“Gyu Gyu! Myungie took my toy!”

Sunggyu’s head turned at the familiar voice, causing Woohyun to yelp. “Did my idiotic brother do something again?”

“Your brother isn’t idiotic,” Sunggyu rolled his eyes. Woohyun rubbed the back of his head, which had been lying on his hyung’s shoulder before it had gotten hit. “But yeah, Jongie’s all up on it again.”

Standing up, Sunggyu heard Myungsoo’s familiar voice shout something about L like he always did, but it was halted. Which seemed strange, because Myungsoo-turned-alter-ego-L-man never stopped talking unless Sungjong pushed him into the water or something.

“Something’s wrong,” he whispered.

Woohyun, standing up also, walked ahead of him and looked out the window. “Hey Gyu hyung…people are here.”

Sungjong, with all worries about his stolen toy gone, hid behind Myungsoo. There were three scary boys tumbled and tangled onto each other before them, slowly unwinding.

“Alien land?” He heard Myungsoo mutter. “I don’t even know where we are.”

All of a sudden, Sungjong felt his hands being pulled off of Myungsoo’s shirt and his body was lifted up. It had been a while since this had happened, but Sunggyu was carrying him like a baby.

Woohyun reached out to Myungsoo, asking the three boys, “Who are you guys?”

The first one that stood up, also the tallest, shuffled down his midnight black hair a bit. He watched carefully as the other two boys stood up and whispered something into the shortest one’s ear.

As the tall one finished and stepped back, the short brown-haired boy burst into laughter. Somehow, the first one smiled at the sound of that.

“What’s going on? What did choding hyung say?” The last boy whined. He tugged on the laughing boy’s pants, the three of them not taking heed to the strangers before them.

“Yah…” Sunggyu absentmindedly whispered into Woohyun’s ear. “They’re speaking Korean.”

“Thanks for stating the obvious, Gyu.”

Before Sunggyu could burst on Woohyun for not respecting him, another laughter was heard – the third boy’s.

“You’re right!” He giggled. “They do!”

“Right?” The tallest one asked, hitting the other’s shoulders. “Completely!”

Myungsoo scanned them, looking up and down in a disgusted manner. His head titled up to look into his older brother’s eyes and asked, “What’s wrong with them?”              

“YAH!” The first boy shouted, his laughing fit stopping for a second. “Nothing’s wrong with us!”

Woohyun let out a frustrated sigh, knowing that his little brother and this boy wouldn’t get along too well. He pushed Myungsoo towards Sunggyu, who laid a protective arm over him, and walked towards the three younger boys.

“I’m Woohyun,” he introduced himself, bending down to be on height level with the tallest one. Which didn’t really work out too well because the boy was too tall, so Woohyun ended up just looking up to see his face.

“You’re the Appa,” the boy said back, fighting back a laugh. However, his two other friends failed and they doubled over, laughing without a worry in the world.

“What?” A look of confusion overcame Woohyun’s face.

“Your wife,” the first boy started, “looks like a hamster.”

“What?” Woohyun said again, getting even more confused. But then again, nobody could really be called a hamster except…”Gyu hyung?!”

“Yeah, your wife.”

Woohyun just kept staring on and behind him, he heard Myungsoo say, “That isn’t really funny.”

Four minutes later, the seven of them just stood there, staring at each other helplessly.

The smallest one decided to step up, slowly walking up to Woohyun. “I-I’m…my name’s…Hoya. Lee Howon.”

“Hoya?” Woohyun cracked a small smile, looking back to see an encouraging one on Sunggyu’s face. “It’s nice to meet you. How old are you?”

“I-I’m eight,” came Hoya’s timid reply.

Woohyun turned back around to look at Sunggyu, who just bit his lip. Only eight years old, and they were left here by themselves.

“And who’s the other boy? Is he your brother?”

Almost immediately, Hoya shook his head rapidly. He walked back to the laughing maniac boy and pulled him over, saying, “This is Dongwoo hyung. He’s my bestest friend.”

A small smile reappearing, Woohyun turned to Dongwoo and asked him, “And how old are you, Dongwoo?”

“I’m nine,” Dongwoo said, a bit too proud.

Sunggyu laughed at his gut, slowly settling Sungjong down and deeming the two of them safe enough. He made his way over next to Woohyun, bending down.

“How did you boys get here? Where are your parents?”

Hoya gulped, turning to Dongwoo. Their eyes caught each other, both questioning one another on what to say.

“It’s…it’s a long story.”

Sungyeol should’ve known. It wasn’t hard, it was the same thing he’d been telling himself for years.

Friends aren’t forever. Friends don’t care about you. They’ll be fascinated with you one minute and gone the next.

He kept reminding himself so, saying that as he backed away. Hoya had gone up to that Woohyun guy with Dongwoo, and the Gyu-hamster person was coming towards them. The other two little kids, the L one and the tiny, girly one were sending weird looks to one another, holding hands as they made two new friends.

Two new friends. How many came? Three. How many new friends, though? Two.

He gave them a good few minutes, simply waiting to see if anything would happen. The strange people were just fascinated with Hoya and Dongwoo, they didn’t need him.

Slowly, Sungyeol kept going back. He kept walking the other way until the first tall boy was no longer in Woohyun and Sunggyu’s sight.

“What are we going to do?” Sunggyu asked, his voice completely shaded with worry.

Woohyun’s mind flashed to that one conversation he had with Sunggyu a while ago when they were attempting to catch fish. He followed Sunggyu’s eyes and looked out the window at Myungsoo and Sungjong, happily playing with Hoya and Dongwoo.

“…They look perfect together,” Woohyun said, his voice coming out soft. “Like they were meant to be friends, or something.”

“Yeah, but still, what are we going to do? We have to take care of more kids now, don’t you realize that?”

Woohyun smiled, that little perfect smile of his that just said ‘everything will be okay as long as I’m here’. “We’ll make it through somehow, okay?” He tilted his head, beckoning Sunggyu to come over.

“Ugh, more kids to feed and more time to spend awake stopping their fights,” Sunggyu groaned, walking to Woohyun.

“Remind me again why we have to take care of them.”

“Because we can’t leave them alone,” Sunggyu said, his chin resting on Woohyun’s shoulder. “Besides, Hoya and Dongwoo haven’t told us how they got here yet.”

“Or about their parents.” Woohyun shifted his arms onto Sunggyu’s waist, sighing a bit. “What do you think happened to them?”

“I don’t know…all I know is now, we have to take care of five kids.”

“Five kids?”

Sunggyu’s eyes widened, stepping away from Woohyun, the sudden realization striking him. “There’re five kids!”

Eyes shifting to the window, Woohyun gulped and told Sunggyu, “There’re only four out there.”

“I’m very well aware of that fact!” Sunggyu sneered. “There’s the other kid, the tall rude one that said I was your wife!”

Woohyun’s face burnt bright red at the reminder of that, and his skin suddenly felt hot where Sunggyu’s had touched him only a few seconds ago. “So…w-where’d he go?”

“I don’t know!” Sunggyu obviously didn’t notice anything.

“Where do you think he went?”

“I don’t know!” the older boy shouted again. “He was there one minute and…oh God, did we seriously not see him leave?!”

“Shh…it’ll be okay…I’ll get Hoya and Dongwoo, we’ll find him.”

Sunggyu’s breathing slowed down, calming with the soothing sound of Woohyun’s voice. He didn’t care if he’d only met the kid, having somebody just disappear under his watch was unbearable. He was the oldest – he was supposed to take care of them!

“Don’t burden yourself with it, I bet he’s fine,” Woohyun said, using that soft tone again. “Let’s go, okay?”

Taking Woohyun’s hand, Sunggyu nodded and they walked out the door.