The glum girl stepped into my residence, Tiffany a few steps behind me.

              One look at her and I opened my arms, stepping outside and embracing her in a hug. Although her eyes had hints of redness and puffiness, it wasn’t excessive; although it didn’t seem like it was for long, the simple thought of her crying made me uneasy and upset. “Don’t be sad, Tiffany isn’t even mad at you,” I told her, Jessica wrapping her arms around me in kind.

              The two of us stayed like that for a few seconds, breaking apart only so that I could pull Jessica through the door and close it behind her. Tiffany offered her a pair of slippers, but when Jessica met her eyes, she flinched.

              “What’s wrong? I don’t bite,” Tiffany said, trying for a good-natured, playful chuckle.

              Jessica shook her head, taking off her shoes and slipping into the pair of slippers. “It’s—” she cut herself off abruptly. “Well, … nothing, it’s nothing,” she concluded, following me as I pulled her into the living room. I made sure to hide Tiffany’s bag of ‘clothing’ inside my bedroom; the last thing I needed was for Jessica to notice it and start ruffling through it.

              “First of all, do you want to tell us what happened?” I began after seating ourselves on the sofa.

              Jessica took a deep breath, giving Tiffany an uneasy look, who in turn gave her an encouraging smile and nod. I felt an inexplicable sense of pride from observing that; even though Tiffany’s dad coming to Korea was undoubtedly a situation Tiffany would rather avoid, being so understanding towards the person who allegedly was at least somewhat of a catalyst to the circumstance just added onto her long list of admirable, lovable qualities.

              “I messed up,” she stated, the same pained expression appearing on her face again before burying her head in her hands.

              I brought my hand up to her hair, something I actually frequently did back in college whenever she would stress about upcoming exams or projects. “Sica, you can’t be perfect all the time, you realize that, right? If you’re a human, you will make mistakes, although I’m not even sure if whatever you did can even be called a mistake, knowing you.”

              Jessica didn’t respond for a long time, only letting a chuckle out a moment later. “You can’t just call another girl ‘perfect’ if you’re already dating someone, Taengoo.”

              The statement was so absurd that it genuinely took a few seconds for me to fully understand what she just said.

              “What?”

              The words flew out of my mouth subconsciously, my hand sliding back down to my sides.

              “Yeah, Taeyeon, even if you’re trying to comfort your best friend, you can’t just say that,” Tiffany said in a playfully scolding manner—at least, from the time I’ve spent with her, I surmised that it was extremely likely that she was being playful.

              “Ah, sorry,” I apologized, unsure of what else to do, “That wasn’t my point though…”

              Jessica chuckled again, patting my knee. “I know, thanks for comforting me,” she said, sitting back up straight. “Basically, I did some thinking and made some conclusions, and when I submitted my weekly report, I decided to omit our meeting.” Tiffany nodded knowingly, in a way that suggested she understood Jessica’s situation or that she knew what was to happen. Admittedly, I had an inkling as well, judging from Jessica’s wildly panicked reaction earlier, but I decided to keep an open mind. “But he somehow knew about our meeting anyway and asked why I omitted the detail. I started panicking and, in the end, he got too suspicious of me and decided to come to Korea to check things for himself.”

              It looked like Jessica wanted to say more, but promptly stopped when Tiffany clicked her tongue in annoyance. “It’s not enough to force me to Korea by myself, but now that man has to stalk me too? If calling the police on him would do anything, I would do it, but there’s no way he would—gah, it’s so frustrating,” she muttered, her fists balling up.

              I quickly moved to the other side of Jessica, but Tiffany calmed down before I could situate myself.

              “Fany…”

              “Sorry, did I worry you?” she asked playfully, grinning.

              I pursed my lips but didn’t respond. There was no way she recovered that quickly, did she? Should I still try to comfort her anyway?

              “Also, he said one more thing before he hung up,” Jessica said. Both of us diverted our attention back to the nervous woman, who took a second to herself before continuing, “He wanted me to tell you that he wanted to meet you tomorrow, when he arrives.” I could see Tiffany tense up, something that Jessica seemed to notice too as she got noticeably more nervous after the fact. “He told me to convey this to you, and that he’d contact you when he’s ready.”

              It only took a glance—no, one merely needed to be in her presence to understand her anger. Fumes were practically spurting out from her crown and she was nearly at the point of visibly shaking. It was like she was exuding an aura of rage, something which I was more worried about than scared of. I wanted to lean over and comfort her but felt that to be the inappropriate thing to do: how was I going to comfort her? Could I even do it? While I could sympathize for her situation, I couldn’t empathize with it.

              “That man … he has the nerve to…”

              “I’ll come with you,” I blurted out. Tiffany’s anger dissipated just like that, shock tell-tale in her eyes. I unflinchingly met her gaze, firm in my resolve to be the guardian in this instance. “He knows of me, right? Also, he didn’t expressly tell Tiffany to come alone, right?” I briefly looked over to Jessica, who shook her head in confirmation to my inquiry. “There it is. I can accompany you and help settle things. I can … um, you know, be your anchor or s-something,” I ended up muttering the last part, only realizing what I was saying halfway through saying it.

              Tiffany broke out into a smile. “Aah you’re so cheesy,” she cooed.

              Jessica let out something between a scoff and a chuckle. “Should I wait outside? I’ll make sure to keep my ears covered too. Actually, maybe I should just go somewhere else for a while?”

              “W-Wait! Why are you getting up?”

              “I’d appreciate that, thanks Jessi!”

              “Why are you thanking her!?”

              “Ok, well then, I’ll be back in … an hour?”

              “That long!?”

              “What, do you want me to wait longer? Fine, I’ll be back in two.”

              “Don’t extend the time!”

              “You know me so well, Jessi.”

              It pained me to admit this, but I could see why and how the two were a couple in the past; their chemistry was undeniable. While I understood that I was the one who was Tiffany’s girlfriend, it still made me jealous to think this.

              Tiffany laughed. “You’re so cute Taeyeon. Thanks for offering to come with me, you’ll always be my ‘anchor’.”

              I felt myself flush at that, just a little, but since it was more in embarrassment to my own words than what Tiffany said, I figured it didn’t count … wait, did it even work like that?

              “Well, even if he didn’t expressly say it, I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t want me there after what happened. Sorry again for—”

              Tiffany held a hand up, silencing her. “I won’t let you apologize in place of that man,” she announced. “Actually, as his daughter, I should be the one apologizing to you.”

              While it appeared that Jessica didn’t notice, I certainly did. Maybe it wasn’t as big as I thought it was, given that Jessica technically knew Tiffany for longer than I, but it was enough to put me in a brief state of bewilderment. After all, this was the first time Tiffany actually admitted to being related to her father, much less to being his daughter.

              Initially, my plan was to help Tiffany reestablish a connection with her father, but it was she already making progress without me?

              I never for one second debated whether or not I should withdraw my offer of accompanying her in her meeting with her father, but that thought hounded me throughout the rest of the day and all the way until Tiffany arrived at my house, informing me that his chauffer would pick us up at the address Tiffany provided, my family’s house, shortly.

              The ride was luxurious, the interior of the car as fancy as one would expect from a rich family. While I had an idea of the wealth Tiffany’s father possessed, seeing it first-hand still amazed me. So needless to say, when we arrived at the high-class looking restaurant and entered the building, I was even further amazed.

              Even though it was just the welcoming area, it had the whole package: the employees dressed in suits that made Tiffany’s work uniform look like a child’s plaything, the enormous ornate chandelier hanging above the area basked the area in a bright yellow glow, huge open-water fountains with more variety of fish than I’ve seen in most aquariums, the counters perfectly furnished wood that shined so brightly I could almost make out my reflection in the light-brown material, a satin-red rug embezzled with gold-laced patterns, … simply put, it was breath-taking. I suddenly felt self-conscious of the clothes I was wearing, which definitely felt much to casual to even be allowed to step foot into such an expensive place.

              However dumb I must have looked being amazed at the place, the high-class aura this place exuded seemed to have no effect on Tiffany. Whether it was an effect of having been born into this kind of wealth or it was just her being determined and single-minded, I wasn’t sure. She simply waltzed up to the counter, me in hand, and talked to the employee there briefly before being led into the back of the restaurant and into a private room.

              When I realized that we would be having a private room, I found myself relieved; one of my primary concerns was whether or not Tiffany would again burst with emotion and disturb the other customers, but I guess that kind of thing was never a concern if her nuclear family was this well-off.

              Given, my family was also relatively wealthy, but we almost never indulged much; in fact, I wasn’t even sure my parents could afford a place like this, even if they worked for the government.

              The employee left us in front of the door at Tiffany’s request, whom I could tell wanted a bit more time to mentally prepare herself. I gave her hand an encouraging squeeze, an action which caused her to turn her head to me. I smiled as our eyes met. “You can do this, Fany,” I said, pumping my fist encouragingly with my free hand.

              Tiffany smiled her ‘that’s-cute’ smile, or so I liked to call it, and nodded, taking a deep breath before opening the door, the both of us stepping into the room.

              My first impression of the man was very similar to Tiffany’s: there was something about him that inexplicably felt familiar. He was remarkably casually dressed, wearing a simple plain light-green t-shirt as well as a pair of jeans. A pair of rectangular glasses hung from the bridge of his nose, his jet-black hair well kept.

              “Hello Stephanie,” the low, yet somehow soothing voice of her father greeted her, standing up as he did so, “Hello Taeyeon.”

              Ordinarily, I would’ve wondered how he knew my name, but knowing that Jessica acted as his informant, it was only natural that he would be able to guess my name. I made a motion to bow but was briefly stopped by Tiffany, who gripped my hand tightly. “Don’t talk to her so casually like that. And also, don’t call me that name; ‘Stephanie’ died when you exiled her.”

              So her name given from birth was ‘Stephanie’, and she presumably changed it to ‘Tiffany’ upon arriving in Korea. ‘Stephanie’ … for some reason, that name sparked something in my mind. Similar to the first time I met her, a memory surfaced to the edge of my mind … the name felt familiar, yet I didn’t know of anyone with that name in college. Was it from my earlier years in America?

              I had a friend in my earlier years in America that I recalled had a similar smile to her, didn’t I? Was it possible that her name was Stephanie, or that the friend was Tiffany? I mean, something like this only happened in dramas, didn’t it? However unlikely it was, I couldn’t deny what appeared to be the strong likelihood of this being the case.

              “I’m sorry. You go by ‘Tiffany’ now, don’t you? Please, sit; you too, Taeyeon.”

              From everything Tiffany said about her father, I expected the tone of his voice to be completely void of emotion—robotic, even. However, that was the exact opposite of reality; his voice was warm and gentle, and without knowing anything, even I would be able to tell that this was a man speaking to someone he loved dearly. But, in the same vein of my expectations set by Tiffany, I couldn’t help but wonder if this was an act, which while it was a terrible thing to question a parent’s love for his daughter, was something I felt I had to consider.

              Actually, how did Tiffany’s father even know of her new name? I couldn’t imagine Tiffany contacted her dad much, even in her first few months in Korea by herself; the only conclusion I could draw was that either the information was shared by Jessica or that he gained the information much prior to that via his informants.

              “What do you want? Why are you here?” Tiffany planted herself just in front of the closed door, me by her side. Her grip strength had significantly increased, I noticed.

              “The food will be here shortly. Please, sit down,” he repeated. Tiffany took a deep breath and turned her head to me, giving me an apologetic smile before pulling us to the dining table.

              “So you’re my daughter’s girlfriend, are you?” Tiffany’s father said, looking at me. His gaze was fierce: just looking at it and one could tell that he was a powerful man.

              “Don’t involve her in this,” Tiffany said, cutting me off.

              “I just wanted to get to know my daughter’s girlfriend better. Taeyeon, how are you? Are your parents—”

              “Enough.”

              Tiffany responded with a similar ferocity in her eyes, and just from that simple exchange, it was clear to me that Tiffany was indeed her father’s child.

              A brief silence befell the private room, Tiffany’s dad studying Tiffany and me carefully, only interrupted when a knock resonated from the other side of the door.

              “Ah, that must be our food. Come in!”

              The door swung open and in came a cart full of food I’ve seen only on the TV or computer screen, and some others I haven’t even encountered before in my life. A moment later, after the table was set properly, the waitresses bowed, promptly closing the door as they left.

              “Why don’t we dig in! Steph—I mean, Tiffany, they even have that eel dish you liked so much!”

              “Answer my question. What do you want?”

              Tiffany’s dad sighed. “Can’t a dad visit her child every now and then?”

              Tiffany scoffed dismissively. “What do you mean ‘every now and then’? How long has it been since you exiled me from America? Almost ten years?”

              Tiffany’s dad frowned. “So that’s how you saw it? I ‘exiled’ you?”

              I, somehow, could sense Tiffany about to erupt, so I quickly leaned over and grabbed her hand. She looked over, confused, and after a moment of eye contact, sighed and took a deep breath, the fiery anger in her subsiding as she did so. “What else would you call it?”

              “Well, all I did was send you away for high school. There was nothing to prevent you from coming back afterwards.”

              “You’re so full of , I can’t believe I’m actually here right now,” she said, voice filled with annoyance and disgust. “I was here in Korea by myself, my knowledge of the language at a bare minimum, no relatives to help me because you scared them all away. Do you think—” I squeezed her hand again, desperately trying to find her eyes. Luckily, that seemed to catch her attention as she calmed down once again, shooting me another apologetic smile. I shot back the warmest smile I could muster, giving her another encouraging fist pump from underneath the table.

              It was Tiffany’s dad turn to sigh this time. “Tiffany, I will admit it. I was wrong. I feel ashamed of myself for my actions, but what you have to understand was that it was during a part of my life where I was emotional. I loved your mother—”

              “You weren’t the only one that loved her,” Tiffany said through gritted teeth. I could tell that she was holding herself back, and there eventually would come a point where I wouldn’t be able to stop her. I wanted to just pull her out of the space and save her from all these negative emotions, but would that even be the right course of action? Would perpetually running away from her problems solve anything?

              “You’re right. We all loved her, but you have to understand that I was still angry at myself. However, since I was the CEO of a company, I couldn’t afford to just let my emotions affect my decisions, actions, or anything, so when I was given a chance to lash out, my sending you to Korea was the result of that.”

              “I can’t believe you. You haven’t changed at all; you say that you ‘were wrong’ but you don’t actually think that. You’re a disgusting excuse for a human being, much less a father.”

              I couldn’t help but flinch at those words, which fortunately went unnoticed by Tiffany; I wanted to trust Tiffany and believe that she’s in the right, but the current situation didn’t reflect that. If I were to explain it in a way that was biased towards Tiffany, it would appear like Tiffany’s father was employing euphemism when explaining past events whereas Tiffany was exposing the truth. However, because both sides were biased, I didn’t really know what to pick out from their back-and-forth. Since Tiffany was my girlfriend, I tended to lean towards her bias, especially given how fierce she was.

              On the other hand, Tiffany’s dad’s face was masked with sadness. I could tell from just his eyes that the words pained him, but Tiffany disregarded it. Maybe it was just an act…? But if it was, how talented of an actor was Tiffany’s father?

              “You’re trying to explain away the fact that you sent your own child away to a foreign country by herself. What I did was a result of my emotions too, or have you just conveniently failed to take that into consideration?”

              Once again, I could clearly tell that Tiffany was holding herself back. She was biting her lip furiously, forcibly keeping shut.

              “Ste—Tiffany…” her father started, but shortly stopping himself. “You’ve gotten thinner. Have you been eating properly?”

              Tiffany didn’t respond, diverting her attention to me. “Are you sure you want to stay here?” she asked, her voice doing a complete one-eighty and turning soft.

              I looked at her in disbelief. “What do you mean? Of course I do! Well, I mean, unless you want me to leave—”

              “No, you can stay,” she replied happily, releasing my hand. “Go on, eat.”

              I shook my head. “I’m not going to eat until you start eating.”

              Tiffany cocked an eyebrow at me. “You cheeky little kid,” she said, picking up her chopsticks nevertheless.

              “Thank you Taeyeon, I can really see why my daughter fell for you,” Tiffany’s father said. I was stunned once again, blown away by the amount of love that was evidently in his voice.

              “Um, thank you Mr. Hwang,” I replied nervously.

              He noticed my nervousness immediately, smiling and saying, “No need to be nervous. Go on, eat; I hope you will find the food to your liking. If not, I have a spare menu that you can look through,” he offered, picking up an ornate leather-bound menu from the seat next to him.

              “Oh, no thanks, this food looks really good,” I replied. Part of me wondered if it was ok to be talking to Tiffany’s father like this, but part of me still wanted to get on his good side. He was my girlfriend’s father, after all. “Honestly, I haven’t even seen some of these dishes,” I admitted, chuckling.

              “Is that so?” he said, smiling himself. “Allow me to explain—”

              “So this dish,” Tiffany said, cutting her father off, pointing to the dish nearest to me, “is called ‘lobster fritta’. Its made from eggs, cheese, bread, and some vegetables, usually zucchini, and of course lobster. This one…”

              Tiffany went through the rest of them, to my amazement, and somehow picked out all the ones I didn’t know about. I suspected it was due to her intimate experience with understanding the differences between fine dining and casual, normal meals.

              Most of the meal went by with Tiffany ignoring her father’s existence, occasionally cutting off her father’s words when he decided to ask me something or converse with me. I always made sure to reply politely, still having a desire to leave a good impression on him despite the rough relationship that existed between the parent and child.

              After main course was all but finished and the waitresses took the dishes away, Tiffany’s dad restarted the conversation.

              “St—Tiffany, let me make something clear. What I did wasn’t because I prioritized the company over you, it was about my image as the company’s CEO. Imagine if I had just given into the blackmailer’s demands and news was leaked that I was that easy of a target; not only would you be made a more public target, but so would your sister and brother.”

              “So? That’s it?” Tiffany turned to look at her father again. I made a motion to grab her hand but missed; whether it was because she moved her hand away or my hand-eye coordination was off, I wasn’t sure. Not wanting to risk it being the former, I didn’t attempt it again, ready to help Tiffany the second she needed it.

              “What do you—”

              “Are you going to use that as your excuse?”

              “Tiffany—”

              “What, do you think that other CEOs don’t have these kinds of worries? Other CEOs of big companies have families too, you know. Do you ever see them banishing their teenage child to another country?”

              “Tiffany, I wanted you to come back to America after high school, but I lost any form of communication with you.”

              “Yeah right. You’ve stalked me via other people, haven’t you? You know my new name, you know what I look like now, and you still are pretending you ‘didn’t have a way to communicate with me’? Get over yourself! You’re a fully grown man; what, are you embarrassed with what you did and hid yourself from me in your shame?”

              “Yes, as a matter of fact, I was.”

              For the first time that night, Tiffany’s father raised his voice. It wasn’t enough to be intimidating, nor was it any more angry or frustrated or anything else; it seemed more of a last-ditch effort than anything else.

              “As a fully-grown man, after reflecting on my actions, I came to fully realize what I did and became embarrassed by my actions. As a fully-grown man, I felt like I couldn’t face my own daughter, who I’ve wronged all these years, and after I tried to start providing for you again, the money I sent to your bank account in Korea remained untouched even to this day; having nowhere else to turn, I resorted to asking other people to look out for you.”

              “That’s bull!”

              Tiffany stood up, slamming the table furiously, causing me to nearly jump out of my skin; it was enough to even cause Tiffany’s dad to flinch.

              “You can’t have realized what you’ve done to me. Look out for me? I was bullied all throughout high school. When I became fat, I was teased for my accent and my appearance, and when I lost weight, I was ually harassed and hated by the other girls for ‘being a ’. After high school, I barely had enough money to survive, and because my high school classmates taught the young, impressionable me that the only redeeming quality about me was my body, I ed myself. You thought that news reporter’s info on Jessi and me was bad? Did you ever consider this to be a circumstance? Oh wait, you don’t have to worry about that anymore because you legally disowned me, didn’t you?”

              “Stephanie—”

              “Oh my gosh, Fany, I—”

              I stood up with her and reached for her hands; however, when she looked over to me, a look of pure horror washed over her face.

              She stumbled back, hastily knocking the chair to the side.

              “Fany? What’s wrong?”

              My voice broke subconsciously. A pit formed in my stomach, and I just felt like crying; did I do something wrong? Why was she suddenly so afraid of me?

              “Tae—Taeyeon…” her voice drastically changed, from the bold, boisterous voice to a whimper, a breathless whisper.

              “Fany—”

              Tiffany turned around abruptly, pushing her chair to the side. Without another word, she ran out the door.

I think it’s been 3 weeks again?

Hm … well, the last few weeks was filled with exams and club events, so now that I have time, I managed to update. Honestly, the first ‘draft’ of this chapter had a HUGE information dump when Jessica explained her situation, but I managed to make it better I think. Maybe it was too un-serious and therefore not realistic? I hope not :c

A lot was revealed in this chapter, huh? All the big things about Tiffany’s past was hit, but more will be expanded on the next few chapters. There’s also one big thing that I have yet to reveal about Tiffany; does anyone think they know what it is?

Also, what do you think the info that the news reporter, or the ‘blackmail’ that Tiffany’s dad referred to, on Tiffany and Jessica was about?

Hope you enjoyed, and thanks for reading ^_^

P.S. check out my facebook page https://fb.me/affkesujo; if you want notifications as soon as something new gets uploaded or updates on my process on the newest chapter, then go ahead and give it a like/follow! :D