October 11th.

"Infi, we're ready, baby~! Come to Daddy~!" Woohyun shouted with delight as he danced around their small yet beautifully crafted marble dining room table. While waving a big spoon around as if it were some sort of wand. Yet there was no music, if not for only the songs stuck in his head. 

Alerting his little princes to magically come zooming in, exasperatingly shouting, "Finally!?" while shoving a pink plastic machete straight up into the air. "Yes, I'm ready to cut out the baby!"

When *shhoopp* Gyu snatched the toy instantly out of her hand, just as she crossed the threshold into the dining room - purely out of instinct. Like seriously, he didn't even look up from his smartphone while leaning back against the wall. He just knew, Appa's intuition. Because when does his daughter not try to cause mischief and mayhem?

Bewildering said-child, "Ai--What the--? Appa, give that back!"

"No," Gyu replied as he sternly looked down at her. Before, giving her a thin red sharpie marker in its place instead because "Your job is to draw the face. Not carve up its corpse."

"Awww.." Infi pouted. While Gyu just shook his head, amused, before returning to his SNS feed. All the while, leaving both unaware of the uneasiness that'd slowly crept across Woohyun's face. Sad that Gyu'd, yet, once again rudely interrupted Infi's play, but also because...well... He'd just realized how much of a teachable moment this could be. So he kept his mouth shut...

Who knew pumpkin carving for Halloween could be this exciting?

*****

Ten minutes later, after leaving Infi alone to her artistic leisure. 

Seeing as Gyu'd mindlessly excused himself to make a short phonecall, and thereafter Woohyun'd made up some bullcrap about needing to crap. Just to spite him.

Gyu'd returned to the impact of his glorious parenting decision to give his 4-year-old a permanent marker, "What the--!!?? Woohyun!"

"Tch heehee," said-man giggled quietly before hurridly yet at the same time knowingly walking back into the dining room. To see just how wildly their little heathen had scribbled all over the walls, the floor, their marbled table, and their expensive chairs... Before cockily teasing him, "Well, Hyung...what did you think was going to happen?"

"Well..?" Gyu irritatedly scoffed at his husband's less-than-shocked response, "Obviously, the lesser of two evils. Not that she'd destroy our nicely polished table! She was waving around a weapon before this!"

Woohyun snickered, "Yep, a plastic one, that couldn't even puncture a pumpkin. But, you're the one who gave her a permanent marker instead. AKA a deadly weapon."

Gyu glared at him, "...And you didn't stop me why? Or, you know, keep an eye on her?" 

To which Woohyun just nonchalantly shrugged, "Figured you needed to learn from your bad parenting choices too. It's not just me, you know~. And~ because you're always nagging the life out of me for letting Infi, well: eat a whole handful of sweets before lunch, build elaborate forts in the living room, rip up her dastardly top secret journals, scream 'death to all walruses' at the top of her lungs in public, dress-up like a insane asylum escapee (with colorful makeup) that one time that we took her to the carnival. Or, you know, when I allowed her to disguise herself as Chucky [the horror movie doll] when we went to the history museum. Stay up late to save the endangered orphaned octopi~. Oh, and hang the evil overlord of the giraffes by singing the songs of our people at 4 AM. So~ yeah! Good parenting skills today, honey. Your decisions have foul consequences. .. Unlike mine." 

"...I will hit you..."

"Yeah, but you won't nag me now, will you? Teehee."

5 seconds later.

Still fuming, Gyu reluctantly looked down at the one thing that Infi was actually supposed to draw on. Spotting the face that she'd chosen to draw on the now despicable pumpkin. Only to instantly send death glares her way, "Why you little--?"

While Woohyun did his best to suppress another giggle. Because, oh~ it was all so worth it. Everything was totally worth it now~. Even Gyu's spite, that'd he hold onto for years to come, "Hahaha.."

As if it wasn't enough that'd Infi'd gone rouge with the sharpie, which was still clutched tightly between her two tiny little hands. She'd been ingenious enough to draw the simplest, dumbest, looking face possible to buy enough time for her deliquesce. It's crooked mouth wide open with two gigantic buck (hamster) teeth hanging down, a exaggerated long pointy nose... And two purposefully crafted eyes. And by purposefully I mean, two straight lines.

In short, she'd drawn Appa. 

And, God, Woohyun couldn't hold it back anymore as he fell to the floor, "Uwaaaahahahahaha!! But, Hyung, don't be mad! You never specified whose face she had to draw on it~ Teeheeheehee!" Until he inevitably had to get up (because of how bad he felt for laughing so hard) to pat his husband on the back, "Now, now, you should take it as a compliment." 

"Ya!? This is a compliment!?" Gyu snapped right then while lifting the pumpkin up to shove it in front of Woohyun's face, "A compliment!? It looks racist! Or--or like some inbred hillbilly! It doesn't really look like me, does it!?"

"You're the one who implied that~."

"Why you--? Ya, Nam Woohyun, do you really think this looks like me!? Do you!?"

"Ne~, but it's cute! Right, Infi?" Woohyun'd flat-out ignored his husband - to encourage this behavior. "Now draw Daddy too. There are two more pumpkins in the other room! We can make a whole pumpkin family! Would you like that Sweety?"

"Ne!" Infi squealed with joy.

Leaving Gyu just dumbfounded, "So it is me then..? ..Are--Are you--. Woohyun--Are you really going to let her get away with this...?"

"Oh, come on, Hyung," the younger male simply rolled his eyes at this point, "It's not racist, she just wanted to draw something funny, and thought of you. It's actually more like a caricature, really."

"I don't look like that!"

"No, you don't~. Not really. But in her eyes her you do, heehee. But, come on, Infi's art skills are amazing aren't they, Hyung~?" Woohyun instantly changed the subject, once again with only admiration for his beloved baby girl. "I mean, look, she got all of your striking features right. And, I think, if you look close enough you can really see the essence of Halloween perfectly. We have a little Michael Angelo~!"

"..."

Meanwhile, Infi'd already busied herself doodling on the second pumpkin that Woohyun'd been hiding in the cupboard. This time drawing Daddy's face - which goes without saying - literally included hearts for eyes. 

As Gyu reluctantly took his punishment and just sat down. Wistlessly staring at his poor table as he calculated how much it'd cost to clean everything. Or if it was even worth cleaning at all... "...Great, so I'm a crackhead-looking monster, and we really are just ignoring the fact that our dining room is destroyed...I'm canceling Halloween..."

"What! Hyung, you can't do that." 

"Yes, I can."

"No, you can't. It's a national holiday." 

"Predominantly in the West." 

"S-So? That doesn't mean that we can't celebrate it in South Korea. We promised Infi that we'd celebrate Halloween, so we're celebrating Halloween. I'm not backing down."

"Woohyun, we promise her a lot of things," Gyu snarked back, "Do you really think she's keeping track. She's four, she'll forget soon anyway."

"...Says you... Yo-You--Only because you didn't see what was in her top-secret journals!"

...Gyu stared back at his husband in disbelief and just sighed, "Really? Those again? Was it incoherent scribbles, because I'm willing to bet that it was all incoherent scribbles."

"Nu-uh! There was some top-class information in there! I saw it! I swear it! Right, Infi!? You wrote down all of Appa's dirty secrets in there, didn't you!? Didn't you!?"

"Neee~" Infi replied with a playful gleam in her eyes, "and Appa's in trouble~. I sent it all to my friends in Atlantis, so they know. They know all~~~~. And Appa's in a lot of trouble with the merpeople."

"Tch!" Ok that was enough pretending to listen to this bull. Gyu rolled his eyes, "Right, right, I ticked off the merpeople. So what? Shouldn't I be more concerned about ticking off the pumpkin people, right now?"

"Uwa," Woohyun chuckled.

"You know, since I'm about to viciously gut one of them? Haha."

"Oohhoo~ so Halloween isn't canceled~?"

"No," Gyu cutely scrunched up his nose, "Not yet. I need to have my fun too." AKA, pretend to murder his stupid, childish husband for a few seconds.

"Aha, but only if you put your phone down."

Aight, maybe he will kill his husband today. The large knife is already in his hand.

++++++++++

In the USA we carve faces into pumpkins for Halloween for some reason. Woohyun thought it'd be a good way to positively channel her inner violence into something productive. Only he'd planned on it going a little differently - including the use of a metal spoon. But taunting Gyu was better.

Sidenote: It's not like Gyu's neglecting Infi in-stay of always looking at his phone. But~ he usually leaves her to Woohyun's watchful eye if/when possible. He loves his baby and his intuition tells him when to actually pay attention...most of the time. Otherwise, he's her busy, hardworking BANK.