Nothing much happened during our two months stay in my town as countryside life was pretty boring. After spending the first two days walking around our small town, the rest of the days were spent mainly on individual activities. Heechul spent it on meeting his old schoolmates who had also returned to the town for the school break while Ryeowook and I spent most of our waking moments together. Sungmin spent his time either hanging out with us, or in the house with Auntie Yuri. Kyuhyun spent his-

Well, you can pretty much guess what that gamer would be doing so I don’t have to say it out.

However, our vacation was not all that boring. There were indeed a couple of interesting incidents that took place. The most fun-filled day during our two months stay took place on when the five of us decided to spend the day fishing at the river that flows near Auntie Yuri’s house. The river hold a lot of fond memories for us three siblings as it was the place where we spent most of our childhood in.

This river flows through our town, and opens out to the nearby sea. Since it was connected to the sea, there are many fishes in the river. Although not as large as those that actually live in the sea, they were large enough for entertainment purposes. Not wishing to get dirty in the muddy water, we opted for fishing rods this time.

The stretch of river that we were planning to fish in is within close proximity of our house. It is so close that if someone stands in our backyard and gives a loud holler, the person can be heard clearly from the river.

After lunch, we gathered up the necessary stuff and left for the fishing spot. The sun was high up in the sky, making the surface of the river glitter as if there were mini lights in it. All of us, except for Kyuhyun, were dressed casually in slippers, t-shirts and shorts due to the unbearable warm weather. Kyuhyun however, decided that he should wear his brown leather shoes instead of slippers for he was afraid that his toes would be burnt off by the sun or something.

Having chosen a particular rocky part of the river bank, we then proceeded to set up the three fishing rods that we brought along, with a distance of about 1m in between. After making sure that the rods were firmly wedged between the rocks, we then started chatting.

After a while, a loud splashing sound came from the waters below. Jumping up in excitement, I dashed over to the rod that was shaking back and forth. Just as I reached it, the rod started rocking side to side violently, indicating the presence of a catch.

“Go Yonni! Pull it up, pull it up!” Ryeowook was cheering me on, together with the other three boys. Frowning in concentration, I tried to reel in our first catch. The fish seemed to be rather large as I was having difficulty controlling the stability of the fishing rod.

After struggling with the fish for a while, I made no progress in pulling in our catch. The boys wanted to come over to help, but I wanted to do it on my own. It seemed easier to catch these fishes with your bare hands. “Yonni!” I heard Ryeowook called my name suddenly. Thinking he wanted to tell me something, I turned behind to look at him.

Wrong move.

“You have to pull it lik-” Those were the few words that I caught before my catch gave an extremely hard tug, causing my body to lurch forward from the sudden movement. As I had my body half-turned to the back, I was unable to keep my balance. The next thing I heard was the chorus voices of the boys yelling my name before my flight into the air, followed by the loud splash of the water as I fell in.

I actually swallowed a few mouthfuls of the muddy water before I managed to resurface. Although the water was not too deep, I had to tread a bit of water to stay afloat. “Yonni! Are you okay?” Sungmin’s smiling voice came floating over from the bank. I looked to the direction of his voice, and saw that he was kneeling at the spot where I fell in. Kyuhyun was standing beside him, hands on hips with an amused look. Behind them, Heechul was yelling at Ryeowook, “Babo-ya? How can you call out to her when she’s trying to reel in the fish?”

“I was just trying to teach her how to-”

Their conversation was drowned out by Evil-Kyu’s entertained voice, “Yah! Pig-ni! Why are you still holding on to the fishing rod? The fish  won! Play fair and let it go!”

Upon hearing that, I raised my hands out from under the water, and realised that I was indeed still holding on to the rod. Releasing my hold, I pouted and yelled back to Kyuhyun, “Has your conscience been eaten away by Starcraft? How can you stand there laughing at me when I’m in this state?!”

He laughed heartily, “Only stupid people will fall into the water. Babo like yo-“

Kyuhyun was cut off in the middle of his sentence as a look of shock took over the cockiness on his face. “Oh!” was the only sound he muttered before his body too leaned forward. He flailed his arms around wildly, trying to regain his balance. He looked remotely like a chicken that was trying to take flight.

After teetering along the edge of the rocks for a few seconds, his attempt to keep his balance failed. As he fell off the rocks, I was able to see Heechul and Ryeowook who were standing behind him. Heechul had one of his arms raised while Ryeowook had his body back facing me but head turned towards Kyuhyun. Both of them had the same stunned look on their faces.

A smaller splash followed Kyuhyun’s one as he fell into the water. Looking at the direction of the smaller splash, I noticed a single black sandal floating on the surface. Kyuhyun re-emerged about 2m away from my position, his previously styled hair hanging limp on his head.

It only took the rest of us about 4 seconds to recover from the shock before we burst into laughter. Kyuhyun turned crimson red as he shouted back at the shore, “YAH! WHO THREW THAT AT ME!”

Ryeowook raised his hand shakily and pointed at Heechul as he bent over laughing, “Br-Brother did!”

Heechul too had a smirk on his face as he shook his head slightly, “Aish, I meant to throw it at Ryeowook. He ducked away too fast. You were just unlucky,”

“Only stupid people will fall into the water?” I asked as I used Kyuhyun’s insult against himself, “Who’s the babo now? Haha!”

“YAH! This is not counted! You fell in because you were stupid! I fell in because of them!”

“What goes around come around~~” I teased as I sang to the tune of Alicia Keys’ ‘Karma’. Kyuhyun ignored me and swam towards the rocks where the rest were at. Once he reached the rocks, he reached up and grabbed on to one certain boulder and tried to pull himself up. However, his brown leather shoes provided no friction at all against the slippery wet rocks. He only managed to pull himself up halfway before slipping back in unglamorously with yet another splash.

Looking at his predicament, I could not help but continued singing to ‘Karma’, “What goes up must come down~~ Mr Cho, are you acting in the MV? Why are you acting to the tune?” Kyuhyun threw a deadly glare in my way and started swimming towards me.

“Mwo! MWO! Why are you swimming towards here?!” I panicked as I tried to swim backwards to place distance between me and him. He did not reply, and was fully focused in swimming in my direction. Throwing an anxious glance at the river bank, Ryeowook and Sungmin were sitting on the edge of the rocks with happy smiles on their faces while Heechul was simply looking on with yet another smirk.

“BROTHER HEECHUL!” I yelled, reasoning that he was the one person that could stop Kyuhyun, “Brother Heechul, help!!!”

“You started it,” Heechul chuckled as he crossed his arms, “You end it.”

“Come on… Please!!! He’s gonna kill me!!!” I pleaded, my eyes never leaving Kyuhyun, who was gaining on me.

“What do I gain out of it?” He was deliberately trying to take revenge on me for telling Auntie Yuri about his tantrums.

“You were the one that threw the shoe at Kyuhyun!!!” Kyuhyun was now only 1m away from me, “If you don’t help me, I’m going to tell Auntie Yuri!”

“Mwo?!” Heechul had a stunned look on his face, “Seriously?! How old are you?”

“AUNTIE YU-”

“ARASSO! AISH!” Heechul complained as he hurriedly cut me off, “Yah! Cho Kyuhyun! If you dare to touch my sister, you’re dead! Arasso?”

However, Kyuhyun ignored Heechul’s forewarning and continued swimming. Heechul placed his hands on his hips disapprovingly and glared at the half-submerged figure that was advancing despite his warning. The issue was turning personal.

No one ignores Kim Heechul, and escapes unscathed.

“Yah! Cho Kyuhyun! Didn’t you hear me?!”

Maybe it was because Kyuhyun’s head was completely underwater, maybe it was because he was too focused in getting to me to hear the ambience noises. Either way, he continued to ignore Heechul’s repeated warnings. With a loud curse, Heechul threw himself into the water with a diver-pose and joined in the fight.

Kyuhyun got to me before Heechul did though. Diving underwater, he re-emerged with a handful of mud from the river bed. With an evil twinkle in his eyes, he then proceeded to smear it on my face despite my feeble attempts at trying to keep him at bay. Soon, he had turned my face into a mud facial mask.

More amused than annoyed, I then strangled him with a playful chokehold, before proceeding to dirty his face with the mud he placed on mine. Just then Heechul reached us, and he immediately got into a friendly underwater scuffle with Kyuhyun. I then acted as a temporary emcee, live-broadcasting the fight from the underwater arena to the remaining two audiences on the shore.

“Heechul-bob Squarepants tackled Patrick-Kyu with a deadly body slam! BUT! Patrick-Kyu managed to reverse the situation by pulling on Heechul-bob’s shirt, covering his face with it! That was such a LOW move!” I shouted out as animatedly as I could, drawing laughter from the shore audiences, “It seems like Patrick-Kyu has the adv- NO! Heechul-bob has managed to untangle his square face from his own shirt and is now chasing after Patrick-Kyu at an amazing speed! Patrick-Kyu is swimming for his life!”

After a minute, the two came up to the surface for air, laughing as they shook water out from their ears. “Hey~ Come back!!! We’re here to fish! Not to watch a re-enactment of Spongebob Squarepants!” Ryeowook’s cheery voice brought our attention back to the two survivors that was still on dry land.

I saw the evil duo in the water exchanged a knowing look at each other before starting to swim for the bank simultaneously. Following behind them slowly, I wondered about that glint in their eyes when they looked at each other.

What are these two evil masterminds planning?

They swam away from the rocks, getting onto the shore via the grassy banks that were nearby. Ryeowook and Sungmin were standing near the edges of the rocks as they asked me to get back up quick. They were so engrossed in urging me that they did not notice that Heechul and Kyuhyun had crept up behind him.

The next moment, the evil masterminds emitted war cries and pounced onto the two unsuspecting lambs at the same time. Ryeowook was pushed into the river in an instant by Heechul, who jumped in after him. Sungmin however, put up a fierce fight with Kyuhyun.

Ryeowook resurfaced choking and spluttering, having drank a few mouthful of muddy water due to shock from Heechul’s sneak attack. After he recovered, he joined Heechul and I in cheering for the tussle that was occurring on the bank.

Sungmin was much stronger than he looked. Although Kyuhyun was taller than him, Sungmin was able to prevent getting pushed into the water by him. However, the mischievous brawl brought both of them closer and closer to the edge of the rocks. In a sudden misstep, Sungmin slipped off the rocks, pulling Kyuhyun in after him.

With the final big splash made by them as they plunged into the river together, all five of us were officially in danger of getting our heads chewed off by Auntie Yuri for playing in dirty water. However, with the cooling waters around us, this worry was thrown to the back of our heads. We had already forgotten the purpose of the day as we splashed around in the water, occasionally diving underneath to pull each other down underwater.

We stayed in the water for almost two good hours, just playing around and basically having a great time. Even Kyuhyun, who was reluctant to come on this fishing trip seemed to have enjoyed himself tremendously. My skin were starting to peel off from the prolonged exposure to water, and worrying about getting disfigured, I was the first person to get back on shore.

The boys came back after another 15 minutes, ending off their play with a swimming competition. Sungmin was the first person to reach, followed closely by Heechul and Kyuhyun, and lastly, Ryeowook. After we gathered up the fishing gears, Ryeowook suggested that we lie on the rocks and dry ourselves out before returning home, lest we incur the rage of Auntie Yuri. We agreed to his suggestion.

The atmosphere was light-hearted as we lay in a circle, with our heads pointing to the centre. Staring up at the sunny sky, I was reminded of my childhood days where Heechul, Ryeowook and I came here to fish in our free time. Their father, Uncle Kim, is a fisherman. Maybe it was because of his influence, the pair of brothers loved fishing since young.

When I joined the family, I was often pulled along on the fishing trips. Even though I did not enjoy being out in the sun, I was thankful for the companionship and bonding sessions that these trips offer. When we were younger, we would simply jump into the river to catch fishes. The river was not as deep as it is now. Every time after we were done with our fishing, we would lie out on the rocks like now, drying ourselves to escape the scolding from Auntie Yuri.

Oh how I missed those days! Now that we’re all grown up, the three of us hardly have the chance to hand out together. Even though Heechul and I were living in the same house, he’s always up to his neck with work. Sometimes, our interactions were simply limited to “How’s your day at school,” and “Goodnight!”.

A tear came to my eyes as it suddenly dawned on me that Ryeowook was probably the one that suffers the most, with him being all alone back here. At least I could get hold of Heechul almost immediately if I needed help, but Ryeowook? He’s all alone…

“Yonni! What are you thinking about?!” Ryeowook’s voice pulled me out of my thoughts. I sat up immediately, and noticed that my clothes were already dry. How long had I been in my thoughts?

“What?” I asked as I looked around. The rest of the boys were packing up our stuff.

“I asked what’s on your mind? Didn’t you hear me call you?”

I shook my head and gave Ryeowook a huge smile, “I probably fell asleep. Come on! Let’s go,” Throwing one last look at the river that held my countless memories, I walked back to the house.

Another funny day we had was during the 6^th week of our stay, when Ryeowook, Sungmin, Kyuhyun and I took a full day hike up in the mountainous area that surrounded our town. The particular area that we were bringing Kyuhyun and Sungmin to was a place that I hold dearly in my heart. “Why do we have to hike all the way to the top?” Kyuhyun complained as he scratched at a mosquito bite on his arm, his fourth one so far, “Can't we just find a flat ground that we can eat at and go back?”

“That would defeat the purpose of a hike, wouldn't it?” Sungmin cheerfully replied as he pulled his backpack further up his shoulders.

“Come on! It's just a short walk! We have barely even started and you're already complaining!” I remarked as I pulled at his arm, trying to get Kyuhyun to walk faster.

“Easy for you to say,” he replied grudgingly, “We're the ones carrying all the load,”

“Just treat it as if you're playing Starcraft! You're the...” I scratched my head as I pondered hard for the correct term to use.

“The resource collectors?” Sungmin offered, throwing a wink at me. I smiled back at him before tugging on Kyuhyun's arm again, “The resource collectors. Come on! Imagine your fan club is here and they see you like this! Your image is going to be destroyed!”

“Worker units,” he said quietly as he changed the hand that was holding on to our lunch basket.

“What?”

“Worker units!” He repeated, throwing a judging look at me, “They're called worker units. What the hell is a resource collector? Sounds like garbage collector,”

“Resource collectors, worker units, they are all the same thing! They walk very far distances, collect the things that they need, and bring it back to camp! So, you can imagine yourself in their shoes now,” I replied, taking the lunch basket from him, “There, I'll take this for you, so stop complaining okay?”

That shut him up. However, it didn't stop him from grumbling to himself all the way to the peak. I smiled as I trudged along behind him, giving him an occasional push when he started slowing down. I wasn't affected by Kyuhyun's persistent complaining as I had already expected it to be this way. He had been spending his time mainly in the room, playing Starcraft. I had spend days pestering him before he agreed to get some fresh air.

Finally, after much trouble, we reached our destination. It was at the peak of one of the smaller mountains, and the view was breathtaking. You could see miles from the lookout point, and the air was almost sweet. The area itself was well shaded, a haven in the cruel summer heat. As we laid out the food that we brought along on the picnic mat, I noticed Kyuhyun couldn’t keep his eyes off the scenery around us. He even had a faint smile on his face.

“I told you that you won’t regret it,” I said as I handed a packet of drink to him. He turned to face me abruptly and simply nodded before returning to enjoy the beautiful sight.

“How did you get to know this place?” Sungmin asked as he picked up a piece of the sandwich.

“Oh, this was my secret little hideout!” I answered as I poked the straw into my packet of drink.

“Your secret little hideout?”

“You climb all the way up here to hide away?” Kyuhyun asked as he looked at me unbelievingly.

“Why not? The view is beautiful!”

“How did you discover it?” It was Sungmin’s turn to ask again.

“Actually, we brought her here. Brother and I,” Ryeowook answered as he gave me a huge smile. I returned the smile before adding, “On my 7^th birthday!”

“Why did you two bring a 7 year old babo here?” Kyuhyun commented as he dodged the kick I sent out to him in response to his comment.

“As a birthday present!” Ryeowook answered, settling down on the mat.

“You brought her here as a birthday present?”

“No, they brought me here FOR my birthday present,” I answered as I got onto my feet. I walked over to a huge tree that was nearby and patted its trunk lovingly. Pointing up, I said, “There’s my birthday present,”

Kyuhyun’s and Sungmin’s eyes followed the direction that I pointed and I saw their eyes widened as they saw the present that I was referring to. It was a small tree house that was wholly produced by the bare hands of my beloved brothers. It was a memento of how, I, the random stranger that suddenly appeared, entered their lives. It was also the proof of how much my brothers loved me.

“Whoa…” Sungmin whistled as he came up beside me, with Kyuhyun following behind. “Beautiful, isn’t it?” Ryeowook asked as he too joined us at the base of the tree. Kyuhyun, who hadn’t uttered a single word, started walking around the tree.

“Not only that, it is a spiritual tree house,” I added.

“A spiritual tree house?” Sungmin repeated my words questioningly.

“Yes, a tree house with a spirit. No one can enter the tree house without my permission,” I announced proudly in a loud voice. In reality, no one else, except for Heechul and Ryeowook, knew of its existence. However, at this point of time, it seemed like a viable thing to boast about.

Out of the blue, a sudden rustling sound coupled with the sudden increase in falling leaves compelled the three of us to look up the tall tree. To my horror, and the dismay of Sungmin and Ryeowook, we found Kyuhyun scaling the trunk of the tree at an amazing speed.

“CHO KYUHYUN! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” I screamed, afraid for his safety.

“I’m going to enter your tree house!”

“MWO?!” the three of us on the ground exclaimed in unison.

“Yes! You said no one can enter without your permission right?”

“COME DOWN THIS INSTANT! YOU ARE GOING TO BREAK MY PRECIOUS TREE HOUSE!”

“NO! I’m going to enter this tree house without your permis-”

His statement was cut off by a sudden snapping sound. The huge sturdy branch that he was standing on suddenly snapped, causing Kyuhyun to fall off. I screamed and covered my eyes, afraid to see Kyuhyun dropping down. Sungmin immediately rushed forward, but Kyuhyun’s fall through the many branches had caused a great amount of leaves and broken twigs to rain down, making it impossible to see where he was, let alone to try to catch him before he hits the ground.

Fearing the worst, the three of us held our breath and waited for Kyuhyun’s screams. However, the cry never came. As the leaves and twigs settled down, we finally saw the reason for his lack of sound. For on the half-destroyed tree, Kyuhyun was hanging from a thicker branch that was lower down with his head pointing to the ground. His shoe laces had caught onto the lower branch just before he hit the ground, saving him from a potentially dangerous fall. However, it did put him in a tight spot. He was now trapped, unable to make any move.

With the danger passed, the hilarity of the whole incident started to sink in. After exchanging looks with one another, the three of us burst out in laughter, leaving a distraught Kyuhyun hanging off the branch like a bat preparing to go for a snooze.

“Are you guys done laughing? Get me off,” Kyuhyun was speaking quietly now, totally embarrassed.

“Seems like the tree has a guardian spirit to keep off unwanted guests as well,” I joked, milking one last laugh out of the two boys before we moved in to rescue Kyuhyun from his uncomfortable position.

“Shut up,” Kyuhyun spat unhappily as he put his arms around Sungmin.

“Just wait till I update Heechul on this, you’ll hear much worse things,” I laughed as we finally managed to get him off the tree. The rest of our afternoon passed by in teases and laughs, mainly targeted at Kyuhyun for once.