Mark was dead worried the first time he met Jaeha. When Jinyoung had told him he was going back to Korea for two days only and had asked him if he wanted to come along, Mark had obviously accepted. They had been dating for two years at that moment and that was the first time they were going to Jinyoung's home country together, and even if it was two short days Mark wanted to be by his side.

And then Jinyoung had told him he was going to meet with his daughter and had asked Mark if he wanted to meet her too for the very first time. Mark hadn't hesitated, not even for a second, and he had even smiled when he agreed to his lover.

He had heard a lot about Im Jaeha in two years. Jinyoung couldn't help talking about her in most conversations they shared. He was always finding a detail which reminded him of his daughter and every occasion was good enough for him to talk about Jaeha. And Mark sincerely didn't mind at all. He liked the way Jinyoung's eyes sparkled when talking about his only daughter, or the bright and loving smile he had when looking at pictures of her. Jinyoung had been living with him in a villa in Los Angeles for a year and in their bedroom, Jinyoung had pictures of his daughter hanging in nice frames on the walls and though it could have been weird for Mark to have pictures of the daughter of his boyfriend in his bedroom, he didn't care. If it was for Jinyoung's happiness, then he would do anything for him and if it meant having pictures of Jaeha everywhere, then he would gladly hung it on the walls of his house himself.

Somehow, Jinyoung was the person who convinced Mark that there was nothing more beautiful than a father's love for his child. In his opinion, Jinyoung was the most beautiful when talking about Jaeha.

But he also knew Jaeha hadn't exactly accepted his divorce and even less the fact that Jinyoung had left her to live alone with her dad. Jinyoung had opened up about this sadder part of his story after a year in their relationship. It was at night after Jinyoung had tried to call Jaeha to just have talk with her but she had refused to answer him and had both started and ended her conversation with “if you'd care you wouldn't have abandoned me”, said in a very mean tone which had broken Jinyoung's heart another time and Mark's at the same time; Mark and Jinyoung were a couple, they were one and shared a heart: if Jinyoung was sad then so was he. After Jaeha had hung up, Jinyoung had burst out in tears in Mark's arms while the latter had tried all he could to comfort him but Jinyoung had fallen asleep from exhaustion. When he had woken up later, he had accepted to share all his story with Mark, from the divorce and its reasons, and also from the moment he had said goodbye to Jaeha at the airport, nine years ago.

“She didn't cry,” Jinyoung had explained him, “I just bid my goodbyes and told her I would come back soon to spend some time with her, but she told me I didn't have to if I didn't want to, that she would be just fine with her dad. I... I saw how sad she looked, even if she didn't say it, I knew she felt betrayed by me. Her eyes were speaking for her and that was really scary. I was scared my own daughter wouldn't love me anymore and that I was never going to see her again.”

While listening to the story, Mark had understood Jaeha's anger toward her father a bit better. He had reckoned the divorce and Jinyoung's departure must have been really traumatizing and heart-breaking for her, but what seemed really strange for him was the fact that even nine years later, after all the apologies Jinyoung had given her and all the explanations she had received from both of her dads, she still couldn't forgive him and move on. When she was nine, he thought, she had all the rights to hate him, but ten years later, at nineteen years old, he felt like she didn't have the right to pour her hatred as much as she was doing on Jinyoung. That was not very 'adult' of her, he judged.

Because no matter how easy it was for her to shout at Jinyoung through the phone, she never really saw how badly affected her father was by her cold behavior.

Mark had seen Jinyoung cried by himself at night because of how much he missed her, he had seen how worried he was every time his ex-husband was calling him to talk about Jaeha, he had seen the tears in his eyes when Im Jaebum was telling him about all the good things that had happened in Jaeha's life, things Jinyoung wasn't part of. And seeing his love being this heart-broken, Mark had to admit he had wanted to slap Jaeha more than once. No parents deserved to be treated as badly as Jaeha was treating her own father.

At some points, in two years, Mark had the feeling he had always knew Jaeha and knew a lot about her, so when the day finally came for him to meet her in person, it felt like a reunion of two strangers.

He knew Jinyoung had never told her about him having a boyfriend, because one day his ex-husband had called him to tell him he had himself a new boyfriend and apparently Jaeha was a living-hell ever since she had met Jaebum's new boyfriend. Jinyoung had refused to believe Jaebum, he had said Jaeha wasn't like that and that even if she could be a little bit cold, she wouldn't dare to actually make trouble in their couple. Jaebum had begged (yes, begged) him to believe him, that he wouldn't dare to lie on such a complicated topic, and although Jinyoung had listened to him, Mark knew he wasn't completely convinced. But the calls from Jaebum never really stopped for a few months during which he told Jinyoung about how Jaeha was treating Youngjae, his new boyfriend, and about how wicked and merciless she had become with her own dad. “I tried to talk to her, I did! A hundred times! But whenever Youngjae's name comes out of my mouth she starts insulting me and in the end she just leaves the house!”. It took Jinyoung four months to declare he wasn't going to tell Jaeha about his and Mark's relationship and instead would just enjoy their time together as much as he could, without being bothered by his daughter whom he had presumed was simply doing her adolescent crisis.

When Jinyoung however had asked him if he didn't mind him not telling Jaeha, Mark had answered with a comforting smile “It's your daughter, your decision. I'll agree with whatever you decide to do if you think it's for both of your happiness”.

The moment came, when Mark and Jinyoung were seated at a table in a little restaurant in Seoul waiting for Jaeha to arrive, he had to admit he was really anxious and was highly apprehensive. He couldn't help but fidgeting on his chair and next to him Jinyoung was no better. Jaeha's father wondered until the last moment if she was going to cancel their meeting at the last minute and leave them hanging, which Mark felt like it wouldn't be really surprising, and himself couldn't help but wondering if she was going to run away when seeing him. He really expected her reaction, whatever he could be. And he was also extremely worried for Jinyoung and couldn't help but wondered what he could possibly do and say to comfort him if Jaeha wasn't showing up or was making a fuss in the restaurant. Obviously, when knowing what kind of person she was, he could only apprehend the worst and somehow didn't even think of the best.

He saw Jaeha long before she even saw him and somehow, he was grateful Jinyoung had had enough time to hold her in his arms and to ask her a few questions before she finally took a look at him.

And when their eyes met, those eyes he had seen a hundred time in pictures, the ones Jinyoung had described and talked about like being the eighth Wonder of the World, what he saw really surprised him and on the moment, he had to admit and said he was left speechless and frozen.

Though he was standing up, he felt immensely small in front of her, not because she was herself taller than him (she wasn't, really) but her eyes were so dark and so full of different feelings he couldn't put a finger on that he felt truly impressed by her.

And when seeing all the feelings that flashed through her eyes and eyes only, her facial expression didn't change and reminded the same expressionless one during the time they scrutinize one another, Mark realized that for two years, he had only heard Jinyoung's point of view on the 'war to reconciliation' he was leading to win back his daughter's love and trust. He had only heard and learned about her through his lover and never once he had thought about what could be Jaeha's thoughts and feelings on the whole thing. He had only ever truly faced one side of the story, never the other one.

And in that storm of feelings he saw in her eyes, he saw fear, anxiety, hatred, anger, happiness, a dash of curiosity for him whom she had no idea who he was, confusion, panic, distress and then finally, wickedness.

Mark was left speechless because he couldn't understand how was someone able to feel so many things at once and in so little time. But he knew human beings were like devices, once there were too many information at once, it ended up breaking. Jaeha was like that; she had too many things going on in her minds, all these things Mark could see in her beautiful eyes, but the only conclusion he came to was that Jaeha was broken, broken from all that had ever happened to her.

Because of the two past years and because of what he had heard, he had unconsciously expected to meet a girl full of anger and hatred, nothing else. Never had he thought about meeting a broken girl.

It was only when Jinyoung introduced him that Mark reacted and greeted her with an overly polite and courteous sentence: “I've heard a lot about you, I'm happy to finally officially meeting you”. And that wasn't even a lie. He was truly happy to finally have her in front of him. How could he not be happy after all these years?

However he chose to remain silent during the whole meal. Instead of talking, he observed Jaeha and her several reactions to whatever was her father telling her and never from the short moment she had been here before leaving quickly due to a misunderstanding with Jinyoung, Mark had seen a flash of happiness in her eyes. It was only distrust and anger. And all of this against Jinyoung and Jinyoung only. Never at a moment Mark felt like Jaeha personality hated him. And during that meal, he came to the conclusion that all the acts she had put up against her dad's boyfriend were maybe not hatred against the guy, but just anger against her dad. Maybe she had never hated Choi Youngjae just like everyone was claiming and just like she was claiming herself: he was sure Jaeha was probably clever enough to be conscious about her own feelings and to know she was lying to herself when saying she hated her dad's boyfriend and would hate Mark himself too.

That little girl had her childhood ruined by her fathers' divorce and she had found herself in a complicated situation where one of her father had chosen to leave the country which implied to leave her with her other dad, and now this little girl was broken and was a big giant mess of conflicting feelings.

Jaeha needed help, Mark concluded. He was convinced she had never meant to do all the bad she had done or had done it only to defend herself against more powerful attacks. In a fight, she had been left alone and her excessive almost cruel reactions were only the results of a self-defense mechanism.

In just a meal, Jaeha made so much more sense to him and at some points, he even ended up wanting to be mad at Jinyoung for not having thought of his daughter's feelings a bit more.

The meal had ended up badly for Jinyoung and Jaeha, with her leaving earlier than planned. Back in their hotel room, Jinyoung had cried that night and Mark hadn't been able to find the right words to comfort him.

But somehow, later, after they decided to buy a perfect house in Korea, Jaeha came along with her boyfriend Kim Yugyeom and even if Mark couldn't help worried, he was surprised to see Jaeha smiling and talking with her father as if nothing had ever happened before. It was a weird sight, he reckoned, but he ended up thinking it was because of her boyfriend, it was obvious she was deeply in love with him and Mark saw how different her behavior was when he was near.

But then, after a few phone calls and text messages exchanged between father and daughter, Jaeha had called Jinyoung to ask him if she could come and spend a week at their home, alone. Jinyoung had agreed without even asking Mark for his opinion, but he didn't mind because even if he had been the one answering the call, he would have also agreed and he would have been as happy as Jinyoung was when the call ended. His lover couldn't help smiling and laughing but he was also nervous and worried, which explained why he had called his ex-husband to ask him a few questions. Later, when Jinyoung asked him if he didn't mind, Mark had told him he was genuinely happy they would be able to spend a whole week with Jaeha and Jaeha only.

He knew he would still have to take things slow, that Jaeha would feel more at ease with her father than with him and he was fine with it, they'll learn to know each other bits by bits and one day they'd be able to get along well. Mark was sure the day would come where Jaeha would perfectly accept him but also Choi Youngjae, her dad's boyfriend.

And the fact that she had asked to come and had taken the decision herself was already a big step; barely three months earlier she had refused to see Jinyoung only because Mark would have been with him and now she was inviting herself to their shared home.

When Jaeha arrived, Jinyoung rushed outside and as soon as she stepped out of her car, he hold her in a tight hug. Mark watched them from the doorstep, not wanting to ruin their beautiful moment but soon after Jaeha entered the house, dragged inside by Jinyoung, she greeted him with a polite bow.

They were not completely there, but it was coming, Mark knew it. Even if he was not a father himself, he still had instincts and his were telling they would somehow managed to make it work. Together, they could succeed and could reconcile Jaeha with her father.

“Did the ride go well?” he asked her with a smile to which she surprisingly answered.

“It did. I had hard times leaving Seoul but once I was on the expressway everything went well.”

“Great, but you must be tired. I did tea earlier, I don't know if you like it but there's a cup for you in the kitchen.”

“I like tea,” she admitted, “thank you.”

“Thank you to you, Jaeha,” Mark wanted to say but he remained silent and watched her being dragged by Jinyoung inside the kitchen.

He leaned against the door-frame with his arms folded over his chest as he carefully observed the father-daughter's interactions. Jinyoung pushed Jaeha on one of the stools of the counter and handed her the still warm cup which she smelled first and then frowned. “What flavor is it?” she asked, “Apple and cinnamon, no sugar,” Jinyoung answered. “Oh perfect!”. She drank the first sip and smiled with content. And Jinyoung mirrored her actions, his dimpled smile which Mark loved more than every other of his smiles appearing on his happy smiling face. Because Mark knew, he knew how happy and delighted Jinyoung was at that moment, how satisfied he felt for having Jaeha in their home and being able to take care of her for a whole week. “Thank you, Jaeha, for bringing Jinyoung's smile back,” he found himself thinking.

Hi everyone! I hope you're all doing well!

I know I said I would try to update more often, and it's obviously what's not happening. But here's chapter 24 (and what a chapter!), and if you want to know, I worked quite a lot on this story during this month and a half so that I have a few chapters already written (and which I'm kinda excited to publish just to have your feedbacks, but that will have to wait ^^')

So, about this chapter. First of all: it's Mark's point of view! I think this chapter is really important, because it explained what Mark is thinking about Jaeha and her relation with her father, and also with him. Second of all, if this is not clear enough, it happens in three times: the beginning of the chapter happened when Mark and Jinyoung were still living in the USA, at the beginning of their relation, then it was when Mark met Jaeha for the first time (cf chapters 1&2) and then, it's Jaeha arriving to their house in Korea to start her break with them. I hope it's clear enough and it makes sense, if it doesn't, please feel free to point out any mistake for me to correct and to improve this chapter. I would be really thankful. Thrid of all, well, Mark is an angel. And finally, there is always two versions of a story, don't focus on one point of view but always try to confront them to fully understand a situation and not create misunderstandings.

Voilà, that's all for me. I'd like to thank you all for subscribing, upvoting (thank you charlesia) and commenting. I read all the comments, I swear, I didn't answer this time again but I read them all. If there's anything you'd like to say or ask, don't hesitate. 

Thank you very much for reading!

xx

Mae