Maya

Areum and I head upstairs after she drinks a glass of warm milk. Walking into the spare bedroom, I sit along with her on the floor and pull open the precious cardboard box.

She watches keenly as I take out the trophies, medals and other irrelevant bunches of papers and place them aside.

"Did you win all this?" She asks me after a few seconds.

"Yeah, I did," I answer her, chuckling softly as I pick up the binder from the bottom of the box.

I quickly flip over to the last three pictures and transfer the binder to her hands.

"Can you find out where your appa is?" I wiggle my eyebrows at her. "Wait, if you actually get it right, I'll buy you something as a reward. Is that a deal?" I extend my hand to her, knowing fully well that she will, of course, easily identify the face of the only man in her life.

This will be a cake walk for her.

"Deal," she nods her head and slams her small palm on mine, giggling a little.

Areum carefully studies each face on the photograph before she effortlessly points out to Taehyung in the last row.

"There's appa!" She beams proudly, pressing down her finger on his face.

"Wow! You're amazing, and that was so quick. Does he still look the same?" I ask her, laughing a little.

"Appa looks big now," she giggles covering her mouth, and it takes everything in me not to kiss her cheeks hard.

We spend a few more minutes looking at the other two high-school year photographs, and Areum easily identifies him in those pictures as well. She even asks me about the heart stickers flying out of his head in the last photograph, and I admit to her that I liked him so much that I did this to the picture.

"Can I also put some heart stickers?" She asks me innocently.

Of course, she loves him more than anyone else ever could.

"Yes, you can. Do you want to put them here or on some other picture of appa?" Honestly, if bonding with her involves some more stickers on these photographs, I really wouldn't mind it because I now have Taehyung with me in flesh and blood. He's not just a memory to me anymore that I have to treasure only in these pictures.

"Here?" She points to our second-year photograph.

"Sure, you can. But I don't have the stickers right now. We can buy them. Until then, do you want to have this with you?"

"No, I'll take it when we buy the stickers," she softly pushes the binder back into my hands.

We then leave the spare bedroom and head downstairs, and I am suddenly reminded of the remaining dresses and hair accessories that I bought for her from London.

"Uhm, Areum, do you like new dresses?" I halt my steps right in front of my room, and Areum who is walking beside me also stops and looks up at me.

I still don't know what Taehyung told her about the dress she's wearing now, and so I stick to talking only about the other ones that I have yet to hand over to her.

"Yeah," she nods a little.

"I bought some for you. Do you want to see them?" I bend a little and softly hold her jaw in my hand as I speak.

"Can I take them home?" Areum asks doubtfully, and I laugh softly at that.

"Of course, you should. They're for you," I ruffle her soft hair a little, making her flash a big smile.

Entering my room, I retrieve the two large bags with her dresses and hair accessories and place them all on the bed.

"Go on, open them and tell me if you like them," I point to the bags, and she begins eagerly exploring the contents of the bags.

Areum spreads the three dresses out on the bed and matches the hair accessories with each one, placing them neatly on top of each dress and smiling contentedly afterwards.

She, of course, picks out the only hair accessory that doesn't have a matching dress, but quickly identifies that it matches the dress that she's wearing.

"Oh, look!" She smiles ecstatically, looking a little surprised as well.

"Yeah, wow! Look at it. It's a perfect match. Can I put it on your hair?" My eager eyes are met with a toothy grin from her as she nods her acceptance.

I waste no time in delicately raking my fingers through her soft hair and placing the clip to hold a bunch together.

"Do you like these?" I ask her as I sit cross-legged on the bed.

"They're all so pretty. Thank you," she gives me a sweet smile and then proceeds to pack them all neatly inside the two bags. I help her out a little, and then we carry the bags to the living room.

I decide to take Areum for a walk and buy her the heart stickers that she wanted to put on Taehyung's picture, and so we head outside to the nearest stationery store to buy the same.

She doesn't speak much on the way to the store, and she only holds my hand and walks in silence. I don't try to force anything more as well because this is phenomenal progress that we've made as opposed to our first meeting at the airport and after the disastrous night-time meltdown yesterday.

After picking up two sheets of red heart stickers, Areum also picks up another sheet of squishy kawaii stickers as her reward that I promised her earlier. We also buy a pack of colored origami papers, some paints and some more craft supplies because I don't have any of those at home. We then head back home and straight to the storage room.

Sitting down with the binder, Areum decides that she wants to decorate Taehyung in more than one photo, and I gladly allow her to do that. She seems to be totally enjoying what she's doing at the moment, and I make a mental note that playing with stickers is something she loves to do.

After the happy sticker activity time, we head downstairs where we spread out the origami papers and the craft material on the floor.

Just as we settle down there, I receive a few text messages from Taehyung stating that the locksmith had successfully opened the door, and that it should take him another thirty minutes or so to reach home and pick up Areum.

After organizing all the craft supplies on the floor in neat blocks, Areum announces that she wants to make an origami butterfly, taking me by surprise.

"Wow! Do you know how to make it?" I ask her, amazed.

"Yeah, I do. Eomma taught me," she beams proudly while carefully folding her purple origami paper in half.

"Can you teach me?" I ask her, again making a desperate attempt to connect with her over something she likes to do.

Although I wanted to take it real slow with her, I'm finding her to be totally irresistible, and she makes me want to spend all my days and nights right by her side, even if it would be to just sit beside her and look at the way her squishy cheeks puff up while she's immersed in her work.

"Yeah, take a paper and fold it like this. What color do you like?" She asks me as she places her folded paper on the floor and picks up the bunch of unused origami papers in her hands.

"Uhm, grey?"

Her eyes fly to meet mine as she opens her mouth in disbelief upon hearing my answer.
"Don't you know that butterflies are colorful? Here, use yellow," she pushes a sheet of yellow paper towards me, making me giggle.

Now what did I mean when I said that I have no experience with children? Precisely, this. Of course, she asked me to pick a color for the butterfly and not my actual favorite color.

However, she feels a strong sense of accomplishment when she just educated me about the colorful nature of butterflies, and I would give away anything to make her feel that way.

Areum then demonstrates how to cut the paper into two parts, and I diligently follow her instructions.

"Now we need to do a fan fold," she says and begins folding the paper back and forth, and I do the same with mine.

But when we're done, her eyes quickly evaluate mine and hers, and she attempts to crush hers because it isn't obviously as neatly folded as mine since she's just a small kid, and I'm a grown-ass adult.

"Hey, hold on," I stop her from destroying her craft by holding her wrist. "What happened?" My question makes her look into my eyes.

"I made a mistake, and it looks clumsy," Areum complains with a sad pout, flashing her infamous puppy eyes that she undoubtedly inherited from her father.

Laughing softly, I release my hold on her wrist and pick up her fan-folded sheet.
"It's okay to make mistakes, Areum. Everybody makes them, but what's important is that you spent your time creating this, so you should try to fix the mistake and not throw it away just like that"

"And it's okay if you can't fix things all by yourself. You can always ask for help from someone. Can I make it better for you?" I ask her as I flash her fan-folded sheet in the space between us, raising my eyebrows a little.

"Okay," she agrees and watches me keenly as I unfold her paper and fold it back again neatly and crease it out to make the folds tighter.

"There," I extend the folded paper to her with a smile. "Wasn't so hard, right?" My smile reflects on her face as well.

"Thank you so much," she takes the sheet from my hand, and we proceed to finish making our butterfly craft.

Fortunately, I remember having some colored thread that Areum asks for to tie up the butterflies and suspend them from a hook or something when she goes back home.

While I'm digging the drawer, attempting to pull out the thread, she stands beside me, curiously eyeing the contents of the drawer.

"Hey, you have a Rubik's cube too?" Areum exclaims as she sticks her hand into the pile of things in the drawer and picks up the old Rubik's cube that I was using way back in high-school.

"Yeah, I do," I smile at her as I pull out the thread and close the drawer.

It is then that I'm reminded of the time when Taehyung told me about Areum being interested in solving the cube as well.

And as expected, she sits down on the couch and begins to rotate the layers of the cube with intense concentration, yet the moves keep flowing effortlessly.

Taehyung seems to have taught her really well because she doesn't stop for even a brief second to think what to do next. But she stops when she arrives at the penultimate step where the top face is fully yellow, yet not all the pieces are in their proper positions.

"That's all I know. Appa didn't teach me how to move these," Areum smiles sheepishly while I take a seat beside her, quite astonished by what I just witnessed.

"Wow! It's amazing that you solved so much so quickly," I take the cube from her hand and nod my head in appreciation as I study it from all sides.

"Thank you," she says softly, and my eyes lift to look at her.

"Since you taught me to make a butterfly, can I teach you to finish this puzzle?" There goes my last straw for the day.

"Yes, please. Do you also know to solve the cube?" Areum smiles big, bouncing up and down in her seat, and I nod my head ecstatically.

This is the happiest she has been around me, and it obviously makes me happier than I've ever been, so much that I'm just not able to stop smiling.

"So, Areum, first we will fix the corner pieces. Do you see that these two corner pieces are in their right places, but the other two aren't?" I ask her, pointing to the four corner pieces, and she nods her head in agreement.

"Okay, so we first need to bring these two corner pieces in their right places before we work on the middle pieces," I hand the cube back to her and show her how to hold it.

I slowly tell her each move, and she does them while repeating it out loudly, and in no time, the corner pieces are aligned perfectly.

Proceeding to teach her the last set of moves, I watch her as she keeps her eyes glued to the cube and follows my instructions perfectly, very carefully.

A few rotations later, the cube is fully solved.

Areum holds the cube up in her hand, and her eyes go wide with astonishment.

"Wow! It's done," she squeals a little, visibly excited about her accomplishment, and I clap my hands as I cheer for her.

"You solved it, Areum. You did a great job. I'm so proud of you," I softly pat her back, even though I feel like squeezing her in a tight hug right now.

"Yayyyy!!!" She squeals again, bouncing on her seat, making me laugh.

I then write down the last two sets of moves—the ones she just did under my tutelage—on a piece of paper and put it inside her dress bag as insisted by her.

We also string together our paper butterflies and place them inside one of the dress bags as well.

About five minutes later, Taehyung arrives to pick her up, and just as they're about to leave, I gather Areum's bags of dresses and her stickers to give them to her.

"Areum, I think you forgot these," I extend the bags to her with a big smile, and she takes them from my hand with a shy smile.

"Sorry, I forgot," she apologizes meekly.

"You don't have to say sorry, and can I ask you something?" I stoop a little and softly tap the tip of my index finger on the tip of her nose.

Areum nods a few times, gripping on to Taehyung's large hand with her one hand and holding the bags in her other hand.

"Will you call me Maya?" My eyes stay on her as I await her answer.

"Yes," she nods a few times with a shy smile, and an adorable shade of pink paints her chubby cheeks.

Suppressing the squeal that wants to break out of my throat, I thank her with a small bow of my head.
"Thank you so much! Will you come back here another time? I loved being with you, and I'm alone here, so I'll be really happy if you can spend time with me whenever you feel like it," I place a request to her, unsure if this was actually the best way to put it.

"Yeah," she answers briefly, making Taehyung laugh softly and ruffle her hair a little.

"Do you want to say goodbye to Maya? We can come back another time, bubba," he asks her, his eyes floating over from her to me.

"Bye, Maya," Areum waves to me, and I do the same, still finding it hard not to squish her chubby cheeks.

She doesn't ever have to call me anything other than by my name, and the way she just said it in the most adorable manner made my heart swell with joy.

"I'll see you around, Maya," Taehyung waves to me as well before they both head outside and drive away in a few more minutes.

Never have I felt so ecstatic in recent days as I'm feeling today. I didn't expect to spend so much time with Areum today, and I can't believe that she actually didn't feel repulsed or awkward around me.

Although the weekend started out decently and went a bit rough last night, today was undoubtedly amazing.

It is moments like these that make me raise my own expectations a little, which I shouldn't actually be doing. I should just feel happy about the progress made and patiently wait for more such quality time with her, that would be probably the baby steps we take towards helping her feel at ease me.

Prepare to cry through the next chapter. Because I did.
😭😭

Published on : 06/08/2022