Twelve Little Brothers

Substitute Teacher

Jeonghan's POV

"Jeonghan hyung, could you help me with something?" I set my pencil down and slid my chair over to Joshua.

"What do you need help with?" He pointed to a math problem and sighed.

25+6=__

"Okay, so do you know what 5+6 is?" Joshuji held up five fingers and used his left to add six, frowning when he ran out of fingers.

"5+6 is 11." I nodded and wrote that down on the side of the paper.

"Now, what's 1+2?"

Joshuji looked at me like I was crazy. "3, but what does it have to do with 25+6?"

I paused. How do I explain it? Do I even know how it works? "Um, where's Minseo Noona?"

"She's babysitting."

"Oh, um, so you just..." I tried showing him several ways, but he just wasn't getting it.

"Hold on, I'll be back." I ran into the living room and counted out 25 Legos, then added 6. It took me a few trips, but I brought them all to the table where Joshua was still sitting.

"Count out 25 Legos." He did as I said and I waited. Noona's job is pretty hard. Once he was done, I separated the Legos into groups of 10 and left the 5 off to the side.

"Now add in 6." Joshua moved the 6 over to the pile of 5 and looked at me, almost like he was waiting for me to do magic.

"How many are in that pile?" I pointed to the pile of 11 and he counted them out.

"There's 11."

"Yep. But we can only have piles of ten. So what do you do?" Joshua took one Lego out of the pile and moved it a little to the side.

"There's 31. But how do you do that without Legos?" I brought the piece of paper over to me again and showed him the math one more time.

"Oh! Okay! I get it! Thanks, hyung!" I nodded and picked my own pencil back up so I could continue working on my homework. I was almost done when I came across a question I didn't know.

What is the moral of the story?

I sighed and put my pencil back down so I could try and make some sense of it. Where's Noona when I need her?

"Hey Mom, could you help me with something?" She nodded and walked into the kitchen. Her hands subconsciously laid on her round stomach, and I couldn't help but wonder what my little brother looked like.

"So, what do you need help with?" I pointed to the question and she leaned over my shoulder.

"Slow and steady wins the race."

I pouted and she straightened her back. "But how do you know?"

"I'm not sure. That was always a fun story, the tortoise and the hare." She laughed kind of strangely and I titled my head.

"What are you talking about, Mom? This was about some old lady and her eggs. I'm not sure 'slow and steady' has anything to do with this."

She put her hands on her hips and sighed. "Do you want my help or not? Because that's the best I've got." I shrugged and she laughed weirdly while patting my head. "Have fun."

I scrunches my brows together and looked at Joshuji. Something is up with Mom, and I don't like it.