Myungsoo’s Grudge

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Baekhyun’s divorce papers are hung on the bedroom wall. Its frames are silver, enamoured with patterns. Not even the family photo had such a fancy frame.

Every year, Myungsoo and Baekhyun celebrate something they call the ‘He’s Gone Day’. That day involved making this huge cake—two of them, in fact. One is this absolutely delicious, creamy strawberry cake, topped with fresh strawberries picked from little pots that they grew in their apartment. The other is… well, certainly the basics of a cake, purposefully left to burn in the oven until it was charred—but still soft. When Myungsoo’s home from his guitar class and Baekhyun’s home from work, they’d bake that lovely strawberry cake together, then let Eun-eun throw whatever ingredient he wanted in the ‘other cake’. They’d eat that cake, clear up the kitchen, and on the plastic-covered kitchen wall they’d plaster this picture of a man—the same picture every year. Myungsoo, Daehyun and Eun-eun would then decorate this ‘other cake’ together; ”as icky and disgusting as possible!” as Baekhyun would encourage them—one year Baekhyun even let Myungsoo write swear words all over that cake. After they’re done, each of them could grab the cake with their hands and throw it onto the picture of the man.

It was a brilliant thing—the more you splattered the cake against the poor man’s picture, the more points you won. Myungsoo and Daehyun always had a tie, mostly every year. Afterwards, when Eun-eun and Daehyun were tucked into bed, Daehyun would overhear his Daddy and Myungsoo talk in the living room: Daddy with a glass of red wine, and Myungsoo with juice—but last year he was allowed half a can of beer. Daehyun always tried to eavesdrop to hear what they were saying, but it was all in giggly whispers that Daehyun couldn’t decipher anything.

Now that Daehyun thought about it, this Chanyeol man looked a lot like the man they always printed out to throw cake on.

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Daehyun woke up in a daze, noticing glittering figures of animals that floated at the ceiling. He hadn’t noticed them before—it was daylight now, but they seemed to glow in the dark. He could recognize a squirrel there, and then a tiger… then three other animals that followed them suit…

…

“School!” Daehyun gasped, throwing the covers away from his body, instinctively about to call for his Daddy… then registered that Baekhyun is miles away, in another city, distances unfathomable by Daehyun’s imagination.

Naturally, Daehyun retracts to the second figure in power: Myungsoo. Hobbling to open the door, he promptly knocks on his older brother’s door, only for the door to creak and a vacuuming noise emits from within. Daehyun is greeted by Junmyeon cleaning the floor, Myungsoo perched on his bed, absent-mindedly pouring a bowl of cereal into his mouth while he held a phone on his other hand.

“Myungsoo,” Daehyun said, his voice drowned by the vacuum. He let out a sigh and shouted atop of his lungs.

“MYUNGSOO!”

“WHAT?” Myungsoo shouted in response, trying to speak over the vacuum.

“WE’RE LATE FOR SCHOOL!”

“I KNOW. I DON’T THINK WE’RE ATTENDING THEM TODAY.”

“WHAT?”

“I DON’T THINK—JUNMYEON, TURN THE VACUUM OFF FOR GOD’S SAKE.” Myungsoo shouted at the butler, and the latter promptly turned it off, apologising. Myungsoo sighed, raking a hand through his hair before speaking to Daehyun again.

“I said,” Myungsoo cleared his throat, “We’re not attending them.”

“B-But that’ll mean we’ll get absence! And then when we get absence—”

“I know, nitwit. But the school’s miles away from here, how do you expect us to get there? I could—but I don’t have a bus pass. That sonofa was supposed to pay for it, but you can’t expect your deadbeat pops to pay for it when he’s missed child support payments for the past five years. Dad said he was supposed to arrange homeschool for you two, but y’know. Absent parent,” Myungsoo scoffed, falling backwards into his bed.

Daehyun really didn’t know what half of those words meant. What's ‘child support’ anyway?

Myungsoo is rarely helpful, so Daehyun retracted to the third position in power: the funny Chanyeol man.

Daehyun scurried along the corridors. He thought that Daddy himself had a pretty nice apartment, but boy was this the real thing! Marble floors all the way to the stairs, too. Maybe missing out on school is nice. He could really get up to explore the mansion! Except he’s probably gone down the same set of corridors for a while now, because Daehyun’s quite sure he’s hopelessly lost in this maze of a house.

With Mr. Lee’s ragdoll body lolling along beside him, Daehyun simply decided to follow familiar noises. Just not too long ago he heard adults talking and, Daehyun being the little child he is, decided that he could get help from that source of noise. Some few minutes of walking later—sure enough—he came upon great double doors of polished red oak doors. In common manners, the most logical thing to do is to knock—but since, as a child, Daehyun lacks logical sense—he pushed the doors open without paying any thought to why the voices were shouting, and why one of them sounded like the funny Chanyeol man he met just yesterday.

Daehyun was met with a round office. Like his father’s own office at home, everything was mostly tucked away neatly behind cabinets and drawers. A few paces away from the desk however was another door, and a woman’s figure could be seen shouting from the door that was slightly ajar, pointing and jabbing at an invisible Chanyeol man, his presence only indicated by a slumber-heavy voice.

“You’re an idiot. Absolutely horrific. I still can’t believe father let you take over the family business.”

“I wasss… drunk, jeez… Listen, I have this absolutely horrible hangover, leave me alone…”

“No, Chanyeol, I’m not relenting this time. I know you’ve always been stupid, but I’m just at a loss of words on how much of an idiot you’ve been. I can’t believe you just threw away your assets like th—”

Daehyun, not watching his steps, knocked over a huge vase that stood on the floor, watching it shatter into pieces before his eyes. The woman immediately stopped speaking and she froze, widening the door behind her, bewildered at the presence of a child possibly eavesdropping on their conversation.

Silence ensued from all parties.

The instinct to say “sorry” is already far-instilled in Daehyun’s system—bless his father’s upbringing—but somehow the situation was too awkward to say anything. There was this woman staring at him in evident shock, and his supposed “other” father was stark bare in his bed, his lower half fortunately concealed by a layer of blankets. Now Daehyun has never seen two adults in this situation before, so his eyes swivelled back and forth to his other father and the woman, the words stuck like a fishbone in his throat.

“Yura,” Chanyeol addressed the woman after a long period of silence, clearing his throat, consciously pulling up the blanket higher as he gestured to Daehyun broadly with his other hand, “This is… Daehyun.”

The woman looked at Daehyun, and the bewilderment in her face slowly dissipated. She seemed pleasant and dressed rather intelligently; she looked like one of those company secretaries that appear in the k-dramas that Myungsoo watched. She’s a spitting image of Chanyeol—except a woman, and far more superior—and an aura of diligence waved about her, unlike the other man in the room.

“Oh, my,” Yura held up a hand to her chest, as if pleasantly surprised. She seemed an articulate woman, but even then she was at a loss of words, “Well—hello, Daehyun.”

Daehyun, still too stunned at the knocked-over vase, croaked back a small hello, wringing Mr. Lee around one hand.

“Don’t worry about the vase, I’ll get someone to fix it up,” she said softly, carefully stepping over the shattered pieces. She shot a sharp glance at Chanyeol, her voice hardening, “And you. Get dressed. I’ve arranged a schedule for you today.”

She closed the door behind her, gently guiding Daehyun away from the broken vase and out of the office. She bent down a little to get to his eye level.

“My name is Yura,” she offered her hand, “I don’t think you remember me, do you? You didn’t see me a lot when you were here. I’m Chanyeol’s sister.”

“Like an aunt?”

“Yeah—precisely an aunt,” she smiled. Daehyun positively decided that she liked Yura and would place her higher in the ‘adults to trust’ list. Also, she smelled nice, if anything.

“Why were you shouting at…” Daehyun began, pausing, unsure of how to refer to his other father, “Um, you know…”

“He’s a bit stupid sometimes. More times than is needed,” she rolled her eyes, “No wonder Ba—no wonder your father divorced him.”

“You know my dad?” Daehyun said in awe, rather amazed that his father knew such a cool woman. She gave him a little chuckle.

“Yes, of course. He used to live here. You all did. Sometimes we call each other just to talk about how silly Chanyeol is being,” she humoured, and Daehyun erupted in giggles. Maybe he could ask Daddy if she could take part in ‘He’s Gone Day’. Daehyun thought she’d like it very much.

“Your father called me to arrange your stay here, actually. He knew Chanyeol won’t even remember that you’d all be coming here,” she sighed, straightening up, “Come along. Have you had breakfast? I’m sure you’re hungry.”

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Yura had gathered them all—including Chanyeol—at the breakfast table. Clearly, the rich had different customs when it came to eating, because everything was cooked and specially prepared at the table in silver platters, carried by the butler. Yura had somehow managed to convince Myungsoo to come down to the table and eat a lot more than just a bowl of cereal; as expected, he sat as far away from Chanyeol as possible, side-eyeing him glaringly.

Chanyeol was hunkered down at one end—clearly having an unpleasant hangover, by his groggy voice. Daehyun knew he was supposed to steer clear from this man, but this funny Chanyeol guy simply had some sort of charisma that was hard to turn down. He had this astonishing jet-black hair, and facial structures that were clearly greater than Myungsoo’s. His eyes were a cool brown colour, and if Daehyun’s father hadn’t badmouthed him so much, Daehyun might’ve been more inclined to like him.

Chanyeol’s currently bent over a bowl of soup (and now clothed decently), looking as if he’s trying to hold in his annoyance. Yura was hawking over him, trying to patiently spell out his schedule for the day. Myungsoo said aloud, at one point, “being an asswipe’s secretary must balls”, and that had made Chanyeol’s eyes slant in irritation. Daehyun really wasn’t sure what to make of the situation, so he quietly ate the pile of waffles he picked out, trying to focus