Hello everyone!
Thanks for all the kind comments!

I'm kinda moving the updates to Sunday afternoon/night because I usually stayed up until midnight to upload the chapter buuuut the meds I take and the fact that I have to get up at 5 the next morning kinda made it a little complicated, so I'm moving it. I hope it's okay with y'all.

Thanks to Sandy for all her help, and thank you for dropping by again.

to Melimelo: Hello again! I'm glad you enjoy the little situations from the drama! I'm trying to add as many as I can but that it still feels natural and like it's own story. LOL. As for what happens next... well, just remember that they ultimately will want what's best for Seol :)

Chapter THREE

Six years ago

At least they had stopped bullying her. Sure, now she was the one and only person who had to go deal with "Director Wang" each time he requested stuff from the Copy Room. Other than the fact that he often took forever to see her and had her running back and forth 3 or 4 times before he was satisfied with most projects, Soo didn't mind.

He was curt and borderline rude at times, but she had seen WAY worse at the makeup shop. So she just dealt with it.

Over the next few weeks, Soo got to observe him quite a bit. His eating habits were atrocious, and he often stayed really late in his office. Once or twice she had seen him with one of his brothers—the COO, who was his direct boss—and they seemed to get along but weren't particularly close as far as she could see.

Soo didn't know what made her do it. No one asked her, but often times, when she saw he was alone in his office – which she had to pass by on her way out – she would make a fresh pot of coffee when she noticed it had run out. She didn't know why but it made her feel sad seeing him alone in his office all the time; he didn't seem to have friends and she had integrated enough into the office's grapevine to know that the relationships between the three Wang brothers currently working at the Taejo Group were quite tense.

So, making coffee seemed like a small enough gesture.

"Ah, the coffee elves attack again." He said one night in early November, making Hae Soo jump and nearly drop the package of coffee in her hands.

"You scared me," Soo answered, giving her chest a few thumps to calm her racing heart.

"I'm sorry." Wang So said. He actually meant it. "I just wondered who did that," He pointed toward the coffee maker. "I knew it wasn't my secretary, because he doesn't like me and his coffee sucks."

"Who says I like you?" Soo said haughtily, then broke into a smile.

After that, they started to run into each other seemingly all the time. Months later So would admit that it hadn't been entirely accidental. "I was just aware of you, and sometimes I couldn't help myself." He had said with a smile while they had a lazy Saturday morning in his apartment, three months into their relationship.

That was one of the things Soo had loved most about So: he never played around or tried to pretend he wasn't interested. Once they were in a relationship, he was all in.

But in those early days, their random meetings all over the building began to get longer, and sometimes, when she stopped to make a pot of coffee before leaving, they would talk for a while.

In one such meeting, So had been distracted and tired. He kept pushing his hair off his face before quickly pulling it down over his eye.

"You're going to tear your hair out," Soo had said, impulsively reaching out to stop his hands… which put her in his personal space in a way she had never been before.

They both froze for a moment before he pulled back. "I don't like being stared at."

"Because of the scar?" Soo asked. She had noticed the thin, discolored line crossing the bridge of his nose under his eye and going into his cheekbone. She figured that was why he kept his hair long in the front—he had spectacular bangs, to be honest, which were quite at odds with the rest of his rather sober style.

Slowly, he nodded. "And don't tell me it's not that bad; I know how it looks like."

"I won't say it then." And she hadn't asked how he had gotten it either. "It's a shame you cover your face so much though; you have really good bone structure."

Since that was the last thing he expected her to say, So burst into a surprised laugh. "I do?"

Soo nodded, reaching for the last cookie in the package they had been sharing. "It's all in the cheekbones."

"Thanks for that," So said with a lingering smile and a bit of a sigh as they lapsed into silence.

"If it really bothers you that much… I can make it go away."

"I've tried pretty much everything, believe me." Two surgeries and a lifetime of the best skin care money could buy. Objectively he knew the scar was much better now than when he had been a kid, but that didn't stop him from feeling self-conscious each time he looked at himself in the mirror, or when someone stared at his face too long.

"Challenge accepted!" Soo had said, beginning to dig through her purse, coming up with a slightly crumpled flyer. "Meet me here, tomorrow at three."

"Makeup?" So asked, looking down at the flier for a cosmetics shop. "I've tried makeup before." His cousin Baek Ah had convinced him to try in middle school. it hadn't ended well, and his aunt hadn't been happy with the mess the two boys had made.

"Just trust me."

So had shaken his head but the next day he was outside the store, almost twenty minutes early. He walked in front of the store at least ten times before deciding he had already come this far so he might as well see her, if only not to be rude. (Since when did he care about rudeness? He didn't know.)

He was looking down the street to see if she arrived when the door of the store opened. "You're early." Soo said, beckoning him inside and stopping to close the door, lock it and flip the OPEN sign to CLOSED. "You're lucky it was slow today."

"You work here?" So noticed the pink-uniform dress she wore and the name tag pinned to it.

"Just on weekends and whenever they need extra help. Come on back." In the far end of the store there were two mirrors and two high chairs. Soo had an array of brushes, sponges and containers out.

Before So could think of protesting, Soo had him in one of the chairs, pinned his hair to the side and was studying his face critically; she pressed her fingers against the scar, feeling its texture. So held still and almost forgot to breathe. No one but the doctors and himself had touched his face in twenty years.

-00-

Present Day

"What you mean is that you panicked," Madame Oh voice was flat and unimpressed after Soo told her how she had run off with Seol after seeing So.

"Just a bit," Soo agreed, pacing her kitchen back and forth while Seol watched cartoons in the living room. "What am I going to do now?"

"Calm down, to start." Madame Oh said like it was the most obvious thing. "Soo-yah," She went on a little more gently. "Maybe he was just surprised to see you."

"He was talking to Seol."

"So what? You said he wasn't interested in her before. No reason to think that changed."

"Yes, you're right." Soo said, trying to calm down.

"Now, tell me how the shoot went otherwise."

Soo knew Madame Oh was just trying to distract her, but she gladly took the bait. "It went well. The Artistic Director had things well in hand; I just helped with some details and some of the dancers' makeup to speed things up."

They talked about work for a few more minutes until the doorbell rang. "Umma! Door!" Seol said helpfully from her spot in their lone couch.

"Thank you, baby." Soo said, "I have to go since the pizza guy is here. Don't judge me, Seol likes it and I didn't have time to stop buy groceries."

"Don't blame it on Seol."

"Fine. I need the emotional support, okay?"

Madame Oh laughed. "Fine. Have it your way. And it's fine if you take the rest of the day off, but I want you here first thing in the morning, I have plenty of things for you to do."

"Send me whatever you have, and I'll get started on what I can do from here. I could use the distraction." The doorbell rang again, more insistent and there were even a few bangs on the door. "I have to go."

"Okay, call me later if you want."

"Thanks." Soo picked up her purse as she walked toward the door, beginning to dig for her wallet while also keeping her phone pressed between her ear and shoulder and attempting to open the door at the same time. "Sorry, just give me a minute." When there was no answer, she looked up...and her purse and phone fell to the floor.

"Surprised to see me?" Wang So said, his suit a little rumpled and his tie loosened.

Soo nodded numbly. "What-what are you doing here?"

"We haven't seen each other in almost six years and that's all you have to say, sweetheart?"

"Don't. Don't call me that," Soo snapped. "What do you want?"

So looked over Soo's shoulder to the little girl who was staring at the two of them like they were far more interesting than the cartoons blaring on the TV. "That's your daughter?" Soo nodded. "How old is she? When was she born?" He kept his voice low.

Soo frowned at him. "She's almost five. She was born on October 15 th . You should know that."

"How the fuck am I supposed to know that? You disappeared on me five years ago while I was dealing with a crisis, and I never heard from you again."

"Don't curse at me, Wang So." Soo snapped. "I'm the one who never heard from you again. I sent you I don't know how many letters and you never even answered one. Not even to say, stop writing these goddamn letters."

"I spent six months and a small fortune looking for you but got nowhere. I never got any 'goddamn letters'. I was going crazy when you disappeared. On top of everything else going to hell in my life, you were gone, and now I find out you took my daughter from me?"

"I didn't take her from you!" Soo hissed. "You didn't want us. Your silence made that plenty clear."

"I didn't know where you were," He hissed right back. "I didn't know how to contact you! I sent you, like, a hundred text messages! I called you I don't know how many times until it said that the number had been disconnected."

"If you really spent six months and a fortune looking for me, you should know why that was." Soo narrowed her eyes. "You probably thought it was true and thought good riddance."

"That you swindled a lot of people for a lot of money? That you were a gold digger?" Soo flinched at his words: those were exactly the things Taejo Group's General Secretary had used when he had fired her. "No, I didn't actually think that."

"I didn't, just so we are clear."

Before he could answer, the actual pizza delivery guy arrived. He looked from one to the other like he felt a bomb was about to go off. Soo smiled at the guy and retrieved her purse, tipping him more than she usually would just to get him to leave quickly.

"Baby, wash up and sit at the table," Soo called over her shoulder before turning to So. "If you excuse us, we're about to eat."

"We're not done here."

"We are."

"Let me be clear, Soo-yah. I didn't know about Seol, but now I do, and you can expect to hear from my lawyer sooner rather than later."

"Yippie! I'm so thrilled," Soo said sarcastically.

So almost smiled, but instead he just left as quickly as he had come

It wasn't until she was trying to choke down a slice of pizza that she began to wonder how the hell had he found her.

From next chapter:

"Letters." So scoffed. "Like I would have really let my daughter go if I had known." Or the only woman he had ever loved, for that matter.