Work Text:
"Papa! Papa! Papa, help me!!"
Seungmin is enjoying a late night snack with his wife that night when he hears his daughter screaming for him. He never jumps off his seat faster and literally runs to the second floor to get the little girl. By the time he arrives, Yongbok is already looking for him in his bedroom, crying hard.
"Princess, I'm here. What's wrong?" He gets down and opens his arms right away, and Yongbok instantly runs to his embrace for safety. He hugs her securely, calming her down from the terror by standing up and rocking his body with her in his arms. He coos softly, waiting until the little girl calms down from the tears. By that time, Minho has already reached the second floor as well. She takes longer to get there because she is being careful with the baby in her tummy.
"She had a nightmare?" Minho asks, worried. Seungmin just shrugs and keeps focusing on reassuring Yongbok. After a minute or two, finally she is calm enough to get her head off Seungmin's shoulder and looks at her father.
"I- I saw a monster..." She admits and cries again, purely terrified.
"Monster?" Seungmin repeats. The little girl nods.
"Un-under my bed... There is a big monster... He- He pulls me off the bed..." Sobbing and hiccuping, then she cries harder when she remembers about it. Seungmin and Minho simultaneously try to connect the dots, then they notice a little red bump at the side of Yongbok's forehead.
"What? How dare he try to take my sweetheart away? Where is he? I'll fight him for you!" Minho speaks up right away, all confident and brave, it makes Yongbok stop crying almost immediately. She watches as her mother walks into her bedroom and switches on the light. Seungmin slowly puts Yongbok down from his embrace because Minho can even get on her knees to check under the bed.
"Babe, hold Bokkie. I'll check it" He offers right away. The position to check under the bed is not suitable for a pregnant woman, that's why Seungmin volunteers instead. Minho just obeys and holds Yongbok's hand tightly by the bedroom entrance, while Seungmin bows down to find the 'monster' Yongbok has been scared of.
Nothing.
He only sees Yongbok's bunched up blanket since it fell on the other side of the bed. He furrows his brows, tries to think about the possibility before he finally understands the situation. Yongbok watches as her father gets up, and suddenly he looks at the corner of the ceiling.
There is a human-shaped shadow figure sticking at the corner, glaring.
Just kidding. Hehe.
There is a CCTV there. Seungmin smiles and points it out.
"Should we check the camera and see what happened?" He suggests. Yongbok looks at the CCTV, and nods without a second thought.
Shortly after that, they are in Seungmin's reading room. Minho sits on his seat and Yongbok sits on her lap, while he is just standing next to the chair, clicking the mousepad on his laptop to check the CCTV view in Yongbok's room around five minutes ago. The little girl quickly grabs a handful of her mother's pyjamas out of terror.
In the recap, it shows the little girl was sleeping soundly. A bit too deep that she is now sleeping diagonally, away from her pillow. Shortly later, her left leg started to kick off her blanket and it fell off the bed, the one Seungmin saw when he checked the room just now. The little girl shifted her position again, rolling over and now her tummy was flat on the bed. No movement again. Seungmin fast-forwards the video to see what happened next.
Yongbok shifted her position again, but instead of rolling over, now she was rotating. The parents chuckle as they watch it. She was sleeping with half her body off the bed now. Her head was facing towards the floor. And five seconds later, she moves again and thud! She fell off her bed, head first hitting the floor. That was when she woke up, then screamed in terrified with what she saw once she opened her eyes.
...eh?
The little girl freezes when she sees the tape, as if she cannot believe it happened like that. Minho needs to purse her lips tightly to hold her laugh, while Seungmin is already grinning widely as he pauses the video.
"You see, princess. What you saw just now was not a monster. You just saw your own blanket on the other side of the bed" He softly explains while he points out at the screen; Yongbok, bed, bunched-up blanket.
Yongbok stays in her place but the blush already takes over her face. No wonder her forehead seems to sting a little. She has no words to say, so she just looks at her parents. Minho and Seungmin expect her to get defensive, saying that she really sees the monster, but instead, she just grins adorably in embarrassment. It makes the married couple burst out laughing right away.
They tease her a little while she caresses the painful bump on her head, giggling as well for making such a drama at night. There was nothing under the bed for sure, but Seungmin still lets her sleep on his chest that night. At least, Yongbok won't be rotating and rolling around if she is in her father's embrace when she is sleeping.
- The End -
Bonus :
A few days later...
"...And then there is a huge ocean! Like tigantic! And the aminals are on the boat and they are like 'help me! Help me!' and suddenly piyong! Pom! Pom!..."
Yongbok is excitedly telling her father a bedtime story that night in her bedroom and Seungmin just laughs at her eagerness. She is so into the story-telling but only until Minho walks into the room, which the attention naturally goes to her right away. She is holding her phone, and directly looks at her daughter.
"Sweetheart"
"Yes, Mama?"
"This morning at Grandma and Grandpa's house, did you tell Channie about the bed monster?" Minho interrogates, crossing her arms. Yongbok innocently nods as an answer.
"I did!" She admits. Her mother raises her eyebrows.
"But you didn't tell him it was a blanket, did you?"
Seungmin gasps, looking at his daughter right away to see if the accusation is correct. As expected, Yongbok freezes on her spot for a few seconds, then grins adorably to spare herself from the possibility of getting scolded.
"That part of the story won't make me look cool. So, I just said I saw a monster under my bed and I slept with Mama and Papa. Oh, and the monster looks like a huge slug" she explains with the softest, sweetest voice she can put on. Seungmin laughs in amused, while Minho chuckles in disbelief. What can they say? They are to be blamed for that mischievousness after all.
"You make Channie scared to go to sleep tonight, sweetheart. Auntie Hyunjin called me about it" Minho shakes her head and that situation just makes the little girl giggle as she imagines her cousin being afraid of nothing.
"We'll let Channie sleep with his parents for tonight, but promise us that you'll apologize and explain it to him tomorrow, okay? You need to control your jokes around Channie so you won't make him uncomfortable, understand?" Seungmin advises while caressing the little girl's head. She nods as an answer. It is already a part of her plan anyway, because she didn't mean to make Chan scared at all when she told the story. Only after that, Minho takes a seat next to her husband and their little girl continues her bedtime story.
The End <3