The Dahlias (6)

When Minho returned home that night, to his surprise, he found Jina sound asleep in her room. He frowned and checked the clock. It was only 9 PM and Jina, being a stubborn child, never slept before 11 o'clock.

"Is she alright?" he asked Kim while checking Jina's temperature. Her health seemed to be fine.

"Sir, she has been acting a little strange lately," Kim said hesitantly.

"Strange?" Minho question. "What did she do?"

"Well," Kim began. "Everyday, after finishing her homework, instead of playing or watching television like she usually used to, she started to er…"

"What?" Minho's chilly voice made the housekeeper shudder.

"She started to do chores!" Kim blabbed. "Ms. Jina has been wiping off dust from furniture and also tidying up her room on her own! She wouldn't let us help her and even when we said we'd take care of it, she'd throw tantrums and keep on cleaning!"

Kim braced herself for the worst. She had failed her employer by letting his precious daughter do menial work. Surely he would yell at her and fire her. Kim had her defense ready.

Minho looked from her to the sleeping child, his mind completely blank. Jina was doing housework?

To Kim's surprise, Minho's lips curved into a rare smile. Not the icy one he usually dons but a genuine smile.

"That's good," he said, patting his daughter's head. "She is trying to become more responsible. I wonder who taught her this, though."

"I have no idea, sir," Kim replied. "Lately, the young miss has been more cheerful. Not that she was not earlier but it looks as if she's healthier and happier. It's a relief! She even made really nice drawings."

Minho had been so busy with work that he had been coming home late for the past few days. It bothered him that he was spending so little time with his daughter and vowed that he would take her out on the weekend. Maybe they could go to an amusement park or on a small vacation to their villa on a remote island. She always enjoyed the scenery there.

"I'll take care of her," he said to Kim. Kim bowed and left the room. Minho turned his attention back to Jina. She looked a little tired but peaceful. He vaguely wondered from where she got the idea to work around the house. Did her teachers tell her to do it?

Jina was a sharp kid and picked up things quite quickly. Despite being a child, she had an uncanny ability to learn things quickly and her sharp mind often led her to find things which Minho believed were lost or misplaced. He did not know how but she managed to find one of his old Parker pens which was lying behind a large bookshelf. It had belonged to his mother and he was shocked to see that she found it.

When asked, Jina simply replied, "Josephine told me."

Her imagination was wild. Everyday, she cooked up a new imaginary friend whom she would give various nicknames. A lot of times, Minho dismissed them as childish games but lately, she had been talking about them a little too much for his liking. So he was glad that she was taking up new hobbies to keep herself engaged.

He was about to get up and leave when something caught his eye. On Jina's bedside table, was a drawing. It was of a man in black suit holding a small girl's hand. The picture was captioned as 'My Family'. But the thing that really caught Minho's attention was the presence of another person in the 'family'. It was of a dark haired woman, wearing a police badge.

Minho frowned. Why did Jina draw this? Who was this person? Was this the mysterious person who was teaching Jina about responsibility?

Pulling the blanket over her shoulder, he turned off the lamp and quietly left the room. He went to his room and changed into his night robes. After freshening up, he was about to put his shirt and pants into the laundry bin when a small piece of black cloth fell from his shirt. He picked it up to realize that it was one of the cloth from Gayoon's torn dress.

He sighed, reminiscing the crazy day he had. Not only did he run into Jeon Gayoon for the second time, but also got entangled in a murder mystery. It was not much of a mystery but the bizarre turn of events was enough to drain him.

Remembering Gayoon's lie, he vaguely wondered why she said that. He could tell that when she was breaking down that wall, she already knew that something was inside it. She was not working on an instinct but rather on a tipoff. But from whom?

Shrugging, he threw the cloth aside and discarded the shirt into the laundry bin. It did not really matter to him. All he cared about was that he managed to acquire a new company that night.

His phone beeped as it received a text. Picking up the phone, he opened the message only to find a message from Kanji.

"Did you manage to get down and dirty with the detective?" Kanji texted from Mexico.

Minho immediately pressed the block button and went to sleep.

….

Gayoon was sitting across Lee Shawn, who was sweating profusely. She had changed her clothes and was now wearing a police uniform. Shawn was taken into the interrogation room. The single white light shone brightly above them while Gayoon scrutinized the man in front of her. There was a large glass wall on the side beside the door. Junwan and Taejoon were watching the interrogation from the other side of the glass wall.

"He is going to get whacked," Taejoon commented. "Are you sure we should have let her handle this on her own?"

"She'll do fine," Junwan shrugged. "I'm sure she will weasel out a confession out of him."

"Oh I'm not worried about her," Taejoon said. "I'm worried about him."

Junwan sighed. If he was being honest, he was also worried that Gayoon would make the poor guy wet his pants with her words. She might be laid back but during interrogation, a completely new Gayoon came to fore.

"Let's see what she does," he muttered.