Monster (ONEUS Seoho x Ravn/Seojo)

Week 4, Day 5

I was making my way back to my room after picking up an envelope from the lobby desk. Hwan Woong phoned in following breakfast to inform me of a package intended for me. I was rather shocked yet delighted nonetheless to find it from Keon Hee and Ji A or my "two most favorite people in the whole wide world" as Keon Hee sprawled across the front of the envelope.

Just as I reached my room, my foot slightly knocked a hard object. I removed the envelope from my field of vision and looked down to find a baby's photo album.

Not just any baby's album, his.

The album was a small, hardcover square painted a light blue with brown bears holding vibrant red hearts in their paws. In the middle of the cover, an even smaller square was cut out just enough to fit a picture of a newborn baby wrapped in a white blanket. At the bottom, in big colorful block letters, his name was spelled out.

I had only the time to observe the cover before a disheveled Miss Nari came jogging over to me, trying to hold on to her tiny hat pinned into her bun with a giggling Si Woon not too far behind her.

"I'm sorry, I found this here. . .," I started.

"No, no," Miss Nari panted as she rested a hand on the frame of my room's door to catch her breath.

"It was one of those days where I randomly flipped through his baby pictures," she had begun but then realized she was sharing more details than needed and shook her head rapidly.

"I was cleaning when I came across this," she changed her story all too late.

It really hit home when Young Jo supposedly passed away, and although she seems fine on the outside, Miss has changed since then.

"Nari. . ." I took the risk of addressing her informally because right now she wasn't Father's friend with the successful hotel business, she wasn't the woman who looked like she had her life together even after losing two of the most important people in her life - no, right now she was a mother in grief.

She completely ignored me though, going on about how Si Woon snatched it from her as she mindlessly looked through the pages to pull a joke on her.

"And I've been chasing after him and running around the hotel this entire morning trying to find-," she was rambling on when I interrupted her, louder this time.

"Miss Nari."

My mind was screaming at me not to do it. That if I did, it would be as if I was ripping a protective bandage off of Miss Nari and if I failed, there would be no putting it back on nor replacing it.

My heart was yelling at me to do it. To put hers at ease that there was a possibility, there was hope.

She blinked at me dumbly, at a loss for words because I would never raise my voice at anyone (Father could be an exception) let alone her. She opened her mouth to speak but the only thing that passed her lips was a tiny squeak as if the syllables of the words she intended got stuck somewhere in her throat.

I let out a deep breath, squeezing my eyes shut as I shook my head. My logical brain and emotional heart were having an internal battle creating this tense friction in the middle, and soon I couldn't hold it in any longer and let it go.

"Young Jo isn't dead."

I kept my eyes fixated on the floor, refusing to see even the slightest shift in her facial expression. I raised them only enough to see little Si Woon hiding behind the railing of the staircase. His smile that once displayed his tiny square teeth and strawberry red gums melted into a look of dread as if the devil himself stood behind me.