The disagreement with Jongin from the previous day had left a bitter aftertaste in Chinsun’s mouth.Willing to swallow down her stubbornness, Chinsun had actually closed Naesae earlier than usual after putting up a sign informing any emergency visitors that she was going to be next door and went over to the Kim’s in order to smoothen the creases that had been formed between her and Jongin. To her dismay, when she arrived, she only found Jongdae dozing off behind his desk while Jongin was nowhere in sight.

Chunsun stifled a chuckle as Jongdae’s head bobbed back and forth, threatening to fall face first into the desk. Wanting to distract herself from the disappointment of Jongin’s missing presence despite her finally garnering the courage to face him, Chinsun pulled a chair over to Jongdae’s desk and sat down, hugging her legs close to her chest while resting her chin on her knees. However, as the minutes ticked by and Jongdae showed no signs of waking up, Chinsun leaned towards the sleeping male’s head and blew gently into his ear. Jongdae’s eyebrows furrowed together, feeling a tickling sensation travelling from his ear all the way down his spine. Eventually, the tickling became too annoying to ignore and he snapped his eyes open, raising his arm and ready to hit whoever was disturbing his sleep only to come face to face with an amused looking Chinsun.

“Watching me sleep?” Jongdae raised an eyebrow. “I know I’m handsome but that is not a good habit to have.”

“I was bored,” Chinsun mumbled while blowing a raspberry.

“Hmm.”

Reaching into a drawer, Jongdae pulled out a lollipop and waved it towards Chinsun as an offering. Chinsun contemplated for a moment but ultimately shook her head, not being in the mood for something sweet. Shrugging his shoulders as if to say ‘your loss’, Jongdae unwrapped the lollipop and savoured it himself.

The spirit of a child climbed out from under the desk in that moment, taking Chinsun by surprise. It took her great self control to not gasp in surprise. Even if she grew up seeing spirits and was familiar with their behaviour, having one crawl out of nowhere in the least expected moment was not something she would ever get used to.

“Where did you come from?” Chinsun uttered unintentionally, not realising that she had said that out loud.

Jongdae looked at her quizzically, but then his attention drifted past Chinsun’s shoulder and towards the entrance of the funeral home.

“Err… sorry, we didn’t mean to intrude. We saw the sign on the bookshop so…”

Recognising the voice, Chinsun swirled around and blinked in surprise at the visitor.

“Yuta…?” Chinsun tilted her head. “Did you forget something at the bookshop yesterday?”

Yuta shyly scratched his chin. Another student wearing the same uniform stood behind him, his eyes darting around before landing on Jongdae and his pupils wavered with unease.

“I wanted to thank you guys properly for yesterday,” Yuta explained while extending his arm to reveal a nicely wrapped box he was holding. “I wasn’t too sure what would be an appropriate thank you present, but I smelt incense when I woke up yesterday so I bought some with Taeyong’s help.”

Hearing his name being mentioned, Taeyong jolted slightly on the spot before giving a small bow but otherwise remained quiet.

“That is very nice of you.” Chinsun smiled. “Are you guys in a hurry to go somewhere? I’ll make you some tea.”

Yuta hesitated to answer and he glanced at Taeyong who’s eyes were growing increasingly anxious. Chinsun followed Taeyong’s gaze and her eyebrows twitched when she realised that rather than looking at Jongdae, Taeyong’s eyes were focused on just above his shoulder, where the child spirit was hovering in a vain attempt to steal Jongdae’s lollipop.

“Don’t be so shy,” Jongdae exclaimed while waving his arm around, unintentionally hitting the child spirit. “Young boys should be more bold.”

Standing up from his desk, Jongdae walked towards the two young students and urged them in, closing the door behind them. When Jongdae got close to Taeyong, the latter took an unintentional step to the side to distance himself from the older male. At the same time, he twisted his arm awkwardly so as to not hit the spirit child who was now running around in search of entertainment, earning a weird look from Jongdae.

“Ignore him, he spaces out and gets random twitches sometimes,” Yuta chuckled.

“No worries,” Jongdae mused while turning towards Chinsun. “I’m quite used to people acting weird.”

“Ha ha ha,” Chinsun uttered in a dry tone.

Noticing Taeyong’s antsy behaviour, Chinsun stood up from the chair and walked towards them.

“Let’s go over to the bookshop and have the tea there.” Chinsun smiled gently, signalling Yuta and Taeyong to follow her out while pointing a finger at Jongdae who was about to follow them. “You stay here. Don’t you have work to do?”

“But that’s not fair,” Jongdae whined. “You always leave me alone!”

Chinsun gave a quick glance towards the child spirit who was now sitting on top the desk while swinging his legs back and forth.

“Didn’t you have a wake for a young child to plan? Hurry and get working on it,” Chinsun said in a chiding tone.

“How did you know?” Jongdae pouted.  “Jongin must have told you. That annoying person. Ditching work and dumping it all on me.”

Giving Jongdae a lop-sided grin, Chinsun decided against giving him any form of verbal response and instead urged the two younger males to follow her and hurried over to Naesae.

Once inside, Taeyong looked visibly more relaxed and Chinsun smiled to herself in relief. Soon, she emerged from the kitchen with a tray of chrysanthemum tea and offered it t