"Would you like to see appa?"
Seungyoon went completely still at the question, the straw slipping from his mouth as his eyes widened in disbelief.
"Appa?"
Y/N nodded and raised the box a little. "Yes, baby. We have his pictures here."
"Pictures of my dad?" he asked again, like he was afraid this might somehow disappear if he believed it too quickly.
"Yes, baby. Your dad."
"He's real?" His small hands tightened around the banana milk carton.
The hope in Seungyoon's voice almost broke her, but Y/N managed a small smile.
"Of course he is."
Seungyoon nodded determinedly and sat up straighter, the sadness in his face slowly making room for something else.
"Yes," he said quickly. "I want to see him!"
Y/N smiled faintly and opened the box. Inside, everything was arranged carefully.
The photos were tied together with a thin ribbon. A few polaroids were tucked into a small paper envelope, their corners slightly faded with time. Beneath them were folded sheets of music, some covered in Heeseung's handwriting, some with little corrections and crossed-out notes in the margins.
One page held the melody of a song Y/N still remembered.
XO (Only If You Say Yes)
She remembered hearing it from the floor of their old apartment, soft and unfinished, long before anyone else knew it would become something more.
There were small things too: a black guitar pick with a worn edge, an old ticket stub from one of his street performances, and a tiny note he had left for her before leaving for training.
Her fingers hovered over the box for a moment, and the careful order of it made her chest ache.
For six years, she had told herself she was only keeping memories – proof that he had existed in her life before everything became too complicated to hold.
But looking at it now, with Seungyoon beside her, she realized the truth was simpler and harder.
She had cherished these things – quietly, secretly – even when she had no right to miss him.
Seungyoon leaned closer, his eyes round. "These are all appa's?"
"Yes. These are all things about him," Y/N answered softly as she carefully untied the ribbon.
She picked up the photo of Heeseung in the loose hoodie, hair falling messily over his forehead, smiling at something outside the frame.
He looked young and warm, like he belonged to an ordinary afternoon instead of a stage.
She placed another photo beside the first. In this one, Heeseung sat on the floor with an old notebook in his lap, one hand half-covering his face like he had been laughing at being photographed.
Behind it was another shot from a small street performance, his head bent toward a microphone, eyes closed, guitar strap crossing his shoulder.
Y/N placed the pictures in front of Seungyoon.
"See?" she said softly. "This is your dad."
Seungyoon leaned closer. "This is him?"
Y/N nodded.
The five year-old looked from one photo to the next, and little by little, the sadness in him gave way to something shy and bright.
"I like dad," he said. "He's very handsome."
A broken little laugh slipped out of Y/N before she could stop it.
"Yes," she whispered. "He is."
Seungyoon touched the corner of the photo with one careful finger. "And he looks nice."
"Yes," Y/N said softly again. "He is. Kind and nice."
Then there was one that made Y/N's breath catch.
A photo of the two of them at home.
Nothing special.
Just Y/N sitting on the couch in an oversized sweater, looking toward the camera with a smile she had not yet learned to hide, and Heeseung leaning beside her, his cheek almost touching her temple. His arm was around her shoulders, loose and familiar, like he belonged there.
She had not known she was pregnant then.
Neither of them had known that the small apartment, the half-empty mugs on the table, and the blanket over their knees would one day become proof of a life Seungyoon had been part of before they even understood he was coming.
Y/N stared at it for a second too long.
"I want to take a picture with dad too!" Seungyoon said, looking at the photo with shy excitement. "With eomma and appa."
Y/N's heart twisted.
Oh, if only he knew...
That, was already his first family picture.
"Do I look like dad?" he asked, holding one of the photos in front of his chest.
Y/N looked at him and smiled, realizing all over again how much Seungyoon had taken from his father.
His eyes, his mouth, the shape of his face when he was sleepy – the resemblance was everywhere.
"A little," she said, brushing his hair back from his forehead. "Especially here."
She tapped lightly near his eyes and pressed a small kiss to his forehead, making Seungyoon giggle.
Then his gaze moved back to the box.
"Is there more?" he asked expectantly.
Y/N hesitated.
Of course there was.
There was one video she had never deleted from her phone.
She had not planned to show it to anyone. But Seungyoon was looking at the photos like they had given him something he did not know he needed, and Y/N could not bring herself to close the door again so quickly.
So she reached for her phone and opened a hidden folder she almost never touched.
Y/N stared at the thumbnail for a moment. Her heart hurt in a place she had tried not to touch for years.
Then she pressed play, and Seungyoon leaned in immediately.
The video was only a few seconds long.
On the screen, Heeseung sat at her old desk, wearing the same kind of hoodie, playing a tiny melody on the keyboard she had bought him for his birthday. At the end, he missed a note, looked up at the camera, and laughed under his breath.
"He laughed!" Seungyoon smiled so wide his cheeks rounded.
"Eomma, play it again, please?"
So she did.
This time, Seungyoon laughed too.
When the video ended, he looked up at her with shining eyes.
"Again?"
Y/N nodded, carefully wiping a tear from beneath one eye before he could notice.
"Again please!"
The video played a third time.
Seungyoon watched like it was magic, like his father had stepped out of the empty space and become real enough to laugh, real enough to move, real enough to belong to him somehow.
When it ended, he only stared at the screen, then he smiled to himself.
"I like appa," he said quietly.
Then he looked up at her, his eyes brighter than they had been all afternoon.
"I want to meet him soon."
Y/N's heart twisted.
The word sat between them softly, full of hope she did not know how to hold.
She reached for his hand and brushed her thumb over his knuckles.
"You will, honey."
~~
Y/N began to gather the photos carefully, meaning to return them to the box for now.
That was when something silver caught the light beneath the last photo.
Seungyoon saw it too.
"What's that?" He asked.
Y/N's hand stilled.
A thin silver chain with a small charm hanging from the end.
"承"
She picked it up carefully.
The chain pooled in her palm, cool and delicate, the charm resting at the center like it had been waiting there all along.
Y/N's breath caught.
The necklace.
She had given it to Heeseung years ago, after learning that the character was part of his name "Seung". He had laughed at first, shy in that quiet way of his, turning the charm between his fingers as if he did not know what to do with something so thoughtful.
But he had worn it.
Not every day, but often enough that the sight of it now felt like being pulled back into a room she had locked from the outside.
"What does it say?" Seungyoon leaned closer, eyes round again.
Y/N looked down at the charm resting in her palm.
"It says 承," she said softly. "It's a Chinese character – chéng."
"Chéng," he repeated, a little clumsy but proud. "What does it mean?"
"It means to carry," she said. "To continue." She paused, then added softly, "It's part of your dad's name. And it's part of yours too."
His mouth opened slightly, and his whole face brightened. "Really? I have his word?"
"That's right, you both share 'Seung' in your names."
Seungyoon held the charm against his chest, careful and proud.
Y/N reached for the chain.
"He used to wear this very often," she said. "And now... I want you to have it."
She moved behind him and gently fastened the necklace around his neck. Her fingers trembled only slightly as the clasp clicked into place.
The charm rested against his shirt, small and silver and suddenly no longer hidden in a box.
Seungyoon looked down at it with quiet wonder, then pressed one hand over it.
"Now I have something from him too," he said happily.
For a second, Y/N let herself be happy too.
Happy that, for now, a photo, a laugh, and one silver character were enough to make the empty space beside him feel less lonely.
But beneath that happiness, guilt moved quietly.
Because she knew she had caused part of this too.
Not the cruel words the children at school had said.
But the empty space Seungyoon had been forced to defend.
The missing answer.
The father who existed only in a box, a hidden video, and a necklace she had kept locked away for six years.
~~
Later, Seungyoon sat on the sofa with his toys spread across the blanket in front of him, the silver charm resting proudly over his shirt.
Y/N had returned to her desk.
The Enhypen folder was still open with the unfinished mascot sketches waiting where she had left them.
She picked up her stylus, cleaned the accidental line from the canvas, and returned to Heeseung's drafts.
She still could not choose between the deer and the hamster mascot, so in the end, she kept both versions in the proposal, labeling them as two possible directions.
Behind her, Seungyoon's voice floated softly from the sofa.
"This is my appa," he whispered to one of his toys. "He plays guitar and piano, and he laughs funny!"
"But he is very busy," he told the plush. "When he comes back, we can be friends and play together."
Y/N's chest tightened at the scene, and she blinked once before the tears could come.
~~
One by one, she finished the drafts.
Wonchu.
NoxStar.
Jakey.
Snowe.
Kishu.
Pu-Ni.
And finally, Heeseung's two versions, still unnamed, still waiting.
Y/N saved the file.
Then she sat back and looked at the completed proposal.
Somewhere between the school hallway, the box in her closet, the photo in Seungyoon's notebook, and the Enhypen folder glowing on her screen, the distance she had tried to keep for six years had started to thin.
Her path and Heeseung's were crossing again.
Not all at once.
But slowly.
Inevitably.
And this time, it was not only her heart being pulled back toward him.
It was her work.
Her son.
The quiet little life she had built so carefully around his absence.
Y/N looked over her shoulder.
Seungyoon was still on the sofa, the silver charm resting against his shirt as he introduced his toys to a father he had only just been given a face for.
Then she looked back at the screen.
At the proposal.
At the possibility of sitting across from the artists, maybe even from Heeseung himself, and presenting characters she had drawn while their son sat across the living room, wearing the necklace Heeseung used to wear.
A strange warmth moved through her chest.
So did fear.
Because how many times could fate place Heeseung in front of her before she stopped calling it coincidence?
End of chapter 18.