It was Sunday morning and, for once, Jinyoung and Shinwoo were up early. They wanted to talk to Sunwoo and Gongchan before Junghwan woke up. It was important for them to talk about what had happened the last the at the Grandma’s house. It was a joke, and they understood it, but they had to talk about it anyway.

“Are they still asleep?” Shinwoo asked.

“Yeah” his husband said, still sleeping on his feet.

“I feel bad waking them up” their eomma was softening at the sight of their babies sleeping so comfy in their beds. Little Sunwoo snoring softly, Gongchan embracing his bunny plushie.

“I know… but we have too. Plus, is not that early” said the one who rather be in bed at the moment.

Shinwoo entered the room in silence, trying not to waking up Junghwan. He picked up Sunwoo while his bony husband picked up his bony baby. Sunwoo moved in his arms and let go little complaints but didn’t wake up. My little bad boy, it’s hard to think that this angelic face I’m seeing now is the same devilish one I see everyday playing in the backyard.

They got the kids to their bedroom and closed the door behind them, being careful of not waking up the oldest that was still in the ninth cloud.

“Wake up, little boys” Shinwoo said, delicately.

“Mmmmhh” was heard in the room, the kids trying to get one more minute of sleep.

“Wake up, wake up, wake uuup” their appa started.

“What’s going on?” Gongchan asked, wide awake now, sitting in the bed.

“What do you want?” Baro was rubbing his eyes.

Shinwoo barely could resist the awe from the view of the boys being so damn adorable. He almost felt guilty for the scold he was about to give them.

“Your appa and I want to tell you something” he started.

Jin death glared him. Yeah, leave me the hard part right?

“We want to talk about what happen yesterday with your brother” Jin said.

The two kids gulped. They knew what was coming.

“We don’t want something like that to happen anymore” he continued.

“But… it wasn’t our fault!” Sunwoo adventured.

Little Channie hit his brother in the ribs. He knew it was better to stay quiet.

“It wasn’t?” Jinyoung asked “Are you sure? You know too well how your brother falls for pranks. He could’ve catch a cold. He could’ve done something dangerous.”

Shinwoo realized that his husband was getting mad. He was scared, he felt guilty. He saw his boy’s eyes getting bigger. They were feeling guilty too. It was enough. Shinwoo put his hand in Jinyoung’s shoulder to calm him down. It was his turn to talk.

“We know” he started, calmly “that it wasn’t your intention, we’re just asking you to be careful, okay babies?”

“Can’t we play anymore pranks on Deullie?” Baro asked

Channie hit him again.

Shinwoo smiled and felt Jinyoung relaxing under his arm too. “You can, just, not those kind of pranks, understood? And you have to say sorry now”

“We’ll do” Channie spoke for the first time that day “we’ll make sure Deullie forgives us”

Shinwoo didn’t think his son was really mad. He seemed quite happy last night eating the cookies they’ve made, but it wouldn’t hurt him being treated nicely by his brothers for once.

They fell asleep altogether in the big bed of their parents. Gongchan liked it a lot ‘cause it really was big, he always thought they could use it like a boat if they ever needed to. Anyway, his parents always fell asleep very close to each other. That day they had more space because his big brother wasn’t there. He was awake, enjoying the bony hug of his appa. He couldn’t fall asleep again that morning, he was nervous, the next day, Monday, was his first day of school ever and he wasn’t sure he was going to make friends. Baro and Deullie said school was fun, that you made friends and school and that you learned cool things, but Channie knew they were nervous too, ‘cause they were going to a new school this year and things could change. They just wanted to act like good big brothers.

There were some knocks at the door. And then a chubby face peeking in.

“Can I come in?” Junghwan asked.

“Yeah” Gongchan whispered “Just don’t make too much noise”

Of course that wouldn’t work.

Hwan climbed to the bed and woke up his eomma in the process, and then his appa and finally his twin. He didn’t even bothered to say sorry. He just got in between the sheets and cuddled with his eomma, sitting in between him and his brother Baro.

“I woke up all alone” he said with a pout. “I don’t like that”

“We were having a family breakfast in bed” Baro said. “We didn’t invite you ‘cause you’d eat it all”

Deullie’s plump cheeks fell down, he looked at his mom in desperation.

“Eomma?”

“It’s not true, baby. We haven’t eat yet.”

“Oh”

Shinwoo could see his boy’s eyes lighten up. You could make Junghwan happy with so little.

It was late that morning, eleven thirty to be more exact, and Jinyoung was making Kimchi stew. It was a late breakfast. Shinwoo was busy bathing the kids, yes, it is what you’re thinking, three kids in the same bathtub can’t be a good idea, but they had no much time before heading to the mall to buy new backpacks and school supplies so that’s what they had to do.

Bathing them all together was such an experience.

“Guys, stay quiet” Shinwoo asked, but it was all in vain.

The boys were the happiest in the water, Gongchan was making little tsunamis while Sunwoo and Junghwan were trying to keep their respective boat and rubber duck afloat. Sounds effects included.

“Eomma, can we add bubbles?” Gongchan asked with those puppy eyes no one could deny.

“Oh, yes! Bubbles!” Baro joined

“Cuack, cuack!” the rubber duck said, clearly joining the motion.

There was no time for bubbles but… God, why did he has to be so soft? Just a little bit wouldn’t hurt anybody, would they?

Jinyoung had the table set and the food ready –a lot of food, he wanted his family to eat well- and still no track of the kids or his lover. He went to the bathroom and found… well he didn’t exactly found his family.

“What’s with all this bubbles?” he asked. He could barely see Shinwoo. Not even talk about the bathtub or the kids.

“APPA! COME SAVE US FROM THE BUBBLES MONSTER!” he couldn’t see anything but it had to be Sunwoo who was talking

A cuack cuack sounded from the distance.

“Shinwoo, what’s going on here?” he tried to make his voice audible above all the noise.

“I dropped the bottle of bubbles!” he could hear an embarrassed Shinwoo saying.

“You dropped it?” he couldn’t believe it. His Shinwoo never dropped anything.

“It was an accident!”

“Yeah I can tell…” Jinyoung said more to himself than to anyone else.

It was a nightmare to get the kids out of there. They didn’t want to leave the place, and it’s hard to be two against three, tho it was easy to get Junghwan out… they just had to tell him the food was waiting for him. Then they had to clean everything up. Breakfast was all cold by the time they sat down at the table.

“Do we have to eat this cold?” Baro asked.

“Yes” Jinyoung said, he wasn’t in the mood.

“But…”

“Just eat, Jung Sunwoo”

“Okay…”

Shinwoo just smiled. He liked it when Jinyoung was all grumpy, it make him look sharp.

“What kind of backpacks do you want?” Shinwoo asked their children, to cheer up the mood.

“I want a blue one” Baro said, excited.

“I already knew it” Sandeul said, munching.

“I bet you want one with bunnies.”

“How did you know?” the chubby boy asked surprised.

“I know everything”

“I want a pink one” Channie said “Do you think my classmates would like it?”

“The important thing is, little boy, would you like it?” his appa asked, stepping aside of his bad mood.

“Yes, appa.”

“Then it’s perfect”

It was a long day at the mall.

The place was full of families shopping for last-time school supplies. They weren’t the only ones who were forgetful. They bought the backpacks –pink, blue and green with bunnies-, cloud shaped erasers, pencils and crayons for all the three of them. They also stopped for ice cream.

It was a long afternoon at home too.

The kids were hyper.

What if we don’t make friends? What if classes are too hard? What if school it’s too big and we get lost? Will there be too many girls in there? The questions flew around the house and each one of the kids was showing symptoms of anxiety in their own way.

Little Channie was biting his nails.

You might think it is not that bad. But it’s a complicated thing when you have a five years old biting their nails to the point of blood.

“Channie what are you doing???!!!” Shinwoo exclaimed when he saw his youngest child sitting in front of the TV biting his fingers and tearing up.

“Nothing, eomma” he managed to say.

Shinwoo bend over to see his son and took his hand out of his mouth delicately. It was bleeding.

“Oh, baby, what did you do?” he asked in a whisper.

“I’m sorry” the boy cried “I didn’t noticed”

“Does it hurt?”

The boy nodded his head with a pout that broke his eomma’s heart.

“Let’s get some band-aids”

And that’s how they ended up in the bathroom, healing the boy’s wounds.

That’s when Jinyoung found little Sunwoo in his bedroom doing sit ups.

“…twenty two, twenty three, twenty four… ah, ah, ahh” the little boy was counting.

“Sunwoo, what’s going on?” Jinyoung asked, confused.

“Sit ups!” his face was all red and he could barely speak. He couldn’t even breathe.

“What for…?”

“I need to have muscles!”

His little chest was going up and down, up and down, up and down as he tried to catch up with the breathing. God, he was just six years old. Jinyoung went to sit down with him on the floor.

“Why do you need to have muscles?”

“So that way I’ll make friends” Sunwoo said, he looked very proud of his plan.

“How many sit ups have you done so far?” his appa asked, curious.

“one hundred twenty four”

“THAT MUCH?”

“Are you impressed?” you could tell Baro was proud.

“A lot. You sure have energy”

“I need to have muscles.” He kept saying.

“You don’t need anything, you already made friends last years with no muscles” was his son really that nervous about the whole making friends thing?

“This year is different” the boy assured “we’re grown ups now, these things matter”

Jinyoung couldn’t help but smile at the grown ups part. They were just six. Just six.

“You don’t have to impress anybody, Sunwoo. You are already a great boy”

“You think so?” he asked, his mouth like a little O, his squirrel teeth showing.

“I swear to you.”

“So I don’t need to do this?” Baro asked doing a sit up.

“No”

“Phew. I was getting really tired.” The boy said happily.

“Look, there’s appa” a voice said from the door. It was Shinwoo, who came with Channie. The boy had band-aids in all his fingers.

“What happened baby?” Jinyoung asked instantly.

“I bite my nails” he said embarrassed.

“He was just nervous” Shinwoo said, kindly.

“Oh, I had a nervous one here too” Jinyoung said indicating Sunwoo.

It was a minute or two before they noticed.

“Oh no”

“Where’s Junghwan?”

Jinyoung ran to the kitchen.

And there he was. Sitting on the floor, eating all that he could take from the fridge.

“Oh, Hwannie”

Junghwan opened his eyes big like plates and looked at his appa in guilt.

“I… I… I can explain”

But, could he?

“No need to” Jinyoung said to his surprise. He just went to his side and started putting the food back in its place.

“I was hungry. I’m sorry, I’m sorry appa” Junghwan cried.

“It’s okay, it’s okay” Jinyoung hugged his son and patted his back slowly “it’s because you were nervous, right?”

“I think so” he was still crying.

Of course he would come here. It was the first place we should lock. Stupid, stupid Jinyoung.

“Appa” Jungwhan said “my stomach hurts”

It hurts? But… how much time did you spend here alone?

“Easy boy, let’s make you some tea.”

It was hard to get the boys sleeping that night too. Sunwoo was too hyper. Gongchannie’s hands still hurt a lot and he couldn’t fall asleep because of that. And little Junghwan stomach was still bothering him when it was time to go to bed.

“It’s going to be impossible to wake them up in the morning” Jinyoung said to his wifey when they were finally alone in their bedroom.

“I hope they have a good first day” Shinwoo said.

“They will”

“I hope we have a good night. No interruptions”

“Are you planning something for tonight?” Jin said, raising and eyebrow.

“Just if you’re up to it”

“I’m up to you”