“Taeyeon! Honey, stop bothering your brother. He’s studying,” I told my daughter while she zoomed into the living room. Dongyoung pushed his reading glasses up his nose, his pencil scratching on the paper. Taeyeon ran up to grab his pencil and threw it away, my son looking at her pointedly before retrieving another one from the side of the table.

He was always well prepared. Dongyoung was a mama’s boy and he knew it. Taeyeon, on the other hand, was well doted on by her father. They were seven now and I placed fruits on the table when Bacon walked into the living room. He was a good seven years older than my children and he was going through his terrible teens.

“Hello, Bacon,” I greeted, Baekhyun’s son grumbling.

“Auntie Harin, it’s Youngho. Not Bacon anymore,” he told me, settling beside Dongyoung. The two got along very well, Taeyeon running up to Bacon to hug him. Taeyeon was very… affectionate and rowdy. A contrast to her brother who was always quiet and studying.

“Alright, Bacon,” I teased, ruffling his hair. Bacon’s face tinged pink. “Where are your daddies?”

As old as Bacon has grown, he still referred to Chanyeol and Baekhyun as his ‘daddies’ and this is a habit that would die hard. I saw Taeyeon kick Dongyoung and my voice rose, her pigtails swinging back and forth as she tried to bother him. I think Aries got to her. 

“Play with me!” she said to him, Dongyoung giving her a grunt. “You never play with me!”

“Mom!” Dongyoung complained. “I’m doing my homework! It’s not my fault Taeyeon is dumb and she’s not in gifted classes.”

I sighed. Dongyoung was in a special class and we have found out that he was incredibly blessed with knowledge. Sehun thinks that maybe Virgo had forgotten about Taeyeon and could only reach Dongyoung. Taeyeon was better in creativity and she did so well in sculpting and acting classes.

Sehun and I struggled to try to raise them so their strengths would be useful and to keep on supporting them in whatever they would want to do. In the end, smartness and creativity came hand in hand.

“Don’t call your sister dumb. She’s just different,” I told Dongyoung. Dongyoung was learning in Eve and there were portals to bring him to class every morning. As much as the war had passed, new problems had arisen and now it was more of fighting prejudice between worlds. Gaians were known to be greedy, Eurenic known to be hot-headed, Exodes known to be stuck up, and Evians known to be know-it-alls.

People on Earth were facing problems with skin color and politics while the four worlds were the judgment of those who were different. As much as I tried to tell Dongyoung that his sister wasn’t dumb, he was being influenced by his classmates on Eve and his daily competition on who got the highest marks seemed to have shaped him to thinking so.

But Taeyeon was in a different school and she was popular and very well-liked, my daughter always comes home with lollipops and cookies from her classmates. I looked up to see Jisung, the youngest of the Dreamweavers come in from Eve.

“Queen Auntie Harin,” he said smiling with Kyungsoo right behind him.

“UNCLE KYUNGSOO! Dongyoung called me dumb again!” Taeyeon yelled and Kyungsoo sighed, shaking his head at my son.

“Dongyoung, no mean to sister,” Kyungsoo warned. Kyungsoo was slowly letting go of the Academy because it was now becoming self-sufficient. Like my husband, he had taken a liking to Taeyeon and her chaos. He was her favorite uncle. He picked Taeyeon up and kissed her repeatedly on the cheek, her small arms hugging him around the neck. “Favorite. Uncle Kyungsoo favorite!”

Taeyeon beamed at the attention she was finally getting when Jisung came to greet me. Jisung was already an anchor on Eve and he used his dreams to forecast future news. Renjun was now an artist and Chenle traveled everywhere as a diplomat. Jeno now had a show that was similar to the “Dr. Phil” show on the 4U channel and Jaemin was, as usual, a proud wife (husband?).

Today, we were all having dinner together and everyone was coming over. We all were a big family and little by little people began to come. I heard Kai and Bora were also moving back to Exodus. Kai had told us that England was becoming hard to stay in and so he decided that his son would do better with Exodus’ education system.

I looked back to see Kyungsoo hugging my son and I chuckled. Kyungsoo did not have a family of his own and he refused to marry. Not that he didn’t want to, he was just pretty sure that he was incapable of romantic love. He spent all his money and affection on my kids and the rest of the kids so he was everyone’s favorite uncle.

“Today, you’re meeting Uncle Kai’s son for the first time,” I told Dongyoung and Taeyeon. “I want you to be nice to him. This is the first time he has come to Exodus.”

“Okay, Mommy,” Dongyoung replied. “Is Uncle Guanlin and Auntie Sana coming with Serin too?”

“Your cousins will come later, darling. Serin is a baby so she has her daily checkup,” I told Dongyoung who nodded understandably unlike his sister who said that she wanted to play with baby Serin quickly. Sometimes I wondered if something was wrong with the Zodiacs. Why was it they blessed them at the same time but Taeyeon and Dongyoung were like fire and ice?

“I’m home,” Sehun’s voice said and I saw Jisung look up to greet him. “Jisung, you’re here early. Where are your parents and your siblings?”

“Nana and Jeno are preparing food to bring. Chenle and Renjun are still at work. They will arrive soon. I asked for half-day and went to visit Uncle Kyungsoo and came here,” Jisung replied, Sehun nodded and told him that he was happy he was there.

“Daddy!” Taeyeon squealed, jumping up to Sehun. Dongyoung looked up and nodded at Sehun, Sehun coming to ruffling our son on the head. “Dongyoung called me dumb!”

“Dongyoung,” Sehun warned him when he heard the news, Dongyoung glaring at his sister’s tattletale personality. “Bacon, good to see you here. How was school?”

“Good, Uncle. I have career planning next year so I have to work hard this year,” Bacon replied and Sehun nodded, comin