Mark Tuan stopped appearing in front of Park Saemi since that day.

But as she wished, he did not take the life of the man that had harmed her friends; though, it is safe to say how much he really wants to. Instead, Mark left him tied up tightly, unable to move. His men had all been beaten unconscious to the point where they couldn't have helped the man escaped even if they tried. Of course, before leaving the scene liked she had wanted, he had also untied the one named Bambam along with the girl he loved. The last thing he remembers is the look on her face when they met eyes. It was an expression that was completely filled with fear, panic, and disappointment.

It was an expression Mark never wished Saemi would show him.

But it happened, and he knows he has to deal with it. It didn't take much for him to realize that Saemi seems to constantly suffer when he appears in her life. It always seemed like he caused her so much discomfort whenever he tried to get close to her. Back when they first met, he caused her to turn against her family, and now, he was forcing her to remember a past she had chosen to forget.

Reading that essay she had written, he knows that in between the lines, she is desperate. She's afraid of wrongfully hating her family. He knows so clearly that if Saemi discovers her past, she will be devastated to know that she had made a mistake in her attitude. He knows so clearly that if Saemi remembers her past, she will be the one that's hurt.

But he doesn't want to lose her.

If he lets her go like this, then he will be the one that's suffering. He will have to carry all of their memories alone. He will never be able to see her smile at him the way she used to. He will never be able to get close to her. Was going through all this worth letting the girl he loves be happy?

He wasn't so sure, but he saw it in her eyes: the part of her that thinks of him as a cold-blooded killing machine. The moment he saw, he knew. There was no going back. She wasn't just going to magically return to the girl he once knew, the girl who loved him as he was. The one who was so willing to take a bullet for him.

How the hell did his heart ever decide that it was okay to fall in love with a girl like her?

***

It was a sort of different type of loneliness.

That's what Saemi feels, yet she refuses to accept it. She knows she doesn't want anything to do with him, or does she? Ever since Mark disappeared from her life, she's feeling strange. She's unmotivated to do anything. Her eyes seem lifeless, and her body seems weak. She feels so empty, and she doesn't know why.

They should always be strangers, shouldn't they?

And suddenly, her hearts begins to ache. She can't explain it quite exactly, but its inexplicably painful. When she saw Mark slip into another violent persona, she clearly understood one thing: so this is the real him. That's all she vividly feels, and her default emotion is to become scared.

And she's right. Someone who acts before he thinks, that is worrisome. Any normal person who want to place distance between someone so rash, so terrifying. It's natural for her to feel scared, to feel uneasy. It's natural for her to be incapable of accepting someone like that. But if it's all so natural to her, why is it that she felt something else too when she saw him act that way?

In the back of her mind, hidden behind the fear, there was another voice. She's afraid to admit that it exists, but it is truly present. When she saw Mark advance to attack, she understood what he was thinking. She knew that he was only acting this way to protect her. She knew that he was only acting that way because her life was in danger, and if he had even hesitated for a moment, she might not be living now. She recognizes that, although his ways were wrong, his intentions are good.

But she wants to misunderstand him, because that is the easiest way out. She so desperately needs some truth that grounds her, and the fact was, Mark was about to kill someone. And that was all she needed to know. If she just takes in that one fact, she can justify her own actions of staying away from her past. It was the most easy to understand: a violent person should be avoided. So she grabbed onto that one teaching, and she held onto it.

And when she held onto that one idea, she forgot about everything else. When had life every been so simple, so straightforward? There were always multiple sides. There were always multiple viewpoints. Her truth might be someone else's lie. Her opinions might be someone else's fact. Her friends may be someone else's enemy.

So that was it.

She misunderstood on her own. She felt scared. She wanted to ignore him. So without giving him a chance to explain, she forced him to leave.

That was when it registered in her mind in the loneliest way possible.

He's gone.

When she tries to think back to her life after she left the hospital, she finds it difficult. Every time she thinks of something, she somehow draws it back to him, back to Mark Tuan. In nearly all her memories, she thinks of him. Every thing, every person, every place. She has associated him with all of it. He's always there.

She's thickheaded. She's afraid of her own feelings, the truth, perhaps even reality. She can't help shake the feeling that she's come this close to losing someone important before. But she's not sure. She's not sure if it's all in her head or if her fears are really manifesting inside her. She doesn't know if trusting Mark is the right decision, and she doesn't know if staying away from his is what she really wants.

So she decides to leave it up to fate.

If fate could be so lucky to give her another chance, bringing Mark to her once more, then this time, she will be the one to go to his side.

***

It all came and went like a blur.

A week after that encounter, on this particular autumn day, Mark Tuan met someone he never saw he'd see again. He almost didn't recognize the other. The last time he saw him, he had worn all black, a sleeveless top that revealed a large dragon tattoo down the side of his left arm. Back then, his dark shades gave off a dangerous vibe that caused everyone to distance themselves from him.

Now, it was different.

This man had tossed his appearance. The clothings of black were replaced with a nice suit that nicely covered any tattoos that previously covered his body. His hair was no longer messy, tusseled. Instead, it was slicked back in a professional manner. His whole attire changed from top to bottom, but there was one thing that was the same, something Mark knows all too well.

His piercing gaze that seems to look straight through him.

"Why are you here?" Mark asks.

But the man ignores the boy's statement and proceeds to question, "Have you given up on my daughter already?"

Upon speaking, the man smiles. It wasn't a bitter smile, and it wasn't a vengeful smile either. It was a little bit warm, a little bit sad, but mostly sorrowful, and Mark doesn't know why. He's even more confused by the fact that this man constantly seems to show up when the two of them are growing apart. It was as if, for him, this man was desperately protecting the two small worlds with his hands to the best of his ability.

He never did quite understood her father's intentions.

So Mark feels lost. He feels like he's lost the only person that will ever care for him like that. He's worried that she really is slipping from him, and he feels like he's been tossed into the ultimate game with no way to win. He's done his best, and he really has. He's tried to reach out to her, and he's tried to show her that he cares in his own unique way. He's changed for her, and he's changed her. His only counterpart, just like that, gone.

His gaze slowly rises, and he looks at the man before him, "I don't know what I should do. I don't know what it means to feel, how to deduce my next actions like the average person. I know that I'm different. I know that I'm not nearly perfect. But I am human, and it bothers me that she always looks so scared when she sees me. To her, my feelings are unecessary, and perhaps, burdensome. I didn't even know who she really was until it was too late. I couldn't be there for her when she needed me the most. Whatever I do, it's just not nearly enough. Now, you tell me. Should I continue pursuing her?"

Her father's expression softens. He no longer looked like the leader of the underground world. At that moment, all Mark could see in the man was his role of a father. He's clearly not there to make trouble, and he's clearly not there to make him feel bad. He's there to ensure that his daughter will get the happiness she wants, even if she doesn't know what it is yet.

"That child used to be carefree. She loved smiling, she loved following me around. She cracked jokes, and she always came up to me and said daddy, daddy. The year she turned eight, she overheard a conversation between myself and my workers. She learned that she was adopted, a child that someone else had left behind. Her world completely changed. Ever since that day, she'd do anything and everything I've ever asked of her. She tries to please everyone around her, even if it meant physically exhausting herself. To be honest, I'm a little worried about her."

However, as the man came to a pause, Mark immediately broke the silence with an clear declaration of his own thoughts, "If you're so worried about her, then why did you have to be the one to shoot her? That's how she ended up at the hospital, isn't it? Let's say that you had a reason to pretend to take her out. Why didn't you come back for her? You, of all people, should know how much she needs her family. So why did you hide yourself from her? Why did you leave her behind like those irresponsible birth parents of hers?"

His voice is angry, and the man knows it. He knows that he was nowhere near being a perfect father figure. In fact, he wouldn't argue with someone who said that he was the worst type of person. He shouldn't have taken in someone as innocent as Park Saemi. He should never have let her join him in his works.

But he did, and there was nothing else he could do by the end. He really doesn't have any other option, so he did the only thing he could.

"You don't understand the world I come from. The people I'm involved with are not ones that will let us leave the underground business that easily. If Hana was still around, then they would've used her against me as my only weakness. They may take her hostage, and they may kill her. You see me now? It took us an year to get out of the business. We had to fake our own deaths. We had to fake our own identities. It took everything I had to get to where I am now. Even now, I can only take care of Hana from a distance in the circumstance that they find me. Who do you think paid her hospital bills every month? I had to make secret prior arrangements to pull all of this off. That's why I was really happy when I saw you return to her life that time. I thought, at least she has him."

His words left Mark speechless. He's always believed that he was not right for a girl like her. He's always believed that she was a star, far away, glistening, something he could never attain. Back when they first met, he's always thought that he was way better than she was. When they started to pretend to date, Mark realized how limitless her boundaries were. Mark believed she was someone he could never reach. Now, he believes that he is her nightmare. As a result, he has never truly believed that someone would ever believe they should be together.

And yet here was her father saying just that.

A/N: Chapter's getting too long, I'm splitting this scene up!