Yi Hwan is sitting in his room, his mother said everything that she’s been keeping all these times. She even managed to drag him back to the house, and now the scary part is that she wants to meet Soori as soon as possible. The wedding is the main theme of his mother's behavior, she wants him and Soori to be married within this year.

“How do I explain this to her…..” He is massaging his forehead.

“Eomma…. The wedding won’t happen… why? Because she and I…. Soori and I…. We have already separated.” Yi Hwan says while facing the mirror.

“Why?? What makes you and her break up?” Yi Hwan mimicked his mother.

“Because I ….. I want to be with someone else………………. Yeah, she’ll kill me in an instant.” Yi Hwan closes his eyes knowing the big fight he’s going to face.

Yi Hwan then paused, he was thinking about Ah Reum now. For the past week, he has kept thinking about her. He saw her come out from the office very late and he decided to follow her quietly as the awkward moment between him and her had not yet been resolved. He finally realizes that the girl that always dragged him out of the bar and spent the night in the hotel room fulfilling his beast behavior is her. And she keeps silent about it. He is so ashamed that he is covered with guilt every time he sees her. And he wants to put everything in the right place, and he wants to start a fresh start with her.

 

Soori and Seungcheol are entering the parking area, and finishing the groceries for their dinner date tonight. Seungcheol promised to cook her dinner, he said he’d be making spaghetti and grilling some meat for her. When they are entering the parking area, Soori catches a familiar person standing politely beside a familiar black sedan. Her heart races in an instant as she confirms who is now in the building, even worse she is thinking that the car owner is now sitting in her house.

“Oppa… for now please don’t ask anything. But I will go in first. And you can follow me later after I enter the elevator okay? And just wait at your house, I will text you later.” Soori gets out of the car in a rush, leaving Seungcheol puzzled by her odd behavior. 

He couldn’t stop her from asking about it, he was now looking at her bowing at the middle-aged man who was standing beside the Rolls Royce, she looked unhappy with the sudden visit of the car owner. Soori goes inside and Seungcheol decides to follow her, he walks to the entrance with groceries in his hand. The middle-aged man seems to acknowledge that he and Soori are coming together in his car. He nodded politely at Seungcheol and Seungcheol bowed to him politely. But something keeps bothering him, he then stops and asks,

“Is she in trouble?” Seungcheol asks carefully. 

The middle-aged man smiled hearing that, “You don’t have to worry. Her dad is visiting her, maybe Agashi is surprised because they haven’t seen each other since last year.”

Seungcheol is confused hearing that, all he knows is that she just came back from Daegu two days ago to celebrate her mom’s birthday, and she sent him the picture where she is sitting next to her dad and hugged him while smiling happily.

Soori enters the house, she finds a pair of male shoes that are not Seungheol’s. But she also scans the entry in case there’s Seungcheol’s shoes or slippers in there. And she is relieved that three pairs of Seungcheol’s shoes are safely stored inside her shoe cabinet. She walks inside and finds someone sitting by the kitchen stool enjoying his coffee. 

“Oh… you’re home. Do you want coffee too? I just made it and it tastes delicious, I should buy this machine for my office.” Ahn Ji Sung, her birth father, is welcoming her.

“Um… No… I just had coffee earlier. Umm….” Soori is thinking about her next lines because asking why he is here sounds too rude, but that is the exact question that she wants to ask.

“I happened to have a meeting near this area, I was thinking of visiting your house. I haven’t been here since you’re moving back to Seoul. Do you need anything?” Jisung asks.

“I’m good.” Soori is taking a seat beside him.

“I see you’re not a fan of the black card..” Jisung chuckles seeing the black card that he gave to her ended as the fridge accessories, stamped on it with tape.

“Ah… I don’t know how to use it, besides I already have enough to cover my expenses.” Soori.

“Does Yi Hwan spend a lot of time here? I saw men’s shoes in the cabinet. Tell him I’m not fond of him sleeping over here, you both are not married yet.” Jisung knows about the shoes, but Jisung doesn’t know the right owner of them.

Soori just quietly hears her father mention Yi Hwan. She realizes that she hasn’t told Jisung about her and Yi Hwan, this father doesn’t know that she and Yi Hwan are no longer together. Jisung-s phone is buzzing, 

“I’m at Soori’s.” He says.

“He wants to meet now? Okay, send the address to Chul Hee.” 

He then gets up and fixes his suit. 

“I have another meeting to attend. I’m here to check on you and please use that to buy everything that you want. If you’re not sure what to buy, let's go this weekend and pick something with me using that card.” Jisung points at the Black card.

“Ah… I almost forgot, your mom wants us to have dinner together this weekend too, Seo Joon is going home this Friday. Chul Hee will come and pick you up. Empty your schedule, okay?” Jisung then leaves the house while Soori keeps standing in the foyer trying to digest everything that just happened. 

 

Seungcheol carefully enters Soori’s house and finds her sitting in the kitchen staring at a cup of coffee. She is lost in her thoughts and Seungcheol knows that it’s all because of the guest that visited her 30 minutes ago.

“Hey…. I’m waiting for you. So I decided to come and pick my girl, what happened?” Seungcheol gently asks her while hugging her from behind.

“I was made with the from this man. But this one is the one that I call appa. They are brothers.” Soori points at the two pictures he saw before.

“Your mom?” Seungcheol carefully asks. Soori then takes him to her bedroom, and then she takes an old picture that she kept inside one of her books.

“Her name is Jung Hye Soo, she was a surgical intern at the hospital back then. Pediatric surgery to be exact. She met my birth father, Ahn Ji Sung, when she was 26, right at the time she enrolled as the new intern. My father was also working there at the time as an intern at the management office.” Soori starts telling her story, and Seungcheol is ready to hear everything while holding her hand.

“They met, fell in love, and became inseparable until they found out that she was pregnant and then they planned on getting married after I was born. Everything was planned perfectly. Until my birth. My mom has been diagnosed with high blood pressure since her early pregnancy and the pregnancy itself will risk a lot for her own, but she insisted on carrying me. During the labor, she experienced very serious preeclampsia, and the risk was either saving me or saving her. Despite her wailing boyfriend who asked her to sacrifice the baby and save her own, she decided to save me. So that’s what happened, I was born into the world and she passed away two hours after the birth process.” Soori’s eyes create a puddle of tears remembering the story. She also cried and was not able to speak anything when she heard about this from her elders.

“And then what happened after that?” Seungcheol feels pain in his heart hearing the sad story, he wants to hug her and say everything is fine now she has him, but he wants her to finish the story, so he can know her better.

“For my birth father, I was the one who caused the death of the love of his life. He never showed his interest in me. My grandparents took care of me until he remarried. But the stepmother said she couldn’t handle the three-year-old toddler who was running around a lot because her pregnancy also needed her to take care of her health. So once again my grandparents took me in and raised me until I was six.” 

“How about mom’s family?” Seungcheol asks. 

“She was an orphan.” Soori. 

“And then that day, when I was celebrating my sixth birthday, keun appa, Ahn Jae Hwan, my dad’s older brother, and keun eomma, came to celebrate it. That day Keun Eomma prepared the cake, cooked a lot of food for me, bought a pretty dress for me, and gave me a little pony school bag as my gift. And that day Keun Appa said,..” 

 

“Soori-ya how about starting tomorrow you come with us and stay with us in Daegu? You will be the new youngest sister for Songyi and Soojin. You will call them eonnie, and you will call me Appa, and your keun Eomma will be your mom. How about that?” Jaehwan talks with her carefully and keeps watching her reaction.

“Wae? Harabeoji, do you not want me? I promised I would be good, I promised I wouldn’t whine again if Obachan told me to eat greens, I promised I would learn very well at school.” Little Soori runs to her grandfather and hugs him very tight. She is a very quiet child. She acted politely and even never asked her grandparents to buy her anything. One day her grandmother found her training shoes were worn out and she hid them in her bag because she was too afraid to ask for a new one. She was afraid her grandparents would not want her anymore. And sent her to another family as her father did. Ahn Jae Dok and Ahn Jae Hwan tried so hard to keep their calm and not shed a single tear, Ra Mi Kyung and her mother-in-law, Shinri Haneda, were crying in silence hearing the little girl thought no one loved her nor wanted her anymore. 

“That’s not true. I even fought with your harabeoji last night,” Jae Hwan took her and sat her in his lap while hugging her tight.

“I love Soori and want Soori to be part of my family. I have wanted you to be my daughter since the first day you were born but Harabeoji keeps taking you away from me. Your keun eomma also warned me, if we come home without you then she said I will sleep in the living room starting tomorrow. Songyi and Soojin also keep asking when will you be home with them. So please help me, come with us to Daegu and be part of our family.” Jae Hwan hugs little Soori knowing that this tiny girl with pretty eyes and a kind heart is feeling so little about her own, She thinks that no one wants her because her father never shows interest in her. 

 

“And since then, I have lived with them. I call them appa and eomma, Keun eonnie, Jageun eonnie. Eonnie-deul would always walk with me to school, and Soojin eonnie would always wait for me. If she or Songyi eonnie couldn’t come home with me, eomma will come and pick me up, and then eomma will treat me to Tteokbokki place near our school. She also never treated me differently, I remember I was grounded to raise my arms for 30 minutes just because I lied to her, she doesn’t like it if we lied to her. But I don’t know since when I slowly forget where I came from, for me they are my parents, my family. I even fought with Soojin eonnie and Songyi eonnie over a dress. And it feels so natural.” Soori.

“But then when I was about to enter high school, a person who is the secretary of Ahn Ji Sung, came to the house. Saying that I was enrolled in a private boarding school in Switzerland. At first, I declined the offer, but after a long talk with my parents, I went and followed the order. Thinking that if I finish this I will be free from him. I started to live abroad, in Switzerland and then in Boston. But somehow it was a wrong decision that I made since then he also started showing his interest in me.” She smiles sarcastically. 

“How? What did he do?” Seungcheol asks. 

“He starts sending birthday gifts, monthly allowance sent directly from his account no longer from the company account.” Soori.

“Company account?” Seungcheol.

“Ummm…. When I was fifteen, I was helping keun eonnie search for my family registry document, Songyi eonnie needed it. Eomma said it was stored in the cabinet in her room. She and Appa were in Seoul that day. We found the document but then we also found a bank account with a lot of money on it under my name. Songyi eonnie maybe already guessed it, but then we checked it by ourselves without our parents knowing. The bank said the money was transferred from a company checking account every first day of the month and it started since the first month of my birth. But no one ever uses it or withdraws money from it. I guess neither harabeoji nor appa wants to use it and keep it for me in the future.” Soori. 

“What made him change like that? And you said your stepmother was pregnant so that means you have a brother or sister?” Seungcheol.

“Ahn Seo Joon, younger brother. He is four years younger than me, he is in Boston now pursuing his master's degree.” Soori.

“How