Soulmates - k.yc • p.jh

•xiii•

The next day, I kept my mouth shut. I was very certain that I had a concussion, grade three. I just took today to observe my surroundings. Jun and Sehyoon all but begged me to shut the fuck up today anyway. Breakfast was quiet, almost silent. Jun prepared microwave egg scrambles for everyone. He would stop the microwave a second before it beeped with each round of scrambles. Sehyoon made his way outside to watch for the bus coming down the street. No one was talking, and it wasn't a groggy, barely any sleep shared between all of us quiet. It was a "if he hears a pin drop, it's our asses" silence.

A few minutes later, Sehyoon came to the door, giving Jun a signal. "Alright kiddos, throw your trash away and go get Sehni." The system they had confused me for a moment. "I'll let you know once the kids get on the bus." They trudged out of the house in age order, youngest to oldest. Jun led them out. Marie, Aubrey, Jooheon, Minhyuk, Byeongkwan, and Eunseo, who was then followed by me.

Jun said his goodbyes to everyone, Sehyoon sharing a saddened look with us. He was leaving to be alone at school, an easy target for every dickhead there. "Hey," Sehyoon said, standing on the first step of the bus. He was concerned, it wasn't hard to tell.

"Shoganai," Jun smiled softly. "I'll be okay. You will be okay. I got it here. Tebanasu." Seeing Sehyoon here, he definitely was not the kid he made himself out to be. Every move he made here was backed by uncertainty.

Sehyoon nodded softly, tapping the railing a bit. "Shoganai." The bus doors closed behind him and off the kids went to school.

The sudden Japanese threw me off. "What did you just tell him?"

Jun chuckled a bit. "Every day, he worried that Seo would pull something with me. And now that he has, I know his anxiety about it spiked. I would tell him to not worry about it and that I was just going to let whatever happen happen. Shoganai means that it can't be helped. It's inevitable. And that's not to tell him to give up, but that's to tell him to let it go. Tebanasu. What can he do while he's away anyway?" I nodded softly, following him back to the house. "I told him these things in Japanese because Seo doesn't speak it. He speaks Korean and English, it would be really hard to tell Sehyoon not to worry. I don't know much, but I know enough to hide things I wanna say." He checked the time. "Seo actually leaves the house today. He goes to work for a little bit, until they notice he's too hungover to function." How this man became a foster parent for Deviants,
I don't know.

"Why did Sehyoon go outside before everyone else?" I asked softly.

Jun made us some cereal, sitting down to the table with the bowls filled up with everything except milk. "He told me that even before there was everyone else, he'd stand out there to keep the bus driver from honking and waking Seo up." Jun grabbed the milk and opened it. It wasn't even a second before he was groaning in disgust. "I swear to God, they could've put us on a farm in the middle of nowhere. Maybe we'd have some food around here. Looks like it's just gonna be dry cereal today."

I nodded a bit, taking a few pieces into my mouth. "Well, luckily you guys won't be here much longer?" I was hopeful that everything I was reporting to Wonho would get them out before Sehyoon's birthday. Because the way I watched them, the way Sehyoon self destructed here? One of them wouldn't make it to his birthday.

"Date's still three months away," Jun shrugged. "I'm just trying to make it until tomorrow. And I'll say the same thing tomorrow." As he sat down to the table, Seo came upstairs.

He looked between the two of us before settling on rolling his eyes at me. "You guys get twenty-five dollars. What do you need?" I kept my mouth shut and my head in my cereal bowl.

Jun got up, looking under the cabinets. "Rice, chicken, cream of chicken soup, milk, cereal, and eggs." He leaned with his back against the counter, away from him.