SIXTY TWO

In the middle of the week, Seohyun needed to fly to Bali for a photoshoot so she left Euna to his parents who were staying in their own Seoul apartment for a month. Yonghwa came to pick her up when he arrived that Saturday and Seohyun too was scheduled to fly back by late afternoon. The moment she opened the door, Seohyun was greeted by a wailing Euna on the hallway.

She wrapped her daughter in her arms as the latter hiccupped and cried, her face was drenched with a mixture of tears and perspiration, “What happened, honey?”

“I told her she can’t marry Jonghyun…” Yonghwa came into view with a frustrated look on his face.

“What?” Seohyun tried not to laugh as she carried her baby who clung to her body like an injured by koala. He walked towards them dropping a kiss on Seohyun's forehead then taking her travelling bag from the floor.

Euna lifted her head and looked at her mommy filled with unexplained misery, “I wanna mawie him, Umma! And Appa said no!!!”

“Oh baby…” Seohyun soothed her daughter’s back all the while biting her bottom lip as Euna bowled so loud like she was in pain. She sat on the couch dropping Euna on her lap as Yonghwa stood in front of them with his hands on his waist. Giving him an amused grin, Seohyun asked with faked concern glazing her voice, "Appa, why don’t you want her to marry Jonghyun Samchon?”

“Ya, don’t coddle her!” He grunted for Seohyun was not helping at all, “For your information, young woman, your Jonghyun Samchon is the biggest player in the industry!”

“That’s not you?!” Seohyun blinked.

“Ya…” he looked at her deadpanned.

She laughed again then pushed Euna off her chest and lifted her chin, “Euna… it’s not that we don’t want you to marry Jonghyun Samchon, it's just that he’s very busy and you have to go to kindergarten. How are you going to get married?”

“But you and Appa are busy too! And you’re mawid!” Euna’s fist lightly pounded on her mother’s chest defiantly.

Yonghwa raised both his hands up in the air as a sign of genuine distress. She gave him a small smile as an assurance that she got the situation under control then looked at their little Juliet, “Honey, you’re four feet tall, you need to grow a little taller so he won’t have to stoop down to look at you.”

Euna wiped her face using her arms. She sniffed and looked at her mommy, “Can I kiss him?”

“Oh, good lord…” Yonghwa growled.

“Euna,” Seohyun bit her tongue to stop herself from laughing as she pushed the strands of hair that clung on their daughter’s sweaty forehead and kissed her nose before speaking softly, “Euna, you’re four and so many things will happen to you when you grow older and older and you will meet so many people. I’m sure you’ll meet someone you’ll like better and if you do, Jonghyun Samchon will be sad because you would like someone else…”

“I won’t like someone else!” Euna cried again.

“See? You can’t reason with her!” Yonghwa grumbled in annoyance, “Let’s just get them married!”

Seohyun gave him a look of disbelief as she tilted her head to the side, “Seriously?”

“No, not seriously…” he shook his head. Yonghwa looked like two seconds away from going crazy then rolled his eyes leaving the room with a grumble, “I can’t take this any longer…”

When their bedroom door was slammed shut, Euna’s tears stopped but she was still pouting while playing with the lace on her mommy’s dress, “Appa’s mad ‘coz I wanna mawie Jonghyun Samchon and not him…”

Seohyun finally laughed softly shaking her head, “Honey, you can’t marry Appa ‘cause he—he’s married to me.”

“Oh…” Euna stared at her for a moment taking in the information then sighed, “What if I mawie Minhyuk Samchon, you think Appa’s gonna be okay with that?”

“I think Appa’s gonna be okay if you don’t marry anybody yet and be our baby Euna for a little bit longer,” Seohyun replied gently hoping that could get the crazy idea out of their little girl’s head, “How’s that?”

She looked at Umma for a while and nodded casually, “I guess that’s what I'll do for now…”

Seohyun laughed and kissed Euna’s cheek, “Okay, honey. Appa’s going to be really happy.”

“I know…” Euna let out a deep exhale then looked longingly over her mommy’s shoulder towards the closed door, “You betta’ go to Appa now. I think he’s pwetty mad…”

~~~

Seohyun went to the bedroom while he was on the process of deciding if he should focus on how adorable his daughter is or ban Jonghyun from seeing his little girl for eternity. Those thoughts dissipated the moment Seohyun swayed in the room leaving the door ajar so that they could still hear Euna playing in the living room. A smile welcomed her as she joined him on the bed curling on his side—her head resting by his shoulder and her hand rubbed on his chest like she was soothing his aching heart that was broken by their little daughter.

“I’ve got news for you, Euna’s Appa…” Seohyun turned to her side and met his eyes.

Yonghwa wrapped his arm around her body and tugged her further into him, “Please don’t tell me she’s cutting out wedding dresses from your magazines.”

She laughed hitting him lightly, “It hasn’t resulted to that yet, but you’d be happy to know that your daughter decided not to marry anybody yet for, at least, another twenty years?”

“Thirty…” he said flippantly, “Thirty’s better.”

“How did she even get the idea?” Seohyun giggled as he sighed heavily.

“The boys dropped by at lunch and played with her. I don’t know how it happened because Euna was just too shy towards Jonghyun when we were even teasing them both. Hell, she wouldn’t even look at him choosing to play with Minhyuk and Jungshin instead!” Yonghwa cringed as he got reminded again, “But when they left, she just decided she wanted to marry Jong— that person!”

Seohyun laughed out loud but she lifted herself to brush a kiss across his jaw, “You silly person…”

Soon, they settled in a comfortable conversation about each of their trips but Seohyun scrambled on her feet when she remembered something. Yonghwa stared at her blankly as he watched her rush out of their room but she came back minutes later with a big photo album in her hands. She shut the door close the moment she was assured that Euna was glued on the cartoon she was watching. Yonghwa sat up when she rejoined him on the bed.

“I dropped by the company before coming home and I got this,” Seohyun grinned smugly as she laid the album on his lap.

Yonghwa turned the first page and laughed when he saw Euna’s blown up picture. Her hair had those soft waves that it appeared shorter and little flowers and butterflies rested on her curls. She was smiling at the camera with her fishy smile the very same way she does whenever she would play a trick on him. Yonghwa could feel the knot forming in his throat by that picture alone and there were like twenty more pages in the album. He couldn’t help it.

Flipping pages after pages, his emotions just coiled and recoiled inside him seeing pictures of their angel looking so pretty and happy. At the end of the page, Yonghwa looked up at Seohyun as she dabbed her cheeks. She smiled at him and sniffed brushing away the remnants of her own melodrama, “I got these raw files from Photographer Han and have them compiled. Taeyeon Unnie cried too,” she laughed softly