Wrapped in a bundle of baby blue puff--because pink was too girly, she'd complained when he'd first bought her that ridiculous jacket in the wrong color--Seolhwa leapt and jumped around in the fresh blanket of snow, her red boots crunching with every step she took and matching the flush of her cherub cheeks as she smiled up at her father.
"Daddy!" she began, an eager expression on her face, the kind where her eyes sparkled with the joy and innocence that only a child knew how to find.
"Hm?" Hyunseung responded, a flicker of a smile crossing his face before he knelt down in front of her. Lifting a finger to her face, he gently brushed off a snowflake that had fallen into her jet black hair --
Too dark to be his, he was born with dark brown hair.
-- and he straightened out her jacket that had crinkled slightly from all her movement. She let out a little giggle and started jumping up and down, pointing up at a large blow-up balloon in what he believed was supposed to be the shape of a Santa Claus. The waist looked a little thin and it was bending over to the side, one of the arms having caught onto the edge of the neighboring building and so it was bent at an an angle that looked very anatomically incorrect.
But it was still the bringer of Christmas spirit to little impressionable children, and he could understand why she had gotten so excited. Curling into the collar of his parka, her stubby little fingers --
Too short to be his, he had long, slim fingers, though he hoped they would become more slender with age.
-- tugged him closer and went up on her tiptoes, leaning in to whisper into his ear. His eyes widened slightly, chuckling quietly at the cute little action, and his hands automatically held onto her waist to stabilize her so she wouldn't fall over from miscalculating her weight placement.
"What do you want for Christmas, Daddy?"
Hyunseung blinked, pulling back gently to look into her face, his gaze lighting upon her expression of pure unbridled exhilaration. He took in the way her button nose crinkled, how a dimple formed near the left corner of her lips, and the twinkle in her copper eyes --
Much too warm to be his, his were a dank pewter black.
"What do you want for Christmas?"
A tiny giggle escaped from her rosy lips as she leaned in again, this time cupping her mitten-covered hands around his ear as she murmured her answer to him. She pulled away herself automatically and caught his pinky with hers, wiggling it firmly and chirping something about a 'promise because pinky swear' before running off to chase a wild rabbit that had caught her eye, flopping through the tufts of snow similarly to the rabbit's movements.
That left him kneeling there in the snow, her jaw clenched as he breathed out a tense sigh through his nose, slowly standing back up as he pinched the bridge of his nose.
The one thing he couldn't give her.
Because no matter how much he wished he could, no matter how hard he tried for her, no matter how strongly he could feel his love for his daughter --
-- this was a promise he couldn't fulfill.
