Spitting Image | Jeong Jaehyun

57

"Hey, sorry I missed-"

"Kira!"

"Oh...Jihye, how are you?"

"Merry Christmas!"

"I didn't even realise! Merry Christmas!"

"Are you sleeping? Wake up...it's Christmas"

"I'm up, I'm up!"

Jaehyun's mother couldn't help but notice Jaehyun's toothy grin as he watched his daughter answer the phone to Kira.

"Here Jihye, I'll put FaceTime on so you can see her—"

"Bro I look like death right now, give me a second—"

But it was too late, Jaehyun was already pressing the FaceTime button since there was no possible way of Kira looking bad to him, it was as simple as that.

Kira answered quickly, the dark room being shown in the man's phone screen as she walked to her living room, turning on her lights quickly and sitting on the sofa.

"Your house is huge!" Jihye said with an amazed an expression

"Is that because its a castle?!" Jihye exclaimed and Jaehyun chuckled at the narrative that kept building in his daughters head

"Yes that's exactly why" Kira chuckled, eyes glancing over the corner of her phone screen where we could see a bit of Jaehyun's image as he held the phone up for his daughter

"Daddy is going to open his present now!" Jihye exclaimed and Kira chuckled nervously, remembering the painting under the sofa she had wrapped last minute

"Oh before you open it...I should apologise in advance for going through your baby photos" Kira smiled and Jaehyun narrowed his eyes at her, his mother laughing in the distance lightly at the comment. He placed his phone upright against a few books on the coffee table, giving her a good angle of his sitting on the couch with Jihye beside him.

"Should I be worried?" He asked and she smiled, shrugging as her palms grew sweaty with anticipation

"It's under the sofa" Jihye giggled and Jaehyun furrowed his brows, shuffling around to reach under the couch for a messily wrapped big thin rectangle.

"Okay no need to judge the bad wrapping skills" Kira rolled her eyes and Jaehyun chuckled, shaking his head.

"Is it a painting?" He asked with a smile growing on his lips but she only shrugged

"Open it!" Jihye ordered

"Okay bossy pants" Jaehyun said, poking her cheek before continuing to unwrap the paper. He held the painting upright infront of his eyes and he swore his heart almost leaped out of his ribcage.

"Oh my god..."

"Do you like it?!" Jihye asked happily jumping up and down

"Kira...did you...oh my god" Jaehyun said with pure shock, not believing his own eyes.

"What? Let me see?" His mother said, finally being shown in the frame to Kira and now she almost hid herself in her hoodie, wishing she didn't have to meet his mom for the first time like this.

"Oh my god!" His mother exclaimed, hands snaking around her son's broad shoulders as she looked at the realistic acrylic painting.

Their eyes intricately studied the half-and-half painting of two children's faces, one was a boy and one was a girl. Jaehyun smiled as he immediately recognised half of the picture he had taken of his daughter smiling widely on her third birthday, and his mother smiled as she immediately recognised the other half, a picture she had taken of her son at the park when he was around the same age.