“Underline” = speaking in English

“Normal” = speaking Korean

Part VII

If Saki looked adorable in her little hand-me-down dress then she was the cutest little thing going after being placed into the smallest possible t-shirt that the boys owned at that point in time. It was one of Kiyeol’s and even with a belt it hung down way past the little girl’s sock covered feet and made her look like she ought to be out trick-o-treating as a ghost on Halloween. She toddled around carefully, not wanting to fall over and scuff the shirt and smiled when she found her target, “Daddy!” she chirped happily, extending her arms and causing the sleeves of the t-shirt to fall over them, “Look, it fits.”

Bradley couldn’t help but chuckle at his daughter and scooped her up into a hug, the full length of the t-shirt on the four year old becoming highly apparent, “You’ll grow into it one day Saki,” he said jokingly and nuzzled against her hair which smelled of shampoo, “Were you a good girl in the bath for the others?”

“Yup Saki was a good girl,” the child chirped happily once again, “but Mister. Quakers weren’t. He was splashing and splashing and splashing.”

Glancing up at the soft sound of bare feet on the wooden floor, Bradley had to literally bite his tongue to not start laughing at the state of Jongki. The boy looked like he had tripped up and fallen into a puddle or else been caught with only a half a coat on. He was soaked and clearly wasn’t happy about it, “Told you to let me bath her...though whose Mister. Quakers? That’s a new one on me.”

“Some strange singing duck that Jin got randomly,” Jongki replied, playfully glaring at the girl, “I thought she would appreciate the stupid thing.”

Bradley didn’t want to annoy the other with another ‘I tried to tell you’ statement but chuckled all the more, “Bath time toys plus Saki equates to only one thing Jongki.”

“Splashy time!”

Glaring at the elder, Jongki opted to smack him around the back of the head rather than try to tell Saki off for getting him half drenched and realised that Bradley was probably more used to it due to having some younger siblings. He hadn’t really met them but he had heard plenty of stories about them. Bradley rubbed the back of his head, murmuring a whining “Oww,” he grinned ruefully at the other, who promptly stuck his tongue out at him in return.

“Where’s the others?” the Leader asked, noting an absence of his troublemaking boys and realising at the exact same time that Mama Bear wasn’t really doing anything to help out either which wasn’t like Mama Bear in the slightest.

Gently Bradley played a little hand banging game with his daughter as he answered, causing the girl to giggle and attempt to constantly catch his fingers which were always just a little out of her reach, “Jae’s on food duty in the kitchen somewhere, Sang, Sunny and Jin are trying to find some clothes to fit me, Kiyeol’s trying to find the portable DVD player and Kyung’s disappeared off somewhere else but I didn’t quite catch where he was going. I’m under very firm instructions to stay put and not do anything.”

“Who gave you that instruction?”

“All of them,” Bradley smiled, “I was trying to help out with the smores but they’re under the impression that I’ve had to big a shock today and should just be, to quote Sang ‘Chillaxing’ right now.”

Jongki grinned towards the other, “Its killing you isn’t it?”

“You can tell?” he chuckled and sighed, “Honestly, between the lot of you I can’t decide whose being the worst right now.”

Gently ruffling the red hair, Jongki couldn’t help but shake his head, “Aww c’mon Mama Bear, just enjoy getting some fuss made towards you for once. You’re always fussing over everyone else so take some time for yourself.”

“Will you stop sounding like my Mam Jongki,” he didn’t appear to notice that he had spoken fully in English towards the younger, “It’s creepy.”

“You spoke to her yet?” Jongki said, absently moving off to sort out the towel which had been used to dry Saki off. He hadn’t fully understood all of the words spoken but got that the other was talking about his Mam, Annie, whom he knew to be a little firecracker of a mother at the best of times.

There was a slight pause, “Networks still down. I’ll call her tomorrow.”

Before Jongki could enquire further into the pause, the door to the dorm opened and Kyung appeared with a very cheery sounding, “Just me.”

“Where did you go?” Jongki couldn’t help but ask.

“To get tea,” Kyung said with a slight frown, “I asked what you wanted before I left.”

Bradley blinked up at the other, “You managed to get Take-Out in this weather?”

“We were in McDonalds before,” Kyung said with a shake of his head, “Plus I didn’t get take out in the strictest sense of the word.”

“Supermarket?” the two elders asked at the same time before breaking into equal amounts of laughter. Looked like they were back into their almost perfect synch which usually happened around the pair.

“Kyung!” Jae called, appearing around the corner, “Did you get everything okay?”

“Yup yup,” Kyung replied, passing the others to hand at least one of the bags to the slimmer boy, “Couldn’t get any chutney though; they were completely out of it.”

Lightly Jae shrugged, “That’s fine, as long as there’s enough for now. Bradley,” the warning tone was in the other’s voice again, “you aren’t going to do the cooking before you even start. I’m just waiting for the kettle to finish boiling and then you are going to take a bath.”

“Erm excuse me, but who’s the one who’s Mama Bear here?” Bradley said quickly in response shaking his head.

“Tonight all of us,” Sunwoo replied, coming in from one of the other rooms looking like some form of giant dust bunny, “Tomorrow you can fuss and faff on as much as you like but tonight we’re looking after you.”

A frown crossed the real Mama Bears face, “Appa Bear, when did our cubs become so grown up?”

Unable to hold back his laughter at the joint exclamations of displeasure at being referred to as the ‘cubs’, Jongki just shook his head, “I have no idea, Umma, no idea at all.”

A.N

Dinky little chapter this but I quite likes it. There’s more to come though and I dunno quite what my muses have got in planned the little so and sos lol