Am I the only one who's so late to discover and read the other precious Darahae one shots from pen_stop authornim? Thank god, I happen to browse her stories a few days ago. There are other gems there! Ppali! Ppali! Read them all!!! 

“I am.” The old man confidently replied to him.

Donghae let a long breath out through his mouth. Their eyes were still stuck on each other. It was as if the older wasn’t letting him back away to be exact. He watched a lot of teenybopper movies and TV series when he was still in Mokpo. Their friend, Seulgi, forced them to do so whenever they would have time to download in the internet. Meet the parents. In those hundred scenes on various films, it would always be this way. The guy almost pissing in his pants in front of a sadist father of his lover. This is too cliché-ic. He thought. The wealthy father offering treasures to blind the guy who was trying to steal his precious girl. The high and mighty father doing everything he could to vanish the foolish guy in his and his daughter’s life. Protecting their gold and glory kind of scenario. He knew all these.

His brows slightly creased as his thoughts drifted.

But even in the original Meteor Garden and the remake Boys Over Flower dramas, the evil mother only entered the scene when the lead characters were having this lovely and worth squealing episodes in their newly-built relationship before it was bound to get ruined.

Why did our story skipped and just fast-forwarded to this?

“Pirated?”

“What?” Yang Hyun Suk widened his eyes at what he just said.

“Huh?” Donghae was pulled out of his minute imagination and straightened his back, while bowing to the man across him. “N-nothing, sir.”

“Are you accusing these scholarships and my checkbook as fraud?”

Donghae waved his hands frantically in a crossed manner. “Aniyo! Aniyo! I would never do that. That’s not what I mean.” He bowed again.

He’s weird. YG cleared his throat, remembering why he was there in the first place. “I’m a businessman, Mr. Lee. I want everything straight and precise.” He pushed the folder closer to Donghae. “Leave my daughter alone. I don’t like you for her.”

His breath hitched. So, this is how it feels like in the movies.

“There’s not a single or even a tiny part in you that states that you’re good for Dara,” Paused. “And our world.”

Donghae remained quiet as his head bowed down to the folder. He knew the content of it. Harvard Scholarship. He’d give a loud and long whistle if he was on the mood.

“My daughter deserves the best.” His voice piercing to the last shred of his ego. “And that best will never be you.”

The two was filled with silence.

Then, a short laugh escaped from his mouth. His pearly white teeth showing as he scratched the back of his head.

This didn’t go well with YG. “What’s funny?”

Donghae tried to suppress and bowed again. “Nothing, sir.” He told him. “It’s just that . . .” He smiled genuinely this time. “I remember telling those words to myself a lots of time before.”

Yang Hyun Suk just kept quiet, not expecting this.

His laugh sank along the noise the diners were making. “You really don’t have to.” His hands pushed back the folders. “I came to YG University to study and make my parents proud. What happened over the past months . . . Whoever came into my life . . . It was none of my or your control.” He nodded. “Just offer it to somebody else. There are other people who need you help too.”

YG sat there, not showing any hint of amusement. “Do you think your phony show of morality would ever change my view on you?”

“No.” He quickly said. “It’s because there’s no need for it. It’s a waste of your time.”

YG felt his brows creased. “Are you saying you’ll still stay in my school and pester the life of Dara?”

“I’m saying that I don’t like your daughter.”

Hyun Suk’s lips partly opened. Actually, he almost gasped on that. Did he get his sources, right? Or is this really the Lee Donghae guy the director of the school sent him? What he said was truly insulting his child. It was insulting him too! Dara . . . His one and only daughter . . . Many tried to woo his permission for a long-term engagement. Strengthening ties. Power. But not once he accepted although many were even over-qualified.

But this man? A mere scholar? A waiter with four eyes?

“Even the first time we met, I really didn’t like her.”

What?
 

“She’s,” Donghae made a face, recalling their first meeting. “So full of it.” He nodded to no one. “A totally glammed up brat who thinks the world should revolve on her alone. She finds other’s misery entertaining that makes her so evil. Lazy. Arrogant. Smokes a lot. Drinks a lot. She has this nonsensical policy: What I want is what I get. I have never met any human being who always smirks and insults someone for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Sometimes, in between snacks too.” Donghae pursed his lips to the left while nodding. “She drinks a galloon of sarcasm everyday. She’s so conceited. Like from head to toe.” Paused. “I don’t even like her half-shaved hair that people think as so clamor-worthy. To be honest, until now, her hairstyle weirds me out.”

YG could only look back at him. What the hell? I feel like wasting my time here. He narrowed his eyes on the namja. Half-shaved hair? When was the last time I saw her? Lazy? Arrogant? Heartless? Dara? At that moment, he couldn’t see the image of his child. Dara . . . She’s always been quiet when facing him. Always bowing her head down. The Dara this guy is telling me . . . Is this really my daughter now?

“I really don’t like Dara.” Donghae smiled warmly. “And yet I really love her at the same time.”

“Thank you for coming!”

Eunhyuk’s cheery voice echoed as the sound of meat grilling in the kitchen made the diners even hungrier. It was sure noisy but somehow it couldn’t penetrate the haze around the table of those two.

“Despite how evil she could be, she has her redeeming times as well.” His smile even widened. “Dara learns from her mistakes easily. She might sound sarcastic but you’ll realize she’s actually slowly making it up to you. Dara won’t apologize to you directly but she’ll show it and . . . you’ll feel her sincerity.” Donghae glanced outside the restaurant. “Dara is someone that will grow on you.” His eyes took notice of a mop near them. “Did you know that she mopped this place last December? She’s intimidating as a waitress but . . . bearable. Alright.” A chuckle escaped. “Dara can help without asking for anything in return. She can be sentimental and very sensitive too.” He remembered that night on Christmas Eve. “Dara wants to be greeted a Merry Christmas on Christmas too. A Happy New Year on New Year and all those other occasions. Sir, she wants to greet and be greeted by her family no matter how plain it is. Inside, she’s longing for simple moments like those.”

YG could only listen as his jaw tensed noticeably.

“Dara is funny. She really is. We had a recitation back then in our Med class and she kept on answering no matter how wrong it was. At least, she tried. We had a play, Romeo and Juliet. She read a script in audition and killed almost all the characters and became antagonist but she made everyone laugh heartily. She’s trying hard to be so tough but her innocence always betrays her.”

The most prominent person in South Korea shook his head and gave the folders to the assistant near them. He was ready to go. “I don’t know what the heck-”

“Dara may not seem like it, but she’s family-oriented.” He continued. “She cares of her brothers and you. She cares what other people will think if ever she would fail to meet your and your world’s expectation to a Yang like her. Every Med class bores her to death.” Paused. “It’s her words, not mine.”

YG tilted his head to the left. “What are you trying to say?”

“Sir, your daughter doesn’t want to be a doctor.”

Silence.

“Nonsense.” YG only said and stood.

Donghae stood abruptly too. “Fine Arts.” His words stopped the older man. “That’s what she wants. That’s where she belongs. That’s where her talent and passion is.”

Yang Hyun Suk gave him a glare he normally does to a foe. Dara doesn’t want to be a doctor? Silly. “And who told you that?”

“Everyone knows it, sir. Except you.”

His features hardened that the other diners became uncomfortable too. “Dara is the heiress of the empire built by my wife. It is her dream to be the successor. It is my responsibility to ensure that. Fine Arts?” YG scoffed. “That’s a weekend hobby she had even as a kid. Even now.” His voice stern. “Medicine is a noble profession. You are lucky you even manage to enter and barely survive in this field.”

“It’s because it is what I want to be.” He tried to reason out.

“Mr. Lee Donghae.” YG was near cursing the boy. “If my daughter truly wants Fine Arts, why would she waste years in Med? Not once she said no. Not once she showed disagreement. When I told her to be a doctor, she agreed quickly. If she’s suffering just like how you’re describing her to be now, why is she still there?”

The two looked at each other, breathing the air that has gone thicker by the seconds that passed. Even Eunhyuk and his parents all stopped working and just watched them.

“Hope.”

YG’s brows met on the middle. “What?”

“Until now, Dara is hoping that one day you’ll look at her the same way you look at Soo Hyuk sunbaenim and Jinwoo ssi.”

A sound of a siren from an ambulance passed their restaurant.

“So, eventhough she’s trampling other students’ dignity