My Baker's Dozen

58

Jeonghan's POV

"Happy Mother's Day, Noona!" I yelled as soon as I entered their house. I still wasn't used to saying that after eleven years of not, even though it was our second year of celebrating it.

All fourteen of us piled into Minseo Noona's house, a few of us holding containers of food we had made. Minseo Noona came out from somewhere and smiled brightly when she saw us. One year old Kazen crawled along the floor behind her. Kazen was a more recent addition to their family as of three months ago, and his biological parents were from the Philippines.

"Hey! You made it! Jaehea just got into a marker mess, so Mark's cleaning her up." Jaehea had just turned four at the end of March, and she has been with my sister since she was two. One of Jaehea's biological parents was of African decent, while the other was Korean, and she is the cutest mix of the two.

I gave Minseo Noona a quick hug before Mingyu, Appa and I started unpacking the food. I was very lucky to be able to get today off, but Hansol was not as lucky. Joshuji was even luckier than us all and already naturally had this weekend off from his new job at the supermarket.

"Hey, Kazen, what's up buddy?" Knowing he wasn't going to get a response from the child, Wonwoo just picked him up and threw him slightly in the air, making Kazen squeal. I honestly can't wait for the summer when we can just spend a whole bunch of time at Noona's like we did last summer with Jaehea. The thirteen of us have become the official babysitting squad, and it's my favorite job in the world. Very close in the ranks to the disbanded Noona protection squad.

"So, how's work, Jeonghan?" Minseo Noona asked as she leaned herself against the counter, letting the boys play with Kazen.

"That question makes me feel old, but it's going pretty good." Not much ever changes in the daycare center I still work in, which works for me.

"Oh my gosh you're done with high school next month."

"Noona! Stoooop, I'm trying to ignore that." I was not ready to leave high school, even though I was just going to stay at home and start working full time at the daycare. Leaving high school also meant leaving my friend since he's going across the country for a job he already has lined up, and I wasn't ready for our friendship to drift apart.

"In that case, are you still going to do soccer over the summer, Gyu?"

"Yeah, that should be fun." The thirteen year old responded, and it was hard to believe he was going into eighth grade. I think the hardest to accept was the fact that Gyu, Wonwoo and Jun were all taller than me, and that Chan is going to be in sixth grade.

"Look who I found!" Mark hyung came out of the bathroom with a now clean Jaehea in his arms. She squirmed around so he would let her go, and she ran as fast as her little legs could carry her to hug me. I swept her up in my arms and placed her on my hip, smoothing down her wet hair.

"Now what marker mess did you get into this time?" I started tickling her in the side, and her high pitched giggles filled the room. Seeing as my job in the kitchen was done, I brought her out into the living room and sat on the floor next to Minghao so I couldn't be accused of hogging her again.

"Ooh!" She reached her little hand towards Minghao's hair and started playing with the back of it since it was getting long. Hao smiled and moved himself closer to her so she didn't have to reach as far. It's been so long since we were all surrounded by such small children, and it just reminded me of when Chan was so small.

"Did you do something for your Mom for Mother's day?" I asked Jaehea, and she started jumping around on my leg and pointed to the card on the table that she clearly colored with marker.

"Oh that looks so nice!" She smiled and then noticed her brother was playing cars with the triplets, and she quickly left me to go play with them.

"When did we get so old, Hao?"

"I don't know, but I think I'm ready to fight time." I laughed, but then noticed how completely serious he was.

"You can't fight time." Minghao then pulled his nunchucks out of nowhere, and pointed at our sister's children that looked so happy.

"I will find a way, and then they can stay this little forever. I don't want them growing up as fast as we did."