Hush now, don't you cry
Wipe away the teardrop from your eye
You're lying safe in bed
It was all a bad dream
Spinning in your head

Had finished to cry, his little swallow. She breathed softly as she slept, like she was afraid to make noise. It was night and he was lying next to her in his bed, watching her, because he could not sleep. He was few inches  from her, had lowered himself to get at the same level of her face, even if it meant having his feet out of bed ... because he was tall, and she was tiny ... too tiny and fragile for all, even for that bed . He was dealing with a side of him full of anger and frustration for being unable to avoid all that , and the other one that was afraid to sleep ... afraid that something would happen while he was resting quiet ... fear of not being conscious if she woke up crying in the middle of the night ... he was afraid. He had never been afraid ... but now he had a small treasure to be preserved, a little angel that needed to be watched over and protected ... that needed to recover her luminous wings in order to fly.

Your mind tricked you to feel the pain
Of someone close to you leaving the game of life
So here it is, another chance
Wide awake you face the day
Your dream is over, or has it just begun?

When she would wake up, he wanted to tell her that it was only a bad dream, it was not real ... that the world was made of white clouds, trilling rattles , and beautiful dreams ... but he could not save her from  that wall of hate and hypocrisy .

He knew how much she was suffering for how her father had treated her. He knew that, to her, it was as if a pastel-colored  veil had been lifted up from her eyes  to reveal a scene of desolation, which for years was kept as secret.

Men were all the same ... ruled by thirst for power, the obsession with perfection, the urge to dominate others ... and his father was no different ... he had ended up giving in to the desire to hold on to the mask that the world had imposed him to wear ... not trusting his own daughter, thinking, after all those years  that she had proved to be magnificent and unique, that she did tantrum like any little girl. Of course he wanted her own good ... he kept repeating himself, avoiding to judge too harshly the old man. But it was equally true that he had  preferred to punish his own daughter, who had always been devoted, rather than thundering  over those poisonous mouths, over those people, those chorus made by a gruesome litany , only able to point their judging finger to someone ... and he knew it so well ... the truth was that he saw himself in that girl. He saw his old idealism, his fiery passion ...  but all devoid  of his cosmic selfishness, which he was always affected. As it had been for him, she had followed her heart, which had led her to give her soul to someone unworthy of her love ... and just as it had been for him, she had witnessed the betrayal of those who had turned their backs to her  ... he bitterly thought, while he was gently her, sinking his hands into the ebony of her hair. He couldn’t dared to do more,  fearing to wake her.  He restricted himself to only observe her as a gentle guardian ... to see that triumph of colors, thick and mixed,  that made her vibrant and totally real, full of nuances illuminated by the dim light of the lamp ...
 

He will not leave her alone ... he 'would not left her  to deal with all that mess alone, like he had  been at that time  ... he was not like Eun Hye  … he said within himself, blocking his hand trembling with anger at the side of her ear.

There's a place I like to hide,
A doorway that I run to in the night.
Relax child, you were there
But only didn't realize it and you were scared,
It's a place where you will learn
To face your fears, retrace the years
And ride the whims of your mind
Commanding in another world
Suddenly you hear and see
This magic new dimension

If it had existed in the world a place where he could hide her  and save her from those disappointments, he would have found it for her. If he could teach her how to handle that situation, how to manipulate as liquid wax that bedlam, made by infected souls and ancient masks always there ... he would have did it.
 

But she did not have to dirty her hands  ... she had to not be like him ... she did not have to sacrifice her soul to live in that world, to get to drink from that cup of glory that did not contain what it promised ... it was all just an illusion ... she was the only reality, the only substance in that cursed world  ... he would not allow her to yield anything of herself to satisfy the bloodlust of those wretched souls.
 

She was brave, his little angel ... she was strong! ... Her strength laid in her luster, in the firmness of her smile, in her stable and not shaky heart ... she would have found alone, and without losing any of her brightness, the weapons to fight that battle ... he would be her shield. He would take care to throw  flames to whom  threatened her. He would  support her and lifted her up  ... so higher, that she  can walk on their heads. He would have created a world according to her wishes. He would have shaped it for her, and put it at her feet.

I will be watching over you.
I am gonna help you see it through,
I will protect you in the night.
I am smiling next to you, in silent lucidity

He smiled quietly to those thoughts. He felt refreshed in shaping all those desires to make her happy. Watched over her ... on that dawn light that illuminated the night full of shadows.

He shifted down his eyes on her shoulders, and he noticed that the blanket had fallen a bit '. He took it gently and  covered her up, bringing it under her chin ... She shouldn’t get sick... he thought, and meanwhile caressed her face, following with his index  the contours of her eyes, her eyebrows, her jaw, her lips ... thinking that in the world could not exist a painter able to capture the essence of that perfection, of that timeless beauty  emanated from her features.

If you open your mind for me
You won't rely on open eyes to see
The walls you built within
Come tumbling down, and a new world will begin
Living twice at once you learn
You're safe from pain in the dream domain
A soul set free to fly
A round trip journey in your head
Master of illusion, can you realize
Your dream's alive, you can be the guide but

He would be her refuge, the sand below where she could hidden herself  after a long and tiring swim in the dark depths of the ocean.

What she was dreaming?  Maybe his touch was giving her a magnificent illusion? His caresses were helping her? ... He watched her intently, noting with relief that her eyebrows were not corrugated, not seemed plagued by nightmares ... those hours of rest were helping. When she opened her eyes, she might  found a rubble’s scene in front of her ... but he would give her a reason to rebuild slowly everything, to start to walk without stumbling in this new world. He would have made her queen and mistress of all of it ... she just had to trust him, leaning on his shoulders.

I will be watching over you
I am gonna help you see it through
I will protect you in the night
I am smiling next to you, in silent lucidity.*

He Could continue to lie to himself ... he thought, sighing deeply. He could went on  saying  that she was only a moment, a parenthesis in his life. He could continue to think that the beneficial effect she had on him,  was only the result of her magic, the magic from a goodwill fairy that could lift up the spirit of the damned souls ... just a matter of cause and effect  ...  a necessary cause that mechanically produced an effect, just as mechanic itself,  on another being, which passively collected the fruits from that contact. But he had never been a coward, he had never hidden behind his fears ... he had always faced everything directly, without sparing himself nothing, nor guilt, nor insults, nor mistakes ...

He caressed her cheek thoughtfully. The desire to kiss her was becoming painful.  In that moment he thought  that, since she had come into his life, his heart had begun to beat, his soul had begun to breathe ... and not for an insane survival instinct, nor for a pathological search for a cure to his apathy ... but because the eyes of his tired and sick heart  had recognized her, they were finally open, awakened by her beautiful scent and her beautiful soul, and had shouted to him: "It’s her!" ...

He was afraid? ... Yes, he was less scared! ... Loving someone always carries risks ... loving someone means to be worthy of that someone we love ... hoping every day that the eyes of that someone will not be clouded by the shadow of disappointment ... loving someone means relinquish of our own defenses, undressing ourselves from every caricature, from every mask we wear ...
 

He could continue to think that crap and continue to be unworthy of her, looking forward to the time when she would  screamed her hatred on him and would  thrown him out of her life ... or he could  fought with all his might to make himself a better man in her eyes, to make her understand that there was something good that  still lived in him ... and that something good, which was risen between all those ashes like a fragile seedling in a devastated land, was the love for her ... he loved her, and that love was the engine of his rebirth as a man, as a human being worthy to be still alive  ... he loved her, and that love was the warm core of his own existence ... live to love her, love her to continue to live ... without her and that love, his life was what he had been before he met her, a cosmic nothing where the train of people’s faces  ran in front of  him with speed,  indifference ... the pain of living with which he had fed himself.
 

He loved her ... He had loved her from the first moment he met her big and huge eyes, still,  as the stars in the black sky ... his heart had always known that, his mind had always refused all.
 

He loved her ... and maybe it was the first time that he loved someone. At that point he realized that he had never really loved  ... even Eun Hye, because he hadn’t felt that shock, those sparks ... it was all started quietly, like a small stream conducted by the charm that this woman had exercised over him … and lust due to her  temptresses gestures ... maybe, he had  loved some of her whim, some side of her character ... and he was deluded that this was love.

But truly loving someone, and this was he had understood with his little angel,  meant to love fully, each side of her being, every flaw, every quality ... everything.
 

He was afraid? ... Yes, he was ... but he would not run away ... he was going to be a man worthy to be near her.
 

He went down on her, trying to not  wake her, and kissed her forehead ... tomorrow would be a different day, made by  awareness and courage ... tomorrow his queen would have regained her castle ... and it would build by him ... just for her .

********************

 
Min ho was contemplating all the ingredients in front of him, and which, with a runaway imagination, had to  become a breakfast ... he stared at them disconsolately, not knowing where to start.
 

He had not slept, and it had taken almost all his reserves of coffee and an almost frozen shower  to make him walk without looking like one of those zombie from Romero’s movies .
 

He wanted to prepare breakfast for Shin hye ... but he could not cook ... and he had thought that with the help of some cooking site, he could did some kind of  miracle ... but he was wrong... he thought depressed
 

After five minutes spent staring emptily at the eggs, another ten minutes literally passed arguing with them, and the remaining time spent  to remove their shells falls into the pan while he had awkwardly  tried to break them properly ... the result was a parody of scrambled eggs,  with an undefined color,  which reeking of burnt.
 

... He had not thought  that was necessary a degree to cook ... what the heck !! ...
 

He had followed the instructions perfectly, but it seemed that the food didn’t love to be cooking from him and from his ruddy and indelicate hands.
 

... Enough! ... He Threw everything in the trash and took pen and paper:
                                               

                                                              " Food hates me. I wanted to prepare a breakfast, but,
                                                                apparently, my business degree is not enough. I wish you a
                                                                good awakening, I hope to see you smile on my return. "
 

He froze, not knowing whether to write something nicer ... just was not in his character to say fussy stuff, but he felt within himself the urge to say something nice to let her know how important she was for him ... try to make her guess what he had finally admitted to himself the night before.
 

He wiggled  rhythmically the pen on the marble of the kitchen island, he was thinking deeply. He turned to the sink, and his eyes literally widened, surprised in seeing the chaos that he had managed to make: tons  of oily and encrusted pans, dishes and kitchen utensils, greeted him almost overflowing from the sink. They seemed to beg for mercy and at the same time seemed to curse at him for how he had reduced them .
... He had no time to clean them ... had to attend to something important that morning.
 

He leaned back on the sheet, pressing his lips displeased and embarrassed. He continued to beat the tip of the pen on the paper, hesitant to write  ...  and again, he felt like a ! ...
 

                                      "P.S. : I have to leave even dirty dishes to clean  ... sorry, I'm  an . »

He put on his coat, took his bag, and headed for the door, giving himself for the umpteenth time a lost cause.

Just outside his apartment, he heard vibrating his phone and immediately took it out from his pocket: he had finally received a message from Seo In Guk.
 

From < The pain in the : hey boss! Great news, I have your answers! Meet me at the usual cafe, you decide the time ... please bring my money and give me a kiss on the forehead ... because I ‘m going to marry in three months, and I don’t know if you already know  ... but you will pay for the wedding party :D >
 

... Aish ... What kind of  disrespectful and idiot  kid! ...
 

He muttered to himself, as he walked toward the elevator.

*************************

Park Ho Jin  woke up with a headache in that hell morning. He had to stay at home, he was aware of that ... He knew that  since that morning, when he had been informed  that his daughter had run away in the middle of the night.
 

But what  he could do? His only desire was to hang on to a bit of normality ... to that bit of normality that he had painstakingly built for twenty years ... and that had been swept away by a random scoundrel ... he thought bitterly, feeling worsening the pain in his temples.
 

... He Had to take an analgesic, and return to reason ...

He had done everything to ensure safety to his little treasure. Had built around her a protective boundary that he had thought was indestructible ... but instead ...he blinked his eyes, taking some pills from his desk  drawer. He took a glass of water, and , in doing  this, he noticed that his hand was trembling slightly.
 

He sighed wearily, and, with firmness, he swallowed that bitter pill. He loudly slammed  the glass on the polished surface of the desk, and looked  frustrated and full of weariness to the framed picture that was quietly resting on it.
 

He took it in his hands, placing his trembling fingers on the glass that protected the picture ...it  portrayed what had been a family, depicting him with his beloved wife and his little girl who was in his arms  ...  as always.
He was the only one who held her in his arms, giving her affection in those painful first two years of her existence.
 

Twenty years to rebuild a normality that had its foundation on lies.
Twenty years to replace those dark and cruel fables, with happy and colorful ones.
 

... Why? ... It was a question that had tormented him during those twenty years.
 

How could be possible for a woman  not love her own child? Why she hated her? Why she had dropped into a vortex of depression, up to the point to attempt to her own life and that one of an innocent?
 

... It was  his fault? ... He had loved her as much as the air he breathed  ... but maybe this was not enough ... maybe the fact that he was perpetually busy working, had opened the doors at this horrid tale made of death and suffering.
 

He was told that she suffered from postpartum depression. In that  moment, he could even remembered when they had told this to him. The only thing he remembered, was the expression of his wife just before committing that craziness.
 

He did not understand ... he didn’t  understand why she refused to stay with their daughter ... and, lately, even to see her ... he had thought it was a moment, a period ... he had yelled at her desperately to talk to him, to let him know if he could help her in dealing with what he had thought was a monster ... and she ... and she said "I will arrange things" ... with a blank stare ... without a flash of light, without the aura of splendor that had caused him to love her so much ... that same splendor that animated the eyes of their child.
 

He narrowed his eyes, feeling as always those damn, ancient and bitter tears, overflowing his eyes.
 

He had lied. Only few person knew the truth, and he had shut up their mouth. His daughter  had not to know, she must not suspect anything. He had failed since then to pronounce  his wife’s name ... perhaps because deep in his soul he felt anger towards her, but he had always tried to find a way out, make some explanation  to his little girl but ... she was smart, and she had often tormented him  with the “why?”
 

... Why there is not a picture with only me and omma? ...
... Why there is no photos while she hugs me? ...
... Why she never smiles? ...

And he was puzzled to write those silly stories, trying to give them thickness, texture ... maybe in the depths of her soul  she  knew ... but she had preferred to be entangled by that protective sheath of lies.
 

Loving his daughter was his joy, but also his expiation ... the expiation for all his guilt.

He hadn’t understand her, maybe he hadn’t want  to understand her ... he was not present for her.
 

That was why his daughter had become his priority. She did not have to feel the lack of someone who loved her, that would put her at the center of his world. She had to be protected. He had chosen for her the son of  Choi Dong Wook only for this ... because he had seen, over the years, that boy  watching his princess with admiration, with boundless affection ... he made him secure ...That boy would protect her just as he had done for twenty years.
 

For Park Ho Jin predict things and control them had become a matter of survival ... because the only time he had not succeed in it, the woman he loved had died, she killed herself .
 

... And now, an emeritus bastard, threatened to blow it all ... threatened to make her vulnerable ... and if she became like her mother? And if that man had the power to make her fall in that same black hole that had swallowed his late wife? ..
 

He knew the fame of that man, even if he had been a friend of his father, he knew that the guy was someone completely unreliable.
 

To put wood on that already burning brazier, it joined also the mud that now had been thrown on his prestige, on his always blameless and spotless name. Choi Dong Wook would have looked at him with contempt because his son had become to the world  a funny joke  because of Shin Hye.
He let out a tired sigh, rubbing the bridge of his nose with circular movements. The phone rang, and he realized that it was the inside line. It was his secretary.
 

"W