“What should we play today?”

After Yuju and Umji had gotten up, Sowon had been woken by her alarm and left for school.

“Hm, tag?”

“We always play tag.”

“Hide and seek?”

“We also play hide and seek a lot.”

“The game where we take the last letter and make another word?”

(Ahhhh I can’t remember the Korean name for it! I grew up calling it shiritori even tho I’m not Japanese ahhhh what was it???)

“Okay.”

“Remember, no names, or onomatopoeias and last of all no words that are only two letters long.”

Eunha started followed by Umji, Yuju, SinB, then Yerin.

“Dinosaur.”

(I’m doing it in English for comprehension purposes.)

“Ramen.”

“Nature.”

“Enigma.”

“Alphabet.”

Yerin rubbed her head, why did all the t words disappear from her.

“T-t….t….trust!”

SinB looked at Yerin’s outburst, surely it was something that was bothering the older nuko and the only thing she could think of.

“Tyrannosaurus.”

“Strawberry.”

Yuju panicked, what word started with y?

“Uhhhh oh no. Y, y, y, y, ahhh I don’t know! Yahoo!”

Eunha grinned and smacked Yuju’s bottom.

“No onomatopoeias.”

“Owh, I couldn’t think of one.”

They sat together in silence after that, unsure what to do next.

“Ah! Yarn!”

They looked at Yuju.

“I could’ve said yarn! Aw man, why couldn’t I think of it?”

They giggled together at Yuju’s slow brain and how she was upset over it.

“Yuju unnie you’re cute.”

Yuju blushed and looked away from Umji who was still giggling. She found that Yuju was the cutest when she was embarrassed over an accidental outburst,

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Sowon unnie where are you~”

“Where could you be Sowonnie unnie~”

“Sowon unnie~”

“Sowon unnie~”

Yerin giggled quietly at the younger nukos, they sat with her on the shelf closest to the door waiting for Sowon to come back for lunch, singing weird lyrics together about where Sowon unnie could be.

“Sowonnie unnie hurry back please~”

“Hurry hurry~”

Umji lay on her back on the shelf beginning to laugh uncontrollably at them. The lyrics were getting more and more ridiculous.

“Kyahaha!”

Yerin grinned harder, still holding back her laughter, but you could tell she was laughing because her little frame kept shaking from her held back laughs.

“Kids, I’m home!”

“Sowon unnie!”

They all reached their hands to Sowon who immediately dropped her bags to hold them all, scooping them into her arms and hugging them all at once.

“I’m making ddakbokeumtang today.”

“Yay!”

Yuju loved eating chicken the most of them all.

Sowon smiled as Yuju did a little jig on the way to the kitchen on the bridge, Yerin carefully holding onto the rope rails, scooting along the bridge slowly.

Seeing Yerin lagging behind more and more, Sowon walked over and plucked her up from the bridge and set her on her shoulder.

“I’m not going to let you hide it anymore. You’re afraid of heights buts for some reason you’re fine when you’re on my shoulder, is my height fine for you or are you just uncertain when there’s something you can’t trust?”

“T-trust.”

Eunha giggled behind a fist.

“Sowon unnie earlier we were playing shiritori and Yerin unnie had said trust.”

“Oh? You cutie, don’t worry about trust here. It’s guaranteed coming from all of us, right kids?”

“YEA!”

“Y-ea.”

Kissing Yerin’s cheek lightly Sowon set her down on the counter as she moved to prepare lunch.

Giving them each a little catnip scented treat, Sowon shooed them away from the stove watching them automatically get excited over the catnip. Rarely she gave them catnip since she knew that it was basically drugs for cats, but it didn’t harm them. The last time she let Umji smell catnip, the kitten had declared it a mission of hers to climb up Sowon’s body when she was sitting down, and that was when Sowon was done growing taller and Umji was still growing, making Sowon the biggest ‘mountain’ to climb at the time. Nonetheless it was a wild adventure for Umji.

“SinB? You okay there?”

SinB’s pupils were dilated but other than that she seemed calm.

“I-I’m fine.”

SinB sat there shivering a little bit, staring at Yerin who was in love with the treat, rubbing it on her cheek and smelling it.

“Yerinnie are you okay?”

“Of course!”

Sowon grinned at the enthusiastic response.

“What’s this? I give you a bit of catnip and all of a sudden you’re a completely different nuko?”

“A-aniyo! I-I’m just excited.”

“Haha, I know.”

Sowon rubbed Yerin’s ears lightly before turning back to her pot. Yerin continued to roll on the counter playing with the catnip treat.

“Unnie.”

SinB scooted closer to Yerin, her eyes still a bit wild.

“You look very beautiful.”

“Thanks, you’re beautiful too.”

Sowon laughed as she listened to them, Eunha and Yuju had begun to sing drunkenly and uMji just giggled nonstop.

“You guys love who?”

“Sowon unnie!”

“And I love who?”

“All of us!”

“Hahahaha!”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sowon sighed as she left her apartment for her afternoon classes, her cheeks were getting a bit sore from laughing with her nukos so much that she still couldn’t stop smiling the whole length of the bus ride to her school.

“Oh? Ain’t it Sowon?”

“Hey, Naeyeon chingu.”

“Hey hey, what’s got you all smiley this afternoon?”

“Hm? Oh, its nothing, today I gave my nukos just a smidge of catnip for the first time in maybe a few years?”

“Haha, of course its your babies. A warning though, when we have the party, no catnip.”

“Why not?”

“Because everything will get very crazy if all eight smell it.”

“Ah, right you have eight.”

“Yep, the last time we gave them catnip, we had to part with our couch and flowers.”

“Oh my.”

====================

well... at least I didn't make them drool.... haha