Her blonde hair is neatly pulled into a sleek ponytail but the untamed loose strands remind Baekhyun of the unruly black curls that once framed her cherubic face. Prim and ladylike, she is, in the way she chews her food - daintily with closed shut. In these moments he often craves for a glimpse of caricaturesque chipmunk cheeks in her well defined jawline. Endearing as it may be, he shouldn’t have called her by her nickname - Chipmunk - in front of those little pixies considering how self-conscious she’d always been about her rather large front teeth. He wouldn’t have done it in a million years if only he had an inkling of their presence in her room when he barged in with a generous tub of berries and cream, her all time favourite. Which he later ended up sharing with you as she dismissed his second proposition with ‘I am on a diet..I think you should finish it up before it goes bad’. He never liked those girls because of the way they made his little princess feel - imperfect. To him she’d always be the most beautiful girl in the world - sculpted by the Gods themselves. 

She hasn’t been her usual chipper self since that day and the gravity of his mistake has been eating away at Baekhyun. His desperate attempts at making her laugh again have been suspended temporarily all thanks to your wise counsel ‘give her some space, she’s not a kid anymore’. Like a reprimanded child he mutters unpleasantries at your back. You reckon your older one needs some space, too.

***

You kick him under the table. He’s been observing her earnestly over his thin metal rimmed spectacles for quite sometime now but she’s far too busy with the abc’s and x’s and o’s on her cell-phone to even take notice. Each chime berates your husband, pushes him closer to the edge of patience, until he can no longer tolerate being at the receiving end of his Universe’s silent treatment. After five days of resilience, you catch a glint of combat in his eyes. “Jagi”, he says to you but his gaze is fixed on the rectangular device that mocks him from the possessive clutches of his daughter’s slender fingers, “I don’t see any samgyeopsal on the table.” The man of the house wasn’t anything if not loud but with the sound of his low rumble you realise that it’s too late for damage control. He’s warming up for showdown and it causes your little one to sit up and take notice.

“Hmm”, wide-eyed, she breaks out of the obsessive spell a five and a half inch screen has put her under. She’s unperturbed though and your husband, antsy. 

“Did you eat samgyeopsal?” He shimmies in his seat and asks her teasingly with a finger pointed at his pout. You let out an exasperated sigh. She’s not going to take a dig at her brand new lip gloss too well but she knows better than to answer back. Instead she’s whisked away by another chime from the bane of Baekhyun’s existence. He laughs a little too hard at that and you’re half-convinced that he’s losing the plot. If she doesn’t give her doting father the attention he seeks, anytime soon, he might even cry.

“Who’s texting you at 7 in the evening, nae sarang?” His voice is saccharine but his wide grin is light years away from his eyes.

“Appa, is there a curfew in place for texting that I’m not aware of?” Her chin is delicately perched atop her hand at a picture-perfect angle and her gaze flits between both her parents before meeting the flames in her father’s eyes.

The staring contest between both father