“Good morning!” Hana greets her friends as she puts her bag down. It is the first day of the second semester, and everyone has just come back from summer break. “Did you do your homework?” Her friend Luna turns around at her desk with a frown. “I couldn’t. I swear, I wanted to do the summer project, but my father thought I was lying to avoid meeting his young girlfriend.” Hana laughs. “Well, it’s true. You don’t like doing homework. That sounds reasonable to me.” She takes out a book from her bag. “By the way, how is she?” “A total bi—” “Morning!” shouts an annoying friend of theirs. It is a happy Luhan who runs over to pinch Hana’s cheeks. “What are you two talking about?” He sits down as if nothing has happened. Well, unfortunately, for him, his friend isn’t going to let it pass. Hana massages her cheek and glares at him. “Why’d you pinch me so hard? My mouth’s going to swell!” He puts on a sluggish face. “So? It’s not as if you’re going to use them for anyone.” He looks at her with a teasing expressing. “Ever.” He and Luna laugh, but Luna stops when Hana raises a brow at them. “Apologize. Now.” Hana demands. She puts her hands on her hips and leans on one side of her leg. “Besides, I am going to use these lips on someone, and you’ll never get to know who!” “Please, as if.” He stands up to reach her eye level, though, of course, still a growing teenager, he is taller than her almost by a head’s length. He quickly sits back down again after declaring war. She is about to burst when Luhan’s own friends arrive to save the day. “Right on time, bros!” He high-fives Lay and Xiumin. Hana doesn’t care. They have already seen too much of her bullying him, so another witness of the crime won’t hurt. That would have been possible if the bell hasn’t ring for class to start. “Can’t do anything now, can’t ya?” He mockingly whispers to her as he throws her his winning smile. She smirks back and whispers, “Oh, we still have afterschool, young man.” She scoffs and pats her cheeks and turns her attention to the board. I’m going to make you say those words even if I have to kill you myself! * “Where’s Hana?” Luhan asks Luna. “She’s skipping out on her job, eh? She promised she’ll be making me a bento for the rest of the school year.” The group is on top of the roof of the school eating their lunch during lunch time. Luna, having arrived later, hands Luhan a lunch box. “From Hana. She told me to give it to you.” She walks away to sit by her boyfriend, Lay. He takes the lunch box from Luna, and he opens it with much haste. He purposely skipped out on breakfast this morning because he wanted to save his stomach for this special event. Upon laying his eyes on the colorful meal his eyes widen. “They’re all my favorites!” He hugs the bento as if it is a girl, and Xiumin, Lay, and Luna look at him with disgust. He immediately pins his chopsticks into the food as he gobbles it down. “Hana knows my favorites!” “She’s in the infirmary.” Luna answers Luhan’s previous question. She puckers her lips and subtly looks away. “ swelled so much that…she can’t possibly eat anything.” The boys stop eating. Xiumin and Lay look at the guilty Luhan. He glances at them and then back at his food. Luna continues. “She’ll be starving for days…and then she’ll succumb to death!!!” The boys drop their bento down and scurry around Luna. Lay asks his girlfriend, “Death?!” Luna sniffs. “Well, that’s what I heard from the nurse when I went to check up on her.” She grabs a nearby tissue and wipes the bottom of her dry eyes. “I thought she was going to get it looked at, but when the nurse said that it was best for her to stay…I knew it wasn’t a good thing.” She glances over at Luhan to hint that everything is his fault. The boys also give him another look. Tired of all the accusatory expressions, Luhan gets up and pats his clothes. “Fine. I’ll go check up on her.” He stutters, “I’ll—she’ll be fine.” He leaves his friends without continuing. The leftover friends look at one another and have the same thought. He feels guilty. * “Um, Eunsook noona,” Luhan quietly asks as he stands at the entrance of the school infirmary. He looks around and sees that one bed has its curtains closed. She must be on that bed. “Is Hana here?” The standing school nurse looks away from her file cabinet. “Oh, Luhan.” She quietly comes over. “She’s asleep. hurts too much, so she’s sleeping through the pain.” She taps him. “What happened?” She moves on over to sit on her chair. He pulls over another chair and sits across from her. “Well, you see, same old, same old.” He expresses with a few hand movements. She nods. “Yes, you bullying her, and she bullying you.” She sarcastically sighs to express all the pain she had suffered for the past year ever since they entered high school. She is the one who had been bandaging the two friends who are trouble-makers and violent players to one another. But she could never get mad at them because they always made her job exciting and worthwhile. “Exactly,” Luhan says. He then turns solemn. “But this time, I went too far.” Eunsook noona sweetly looks at him. “What do you mean?” Luhan puckers up. He tells the older lady what he had done to his friend. He sighs and lays back into his chair. “She always tells me to stop pinching her because it hurts, but…I do it because they’re meant to be pinched!” He starts raising his hands and air-pinches to express the temptation of Hana’s puffs cheeks. He inhales. “I guess I won’t be doing it anymore.” “That’s it?” Eunsook noona asks. Luhan looks up. “I don’t think it’s a crime to pinch someone’s cheeks, but…shouldn’t you be saying something to her?” He finally remembers. He nods. “Yes, I should be apologizing.” Eunsook noona motions to him to say it to the real Hana at the bed. So, he gets up and walks over to it. He pulls the curtains away and sees a blanket covering Hana with just her hair at the crown showing. Sighing to be ready and sincere, he says, “I’m sorry.” He even bows at the end. As soon as he leans straight, hands surround him and before he knows it, he is pinched at both sides of his cheeks from the back. He twists his body free from the person and accidentally sits down on the sleeping Hana. He gasps and then pulls himself back up in fear of squishing his friend, but to his surprise, he bumps into another Hana. He blinks and points at her. He points back and forth between the Hana on the bed and the Hana standing in front of him. “What—what?” “Gotcha!” she shouts. She pulls the covers off of the ‘Hana’ on the bed to show a huge pillow and a wig. Eunsook noona laughs, and it becomes clear to Luhan that she and his friends had planned this together. Hana puffs up her cheeks and pokes them to show him that she is all right. “Alright, kids,” says Eunsook noona. “I’ll be back. Now that I helped you, Hana, it’s your turn to help watch the infirmary while I go make some copies.” She leaves the room with a stack of printing papers. Just then, a relieved Luhan abruptly hugs Hana, causing to her to not be able to breathe properly. She taps him and in between breaths, she manages to ask, “Hey, what’s…what’s wrong?” “I’m glad you’re really alright.” He honestly confesses. The two huggers continue hugging and don’t break away. She can’t help but smile as she knows that her friend really cares for her. But it doesn’t last long because he pulls away from the hug and with a straight face, he gets back at her, saying, “’Cause I’d be worried if I had to take responsibility for you for life!” He scoffs. “Having you for a friend’s already a nightmare!” The two friends laugh at the joke. She playfully hits him with a pillow, and they start a pillow fight. “Who said you’re going to have to marry me?!” she exclaims. “Even if you were the last person on earth, I wouldn’t even think of it!” * “Babysitting? Again?” Luna asks Hana while Hana puts her cell phone away after reading a text from her older sister. “A text from her always has nothing, but the words ‘babysitting,’ and more ‘babysitting’.” It is already the end of the first day of school after summer break, and the two girls are in front of Hana’s lockers. It is the unanimous spot for the friends to gather up and around before they separate because hers is the closest to the gate. “Well, I can’t help it,” sighs a tired Hana. “I’m the youngest of nine, and six of my siblings are already married with more than twelve kids altogether.” “You know, I’ve always wonder…if you have so much energy and willpower to be so cruel to Luhan, why can’t you stand up to your own sisters?” Luna asks as she leans on the other lockers. “It’s their kids, not yours. Why must you waste your youth to your siblings who wasted their youths when they are the ones who decided to get married at a young age? And when they’re the ones who decide to reproduce so fast. Being adults now, they should’ve learned to plan how many kids they can watch and feed at the same time, not just passing it onto whomever.” “I know, I know. But I’m doing it out of respect. I am the youngest, and they’re all older than me.” Luna rolls her eyes. “Yeah, I forgot about you and your super strict, traditional family.” Hana suddenly receives a back hug from Luhan. His two friends are behind him. Not letting go of Hana, he asks, “You girls ready?” He happily hops from behind her to show his excitement. Luna pouts and walks over to her boyfriend, Lay. “No…she can’t make it for the same reason.” “Babysitting, again?!” The boys ask in sync, though, Luhan’s and Xiumin’s have more of a pitch in contrast to the gentle and soft Lay’s. “Which bundle this time?” Luhan asks, as he pulls away from the hug and empathetically looks at his friend. There are four, different, bundles of kids that she has to watch out of the six older siblings that are married. So, to make things easier to picture, the friends have come up with a “system” or sort to distinguish the kids by numbering them in the order of which she watches the most. Hana laughs at the way Luhan words it, for they have always made it fun by saying it that way. “Dasom’s.” Her friends scrunch up their faces. “Ah, the four girls.” The four girls are known to them as the most common bundle of kids that Hana always has to go babysit for stupid and for no particular reasons, though, they all but Hana believe that it is only because Dasom is lazy to watch her own. What is that the kids really like Hana, so with their force, they are the ones who usually ‘persuade’ Hana to sleepover and her sister always supports her kids in doing anything to not let Hana escape. The gang continues to discuss this as they head out towards the exit of the school. “I don’t get it.” Luna begins again. “I mean, the oldest is already fourteen, and they’re only attending a stupid event next door! And you are only three years older than her!” Her face pale in anger, and her breathing paces. “If they can trust you to babysit the kids when you were twelve, why can’t they do the same to their own child?!” “Actually, it was when she just turned twelve,” corrects Luhan, proudly smirking. “Just a day after her twelfth birthday.” Hana looks at her friends. “A week and a day.” She corrects him, causing his smirk to cease and him to roll his eyes at her. “I don’t mind much, but...it’s just...” Exhausting. “Thanks, guys.” She always feels special when her friends remember such small details of her life. Reaching the gate of the school, she looks at her friends. “Well, I guess we all know the usual.” She waves to them. “Don’t have too much fun without me.” She smiles. Luhan snickers, a corner of his mouth higher than the other. “Oh, didn’t you know?” She perks up. “We always have too much fun without you.” She rolls her eyes at his attempt to make her jealous. “That’s what you think.” He bogs his head. “Yeah, yeah.” He quickly gives up. They look at one another before saying one last goodbye for the day. “Don’t work too hard, virtual Mommy.” She laughs. ‘Virtual Mommy’ is the nickname Luhan likes to when it comes to babysitting. “Sure, virtual friend,” she says, cheekily smiling at him. He glares at her. “I’m not a virtual friend!” He confidently smiles. “I’m a real friend.” She stops smiling. Hearing what he had just said really brought her mood up. She is already tired from the constant house-hopping to babysit the different bundles of kids during her summer break that isn’t even a break at all that when hearing this, it pains to know that she felt more comfortable and that she loves her friends more than her family. “Thanks, Luhan,” she sincerely says in her natural tone of voice. “Thanks a lot.” He gives her a smile and waves good bye to catch up with his friends to leave her to head home before she is late to her unpaid babysitting job. * Luhan’s older brother, Kris, opens the door. “You shouldn’t have come home now.” His expression shows that something bad has happened. “Why?” Luhan enters the house and heads towards the stairs until he is stopped halfway by his father’s voice. That’s weird. Why is dad here? The older brother catches the curious expression of his younger brother, so he gestures his head to point to the living room. “You’ll know.” Luhan follows his brother into the living room and sees his parents sitting on the same side of a sofa. It happens only when something big—something troubling—has occurred. I didn’t do anything wrong, so I shouldn’t be nervous. He places his bag down on the floor and waits for further instructions. “Sit,” his father says. Luhan notices that his mother’s eyes are red. Had she been crying? As he sits down, his brother sits on another couch diagonally from him. Did they decide to finally get a divorce? “Luhan.” His father begins. “I’ve always tolerated your young, hormonal personality with your raging, teenage yearnings—or whatever you kids call it these days—” “Flirting?” Luhan happily corrects his father, as if he takes pride in what he does. The way his father words it is because his father majored in biology and a minored in psychology. He is hardly home because he rather spends his days and nights at his research lab than with his wife. It is the same with Luhan’s mother—she is a traveling journalist who photographs and blogs about her travels and the different situations she encounters during her journeys. They can only be reach through a phone, for the father, and through the internet, for the mother. The rarest of them all is having both parents home at the same time. Mr. Lu looks at him and monotonously answers with disgust. “Yes.” At this moment, Lady Lu starts sniffing as if she is going to cry again. Everyone ignores her. “But now…” Mr. Lu continues. “I will not—” A weird sound is heard adjacent to Luhan. He doesn’t recognize the voice, but it is loud enough to make the discussion comes to a halt. He notices that his family isn’t alarmed or responsive to the sudden interruption. “What…what is that?” Did we get a cat? Mom’s allergic to cats, though. Out of the blue, Lady Lu bawls out loud and hides her face with her hands. Luhan also notices that no one is doing anything—not even stopping his mother from crying about who knows what. The same sound is heard again, this time, much louder and more familiar. He looks at his family for further instructions, but when none is given, he gathers courage to search it himself. He heads to the direction where the unbefitting sound is heard—the hallway leading to the guest rooms. There, he sees, on the floor is a basket with an infant wrapped with blankets. He gasps and nervously backs away to the room. He starts pointing to the direction of the strange sight he has seen. “Over there! Hey!” He panics. “A-a baby!” He looks at his family, who doesn’t flinch at his words. “Hey, I’m serious!” He is flustered, looking back and forth between both directions in confusion and fear. “Why—whose!” A realization comes into his mind, and he bashfully smiles. He calms down and sighs with relief. “Mom...you…you were pregnant?” “NO!” Mr. Lu immediately jolts up in anger and embarrassment. In response to the shout, Luhan flinches. “It’s your child!” Luhan can’t believe what he is hearing. My—my ba—!...Whose baby?! * Hana’s cell phone has been ringing irritably for the past two hours—nonstop. She finally decides to pick it up and answer. With a sleepy voice, she huskily says, “Hello?” She soon clears . “Don’t ‘hello’ me right now!” It is Luhan. He sounds terrified, as if he’s is held at gunpoint. “It’s almost two o’clock, and you’re still sleeping?! Wake up, it’s morning!” Because of his shouting, she pulls her cell away from her ears. She also sees the time, and it is almost three, not two. Angry that her stupid friend has disturbed her beautiful sleep that she couldn’t get because the kids didn’t fall asleep as planned, she hangs up and ignores him. She also puts her phone to vibrate mode. Just after pulling the covers over her head, her phone vibrates again. After ignoring it many times, she sits up—fully awake. “What is it?!” She hisses through the phone. “I’m tired! We have school tomorrow!” “You have school, but I have a baby!!!” * Hana has successfully sneak