“In every change, in every falling leaf there is some pain, some beauty. And that's the way new leaves grow.” 
―Amit Ray

They chewed their food quietly on the Park's dining table. There was only Sunmi, Dara, and Jiyong since his parents were talking to their lawyers about Dara's case while Dami was taking her fiancé sightseeing. Earlier, Jiyong was about to storm off because of the 'she-told-her-mom' incident but Mrs. Park stopped him by the door, saying that it had slipped out of Dara's tongue when she admitted her faults and explained why he had left to go to Japan. Suddenly, an air of somberness enveloped him and he found himself going back to her room despite her devil screams and boxer hits.

Jiyong was too caught up on remembering that past and recalling the day he went back home after so many months. He knew that Dara was missing him and it showed in the voicemail that she left behind. 

Hey, this is Dara... How are you? ...I'm good. Omma's doing pretty well too... I can only hear how well you're doing through omma and... I-I'm glad you're alright. It's so quiet here that sometimes I just make random noises to fill the silence. And frankly, I'm missing your idiocy. 

I wish you'd come home...

I miss you, Jiyong.

It took him all his will and power to stay in Japan yet he'd always find himself replaying her voicemail whenever he missed her too. That was the only one she ever sent and she probably stopped thinking that the lack of response from him meant that he didn't want to hear or talk to her. This was a time when they were both still afraid... both still young, careless, and ignorant. Even though only a few years had passed, Jiyong knew that both of them changed—matured—because of that event. But now that she forgot how their relationship got stronger, the bond between them faltered. 

Yet he's planning to fix that too. 

"Do you wanna sleep with Jiyong tonight, sweetie?" 

Dara immediately sputtered and choked on her food while Jiyong let out a silent chuckle as he smiled knowingly at her mother. 

"OMMAA!!!!!" She flushed. "How can you even say that so casually?!"

Mrs. Park blinked innocently, brows furrowing in slight confusion. "Sorry honey, I forgot that you're still a bit hazy right now." she threw her an apologetic look before explaining, "Before the accident, you were always sneaking to his room to sleep with him." When Dara's head was about to blow off, she interrupted her, "I mean literal sleeping. Geez Dara, get your head out of the gutter." And she had the audacity to joke and laugh! 

"I-I... That was when I was young!!!!" She blushed even deeper, shooting a glare at an innocent-looking Jiyong. Her scowl grew deeper seeing a smirk appear on his face. 

"I have pictures of you sleeping beside me." he remarked then switching to a bashful expression as he glanced at her mother. "Y-You knew?" he smiled awkwardly. 

Mrs. Park rolled her eyes. "How could I not? This house's old and the floor creaks even if you just breathe over it." she laughed waving a hand. "I don't mind though, you're already adults anyway—"

"OMMA!!!!" 

"What?" 

"Let's just not talk about , or sleeping together, or Jiyong." Dara sighed. "Please?"

"Can you pass me the kimchi, noona?" The man who shall not be named asked politely.

"We weren't taking about ." she muttered scandalously. "And why sure, Jiyong." She smiled, passing him said kimchi. 

Meanwhile Dara was seething on her chair, glaring at the both of them. The two partners in crime were deliberately teasing her like this, maybe because they want to spite her and die early. Having enough of their , she slammed her utensils on the table and stood up, still giving them the coldest look she could muster.

"Dara?" Jiyong inquired with a ghost of a smirk on his lips.

The older woman only released a frustrated 'hmmph!' before taking her cane and hobbling back to her room, slamming the door while she was at it.

Jiyong followed her with his eyes, his smile gradually fading as he interchanged between his half-eaten meal and Dara's barely-touched food. Sighing to himself, he reached for her plate and was about to go to her room when Mrs. Park stopped him with a hand on his arm.

"I want to talk to you first, son."

He regarded her with a curious look before he complied, sitting back on his chair. "Something wrong, noona?"

"I experienced this too with her father." She sighed.

Jiyong blinked. "Mr. Park had amnesia too?"

"No, no..." A sad smile formed on her lips. "He kept pushing me away and pulling me back in... These Parks are notorious for this push and pull, y'know?"

He laughed a little. "I know right?"

She flashed her the same knowing smile, her fingers grazing his cheek lovingly. "At first, her father didn't want to date me let alone be in the same room as me. But I thought him out out of it... You don't know how much effort I had to put just to make him agree to marry me. God, that man was stubborn!"

"How did you do it?" he looked at her with a tinge of fascination. "To get him to be with you, I mean."

The older woman smiled remembering her memories with him. "Well, Wooyoung was a classmate of mine in college. No matter what, we always seemed to have the same classes and he didn't seem to care but I did and I sat by him to introduce myself and point it out." She suddenly giggled. "Wooyoung was kind of the brooding type—always keeping to himself and rarely talked to anyone unless he really needed to. I've always wondered what our Dara took from him since he's so reserved..."

"She got his smile." Jiyong muttered.

"Yes she did..." She nodded, a distant look glazing her eyes. "Anyway, after introducing myself to him and receiving no answer at all, I decided to sit by him for the rest of the year just to spite his cold shoulder response. I'd bug him, poke him, ask questions that I already knew the answer to, and anything else that would either get him to look at me, or if I was lucky, something that would get him to react."

"One time, and I swear it was an accident, I almost fell from a flight of stairs because I was waving at him. Thankfully he was able to catch my fall but I got such a scolding from him that I bet my parents would be proud." she smiled fondly. "It was then did he start willingly coming close to me. Of course that brat still didn't talk much but after a while, he warmed up and I'd often find him being the first to strike a conversation between us. Dara's father was the absolute tsundere. It was so adorable~"

Jiyong laughed at the woman's merry storytelling and urged her to tell more with a nod.

"But when I saw that both of us clearly wanted to be something more, I acted first but Wooyoung became distant again. He was purposefully ignoring me and I admit, I wanted to punch him repeatedly for it, but I still pursued on. We had a lot of bumps on the road and I almost gave up but he always had that loneliness in his eyes that made me want to erase. Even though he'd unintentionally hurt me with his aloofness, I still wanted him... I wanted to see that smile that he only had for me. After a big fight, he finally caved and told me about that curse. He said he can't be with me because he'll leave me eventually. He was 19 at that time and he wasn't in the healthiest condition so he was more afraid and anxious about his future."

"He also told me about the death of his mother because of it and how it slowly destroyed his father to the point of taking his own life a few years later." she explained. "He said he didn't want that to happen to me and I keep telling him that it won't but he was just too persistent. We hit another standstill after that and I had to prove to him that he was wrong."

"How?"

She laughed a little and shook his head. "Wooyoung thought I was turning dependent on him since I stuck to him like a leech so I ignored him for almost a year until his birthday."

An amused look crossed Jiyong's face. "You got some big balls, lady."

She breathed haughtily and nodded. "I lived my life as if he was a stranger. I'd say hi to him every now and again but that's the extent of it. I sat far away from him as I could and made friends while he watched with that brooding face of his. I played the ruse of being independent and capable without him but I knew deep inside that I wanted him to always be beside me. I was going to do it for a full year but I just couldn't do it on his birthday. He was going to be alone and I didn't want him to. I wanted him to feel that people are going to stay with him while still being their own person. I finally cracked that nut that day and we started dating for a couple of years until Dara came along."

"Dara... was an accident." she cringed apologetically at the word. "We were on our 5th year of dating and I thought that he was going to marry me on the third but he always breezed through the subject whenever I joked about marriage. But then I got pregnant with Sandara and everything changed. I remember crying seeing the horrified look on his face. He looked like he was about to throw up and I just... broke. I questioned him about his reaction and he was so scared and so apologetic that I didn't know what to do with him. He was crying on my feet, saying that he was sorry for me and the baby. We both knew that the baby would be affected by the curse too and he kept apologizing like everything was all his fault. With the baby on the way and him getting older, the thought of the both of them potentially leaving me kept haunting him and he was so guilty that he couldn't even look at me."

"Things weren't good between us during the pregnancy since he went back to his distant self. But at night, I'd feel him touching my baby bump, whispering that he was sorry, and it just broke every time he did it. I let him feel it when he thought I was asleep because I thought he'd leave as soon as Dara was born but when I went to labor, he was by my side, comforting me and telling me that we were going to be okay and I just cried. It was Dara who brought us closer and Wooyoung just completely fell in love with her. He was holding her in his arms as if it was something so precious that he wasn't even allowed to touch let alone look at."

"There was something that happened to him that moment he saw her. He changed for the good and though I shouldn't have welcomed him back so easily because of the past, I just couldn't. The love I had for him trumped all the insecurities and negativity I had for him. Maybe I'm an idiot, but I'm the luckiest kind if it meant that I'd have him... have him and our Sandara."

"You're a strong woman, noona." He said sincerely, patting her shoulder. 

"I am... and thankfully, Dara is too." She smiled lightly. "Right now, she's confused about everything that's going on. The part of her that loves you is still there, it's just buried deep inside, just waiting for you to wake it up. Just stay strong and firm, Jiyong. One day, she'll be the one to do the same fight for you." 

"She already has... She's done more than I ever did." He mumbled, almost guilty. "She's been fighting for me from the start and I kept pushing her away."

"And you learned from it, yes?"

Jiyong nodded grimly. 

"And what are you planning to do about it."

He looked up from his clasped hands and with a blank face asked, "Do you two still tell each other everything?" 

"Occasionaly." she shrugged although there was a small curl on her lips. 

He stared at her again with the same unreadable expression before his face changed into one of mock contempt. "Then you're not getting anything from me, lady." he said. 

"Oh c'mon, Jiyong. Tell this poor old mother what you're planning." she shook his arm childishly. 

A smug smirk graced his lips as he watched her. "I don't wanna ruin the surprise." he shrugged casually. 

"OOOooOooOhhhh, I love surprises!" she squealed. "Tell me about it!!!" 

He groaned. "That completely goes against the surprise."

"I'm not Dara, Jiyong-ahhhhhh" she whined. 

He snorted. "Yeah, you're her mom which makes it even worse." 

"Jiyong-ahHHhHH!!!!"

"Now I get why Mr. P wanted to avoid you." he mumbled under his breath.

"WHAT DID YOU SAY?!!!?!"

"And now I understand where Dara gets her crazy from." 

"Kwon Jiyong!" 

The boy erupted in a fit of laughter while the older woman jokingly hit his arm. Meanwhile, the lonely girl in her room curled up against the door, hearing every story and every word they shared. Her eyes zeroed in on the picture of her father that she had on her nightstand and then, an unconscious tear fell as she slowly buried herself on her knees. 

"Remember, Dara. Don't be afraid to live your life because at the end of the day, you only have one. Don't waste it like appa, okay?" he kissed her head, the girl's eyes blinking up at him in wonder. "Everything will be fine, baby. I promise. Appa will protect you." 

And after what happened in the accident, she knew that his father did protect her. 

"T-Thank you, appa." 

Because Sandara Park was still alive even when death was already knocking on her door. 

Dara cracked her crusty eyes open to see a tall figure looming beside her bed. She blinked a few times to get her vision to focus and when it did....

"AAAAHHHHHHH WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?!!?" She screamed bloody murder. 

Jiyong picked his ear irritably and shot her a glare. "We're gonna be late for work." 

Dara blinked again. "Work?"

"Uh yeah?" he muttered in a 'duh' tone. 

*BLINK*

"I have a job?" 

"Yeah you have a—" he paused and looked at her expressionlessly before stepping out the room and closing the door behind him. She looked at the closed door confusedly before she decided to follow him. Dara grabbed her cane and pushed herself up to scurry towards the door when it suddenly flew open, making her step back and almost fall when...

"Got'cha." he winked, his hand rubbing her back as he pulled her closer to his chest. 

"No you don't." Dara scowled and lightly pushed herself off of him and dusted the 'Jiyong particles' off of her.

Dusting off her clothes gave her a full view of what he wore from bottom to top. On his feet were a pair of shiny black shoes that was topped along with a pair of crisp black slacks. The front however has been rid of a matching black blazer that she envisioned and was instead greeted by a simple white buttoned shirt that had the sleeves rolled up to his forearms. She gulped seeing a tattoo peeking from the sides of his neck. She tried to casually check what it was but then stopped when she saw the smirk on his lips. She quickly closed her unconsciously parting mouth and gave him another glare. 

"See something you like?" he mus