puzzle piece | jeong jaehyun

30

The silence was thick and loud between them. Neither of them daring to speak up until Jinah finally couldn't take it anymore.

"Yunhui look! I drew a pretty dress for y—" Jaehyun's hand reached over to his daughter's shoulder, pulling her back as his stern eyes remained on the woman who stood by her door

"What was she doing here?" He asked, taking some steps close towards her apartment with Jinah innocently holding onto his hand, looking between them awkwardly at the sudden shift in their dynamic

"Why do you care?" Yunhui spat, knowing that if it wasn't for the football mishap yesterday then this whole situation could have been completely avoided.

Everything turned into a mess ever since he moved in.

"Yunhui. I'm being serious" Jaehyun said with a stern voice and she scoffed at his words, as if he was entitled to know the situation. As if he had any right to demand things like this from her

"So am I. It's none of your fucking business Jaehyun—"

"Well I'm making it my fucking business, what the hell was child protection services doing at your house?" He asked again, his hand raising to stop the door that she had attempted to close on him with his strength which significantly outmatched hers

"You have no right to barge in here and ask me that Jaehyun!" She shouted, both of them now aware of the two children who innocently got caught in the crossfire of their heated argument as he stepped into her apartment

"People don't just send social workers here for no reason so what the hell is going on here? What have you been doing?!" He asked loudly and it infuriated her even more

"Me?! What the hell have I been doing?! What are you accusing me of right now?!" She shouted and Jaehyun sighed, his hand reaching up to run through the strands of his hair before he noticed his little girl clutching onto his leg anxiously

"Jinah, why don't you go play in Hyuk's room for a while" he said and she looked up at him

"But dad—"

"Go, please." Jaehyun said, his eyes leaving her and returning back to Yunhui's as the girl paced down the hallway to enter Hyuk's room

Yunhui knew exactly what Jaehyun was trying to accuse her of, hell, everyone was trying to accuse her of something she never did—or would ever do. She hated the ways his eyes peered into her with such disgust, as if he was shocked by her actions, jumping to several conclusions before he even knew anything.

And there was no easy way for him to say it, they both knew that.

"Yunhui, do you hit him?" Jaehyun asked, his voice much lower now as the two stood alone in the middle of her living room. She let out a dry scoff, her eyes finally breaking contact with his as she shook her head

And just like everyone else around her, Jaehyun had now failed her too.

"Did you seriously just ask me that?" She asked, her hands defensively crossing over her chest

"Yeah...I did." He breathed out, feeling whatever silent trust they had built between them, the same trust that let them rely on each other to watch over each other's children and step in when things got hard—that was all broken

"Answer my question" he said sternly, his eyes watching her closely to look for any shift in her gaze, any slimmer of guilt in her eyes. But all he could find was betrayal and it made his stomach churn inside him.

"Get out" she said softly, although her words pierced through the silence coldly

"Yunhui, I'm trying to help—"