ashamed because I know I shouldn’t, but we’ve spent so much time together, and you’re so much nicer and kinder than how you were that day so long ago. I mean, I’m with you all the time now. We live together. I guess it’s inevitable that this would’ve happened anyway, you know?”

She hadn’t finished though.

“But I know that you’re just playing with me, you like to have your fun every once in a while. I hope you don’t see me any different now.”

Nari was so good at covering her emotions that Seunghyun wasn’t even sure if she liked him as a person, never mind experience anything for him. He clasped her hands in his, fingers finding the spaces between hers. She muttered, “The hell are you doing, Seunghyun?”

And he didn’t reply, only held her hands in his; her perfect, lightly scarred hands that tried to protect their child when she was pushed and had fallen. He vowed silently he would catch her if she fell ever again.

And if she would fall for him – without any shame, without any embarrassment – then he would be there to catch her all the same.

“I like you, Nari. I like you enough to know that I want to make you mine. I want you. As inevitable as it was for you, the same goes for me. I’ve never truly felt like this for a woman. Five years ago I was struck by your beauty, five years on, I’m struck by you: everything about you. You’re anxious, you’re embarrassed, you’re scared—but you have no reason to be. The way I take care of our daughter, I want to take care of you. Let me, Nari.”

Nari instinctively hid her face in her hands, telling him he was being too much. Seunghyun simply smiled, his heart swelled with so much emotion. Hana brought him happiness… And so did Nari. He’d been roaming through the last years without them emptily, drowning in alcohol and women and wasting money. But now, now his life had a sense of purpose.

He grabbed her hands in his again, looking at her blushing, uncertain face, taking in her beauty. “Will you say yes to me, Nari? Will you be my girlfriend?”

It took a moment or two, but finally, she said yes. She nodded, before she met his eyes, and as soon as she did, his face broke into a smile. Seunghyun kissed her hands gently, releasing them only so he could cup her face and finally do what he’d been waiting to—which was to kiss her.

Nari was more than happy to kiss him back, her heart had practically grown wings inside her and her stomach was still full of butterflies. Their lips connected, and their lips moved against one another delicately, softly, smoothly. She put her arms around his neck and moved his hands down to hold her waist.

Five years ago, their kisses had been lustful and needy and full of moans.

Now, they kissed each other tenderly—but nothing was to be mistaken: under the soft kisses began to grow the flames of desire.

AN: hi hi hi, minor errors (spelling mistakes, misplaced words etc) will be fixed when I read through this later; sorry!
i know it's been a while, but honestly i've been so busy. it's finals/exam season for me starting in about two weeks and i really need to get perfect grades, lol. apologies for the scattered, slow updates. in some time i'll be able to write regularly again, so i'm really sorry for the wait! just know that your comments are so appreciated and they're what motivate me. just so you have something to look forward to in the next chapter, i wanted nari and seunghyun to finally acknowledge their feelings for each other hah. we might have some drama coming up wink wink but the resolution will be sweet before we move on to the ending.
again, so sorry for the wait! please leave some comments, guys. it means so much. have a lovely day. <333