As Seung Hee came out of the school gates the next day, a familiar looking Benz honked at her. The other students were pointing, mouths open in admiration. Oh no. Please, not Yoongi – not in front of the whole school.

The car honked again, impatiently and it was as though Yoongi had stuck his head out of the window and yelled “YAH!!!”

Grimacing, Seung Hee made her way to the passenger's side, ignoring her classmates' wide stares and whispers.

"Does she have a rich boyfriend?”
“Why is she getting in that car?”

She got in and saw Yoongi grinning like a devil in designer shades. He sped off – a few miles over than the speed limit – but that didn't stop her from hitting his shoulder.

"You idiot!” she cried. “Are you crazy?”
“Ow! Stop that!”

"How could you do this to me, huh? There'll be rumors all over the school by tomorrow!”

"So what? Are you embarrassed about me?”
“Duh.”

"Yah, you brat!”

She hid a grin. “I hope there'll be a rumor about me and Ji Hyun.”

"Who's that?”

"He's only the cutest boy in my school.”

"There is no way that he is cuter than me.”

"He is way cuter than you – and he's younger.”

"That means he's really immature. I'm much better than him.”

"I hope there's a rumor about me and him-”

"Say that one more time and I'll send you to an orphanage.”

She stuck out her tongue and he pulled her ponytail.

"Don't distract me while I drive,” he ordered.

"You're so bossy,” said Seung Hee. “Don't do this again, ok?”
“I was just being nice.”
“If my classmates find out that I'm married it's the end for me.”

"And if my fans find out that I'm married it's the end for me.”

She glared. “That's why you shouldn't do stupid things like this again!”

"All right, point taken. Sorry, kiddo.”

"And don't call me kiddo!”

The corners of his mouth twitched. “You're such a baby – hey, I'll just call you that.”

"What?”
“Baby.”

She hit him again. “My name is Seung Hee! Lee Seung Hee!”

"Baby's awfully cranky today. What happened, missed your nap?”

"I hate you.”
  She crossed her arms in front of her chest and glared while he just grinned stupidly.

"Why are you so happy?” she demanded.

"Because you're with me,” he answered honestly. “Because you forgave me.”

"Watch out or else I might change my mind.”

"I know you won't.”
She pouted.

The car stopped in front of the apartment building.

"Ok, kiddo, get out. Go up and change because we're going to see my mother and have dinner there.”

Seung Hee remembered what had happened the last time she went to the Mins and he said, “Don't worry, I already took precautions.”

"I didn't say anything,” she muttered, but shot him a grateful look before running inside the apartment building to change into jeans and a sweater. When she came back down, Yoongi honked again.

"That's so obnoxious,” she said, getting in. They argued for the entire way, and were still arguing when Mrs Min let them in.

Mrs Min whacked Yoongi on the head when he pulled the band from Seung Hee's ponytail.

"Don't be mean!”

"Eomma!” he cried. “That hurt!”

Seung Hee giggled and snatched her band back. Mrs Min gave a small shriek and dashed to the kitchen.

"Shouldn't we go help her?” asked Seung Hee, and Yoongi grabbed the band and held it above his head.

"Give me that!”

She jumped up to get it but she was still too short.

"Why can't you get it?” teased Yoongi. “Aw, you're too short! Shorty!”

He finally took pity on her and turned Seung Hee around so her back was facing him. Yoongi combed her hair back with his fingers into a ponytail and tied it. She touched it suspiciously to see if it was weird or messy. Surprisingly, it wasn't.

“Where did you learn hairstyles?” she asked, and Yoongi leaned over her shoulder to whisper, “Eunji... I used to do her hair when she was sick.”

Seung Hee tried to turn around to face him, but he kept her in place by holding onto her shoulders. It was almost like a hug, and she could feel his warm breath caress her neck. He put his lips close to her ear to say something.

Someone cleared their throat loudly – the announcing-your-presence type – and Seung Hee immediately jumped away from Yoongi and bowed to Mr Min standing in the doorway. How embarrassing; Mr Min clearly thought that they had been doing something else.

“Good evening,” said Seung Hee, her cheeks flaming.

“Hello, Seung Hee,” said Mr Min, totally ignoring Yoongi. “Are you studying hard? The exams are coming up soon, you know.”

“They're in April,”said Yoongi irritably. “December just started.”

“Seung Hee?” said Mrs Park, putting a bowl on the table. “When do your Christmas holidays start?”

“From December fifteenth to January third, I think.”

“Oh, I was hoping that your birthday would be during the holidays – we could have really celebrated.”
“That's all right,” said Seung Hee.

“Your birthday?” asked Yoongi.

“Didn't you know?” For some reason, Mrs Min seemed disappointed.

He shrugged. “How could I know if no one told me?”

His words almost had an aggressive tone, and Seung Hee hoped to keep the sweet Yoongi by saying, “It's all right, no one told you, it's no big deal. After all, I don't know when your birthday is.”

Yoongi took offense at this. “What? How could you not know something every girl your age knows?”
“I know lots of others,” said Seung Hee. “Leeteuk's is on July first, T.O.P's is on November fourth, Kai's-”

“Then how come you don't know mine?” he demanded.

She grinned. “Because I'm not your fan!”

“What?! Yah, who's the one who said I have a great voice, huh?”

“That doesn't make me your fan,” said Seung Hee. “If you ask me who have the best voices it's Kyuhyun and Jimin and Leo.”

She stuck out her tongue at his scandalized expression, and the Mins chuckled, making Seung Hee and Yoongi realize that they weren't alone and that their bickering had an audience.

Yoongi glared at his parents, making them laugh, and his mother ruffled his hair affectionately.

“My son's changed a lot...”

Yoongi swatted her hands away. “Eomma! I'm not a kid!”

“Now you know how I feel,” muttered Seung Hee and they all went to sit for dinner.

Dinner was spaghetti, and for some reason it kept slipping off Seung Hee's fork mid-way to . Yoongi, sitting opposite, found this hilarious and smirked every time it happened, an evil glint in his eyes. His face began to aggravate her so she looked everywhere except at him, and tried hard to keep her spaghetti on her fork.

The conversation was normal – studies, Mr Mins job, Mrs Min's new cooking experiments. Only Yoongi didn't say a word. Once in a while, he would nudge her foot under the table to get her attention. She would look at him, he would smirk, and she would look away. Eventually, she stopped responding, and just when she was about to put a forkful of spaghetti in , he kicked her – hard – in the shin.

This had two effects: Seung Hee gave a cry of pain, and the spaghetti fell onto her sweater front and then back into her plate, the tomato sauce leaving a stain on her light blue sweater. Mrs Min told her to go wash it off quickly and she ran to the kitchen, Yoongi's smirking eyes following her.

Jerk! She scrubbed furiously. This was her favourite sweater! And that idiot did this on purpose! Finally, the stain left, but the front of her sweater was wet and the mark seemed to be spreading – how humiliating!

She tried to absorb the water by scrubbing at it with paper towels – but it didn't really do anything.

“Seung Hee?” called Mrs Min. “Could you bring the cake? It's in the fridge.”

“Yes, Eomoni!”

The cake was big and when she held it, it covered up the wet part. Phew – and when she got to the table, she would find a way to hide it somehow.

Seung Hee brought the cake to the table and sat down quickly and everyone got a slice – it was chocolate cake, with caramel icing and at first Yoongi refused to eat any because of his diet but broke down when Mrs Min said she'd give it all to Seung Hee.

Seung Hee sat slightly hunched over, and Yoongi's eyes narrowed. He noticed the front of her sweater was all wet and the sides of his mouth twitched. She glared at him and he pretended to stare. She kicked him hard, and he shrugged and concentrated on his cake.

When dinner ended, Mr Min excused himself, and Mrs Min refused Seung Hee's offers to help wash up.

“You left some things behind, though,” she said. “Why don't you go take a look?”

Seung Hee went to what used to be her room, followed by Yoongi, and he pushed her inside.

Automatically, she raised her hands in self defense and he caught her wrists.

“Yah, stop, will you?” he said. “I'm not going to hit you.”

“Well, I am!” she cried. “Do you have any idea how embarrassing that was?”

“Something like that will happen every time you ignore me,” he said. “I told you that I don't like to be ignored.”

Seung Hee rolled her eyes and turned her back on him to open her cupboard. He leaned against the wall, watching her.

“What are you doing?”

“Taking some clothes I left behind,” she said, sending him a dark look. “Because some people try to ruin them!”

“Hey, not my fault if you're a dumb kid.”

“Yah, you kicked me!”

“And you spilled your food – see, not my fault.”

Yoongi suddenly spotted something on the chair and frowned.

“Did you leave that behind on purpose?” he asked, pointing.

Seung Hee's face lit up in childish delight – why did he find that so cute?

"My Converse!”
“How could you leave that behind?” he demanded.

“Sorry, Yoo.”

He froze. “What? Are you calling me that?'”

"Do you hate it?”
“Yes! It's so childish!”

“Yay, then I'll call you that!”

“You wouldn't dare...”

“You call me kid. If I'm a kid, I can call you something dumb, too. Yoo Yoo Yoo!”

Yoongi frowned – it was such a childish thing to call him! It didn't suit him at all!

Seung Hee laughed, and his heart swooped – maybe it was ok if she called him that, after all, except she couldn't know that he actually liked it. Just a little, though.

 

* * * *

Yoongi sat with his arms folded. “Well?'

Mrs Lee bent her head. “Thank you for your time. I realize that you are a very busy person.”

“You have no idea,” said Yoongi shortly. He had no desire to be nice to this woman – she had abandoned Seung Hee when she was a child, and his mother had told him that she wanted to take Seung Hee back. This woman was evil and insane.

Sensing that he wasn't in a very friendly mood, she said slowly, “Is… is my Seung He all right?”

He bristled. Her Seung Hee? This woman was really…

“I heard that you take good care of her,” continued Mrs Lee. “I'm very grateful.”

“I didn't do it for you, so you have nothing to be grateful for.”

Mrs Lee changed track suddenly. “She must be a burden to a Hallyu star like you.”

“How could you call her a burden?” demanded Yoongi. “She can never be a burden.”

“It must be tough, though, to keep her a secret,” said Mrs Lee, unaffected by the icy gaze. “If this ever gets exposed, your career could get ruined, you'll never be accepted into the entertainment industry again.”

Yoongi's dislike increased with every word she uttered. How could such a sweet girl like Seung Hee have such a horrible mother?

“I am well aware of all this,” he said coldly.

“She could get hurt,” said Mrs Lee. “How do you think all the negative attention would affect her?”

“I'll protect her.”

“You are just an idol,” said Mrs Lee, and Yoongi's fists clenched – that was the sentence he hated to hear. “Don't be selfish.”

“What about you?” he asked. “Are you not being selfish?”

“I only want what's best for my daughter.”

“Really? You have a strange way of showing it.”

“Let me see her again, please – I beg you.”

Now Mrs Lee had a sense of desperation in her, and Yoongi could see sincerity in her eyes. Mrs Lee really did want to see Seung Hee – she was her mother, after all, and hadn't seen her for a long time. No! Seung Hee didn't need her mother to reopen old scars! Yoongi blocked the small bit of pity creeping in him.

“Let me tell you something about Seung Hee,” he said. “What you and your ex-husband did was unforgivable. Where would she have been if not for her grandfather? For the last six years, there was no word from either of you even when her grandfather was dying. And that is why she was entrusted to me.”

Mrs Lee tried to say something, but Yoongi went on, “I admit that she didn't take it well – and neither did I. I was angry about the whole thing and she sunk into a depression while I was on a tour. When I returned, I was so shocked – she wouldn't even eat. I helped her out of it, and forced her to stay at my place because of reporters.”

“You said you were angry,” cut in Mrs Lee. “When did that anger go? And why won't you just let her go?”

When he wasn't angry with her anymore? Hmm… maybe it was when he had seen her in that wedding dress and she had been full of that innocence – or it had been he had abandoned her in the middle of Seoul and watched her in the rear view mirror, and she had seemed so much like an abandoned child. Maybe it had been when she had smeared icing on his face, or when he had held her small body close and told her that her grandfather had died. In fact, he had no idea.

He shook his head. “She has a way of getting… I mean, it's impossible to stay mad at her or dislike her.”

Mrs Lee raised an eyebrow.

“And I'm giving her a new life, Mrs Lee. She smiles a lot now and she's a lot happier. Having you back in her life… I just don't think it's the best idea. She cried a lot that night, you know – and I don't want her to go through the same thing again.”

“But Yoongi, she's so young. You're too old to understand her.”
“I understand-”

“A young girl needs a mother,” interrupted Mrs Lee. “I know I'm late, but I would really like to be there for her. Do you have any idea of how much I regret the past?”

Regrets…. Yoongi knew all about them. They were like ghosts – haunting, cold, and always there.

“Don't you know about regrets?” said Mrs Lee.

Could she see the conflict in his eyes?

“Do you love her?” she asked softly.

Why was everyone asking him this question? What did it matter whether he loved the kid or not? But yes, he loved her – he loved her so much he could let her go to this woman if she wanted to. And then she would become one among the people he had loved but left him.

“I'll make a deal with you,” said Mrs Lee, seeing that he was not going to reply. “If she loves you, she can stay with you – but if she doesn't, she will come to me and-”

“NO!”

Mrs Lee was startled by the force of his word. Did Seung Hee really mean so much to him?

“She's not some kind of possession to be passed around people,” he said. “I refuse to agree to such a ridiculous deal.”

“Then let her choose.”

“What?”

“Let her choose between us.”

He glared at her. “You are one messed up woman...”

He stormed out of the coffee shop, furious. Right when things were going well, why did she come and mess it up? Anyway, Seung Hee wouldn't leave him, right? Of course not...

Yoongi could see what Seung Hee had meant when she said other people always made decisions for her. Her mother was ready to swap her around, like a possession.

His stomach clenched. He, too, had treated her like that – like a possession to be kept close. But no matter how close he wanted her to be, he couldn't make her decisions for her.

Yoongi would never do that.

---

 

a/n: Thank you all sooo much for reading! I started another fic called 'Error',  an adaptation from the VIXX mv. It's not the mv's story, I just used the idea of cyborgs. Please check it out and I hope you will enjoy it!