”...And I made this one with my Nana's help, but I did most of it myself,” Jungah says as she holds up yet another perfectly crafted crane. 

Sehun nods, the smile never leaving his face. ”It’s just as pretty as the others,” he commends before Jungah goes on to place it in the ever growing pile of origami animals by their feet.

Jungah takes a bite out of her strawberry mochi, only humming when Jongin tells her off for eating too much sugar before lunch. ”Dad bought me this origami book, but I left it on Nana’s living room table,” she mutters, drumming her fingers on the floor.

Jongin continues to stir the pot on the stove while Jungah goes on to ask Sehun if he’s any good at folding origami cats. He's still glad that Jungah requested he make her favorite dish of kimchi spaghetti, given his inability to cook anything else. Even with his headache long gone, there's still a lingering heaviness in his chest that has Jongin wanting to bash his head against the wall in irritation.

From her spot on the floor, Jungah says something about how one of her male Rilakkuma plushies sort of looks like Sehun, to which Sehun responds with something that’s drowned out by the alarm going off. Frankly, Jongin sort of gave up making awkward interjections when it became clear that Jungah was wholly invested in knowing out everything Sehun, everything from his middle name to his favorite lip gloss color. Jongin isn’t sure if it’s because Jungah has hardly been at home lately, but he doesn’t think that she has ever been this talkative around somebody she hardly knows. He figures that he’s got Sehun’s magic people skills to thank for that. Or Jungah truly is maturing faster than he can keep up with. He doesn’t know which one scares him the most.

It’s not until Jungah complains about a ’loud, annoying sound’ that Jongin realizes he’s missed the alarm by thirty seconds. He nearly sprains his wrist turning it off while making sure that the sauce in the pan hasn’t burned. Thankfully, it hasn’t, and he hopes that it tastes as good as it looks before placing it on the table.

Jungah is in her seat less than five seconds later. She reaches for the large bowl of pasta, only to halt when Jongin sends her a look.

”Guests first, you know that,” Jongin says, fighting the urge to fetch himself an Advil when his head suddenly spins.

After apologizing to Sehun, who only assures her that it’s perfectly fine, Jungah reaches across the table and picks up Sehun’s plate. Jongin is torn between laughing and crying when he sees that Sehun looks like a patient puppy waiting for his food, all while Jungah goes on to pile way too much kimchi spaghetti on his plate. 

It’s not until Jongin has to intervene that Jungah hands Sehun his plate back. ”Dad said that tall people eat a lot because they’re tall, so that’s why,” she says with a grin. 

Sehun adjusts his tie. ”Well, he’s not wrong,” he says and winks at Jongin, who looks like he wants to sink through the floor in embarrassment.

Inevitably, Jungah goes on to bombard Sehun with more questions about his personal life. To Jongin’s surprise (and relief), Sehun doesn’t seem to mind Jungah asking him if he’s ever had morning sickness before, and he opts to wordlessly chew his food as he tries ignoring his vertigo. 

In a sense, Jongin is glad that none of them seem to be trying to communicate with him, because he’s too busy worrying about what possibly went down last night. He’s almost certain that he’s overthinking things like always, since he’s never had a history of blabbering his thoughts while intoxicated (which he knows Junmyeon would get behind). The fact that Sehun is still acting so annoyingly polite is doing nothing to calm Jongin’s nerves, and he has to force himself to snap out of it when he accidentally bites down on his tongue.

Jongin zones back in when Jungah concludes her five minute story about the one time she got an A+ on one of her math quizzes. Even though he knows that she’s still a child, there’s something strikingly mature about the way she moves as she gestures everywhere. It terrifies Jongin to the point that he has to reminisce Jungah’s one year-old self flailing her chubby arms around and squealing in her high chair to calm himself down.

”Nana showed me a lot of pictures yesterday,” Jungah says, twirling her fork around. She reaches into her pocket and retrieves her Hello Kitty camera. ”They’re of you, by the way,” she adds and pokes Jongin’s arm.

Jongin fights the urge to say that he already knew, but he forgets about it when a photo appears on the screen. Now, Jongin is thankful that Jungah’s portable camera isn’t on the high end of the quality spectrum, because he’d rather not have to see his five year old self sporting a Santa bubble beard in full resolution. It’s not until Jungah goes on to show Sehun, who is clearly trying his best to remain polite as he chuckles, that Jongin wants to crawl under the table and hide.

”I tried doing this, but it just got into my eyes, instead,” Jungah huffs and giggles at the next photo. ”Nana said she went to the toilet and saw you like this when she came back.”

”How about we finish eating, instead,” Jongin mutters after unsuccessfully trying to take her camera away. He doesn’t even have to look at the screen to know what Jungah and Sehun are giggling at. In fact, Jongin didn’t even know that his mother chose to keep the photo she took of him stuffing his face with what used to be a freshly baked chocolate cake meant for one of her friends. He tries not to think about how much he cried when she went on to yell at him afterwards.

Sehun crosses his long legs. ”Can’t say I didn’t do the same thing when I was your age, with finger paint, that is,” he chuckles.

Jongin nearly screams. Although he knows that Sehun is just trying to make him feel better, it does little to help, especially when Jungah shamelessly goes on to tell them everything her grandmother told her during their photo reviewing session. However, Jongin has to pull the brake when she goes on to spill his deepest, darkest secret of wetting the bed up until he was seven years old. He seriously questions a mothers ability to find embarrassing baby photos of their children funny or adorable.

Thankfully, Sehun doesn’t look all too scarred as he continues eating. ”Did Sales send their statistics reports yet?” he asks.

Jongin blinks at the sudden subject change. His head is spinning so much that he can barely think straight, but he ends up nodding, anyway. ”I think so???” he responds. ”They should’ve, but I think Minseok said something about handling them, so you could ask him if you want.”

Jungah gets off her chair and skips towards the windowsill. ”Stop talking about boring stuff,” she sighs before grabbing the two clay sculptures and placing them in front of Sehun, all while ignoring Jongin telling her to let Sehun eat his food in peace. ”Which one’s your favorite?” she squees.

Jongin only watches as Sehun puts his fork down and inspects the two figures before him. A spark of guilt ignites in his chest when he realizes that he’s been so busy lately that he’s hardly gotten a chance to look at them properly. He's just glad that Jungah hasn't questioned it.

Sehun hums to himself as his eyes flicker back and forth between the two clay cats. ”I like the blue one,” he says after a moment and points to the slightly larger cat.

”Because you’re a boy, right?” Jungah giggles.

Wiping his mouth with a napkin, Sehun shakes his head. ”I like it because it looks happy,” he responds, gesturing at the exaggerated smiley face on said cat. ”Which one’s your favorite?”

Jungah beams. ”I like that one, too!” she says while petting the smaller, paper white cat. It’s not until Jongin takes a closer look that he notices that it has no face at all. It almost looks unfinished next to the larger cat, which is decorated to the high heavens with pink glitter glue and other details. 

Surely enough, Sehun is also eyeing the faceless cat with a wondrous expression. ”Is this one supposed to be a ghost?” he asks with a light chuckle.

Jungah shakes her head and pats to the blue cat's head. ”This one’s Dad,” she says and points at Jongin, who blinks. 

Jongin tries ignoring Sehun's indiscreet smirk. ”Why am I pink, though?” he blurts out in genuine bewilderment. "I mean, what's with all the glitter?"

”Because your face is sometimes pink when you come to Nana’s house,” Jungah says, poking her own cheeks. She turns to Sehun. ”Sometimes when he comes and picks me up, his face is pink and his eyes look weird, like this—” She goes on to cross her eyes with an amused laugh.

Sehun is silent for a minute before he runs a hand through his hair. ”That’s what a hard day at work does to people,” he says and there’s something about the way Jongin averts his gaze that makes the hair on the back of Sehun's neck stand up.

”But sometimes he smells weird, like a chimney,” Jungah whines, wrinkling her nose in distaste. ”It makes the car smell, too,” she adds while petting the two sculptures on the head. ”One time, he smelled weird when we were in the car driving to Nana’s and he nearly crashed into a-”

”What’s this one supposed to be?” Sehun quickly says, and Jongin looks like he's about to pass out from relief. ”This white one, that is. You said it wasn’t a ghost, so what is it?”

Jungah grins. ”They’re married,” she squeals.

Sehun raises an eyebrow in surprise. ”I take it that your father isn’t married to a ghost, then?” he chuckles. "I'm assuming it's your mother?"

Jungah shakes her head. ”It’s not a ghost, and I don't have a mother." A proud grin erupts on her face. "It’s ’the other one’,” she says, to which Sehun raises a curious eyebrow.

They fall into silence for a moment. It takes everything in Jongin’s power not to storm out of the house when it suddenly feels like he’s been hit by a freight train. Across the table, something flashes in Sehun’s eyes but it disappears as soon as Jungah opens to speak.

Thankfully, Jongin manages to croak out the words in time. ”Finish your food, honey,” he hurriedly says and gestures at her empty chair.

”I’m already finished,” Jungah retorts, seemingly more eager to tell her story than to finish the mountain of kimchi spaghetti still on her plate. ”It’s-”

”Jungah,” Jongin says with perhaps a little more bite than necessary. "Sit back down right this instant-"

”’The other one’ doesn’t have a name, so I created one myself,” Jungah interrupts while facing Sehun. ”He’s somebody that-”

”Jungah,” Jongin growls, ignoring the stirring in his gut, ”I'm serious, that’s enough already.”

”But why can’t I tell Sehunnie?” Jungah retorts and crosses her frail arms over her chest. ”You know I’m not lying!”

”That’s not the problem,” Jongin says. ”I just don’t want-”

”But you said it,” Jungah huffs. ”You said there was somebody you liked and made you happy, but you were sad ’cause he broke your—” She immediately goes silent when Jongin threatens to send her to her room for the rest of the evening, before she sits back down with a frustrated huff.

Sehun picks up his fork to avoid sitting motionless like a statue. He doesn’t blame himself for being unable to finish everything Jungah served him, which roughly equates to a third of the whole food bowl, but he forces himself to shove it all down of it to avoid basking in the silence. Next to his glass, the two sculptures stare back at him. Even though the white cat is missing its face, Sehun can practically feel its gaze burning holes in his head.

To say that Sehun regrets popping the question in the first place would be an understatement, and he almost feels obligated to mend the conversation back together when Jongin runs a hand down his face. Despite the words on his tongue, Sehun swallows them all as he watches Jungah poke at her food with a frown so sullen that he fights an impulse to walk over and embrace her.

Sehun is physically aching to give Jungah some sort of explanation when she grumbles something about how Jongin is always in such a terrible mood lately. On the other hand, Sehun doesn’t know how, because how does one even begin to tell a nine year old girl that what she’s been picking up on is her own father willfully drinking himself half to death??? Sehun knows that he has no place in it, anyway, so he opts to compliment the food just to lighten the mood.

Thankfully, Jungah’s eyes twinkle after she looks up. ”It’s my favorite thing ever,” she says and looks at Jongin. ”Dad said he felt an urge to eat it all the time when I was in his belly.” She pokes Jongin’s stomach, to which Jongin responds with a small smile.

Sehun tries to pretend like he doesn't notice Jongin clearing his throat in embarrassment. He doesn’t know how he managed to forget, but he clearly recalls Jongin falling off the face of the planet at some point after landing the job. Sehun figures he should have known, given Jongin’s heightened sensitivity to their boss' voice during meetings and the doubled size of his lunches, but he gradually dismissed it since they never ran into each other. Not to mention that it sort of felt like nobody even wanted to entertain the idea of the eighteen year old rookie in the production team being pregnant, anyway.

”Did you know that when people are gonna have kids, they vomit easily?” Jungah asks. ”I vomit a lot when I have the flu, and I hate it, so I don’t know if I want to have kids when I grow up,” she adds with a grimace. ”Nana said that Dad vomited during a family dinner six months before I was-”

”Jungah, that’s enough,” Jongin groans, burying his face in his hands. He looks like he wants to crawl underneath the table and disappear, and Sehun doesn’t exactly blame him. ”For God's sake, people don’t want to hear that stuff.”

”But what if Sehun wants to hear it?” Jungah scoffs, fiddling with the straps on her camera. 

”Jungah, we don’t talk about that kind of stuff at the table, especially with guests around, do you understand?” Jongin says in a tone so sharp that it almost doesn't suit his pretty features. ”If you’re finished, you're free to leave the table, but don't forget to wash your plate.”

It’s not until Jungah pouts that Sehun realizes just how much she resembles Jongin. In fact, he never noticed that she’s essentially a tiny, female version of Jongin with her tendency to pout whenever she’s feeling annoyed and always wanting to get the last word. It makes Sehun’s chest flutter just thinking about it.

The other one.

Sehun recognized the words as soon as he heard them, and while it turned out that Jungah wasn’t, in fact, Jongin’s ex like he initially worried, Sehun would be lying if he said that it didn’t spike his curiosity to no end. But he knows better than to act upon his urges, because even though asking Jongin about some girl he used to date is harmless enough (at least to him), they’re just colleagues, after all.

One thought leads to another, and Sehun soon finds himself reminiscing the anxious spark that flickered in Jongin’s eyes the moment the words fell from Jungah’s mouth. Sehun mentally slaps himself for getting so hung up on something so unimportant, especially when Jungah cuddles up next to Jongin while flipping through every single one of his baby photos. Although Jongin legitimately looks like he wants to die from embarrassment, the sight briefly makes Sehun’s heart skip a beat. 

It’s not until Jungah complains about Jongin smelling weird again that she gets up and brings her plate to the sink. She has to stand on her tip toes to turn on the faucet, which nearly has Sehun screaming in adoration. Across the table, Jongin is muttering things to himself, which Sehun takes as his cue to leave so that the two of them can enjoy the rest of their evening together.

Jungah, being her observant self, quickly notices Sehun getting out of his chair and moving towards the hallway. ”You’re leaving?” she asks with yet another pout.

Sehun clears his throat when Jongin turns around and sends him a look. ”I mean, I was…unless you’re alright with—” 

Sehun doesn’t get to finish before Jungah drags him towards the sink and shoves a sponge and a dirty plate in his hands. Jongin immediately tells her off for being pushy, to which Sehun responds by assuring them that it’s no problem. He tries not to show his disdain over his suit becoming soaked, but he forgets about asking for an apron when Jungah accidentally squirts water right in Jongin’s face.

Sehun isn’t sure if Jungah is simply following the unspoken rule of acting extra prestigious whenever guests are present, but he finds himself admiring the way she scrubs each plate and glass before carefully placing them on the drying rack. If it wasn’t for Jongin telling him, Sehun would never have guessed that Jungah hadn’t even turned ten yet. Frankly, Sehun is just relieved that Jongin’s drinking habits don’t seem to have affected how he raised her, or how she turned out in the long run. But, a part of him knows that he probably shouldn't hold his breath.

Jungah tightens her ponytail. She seemingly ignores Jongin’s squawk of protest when she wraps her arms around his torso with soaking hands. ”Dad sometimes says he’s lonely, so we should play a game after lunch," she giggles.

Sehun automatically looks at Jongin, who has given up freeing himself from her iron grip. ”That doesn’t sound too good," he says. 

Jungah shakes her head. ”A couple of days ago, I was doing my maths in my room, and when Dad came home at night, he was sad and crying,” she says and Sehun finds it difficult not to frown when her eyebrows knit together with worry.

Sehun has no idea what to say, so he resumes washing his plate, which is beyond spotless by now. ”I see,” he says after a moment of silence.

Ignoring Jongin telling her to go upstairs, Jungah takes a step back. ”I went down here to look, and it smelled really weird when he came home,” she adds. ”It was really dark so I couldn’t see much, but I saw him moving weirdly, like this—” She proceeds to spin around in circles while occasionally throwing herself on the floor.  

Sehun can only watch as Jungah casually gets up before brushing herself off. So he does do this regularly. Even though it’s not his place in the slightest, Sehun sort of wishes that Jungah would go up to her room just so that he could spend a few seconds alone with Jongin. Not that he knows what he would say in that case, but the mere thought of Jongin having the audacity to stumble home not only too drunk to walk in a straight line, but with his little girl upstairs, makes Sehun grip his plate so tightly that it nearly shatters in his hand. 

Now that Sehun thinks about it, he’s probably close to being evicted, anyway, if the silence on Jongin’s part is anything to go by. Jungah, on the other hand, doesn't seem to mind as she hums the tune to a childish bop. Sehun has to distract himself when he goes on to think about just how terrified she must have been of Jongin tripping over himself in a drunken haze in the middle of the night. He suddenly thinks of Jungah’s bedroom and how eerily vacant it looked. Sehun can’t help but wonder if Jongin deliberately chooses to dump her at his mother’s house to make room for his late night drinking or if Jungah has resorted to staying with her grandmother for the sole purpose of escaping Jongin’s antics. Both of them sadden Sehun to the point that he almost craves a drink himself.  

It’s not until Jungah says something about wanting to show Sehun her gigantic Rilakkuma collection that Sehun snaps out of his trance. It takes him a minute to register that he’s still holding onto his plate, which is definitely spotless at this point. 

Jungah removes her apron before gesturing at the stairs. ”I have one that’s even taller than you!” she says and tugs on Sehun’s sleeve. ”Come see it, okay???”

Sehun can’t help but chuckle. He knows that if there was a Rilakkuma doll standing over six feet, he definitely would have noticed it. ”I will, I promise,” he says, ruffling her black hair. ”But right now I want to talk to your father, if that’s alright.”

Pouting in mild disappointment, Jungah puts her hands on her hips. ”Fine, but how come?”

Sehun is silent for a minute before he sends her a wink. ”It’s a secret.”

Jongin, who hasn’t said a word in what feels like forever, runs a damp hand through his hair. ”You heard Sehun,” he says, voice practically a whisper. ”And I know you have a math quiz on Monday, so you better study if you want the top score again.”

Jungah huffs something along the lines of ’Okay, fine’, before she fetches her backpack from the hallway and rushes up the stairs two at a time. A door closes on the second floor before the whole house is plunged into silence again.