Allie’s POV

I wake up at seven to start packing up Cecelia’s things that would keep her occupied while she’s at Myungsoo’s house since I don’t know what he has there, but he probably has everything, right? I stick some of her favorite toys in a backpack and I also sit down and take the time to write a list of foods that she likes and dislikes along with her daily schedule that she follows. Thankfully, Cecelia doesn’t have any allergies, so we don’t have to worry about that.

I’m almost about to go wake up Cecelia when my phone rings. “Allie, don’t feed Cecelia breakfast,” Myungsoo says.

“Why?” I ask.

“I’ll have breakfast here for her. Is she picky about anything?”

“No, not when it comes to breakfast food. I made a list for you, though. Why are you cooking her breakfast, though?”

“I just thought that she would be hungry by the time that you drop her off. You guys are free to come early if you want to eat.”

“I’ll pass,” I say. “So your driver is coming at eight?”

“Yup. Don’t worry; I’ll be in the car, too.”

“Good,” I say, “I’ll be sending Cecelia to go with you then because I have to go to work and it’d probably be farther for me to go to your house and then have to come all the way back.”

“Okay.”

“I’m hanging up.”

“Okay.”

I hang up the phone and glance at the clock and see that it’s already seven thirty. It’s time to wake Cecelia up. “Cecelia,” I say entering her room and lightly shaking her. “It’s time to go take a bath.”  I go to the bathroom and prepare her bath for her as well as the clothes; I sit them by the sink. “Cecelia, it’s almost time to go to that oppa’s house.”

I watch her open her eyes and go into the bathroom to take a bath and get changed. Thankfully, Cecelia never takes long to wash up. As soon as she comes out, I do up her hair and blow dry it getting her all ready for the day.

“Are you going to the nice oppa’s today?” she asks me while I’m putting her hair up.

“No, I have to go to work,” I say, “but it was nice that he offered to watch after you.”

“Yeah,” she says with a big smile.

“Okay,” I say walking her downstairs with her backpack and as she buttons her coat, “you better be good for the oppa, okay? He’s letting you nicely stay over at his house and he even has breakfast for you. So you have to be a good little girl.”

“Don’t worry, unnie,” she says looking at me with a smile. “I’ll be on my best behavior, I’m sure.”

“I’m sure you will,” I say patting her head. “Now let’s hurry up, that oppa is probably waiting for you.”

Cecelia and I walk outside and we come face to face with Myungsoo standing up against his car, but it’s a different car than what he has last night. “Good morning, oppa,” Cecelia says going up to him.

“Good morning, are you ready to go?” Myungsoo asks looking at Cecelia.

“Here you go,” I say going up to him and handing him her backpack. “It should have everything in there, there’s a list of foods she does and doesn’t like along with her schedule, just in case. Extra clothes are also in there along with some of her toys. If she needs anything, just call me.”

‘Well isn’t someone a worrier,” he comments.

“I’m just watching out for my baby sister.”

“Do you not trust me?” he asks eyeing me. I don’t answer the question, he should know it already himself. “Well, you have to get to work, don’t you? C’mon Cecelia,” he says looking at her. He opens up the door and Cecelia climbs in.

“See you later, unnie,” Cecelia says as she climbs in.

“Okay, see you later,” I say as I start heading in the direction of the café.

Myungsoo’s POV

“Myungsoo, I thought you’d be sleeping,” Sungyeol comments as I enter the house with Cecelia. As we approached the house, I saw her eyes get wide. She must be amazed at its size. Last night, I had everyone help pitch in to create a nice playroom for Cecelia to play in, partially because I didn’t want to see her get lost in the house. “I thought that I would’ve had to come here and drag your out of bed because you overslept.”

“Nope,” I say as I give the maid Cecelia’s jacket to hang in the closet. “How about we go have breakfast?” I ask looking at Cecelia. “Here, I’ll show you the way.” I take her hand and lead her towards the dining room. “Feel free to join us Sungyeol.”

The three of us enter the dining room and Cecelia sees all of the food placed around. “Oppa, this is a lot of food.”

“Well I didn’t know what you liked,” I comment. “Go ahead, eat up.” I start putting some food on her plate while Sungyeol just looks at me.

“You look like the girl’s father,” he says in a low voice so Cecelia doesn’t hear.

“Your point is?” I simply ask putting some pancakes into my mouth.

“I’ve never seen this side of you, Myungsoo. What’s wrong with you? Are you okay? Do you like Allie?”

“Ah, I forgot to introduce you guys,” I say trying to change the subject. “Cecelia, this is oppa’s best friend, Sungyeol, he’s just another oppa.”

“Hello, I’m Cecelia,” she says introducing herself. I can only think about how cute she is when she does that.

“Hello Cecelia, I’m Sungyeol,” he says politely greeting the girl. “Do you want to play with me after we eat some food?”

“Sure,” she happily says.

The three of us sit there eating the food until we’re finished and I see Cecelia start to get antsy in her seat, she probably has too much energy now. I lead her to go to the playroom that I have set up for her along with Sungyeol and I see her shocked face once again. “Oppa, am I allowed to play with all of these?”

“Play with them all you want,” I comment. “Today, they’re all yours.” In reality, I had everyone find toys that a six-year-old girl would like and told them to buy it. Maybe I should watch out for Allie’s words and not spoil her, but what Allie doesn’t know won’t hurt her, although, Cecelia will probably tell her about all of the toys. Why am I worrying about what Allie will think?

While Sungyeol and Cecelia are playing tea-party, I sit down to look through her backpack and look at the schedule and foods that she likes and doesn’t like. I see that on her schedule, she tends to fall asleep after lunch, especially on the weekends because she’s playing a lot throughout the day, or that’s what time the daycare has them sleep. For lunch, I decide to have the maids prepare a simple traditional lunch that Cecelia would probably eat at the daycare. I gave them the list and told them to prepare her favorite foods that go together and keep out the foods she doesn’t like.

I laugh while I watch Sungyeol and Cecelia play with each other, it seems like they get along perfectly fine. With Sungyeol’s childish mind, I had no doubt that they would. I decide to go down and play with them, but my phone suddenly rings. I get Sungyeol’s attention and point to my phone and the door to tell him that I’m going to take it outside of the room. Thankfully, he understands what I’m trying to do.

“Oppa,” I hear a voice whine as soon as I answer the phone, “do you want to do something?”

“No,” I respond firmly.

“Oppa, but you ditched me yesterday, too.”

“I don’t care,” I tell her. I still don’t know her name and normally I never hang out with women more than once.

“But oppa,” she pleads. “Are you with another woman?”

“So what if I am?” I ask.

“There are rumors going around about you, oppa.”

“There are always rumors, it doesn’t matter,” I say. There are always rumors about me because of my parents. It’s like the whole public eye is watching me. I normally can’t do anything without someone saying something about it. I’ve already had an established relationship as a playboy for the longest time, ever since I was about sixteen or seventeen, I’ve had that nickname. I’ve become indifferent to the rumors now; if people just want to spread baseless rumors, then go ahead, although sometimes they aren’t just so baseless. I say that rumors are based off of jealousy, so because many people are jealous of me, there are a lot of rumors.

“Oppa, there’s a rumor that you have a wife and a child, is that true?” she asks in between a cute tone and a pathetic tone. Well, it’s an attempt at both, but it’s still a failure.

I think about the rumor, marriage and a child? It’s probably people that saw me at the restaurant that are saying that because of Allie and Cecelia. I was expecting that to happen, I was expecting someone to say that we’re dating or that Cecelia’s my child.

“Doesn’t matter,” I simply say. “You don’t need to know.” With that, I hang up the phone and disconnect the call and return back to the room with Cecelia and Sungyeol.

Allie’s POV

Throughout the whole time at work, I can only think about how Cecelia is doing at Myungsoo’s house. Is she adapting well? She probably is, I shouldn’t be worried about her, she’s a good child. I’m just worrying for nothing. During my lunch break, however, I decide to call him just to check up on a couple of things.

“Worrying now, are you?” Myungsoo asks with a mocking tone in his voice.

“It’s not bad to worry,” I say as I sit down in a nearby fast food place to get some quick food. “So how is she doing?”

“She’s doing perfectly fine,” Myungsoo says, “you have no need to worry about anything.”

“Okay,” I reluctantly say. There’s silence over the phone for a couple of seconds, but it doesn’t feel like an awkward silence, at least what I can tell of it. “Myungsoo,” I say breaking that silence.

“Yeah?” he asks.

“Thanks for watching Cecelia, I can tell that you’re going to be a great help in the future.”

“No problem, and feel free to lean on me whenever you need to,” he says. He’s probably doing some sort of cocky pose, but those words somehow make me feel good. Somehow, those words make my heart pound a little bit more. I can’t be falling for this guy, right? No way, no way, absolutely no way.

“Thanks,” I say.

“Well, I don’t want to disturb your lunch, so just call me when you’re done and I’ll come drop her off.”

“Okay. Bye.”

“Bye,” he responds.

I hang up the phone when I notice that someone has sat next to me. I turn to greet them when I realize that it’s the guy from last night.

“Ah, so you remember me, huh,” he says with a smile.

“I guess you could say,” I respond nonchalantly while eating some of my food.

“You’re Allie, right? I’m Woohyun, the chef.”

“Ah, right, that’s your name,” I say. “I already knew you were the chef.” He smiles at me and somehow I feel a sense of familiarity. “So if you’re a chef, why don’t you just cook for yourself? Do you frequently come to places like this?”

He laughs at the statement. “Cooking all day for people and then cooking for myself later? I’d rather pass. I like getting food made by someone else and eating it.”

I smile. “I guess you would. It would be tiring having to make food for yourself after making it for other people.”

“Now you’re catching the idea.”

Woohyun and I sit there while we’re both eating our lunch and even though we just met yesterday, it doesn’t feel awkward or weird at all to be with each other, especially not how it felt being stuck with Myungsoo in the car last night. We have the ability to have a comfortable conversation about things other than Cecelia and things revolving around her. I guess with Myungsoo, that’s a safe conversation topic that there’s no way either of us could mess it up.

I get up to throw away my trash when Woohyun suddenly grabs it. “I’ll help you, Allie,” he comments. Somehow, I think back to the strange dream that I had last night of two little kids running around, one was probably me. That same sentence was said, and now it just feels like déjà vu. “Are you okay?” he worriedly asks looking at my expression.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I assure him. “Something just randomly popped into my mind.”

“Oh, okay,” he says.

“I should get back to work,” I state as we walk out of the place together.

“Okay, sure. See you around then, maybe?” he asks with a smile. I nod my head and we both walk our separate ways. That sentence, though, still lingers in my mind.

Myungsoo’s POV

“Are you sure that you don’t like her?” Sungyeol asks me while we’re sitting on the couch. Cecelia is now taking a nap on the other couch that’s in the room.

“What are you talking about?” I ask attempting to play it off.

“You know exactly what I mean,” Sungyeol says. “You liking Allie. Why else would you agree to watch her younger sister?”

“I don’t know,” I say, “I don’t know what came over me at the time. Maybe I just have a soft spot for children, but I don’t like Allie.”

“Yes you do,” Sungyeol says defying me. In reality, he’s the only one in the world that defied me, until Allie came along. Now she defies me, too.

“It’s impossible to like someone that you barely even know,” I say attempting to put reason into Sungyeol, but he probably won’t listen to it, he never does.

“It is possible,” he says defying me once again. “Haven’t you ever heard of love at first sight?”

“I don’t believe in such things.”

“You should, it happens,” Sungyeol says. His voice starts to get louder, but I quiet him down and point to Cecelia to remind him that there’s a sleeping child in our presence. “Anyway, then why did you sound all relax and should I dare say it…cutesy when you were just on the phone with her? I’ve never heard you sound like that before.”

What can I say to refute his claim this time? Maybe I do have a soft spot for Allie and Cecelia. Is it because I feel sorry for them because they live alone and they’re just like me? Do I feel jealous of them because they have a close bond that I don’t have? Whenever Allie is near me, why is it suddenly hard to be the typical Myungsoo, the cold heartless guy that only uses girls and then never sees them again?

“You’re not denying it, strange,” Sungyeol says. “It’s not like you. Normally you would have hit me by now or at least pushed me off of this couch, but you’re just sitting there, taking it all in. Is there something that you know that we don’t?”

“I don’t know,” I finally admit. “I don’t know why I’m like that when she’s around.”

“That’s a sign that you like her,” Sungyeol says again.

“So what if I am attracted to her?” I ask.

“So you admit that you’re attracted to her?”

“I admit that I’m attracted to her. I admit that she’s cute, but that doesn’t mean that she’s my type. She’s actually far from my type.”

“But you admitted that you’re attracted to her,” he repeats. Can’t he just get off of this one subject?

“Your point being?” I ask.

“It means that you like her, or at least like her a little bit,” he says poking fun at me.

I stare at him. I can’t say anything. When has Sungyeol ever wronged me? If I’m attracted to Allie, does that mean that I really do like her?

Allie’s POV

Nearing the end of my shift, work isn’t that busy so I catch up a bit on my studying there, this time it’s physics.  I get deep into my studying when I hear the radio. “There is currently a big blaze happening in the nearby apartments. The fire was caused by a short circuit in one of the downstairs apartment rooms. It quickly spread to the top of the building and is still growing. Firefighters are quickly attempting to control the blaze to keep it from spreading any further. The address of the apartments are—”

My eyes become wide and my breathing becomes shallow. My house, my home with Cecelia, it’s currently on fire. “Manager,” I say running over. “I have to go back home. That fire, that fire is happening at my house.”

“Go, I understand,” she says.

I quickly hang up my apron and run out of the place. From the café I can see the fire. Why? Why is this happening? The place that we call home is currently set ablaze. I see an officer and stop them. “Officer, how long has this been going on?”

“I’m not sure of an exact time that the short circuit happened, but I know that we have been here for at least five minutes right now and it already became this bad.”

“Is there anything I should do?” I ask. “I live here.”

“Just stand by for now,” he comments. “There’s really nothing that any of us can do except hope that this blaze gets put out soon.”

I can just stare at him and turn back to the building that’s currently on fire. A bunch of people have no gathered around and are seeing the place that’s burning down in front of their eyes. I’m thankful that Cecelia isn’t anywhere near here. I’m glad that she’s having a good time with Myungsoo. I can only stand there and watch my home as it gets destroyed. I feel totally helpless.

Myungsoo’s POV

Where is Allie? It’s already close to eight at night and she still hasn’t come to pick Cecelia up, or rather contact me to tell me that she’s home. Is she okay? Sungyeol had to leave so it’s only Cecelia and me, but I see that she’s starting to get tired out from the day’s excitement with Sungyeol and me, but mostly with Sungyeol since he has a childlike mind.

I attempt to call Allie’s cell phone again, but like the other twenty times I’ve tried, it goes straight to voicemail, she doesn’t answer. She can’t possibly still be at work, that’s just absurd. I decide that we should just go to their house ourselves. I put Cecelia’s backpack on my back and pick Cecelia up to carry her to the car to drive.

“Where are we going, oppa?” she asks me sleepily.

“We’re just going for a little car ride, okay?” I whisper. She nods her head and rests it back onto my shoulder.

We finally arrive at the apartments and that’s when I finally see the yellow tape and the remnants of what looks like a fire. “Do you know what happened here?” I ask.

“I think there was a fire earlier today, sir,” the driver says.

“Just address me by Myungsoo,” I say. “And a fire? Can you keep your eye on Cecelia?”

I quickly get out of the car and look around at all of the people that are just standing around. Most of them probably reside in the apartments. I look for Allie, anything to tell me that she’s here. I finally spot her standing off in the corner. “Allie,” I say going up to her.

“Myungsoo?” she asks. “What are you doing here?”

“I thought something happened to you, I’m so glad that you’re okay.” But then I look at her eyes, they’re swollen from crying. I want to reach out and hug her so badly, but what exactly is the extend of our relationship or friendship right now? Would it be okay for me to do that?

“There was a fire,” she softly says. “A fire. My house, the place that I call my home.”

“Shh,” I say wrapping my arm around her shoulder. I begin to lead her to the car. “You’re going to need a place to stay, right? Just stay with me.”

“I can’t.”

“Just do it,” I say. “I won’t take no for an answer. You have Cecelia to watch out for. Stay at my house, my parents aren’t home and it’s not like they would care anyway.” I manage to lead her to the car, she feels weak and frail. “Please drive back home.”

We manage to get back home and I grab Cecelia first and take her to my room since she’s already sleeping. I keep the lights off to keep from disturbing her. I help Allie next and also put her in my bed next to Cecelia. My bed is big enough for the three of us to fit in it. As I make my way to leave the room, I hear Allie whisper something. “Hmm?” I ask sitting on the side of the bed and looking at her. “What did you say?”

“What am I supposed to do?” she asks. “Everything…I just lost everything.” Her voice sounds like she’s going to cry again.

“You didn’t lose everything,” I reassure her. “You still have Cecelia…and you still have me,” I whisper at the end.

“All of my parents memories, I lost them all. What am I supposed to do when Cecelia asks me what they’re like in the future?” Her tears are now coming nonstop.

“Shh,” I say wiping her tears away. She lifts herself up off of the bed and suddenly hugs me. I don’t know how to react in a situation like this. I feel Allie crying in my chest and hesitantly, I place my hand around her and hug her back. I slowly pat and rub her back and tell her comforting words. This is the first time I’ve hugged a crying girl, the first time that I’ve hugged someone and I really meant it. It’s the first time that I’ve ever felt my heart beat at this rate.

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Allie and Cecelia's home caught on fire and Myungsoo offered for them to stay at his house, what is Allie going to do? Is Myungsoo going to make is feelings for Allie shown? How are things going to be between Myungsoo and Allie now that Myungsoo saw her at one of her most vulnerable times?

Chapter 4, hope you enjoyed :D