After You || Gaon

107

"oh my god!" seungmin calls out as he excitedly rushes past the group, dragging sunjae along the way. "there's penguins!"

"oh hell no." kyeongwoo says as he swiftly turns out and walks to other way, standing at the entrance of the aquarium. "when you guys are done with the penguins, i'll go back."

"what's up with him?" jungsu asks as he gestures to the lone twin who was looking at the pamphlet we had gotten.
junseo smiles as he quickly gets a photo of kyeongwoo.

"he's scared of penguins." he says with a smile. jooyeon then furrows his eyebrows as he crosses his arms.
"how? what did the penguins do to him?"

"when we were younger, we came to this same zoo and kyeongtae loved penguins, but when the staff let the penguins roam around this area," kyeongtae gestures to the aquarium area, "a bunch of them went after kyeongtae since he was feeding fish to some of the other penguins in the exhibit."

"he still has a scar on his finger from a penguin that bit him." i smile, walking up to the penguins and looking at all of them over the railing.

luckily, the exhibit wasn't overcrowded, there was only about ten penguins and their enclosure was quite large. they had land to rest on and a deep pool of water. they were adorable, but i couldn't really stand the stench of the raw fish..

"baby, look,", jiseok says as he places an arm around my shoulder, then pointing over to a staff who was playing around with a baby penguin. "it's a baby penguin."

the baby penguin was flapping around happily as it chased the staff around, other penguins joining in too. it it was probably because the staff was holding a bucket of fish..

"would you guys like to feed a penguin? it's 1.50 bucks for per fish." a staff, who did have a very strong australian accent, then comes up to us, placing a bucket of raw fish on the wet ground. i turn to jiseok and gesture over to the fish.

"i've already fed them before, so do you want to have a go?" i ask, him nodding his head yes as he takes out three bucks from his wallet, passing it over to the staff who takes it with a smile, then passing him a thick pair of gloves, then pointing over to where land was.

"please follow me here." she says, us both following her but it didn't end up being all of us following her. except for kyeongtae and sunjae, they decided to walk off somewhere.

"please make sure you wear your gloves, it's a safety precaution." she says as she gestures over to the gloves jiseok was holding, her then calling over some penguins with a small fish while letting jiseok put the gloves on.

"don't get your finger bitten off, jiseok." hyeongjun laughs as he takes his phone out, continuing to record jiseok.
the staff then grabs a fish and passes it to jiseok, then gesturing to the penguins.

"you can feed any one of them, just either give it to one or just throw it up in the air." she then does an example with the small fish, throwing it in the air and letting it fall near the penguins who immediantly went crazy over it.

jiseok turns to looks at me with wide eyes, "i see why your brother's scared of penguins..". i let out a soft laugh as he throws the fish in the air and letting it fall on the ground.

we then hear a commotion from behind us. we all then around and see kyeongwoo being dragged over by sunjae and kyeongtae, then both visibly struggling to bring the boy over. we all laugh, hyeongjun and jungsu both recording the scene.

"i'm not going near them!" kyeongwoo shouts out, waving his arms in the air, trying to break free from the brothers' grips.
"they won't kill you!" sunjae grunts, scrunching his nose up as we pulls kyeongwoo with all his force to the penguin exhibit.
junseo then gestures to the animals. "see? they're probably not even the same ones from ages ago."

kyeongwoo just stood there, a frown on his face and fear in his eyes as he liked at the penguins. but the fear did fade away once he saw the baby penguin.
"kyeongwoo," jiseok then calls out, taking the glove off and passing it over to the boy, "you feed one, try get over your fear."

he was hesitant. very.

he did end up putting the glove on sober or later and fed a penguin, his fear of penguins immediantly vanishing. once a penguin had happily eaten a fish, kyeongwoo was all smiles and laughs.

that was until he let out a loud scream and ran off, almost tripping over himself.
we all then to look at each other in confusion, saena then pointing at a penguin near kyeongtae.

"oh, what the fuck!" kyeongtae screams out, falling backwards onto his bottom as he quickly lifts himself up again and runs over to kyeongwoo, then both staring at the penguin from the entrance with fear on their faces.

jiseok slightly lowers himself to my level, turning his head to me, "i think the twins are both scared of penguins."