“Sunggyu, please? You’re not busy right?”

Kim Sunggyu; the fourth child of the Kim family and the only boy out of all seven children. He was seventeen and in his last year of high school. He was a tall brunet, with a medium build.

“I’m not but—,” the excuse he was about to give was refuted.

“You don’t want me to fail right? I have my mid-term tomorrow! Please! I just need to practice a little!”

Sunggyu groaned, making a face as he realized he didn't actually have a choice. His head lolled back in defeat.

“Okay,” he said, dragging out the word as if it would make him feel better.

It didn’t.

His sister squealed in delight, “Thank you so much Gyu!”

“He said yes?” a head popped from around the corner of the hallway at the top of the stairs to peek into the room that was at the end of the hall.

“Yeah!”

“Choon! Why don’t you do it instead?” Sunggyu yelled in annoyance at the sudden appearance of his younger sister.

Kim Choonyei; the sixth child of the Kim family and the fifth girl. She was thirteen and very much into video games, sports, and whatever her brother, Sunggyu, happened to be into at the time. Her hair was black and settled nicely between her shoulder blades. She rarely left it down.

“No way! Me plus make-up equals hell no!” she yelled in return.

“Choon! Watch your mouth!” the sister that was currently in his room yelled, making the girl flinch before running away down the stairs.

“Haneul, why is it always me?” he asked with a pout.

Kim Haneul; the third child of the Kim family and the third daughter. She was nineteen and studying cosmetology. Her hair was cut in a long and edgy style (as she called it herself) and was dyed a chestnut brown. She was shorter than her only brother. Sunggyu always tended to be her live mannequin.

“You should be grateful! All these things I apply on you make your skin look really nice and soft! Everyone loves that! Look at you, you don’t have a single blemish thanks to your sister,” she said proudly as she took hold of his chin and tilted his head, trying to emphasize her point.

He swatted her hand away, “Face creams and mud masks are fine. I’m not okay with actually wearing make-up.”

“But you look really good! Almost like Aecha, but with smaller eyes.”

“It’s not fair that you guys got the better portion of that,” Sunggyu complained.

Haneul simply laughed as she disappeared into her room (which she shared with another sister) that was a little way down the hall. Haneul was studying cosmetology and was in a constant need of subjects to practice on. Sadly, Sunggyu was the only one that was sympathetic and free enough to be her live mannequin. Choonyei was only thirteen so she didn’t need any of the treatments and was nowhere near patient enough to sit through it. Not to mention that she’d rather be outside or playing a video game.

“What are you doing here?” The male asked as another of his sisters walked into his room, “Haneul said you were gonna go out.”

“Haneul said that? I wonder why she never wants to use me as a guinea pig.”

“Because Gyu looks a lot better in make-up than you, Yeunja,” Haneul stated as she walked past her.

Kim Yeunja; the fifth child of the Kim family and the fourth daughter. She was sixteen years old and a junior in high school. Her hair also donned an edgy style but it was longer than Haneul’s. Unlike most of her siblings, she didn’t dye her hair so hers was black. She was slightly shorter than Sunggyu.

Haneul tried to dodge the smack that Yeunja threw but it was to no avail. Her hand landed heavy on her , making her yelp in slight pain. She only turned and gave her a glare before placing the box, in which she stored all of her supplies, on the male’s bed.

“You know, having 3 other sisters in the same house, why must it be the only brother that has to go through this? You like to torture me, don’t you?” he asked.

Haneul offered him a smile that only made Sunggyu sigh in annoyance.

“Is your older sister coming today?” Sunggyu asked.

“I don’t know. Probably not.”

Sunggyu sighed, resigning to the fact that he won’t be getting out of it, “Do your worst.”

“I’ll make you look gorgeous, just you wait.”

“Guys! Hey guys, we finally got new neighbors!” Choonyei yelled excitedly as she ran inside Sunggyu’s room.

“What? Really?” Yeunja asked, standing almost immediately.

She was sitting in the room watching Haneul work her magic as she secretly stole the techniques from her. Her attention quickly diverted from it as she heard the news. She made her way toward the balcony doors, pulling them open. Haneul followed curiously behind.

“Do they have any kids?” the older girl asked as she searched around the area of the house next door.

“Hey that guy is handsome! I gotta go greet the neighbors!”

Haneul laughed at Yeunja’s eagerness, “Oh God, there’s two of them… and the other is hot too!”

Sunggyu rolled his eyes, letting his sisters gossip and fawn over the new guys as he studied the work his sister started. She applied some BB cream to serve as the base, then applied the eyeliner neatly, thin towards the inner eye and slightly thicker towards the end. She fanned the eyeliner out with a cotton-tip. It made his small eyes look bigger. He liked the effect a lot.

“Looking good, Gyu,” Choonyei remarked as she admired him from behind his chair.

Sunggyu gave her a dry look that made her laugh, “I’m serious! You look really good! You could be Aecha’s twin!”

Sunggyu could only sigh but he agreed. He could hardly recognize himself. It was almost like his oldest sister was staring right back at him, “Choonyei, why do I have to suffer like this?”

The girl giggled, “You look good, don’t worry too much.”

He continued to examine his reflection as his sister’s gossip got loud enough for him to hear.

“Oh, he has a motorcycle!” Haneul exclaimed.

“Hey! I’m taking the make-up off,” Sunggyu called out and was pleased to have her finally turn around.

“Okay, okay! I’m sorry,” she turned to give the guys one last glance before returning to her brother.

“Don’t worry. I’m sure one of them is bound to notice any one of you,” Sunggyu tried to re-assure as he sat back to let Haneul continue her work.

“They sure will. Me,” Yeunja said with a cheeky smile, “I’ll see you two later. I’ve got something I need to go do.”

She received glares from both Haneul and Sunggyu. Haneul wanted to go out and scout the guys too. Sunggyu just couldn’t believe how shameless his sister was.

“Don’t worry guys, I’ll leave one for you two,” she said as she quickly scurried out, very narrowly avoiding the brush her sister threw at her.

It was a matter of minutes before Haneul finished applying the finishing touches. She stepped back to examine her work thoroughly. The brunet stared at his reflection for a second before leaning forward and examining everything. He wasn’t wearing dramatic colors. She tried to go for a natural look, using and neutral shades for eyeshadow and a light pinky lip tint for his full lips. His fingers gently brushed the area around his eyes. He had a slight complex because his sisters always about his small eyes, so seeing them appear much bigger surprised him.

It was a little longer before Haneul prepared his hair to be covered by a wig. It was long and wavy, the color matching Sunggyu’s brunet hair. Sunggyu merely groaned when he saw her walk in with the other materials. She applied make-up on him once before and also practiced placing wigs properly on him, but she had never done both at the same time. He tried to protest but when his older sister reiterated that it was for her midterm, he merely sighed and agreed half-heartedly.

The things he did for his sisters.

It felt like it took an eternity until she finished fixing the bangs and perfecting the wavy locks. Sunggyu was about ready to start complaining and whining (his fell asleep and he wasn’t able to feel it for a while now) when they heard Yeunja’s voice come from outside.

“Hannie!”

“What does this girl want now?” Haneul muttered to herself as she set the brush down and made her way outside.

“Why can’t you come upstairs you lazy-,” she stopped before she could finish the sentence, freezing in place for a second before a laugh, an estranged one to Sunggyu’s ears, escaped her, “Hi…”

Sunggyu inched closer to his balcony, trying to get a view of what was going on but he couldn’t really see anything. He pouted lightly as he heard someone (a male) yell, you’re cute. Another weird laugh escaped Haneul and he couldn’t just stand there anymore. The laugh was so fake, it gave Sunggyu goosebumps just hearing it.

He poked his head out and looked over his sister’s shoulder, immediately catching sight of what made his sister act so oddly. Yeunja was down there with some guy he’d never seen before. The new neighbor, perhaps? He raised his brow, unimpressed at his sibling’s reactions. Really, how old were they? He watched as the other guy turned to them before a handsome smile stretched his lips. Whoa. He waved at them.

“Hey cutie!” he heard.

Cutie?

Cutie!?

“Oh ,” Sunggyu panicked, before retreating back into his room and covering his face with his hands.

Someone just saw him all dolled up and called him a cutie. Someone saw him as a girl! And hit on him right off the bat! Was it supposed to boost his ego or embarrass him beyond belief? He didn’t even know what to feel at that moment aside from embarrassment so it had to be the latter.

Haneul followed after him and promptly burst into laughter, “I told you I’d make you gorgeous!”

“Shy sister you got there,” the guy said as he lowered his arm.

He watched as the two girls disappeared into the house again.

“Uh, yeah,” Yeunja answered, unsure if she should give her brother away or not. She wasn’t sure what kind of impression they’d be giving if she went with the truth.

“What’s her name? She’s cute,” for some unknown reason, a smile took residence on her lips.

“Ah… her name is Aecha! She’s my older sis,” she answered as naturally as she could.

Well, he did look like Aecha so there was no way the guy would know the difference. He only caught a glimpse of Sunggyu and it was pretty far anyway.

“How old is she?”

“17,” she answered without hesitation but mentally slapped her forehead as she realized what she said, “I mean 22! S-she’s 22…”

He looked at Yeunja strangely but accepted the correction, “So she’s older…,” he said as he looked up at the balcony again.

“Yeah… so um, whenever you guys are done organizing stuff, you should come over and meet everyone! I have a brother that’s a year older than me. I think you guys would get along just fine.”

They were all in Sunggyu’s room later that night, Haneul and Yeunja were sitting on his bed while Sunggyu and Choonyei were playing some kind of shooter game. The two girls were busy talking about the new neighbors, Yeunja giving her the information that she acquired with their first meeting. He wasn’t really paying much attention to the conversation the two were having. He was too busy trying to capture a flag in the game.

“Ya! Stop camping!” Choonyei yelled suddenly.

“Stop yelling at the TV,” Sunggyu stated flatly as he tried to shoot down a couple of guys.

“I was talking to you!”

“What?!” he asked, completely offended, “I do not camp! You’re just mad I keep killing you! It’s not my fault you’re not that good at this game yet!”

“Ahh!” Choonyei yelled in frustration as the last ten seconds of the game came to an end with the words in red spelling LOSER in all capitals on her half of the screen, “I hate this game.”

Sunggyu could only laugh as he went into his messages on the game console to reply. He recently started talking to a friend he lost contact with about two years ago. He only heard of him through his friend Jinki, since they were cousins.

“Can you believe he liked Sunggyu?? He was asking about all kinds of details but I made it clear that he was married.”

“You did what?!” Sunggyu asked as he heard Yeunja say that.

That made both of the girls that were gossiping laugh.

“I thought you weren’t listening,” Haneul said after giggling at his expression and calming down.

“I wasn’t! But how the hell was I not supposed to hear that?” he accused.

“Sunggyu the game is starting!” Choonyei called as she pulled on his plain white tee.

“Quit the game,” he said before crawling his way to his bed. He was sitting on the floor.

“What did you tell him?”

“Why does it matter?” she asked.

“Because you’re spreading lies about me!”

“Well what did you want me to tell him? ‘Oh, that girl you saw is not really a girl, but my brother in drag’…? I lied and told him you were Aecha. You two look alike anyway!”

That seemed to ease Sunggyu’s mind a bit. If she said that, then that meant she told him Aecha was married, not Sunggyu. That was true. The oldest married right after college.

“Anyway, his name is Woohyun and his brother’s name is Myungsoo. They’re gonna be attending our school. Woohyun’s a junior and Myungsoo is a sophomore,” Yeunja continued to relay.

But Sunggyu’s attention already strayed, returning to the game instead and replying to another message. He was glad Yeunja covered for him. It would be embarrassing to face the guy afterward. They were neighbors now after all, and the last thing he wanted was for the new guy to spread questionable rumors about him at school.

When Sunggyu officially met this Woohyun guy, it was after school the following Friday. The popularity of the new guys skyrocketed in no time. Sunggyu didn’t question why. It was actually pretty obvious. The brothers were handsome and they rode motorcycles to school. They had the girls swooning.

He was popular among the girls because he was always very polite and could hold conversations with them about almost anything. He was charming, gentle, considerate, and pleasant (even if he thought of himself otherwise). He guessed it was because he grew up with nothing but girls so he knew how to mingle with them fairly well.

It was a lot harder to mingle with guys. They were the complete opposite. He was never exposed to the things the other guys found as entertaining. It was even more uncomfortable when they started checking girls out. Not only was he not into girls in general, he was just not used to it. He only had male acquaintances. It wasn’t that he didn’t have any guys that were actually his friends. He did, but they were very few.

Yeunja introduced them that afternoon, “This is my older brother, Mr. Kim Sunggyu,” her brother threw a side glare at her, “the one I was telling you about the other day.”

Woohyun dismounted the bike and bowed politely, “I’m Nam Woohyun, your new neighbor.” Sunggyu returned the gesture, completely surprised by it. Myungsoo joined them and did the same. Looking at them so up close, he couldn’t deny how handsome the pair of brothers were. Woohyun had a kind look in his eye and a disarming smile. They both looked like pretty nice guys.

“Do you mind if I just call you Sunggyu?” Woohyun asked jokingly.

“Please do,” he pleaded.

“May I call you that?” It was Myungsoo who was asking now.

“Of course!” The kid looked cute despite the fact that he was taller than both he and Woohyun.

“Are you guys heading home?” the oldest brother asked.

“Yeah,” Yeunja and Sunggyu answered simultaneously.

A small smirk made itself known on the handsome face, “Want a ride?” he pointed with his thumb over to his bike.

Sunggyu’s small eyes widened and he almost hit Yeunja for reacting so quickly to the offer, “Oh my God, that would be awesome! Right, Gyu?” she asked but giggled when she saw the expression on his face.

The color drained from his face. It was so funny. He looked so conflicted. It amused Woohyun as well.

“It’s alright, we both have a license,” he tried to reassure the older brunet.

But it was spoken to deaf ears.

i'll update everything regularly, and at the end of this i'll be uploading the epilogue. please enjoy it!