Much to Baekhyun’s chagrin, the crew somehow finds out about the girl in the attic and the shirt in the second floor corridor. They soundly refuse to take responsibility for the burned shirt and they seem to be laughing at him whenever he’s around.

This means that Baekhyun takes to wandering around the hotel more and more often, crutches be damned. He stays away from the seventh floor and the attic, but only because he promised Chanyeol.

He’s not exactly thrilled at hiding out from the crew – which has made it plenty obvious in the weeks that they’ve been at the hotel that they don’t exactly respect Baekhyun, with his sketchbook full of half-assed drawings that aren’t really getting him anywhere. Still, he supposes he could find worse places to escape than the library.

He sets himself up at a table just underneath the window. One of the construction workers has boarded up the lower parts of the broken windows – a security measure to keep anymore squatters from coming in, Chanyeol had explained – but the top portions are still clear and let in an inordinate amount of sunlight. It’s a calm, peaceful place – the type of place that Baekhyun does his best work – but his creativity is still pointedly missing.

He huffs in annoyance as he erases yet another line from his paper. He’s already erased so many times he’s in danger of erasing right through the page.

“What are you drawing?”

The voice is so near his ear that Baekhyun jumps and knocks his drawing pencils off the table. It’s the little boy, the one he’d seen on their first day of construction, the one with the blue bouncy ball. He’s looking at Baekhyun’s messed-up page with something bordering on curiosity – it’s hard to tell because the kid is apparently a master at masking emotions.

“It’s supposed to be a new design for these windows when they’re remade,” Baekhyun explains, gesturing up to the window above him.

The little boy looks at him blankly. “What’s wrong with the design now? I think it’s pretty.”

“Well, you’ve got a point there,” Baekhyun admits, resting his arm on the back of the chair. Then he looks back at the boy. “What’s your name?”

Immediately the little boy clams up, playing with the bouncy ball in his hands. “Mrs. Kim said I’m not supposed to tell you.”

“Who’s Mrs. Kim?” Baekhyun asks.

“She lives on the third floor,” the little boy answers without hesitation. “She doesn’t like you or the other one. The tall one. And she really doesn’t like all the men who are in the kitchen.”

“I’m sure it’s okay if you tell me your name,” Baekhyun wheedles. “I have to have something to call you by, surely.”

The little boy thinks about it for a long minute, but finally gives in. “Sehun,” he finally says. “Sehun Oh.”

“Well, Sehun Oh,” Baekhyun grins, extending his hand. “My name is Baekhyun Byun. I hope we can be good friends.”

Sehun solemnly shakes his hand.

“How long has Mrs. Kim lived here in the hotel?” Baekhyun asks next. He wonders if Mrs. Kim is the girl he’d met in the attic, the one with the blonde hair and the big brown eyes.

Sehun shrugs indifferently, examining Baekhyun’s drawing again. “I don’t know. Longer than me.”

“And how long have you lived here?” Baekhyun presses.

Again Sehun shrugs. “Dunno. My whole life, I guess.”

Baekhyun frowns, pursing his lips. “What about your mother? Does your mother live here in the hotel?”

Sehun runs his finger over the outline of Baekhyun’s latest failure. He looks a little sad. “No,” he finally says. “Not anymore.”

“You sound like you miss her.” Baekhyun can’t help but feel sympathetic towards the boy, squatter or no. He’s a kid person, after all.

Sehun nods solemnly, moisture gathering at the corners of his eyes that Baekhyun politely pretends not to notice. “I do. She’s a real good mom.”

“Shall I call her for you?” Baekhyun offers. “I’m sure she’s really worried about you.”

Sehun’s face lights up. “You’d do that for me, Mr. Baekhyun? You’d really call my mom for me?”

“Of course,” Baekhyun assures him with a smile. “What’s the number?”

Sehun quickly scribbles it down on the corner of Baekhyun’s drawing. Usually he wouldn’t let anyone write in his sketchbook, but the drawing was anyway. So he pulls out his cell phone and punches the telephone number in.

It rings four times before a woman answers with a polite little, “Hello?”

“Hi there,” Baekhyun begins. “I’m looking for a Mrs. Oh.”

“No, no!” Sehun interrupts, panicked. “Her name isn’t Mrs. Oh! It’s Miss Choi! Miss Sooyoung Choi!”

“Ah, my mistake,” Baekhyun corrects himself quickly. “A Miss Sooyoung Choi. I’m looking for a Miss Sooyoung Choi.”

“Sooyoung Choi?” the young woman on the other end repeats. “I’m sorry, sir, but I think you’ve got the wrong number. There’s no one by that name at this residence.”

Baekhyun feels his heart sink. “Ah, okay. Sorry to bother you.” He hangs up and looks at Sehun. “She wasn’t there,” he announces.

Sehun’s face falls. “She must’ve moved then,” he decides sadly.

Baekhyun stares at the boy for a long moment. “I’ll help you find her,” he finally announces.

Sehun blinks back the tears that are threatening to fall. “Really?” But then he gives Baekhyun a suspicious look. “Why?”

“My own mother and I aren’t on the very best of terms,” Baekhyun admits, which is really the understatement of the century. “I want at least someone to have their mother. Okay?”

Sehun thinks it over, but he must decide that Baekhyun is being sincere because he nods. “Okay then.”

“Great,” Baekhyun says, looking around for his pencil again. “Just tell me-” he starts, but then his words trail off. When he looks up again, Sehun is gone.

Sehun’s disappearance at a crucial moment doesn’t deter Baekhyun. He’s promised to help find the boy’s mother and he intends to keep that promise to the best of his ability.

Turns out Sooyoung Choi isn’t that common of a name in the San Francisco area. There are only nine that he can find online so he sets about calling each of them to find out if they have a son named Oh Sehun.

The mother’s name alone tells Baekhyun a lot. For one thing, she’s not married. Sehun had been very insistent that she’s a “Miss” and not a “Mrs.” For another, the difference in the son and mother’s surnames tells him that, at least when she’d signed the birth certificate, Miss Sooyoung Choi had expected Sehun’s father – the unnamed Mr. Oh – to be in the picture even though he most obviously is not.

Somewhere in the darkest parts of his mind, Baekhyun wonders if Miss Choi even wants Sehun back. It must be hard for her, raising a kid all on her own. But then he shakes his head. Surely she must be worried about her son.

So he calls them, all the Sooyoung Choi’s in the phonebook and online directories. But not a single one of them knows anything about Oh Sehun. He dismally concludes that he’d reached the kid’s mother and she’d pretended not to know, confirming his suspicions that she’s abandoned him.

He has to go out for a drink before he can tell the awful news to Sehun. If he can even find Sehun again in the mazelike hotel.

“Looks like something’s eating you up,” the bartender says to him, pouring another drink. She’s young and pretty, big eyes and a nice figure. Baekhyun might even hit on her if he swung that way.

He sighs, taking a sip of his whiskey sour. “I’ve been looking for a Sooyoung Choi everywhere but apparently she doesn’t exist.”

“I know a Sooyoung Choi,” the bartender surprises him by saying. “Only, she’s married now. Her name is Sooyoung Lee these days.”

He looks up at the pretty girl, frowning. “You know Sooyoung Choi?”

“Dunno if it’s the Sooyoung Choi you’re looking for, but, yeah, I know one,” the bartender chuckles. “The Korean community in San Francisco is pretty tight, you know. I don’t have a phone number for her, but I’ve got an address.”

The bartender – Baekhyun finds out her name is Chaerin – scribbles the address on a napkin and slides it across the bar to him. “Good luck,” she says, offering him a smile. “I hope you find what you’re looking for.” 

Whelp. Now you know who the creepy little boy is :)