Now Eve knows what it felt like if she ever had to raise five naughty toddlers that seemed to be running on perpetual motion engine, shouting things like “OH MY GOD BUMBLEBEE!” or “A GIANT EGYPTIAN GOD!” or “JURASSIC PAAAARRRRKKKK!”

She could only smile at them, say something in the line of “Yes, I know, isn’t it cute?” or “Yes, okay, I’ll hold the camera.” or “No, Chanyeol, you can’t climb onto that.” While Joonmyeon giggled at her from the distance.

“Why aren’t you helping me??” She asked him in distress when she was trying hard to keep all the boys in one place, stopping anyone who tried to walk into the jungle decoration at the sides with no particular reason but to quench their thirst of adventure.

He would only lull back lazily at her, “Today is my holiday, Eve, today is my holiday.”

Which explains why she was so thankful when she found an unoccupied bench on a small mound, unmoving under the swaying palm trees as if inviting her to come sit on it. 'At last', she thought, 'I could sit and stretch my legs'. The raised mound also gave her a good vantage point so she could clearly watch over the boys, who were queuing in front of a slushy vendor cart.

Eve started doing a habit she developed after spending hours with the boys; she head-counted them. One, two, three… Oh, there’s Sehun, five... Wait… Five?

She was starting to worry. Oh my god I lost one.

But when she saw someone taking a seat beside her from her peripheral vision, she sighed in relief.

“I thought I lost one of your boys!“

“Hey Miss Chen,” she was a bit shocked when she saw that the one who sat beside her wasn’t Joonmyeon.

“Heeey Jongin, how’s it going?” She tried to suppress her sudden urge to laugh with the sight of his hilarious appearance on her side.

Jongin was wearing a donkey ear headpiece, looking so natural with them jutting out from his messy hair. He was also cradling a gigantic t-rex tumbler so carefully and lovingly as if it was his first-born.

“Perrrr-fect, Miss Chen,” He gave her a serene smile before taking a long sip from his precious t-rex.

It was given to him from Baekhyun, that t-rex tumbler. It was a bribe to make him flirt with Eve in an attempt to rouse any response from Joonmyeon, preferably jealousy.

“What? That’s too much of a fuss. Count me out,” he said with notable disinterest while fixing the donkey ears clip-ons on his head with the help of his reflection on the side of the street vendor cart.

“Hey, hey, hey, hey,” Baekhyun forced him to put look away from the cart, “Look here, I’ll buy you anything you want.”

A sly smile slowly curved along his lips, “Really?”

That also explained why Baekhyun could only sat on the curb, clutching his poor wallet on his hands as he watched and prayed that Jongin would please, please just do his job.

“That donkey ears really suit you,” Eve said as she softly tugged on the soft fur.

“Thankyou Miss Chen.” He too brought his hand up, ‘accidentally’ brushing his fingers along Eve’s.

She instinctively pulled her hand away, feeling a tad bit too much excited about her luck in her day. While she went and straightened herself, she quickly added, “Just call me Eve.”

“Okay,” Jongin's voice lingered in the air, “Eve”. With an extra sultriness to his already sultry voice, it somehow turned the dream-like scenario into one that was uncomfortably awkward.

With the silence slowly setting between them, she not knowing what else to say and Jongin feeling that he had done his job well enough he might as well just sit there under the shade in leisure, Eve prayed to herself for someone to do something to let her excuse herself out. Whoever it was, be it Kyungsoo and his pocket camera, be it Chanyeol and Sehun trespassing staff-only areas, anything.
Anything?

“What are you doing?” Joonmyeon, her savior, showed up under the foliage while holding two bottles of ice-cold mineral water, “I’ve been searching for you everywhere!”

Baekhyun, down at the curb, began chuckling and rubbing his hands in excitement. 'Let the show begin', he thought. But his plan was thwarted when he saw Eve immediately jumping onto her feet and dragging Joonmyeon behind her as she scurried off to the distance.

In the other side of the perspective, Joonmyeon also had himself double shocked, first by finding her sitting alone and dangerously close to Jongin, and now to find Eve dragging him into what seemed to be a locker area. She finally stopped behind a row of lockers and sighed.

“What’s… Wrong?” He asked her, but she only answered with a silent shake of her head. Her vague answer sent his imagination free, making him picture several disturbing scenarios that might’ve happened to her when he was gone.

“Oh my god. Did he do som-“

“No, no, no, no. It was just... We were just... Awkward.”

“Oh.”

They went through a few moment of silence before Joonmyeon remembered what he wanted to show her in the first place. He asked Eve to hold onto the drinks so that he could use both of his hand to rummage through his backpack.

“Here,” He said when he finally get ahold of the thing that caught his attention earlier. So much, in fact, that he decided that it would be a great gag gift for Eve.

“Hollywood’s… Best mother, yeah right, very funny Kim Joonmyeon.” At first she scoffed at the mock academy awards trophy he gave her, throwing him an unamused expression. But she couldn’t pull that for too long. In no time, she joined him on a fit of laughters.

“You’re saying that, because I can manage those boys for a day, I would make a great mom?” She wiped her laughter induced tears as the last excess slowly dwindled to an end. © Alana, R 2013. all rights reserved.

"I don’t know, but I would like to see that when it happens.”

"Well calm down there, it's not going to happen anytime soon! Right, eh?" She was expecting Joonmyeon to laugh back in a joking manner. Much to her surprise, he didn’t even flinch.

They once again lapsed into a moment of silence, much longer than before, much awkward than her bench scene with Jongin. But this time, she didn’t feel the instinct to pull herself away when she felt his fingers grazed against hers. Her heartbeat was racing so violently and it didn't help that he kept moving in toward her, wading through the distance between them. Not in a pace too quick that would alarm her, no. Not too slow to be unnoticeable too. It was just… Right.

He was so close to her face that he could feel her strand hair started to tickle his forehead. He was so close that he could feel the air rushing past his neck as she breathed in and muttered, “Joonmy-“

“HEYOO EVERYBODY!” Sehun, who heard their voices as he was taking out his bag from one of the lockers and were planning on shocking them, jumped into the scene, just.in.the.worst.moment.possible, “SEHUN IN THE HOUse and I’m just informing that the sky’s getting dark so we probably should be going right… about… now.”

Sehun probably could feel the thickness in the air, and he could probably deduce what would've happened (or should be happening) before he jumped into the scene like a heated monkey, that he slowly dragged himself away while his words trailed to a rushed end.

Eve looked up to Joonmyeon, laughing and with her cheeks colored a radiant red, “I guess mom should go back to attend her kids.”

“Yes, yes, mom should,” smiling back, he slowly led her out from the dim locker room. Joonmyeon seemed to be unaffected by the unfortunate incident from before. But inside, he made a deep mental note to leave an opened pack of fermented sardines on Sehun's bag next time he got the chance.

 

A/N: NEXT CHAPPIE EVERYBODY! Also, please check out a trailer made by the wonderful invisible crown shop, I really love it :P FIDELITY BY REGINA SPEKTOR IS THE BEST.