Twelve Little Brothers

Look!

"Hey Minseo, can we talk?" I didn't even need to turn around to know it was Taemin who was trying to talk to me. I just ignored him and struggled to get my binders out for my first few classes. Apparently casts are really hard to work with.

I could hear him sigh as he leaned up against the locker next to mine. "I know what happened yesterday was really mean of me, but... Nevermind. My excuses are dumb and it's not like you're going to listen to me anyways. Just know that I care about you Minseo, and one day you will realize why I am doing this."

I only looked up when I knew he was gone. Should I have listened to him? What if I just threw away my last chance? I sighed and closed my locker before leaning up against it. He threw it away first.

...

"Minseo Noona!" I braced for the impact of most of the boys running at me, but it never came. All I heard was a crash. I looked up to see that Minghao had jumped in front of them to stop them from knocking me over. Once he saw that they weren't going to tackle me, Minghao then jumped onto me so I was forced to put him on my hip and carry him with one arm.

He then leaned closer and whispered in my ear, "I protec."

I smiled and kissed him on the cheek before turning back to the kids that were still on the floor. "How was everyone's day so far?"

"Good!" "Yus." "Look!" I looked down at what the Americanos were going to show me, but got confused when I didn't see anything.

"No! You have to look!" Now I was really confused. Joshua and Hansol just sighed and looked at each other.

After their mental conversation, Joshua went behind me and started to push me towards the hallway while Hansol grabbed my cast and lightly pulled me along. They stopped in front of their door and started to whisper to each other.

"You have to close you eyes." I nodded, quickly shut my eyes and waited for something to happen.

"Ming too." I could hear him sigh as the Americanos opened their bedroom door. I felt a pair of little hands push me forward and I gave in and walked forward, cautious of everything around me so I wouldn't trip.

"Ofen." I scrunched my eyebrows together at Joshua's words.

"What?"

"Ofen!"

"I don't understand." Joshua apparently gave up and Hansol took over.

"You eyes." I opened them up and looked at Joshua who seemed to be frustrated.

"I think you meant to say 'open,' yeah?"

He nodded. "That what I said! Ofen."

I sighed and Hansol started to motion like crazy. "Look!"

I looked at what he was motioning to and my eyes widened. They had taken all the blankets around the house and created a fort with their bunk beds. I was pretty impressed since they were only three.

"Did you do this by yourselves?" They both nodded and smiled. "Wow! It looks awesome!" They just kept smiling as they dragged Minghao and I underneath to check it out.

Once I sat down, Minghao got off of my hip and sat in my lap. "You guys did a really nice job." I looked around the fort and gave them a thumbs up.

"Story time now!" I smiled as they climbed out to find me a book.

"Let me get changed first, okay?"

"Okay!" I lifted Minghao off of my lap and set him down on the floor before climbing out to get to my room.

I quickly threw on some clean clothes and folded up my uniform before returning to the Americanos. Minghao had left the room and was playing with Jun and the triplets in the living room.

"What story did you guys pick out?" They held up "The Tales of Peter Rabbit" and placed it into my lap. I smiled and turned to the first page in the book. Hansol and Joshua then curled up on either sides of me in identical positions and leaned their heads against my shoulders.

Halfway through the book, I heard the door opened and I turned around to see who it was. Uncle Seungcheol looked slightly confused, but eventually just shut the door.

"The end." I shut the book and looked at the Americanos. They both smiled up at me and gave me a hug.

"Thank you Noona!"

"You're welcome." I ruffled their hair and crawled out from the fort. I barely made it out before someone was paging me.

"Minseo!"

"Coming!" I stood up and quickly walked towards the sound of Uncle Seungcheol's voice.

"What's going on?" I walked into the kitchen to find some sort of liquid spilled all over the place, a crying Hoshi, and Uncle Seungcheol trying to keep dinner from burning.

I immediately took Hoshi away from the situation and put him in front of Jeonghan on the living room floor, telling Jeonghan to try and get him to stop crying. I quickly walked back to the kitchen to get a bunch of paper towels to clean up the spill.

Once I was satisfied, I threw away the soaked paper towels and went back into the living room to stop Hoshi's crying since Jeonghan wasn't doing the best job at the moment.

"What's wrong Hoshi bear?" I crouched down next to him and he crawled into my lap.

"Nuna."

I took that as nothing was wrong and he just wanted to cuddle, so I picked him up and brought him to the couch. He quickly stopped crying and just buried himself in my shirt.

"You're okay." I stroked his hair and turned on a show I've seen him watch. As soon as I put the controller down on the couch, he reached over and hit the "off" button.

"No TV I guess then." He nodded, re-tucked himself into my side, and we stayed like that for awhile.