The Age Of Love

Fourteen - The Giving Tree

Se Ri got serious again. "I am scared," she sniffed.

"Me too, love." Jeong Hyeok admitted.

"What if your new place has a cute single neighbour, or you get a perky new secretary at your new Gangnam office? One who didn't lie and cheat and keep you hidden away in Vegas?"

He pulled his head back to look into her eyes, his hands still caressing her arms. "I have loved you for 13 years, Se Ri. Even when I was with Hye Jin, I could never give her 100 per cent of my heart. Because I loved you. And I swear to God I still do. And I am mad. I am still so mad. And we're not okay. But I made a choice. I made a choice to try, because I love you. In order for me to do that, I need to take a step back. I need to figure out who I am as a father. I have to figure out who I am if we're going to figure out who we are. And I need you to do me a favour."

"What?"

"I need you to write."

Se Ri scrunched up her face in confusion. "That's not what I expected."

Jeong Hyeok chuckled. "You're a writer, Yoon Se Ri. A great one. It's your trunk. It's what makes you you. And if I love you, I can't watch you chop down your own trunk because you're scared."

"When am I supposed to have time to write? I barely have time to shower."

"I'll have an appointment with a realtor on Monday. I'd like to take Eun Jung with me to look at places. I know she can't exactly give me her opinion, but it'll be her home too. This way, you'll have the whole day to write. We'll also have to figure out a custody arrangement at our mediation appointment so you can have more days to write."

"Custody?" She pulled back sharply.

"It's a good thing. It'll give you time to focus."

Se Ri scoffed. "We're supposed to be trying, Jeong Hyeok. We're supposed to be trying but you can't wait to get a whole new home. A home for you and Eun Jung. A home where you'll spend days without me. How are we supposed to try if we're not even together?"

"We're both getting too comfortable here, Se Ri. We're getting too comfortable before we've really figured anything out. Every day I am here it's getting easier and easier to forget what got us to this point in the first place."

"So forget!" Se Ri replied eagerly. "Forget it and let's move forward together."

"I can't do that. I can't just push my feelings aside and pretend like everything is okay. Because we're not together. Not yet. This is your world and I am just living in it. And you-- you're looking for me to rescue you again but like I told you before, you never really needed rescuing. So I need to live in my own world and you need to rescue yourself."

"Why does this feel like goodbye?" she sniffled.

"It's not," Jeong Hyeok shook his head empathically. "That's not what this is, I promise. I am not running. I'll still be around. I just won't be living here. It's not like we didn't know I was going to get my place eventually."

"I don't want you to go."

"I don't want to go either," he agreed, "but that's why I have to."

****

They sat around a conference table in a fancy law office. In a room where they were going to negotiate his daughter's future. It felt so strange and clinical. Eun Jung was still so... unformed. She could turn out to be anybody. Her future held a million possibilities and yet here they were trying to make decisions for the person she would one day become. How could they know what was best for her?