Part Three of the triple update! Don’t miss the previous two!!!

That night passed, with Jongin sleeping in the fashion designer’s living room couch, and Baekhyun on his own living room couch, (the latter didn’t get even a wink of sleep to be exact), and the two girls getting a quite disturbed sleep in the rooms they had been given. The next day dawned, for Jongin and Jisoo to leave Ulsan with a promise from the designer to come and meet him in his head office, and Daya leaving Baekhyun’s apartment with a hesitant thanks which he didn’t even reply with a single word.

And the next week approached, making the girls come up with various plans to reveal their secret at the faculty ball which Jongin had promised to attend as Jisoo’s partner.

“A masquerade party?” he asked, amused. “You won’t be mistaking any other guys as me would you?”

Jisoo chuckled. “As if this silver hair is common among other guys.”

“Baekhyun-ssi,” Daya had approached him during tea time in the office, making Taeyong drop four more sugar cubes in Kibum’s tea. “About the-”

Baekhyun walked straight out of the office, hoping she would follow him. Which she did in such a hurry, making the rest of the team gape at each other.

“It’s the ball.” She said hesitantly, fixing her eyes on his company ID hanging over his chest, instead of looking up to meet his eyes.

“Good luck with it. I heard from Sooyoung sunbae that you’ve attended her class.”

His icy voice made her chew harder on her lip. “Will you…come with me to the event?”

Baekhyun stared at her in disbelief. “You can’t be serious Miss Jo.”

“I’m serious Baekhyun-ssi. I’m not asking you to come and dance with me. It’s not to have fun like we have a single problem between us. There’s something important I’ve got to tell you. Can’t you please…? It’s on the day after tomorrow.”

Baekhyun pinched the bridge of his nose.

The constant headache was not leaving him these days at all.

“Won’t Jongin be coming? How can I be your partner when the whole faculty knows who you are?”

“It’s a masquerade party. No one will know who you are except me.”

Baekhyun watched her in silence.

“You will come…won’t you? Please…this is very important…for my sake, one last time…”

And in the end, nodding in agreement was all he could do.

* * *

The next night, Baekhyun was walking out of his usual dinner stop after having dinner, a local noodles restaurant near his apartment complex. And receiving a text message, he stopped at the exit.

From: Jo Daya

“It’s tomorrow, at 7 pm in the faculty auditorium. I won’t be coming to work tomorrow, so hopefully, I’d see you in the evening. And hope it won’t be hard for you to find me. I’ll text you about my attire tomorrow, so you can easily find me Baekhyun-ssi.

Hope you’ll care for me one last time.”

He swiped off the message without replying.

Because even a single text from her was enough to cause a severe headache for him.

A loud cackle of laughter from the street corner around the restaurant diverted his attention.

Under the single street lamp which lit the dark corner, a couple was standing, with the woman’s bright red hair glistening in the white light.

“I’m fed up with your apartment sweetie…how about the motel over there?”

She pointed at a building past Baekhyun, and the guy turned his head that way, revealing the obviously out-of-order between them.

He was around Baekhyun’s age obviously, dressed in a very up-to-date clubbing outfit, but the woman was quite aged, old enough to be his mother as well. Yet the hair coloring and the thick makeup layer covering her face had mostly done its job, making her look quite younger. It was her 80’s attire, the leopard printed tank top, black mini skirt and floral black stockings showed in which years her youth actually existed.

Then she pulled the youth down to her face level, grabbing by his leather jacket, and started cooing something in his ear.

Nonchalant about the situation, Baekhyun stepped out to the street, and started walking on the opposite direction.

Only to stop frozen on the empty street, suddenly registering the face he had just seen.

He whirled around, horrified and disbelieving, to look at the woman once again.

The features were too familiar to be forgotten.

The photos her had taken from an old album to his phone were exactly of the same face, the same smile he often opened up the gallery and looked at.

His granddad hadn’t been lying when he said Baekhyun had got his mother’s smile.

The young man grabbed her by the wrist and started walking in Baekhyun’s direction, didn’t stop and walked past him who stood glued to the spot, his face drained off all its blood.

His mother had just walked past him.

The face was hers, he was hundred percent sure, it was the same face from his parent’s wedding photo.

“Another guy. I wonder how long that one would last.”

Baekhyun turned around at the voice which broke his trans. It was the owner lady of the noodles shop, stepped out to close her restaurant for the day. Standing at the shop entrance, with her hands on her hips and face twisted with a disgusted scowl, she watched the couple enter the nearby motel.

“Ahjumma you- you know her?”

“Of course! Who doesn’t know her in this area? You look pretty decent…make sure that gold digger doesn’t seduce you, young man.”

He just stared at her.

“I’ve known her since she moved to Seoul. It was… more than twenty years ago. Left her husband and baby for another man, got