I stare at the toddler sitting in front of me and observe her as she curiously dips her index finger into what looks like a bowl of pudding. She immediately retracts her tiny hand from the pudding, starting to scrunch up in a pout and her eyes are starting to water as if she is going to cry. The kid probably got burned.

“No, no, no, no, don’t cry!” I whisper, more to myself than to the toddler.

She looks at me but the pout is still on her face and a tear trickles down her cheek as she cradles her tiny fist against her chest. She sniffs and opens before letting out an ear-splitting wail of agony. My eyes widen at the sound and my head immediately snaps to the kitchen where Sungyeol is now looking at the toddler with alarmed eyes.

“Yeoreum?” Sungyeol calls out as he rushes out of the kitchen and goes to the toddler’s side.

The toddler, who is probably Yeoreum, holds up her hand at Sungyeol and continues to wail.  

“What happened, Myungsoo?” Sungyeol turns to me.

I blink up at him.

“Sh-she dipped her finger in the pudding. She probably b-burned her finger?” I stupidly reply.

Sungyeol gasps and immediately takes the kid out of her high chair and starts cooing at her. I confusedly watch as he kisses her hand and promises her that it would soon get better.

“You should have stopped her from doing that, Myungsoo…” Sungyeol says, rubbing Yeoreum’s back to hush her.

“I…Why should I? I don’t even know who she is,” I blurt out.

Sungyeol sighs and plants a kiss on the kid’s head as he puts her back down on the high chair. He starts blowing onto the pudding to cool it down.

“Yeol, why do we have a kid here? Whose daughter is she?” I ask.

Yeoreum suddenly looks at me and beams, stretching out her arms towards me as she bounces on her seat.

“Pa…pa!” she calls out.

Sungyeol lets out a sigh and feeds her more of the orange pudding.

“She’s your daughter, Soo. She’s our daughter,” says Sungyeol.

I roll my eyes when Sungyeol says that.

“Yeah, right. You suddenly popped out a toddler overnight,” I say.

Sungyeol rolls his eyes back at me and continues feeding the kid.

“Seriously, Yeol, who is she?” I ask after a long moment of silent.

Sungyeol continues to ignore me, so I decide to just continue eating my breakfast. But as I eat, I can’t help but to glance at the kid named Yeoreum every once in a while only to see her having a good time being fed by Sungyeol. I narrow my eyes at her and tilt my head when I find that she has Sungyeol’s nose and lips and my eyes and hair.

Is she really our daughter?

No, it’s impossible. If we really had a daughter, I would remember seeing Sungyeol’s stomach growing bigger and bigger and bigger. Not to mention that I would have remembered holding his hand in a delivery room as he screams bloody murder at me as he gives birth. But I don’t remember anything, so Sungyeol must be pulling a prank.

I look at Sungyeol and grow even more confused when I notice that his hair is longer and darker. In addition to that, his piercings are all gone, making him look less like the troublemaker I married and more like a responsible parent. Wait, Sungyeol also looks flabbier. Well, it’s not that he looks fat or something—okay, he definitely looks stubbier but it’s not a bad thing. It’s actually adorable. I kind of like this better than the stick thin Sungyeol.  

“I know what’s going on in your mind, Myungsoo. She is our daughter and yes, I look fat. Obviously, you forgot a lot of things again. I’ll help you remember after breakfast, okay?” says Sungyeol, effectively breaking my trance.

“No, I don’t think you look fat!” I deny, waving my hands in denial.

Sungyeol chuckles and shakes his head.

“It’s okay. I know you absolutely think that I look fat but I also know you think I look adorable, so stop getting your in a bunch and just finish your breakfast,” Sungyeol says.

Yeoreum suddenly overturns her bowl of pudding and spilled it all over herself. Thank God, the puddings not hot anymore.

“Yeoreum-ah! I told you not to do that. Look at you, you’re orange!” Sungyeol scolds.

The kid snickers and looks at me as she plays with the orange puddle of food on her high chair. I suddenly feel the corners of my mouth unconsciously turning up into a smile.

~ O ~

“Myungsoo! Why are you still in bed? We are late!”

I groan when Sungyeol’s loud voice violently and rudely pulls me out of dreamland. I am so sleepy but Sungyeol continues to wake me up with his voice and now, he’s starting to shake me.

“What?! It’s Sunday!” I groan when he turns me so that I’m lying on my back.

“It’s Saturday and Yeoreum is expecting us to watch her! If we don’t get there in ten minutes, we’re going to miss her part in the play!”

I sit up and watch him rummage through my closet, occasionally throwing out pieces of clothing.

“Who’s Yeoreum?” I ask, frowning at his hunched backside.

Sungyeol turns around and looks at me with a cute pout but even before I could coo at his adorable face, his huge stomach catches my attention. I start to splutter out incoherent words as he approaches me with a set of clothes.

“I can’t believe you chose this day to forget about your family again, Soo. I know you’re confused and weirded out but please just change into these and I’ll explain in the car,” Sungyeol sighs.

“Why are you so huge, Yeol? Are you pregnant?!” I ask.

“Wow, thanks for being such a jerk idiot and calling me huge,” Sungyeol snaps.

“Yeol…what…who’s Yeoreum? Why…”

“I’ll explain in the car, Myungsoo. Please just change your clothes so we could get there on time!”

            Apparently, Sungyeol is seven months pregnant with our son. Oh, Yeoreum is our seven-year-old daughter who is now amazingly doing an interpretive dance on the stage in front of hundreds of people. I don’t have any memory of her and I’m still so confused but my heart is melting into a pile of goo because she looks like Sungyeol and I and she is stunning as she gracefully hypnotizes the crowd with her flawless moves. I look over to my husband and find him crying with a huge grin on his face.

“Our daughter is beautiful, Yeol,” I say.

Sungyeol briefly glances at me with his teary eyes before turning his attention back on Yeoreum. He rests his head on my shoulder and snuggles in closer.

“Yes, she is. I’m so proud of how she turned out so perfect. I feel like I’ve done something right despite raising her in such a messed up situation…”

I don’t know what Sungyeol is talking about but I just smile and plant a kiss on his head.

~ O ~

            Yeoreum sobs as she hugs her knees close to her body to keep her body warm. She is freezing on the doorstep of her house and she prays that her mother would arrive before she dies because of the snow. She hears something breaking inside the house and her father’s screams followed by sounds of things being thrown against walls. Yeoreum checks her phone if there are any messages from her mother but finds a blank home screen and more tears make their way out of her eyes.

“Yeoreum-ah!”

Hearing her name being called, she looks up and finds a frantic Sungyeol walking towards her with a nine-year-old Myungjee trailing after him.

“Mama!” Yeoreum calls out, standing up to hug her mother.

“What’s wrong?! Are you okay? What are you doing outside? Why did you call me? What’s wrong, honey?” Sungyeol continuously asks as he tries to pry his daughter off him to check if she’s okay.

“Papa won’t let me in. He can’t remember me again and…and when I used the s-spare key to get in, h-he freaked out and y-yelled at me to get o-out. Mama, h-he’s th-throwing things inside. He m-might get hurt!” Yeoreum cries out.

“Shush, honey, it’s okay, stop crying. Let’s go inside,” Sungyeol says, smoothing out her messy hair to comfort her.

When Yeoreum is finally calm enough, Sungyeol pulls his children close to him as he unlocks their front door. As soon as the door opens, Myungsoo stops throwing the picture frames on the wall and stares at the three of them.

“Myungsoo…” Sungyeol calls out.

“Sungyeol…what’s happening?! Who are they?! What’s with these pictures?!” Myungsoo cries out.

“Yeoreum, take Myungjee to your room and stay there for a while,” Sungyeol instructs.

Once their children are in their room, Sungyeol approaches Myungsoo who is now crying on the floor in the midst of all the broken picture frames and vases. He squats in front of his husband and observes his crying face.

“Myungsoo, your wounds need to be dressed,” Sungyeol says when he notices his husband’s bleeding cuts.

He wordlessly pulls Myungsoo up and leads him into the kitchen. Myungsoo silently stares as Sungyeol gets the first aid kid and starts treating his wounds.

“It’s not nice to throw picture frames against the walls, Myungsoo,” Sungyeol says, breaking the silence.

Myungsoo continues to keep quiet and just lets himself feel Sungyeol’s calming touches.  

“That kid…Yeoreum…claimed that I’m her father and that she lives here. She tried to enter using our spare key so I shouted at her to get out and never come back,” Myungsoo starts.

“I know. She told me,” Sungyeol says.

“I don’t really recognize her but she keeps on insisting that she’s our daughter. She pointed at the pictures of her…of us on the wall. I knew that it’s her in the pictures but I can’t remember even taking those pictures…I can’t even remember meeting her or anything and I got so confused and scared and my head started to hurt,” Myungsoo recalls, a frown making its way on his already distressed face.

“So you broke the picture frames like a lunatic?” Sungyeol chuckles.

“Yeol, please. I’m so confused. I don’t know what’s going on and who’s that little boy? What’s happening? I’m so confused, please, Sungyeol…I don’t…I don’t know what to do. Why can’t I remember anything about this kid who’s claiming to be our daughter?!”

Sungyeol stops treating Myungsoo’s wounds and looks at him intently.

“She is our daughter and the little boy is our son, Myungsoo. No matter what you do, you won’t remember anything about them so please stop stressing yourself out. It’s only going to make matters worse,” Sungyeol says.

“What?” Myungsoo asks, his headache getting worse.

“They’re our children,” Sungyeol shrugs and continues to treat his wounds.

“That’s…that’s impossible.”

“It’s possible, they’re already here.”

“No, Sungyeol, the last time we went to the doctor, you weren’t pregnant. You even got depressed and we had to hire a shrink to pull you out of your emotional slump. Sungyeol—“

“That was seventeen years ago, Soo. Things have changed for the better.”

“What?! No, there’s no way that was seventeen years ago! That was just like a couple of months ago!”

Sungyeol sighs and cups Myungsoo’s face in his hands. Myungsoo looks like a lost puppy and Sungyeol just wants to kiss all of it away so that he doesn’t have to hurt anymore.

            Yeoreum and Myungjee silently stand beside Sungyeol as Myungsoo looks at them with a small smile. He knows that his children, especially Yeoreum, are still a little bit scared of him because of his sudden outburst earlier and he wishes that he did not act like that. But the damage is done and the only thing that Myungsoo could do is to apologize.

“We don’t hate you, Papa,” Yeoreum suddenly says.

“Yes, we don’t hate you, Papa!” Myungjee agrees and suddenly runs to him to hug him.

Yeoreum shortly follows her little brother in hugging Myungsoo and soon, Sungyeol joins them with a laugh.

“I’m sorry that you have to see that,” Myungsoo starts.

“It’s okay, Papa. I understand. We’ve seen worse,” Yeoreum replies, tightening her hug.

Myungsoo’s eyes suddenly widen in panic because of her statement but Sungyeol stops him from worrying further when he speaks.

“We’re your family and even though you always forget us, we understand that you don’t mean to and besides, Mama assured us that even though your mind forgets us every once in a while, your heart would always remember us,” Yeoreum says.

“They perfectly understand your condition, Myung, so don’t worry,” Sungyeol says.

“Just because they understand, it doesn’t mean that they don’t get hurt,” Myungsoo argues.

“It’s okay, Papa! We’re strong like Pororo!” Myungjee says.

Because of what Myungjee said, the whole family laughs and the mood immediately lightens up.

Author’s Notes: I don’t know what I just wrote. I am trying to get rid of my writer’s block by writing something new but I’m afraid I produced something like poop. On the other hand, can you guys guess why Myungsoo keeps on forgetting? I hope you enjoyed this despite it not being that well-written!