A/N: This is a pretty busy set of weeks coming up, so that's the reason why I'm not posting chapters weekly like I normally do. And with Boards coming up, I unfortunately don't see that changing any time soon.

I was originally going to end the Korea arc with this chapter, but then I stumbled upon a childhood memory from my own vacations to Korea. One that, although I didn't do it with this summer's vacation, has been a defining highlight of every vacation I went there when I was younger. And once you see what it is, I think you'll agree that to not include it in a fic focusing on happy kids on their first-ever vacation would be an APPALLING oversight. So I'll wrap up the Korea arc with that on the next chapter, because saving the best for last is a time-honored strategy that has succeeded time and again.

But I do want to wrap up the Korea arc soon, as if I leave it going for much longer it's going to end up being a drag and nobody wants that. If the fluffy and sugary nature of this long vacation arc is starting to feel like diabetes, then I can assure that the next major arc after that…well let's just say it's the "insulin"…heh heh heh heh heh…

Phillip: I honestly don't think I'll have the revelation dramatically affect the friendship between the living and dead kids. It certainly won't destroy their friendship, I can tell you that right now. The kids will need a break especially concerning what I have planned in the near future…Alex and Meghan are the LAST thing the ghosts need to worry about.

Also, thanks for noticing the error, I fixed it as soon as possible.

Guest: Glad you're enjoying the fic!

small: I did notice that some ghost kids got more attention than others, even though I try to give them all as equal focus as possible. While the discrepancy in attention is necessary in some cases, for example Liz and Charlie get more spotlight by necessity since they got a lot more attention in the canon FNAF verse, I will admit that I could give Gabe, Jeremy, and Susie more focus in the future.

JustMegaMothim: No, you're right. Any timeline that doesn't have a 30 year skip between FNAF1 and FNAF3 is objectively incorrect.

Jillygalaxy: There are two main theories for the identity of the Golden Freddy child: he is either the 5th MCI child (Cassidy) or Crying Child. I personally do not believe in the CC = Golden Freddy theory, since the evidence for that isn't nearly as strong as many people think it is (there is literally only one line to support it, when the first three games pointed to Cassidy as the Golden Freddy ghost and the theory actually has many more weaknesses than people seem to realize, one of the biggest being that there is no way for CC to become Golden Freddy in the first place since every single animatronic became possessed because a person's body was stuffed inside it (or next to it in the case of the Puppet), whereas CC died in a hospital far away from any animatronics to possess.

Chapter 67 – Vacation in Korea Part 5

For the kids, the days they spent in Seoul was almost like entering another world.

The sadness that they felt upon leaving the paradise and idyllic scenery of Jeju was quickly replaced with fascination at the lively, yet also crowded and almost chaotic nature of Seoul's capital. When they had arrived back at Incheon airport, they had immediately been greeted by Melody's cousin Ja-Kyung after Mike and Melody had picked up their baggage. The two women hugged upon seeing each other, and Melody promptly and enthusiastically introduced her cousin to Mike afterwards.

On the way into the city itself, the kids enjoyed the K-Pop coming from the speakers, some more than others, as they drove on the highway towards Seoul. As Ja-Kyung (who insisted on the name Jackie) drove into the city proper, they were immediately struck by how different Seoul seemed compared to Las Vegas, the only other city they had ever visited. The capital of South Korea was MUCH larger than Las Vegas, for starters. And unlike the City of Sin, which had been almost purely "modern" and merely incorporated different themes to bolster the appeal of casinos and gambling, Seoul was a diverse city with genuine history intermingled with the skyscrapers and tall buildings one would expect from a capital of a developed country. Jackie drove past a majestic, ancient structure that seemed entirely out of place in the middle of the city, which she described as the Namdaemun, or South Great Gate, upon prompting from Mike.

The family and the two cousins had taken up residence in Jackie's apartment at her insistence, which was surprisingly luxurious for a seemingly plain apartment building and was more than large enough to accommodate Melody and Mike (though it helped that most of the family were incorporeal and didn't actually take up space). Jackie had proven to be an invaluable guide to them, even going so far as to drive them to several tourist hotspots so that they didn't have to spend money on cab fare or puzzle out which destinations they wanted to go to.

Wanting to save the best for last, Melody had suggested doing activities that were more generalizable for a city visit, such as shopping. The ghost kids had happily agreed to this, even though many of them tried and failed to pry the surprise that Melody and Mike had planned for them. To their surprise, the activity of shopping in Korea was far more complex, intricate, and exciting than anything the family had done before in America, even Mike with his years of life. One of the highlights of their adventures in Seoul had been an exploration of the Shinsegae and Lotte department stores, towering behemoths that held the largest array of luxurious and high-quality merchandise that any of them had ever seen in one area, and enjoyed the basement markets filled with delicious desserts and snacks that they would only be able to savor while they were in Korea. They had wrapped up their visit to the department store with the discovery that the Lotte store doubled as a hotel with its own buffet restaurant, to the delight of the ghost kids (and the good-natured amusement and exasperation of Mike, who by now was wholly familiar with letting the kids possess him whenever they wanted to taste fine dining).

And scattered throughout the city were street markets that offered a wholly different experience to the high maintenance of Lotte and Shinsegae. The markets that lined the streets of Seoul, especially the renowned Namdaemun market right at the doorstep of Shinsegae, followed a much more traditional setting where countless vendors set up small booths and sold an incredibly diverse array off goods to prospective buyers everywhere. Some of the goods offered were items that were somewhat familiar to the ghosts, such as clothing and toys, while others were foreign items that nobody in the family, living or dead, had ever laid eyes upon in their entire life. Jackie and Melody pointed out carefully crafted and stunningly beautiful embroidery, jewel boxes, and fine china, all of which had been created with a unique style that only Korea could provide. The girl ghosts were especially enamored with the fine arts of the traditional Korean market, and Mike was more than happy to buy some both for his kids and for Melody.

The boy ghosts, on the other hand, were more interested in the…unconventional and sometimes even bizarre goods sold in the market. A few booths that were selling mountain gear of all things caught Jeremy's eye, while Gabe looked interested at the unfamiliar medicine bottles and a medicinal root that Melody called Ginseng, which apparently provided many health benefits. The only ones who weren't looking for anything specific were Fritz and Charlie, who instead opted to let their eyes wander over the selection of goods and decide if anything caught their fancy.

"Really, dad?" Susie pouted as Mike walked away from a booth with a satisfied expression on his face. "All these cool things that these guys are selling, and you buy a back scratcher of all things?"

Mike smirked and shrugged. "Hey, I'm not getting any younger. I have to deal with my aching and itching body SOMEHOW."

"At least he bought other things along with that," Jeremy argued in Mike's defense. "If he ONLY bought a back scratcher in this market then that would be an embarrassment."

"It was nice of Dad to get Melody and Jackie each a jewel box," Charlie smiled at the adults. "They look absolutely beautiful."

"Least I can do to pay them back for bringing us here," Mike replied.

"Well, I can see you owing Jackie for her help, but I honestly don't know which one of us owes the other more," Melody commented as she put her gift away in her purse.

"You guys are gonna be up all night debating that one if we don't stop you," Jackie playfully interrupted as they departed from Namdaemun Market.

"What was that weird smell coming from one of the food stations?" Gabe wondered. "It looked like nuts or something like that but it seemed rather…odd…"

"I smelled it too, actually…" Liz murmured. "It had a really strong smell."

"Oh, that?" Jackie fortunately knew what they were talking about, as there was only one thing she could recall in Namdaemun that fit their description. "Oh, those were roasted cocoons."

There was instant silence from everyone, both living and dead. "I…I'm sorry, but did you say…cocoons?" Jeremy finally asked.

"Like…caterpillar to cocoon to butterfly cocoon?" Susie nervously clarified.

"Yep!" Melody cheerfully replied.

There was another silence, and then…

"Ewwwwwwwwwwwww!" Cassidy shrieked. "That sounds AWFUL! Bleargh!"

"Ugggghhhh…" Fritz muttered, "my stomach feels messed up after hearing that and I don't even have one anymore."

"Oh my God," Gabe groaned, "that smell suddenly seems so much worse now that I know about that."

Mike smirked, seeing an opportunity to get back at his kids for their constant teasing of him and Melody. "Oh, come on, it's not that bad," he replied silkly. "It could be worse. It could be grasshoppers. I hear they're quite the delicacy in Mexico."

The ghosts gulped. "Did you just say…grasshoppers?" Liz asked weakly.

"Yep!" Mike grinned. "One of my college friends took a trip to Mexico once and ate some grasshoppers on a dare, both with chili and without. He said it was quite…crunchy."

"EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!" the girl ghosts retched, this time even louder than before. Even the boys seemed deeply disturbed at the concept of eating insects. Amidst the haze of disgust, Charlie was glad that they had utilized the silencing spell, as even in the commotion of the crowd their expressions of horror would most certainly have been heard.

"How'd he describe it, out of curiosity?" Melody wondered.

"Said the ones with chili tasted like shit and the ones without chili tasted even worse," Mike blithely replied as they entered the Shinsegae parking garage to access Jackie's car.

Feeling pity for the poor ghosts, Melody decided to distract them as Jackie started driving. "You know, the Underground in Korea is a lot more advanced and intricate than anything in the United States."

"You mean the subways?" Gabe ventured. Though Mike hadn't taken him and his fellow ghosts to another city outside of Vegas yet, they had asked him questions about what city life was like and Mike had given them a general overview of what they could expect in cities. Which, considering the diverse nature of cities, was incredibly bare-bones and barely functional as a description.

"That and more," Melody elaborated. "The subway systems are so much cleaner and nicer in Korea. The trains themselves are closed off behind sliding doors that only open when the train arrives, so you don't have to worry about falling onto the tracks. And the trains have air conditioning in them too!"

"Oh my God, why don't they do that in America," Mike groaned. "Subways would be so much less of a pain in the ass if they put in A/Cs, especially in the summer." He decided not to mention that the accident/suicide rate would also decrease thanks to the glass doors – no need to make the kids unnecessarily depressed.

"And there's other things set up, too!" Jackie continued where her cousin had left off. "The underground right outside of Shinsegae actually has an entire market set up, kinda like the Namdaemun market except on a smaller scale. And that market is connected to both the department store's basement grocery floor and the subway too!"

"That sounds a hell of a lot cooler than anything we have back in America!" Liz exclaimed.

"Not nearly as cool as some of the other things we've seen here," Cassidy countered. "Namdaemun Market blows everything we've seen so far out of the water!"

"I dunno…" Susie mused, "I really liked that other market we visited earlier. What was it called…Ssamziegil or something like that?"

"You mean that four-floored market complex where you got to the top by a spiraling walkway?" Jeremy clarified. "Oh yeah, that was cool too! Honestly, the market there wasn't even my most favorite part of the whole thing."

"I still can't believe that the café at the top of that place was about shit of all things," Mike muttered, to the amusement of everyone else in Jackie's car. Mike's words weren't a mere joke…at the top of the Ssamziegil market complex had been a café that was literally themed around poop. Complete with poop-shaped plushies, toilet-themed mugs, and mini-gardens made out of squat toilets. The laughter that had ensued from the ghosts would have been enough to get the entire market evacuated and declared haunted if Charlie's silencing spell hadn't been in effect.

It had been one of the few times Mike had been completely stunned into silence. Or, as he later described it, "my brain fucking broke."

"I don't think I've ever seen Mike with that hard of a WTF expression on his face in my entire life," Melody joked, earning another bout of giggles.

"Har har," Mike deadpanned. Feeling bad for her dad, Charlie decided to change the topic.

"I noticed that there were a lot of places that had PC…and then something in Korean that I don't know how to read," Charlie asked the two Korean women. "Do people sell computers a lot here?"

"You mean the PC bangs?" Melody clarified, receiving a nod of confirmation from Charlie.

Since she had lived in Korea a lot longer than Melody, Jackie decided to explain it for her. "Those are actually gaming rooms, Charlie. Many of them are underground or higher up in buildings, and they're full of computers that are set up with a ton, and I mean a TON of different games. People pay money to play for a certain amount of time, for example an hour, and play whatever game they choose. I've visited a few in my spare time, and they're really decked out with Hi-Def computers, headphones, and everything!"

"All that dedicated to GAMING?" Susie spluttered. "Is it really that popular?"

"Let me put it this way," Melody replied with a smirk. "Koreans are recognized as some of the top professional gamers in the world, and many people believe that Starcraft is South Korea's national sport."

The kids' jaws dropped as they realized just how integral video gaming was to South Korean culture. Then, Fritz turned to Mike. "Hey, dad?" he asked. "How come you haven't shown us online multiplayer gaming yet?"

Mike groaned. "Because online multiplayer gaming is full of trolls, assholes, dumbasses, jackasses, all sorts of 'asses' that can easily make a gaming session a major pain in the ass," he replied. "Trust me, I know from experience."

"We could make our own teams!" Jeremy argued back. "That way, we could have fun with just us and work as a team."

"Yeah, with us working together, we'd be unstoppable!" Liz agreed wholeheartedly.

"That actually is a good point," Jackie commented. "When you're playing with people you know, a lot of the issues with multiplayer online gaming tend to go away. Granted, you might still suck every so often, but at least you don't have to worry about assholes ruining your games from minute 1."

"I'll think about it," Mike decided, and the kids gave each other smirks and grins. They knew Mike would cave eventually.

After a few minutes of driving, Jackie decided to ask the kids what they had enjoyed the most about their vacation in Seoul so far. The younger girls were split between the markets and the department stores - even as ghosts with almost next to no shopping experience, they enjoyed the activity of browsing and shopping almost as much as living females (although the fact that they were experiencing something much larger and much different from the American malls they were used to probably played a factor).

By contrast, the boys were more diverse in their interests. Fritz had instantly picked the Poop Café in Ssamziegil, much to the exasperated amusement of the others. Jeremy had really enjoyed visiting Gyeongbokgong Palace, the first and largest royal palace of Korea. Through careful maintenance and rebuilding, the palace had been recreated to almost exactly resemble the glory of the original palace before it had been ravaged by fire, and it served almost as a bubble of ancient civilization separated from the rest of modern Seoul. And Gabe identified the National Museum of Korea as his favorite, an interest shared with Charlie – both of them were intrigued with how Korean civilization and the relics associated with different eras and dynasties had evolved as the centuries passed.

"What about you, dad?" Cassidy asked. "What was your favorite thing?"

Mike was silent for several seconds. "I wouldn't necessarily call it my…favorite, persay…he finally started to answer, "but I was very interested in the Story of Yi Sun-Sin."

"You mean the underground museum about the sea admiral?" Liz asked, earning a nod of confirmation from Mike. The family had stumbled upon the museum entirely by accident, unaware of the fact that they were about to bear witness to the legacy of one of the most famous war leaders in all of history.

"Yeah," Mike answered. "Now there's a guy I can be proud to call a role model. I mean, he was a freaking strategic and tactical genius! When he was facing up against Japanese invaders, he used every resource and every single bit of information he could get his hands on to beat an enemy that should've been a hell of a lot stronger than he was. Any tool he could use to his advantage, he did." He let out a chuckle and shook his head. "And this wasn't just once, either. Once is lucky, and if he fucked up once then he could've kissed his navy and his ass good-bye. This is a guy who pulled it off EVERY SINGLE TIME. If he wasn't a mortal man I would've probably called him unbeatable."

He looked over at the kids, who had thoughtful expressions on their faces. "And he wasn't just a great commander. He was a great guy too. He fought alongside his men and tried his hardest to fulfill their dying wishes whenever he got the chance. This is a guy who kept his soldier's morale high even while the rest of the Korean army was getting fucked, and the people loved him so much that they went out of their way to get intelligence for him no matter how dangerous it was." Mike sighed. "This is a man I'd follow in a heartbeat, and something tells me that Oskar would say the same."

Everyone was silent for several moments. Even Jackie and Melody were surprised by the clear admiration and respect in Mike's voice for a man whose legend he had barely been exposed to. "You know, dad…" Charlie finally spoke up, speaking through the mental link so that only the family could hear. "He kind of reminds me of you."

"Wait, what?" Mike was caught off-guard.

"Yeah, dad," Gabe immediately agreed. "You're a hell of a strategist too! You survived in the streets of the city for years AND you survived twenty days with us attacking you, all because you analyzed the information from how we acted and used it to come up with a strategy to block us off!"

"No way," Mike denied fervently, "it's not like I led an entire army or anything. I only had to worry about myself."

"And loyalty to the people he cared about?" Susie added with an appreciative smile. "Doesn't that describe, oh I don't know…every single action you've done for us ever since you invited us into your family?"

"If telling a demon lord to fuck off doesn't count as loyalty and bravery, then I don't know what does," Liz finished, the painful memories of Nightmare's attack and her father's verbal counter-offensive still clear in her mind.

"As far as I'm concerned, you're our Yi Sun-sin right here!" Fritz finished what every ghost was thinking, and before Mike knew it he was being group-hugged by them all.

"I'm nowhere near arrogant enough to think that I can ever be as much of a genius or as great of a guy as Admiral Yi," Mike projected to them, "but hearing you compare me to him is probably one of the best compliments I've ever gotten. So thank you, even if you don't think I deserve it."

"Are you guys all right?" Melody's voice interrupted. The family jolted, realizing outside of their mental link their communication would have been interpreted as an awkward silence followed by a random hug.

"We're comparing Dad to Yi Sunsin!" Cassidy cheerfully replied. Melody and Jackie glanced at each other and shrugged, deciding to chalk it up as the ghost kids' admiration for their father. It They soon arrived back at Jackie's apartment, where they immediately convened to discuss the rest of their day.

"We'd like to invite you guys to a funeral memorial service," Jackie began once they had all settled. "Once a year, Korean families visit the tombs of their deceased loved ones to pay their respect. It's an aspect of Korean culture that you guys won't ever get the chance to see again, and with how close you guys are to Melody we would be honored to consider you our guests even if you don't directly participate."

"That's a very generous offer," Mike replied, knowing that he was being offered an incredibly honor even if he didn't understand it, "and we would be honored to accept."

Melody smiled wistfully. "It's been so long since I've visited my grandparents' graves," she murmured, before sighing. "Better late than never, I suppose. We're going to leave in about thirty minutes, it'll be close to evening when we get there."

Cassidy gave her a confused look. "Wait, that late? Isn't this still in Seoul?"

Jackie shook her head. "Oh no, this is about a two hour drive," she answered. "We have to leave pretty soon if we want to get there before sundown."

"Should I get changed into my suit?" Mike asked.

"You can if you want, but I don't want to boil you in the Korean summer heat wave," Melody replied. I think a dress shirt and khakis will be good enough."

"If you say so," Mike replied. For the next thirty minutes, he, Melody, and Jackie all got prepared for the long trip to the graveyard where Melody's and Jackie's ancestors were buried. The ghosts spent their time looking up fancy dresses and attire for them to morph their clothes into, as they didn't want to appear disrespectful to Melody and Jackie after they had invited them into something deeply personal and solemn in nature. As they got ready to leave, the kids noticed the frankly bizarre assortment of items that the Korean cousins were bringing with them. Along with a reflective foil tarp, they were carrying along a few apples and clementines, orange juice, and what appeared to be an energy drink of some kind.

"Uh…why are you bringing those?" Fritz asked in bewilderment. "Are you planning on eating on the way there?"

"Oh no," Melody responded, "this is for the memorial service."

"O…kay…?" Neither Fritz nor the other ghosts knew how to interpret that, so they decided to roll with it. Just like Jackie had told them, they soon found themselves leaving the city of Seoul behind in its entirety, travelling on a highway surrounded by much more open countryside with only the faint appearance of apartment buildings in the distance. With nothing else to do, the family started dozing off one at a time, and before they knew it they had arrived at a service area close to their destination.

"Holy shit," Mike whistled as he took in the service area they had dropped off at. He was no stranger to service areas, having seen them on the side of highways in America. But the service area they were now at offered far more than just a few small restaurants and gas. There was an entire array of restaurants, offering far more meals than any rest stop in America ever would, both in terms of diversity and quality. There was a large café just like the countless ones scattered around the city of Seoul, selling drinks and Korean bread pastries that Mike and the ghost kids were so familiar with by now. In the distance, he thought he could hear music being played, and the sound of kids laughing and playing in an entertainment area set up for them.

In America, service areas offered only the bare-bones necessities and little else. In Korea, they weren't just a necessity, they were a pleasure to visit.

"Wow," Mike repeated as he bought a refreshing smoothie for himself and Cassidy possessed him to taste it (the family had set up a schedule where a different ghost would possess him each time he bought a drink at a café, which in the summer heat wave was quite often). "Looking at this has made me realize just how much American service areas SUCK!"

This earned a bout of laughter from both the ghosts and Melody as Jackie walked back towards them from a place where she had disappeared to. "I got Hodu-Gwaja! Tons and tons of them!" she cheerfully declared. At the confused looks of the Americans, she clarified. "They're small walnut pastries. Around here, they're a local specialty. And trust me, they are delicious!"

"I used to be allergic to walnuts," Jeremy mused as they got back into the car. "I used to break out into hives whenever I ate one."

"Well, I don't think you're going to have that problem anymore, Jeremy," Mike remarked as he popped a Hodu-Gwaja into his mouth. They spent the remaining minutes of their trip eating some of the Hodu-Gwaja that Jackie had bought, with the ghosts possessing Mike to enjoy them. To Jeremy's relief, he no longer experienced allergies as a ghost, and so was able to enjoy them along with the rest of the family just fine.

As they completed the last leg of their journey, the kids noticed that the area they were now entering was arguably the most nature-attuned area they had seen in Korea so far outside of Jeju. The scenery was replaced with rolling hills, grassy meadows and trees, with only simple buildings scattered about that contrasted sharply with the crowded nature of the city. After several minutes of driving on a road that wound through the shallow and green mountains, Jackie turned to the side and drove past a wooden gate.

The kids gasped as they finally got a good look at the Korean cemetery. Even though they had barely seen a graveyard back in America (an irony which was not lost on them), they had a general idea of what a cemetery would look like. Like so many other things they had seen in Seoul, the burial ground they were now at blew their expectations out of the water once again.

The cemetery was spread throughout multiple hills and small mountains in front of them, with more of them likely hidden behind the hills they were currently at. The hills themselves had been divided into layered rows, with only a few roads intertwined to enable passage through and up the gentle slopes. And on each row were several stone sarcophagi spaced a few feet apart with either gray or black stone tombstones erected in front of each crypt.

This wasn't a graveyard. It was a grave mountain.

"Whoa," Fritz breathed as Jackie drove up the path leading to the mountain on the right. Everyone was now silent, as there was no room for any behavior other than quiet respect on these hallowed grounds. Jackie stopped the car at a row about three down from the top, and both she and Melody got out with Mike following close behind. The two Korean women took out the variety of food and drink they had brought with them, and it was only then that the ghosts realized that they had been brought as an offering to the deceased.

Now that they were right in front of the sarcophagi, everyone could see just how decorative and beautiful the tombs truly were. The sarcophagi themselves were ornately and intricately crafted, giving off a sense of nobility and honor. And while some of the lids were made out of pure stones, others had been hollowed out and filled with a small mound of soil and grass, like a miniature garden. The tombstones were just as decorative, carved in the shape of a large book with Korean letters sculpted into the "pages." Two stone vases stood next to the tombstone with flowers peeking out on top of them, completing the image of a carefully maintained and well cared-for tomb.

Melody guided the family over to the crypt where her ancestors were buried. This was a pair of "garden-top" graves with blue flowers in the vases and a cross inscribed on each tombstone. Some of the other tombstones had lacked this particular symbol, leading the family to believe that the deceased here had been Christian. Jackie laid out the foil tarp onto the ground in front of the sarcophagus and placed the fruit onto a small stone table in front of the tombstone that almost served as an altar of some kind. She and Melody spoke some words in Korean that, even though they were undecipherable to the Americans, clearly portrayed the deep respect they had for their grandparents and their sorrow at their passing. Once they had finished, both adults knelt onto the foil tarp and bowed, lowering their hands and heads to the ground.

Mike and the ghost kids observed silently as Jackie and Melody took out a bottle of energy drink, opened the bottle, and poured the contents onto the mini-garden on top of the sarcophagi. Charlie could only guess that it was a tribute so that their ancestors could enjoy the drink in the afterlife, and the look of understanding on Gabe's face showed that he recognized it immediately as well. Once they were finished, Jackie and Melody picked up the tarp and the food and drink that they had not already offered to their grandparents, and the group moved a few crypts further down to where the women's great-grandparents were located.

As they watched Melody and Jackie repeat the ceremony, the ghosts took the time to absorb in the atmosphere of the grave mountain. Unlike the living adults, they felt more than just the solemnity of the hallowed grounds. There was a mysterious feeling that permeated through their souls, a sensation unlike anything that they had ever sensed on Earth in the past. They felt almost…peaceful, a tranquility that was completely different from the happiness and contentment that had come to define their lives ever since they had joined Mike's family. As though they could rest their weary bodies here and call this place home.

The last time they had felt anything like this…had been in Heaven, after they had finally been freed. Before God had passed judgment on them and sent them back to the mortal world, to a father who would do everything in his power to create a different kind of Paradise for them.

The ghosts were so absorbed in their own thoughts that they failed to notice the thoughtful, almost troubled look on Mike's own face. Watching the two Korean women carry out their ceremony had reminded him of his own failings. If he was being completely honest with himself, he hadn't properly given the dead their due either, and unlike Melody he didn't have the excuse of being halfway across the world for most of the year. He couldn't remember the last time he had visited his parents' graves, and although that was understandable for his birth father (despite the fact that he hadn't hated the man for a while now, especially when William Afton made him look like a shining pinnacle of morality by comparison) he had no excuse for his mother or Oskar.

And it wasn't just his parents, either. In the back of his mind, Mike could see the broken bodies of Gabe, Jeremy, Susie, Fritz, and Cassidy, in the very place he had found them in the 1987 Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria. He had called the police to the abandoned restaurant and handed the bodies over to them, but he had yet to actually complete or even follow-up on the process of preparing graves for them so that their bodies could rest. Granted, part of the reason why was because he was so focused on creating a new life for their souls (and the kids would probably prefer him to prioritize their fresh new life over their broken old ones) but it still didn't change the fact that he had been remiss in his duties.

"I've really been dropping the ball lately," he mused as Jackie and Melody finished up their second round of memorial ceremonies. "I've got some work to do when I get back to America."

"Dad?" a timid voice interrupted his thoughts. Mike looked up to see Cassidy and the others looking at him with some concern. "You all right?"

Mike nodded. "Just doing a little thinking, is all," he replied. A faint smile formed on his face. "I honestly can't believe this vacation is putting me through this much of a thought exercise."

"What were you thinking about?" Liz asked curiously as they made their way back to the car.

"Nothing you need to worry about," he answered with a smile as Jackie turned the car around and started driving back down to the entrance of the cemetery. The ghosts must have seen something his eyes or heard something in his tone, because they gave him unconvinced looks for several seconds.

Once they were back out onto the road, Jackie and Melody unintentionally saved him from any further awkwardness by playing music on the radio. The station that it was tuned on blared out an unfamiliar form of music that Jackie called "K-Pop," and Mike watched with amusement as some of the ghosts started dancing or even trying to sing along the music despite the fact that it was in Korean and they didn't understand a single word. Susie in particular seemed to enjoy it, and Mike resigned himself to the fact that once the kids were eventually exposed to anime she would probably be the one most likely to turn into a weeb.

"But that's a problem for another day," he thought as they sped along the highway back towards the bustling capital of Korea. "Right now, we're on vacation, and I'm so glad I came to Seoul."

He thought back to the many adventures he'd had in this country along with his kids and friends. "Who knew I could learn so much from a vacation that I never planned to happen in the first place?"

/

A/N: And I think there's a good place to stop this chapter. Some humor, heartwarming and seriousness mixed together, along with some cultural tidbits and famous hotspots that are a great place for tourists to visit in Korea.

Apart from my busy schedule, I actually had a minor case of writer's block when starting this chapter. I originally planned to have it be pretty much all shopping with more detail being given to the market visits, but I quickly scratched that idea once I realized I had no way of making it interesting for an entire chapter's length. I think the way I organized the chapter now is much better overall.

I did include some foreshadowing here. One case is fairly straightforward, but the other not so much. That's all I'll tell you 😉

There will NOT be a chapter next week. I have med school finals, and I'm actually in hot water for one of my classes so I just don't have the time. While I do sometimes say that there won't be a chapter in a week and then I post one anyway, this is most definitely NOT one of those times.

Anyway, hope you guys enjoyed! The next chapter will be the final one of the Korea arc for real, and it features something that I'm sure the ghost kids in particular will enjoy. :P