Shang has always known his siblings aren’t exactly normal – you don’t live with Jongseok without expecting a few explosions, after all – but this is a little strange, even for them. “What are you two doing?” He says, wrinkling his nose suspiciously. “Don’t you have…things you could be doing?” He’d rather not imagine what those things could be. They’re weird kids. They don’t like things that well-adjusted, rational children enjoy.

Which is probably why he quite likes having them as siblings, if he’s honest. There’s never a dull day – not that he’ll ever tell them that. He has an image to maintain.

Jongseok blinks up at his older brother, giving an insouciant shrug. “Playing rock-paper-scissors. What’s it to you?”

“Rock beats scissors, ha! I win, again!” Sunhwa crows, bashing her fist against Jongseok’s open hand.

“Hey, I wasn’t ready, that doesn’t count – “

“I never agreed that you had to be ready,” Sunhwa cackles smugly, proud of her subterfuge. “It looks like the scissor motion to me, so I’m going with that – “

“Actually, it looks more like paper.” Shang interrupts (un)helpfully. Jongseok grins, happy that for once, his elder brother is on his side, as Sunhwa glares and prepares her patented trembling lower lip.

“Nuh-uh,” Shang shakes his head, waving a finger in his baby sister’s face as she shuffles closer, attempting to shove her heartbroken expression in his face. “That only works on dad, remember?”

“You .” She grumbles, flopping back down on the floor.

“You’re just saying that because you’re a sore loser,” Jongseok tells her disinterestedly, as he prods her stomach. He snorts when she flails because it’s not fair to take advantage of tickly spots, they have a truce!

“Anyway,” Shang rolls his eyes as manfully as a seventeen year old with rainbow hair can. “What I meant was, what are you doing sitting in front of a closed door when you could, I don’t know, open it?”

His siblings sigh in unison, shaking their heads as if he’s an idiot, which is totally not true. Little s. “Bàba and dad are in there.” Sunhwa rolls onto her stomach, pressing her ear against the door. “We locked them in.” Jongseok nods in agreement.

“And you did that…why?” He can understand the desire to do so – messing with their fathers is the one pastime they all have in common – but the motivation seems lacking here; they recently got back from a holiday, surely they should be cutting their dads some slack right now?

“They still haven’t managed to get engaged.” Jongseok stretches out of his crouch on the floor, leaning over Sunhwa to peer through the crack in the doorway. “We decided to help them out a bit.”

“And this is helping them how?” If he wasn’t already certain his family are crazy, he would be by now. “Like, you know they’re just going to get mad at you guys and take away your computer privileges.”

“Ha!” Jongseok snickers, looking disconcertingly like Jongdae as he does so. Shang tilts his head. Huh. Maybe Jongseok is their dad’s mini-me, like grandma says. “That wouldn’t matter,” he says, holding his hand out for Sunhwa to low-five. She does so, albeit unenthusiastically. “We memorised their passwords ages ago.”

Shang grunts in acknowledgement. It was kind of a stupid point. They all learnt how to hack into their dads’ various electronic devices from very young ages, which – while entertaining – had resulted in some very awkward moments. He’d never quite been able to see his bà in the same way once he’d seen those…texts. Well, ts really.

He shudders. Parents aren’t supposed to t, for god’s sakes.

“Still. How is this helping? And why do you want them to get married, anyway, it just means we have to wear suits and stuff and watch them be sappy in public.” Jongseok blanches at the mention of suits, but he’s too busy retching to notice.

“Bridesmaids get presents, that’s why!” Sunhwa scrambles upwards, tugging on Shang’s sleeve. “And you and Seokkie will get to be ushers and you’ll probably get presents too!”

Oh. Oh. He’s never thought of it this way, but thinking back – didn’t his mother say that he got presents for being such a good baby when she and Joonmyun got married? “You sly little ers,” he says admiringly, ruffling Sunhwa’s hair for good measure. She beams at him.

“Besides,” Jongseok mumbles, “it would make things easier, if I could say they were married. No one ever gets it when I say I have two dads who aren’t married. They just think I have a stepdad.” He rolls his eyes, because people are stupid, and Shang can sympathise. Explaining their ed up family dynamic to idiots gets old, fast.

“Oh, and they love each other.” Sunhwa supplies, ducking under her brother’s arm so that she can snuggle into his side. He pats the top of her head patronisingly. “Grown-ups like getting married when they’re in love.”

“My R.E. teacher says there’s no stability to a relationship if you’re not married,” Jongseok thuds down onto the floor, wrapping his arms around his legs. He rests his chin on his knees, staring contemplatively at the peeling wallpaper in the corner of the hallway.

“Yeah, but your R.E. teacher is a hypochondriac who’s been married at least four times,” Shang says impatiently. “I really wouldn’t listen to him, ‘cause he clearly knows nothing.”

“I guess, but they fight a lot, so…” Jongseok trails off, worrying his lower lip between his teeth. He might be thirteen now, verging on young adulthood – but he’s never claimed to be anything but a child. Shang knows this is possibly just the older sibling in him talking, but his brother has always seemed very young.

But then, he is four years older.

“That's their version of .” He rolls his eyes, waving a dismissive hand. “They've never actually had a fight so bad they considered splitting up.”

A sudden flashback to the aforementioned ts has him gagging, because there was a mention of and never needing anyone else's when it was so perfect. This is what he gets for being nosy, he supposes.

“What's ?” Sunhwa asks curiously. “Is it a game?”

Shang freezes. Oh, god, no. He's about to say 'yes, a totally innocent game that is in no way related to ', but Jongseok beats him to it.

His brother's nose wrinkles. “It's what they do when they're giggling at nighttime and forget to lock the door.”

“Oh.” Sunhwa tilts her head, unconvinced. “I thought that was wrestling.”

Jongseok pats her arm sympathetically. “So did we.”

It's sad how they've all lost their innocence at such young ages, Shang thinks.

It's taken me a long time to update, I know. I haven't been able to write at the moment; I don't know why. Perhaps it's the fact I've gotten everything sorted and now I'm just exhausted, but I hope it comes back soon. I miss playing in my fictional worlds.