“I’m sorry for ruining our date… You can leave if you want. I’ll understand.”

“What if I said that I wanted to stay, will you let me?”

They were still sitting down on the floor in the ladies’ room. Hyemi was still in Byunghee’s embrace, his arms around her shoulders, and lifted her head up at him, surprised by his words. From looking in front of him, he sensed her move and looked down to meet her gaze, a gentle smile appearing on his lips.

Her heart fluttered, her cheeks heating up with blush tainting her skin. She wasn’t going to deny that she found him attractive, from his physical self to his personality she got to know just before they got interrupted.

She didn’t know what took over her but she found herself leaning closer towards him, her lips merely touching his before softly pressing them together. He was taken by surprise but still felt his heart skip a beat. He sensed the hesitancy when she was slowly pulling away and stopped her with his other hand cupping her cheek before bringing her lips back to him, kissing her with more confidence as he was already aiming for a deep kiss.

The heartbeats accelerated more and more within every second their lips stayed in touch. When the need for air became necessary, they slowly parted without going to far, their foreheads pressed together.

Hyemi tilted her head up to him and timidly smiled. “I hope it answered your question.” Knowing what she meant, he let out a delighted chuckle as he nodded his head. He placed a soft kiss on her temple before inviting her to enjoy the rest of their day.

“What did you have in mind?”

“We could go and grab something to eat and then, I could take you to my studio and show you something I’ve been working on.” Her eye smile flustered his heart once more; she agreed to his plan and he helped her to stand back up on her feet, and placed her hat back on her head, leaving her to giggle at his gesture.

His arm gently fell back on the side of his body, his other hand caressing softly her cheek as his eyes were back to her. “You should keep smiling more often. It’s beautiful.”

Her breath stuck in , she stared at him in shock and was left speechless. She could feel the heat running to her cheeks and bit her bottom lip before she stared down the floor to hide her biggest smile yet. He tilted her head back up by her chin and gently pecked her lips before pulling away and grabbing her hand, leading her out to enjoy the rest of the afternoon.

A non-stop buzzing was disturbing their peace, waking her up from her slumber as she blindly fetched out for her phone on her nightstand. Without even looking at who was calling, she shut down the device and dropped it on the floor before hiding herself back under the covers, snuggling closer against the second body laid next to her for warmth.

Just as she was getting pulled back into dreamland, the doorbell started to ring; the incessant sound woke her up with an annoyed groan escaping . She cursed under her breath and quickly picked up whatever piece of clothing that was at her feet before she got up from her bed and ran to the door, the urgency in the bell sound irritating her even more.

Grabbing the door knob, she roughly opened it, ready to yell at who was disturbing her sleep only to be left frozen at her sight. Her eyes wide open, her heart stopping its beat and her breath stuck in , all caused from Changsun appearing completely disheveled from his hair to his clothes.

“C-Changsun? What are you doing here?”

“Is she with you?”

“Huh?”

Just then, his eyes scanned her half body until his gaze landed on the clothe she was wearing. Hyemi followed the man’s stare until she realized where he was looking. Sudden blush crept her cheeks when she realized she had taken Byunghee’s shirt to wear leaving her mind to travel back to what had happened last night between them. Shaking the thought aside, she snapped Changsun out of his daze when she noticed how awful he looked.

“You look terrible. What happened?”

“Is Matilda with you?”

“Matilda? No… why?”

“I think she’s missing. She isn’t at her mother’s and she hasn’t come home yesterday. I’ve looked everywhere since last night and I-I can’t find her. Minyoung is at the police station right now and I thought I’d come here to see if she was with you…”

“I-I’m sorry but she’s not. She didn’t come home at all yesterday?”

“No.”

“Babe, is everything okay?” The third voice joined in, Byunghee ruffling his dark hair as he lazily walked towards the entrance, spotting Hyemi standing in front of an unknown man. He only had his pants on, leaving his bare chest into everyone’s view until he was standing closely behind the girl with one arm around her shoulders while she was holding onto the edge of her door, turning her head back to look at the new comer before facing Changsun.

“Matilda is missing…”

“The little girl from yesterday?”

“Mhmm.”

In the man’s mind, the dots were slowly connecting and just at the picture framed in front of him, his heart was aching. He swallowed hard and clenched his jaw to prevent himself from adding to the misery of what he was going through at the moment. At this mention, he snapped out back to reality, a frown appearing on his face.

“You saw Matilda yesterday?”

“Y-yea.”

“So you know where she is?”

“I don’t… I had a date and she saw me… She wasn’t happy about it and started blaming me for stuff and then she just ran off.”

“And you didn’t think of stopping her?!”

“How the hell was I supposed to know that she was just going to runaway?!”

“Who cares if you knew or not! If she was running away from you, the least you could’ve done is go after her instead of sleeping with whatever guy that passes by-”

His cheek was stinging from the abrupt slap he was faced with. His head had tilted to the side with his eyes on the floor, all his anger vanishing. She glared at him; not only was she irritated but she was beyond angry at his attitude. She ignored the slight ache in her hand as she tried to control herself from hitting him again. Once she felt Byunghee’s hands softly caressing her arms in a soothing manner, she slowly started to calm down.

“She is your responsibility. She is in your care. You should’ve been the one to be careful enough to see if your daughter was skipping out on school again instead of blaming things on me.”

She was about to close the door in his face when he stopped her. His eyes shimmered, tears ready to roll down his cheeks as he set his gaze back to her, feeling pain and panic beyond inner and self-control.

“H-help me. I’m begging you. Help me find my little girl, p-please.”

“I’m doing this for her and because I care. Not for you.”

“Thank you.”

“Wait out here. I’ll go change.”

She closed the door gently and leaned her back against it for a few seconds, her eyes closed as she took in on what just happened. Her name being softly called out by her date brought her back, and noticed the worried look on his face.

“Are you okay?”

“Barely… I’m so sorry this is happening… It feels like the universe is telling me not to be happy. I can’t catch a break.”

“Hyemi, don’t worry about it. Let me help you find her, okay?”

“You’re willing to help?”

“Of course. She matters to you, doesn’t she?”

“Mhmm.”

“So that means that she matters to me too.”

“Damn it Byunghee, you’re too good to be true. I think I did good last night by dragging you here.” A chuckle came out of him, knowing the intention behind her words as he found them amusing – putting aside the delicate situation they were in. He kissed her lips tenderly and took her hand as they walked back to her bedroom, quickly dressing up before they made their way out, joining Changsun who had a bothered look at the sight of the other man; a sight that Hyemi noticed.

“He’s coming?”

“Yes. You got a problem with having a little bit of help?”

“N-no-”

“Good. Now let’s go.”

From Minyoung and Doojoon, to Hyemi and Byunghee with Changsun, all five of them went their separate ways to look for the missing girl all morning, until Hyemi checked the last place that she could think of.

The library.

With Byunghee by her side, they drove towards her workplace, and once they were inside, they went their separate ways to find Matilda faster.

One aisle after the other, the search went on for several minutes until Hyemi spotted the little girl encircled in an endless piles of books in the storage room. Her heart broke at the sight of Matilda quietly crying, her hands constantly wiping away her tears before turning page after page from a random book that rested on her lap.

“Matilda, sweetie?”

The little one tilted her head up towards the woman and anger flashed in her eyes. “Leave me alone. I don’t want to talk to you.”

“You know that your parents are worried sick about you? Why did you run away?”

She didn’t answer and instead, she broke eye contact with Hyemi as she dropped her head down. With a tired sigh, Hyemi approached the girl until she sat down next to her, her back leaning against the shelves behind. “You’ll have to come out of your hiding. You can’t stay here forever.”

Matilda ignored her once again, her hands clasping strongly against the edges of the book. She knew that what she did was foolish and she knew that her parents were going to freak out but she couldn’t care. She was in pain and she wanted to be alone. Books were always there to comfort her and the library was the only place where she could find solace.

The older woman tilted her head backwards, resting against one of the shelf, and closed her eyes.

“I ran away from home too when I was your age… It was around the time I found out about my parents’ divorce.” Matilda looked back up at Hyemi, sudden curiosity picking on her. “It wasn’t official yet but my dad had already brought another woman a few months after my mom moved out. I grew to like her because she was very nice and she made my dad happy. But then she left without saying goodbye and I got mad at her and at my dad.”

“What happened next?”

“I ran away from home and disappeared for a few days. I was hiding at a friend’s house without her parents knowing until they caught us. I went to her because I loved how her house was filled with books, and she would always let me borrow one so I could read them… It was the only thing that came to my mind when I left. Books were always there to comfort me and at that time, they were what I needed the most.”

She looked down at Matilda, showing her a sympathetic smile across her lips. The little girl quickly looked back down at the book, pretending that her sentiment didn’t affect her.

“Sweetheart, I know you’re in pain and I’m so sorry that I hurt you, but you have to understand that things like these happen all the time.” She tried to caress her hair but, her hand was quickly pushed back by Matilda, clearly meaning that she didn’t want to be touched. The gesture broke Hyemi’s heart as she tried to compose herself from crying.

“I know what you wanted, and I’m sorry I can’t give it to you. It hurts me seeing you like this because I know it’s my fault and there’s probably no way I could be forgiven but can you at least come out so we can go find your parents? Your mother is crying and your father is in a state of panic thinking that something bad happened to you. Don’t you want to go back?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s not going to change anything.” She rubbed her cheeks from her tears with a few sniffs coming out. Her mumbled words showed more of her pain and it left Hyemi helpless, trying to figure out what to do. “It may not change anything, but it doesn’t mean that it won’t get better, because eventually, it will. You just have to be patient.”

“I just wanted daddy to be happy… He was happy when you were here, why did you have to leave?” Her thought ended with a cry. She brought up her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them while hiding her face away, leaving her hair to fall down. Hyemi gave another try as she stretched out her hand, softly the little girl’s back, wanting to find the best of ways to soothe her pain.

“Something tells me there is more to it than what you’re telling me… Sweetie, I promised you that you could talk to me. What’s wrong?”

It took a few seconds before Matilda finally gathered the voice she needed to speak, her words just as broken.

“You l-left me… I lost a big sister when you left me… you left me all by myself.”

The tears quickly welled up in Hyemi’s eyes, letting them fall down quietly down her cheeks. She embraced Matilda in her arms, lifting her up to have her sit down on her lap, swaying her body as she cradled the little one with her face hidden against the older one’s chest.

Without realizing it, they had an audience right at the entrance of the storage room. From Byunghee to Doojoon, all four adults had come just as Matilda started to cry her pain of having to be left alone, something she hated the most in this world.

Sudden guilt struck inside Minyoung’s heart.

All of this happened because of her and seeing her baby girl breakdown like this tore her apart. She was so worried that she was going to have her replaced with another mother figure, she didn’t even think that maybe she could’ve been wrong and now that she know she was, she knew that she couldn’t look in the girl’s eyes anymore, not without having the guilt stuck in .

Changsun was just as heartbroken, his guilt being lingered on the fact that he didn’t fight to keep Hyemi by his side. Now that she had found someone else, he regretted more than ever letting her walk away the way she did. If he had known that all of this was going to lead to his little girl breaking down like this, he would’ve made things different.

To Doojoon, he knew he still had a long way to go before Matilda warmed up to him. He knew that the change she was experiencing was hard and simply let time pass by, to let things flow naturally. Already a few years and there wasn’t really any big changes between their relationship; seeing how close she grew with Hyemi, and so fast, made a twinge appear in his heart. He was denying the jealousy and envy he felt because he knew that his wife had it worse.

From standing by the entrance, Byunghee walked towards Hyemi and sat down next to her, placing one arm around her shoulders to let her rest her head on him. The shift in movement caught the little girl’s attention as she backed away to be faced with the same man she met yesterday.

Quickly, a frown appeared on her face, a pout across her lips, and hid back in the crook of Hyemi’s neck. The woman placed a soft kiss on the top of the girl’s head, catching her attention as she pulled her face away to look up. “He’s a nice man. You shouldn’t be mad at him.”

“Are you going to marry him?”

Hyemi chocked on the puff of air that got stuck in , taken off guard by her question while Byunghee laughed nervously at the little girl’s interrogation.

“H-hmm, sweetheart, I just met him yesterday. It’s way too early-”

“Do you love him?”

“Well, I-I do like him…” She could feel her cheeks heat up at her confession, while the man sitting next to her smiled warmly at her words, his heart doing a leap. He leaned his lips over her ear and softly spoke up, making her heart beat faster. “I like you too.”

Matilda caught on and noticed the shy smile that was spreading across Hyemi’s face. “Are you happy with him?” The uncertainty in her voice left a tug inside Hyemi as she stared back at the little girl, hesitating on whether to answer her or not. “Y-yea, he does the trick.”

“Then I guess… I guess it’s not a bad thing… right? I just don’t want you to disappear again. Please?”

“I promise I won’t.”