Chapter 9:

Joy was positively beaming as a young girl, well, a younger girl than her, toddled her way right to Joy who was crouched over a flower bed.

“Ah, ah, ah,” Joy intoned with a smile as the girl reached to pluck a flower. “You might hurt the little flower,” Joy said once the girl looked up at her from her position poised to take the flower.

“Flower.” The adorable little girl withdrew her hand and Joy clapped encouragingly for her choice.

“Yes. You don’t want to hurt flower, right?”

The girl gave a hesitant nod before crouching down next to Joy who showed her the pictures she was taking. “Which one do you like? I need to pick one.” The girl looked over her shoulder as another child screeched in the distance before Joy’s phone had her attention. Joy, who had been swiping through the pictures, also looked behind her. “Oh? Are you looking for your mama or papa?” Joy stood up to her full height. “I should take you to your mama and papa, right?”

The young girl pointed at the flowers. “Pretty.”

Joy nodded with a bright smile. “It is a pretty flower.” She turned around to see if there was an adult looking for a child or at least somewhere within vicinity to be watching for the girl. At that moment, Joy spotted a woman swiveling her head left and right. Joy started waving at the woman who then noticed Joy.

The girl was still eyeing a flower and Joy pointed down at her. Instant recognition was visible in the mother’s eyes as she immediately made her way over. Joy resumed her crouching and tried to get the young girl’s attention. “Baby? Your mama is coming over now.”

The girl seemed to understand her and stood up. Joy dusted off the girl’s jacket fondly. “Were you looking for a flower to take to your mama?” Joy asked the girl. The girl stared straight into Joy’s eyes and there was an ache in Joy’s chest. “That’s a wonderful thing to do for your mama but you shouldn’t wander off like that, okay? You might scare your mama.”

“Jieun?” the mother called for her daughter and Joy smiled and waved goodbye at the girl whose eyes brightened at the sight of the woman. The girl toddled her way over to her mother without a backwards glance at Joy. With a polite smile, the woman picked up her daughter and left. Joy was only happy to see the young girl was not lost and turned away as well.

She then sighed before pulling out her phone again to preview the pictures she’d taken before her sudden encounter with the precious girl. She went too far in her swiping and it brought up a picture of a cute dog that she had snuck that the first night she arrived at this park. The first dog she met here was such a happy moment for her and that enjoyment increased but was soon lost when Joy came back again after her lunch with Yeri, Seulgi and Wendy only to find that the dog had been taken out of the play pen and was gone.

Yeri got after her for moping around the apartment until Joohyun arrived home. Joohyun patted Joy’s head for her sadness and Joy felt a lot better afterwards. She took the older girl’s words to heart. ‘It’s fine Sooyoung. The dog is back with its owner and who knows, you might see it again happily playing with the owner. You know you shouldn’t get too attached to things that are not solely yours.’

Joy nodded to herself as she settled on a decent picture of the flower bed. She could easily change it later when she found a better sight. Just as she was changing her wallpaper, a text came in from her little half-sister. ‘Where’s my scarf?’

Joy regained her smile and texted back. And just like that, Joy was not so melancholy.

Chapter 10:

Seulgi smiled down at her phone, a common occurrence these days especially when one had to consider the funny picture Yeri shared in the group chat. It was a photo of Joy in the very familiar reaction of her being surprised. Her hands were up in that gesture with her eyes clenched tight and Seulgi could easily imagine Yeri’s laughter behind the photo of Joy getting scared.

She was oblivious to the attention she was getting from a guy seated not too far from her table. The cafeteria was an interactive place full of communications and so it was acceptable for the girl to be clueless of the sneaky glances shot her way. When Wendy joined her, those looks stopped for fear of being caught. But luckily for this person, Seungkwan could be as oblivious as her roommate and so he snuck one last glance with no consequence.

“What is it?” Wendy asked her as she placed her tray across her.

“Sooyoung’s photo.”

Wendy instantly smiled with a light chuckle as she separated her chopsticks. “Ahh, of course. Yerim got a good picture of a scared Sooyoung.”

Seulgi placed her phone down by her tray. “Do you know what scared her?”

Wendy shrugged. “You’ll have to ask Yerim. But I’ll guess and say a cat.”

Seulgi’s smile got brighter. “Or a bug.”

Opposite of her, Seungkwan shook her head. “Nope. If it was a bug, Yeri would have ran away and not taken such a clear picture.” Her reasoning resonated with her friend who slowly nodded.

“You’re right.”

The two smiled at each other before went on eating.

It was about five minutes later did both of their phones chime and brighten with a new message.

They both opened the message and read its contents. Instantly, they caught the other’s eye and laughed.

This time, in the group chat, it was a picture of Yeri sleeping on a park bench completely relaxed. The killing point being the young children walking right by her on some sort of school trip. Joy’s message being simple: payback.