TWO WEEKS

"Do you guys want to go out for dinner?" Y/N pops her head into the play room, looking at the three.

"Yeah!" Euphie yells, carefully putting the bottle she was about to stick in Tom's mouth down.

"Sure." Seren smiles, softly putting his book down.

Tom stands up too and the three make their way to the front door, putting on coats and shoes. Y/N looks at Tom, who's already looking at her. His hair is badly pulled back by one of Euphie's small scrunchies.

"You forgot this." Y/N reaches over his head and pulls it out, laughing. Tom's heart does loop de loops. The two stare at each other for what feels like forever. Tom searching in her eyes, trying to figure out if whatever that was could have been intimate.

Y/N broke the long moment, which in reality was only a few seconds, "Everybody ready?"

***

"Daddy! Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!" Euphie yells. Multiple people turn from their tables to look at the small screaming child.

"How many times have I told you to be quiet inside?" Y/N scolds. People turn back to their own tables, forgetting about the screaming child.

"Sorry...." Euphie's voice cuts out before turning into a loud whisper, "Daddy!"

Tom laughs, his heart warmed and happy. "Yes, darling?"

"Who colors better?" Euphie reaches over and grabs Seren's children's menu. She faces hers and his towards Tom, showing off the beautifully colored in pandas. Euphie's was colorfully scribbled, a little outside the lines, and Seren's was black and white with colored eyes.

"They're both amazing." Tom smiles.

Euphie pouts and tilts her head, "But which is better?"

"I like them both equally." Tom says softly, truthfully.

Euphie sighs loudly before turning to Y/N. "Mom," she sits upright, as if trying to sell something, "which drawing do you like?" She repeats the same action as she had to Tom, holding both pictures up.

Y/N leans back in her chair and crosses her arms. She thinks for a moment before gesturing to Euphie's, "I adore the creative liberty you took with your panda." She gestures to Seren's drawing, "But I also admire the realism approach of Seren's. They're both so unique and too different to really be compared."

Euphie blinks a few times, not understanding the majority of the words that were just said, "Okay." She gives Seren back his sheet and goes back to her own.

Tom leans over to Y/N whispering, "How did you do that?"

"Do what?" She raises an eyebrow.

"Get her to be content in the answer and drop it?" He elaborates, he wanted to be able to do the same.

She smiles, laughing a little, "Just say you like both with words Euphie won't understand."

Tom nods, letting out an "oh" and returning in an upright position in his chair.

Soon enough the waiter comes, giving the four their food. Conversation flows between bites. Seren talks about what he's been learning in his classes, talking about verbs in other languages and tenses. Euphie asks about taking dance classes along with her English class. Y/N says they'll talk about it at home, Tom says he'd pay for it along with a class of Seren's. He receives a pointed look and shuts up about it, but Euphie had already gotten excited and took it as a yes. After that, dinner went by relatively quickly. Y/N had tried to pay the bill but Tom wouldn't let her, saying they're his family now and he should be making up for lost time.

The four left the restaurant, Euphie on Tom's shoulders, pointing around to "steer" him. Seren held onto his mother's hand, swinging them back and forth as they talked about which ice cream they'd want. They walked like this for a few blocks until they arrived at their favorite ice cream shop. They took turns ordering, Y/N translating for Tom, and he paid- of course after a small amount of bickering, but in the end, who was Y/N to turn down free food?

The ice cream shop was bright. The walls bright blue and the floor a yellow. Around the shop were ice cream sculptures, proudly showing off their thirty flavors. All the chairs were ice cream balls, too, with the top flat so that people could sit. The tables were steadied on top of ice cream tones. The whole place gave off a childly innocence, a place of relief and distraction. 

On top of a bubble gum pink ice cream seat, Euphie kicks her legs, taking small spoonfuls of ice cream. Seren sits across from her, his legs crossed on top of his blueberry ball, eating his ice cream. Between them are their parents, Tom mostly staring at Y/N as she wipes Euphie's face the more she eats. 

"Tom." Seren calls.

"Yeah?" The man smiles, only a small sting at his first name. But he can't expect Seren to call him dad immediately, he has to remember that.

Seren looks him in the eye, swallowing. "Are you staying in Korea?"

Tom's eyebrows furrow, a bit confused, "What?"

"Well all my friends' moms and dads live with each other and don't leave."

Y/N cuts in, "Your dad's different, Seren, his job requires him to leave."

"Is that why he's been gone?" The small boy replies, feigning innocents. His head is slightly cocked to the side, his eyes sparkling in the light.

Y/N turns away from Seren, her hand going to cover her mouth. It takes a lot of effort to not laugh. She knew it was wrong to find it funny, but the karma Tom faced made him slightly happy. Tom feels his heart break, though he knew he deserved it.

"Something like that," Tom nods, taking a bite of his ice cream in hopes of freezing the pain away.

"Oh. Alright." Seren smiles, going back to happily eating his ice cream.

Hey there, you look hot today.

Yes you do, don't say otherwise.

The last few weeks have been kind of hard. School is really stressful and it kinda doesn't help that I was quarantined last week- the first week of full in-person. I go back to school Tuesday, though, which I'm not a fan of because i have a test that day but whatever.

I also realized I liked one of my friends. I then pushed it off because we probably werent going to talk much anymore bc in person and not a lot of classes togehter. And then the next day I was moved next to them in a class so thats really cool i think. But actually I dont think thats really cool I really dont want to like them.

There's a lot of other stuff going on right now, but I'm not gonna over share.

Im sorry I took so long to update, I promise it's going to be weekly again, I just needed to get used to school and heavy work loads again.

I hope you've been better than I have. I'm always here to talk if you haven't been.

Remember, I'm proud of you and you're doing amazing. I love you so much, and I'll see you soon.

-SIDEPHAN-