The Daughter ↬ SUNGJOY [EDITING!]

➳ forty-two

Saturday came, a week after Joy and Sungjae's not so good but considerably not bad encounter.

As Sungjae promised, he never once made an appearance, or even his car roaming around the neighborhood. A clean, peaceful week with Areum and everything is like how it was normally.

Of course the time is too short for Joy to quickly made up her mind. Everything is still being processed, every probability is under consideration, and Joy is trying to be as rational as she could. So for the thousandth time, she's gonna point it out again; it's not easy.

Some nights she's convinced that she doesn't want to give Sungjae a chance because of so the bad things he had done to them and some nights she just wanted to see how Sungjae is going to be as Areum's father. If he'll be just as amazing as Joy perceived.

She's trying to balance the positive side and the negative side. There's still a chance that it might go wrong because it happened once. Everything is unclear yet.

But Joy wanted to try...

Areum and Joy are currently inside Joy's office, the latter teaching Areum how to color properly, and because Areum is just as impatient as Joy is, always wanting to see the result of their works, in the end Areum always messes up her colors.

"Ah~ I hate coloring Eomma, it's not for me," Areum complained after seeing how unflattering her side of the book compared to her mom's side.

Joy chuckled after seeing Areum sulking, "Baby, you need to slow down while coloring, this is not a race. Look at Eomma's," Joy pointed on her neat colored flower, "Don't cross over the lines, you only should color the space inside them," Joy explained, even pointing out every terms that Areum is not familiar with. "And why are you even sulking? You colored your cat beautifully! Eomma loves it!" She complemented.

Areum's face lit up, smiling brightly, "Really?!" She asked expectantly.

"Yes!" Joy replied with the same energy as her daughter, making the latter explode in a fit of giggles. Areum likes being complemented, it helps her focus even more on her task or homework, practising more and more until she perfected it. Areum gains confidence through it that's why Joy never forget to pour her a lot of pleasing comments everyday.

"Okay! Let's color the next page!" Areum announced, determined and competitive. Joy laughed at how cute Areum is, her cheeks are red from too much excitement.

"Let's go~!"

It took an hour for them to finish the whole coloring book and by the end of the page, Areum almost perfected her coloring skills but there are still times that she slipped through lines but that's okay. Everything takes its time.

Joy left Areum inside her office, the latter is laying on her make up bed, a finished glass of milk on her table (because she insisted that she's already too old to drink milk on her bottle, but Joy is sure that Areum will still look for it in her sleep) and an educational video playing on her tablet, some centimeters away from Areum so it won't damage her eyes. In short, it's already Areum's nap time and Joy's turn on the counter.

The sun is still blazing outside as it is 1 in the afternoon. There are few customers on a table which are about to leave. Understandable because of the scrutinizing heat.

After the customers left, leaving them with a completely empty shop, Jiyeon went to clean the table and Joy choose to add coffee beans to the machine.

The bell clanged, signalling that new customers have arrived. Joy put the sack down and made her way back to the counter.