puzzle piece | jeong jaehyun

24

"But I want this!" Jinah whined, pleading to her dad to buy the barbie doll that was inside the plastic clam shell packaging

"You have barbies at home" he said, dismissing her request as he examined which carton of milk expired later than the other

"But not this barbie, it's different!" She said, grabbing onto his suit sleeves to get his attention and he sighed

"What's different about it?" He asked and she pouted, looking at the barbie that looked like the other twenty she had at home

"She has magic hair! It changes colours when it's wet—"

"Well unless you're planning to bring the barbie to your swimming lessons—"

"Please daddy! I want one with pink hair!" Jinah whined again and he sighed once more, looking down at her firmly with his head shaking no

"Go put it back please" he said and she frowned, huffing as she left her dad's side and let him return to whatever he was doing. In his defence, he was ready to buy his daughter anything she could ask for, but it just seemed to cross a line when she would ask for the same thing in a different colour or design—it was a marketing strategy and the poor girl kept falling into the same trap.

"You're mean daddy!" He heard her say before she disappeared and he raised his brows, rubbing his forehead lightly to ward off the headache that seemed to grow after a stressful day of work—seems like whatever economy thing Yunhui was ranting about this morning was affecting Prada's sales in Korea as well.

His thoughts were abruptly cut short as he heard a scream from the next aisle, his hands quickly dropping the two milk cartons, regardless of their expiry date, into the shopping cart before he jogged through the supermarket. His heart had picked up a few rates as the blood curdling scream sounded a lot like those of his daughter and his mind prepared him for the worst—ultimately forgetting about the seven year old boy who's hand had dropped from previously holding onto him.

Minhyuk watched the girl's father leave his side without any notice, running towards something that he had no idea of and turning a corner until he disappeared. He felt his heart almost sink to his stomach as he felt abandoned, left in the large and spacious supermarket aisle all by himself. So he decided to do the only thing that made sense to him, what he always did when he was left alone.

Jaehyun on the other hand couldn't think about anything else until his eyes landed on his daughter that was sitting on the floor of the aisle, all alone with loud cries emitting from her mouth.

"Jinah, baby...what happened? Why did you scream like that?!" He asked, trying not to panic so she could calm down. It took her a few minutes of wailing into her dad's side as he rubbed her back comfortingly until she finally started to point towards something

"That's what scared you? The skeleton?" He asked, a relieved sigh leaving his mouth as he looked at the halloween decoration with a big red button on it—knowing his kid, she obviously pushed it and got scared by the automated jump.

"It's scary" she pouted, sniffing into his shoulder as he kept reassuring her that it was a toy that wasn't going to hurt her

"I'm glad you're okay, you gave daddy a big scare you know?" He said, trying to convince himself that everything was okay with his daughter safe in his hands as he walked back to the aisle he was previously at—only for his heart to drop again.

"Minhyuk" he called out, his eyes quickly scanning the aisle while his feet quickly moved to the other ones beside it, trying to see where the other child under his supervision could have gone.

With every minute that passed he was starting to get even more worried, even more frustrated and eventually he decided to call Yunhui, worried for his life that she would never forgive him for taking his eyes off her child for a split second—