15. A Wall Between Them

"So what's going on here? Is he bothering you?" The man asked, jerking his chin towards Taeho. Just who is this man?

"It's nothing really. I was just…happy. This man is uhh…" Yejeong sniffed, looking at Taeho, "Uhh a newspaper man."

"Newspaper man?" Taeho and the guy echoed in union.

"The thing, he wants to write about the shop! He's a reporter!"

"Oh." The man looked suspiciously at Taeho, "Is that so? What company are you with?"

"I am…" Taeho glanced at Yejeong who was nodding rapidly, "from a Seoul company. Have you heard of Food Magazine?"

"Food Magazine huh?" He critically looked at Taeho up and down, "Is that even a real company?"

"It is! He wants to write about me! I am famous, Doyun!" 

Doyun? Taeho turned to Yejeong again, this time looking even more baffled and betrayed. Doyun as in Baek Doyun, class monitor, guy with the stick up his ass. Yejeong skillfully ignored his wide eyes and reached for his hand.

"Why are you giving him money!" The kid yelled out, making Taeho look at the kid

"I am…giving this reporter 7000 won so he writes only good things about me." Yejeong said, placing the money on his palm. Taeho looked at the badly crumpled bills and blinked slowly, unable to process everything or in fact anything.

"Dirt kid." He mumbled in shock, finally recognizing the girl immediately. It was the kid from before. The one who tried to get him buy cakes for her and he stupidly fell for it.

"Excuse me?" Doyun sputtered out in shock, his head sticking forward in shock, "What did you just say?"

Taeho looked at him, God he wanted to punch him so badly that his knuckles were itching. He left town and this bastard's first thought was to steal his girl? How long did he even wait to pounce on her? Did he even pay any respect to the fact that Yejeong was his girlfriend since middle school before he left? That's 5 years!

"I am sorry? What did I say?" Taeho asked, raising a brow.

"You called my kid dirty?"

"I called her dirty?" Taeho repeated dumbly because the only thing in his mind was turning this man into pulp.

"Doyun, she's not your kid." Yejeong interrupted with a sigh. Taeho immediately turned to her, frowning deeply.

"She's not his kid?" He whispered inquisitively. 

"Yejeong, he called my pumpkin dirty!"

"He didn't call her dirty, he said dirt girl."

"Same thing!"

"How?" Taeho hissed, only a fraction of a minute away from raising his fist. 

"Everyone, calm down!" Yejeong exclaimed, a vein almost popping on her forehead, "Doyun, stay out of this. I am sure this kind customer didn't mean anything." 

"Hey, Yejeong…" Doyun moved in, reaching out to touch her on the arm. Taeho's eyes zeroed in on the contact and he glared at it hard enough to strike a fire at that spot.

"It's okay, sweetie. I can see that you're stressed. You don't have to be. I will not do anything bad to your guest, I am sure he will write the best things about your bakery. Won't you, mister…?"

"It's Lee Tae—" Taeho bit out and then stopped because he shouldn't be giving out his full name just like that but he was so bothered by what was going on here with Yejeong, not taking his eyes off of where Doyun was touching her. And he called her sweetie. Nobody calls her sweetie. Yejeong hates it. Yejeong hates generic nicknames. 

"Lee Tae?" Doyun echoed, a small huff of disbelief leaving him as he placed his hands on his hips, "Like Lee Taeho?" 

"Who!" Yejeong squeaked out in terror, eyes wide as she looked up in surprise, her eyes still traced with redness and her face full with puffiness because she cried but Taeho stared a single second longer as he couldn't help but find it too adorable. There was something so enchanting about her that he couldn't help but bewitched with every dart of her eyes, every tremble of her lips and every movement she made. It was like a movie, a scene focused solely on her and yet even the best camera won't ever do justice to this person he saw in front of him. 

Why did he ever leave? How was he ever able to leave in the first place? Well, it was not impossible but it sure did felt like the end of the world when he did because he couldn't remember the first few years that he had spent ever since he came to Seoul. He was doing everything he can to get over her and he must say, now that he was seeing her again in flesh and right before his eyes, it was not worth it. It was not worth running away, because he can clearly feel the bridge that grew before them. Of course, there was a wall between them now. She acted like he was a fucking stranger when she first saw him after six years. A punch doesn't even hurt anymore than that. Hell, he can even fall off a building, escape with barely his life and yet he would still choose that over what Yejeong did. 

"You know Lee Taeho? That sleazebag who got engaged with Jung Haewon? You know what? I don't even know why i know this. This kid at work has been bugging me with their new age gossip like i have nothing else better to do. So what's your name?"

"What?" Taeho blinked blankly.

"Your full name? Like mine is Baek Doyun by the way, great meeting you, champ."

"Ah, that's it!" Yejeong intercepted, smiling so widely that a blind person can see it was fake from a hundred miles away. But Baek Doyun was worse than that.

"That's it? What do you mean?"

"His name is Lee Tae."

"But Tae is just one syllable, sweetie?"

Taeho smiled, closing his eyes to catch himself. He called her sweetie again. Now he wanted to go wild on this bastard but then there's a kid and Yejeong was barely letting him stay by her side. He needed to…

Well, he didn't know what he needed to do. Before Yejeong came running out, he had planned on going back to his Seoul life. He had a company to manage, a fiancee to marry and a best friend to send to jail for putting him in trouble. But now, what did he want to do? Of coursem it would be better to go back to his old life. Not this Watford life, his old Seoul life where he got everything he wanted and he had a purpose in life. But when Bo Yejeong was standing right in front of him, how can he muster up the courage to put anything else before her? She would naturally take the most important place in his heart because it was made for her and she belonged there. There was no way he was prioritizing something else before her.

"She's not wrong. My name is Tae and yes, i do get that a lot. My parents were a blast for giving me such a short name." Taeho did what he did best, and lying came to him like breathing. 

"Hey, what would you know! At least it's not Doyun. Everyone calls me a crook here even as a joke."

That's because you ARE one, Taeho thought as he shook hands with the thief who stole his girl. As the handshake broke, a sudden silence fell upon the four of them. The kid had gone uncharacteristically silent as she sucked her thumb while staring off in the distance. Yejeong awkwardly cleared her throat as she fixed her wrinkled blue apron with the sudden pretense of preoccupation. Taeho looked between the two, deciding that they were standing a little too close to each other.

"I uhh…" Taeho smiled tightly, grabbing Yejeong and pulling her away from Doyun, "I met Yejeong's kid just before i met her."

"Oh God," Yejeong groaned, reaching out for Taeho, "Was she eating dirt again? That's why you called her dirt girl, isn't it?"

"...yeah." Taeho mumbled and nodded slowly, because shit, he completely forgot about this. The reason Yejeong had been his entire life before he came to Seoul. She knew him. Not just any normal sort of knowing. She knew him better than she knew herself. The part where her hand was resting on his arm seemed to glow with warmth.

When he was with Yejeong, he barely had to talk, barely had to form more than a couple of words before she immediately understood what he meant. That was the reason why it was so hard to let go of her in the first place. It felt like he had ripped out a part of himself. No, not even that. It felt like he lost himself. The whole of himself when she wasn't by his side anymore. He was not himself without her and he hadn't been for six whole years. And he was a fucking fool for it. 

"I'll make sure that she hears it later, i am so sorry for whatever she did." Yejeong looked at Taeho apologetically, pulling the kid towards her side protectively.

Taeho tightly nodded, his jaw twitching. There it was again. The invisible wall between them. Yejeong treating him like a stranger. She shouldn't be apologizing for her kid. In his dreams, she was asking him to straighten out their kid when they did something bad and they were a family. Now standing there, it was clear that he was so fucking alienated from her life now that he felt like even touching her was a violation even though at the same time, it felt like the most natural thing in the world. 

"So!" Doyun boisterously began, clapping his hands together, "what say? Tae, you should join us for dinner!"

Taeho and Yejeong looked at each other, and then slowly at the man who was looking at them expectantly. 

What did he say now?