Day 3 - 5 AM

“Yena…”

“-then she said, ‘how dare you leave your one year old with your younger brother, how negligent, you’re a bad mother’ and I said,-”

“Yena.”

“-,’ you didn’t even feed your babies because you were afraid it’ll ruin your !’ I mean, can you believe her?!,-”

“Yena!”

On his fifth attempt on trying to get his sister’s attention away from her rant about some jerkass coworker of hers, Daniel finally succeeded, “... it’s 5 AM.” He was sitting on the ottoman in front of his sofa, blankly staring at the darkness of his living room and mindlessly listening to the occasional chirps of bird from beyond the window. Daniel really wanted to pinch the bridge of his nose to physically convey how tired he was feeling, but he found himself unable to move his body from the sheer lack of sleep he was currently suffering through.

“I know.”

From the sound of hard plastic and metal clacking around each other, and also the hard to miss echoes in her voice, it was easy for him to tell that she was getting ready for her day.

“I slept at 3 AM last night.”

“I could tell from your voice,” she snickered. And that snicker dissolved into a long exhale, which slowly morphed into a soft hum. A painfully familiar lullaby their mother would always sing to them before they went to sleep.

“Do you want me to bring the phone to Woojin?” Daniel sighed when he lost the argument he had within himself that’s been happening throughout their conversation. Of how he knew that he shouldn’t be mad at his sister for calling him at the oddest times of the day. He understood how hard it was for her to do all this, despite her apparent lack of worry.

“It’s ok. You can sing it to him yourself.”

He wanted to argue that he’s never been the singer in their family, but decided to keep it to himself, “have a good day, I’ll keep you up to date if anything happens.”

But then she said ‘don’t worry’ followed soon after with the word ‘vlog’ and Daniel started to feel that maybe his annoyance towards her was a little bit warranted.

_ _ _ _ _

Day 3 - 4 PM

Seongwoo had just finished his tutorial class and they were walking down the ‘scenic route’ at the back of their campus, heading to the nearby train stop after Daniel nagged him to do so. He felt like his had been turned into flat pancakes from how long he was sitting at the library’s sofa. At least he managed to read to Woojin three chapters of the first Harry Potter book, so it wasn’t totally a loss.

“I told you to just go in my class.” Seongwoo was of course, afraid that Woojin would somehow catch a cold, or even pneumonia, from being exposed to the harsh nature for longer than five minutes, but he was defeated in a 2-to-1 votings when both Daniel and Woojin looked at him with their pouts and rosy noses.

“And further spread the rumour of us hitching off to America to get married? Never.”

Fortunately, the afternoon was indeed far too nice that it felt wrong to nurse any sense of negative feelings. Not too sunny, not too cloudy, not too hot nor too windy. Just a perfect day for two people to walk down a paved pathway, secretly linking their hands together behind the cooling shade provided by Woojin’s pram.

Unfortunately, they were not the only one who thought so too.

Parents. Kids. Families. So many of them. Seongwoo and Daniel made one turn towards the public playground and suddenly it’s toddler land.

“Should we run?” Daniel whispered under his breath, “should we turn back? I really don’t want to socialise.”

He should’ve known that his words would fall to deaf ears, as not even five seconds have passed between his declaration of concern and Seongwoo popping open his camcorder. Off he went chasing for a ‘perfect shot’, whatever and wherever that was. He effectively left Daniel to fend for himself against an incoming horde of young mothers with all their small talks and default questions such as:

“What’s his name??” “How old is he??” “How old are you? You’re so young to be a father!” “What formula does he have he looks so healthy!”

Seongwoo definitely didn’t help when he swooped into the scene, apparently after managing to capture his perfect shot, fifteen minutes too late into the chaos and slithered his arm around Daniel’s shoulders. All done with the grace of a diving pelican.

“Someone just invited us to a play date this weekend dearie,” after he gave the exasperated Daniel a kiss on his cheek, Seongwoo turned around to give a pair of women (a pair of moms?), and their 3 year old daughter a friendly handwave and a reassuring nod. “Only if you’re okay with that, of course.”

In front of them, the mothers were somehow instantly turned into a bunch of giggling and ooh-ing and ahh-ing school children. All the while, the smile on Daniel’s lips had just started to twitch.

“Of course, love, that sounds like a really good idea.”

Ignoring that Woojin was enjoying the time of his life being the center of attention of this congregation of moms, Daniel mumbled out a few words of apologies and ‘we have to be somewhere else’s before he practically jogged away from the playground’s picnic area.

Woojin was looking very confused and slightly upset from the sudden change, his head moving from one point to the other. Not knowing if he wanted to focus on the group of people waving at him at his side, or at the sight of the colourful jungle gym right ahead of him.

Seongwoo, who was trailing a few steps behind Daniel with an amused snicker of his own, noticed Woojin’s distress and his little arm reaching out towards the playground. He was pointing at the seesaw that was adorned with a painting of a cartoon snake as he made this fizzling sound that was a clear admirable attempt at imitating a snake’s hiss.

Without warning or any other preamble, Seongwoo quickly unbuckled Woojin from his seat and they both ran away from Daniel. Both giggling, both happy, and both waiting on one end of the seesaw while Daniel’s worried shout was quickly changed into a defeated chuckle.

“15 minutes?”

Woojin’s ability to chameleon-ise his pleading technique to charm whichever party was in need of being charmed will guarantee that he’ll grow up into a dangerously charming young adult. Because he somehow knew Seongwoo was a goner for pouts, and he also somehow knew that Daniel can’t ever say no to those hopeful puppy eyes.

“Of course, of course.” For the two of you, what will I not do.

But then Daniel decided to turn the situation a little bit. A payback for what Seongwoo had done to him earlier.

“Oh my god! How heavy are the two of you?!” He said in a theatrically exaggerated way. Seongwoo rolled his eyes to Daniel who only pretended to sit on the seesaw but kept all his weight on his feet. A trick as old as time, but it still amused Woojin to no end.

“Danny you really need to work on your acting,” Seongwoo sighed when Daniel finally stopped fooling around and properly sat down at the seesaw, “it’s pretty rusty.” And as if the universe was in a secret collusion with Seongwoo, the air was suddenly filled with the sound of rust grinding against metal.

“One artsy person in the family is more than enough for me.”

“But what if Woojin wants to be an artsy person when he grows up?” Seongwoo asked the question like it could be answered by both Daniel and Woojin. Although it was Woojin’s cheek he was nuzzling his nose to, as the kid still couldn’t say anything more comprehensible that baba, mama and kaka, Daniel has to be the one who stepped in and answered it for him.

“Then I’ll accept two.”

It was as if he was referring to no one else but the three of them, to their own little family of make-believe.

It was as if he forgot Jinki existed. That poor lad.