~~~

When Yonghwa pulled the car into the driveway, a still sniffling Yeonna, arms crossed angrily, in tow, there was a strange car parked in the driveway. A black Mercedes that appeared to be a few years old.

Yeonna was unbuckling her seatbelt, eager to be as far away from Yonghwa as possible.

“. A rental.” As Yonghwa came to his realizations, Yeonna was already bounding out of the car.

“No Yeonna. Wait!” Yonghwa called. But she slammed the door and ran towards the front porch.

“.” Yonghwa yelled loudly before he too jumped out of the car hurrying after his daughter. He cursed himself for never moving the spare key from under the welcome mat.

Yeonna ran straight through the front door without obstacle, as the door had already been unlocked by the house’ other current inhabitant. Yonghwa hurried after her and walked through the front door hurrying towards the kitchen.

Yeonna had already reached her destination and stood frozen, staring at the brunette woman who sat the kitchen counter with shock, too afraid to speak a word.

Yonghwa swallowed. He was too late, and now they all were face to face before he could even prepare his daughter.

He looked at the brunette woman who gave him a small smile from the table.

Yonghwa’s nostrils flared, and he glanced down at the ground in both agitation and nervousness before he spoke.

“Seo Joohyun.”

FLASHBACK

“Yonghwa.”

He finally turned to look at her, standing in his dorm room. A solemn expression on her face, her hair tresses pulled up into a high ponytail. In the back of his mind he was still harping on the sweat that drenched his body, along with the stench and desperate cause for a shower it created. But as soon as he walked in to find her waiting for him after soccer practice, he instinctively knew a shower was the least of his worries. She hadn’t greeted him with a chipper smile and a prolonged kiss but instead, he said in a stony voice, “I really need to talk to you.”

Looking at her now, he was suddenly stricken at how young and like a child she looked, her eyes is glassy and her lips almost pouting.

“What is it babe?” He tried to play casual, but both of them sensed the heaviness that hung in the air. He wondered what shattering news she was about to break on him. She was leaving him? She had cheated on him? Or she was…

“I’m pregnant.”

She went immediately for the kill. Yonghwa visibly faltered back, recovering from the unexpectedly delivered blow. His head reeled in shock, trying to regain a sense of the solid world around him. Gaping at her as he did so, a million what if’s rushing into his mind.

She watched his every expression intently and her composed, expressionless face crumbled in a matter of seconds, her eyes welling with tears.

“I’m really sorry!” She sobbed and then she fell back. Her fall caught by his navy colored futon which she then sank into hysterics.

He looked down at her, covering her face in her hands to hide a mascara stained face while she shook and trembled. Immediately his senses came flooding back to him. He sat beside her on the sofa. His arms wrapped around her, using one hand to comfortably rub her back while he kissed her sticky cheeks over and over again.

“Ssh. It’s okay. Everything’s going to be fine.” He whispered gently, “Hush. Don’t cry baby.”

“I’ve ruined our lives.” She cried, her head rocking in towards his body, coming to rest when it cradled between his chin and his chest.

He kissed her hair, “No you didn’t. Everything happens for a reason.”

A couple of years before, when she was nothing more than a friend, she had comforted him over a break up with the exact same words. At the same time, they did little for him to ease the pain. But he looked back on the moment fondly now, reminded that without that break-up, he never would have ended up with the person he now love more than anything else in the world.

As he held her in his arms, and thought of what a treasure she had been to him, he could only hope that this situation would yield the same results and the loss of his dreams of playing soccer would be sacrificed for a greater gift.

END OF FLASHBACK

Yeonna was still silent. Looking too frightened to even move. She gave up at the woman whom she talked so passionately about when she wasn’t around, but for whom she could now not even muster a single word.

“Hi.” The brunette replied to his greeting. Smiling timidly at him while she stood up from the counter top stool.

“Hi Baby.” She knelt down and ran a hand under Yeonna’s chin, gazing at her for a moment with a strange look on her face. Her expression is hard to read even for Yonghwa who had at one point been able to pinpoint her exact emotions simply by the way she turned or raised her brow.

Yeonna flinched at the touch of the brunette’s fingernails grazing at her skin. She turned her eyes to look at Yonghwa with fear. Guilt bombarded him like an avalanche. He should have been preparing for this. Jonghyun had warned him she would be returning. He realized now he should have sent Yeonna to her grandparents so that she wouldn’t immediately be into dramas too beyond her anyho