"Oh, my," Sandara says, eyes beaming as she looks at the checkered white and blue uniform with a teddy bear patch that her son is wearing. She pinches his cheek and before the boy can protest lean down to plant a kiss straight to his forehead.

With his curled reddish hair and his smooth skin Hyukjae looks like a porcelain doll one can find on the shelf of an antiques store. Sure, she's biased since she's the mother of this handsome kid, but her friends have never failed to remind her how adorable and cute her son is, so we're talking about just a little bit of biasedness here.

Hyukjae wrinkles his nose. "Mom!" 

The only difference between Hyukjae and those dolls would be that instead of being immobile and have a wonderful smile plastered on his face, Hyukjae's fiddling with the strings of his shoes, eyebrows drawn in frown and his lips pushed in a pout.

"I don't want to go to school, mommy." Hyukjae murmurs for the nth time in the past twenty minutes. "I don't like school," he adds as he folds his arms on his chest. The scowl intensifies before it smooths and two pair of big eyes are begging at Sandara. With the cute honeyed voice he uses on his father to extort cookies from him, he asks, "can't I stay with you, mommy?"

Sandara sighs a little, but she gives him a knowing smile. "You haven't even gone yet. This is your first day, Hyukjae," she points out playfully.

"But I don't like it!" Hyukjae protests. "I don't like it already!" 

"Hyukjae," she calls, her voice firm. She watches the kid huff angrily at her, his eyes swelling. Suppressing another sigh, she stoops down so they're on the same level. "You have to go to school. To learn. Make friends. It will be fun."

Before her son can reply, she stands up to get Hyukjae's backpack.

Hyukjae, for his part, forgets about the tears and wears his full glare again. He gets up too, stomping on the floor like he always does when he's upset.

"I don't want to, mom!" He shrieks, but stops the moment he sees his mom coming back holding up a finger to him in warning. He knows what happens when she shows the index. It means one. If she shows puts the other finger up too Hyukjae is going to be on time out, meaning she's going to tell him to sit on a corner and think about what he did wrong. 

To get her, Hyukjae puffs his cheeks, holding his breath. He'll become purple and his mom is going to say she's sorry and make him stay home.

Sandara has his backpack in her hand. It has all these little strawberry shortcakes drawings on it. "Baby," she motions for him to come closer. When Hyukjae doesn't, she just raises the backpack, silently telling him to put in on his shoulders.

"Do you want me to throw it away?" She asks as she receives yet nothing.

Hyukjae eyeballs her, the bag, then her again. For a moment he thinks about staying planted where he is, but then he gets scared at the possibility of his mother really putting his precious thing with the smelly rubbish. He hurries.

"Good boy," his mommy says, combing Hyukjae's hair with her hand. She checks her watch then and gasps, "oh, my, let me put my coat on. Your aunt Bom and Donghae are coming in five minutes."

Hyukjae groans at that. "I don't want to go with Aunt Bom and Donghae," he mutters.

"Why not?" Sandara questions as she gets herself ready. She takes her purse and then goes back to work on Hyukjae's hair to put it at a side. To make him look even cuter. "They're nice. Aunt Bom always bakes cookies and shares them with us. And Donghae is your best friend."

"I don't like Donghae." Hyukjae states petulantly.

Sandara rolls her eyes. She and Bom met at the hospital, immediately clicked with one another, and thought it must have been faith that put them together in the same room because they found out they lived just a couple of minutes away from each other. So, their sons grew up together and they get along too. Most of the times.

Actually, from what she's seen so far, Donghae adores Hyukjae. It's Hyukjae who always likes to tease the other. Is pretty much always the one who initiates the bickering.

"Why?" She asks, just to humor Hyukjae.

"Because—because he always touches me and he's always sticky because he drools. He's a saliva boy! Like a dog. Like—like Giotto." Their neighbor's dwarf poodle. "And he kisses me everywhere with his saliva, that saliva boy."

"That's not nice, Hyukjae." Sandara scolds him.

"But mommy it's true!" Hyukjae argues. "He leaves saliva when he kisses my face, and my hand, and my, my, my—here!"

"Forehead," Sandara supplies.

Hyukjae grimaces with his tongue out. Such a dramatic boy. She wonders her he got it from. "And he calls me a Teletubbie, mommy. Do you know that?"

"Does he?" Sandara asks absentminded-ly. There's this strand of hair that's not collaborating.

"Yeah!" Hyukjae snorts, looking offended. "Because he say—"

"Says."

"—says that I walk like a Teletubbie!"

"Oh, really?"

"I don't walk like a Teletubbie!" Hyukjae sounds very offended now.

"No, baby, no," Sandara answers. There. She taps her son under his chin. He looks impeccable now. Absolutely adorable. She grins at the result.

Hyukjae is about to open his mouth again. To whine some more, probably, but he gets cut off by the doorbell. And as he sees his mom leave to open the door, he positions his arms on his chest again, crossing them. The pout is back on his face. 

He follows short after as he hears a voice that belongs to his Aunt Bom, but he stops just behind the wall. It's not like he has any intention of showing himself, but when he hears Donghae chirp cheerfully, he decides to peek a little.

Just to see what's going on. If Donghae is about to drown their house with his saliva.

Hyukjae peers at the three. He watches the brown mop of Donghae's head bob happily in greeting at his mommy and then snickers to himself as he observes that Donghae is holding hands with Aunt Bom. Aunt Bom who is carrying Donghae's backpack unlike Hyukjae who has it on his own.

That's because Donghae's a little kid. He's only six, after all, while Hyukjae's seven and almost seven and half.

"Where's Hyukjae?"

Huh-hoh. He tries to hide, but he's not fast enough because Aunt Bom catches him. Plus, he hears Donghae squeal his name. 

A second later, Donghae finds him easily. "Hyukkie, good morning!" 

Hyukjae looks at Donghae for a moment before rotating his head to the other part.

It's not like Hyukjae doesn't like like Donghae. Donghae is okay. Not strawberry cookies made by daddy okay. Not even strawberry cookies made by Aunt Bom okay. Maybe he's strawberry cookies made by mommy okay. He's always smiling so big, he likes doing whatever Hyukjae does which is not a bad thing because Hyukjae is the best. But he always wants to be with Hyukjae and Hyukjae would like playing with himself too if he were Donghae because Hyukjae comes up with great games, but sometimes Hyukjae likes doing things alone.

And Donghae is so little. He should be with kids his age.

"You look good in your uniform," Bom praises Hyukjae and the latter at least has the decency—Sandara exhales in relief—to thank her.

"Are you ready to go to school?" Donghae asks, practically vibrating on his spot. He doesn't receive a reply from his friend, but he doesn't notice it. In fact he blabbers on, "I can't wait to go!" He raises his hands up to show his happiness.

This time he waits for an answer.

That doesn't come.

"Hyukjae." Sandara says in a reproachful tone, but her son only tips his chin up, still on the opposite direction of where Donghae is.

Being ignored wipes the excitement out of Donghae. His expression falls, and so do his arms. He approaches Hyukjae, tries to touch him, and the corners of his mouth becomes first a flat line when Hyukjae shoves his hands away and then turn down when Donghae walks around Hyukjae to see Hyukjae's face only for Hyukjae to turn his head on the side.

Hurt, Donghae says weakly. "Hyukkie."

"To what do we have the honor of meeting a sulking Hyukjae?" Bom questions playfully.

"He's been like that since he woke up." Sandara informs, giving both Donghae and her friend an apologetic smile. "It all started when we remembered that we broke his favorite mug. It took me twenty minutes to convince him to have breakfast."

Bom chuckles. "Still spoiled, ain't we?"

Sandara gives her a pointed look. "You have no idea."

"Mom," Donghae mumbles, tugging at his mother's skirt. He indicates the yet sulking friend. "Hyukkie doesn't talking to me."

Sandara is the one to crouch to the kid. "Give him some time, Hae?" She asks, but then she changes her mind as a thought pops up. She whispers something to Donghae's ear that has both her and Donghae's eyes twinkling.

She holds a thumb up to quietly ask the kid if he understood the plan and when Donghae flips his own little thumb in confirmation, she starts counting.

Donghae takes silent stride towards the oblivious Hyukjae as Sandara mouths "one, two," and then on three, he plants a wet kiss right on Hyukjae's cheek.

Hyukjae swivels his head at the now giggling kid. His eyes are wide and horrified. "Ew," he whines as he wipes his whole face with the sleeve of his uniform. "Eeew, Donghae! Mommy! Did you see that?"

Bom and Sandara are clapping their hands, laughing in delight. 

"Mom!"

"Let's go to school." Sandara answers when she recovers. "And no more being a brat or mean to Donghae, understand?"

Hyukjae's eyebrows are about to connect again in response, but they're stopped by Donghae taking Hyukjae's arm, leaning his head on Hyukjae's shoulder to tell him,

"yesterday daddy and me watched Batman and Robin!"

Hyukjae blinks. He says in surprise, "you watched it?"

"Yes!" Donghae nods eagerly. He glances furtively at his own mom and then whisper-shouts at Hyukjae, "daddy let me stay up until 9:47!"

Hyukjae leans back. "Did you see when Batman punched the Penguin?"

"Yes, yes, it was so cool!"

Sandara and Bom usher the two outside, but not before sharing a smile. Haaa, children.