Decoupled • KTH : Book 1✔

Chapter 56

Maya

Areum and I head upstairs after she drinks a glass of warm milk. Walking into the spare bedroom, I sit along with her on the floor and pull open the precious cardboard box.

She watches keenly as I take out the trophies, medals and other irrelevant bunches of papers and place them aside.

"Did you win all this?" She asks me after a few seconds.

"Yeah, I did," I answer her, chuckling softly as I pick up the binder from the bottom of the box.

I quickly flip over to the last three pictures and transfer the binder to her hands.

"Can you find out where your appa is?" I wiggle my eyebrows at her. "Wait, if you actually get it right, I'll buy you something as a reward. Is that a deal?" I extend my hand to her, knowing fully well that she will, of course, easily identify the face of the only man in her life.

This will be a cake walk for her.

"Deal," she nods her head and slams her small palm on mine, giggling a little.

Areum carefully studies each face on the photograph before she effortlessly points out to Taehyung in the last row.

"There's appa!" She beams proudly, pressing down her finger on his face.

"Wow! You're amazing, and that was so quick. Does he still look the same?" I ask her, laughing a little.

"Appa looks big now," she giggles covering her mouth, and it takes everything in me not to kiss her cheeks hard.

We spend a few more minutes looking at the other two high-school year photographs, and Areum easily identifies him in those pictures as well. She even asks me about the heart stickers flying out of his head in the last photograph, and I admit to her that I liked him so much that I did this to the picture.

"Can I also put some heart stickers?" She asks me innocently.

Of course, she loves him more than anyone else ever could.

"Yes, you can. Do you want to put them here or on some other picture of appa?" Honestly, if bonding with her involves some more stickers on these photographs, I really wouldn't mind it because I now have Taehyung with me in flesh and blood. He's not just a memory to me anymore that I have to treasure only in these pictures.

"Here?" She points to our second-year photograph.

"Sure, you can. But I don't have the stickers right now. We can buy them. Until then, do you want to have this with you?"

"No, I'll take it when we buy the stickers," she softly pushes the binder back into my hands.

We then leave the spare bedroom and head downstairs, and I am suddenly reminded of the remaining dresses and hair accessories that I bought for her from London.

"Uhm, Areum, do you like new dresses?" I halt my steps right in front of my room, and Areum who is walking beside me also stops and looks up at me.

I still don't know what Taehyung told her about the dress she's wearing now, and so I stick to talking only about the other ones that I have yet to hand over to her.

"Yeah," she nods a little.

"I bought some for you. Do you want to see them?" I bend a little and softly hold her jaw in my hand as I speak.

"Can I take them home?" Areum asks doubtfully, and I laugh softly at that.

"Of course, you should. They're for you," I ruffle her soft hair a little, making her flash a big smile.