Baekhyun looks down at the address on the napkin in his hand, then up at the building before him. Sunnydale Retirement Home, the sign out front reads. But there’s no mistaking the address. Perhaps Miss Sooyoung Choi– or, as she’s now known, Mrs. Sooyoung Lee – is a nurse here or something.

There’s a receptionist in the lobby, filing her nails. She looks up when Baekhyun enters, wrinkling his nose at the smell of rubbing alcohol and old people. He’s never done well with old people.

“Uh, I’m here to see someone,” he says, stepping over to the desk. “A Mrs. Sooyoung Lee? Is she here?”

“How nice,” the receptionist smiles, handing him the visitor’s sign-in clipboard. “Mrs. Lee doesn’t get many visitors these days.”

“Uh, no, I’m not here to visit a patient,” Baekhyun corrects her. “I’m looking for maybe a nurse or a doctor?”

The receptionist looks confused. “We don’t have any staff here by that name,” she informs him. “Just the patient.”

Baekhyun sighs. So he’s wasted his morning after all. Still, he scribbles his name down on the visitor’s sheet. He’s come all this way, so he may as well at least talk to the old lady. “What room is she in?”

“One fourteen,” the receptionist replies, taking back the clipboard. “Through those doors right there, first left. It’ll be on your right.”

He thanks the receptionist and heads back into the corridor. He’s immediately accosted by sounds and smells. There are people coughing and groaning and even one woman singing a garbled tune. The whole place reeks of vomit and urine. It takes everything Baekhyun has not to turn and run. Instead, he forces himself forward, following the receptionist’s directions to room 114.

He pauses outside the closed door; there’s no noise from within. He wonders if he should knock. He’s not exactly familiar with retirement home etiquette.

In the end he knocks but, getting no answer, he pushes the door open. “Hello?” he calls uncertainly. “Mrs. Lee?”

She turns to look at him with hazy eyes. She’s sitting in a wheelchair by the window, a slight, hunched figure draped in a quilted blanket. She’s got wispy white hair and gnarled hands.

“Mrs. Lee?” Baekhyun repeats.

“What do you want?” she demands, voice cracking. “I don’t know you.”

“My name is Baekhyun Byun,” he explains, stepping further into the room. At least this one smells of flowers instead of piss. “Someone told me your maiden name was Choi. Is that true?”

She’s silent for a long time, so long that Baekhyun isn’t sure she heard him. But then she nods. “Yes, my maiden name was Choi.” She looks straight at him, eyes milky. “What do you want?”

Baekhyun pulls up a chair towards the old woman’s wheelchair. “Well, you see, my…partner and I recently bought a hotel.” He doesn’t say boyfriend at the last minute because he’s pretty sure this woman is about as accepting as his parents. “The Westholt Hotel. Have you heard of it?”

At the mention of the hotel’s name, Mrs. Lee starts. She shakes her head. “That’s a sad place, that is,” she finally mumbles. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll leave it alone.”

“Why do you say that?” he asks, but Mrs. Lee refuses to say anything else on the matter. So instead Baekhyun asks, “Mrs. Lee, do you have a son?”

Now Mrs. Lee is glaring at him. “No,” she says sharply. “I don’t have a son.”

Baekhyun is taken back by her vehemence. “So you’ve never heard of Sehun Oh before?” he presses.

Mrs. Lee lets out an animal howl and leaps from her wheelchair, clawing at Baekhyun’s face, screaming incoherently. Baekhyun is too stunned to react at first. By the time he holds up his arms to protect himself, orderlies are bursting into the room, pulling the old lady off of him.

“Don’t you ever speak that name!” Mrs. Lee screeches, thrashing against the orderlies. “Don’t you ever say that name to me!”

“You’d better get out of here,” one of the orderlies snaps at Baekhyun.      

He grabs his crutches and hobbles out of the room as quickly as he can manage.

He stops in the hallway, hand pressed over his heart as he struggles to calm down.

A doctor stops beside him, looking concerned. “What on earth happened in there?” she demands, hands shoved deep in the pockets of her lab coat. “I’ve never seen Mrs. Lee lose control like that before. If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I would’ve said she didn’t have the strength left.”

“I-I don’t know,” Baekhyun admits, eyes wide as he struggles to calm his racing heart. “I-I asked her if she knew Sehun Oh and-”

“Oh,” the doctor interrupts knowingly. “Yes, that would set her off. She doesn’t like talking about him. She doesn’t like anybody talking about him.”

“So she knows him?” Baekhyun demands.

“Oh yes,” the doctor says. “I imagine she thinks about him all the time. He was her son.”

“How is that possible?” Baekhyun demands. “What is she, sixty? Was he a late baby or something?”

The doctor gives him a strange look. “No. In fact, she had him very, very young. Too young, really. Anyway, she blames herself for what happened to him, you know.”

Baekhyun’s mind is spinning with a million unanswered questions, but the one he blurts out is, “What happened to him?”

“Well, Mrs. Lee used to work at that old Westholt Hotel, you know,” the doctor says, leaning against the wall with a sigh. “She was a laundress. It was about the only job she could get back in those days. Unwed with a child at her age.” The doctor shakes her head sadly. “Anyway, the boy was playing in one of the stairwells when he fell. Just slipped, you know. Kids trip and fall all the time. But he hit his head the wrong way and died, just like that. It took them hours to find his body, since it was in one of the back stairwells. Tragic, really. Mrs. Lee never really got over it, you know. She got married, but never had any more children.” She shakes her head again. “It’s probably better if you don’t come see Mrs. Lee again, sir. She seems really shaken up. We’re going to have to sedate her to get her to calm down.”

“Yeah,” Baekhyun agrees half-heartedly. “Yeah, I won’t come back.”

Chanyeol is beside himself when Baekhyun returns to the hotel. “What the hell happened to your face?” he roars, grabbing Baekhyun’s face in his hands and turning it this way and that, examining the long, deep scratches marring his pale skin. “Where have you been?”

“I went to see a woman,” Baekhyun explains quietly, a little disoriented. He lets Chanyeol lead him into the bathroom and begin to clean off the wounds. “At a retirement home.”

“An old lady did this to you?” Chanyeol demands incredulously. “What did you do? Insult her cats or something?”

“I asked her about the little boy,” Baekhyun answers solemnly. “The one I’ve seen here in the hotel. I asked her about him. She was his mother. But the doctor said he died. Apparently she doesn’t like hearing his name.”

Chanyeol stops, giving the elder a skeptical look. “What are you even talking about, Baekhyun? You’re not making any sense.”

“I’m saying that the little boy I told you about earlier is dead, Chanyeol,” Baekhyun says firmly. “The little boy with the blue ball. His name is Sehun. He’s dead, Chanyeol. He died here in this hotel.”

Chanyeol stares at him for a long moment. Then he takes a deep breath. “Maybe we should take a break,” he finally suggests. “Take a break from the hotel, you know? It’s…you’re not making any sense, Baek.”

“I know you don’t believe me but-” Baekhyun begins.

“Mr. Baekhyun?” the little voice interrupts him. Both Baekhyun and Chanyeol whip around, finding little Sehun in the doorway with his blue bouncy ball. “Did you find my mother?”

For some reason, Baekhyun is incredibly calm. “Yes, I found her. She got married, Sehun. Did you know that?”

Sehun nods once, a slight inclination of his head.

“What the ?” Chanyeol mutters under his breath, but he makes no move to intervene.

Baekhyun gives the little boy a level look. “Sehun, you didn’t tell me that you were dead.”

Again, Sehun nods. “Yeah, I forgot to mention that part.”

“It would’ve been nice to know,” Baekhyun says with a frown. “I made your mother very upset when I asked about you.” He hesitates. “She misses you a lot.”

For the first time, Sehun cracks a small smile. “I miss her, too.” He turns to leave. “I better go. Mrs. Kim doesn’t like me talking to you.”

Chanyeol swallows heavily. “Who’s Mrs. Kim?” he demands, voice cracking.

“The woman who lives on the third floor,” Baekhyun and Sehun reply at the same time.

Chanyeol takes a deep breath. “And is Mrs. Kim alive or dead?”

Sehun smirks a bit. “Dead,” he says, and then he disappears.