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Standing at a tremulous point in his life, Ha Doyeong never realizes how his life has managed to take such a turn in a handful of time.
All because one woman had been wronged.
The first time he came across Moon Dongeun, he had been intrigued by her. She had a certain air to her, something mysterious that he couldn't quite place his finger on. People were easy to read for him, their vulnerability showed up at some point on their face, within their actions. But not Moon Dongeun. She was impossible to read. Unlike his wife who he thought he knew like the back of his hand.
Until he didn't.
And his whole world turned upside down.
One would think Doyeong would have wanted revenge. Revenge on Yeonjin and Jae-jun who had wronged him. That he would have helped Dongeun in her perfectly planned revenge mission. But what they didn't realize was that while each of them was caught up trying to bring someone down, to get their own versions of deluded justice, the very someone through whom Dongeun had entered all of their lives never had a place in their twisted games.
His daughter.
Dongeun had cleverly targeted Ye-sol, the weakest link between all of them. But when he asked her why she didn't hurt his daughter to carry out her revenge by the easiest way available to her, Dongeun had said something that had made him pause and think.
" If I would have hurt Ye-sol, I would have hurt you too. And I didn't want to hurt you ."
He never realized the weight of those words until later. A hand Dongeun was putting forward to him, to guide the only two innocent people out of her created mess to safety.
Did he want to take it?
He still remembers the day Ye-sol was born. A perfect baby girl, his and Yeonjin's. He had never handled such a delicate little thing before, his hands always been used to heavy, rough work. But the moment he had held his daughter close, he knew this was someone he was going to protect with his life. The most precious piece of his heart.
Watching her grow up before his eyes held some of the happiest moments he recalled in his life. She was a bright child and just a smile of hers seemed to take away the whole stress of his day when he came home from work. He was always involved with everything she wanted to do, not wanting to miss out on any of her important moments. She was just like a flower, bright and delicate.
A flower that got tangled up within weeds.
He could see that the little things that had started happening around her confused her. Changes that she didn't understand. A new teacher who claimed to be her eomma's friend. But then why did her eomma decline it so vehemently? Asking her if her teacher had hurt her after she came back from school with a look in her eyes that scared her a lot.
The way her uncle Jae-jun who she hardly met before was suddenly a constant in her life. Coming to meet her at school and beating up one of her teachers mercilessly. She had called up Doyeong after, her loud incoherent wails piercing his ears as he tried to put two and two together. He had brought her home and calmed her down, reassuring her that appa was going to make everything right. And she had believed him, tiny little hands clutching onto him for some resemblance of comfort. Why wouldn't she when he was the only familiar person left around her?
Her own mother who she always looked up to wasn't who she remembered anymore. Although Doyeong was thankful that she had never seen the side of Yeonjin that Dongeun had seen. But whatever she had seen had been enough for her to resent Yeonjin and declare that she wasn't proud of her.
And that had been his wife's breaking point.
Doyeong loved Yeonjin. He always had, she had been the most important person in his life besides his daughter. Now he didn't know what he felt for her anymore.
Love? He didn't think she was deserving of anyone's love anymore.
Sympathy? No one could sympathize with someone like Yeonjin.
Pity? Perhaps.
Resentment? That he did.
And now he was determined to make things right. For his daughter. Because she was the only one that mattered to him and the only one that needed to be saved. Before everything around her managed to swallow her up whole.
Dongeun had taken care of everyone. Actually everyone had taken care of each other. Dongeun had just moved around the pieces on the board and they had willingly trapped themselves in. But unpredictable as she was, she had left something for him to take care of.
Not something.
Someone . And that someone was Jae-jun.
His daughter's real father.
He couldn't say he had his doubts about Yeonjin and Jae-jun's relationship but the way the truth had unraveled itself had left him a bit shaken. It was a threat to everything he held close. And he could never allow a threat to be anywhere near his daughter. Jae-jun was just a force that wanted to claim her as his. Doyeong knew the man could never be capable of being a father that Ye-sol deserved. She was just a possession to him, his. And even being his, something he didn't possess and had no control over. And that did not sit well with Jeon Jae-jun.
Doyeong would agree that the man had tried. Tried to make his place in Ye-sol's life. But instead of them growing closer it had left her scared and confused at last. And she had run back to Doyeong eventually.
Doyeong hadn't felt much remorse when he had pushed Jae-jun off the building do his death. Watching him flail and drown helplessly had given him some sort of sick satisfaction. Jae-jun had it long coming and it was what he deserved. His end was the end that everyone he had wronged deserved. The one that Moon Dongeun deserved. The one Ye-sol's tears deserved as she cried hysterically in Doyeong's arms, apologizing when none of this had been her fault.
Love was a dangerous thing. It made you go to lengths you never thought you could.
Yeo-jeong for Dongeun.
Jae-jun for Yeonjin.
And Doyeong for Ye-sol.
And Doyeong realised he would do far much more to protect her. She was far much more important to him than Yeonjin and Jae-jun's affair. He had always been Ye-sol's father from the start. And he always would be because he had ended the person who had threatened his place in his little girl's life.
"Appa?" he hears Ye-sol call out now from besides him, kicking her legs about in the seat of the plane, her seatbelt securely in place and her stuffed bunny clutched to her chest.
"Yeah my love?"
"Where are we going to go?"
"Where do you want to go Ye-sol-ah?" he asks, turning to face her.
"Anywhere is okay appa. Everything- everything will be okay if we go far away right?" she asks quietly, her gaze dropping to her lap and he pulls her closer, a gentle hand resting on the back of her head comfortingly.
"I promise it will be okay. Appa will make sure of it."
And he knows she believes him once again.