A/N: please remember all of these mistakes are MINE. I'm not native English, oki? happy new year! 

Minjeong was no longer a toddler. She insisted on this every time her mother caught her foot, urging her to be careful when running around the house or hiding when she was playing with her brother Byeongchan. She thought that was rubbish, after all, she was already eleven years old and, in a way, that allowed her certain freedoms.

So she ignored the voice in her head that told her not to hide there and walked inside, smiling to herself knowing her brother would never find her in the dusty closet in her mother's room.

That place was almost like a sanctuary, no one else could enter there but her mother. But Minjeong was ignoring the rules in favor of looking for a good hiding place, where Byeongchan would have to appeal to text her cell phone if he wanted to find her.  

She sighed softly as she realized that the place was too large, more so than it looked from the outside. Definitely, that place held many secrets. And the curious girl was soon knocked over by one of them when she bumped into a box on the floor. Minjeong pouted and exclaimed angrily. She the flashlight only to notice that that box was completely decorated on the outside, with pink items.

Shivering, young Kwon opened the box and frowned when she saw that the first photo was of a brunette woman, lying on a patch of green grass. She knew her surroundings and knew it was in Los Angeles, but she had no idea who this woman was. The girl got even more curious and pulled the pictures out of that box, finding more and more pictures of the pretty brunette woman. Some were too intimate for her age and she dropped them, embarrassed and red.

Minjeong was ready to let it go when she saw a photo of her mother standing next to the brunette woman. She was even more curious to realize that Jessica was smiling as she in her eleven years of life had seen her before. There was a very different glow about her mother, mainly related to the brunette's arm that was around her waist.

“Minjeong-ah?” Her mother's voice made her jump, even sitting, in fright. Minjeong gulped in alarm to see her mother staring at her in shock. "What are you doing here?" There was desperation in Jessica's voice, especially when she saw what was in her daughter's hand.

Pain gnawed at her chest immediately. She hadn't seen those pictures in years. She tried to save herself as much of it as possible, but there it was, the photo of the only person who could make her smile as if there were no problems in the world at the hands of her youngest daughter.

"Omma!" Minjeong finally found the voice to exclaim, but her mother was already towards her, pulling out the photos and putting them inside the box. The child pulled out the photo she was holding with the brunette and left it in her hands, confused by such despair. "Omma, omma, who is she?"

The words carried far more weight than that child would ever know, Jessica thought. She felt tears welling up in her eyes seconds later and looked away, looking up at the ceiling to calm herself. Minjeong shouldn't have discovered that. No one was supposed to know of the existence of the sanctuary she had.

Sighing, the woman leaned against the narrow wall of the secret room and placed both hands on her head, sliding down to the cold floor, feeling her chest ache as if she were sick. She knew she wasn't ready to face the debate with her children, but that it would come eventually. The woman whimpered and Minjeong immediately became desperate, texting her brother to come to help her care for her mother. The fifteen-year-old boy appeared seconds later, shocked, dropping to the ground beside Jessica and grabbing her clothes.

“Omma, talk to me. It's me, your Joongie.” Byeongchan spoke but that was what made the tears start to flow down Jessica's face immediately. She sobbed, clutching her own clothes and trying to make the pain in her chest stop. It was suffocating and she knew there was no point in trying, that scar would never heal and would remain open until her dying day.

She pulled Byeongchan into her arms and pulled Minjeong down, letting both of her children warm up inside her and doing her best to let her mind understand that she needed to be there for them. She needed to be strong for both of them, before anyone else, and she needed to remember that so that bad thoughts didn't arise.

But her crying didn't go away. She felt the pain gnawing at her, even when she had no more tears to let go. Her whole body was shaking and Byeongchan was still clinging to her body like when she was a baby and was coming to soothe her from her constant crying.

"This…" She tried to start, her voice hoarse and choked making her shiver suddenly. She looked at the photo in Minjeong's hand and steeled herself again. “She was supposed to be the mother of you two too. Her name is Tiffany... Tiffany Hwang. She had the most beautiful smile in the world and the brightest heart ever.” Jessica muttered tearfully, feeling the tears threatening to run down her face again.

"Tiffany... She... Wasn't she part of the group you were part of, omma?" Byeongchan asked, curious. He tilted his head to the side and made that little face that was so... Tiffany, which made Jung sob low.

“I met her when I was fifteen and had lots of dreams, but I ended up debuting with her by my side and reaching success in my early twenties.