spectrum【fem!reader .lookism】

. xii

The child that stared up at her has a painfully familiar face.

It was too easy to tell who the mother was, even if they only met once or twice.

"Hello," she greeted to the toddler who still stared unblinkingly at her from the floor. Crouching, she continues, "I'm your dad's friend. Nice to meet you, Yenna."

Yenna let out a few baby sounds, slowly raising her arms as if trying to reach out for her.

Well this is awkward. She doesn't recall interacting with babies before. Is she asking the (h/c) haired girl to carry her...?

Hesitantly, (Y/N) brought out her pointer finger. The toddler immediately grasped the finger and sent the teen a gummy smile.

The (h/c) dared not admit it, but her heart melted.

"Why," she muttered. "Are you so cute?"

"She's so friendly, isn't she," Eli sighs as he appears behind her, suddenly in his proud papa mode. Which was a mode (Y/N) has never seen until now. "And so smart too...I'm proud of her."

Still with her finger being grasped, she looked strangely at him. "I see Big Daddy became an actual dad."

"...Since when were you like this?"

"Since you vanished and reappeared with a baby."

Shaking his head, he handed Yenna her bottle, which she gleefully took from him and stuck to her mouth soon after. She ran off somewhere with her bottle in mouth.

Then, Eli sat down on the couch in the room. "Okay, so what is it about?"

Eli Jang is so different now from the person in her memories.

The fourteen year old then had rare smiles. He was quiter, as if he was still trying to adjust with talking to people his age. His eyes only glinted whenever he was talking to Heather.

The him of now, on the other hand, smiles more. His tone always sounds kind and patient, even when he was trying to convince someone to let him cut their hair.

She wants to ask.

But as someone who only knew to vanish most of the time, did she have any right to do so?

"This," she says instead. "Is that date. Consider me buying you for that matter done."

He quirks a smile. "A thousand dollars for a visit to my home?"

"Two hundred for the house. The remaining money is for the right to see Yenna."

"You know you don't need money to see her."

"I pay money when I want to. Stop trying to convince me otherwise, or I might end up falling into depression for wasting my money on you."

That man has the audacity to snort. "Okay."

There was a period of silence. Only when (Y/N)'s legs started cramping did she allow herself to completely plop down the cold floor.

"Why Jae Won?" she tried.

"It's the only one that wouldn't be suspicious about my documents."

"Really?"

"You know I'm more amused how it took you a while to find me, when you were always able to find me no matter where I was in the past," Eli's grin widens slightly.

He was enjoying this, wasn't he?

"Listen, I..." Wracking her head for an excuse, she ends up closing it anyway. There really was no answer she can give. "Alright, you got that point."

"You know," he leans forward to look at her properly. In his eyes hid a glint of seriousness. "You can just ask."

As expected, he caught onto the questions bubbling in her head. As he somehow always does.

The weak smile that she cracked almost felt foreign. "Should I?"

"If you want to."

"You know..." she sighs while wistfully looking back at the other male before her. "I never really found out the whole story."

-

Last night, she hesitantly sent a text to Daniel to tell him she won't be coming back for the night.

Yenna seems really happy to have her stay over. She kept running up by her legs, with arms raised to get the older girl to carry her.

"Eli," she says. "Your daughter, I'm stealing her. She's mine now."

"No way. I will report you if you do."

"But she loves me!"

"She loves me more!"

"Yenna, you love me more than your dad, right?"

Yenna, since she was still a literal toddler, only giggled at the bantering she's hearing.

She slept in a guest room that night that she didn't know even existed. When she went to school, she made sure it was earlier than the other person in the house in case rumors start.

Until she sees solid proof that she's completely safe from Eli's crazy fans, she refuses to be seen with him.

However, she did not expect a headache waiting for her at school. No, not in the form of the screeching angry girls—well, partially, no.

"(Y/N)!" Zoe immediately crowded over to her, dragging Mira with her. "(Y/N)! Why were you absent yesterday?!"

"Apparently I'm no longer allowed to skip school," she says drily.

"Girl, you have a lot of explaining to do. Why did you suddenly buy Eli Jang? And why did you slap him???"

"Pfft," she snickers. "Don't worry about it. I just haven't seen him in a while. And the slap is...an inside joke."

If an inside joke involves people getting beaten bloody in the past, then she technically wasn't lying.

"What kind of inside joke is that?!"

"Whatever it was," Mira cuts in, looking at her with a surprisingly observant gaze. "I'm glad you had things sorted. You look lighter now."

"Do I?"

"Oh, yeah, come to think of it, that's true," Zoe agrees.

Huh. Did the sudden disappearance of a childhood friend really affect her that much?

Instead, she only shrugs.

(Y/N) would've ultimately be fine if the day ended then and there. It was already pleasant to wake up to good food, Yenna's sleepy baby sounds and a satisfying lollipop as morning snack.

So when Yui Kim strode in and made a bee-line to the unmistakable direction of a dazed-looking Daniel Park, she almost opened the window on the room and jumped off.

Okay, maybe she's overreacting. Maybe, just maybe her reactions are a bit too exaggerated when it involves her brother...

But she saw that fame smile plastered on Yui's face. She just knew the entire class is about to be subjected to a circus of clownery.

When she glances and sees the lovestruck expression on Daniel's eyes...well, she seriously considered her original plan.

Maybe it was the barely-hidden distraught in Zoe's face that stopped her.

--

Unedited.