Babysat

            “Why can’t I just carry her around?”  Luhan whined.

            “Because Lay hyung said that she needs to practice walking,” D.O responded with a roll of his eyes.

            Sehun sighed, “It would be so much easier.”

            “She’s so light anyways,” Luhan reasoned.

            “Hyung, don’t make me be the boring one here.”  D.O replied.

            “I’m sorry,” I apologized.  We were walking down the street to go pick up bathroom cleaner so that D.O could finish his chore for the week.  It was my fault we were walking painfully slow.

            “It’s alright,” Luhan smiled at me.  “We get to enjoy the walk this way.”

            Sehun sighed again.  The wind was picking up, but thankfully it came from behind us so it helped instead of hindered our progress.

            A trip that should have taken ten minutes, fifteen max, ended up taking us almost forty-five.  Sehun’s scowl seemed permanent by the time we got back to their house.

            Suho was waiting for us inside.  “Did everything go alright?  You guys took forever.”

            I apologized again.  Suho ushered us in.  “I made spaghetti.”

            “With meat balls?”  Sehun asked, his face brightening, causing Luhan to ruffle his hair playfully.  The two of them seemed really close, it was sweet.

            “Of course,”  Suho smiled.  He shooed Luhan, Sehun, and me into the dining room while he went outside with D.O.

            “Where are they going?”  I asked, curious.

            “They’re going out to work on the garden,”  Luhan responded as he sat down to eat.  Sehun helped me sit in the chair across from him and then took a seat next to Luhan.

            “Cool, you guys have a garden?”

            “Yep,” replied Luhan as he dug into his meal.   The spaghetti smelled delicious.  Suho had served a generous helping of spaghetti and some broccoli onto each of our plates.  “Sehun-ah, you need to eat your broccoli.”

            He mumbled a response as he inhaled his spaghetti.  He finished first.  He sat up and patted his belly.  “Delicious.”

            “Suho hyung should cook for us more often,” agreed Luhan, chewing as he spoke.  “Do you like it Susanna?”

            I nodded, “It’s wonderful, but I don’t think I-“

            I was interrupted as Luhan slapped away Sehun’s fork.  He had tried to casually steal a meatball.

            “Hey! Mine!”  Luhan scolded.  “You had yours!”

            “But I’m still hungry,” whimpered Sehun.

            “Really?  Well finish your broccoli and I’ll save you one of mine,”  Luhan sighed.  They seemed like older and younger brother.  I wondered how long they had known each other.  Luhan seemed to have read Sehun’s mind, he stopped the fork before it even reached his plate.  I didn’t think Luhan was paying attention.  I guess he was.

            “I’m really full so you can split the rest of my spaghetti,”  I offered.  I had eaten most of my broccoli and about half of my spaghetti.  I could have eaten more but I wasn’t ravenous like those two seemed.

            “Are you sure?” asked Luhan.  “Thank you.  I guess small girls like you don’t eat much.”

            “Well compared to you guys, I guess not!”  I retorted playfully.

            After we finished our meal Suho and D.O came back.  “Can we go out to play?”  Sehun asked hopefully.

            “Hey, you volunteered to babysit Susanna!”  Suho replied.

            “I don’t need to be babysat!”  I exclaimed.   Just because I can’t walk straight.

            “Yeah, she doesn’t eat much and she can walk slowly on her own, we won’t go far!”  Luhan begged.

            “I don’t see how my eating habbits-“ I started.

            “Let them go,” D.O commented.  “It’s not like anything exciting is happening here.  I’m cleaning the top floor bathroom- they’d be bored out of their minds anyways.”

            “Alright,” consented Suho with a sigh.  “Be back by two, alright?”

            “Okay!”  Luhan and Sehun chirped cheerfully.  Luhan patted my cheek and winked goodbye and they left.

            “Well, D.O,”  Suho started.

            “I know, I know,”  D.O. replied, he headed to the stairs glumly.

            “He isn’t always so down,” Suho told me.  “It’s just I had to force him to finally get his chore done.  All the other bathrooms have been cleaned and well, today’s Sunday.”

            “Do you clean the house every week?”  I ask, as we walk into a sitting room with an old looking TV.

            “Yes, we split up the chores.  Kai cleaned the bathroom in the basement and on this floor, they’re smaller,” Suho explained, “And Kris did the one on the second floor.”

            “Wow, how did you all meet?”  I asked, they seem to all get along really well.  I wondered if any of them were related.

            “Well, in the beginning it was just me, Chanyeol, Kai, and D.O.  We lived in an apartment not too far from here.  Then Kris and Tao came.  Then Xiumin arrived.  This made our four bedroom apartment very crowded, so when Luhan and Sehun became friends with us, some of us moved into an apartment building nearby.  Lay, Chen, and Baekhyun joined us and I built us this house.”

            “Wow, so Sehun and Luhan were friends before they joined you?”

            “Yes, they’re incredibly close.  It’s nice that Sehun had a hyung to look out for him before they met all of us.  They’re like brothers.  Kris and Tao are kinda close like that.  Tao listens to Kris, well, we all do.”  Suho smiled at me.

            “They don’t like me,”  I stated, sighing.

            “No,” Suho said thoughtfully.  “They don’t.  And they are not ones you want to be on the bad side of.  One time, Baekhyun borrowed one of Tao’s fancy swords to play with, and when Tao found out,”  He took a breath, seeming to push the memory out of his mind.  “Let’s just say that Baekhyun got a beating.”

            “Tao has swords?” I asked, concerned.

            “Yeah, but so does Baekhyun.  They both do martial arts.  Chanyeol was pissed for weeks, Baekhyun kinda got over it when his bruises began to fade.  The tension affected everything in the house.  It was like a little war, Kris and Tao versus Baekhyun and Chanyeol.  The house almost burned down a couple times.”

            Suho laughed as he said that.  “What do you want to do?  We have some board games and cards.  Do you know how to play poker?”

            “Yes, I’m not very good.”

            “Well, it’ll be good to practice, in case you end up staying until we switch hair again- you might get caught up in that mess.”

            I widened my eyes in mock horror and he laughed.  He beat me consistently but I got better.  He told me to sleep in Lay’s room again tonight, since they wouldn’t be home until morning.

            Though Suho wasn’t happy about my being there initially, it seemed that he warmed up to me.  He was a friendly guy, and he obviously cared for his friends a lot.  Even though I was still a little concerned about my situation, I fell asleep without too much trouble.