a/n: i'm sorry for all the tears from the previous chapter :( i didn't think the angst was that bad, but i stand corrected. i desperately tried to move on from this particular au, but it seems the good ol' angst-fever has only gotten higher for me. i'm gonna go on right ahead in apologizing if this next piece will trigger more waterworks. if you aren't interested in reading more angst, i suggest you skip this one out.

i need your loving hands to come and pick me up

prequel to “i sing tonight i've fallen and i can’t get up”

***

“Seungwan, please reconsider, your work’s stressing you out.”

“We can go anywhere else. Everland. Lotte World. Just not Jeju.”

“You can’t forget about what unnie said—”

“I remember everything she’s said, Seul, don’t you dare say I’ve forgotten because, I swear to God, I haven’t forgotten the tiniest detail.”

Seohyun stirs in her bed.

She has been sleeping soundly under the covers of her velvety blanket, her new plushie, Manen, snug around her short limbs when she hears her mommy having one of her “big people talk”—talks her pre-schooler brain isn’t able to comprehend—with someone she thinks is her Auntie Seulgi. Grown ups don’t have bedtimes like she does so her mommy gets to have other grown ups over even after eight.

But her Auntie Seulgi hasn’t visited her in a while, and her mommy has taught her it is always polite to greet their visitors, but she can’t be too sure on what to do if she had been tucked into bed. Would her mommy be mad at her? She doesn’t want her mommy to be mad, not upon hearing the upsetting tone she’s using on her Auntie Seulgi.

Is Auntie Seulgi in trouble?

“I didn’t mean it like that, Wan…I know you would never forget.”

“It’s okay. Sorry for blowing up on you. It’s still too soon. She’s only three, Seul, she’ll be overwhelmed.”

“You don’t have to explain to her straightaway. You could just take her to see the hot air balloons and do the talking another time when you’re ready.”

Balloons?

Seohyun’s drowsiness dissipates at the mention of balloons. Are her mommy and Auntie Seulgi arguing about the type and color of balloon they’re buying for her? She had lots of balloons from her third birthday party last month, but they’ve popped and gone to balloon heaven. It’s what her Auntie Yerim told her.

“That’s the thing, Seul. I’m not ready. Whether it’s to explain to her or to bring her to Jeju, I’m not ready.”

“Alright. Lotte World it is then.”

A groan attracts Seohyun’s active ears, the sound not coming from her mommy or Auntie Seulgi. The source of the telltale noise of complaint comes from one of the corners of her room, and Seohyun squeezes Manen in her arms. She turns her head cautiously to the side where her toys are, which is also where a pretty lady in a purple sweater sits cross-legged on the floor, pouting.

Seohyun hasn’t met her before. Is she a friend of her mommy’s?

Why is she in her room?

“If you’re not taking her to the festival this year, at least choose Everland!” The pretty lady whines. “Seohyun’s first theme park should be at the greatest!”

Oh, are they going to a theme park?

Seohyun smiles against Manen’s big head, his super-duper large head that’s twice the size of Seohyun’s own head. Her classmates have shown her pictures of their trip to the theme park, a place she hasn’t gone to yet since her mommy is so busy treating people’s boo-boos at work. But maybe her mommy has fixed all the boo-boos in Seoul that there are no more people at the hospital.

Maybe she and Seohyun can finally play together.

“I’ll haunt you forever if you’re choosing to go to Lotte World, Son Seungwan.”

She must be her mommy’s friend. How else would she know her name?

The pretty lady’s pout deepens further, like a big letter U upside-down below her nose.

Seohyun finds the face she’s making funny, the same face she makes to her mommy whenever she has to eat those yucky vegetables. Auntie Sooyoung showed her how her pouty face looks like through a selfie. Seohyun thought it was funny, and seeing this pretty lady reenact it has got her a severe case of the giggles.

The laughter she elicits captures the pretty lady, and Seohyun closes her eyes real fast, pretends to go to sleep before the pretty lady could tell her mommy that she hasn’t been following her bedtime. Her mommy could change her mind about the theme park. Seohyun wouldn’t want that to happen.

“I don’t know what’s so funny about Manen, but you gotta go back to sleep, baby.” The pretty lady says, her voice clearer and closer than it did moments ago. It sounds prettier too. “The hot air balloons will have to wait.”

Seohyun doesn’t get why she’s speaking about balloons all of a sudden. Wasn’t she whining about theme parks? Silly pretty lady. As the pretty lady drones on about complex terms Seohyun’s toddler mind cannot grasp, she’s lulled back into her dreamland by the calming ramblings, feeling a faint cold air brush against her nose.

It tickles.

She peeks at it, finding the pretty lady’s lips pressed on her nose.

“Sweet dreams, Seohyun.”

The pretty lady has been at their apartment in the recent weeks. She’s always talking to herself, saying stuff about her mommy but not really talking to her mommy. She certainly is a weird lady. She talks to Seohyun too, doing pretty much what she does to her mommy, so Seohyun doesn’t say anything to her because if she does, the pretty lady might stop talking and Seohyun likes listening to her talk.

It doesn’t seem like she’s waiting for anyone to answer her anyway.

Her mommy doesn’t mention about the pretty lady either.

“Why did you color the walls, Seohyun?” The pretty lady asks, her body splayed beside Manen who is on his plastic chair opposite of the three year-old. She wasn’t there to see the creation of Seohyun’s artwork while her mommy did more work on her computer. Seohyun was bored and wanted to play. Did she go home?

Where does this pretty lady live?

“Didn’t Mommy Wannie tell you not to draw on the walls?”

Seohyun doesn’t reply, fixated on the task at hand. There are only two cups with her in the living room, the others buried in the toy chest in her bedroom. Her mommy is doing a thorough cleani