C H A E Y E O N G
"Now, Chaeyeong." Minho speaks to his nine year old daughter, who's face was tear stricken and puffy. "If those boys get in your face again, I want you to take this pretty little hand of yours and punch them straight in the face."
"But dad, aren't I going to get in trouble?" the little girl wipes her tears with her spare hand that her father wasn't holding.
The boys at her school had started to pick on her, it started with name calling and moved on to becoming physical with the little girl, pushing her down and throwing dirt in her face. She tried her hardest to hide this from her parents, but when she walked up to their car with red eyes and a dirty face, her mother immediately walked back in the school grounds to confront the teacher while her dad comforted her in the car.
"You are a strong little girl and one day you are going to grow up to be a strong independent woman. You take crap from no one especially those who do the wrong thing." He put his hand out for a fist bump to which the little girl obliges to, smiling at her father, her hero. "Don't tell your mother I swore."
~
"This is going to hurt, okay?" Saemi lets her ten year old daughter know, as she waits for the numbing agent to take effect.
"More than a graze?" Chaeyeong looks up into her mother's eyes, that resemble her own.
Saemi laughs at the comment made by her only child, tucking a piece of her short onyx hair behind her small ear with a tiny diamond stud in it. "That depends on your threshold, baby."
Saemi put on a set of white gloves and threads the medical thread through the surgical needle as she was preparing to stitch up her child wound, she acquired from running around the house and not looking where she was going, which led her straight into a glass door that shattered on impact.
"Okay!" Chaeyeong exclaimed after mentally preparing in her head for what was about to happen. "I'm ready!"
Saemi smiled at her daughter before moving closer to her wound. "Alright, first step to make sure you clean the wound thoroughly and apply the numbing agent, which we have already done. Make sure all utensils are disinfected and ready for use, another step that is done already."
"You showed me how to clean these yesterday." Chaeyeong points to the utensils on clean white towel, referring to the needle driver and tissues forceps. "And you taught me how to clean wounds when I first scrapped my knee."
Chaeyeong was known to be a bit clumsy which resulted in Saemi having to patch her up quite often. "This is the needle driver; I'm going to use it to hold the needle. This is the tissue forceps; they are going to pinch and hold you skin together to I can stitch together."
Saemi started by placing the needle driver on the needle and locking it in, she grabbed the forceps and used them to grab her daughter's skin. "When you push the needle in you have to go in at a 90-degree angle just above the fat. Once it's in turn your hand and start pulling it up."
Saemi continued to walk her daughter through every step of stitching, explaining thoroughly as she did the action. Chaeyeong watched with awe on her face, to focused on learning something new that she forgot all about the needle being pushed in and out of her skin with the thread attached to it.
~
"Happy birthday!" Both Minho and Saemi cheered as their daughter walked into their decorated kitchen, balloons, confetti and streams littered around the counter and chairs. She rubbed her tired eyes as she smiled at her parents, the newly turned 11 year old rushed to tackle her parents in a bone crushing hug.
"Happy birthday, sweetie." Saemi smiled joyfully at her daughter, patting her messy bed hair down.
"What do you say we have some yummy pancakes, before we go on an adventure today!" Minho asks his daughter as Saemi moves away from his side, setting in front of the stove.
Saemi poured in her homemade batter with fresh blueberries into the pan, flipping them over at just the right time leaving them a beautiful golden colour. Minho attacked his young daughter in kisses as she was still in her arms, her giggles filled the home causing her mother to smile at the two most important people in her life. "Breakfast is ready!"
Minho turned his upside-down daughter back up the right way, her face flushed from the blood rush. He placed her at the breakfast bar, sitting right next to her. A plate full of light and fluffy buttermilk pancakes were placed right in front of the birthday girl, a blueberry smiley face looking back up at her.
Saemi grabbed the whipped cream can from the refrigerator, creating a perfect swirl in the centre of her pancakes, Chaeyeong's mouth falling open as her mothers hidden talent shinning through, she could make perfect circles with anything.
Minho's pointer finger found it's way to the perfect cream swirls, picking up a chunk of it and whipping it along Chaeyeong's nose. Chaeyeong gasps as her father actions before falling into fits of laughter, her mother noticed the ordeal, handing over the whipped cream to her daughter to use as weapon.
Chaeyeong wrapped both hands around the can before gaining some height leverage, she pressed down firmly and let the whipped cream spurt from the can, hitting her father in the face. Minho immediately grabbed his daughter, smooching his cheek into hers, both of them laughing at their happy family.
~
"Dohwa, please." 11 year old Chaeyeong, listened from the threshold of her bedroom, meant to be asleep in her warm bed, however, the worrisome voice of her father pulled her from her sheets and left her to eavesdrop. "It'll only be a couple hours, Saemi might literally kill me if I leave her for that long."
Chaeyeong left her door and climbed back into her bed, pulling the covers up and tucked them into her face, pretending to be asleep. She felt her dad presence in the room, he walked over to her bed, sitting down and kissing her forehead, saying goodnight and that he'll be back soon.
Minho left the spare key on the porch, slipped into a small crevice in the brick, out of sight. Minho adored his best friend, believe that he meant well and just struggled with certain aspect, he did want to believe that his best friend was a horrible person, so he didn't.
Meanwhile Minho was trusting Dohwa to watch over his only child, Dohwa was cursing out loud. He threw his phone across the room, jolting papers from his desk, sighing out in frustration. "It's not fair! He gets the perfect life, the perfect wife and what I get? Left in the shadows while he forgets about me!"
"You could just kill him." Hoseok, Dohwa's new friend and his new right hand man, leading him down a deep and dark path, spoke up from the couch.
After hours of working and risking his life, Minho stumbled into his home, blood gushing from his leg wound. His target ended up being alert of Minho's arrival, allowing him to prepare his own surprise attack on him, which resulted in a dagger to the leg, twisted and dragged down before removed completely and stabbed in once more. He took down his target success, he was in a lot of pain now however.
Saemi was going to kill no matter what, for leaving Chaeyeong at home and getting himself stabbed multiple times. "Dohwa." He grunted out lowly, hoping and expecting him to be to watch his daughter. When no answer came, he tried to move further into the house, trying not to wake Chaeyeong, yet that seems to fail when his leg gave out and he stumbled into the table, knocking everything down.
Minho heard footsteps from behind him and small ones in front of him, he noticed the glint of a gun as he turned to look at the presence behind him, it was pointed right at him, Dohwa's rage filled eyes behind it. A gunshot was heard from in front of him and the ricochet from said bullet hitting and lodging into the mantel of the fireplace.
Within a millisecond of the first gunshot, a next one rang out, piercing his left shoulder blade, hit his skin, and slowly moving toward his heart. He fell to the ground, a pool of blood forming around him as his 11 year old daughter crawled her distraught self towards him, crying and sobbing think she just killed her father. He used his last breaths to tell her it wasn't her fault.
~
My eyes burned as the tears fell from them, the whole scene of my father's death replaying in my head, this time more details unveiling themselves as if a shadow had been casted over them just to torture myself. My ears rung after I shot my weapon, the sound of the second shot muffling in my ear drums, I beat myself up my whole life, tortured myself over this – just for it to not be true.
"I didn't kill him." I managed whispered out, looking directly into Baekhyun's dark obsidian eyes. "I didn't kill my father, it wasn't me."
He pulled me into a bone crushing hug, wrapping his arms around my shoulders, and holding on for dear life as my sobs were muffled by his jumper, he started to rub comforting circles on my head. "You didn't baby, you're innocent."
"Who did though?" I pulled back slightly, arms still wrapped around his torso, feeling his warm touching my body still.
"Dohwa did." One if his hands moved to my face, wiping the fallen tears. Something I was used to him doing and wished that I'd never cry without him there, he always did this to comfort me, hold me when I was down and make me smile even brighter when I was happy. Everything he did managed to stitch my shattered and broken heart from years of torment, back together again.
"I thought he didn't show up that night."
"He did show up. I went over the file and crime scene photos multiple times; I read the coroner's report and even went to your old house. Forensics show that the bullet from your gun ended up in the mantel piece, while the bullet that was pulled from your father had a giant 'L' engraved." I cut Baekhyun off unintentionally
"The signature of the Lee Gang." I detached myself from him completely, still remaining close. "Why didn't he get caught?"
"Because of his statement, he said you were scared and didn't mean to shoot your dad. There's something more to the puzzles, I just don't know what yet" he sounds and looks frustrated.
"Thank you for doing this, Baek." And I truly mean it, I know he needs as much evidence as possible to be able to get the okay for his last mission to commence fully. He didn't have to dig into my father death, this was strictly just for me, to prove that I wasn't monster I claimed to be.
"I'll do anything for you, Bambi." He placed his hands on either side of my face, warming up my almost always cold skin. "What do you say we go back home and get a good night sleep for a change?"
I smile at his question, missing him and his bed more and more. "I'd love that."
We walked back to the car, hand in hand, before driving back to the Baekhyun residence. Both Baekhyun and myself changed into more comfy clothes before pulling the warm sheets over our intertwined bodies and actually sleeping. For the first time in a few weeks, it felt like home and that nothing could pull us apart this time.