Part One.

Nara stared at her crying daughter with utter bewilderment; never in a million years did she expect her daughter to find out. But she had. She suspected if her cunning mother-in-law had been behind all of this; the woman seemed to be set on making her daughter’s life miserable.

She had never accepted Nara as a potential daughter-in-law; she knew it had to do something with the fact that the child she had been carrying wasn’t her son’s. Yixing had even contemplated lying to his mother about the girl’s true paternity but Nara hadn’t allowed him to do so. She felt it was simply wrong on his behalf to lie to his parents and she would never deceive someone in that manner.

The older lady had thrown a fit when her son announced that he’d be marrying Nara, a pregnant girl who had fled town to start a new life. She had threatened to disown him but when Yixing remained unfazed by her threats, she gave up. He was her precious son after all and she could never stay apart from him. Nara knew the older lady cursed her at any given chance but she never took it to her heart; no one could readily accept a child that wasn’t their own. She knew that the woman was just looking out for her son.

However, recently the woman had seemed to turn over a new leaf. She was extra sweet towards Nara and she wondered if it had anything to do with the good news they had delivered a few weeks ago. Her mother-in-law had been rather ecstatic, she would gush on and on about how she would finally have a grandchild, even though Yixing reminded her time and again that their daughter, Hana was also her grand-daughter. His mother always pretended not to hear him.

She would always send over a variety of food and medicinal tonics, which apparently kept a pregnant woman healthy. She would call Nara often to check upon her and would advise her to take good care of herself. And when they found out that they were having a baby boy, the elder lady just couldn’t contain her excitement. She had invited everyone around the neighborhood and planned a huge feast.

Nara had unwillingly followed Yixing to the grand feast, along with their daughter Hana. She wasn’t comfortable with Hana being near her mother-in-law; she knew that other woman would do anything to berate the five year old child to make her feel bad. But, Yixing seemed rather oblivious about it or maybe he pretended not to know. Nara refrained herself from telling anything about it to him to avoid hurting his feelings because at the end of the day, the elder woman was his own mother.

Everything appeared fine; Nara had been getting along well with her husband’s relatives, Hana seemed to have found a few companions to play with and her vile mother-in-law had been boasting proudly about how she had been taking good care of her pregnant daughter-in-law and that the baby boy would bring in good fortunes to the family. Yixing had been busy taking care of the guests but he’d keep an eye on Nara occasionally to make sure she wasn’t doing anything strenuous. He had even barred her from clearing off the plates, claiming that she could hurt herself. Nara had rolled her eyes dramatically at her husband’s antics. She was pregnant; she wasn’t debilitated.

It was only until they got home when Hana burst into tears; her beautiful orbs that resembled her father’s so much welled up. Nara ran to her daughter immediately; Yixing had stayed back to help his mother with a few things.

“What’s the matter, baby?” she asked, her heart racing as she witnessed her daughter crying.

The little girl sniffled. “Mama, Nai Nai said that you and daddy wouldn’t love me anymore.

And…and …” she continued to sob. “And that daddy isn’t my real daddy!” She burst into tears again while Nara’s eyes widened in shock. “Is it true, Mama? Who is my real daddy, then?”

Nara sighed softly; she wished Yixing had been there to help her out. What was she supposed to do? Was she supposed to let her know? She had wanted to keep it a secret from her daughter, she knew things would be complicated if Hana got to know. She had never really intended to tell the girl but what if she had been making a mistake by keeping it a secret from her daughter. That would just lead to her daughter hating her more if she found out eventually.

“Listen, baby…we’ll talk about this later, alright. But your mama and daddy would never stop loving you, okay? How could you even think that for a second, sweet-heart? You’re our dear princess, aren’t you?”

She engulfed her daughter into a warm hug, kissing the girl’s head softly. The little girl nodded slightly and sniffled again.

“But what about the baby?” she asked, placing her tiny hands on her mother’s swollen belly.

“He’ll be your younger brother, princess. We’ll love you both equally. And you’d be a good elder sister to him, won’t you?”

Hana nodded softly, her tears had ceased.

“You’d protect him and look after him, right?”

“Yes mama. I’ll be the best sister ever!” she exclaimed much happily, having forgotten her previous question. Nara felt relieved that she had dropped her query, at least momentarily. When Yixing comes back, she would talk to him about it, she thought.

Yixing found Nara dozing off in the couch when he arrived home. He smiled softly at his wife’s sleeping figure. He was about to carry her to the bed when she woke up, rubbing her eyes tiredly.

“Xing, you’re back,” she mumbled. He chuckled softly and snuggled on to the couch with her, kissing her nose softly. “I wanted to talk to you about something,” she muttered sleepily as she snuggled on to his broad chest.

“Well, can’t it wait until tomorrow? You seem really tired, love.”

Nara sat up straight, hoping to ward off the sleep coming her way. She had to confront Yixing about his mother’s doings. She couldn’t take it anymore.

“No. We need to talk now,” she said sternly. Yixing looked on, waiting for her to continue. He couldn’t help but be a little puzzled with his wife’s behavior. “Yixing…your mother hasn’t really been saying the nicest things to Hana,” she spoke, eyeing her husband warily. He didn’t seem surprised. Nara took it as an indication to go on.

“Hana asked me who her real father was and I couldn’t really say anything. What should we do, Yixing?”

Yixing pursed his lips tightly, he knew that his mother wasn’t extremely fond of Hana but he hadn’t expected her to tell such things to the little girl. He sighed loudly; maybe it was time to tell Hana the truth. It wouldn’t be fair on their behalf to keep it a secret. “Let’s just tell her the truth,” he finally said.

“Listen, I have been thinking about it for a while…I just chose not to tell you but my company has been planning to send me to Seoul and I told them I needed time to consider it. But it seems like it may work out…we could get away from here for a little while and you could…you could try talking to Hana’s father. And see if he’s okay with it. It would be easier if we lived in the same place, don’t you think so?”

Nara was wide awake now; whatever Yixing said did make sense. She didn’t know that Yixing had put so much thought into this besides it seemed rather tempting to get away from her mother-in-law, at least for a little while.

“Would your mother be fine with this?” Nara asked skeptically.

“She’ll be fine; she has her dozen relatives to keep her company. She could come visit us once in a while. So, what do you say?”

He looked at Nara, waiting for her answer, with bated breath. The girl grinned widely before kissing her husband sweetly. “Let’s do this.”

Somehow it seemed like the right thing to do. They hoped things would turn out fine and their children would be happy.

Baekhyun paced back and forth in his office, while his best-friend Chanyeol looked on amusedly. “I have never seen you this nervous,” he exclaimed in his loud, booming voice.

“Well what do you expect me to be? Nara just called me out of the blue, saying that she wanted me to meet my daughter. Of course, I am nervous. I want her to like me. I want her to look up to me and think…woah, my father is so cool!” Baekhyun sighed dreamily.

The past few years had passed by like a breeze; he had been overly indulgent in his work and hadn’t really found time for himself. But that was also his way of taking his mind off of certain things like wondering how well his daughter had been doing. He had almost accepted his fate of not getting to be a part of his daughter’s life when Nara, his ex-fiancée called up unexpectedly.

He was quite excited at first, he would finally get to meet his daughter and make himself known to her. But the more he thought of it, he started feeling anxious. What if the girl didn’t like him? What would he do then?

Chanyeol snorted loudly which made the other guy stop pacing and look at his best-friend. “I don’t think that would ever happen. You’ve become so boring…you’re hardly any fun to hang out with. I doubt your daughter would find you entertaining.”

Baekhyun scoffed dramatically. “Speak about yourself. Could you at least be a little supportive? I’m already worried that she wouldn’t like me. Besides, how am I supposed to compete with Nara’s oh-so-charming, exotic husband? He’s probably effortlessly cool and I’d just end up looking