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"How old did you say he was?"

Xinghua was having breakfast with them before leaving. She held up her hand as she chewed. "My age. That's why we get along. Our other cousins are a nightmare."

Jihyun couldn't help but let out a single ha at her friend's comment. "Why so?"

"We're like the sandwich cousins, him and I. Our eldest cousin is, like, 9 years older than us. Then there's someone 4 years older, then us, then my sister who's 2 years my junior, and then the youngest is around 3 or 4 years younger, I don't know."

"That's a lot of cousins," Jihyun was quick to mention, looking mildly surprised.

The Chinese girl let out a mocking laugh. "You remember García? That boy from our elementary? He has 8 siblings. Having 5 cousins is nothing compared to that." She took a sip of her beverage before speaking again. "Anyways, since we're in the middle, we were always either too young  to hang out with our older cousins or too old to hang out with the younger ones. So we always stuck together."

"You called your cousins a nightmare, though. Why?"

Xinghua searched for her phone in her bag. "The oldest ones always talk about stuff we don't like or understand. They're millenials, you know." As she found her phone, she looked through it, searching pictures of her cousins and her. More often than not, she would brush her hair out of her face. Its violet ends were more noticeable with the light coming from the window. "The youngest ones... Eh, they would ignore us."

After some time, she finally paused and turned the phone around for Jihyun to see. "See that's them."

"They look like nice people to me."

"Believe me, they're not. I'm the nicest one among them."

"If─what did you say his name was?─ if Renjun is able to be your closest cousin, I deem he's just as nice." Jihyun tried to be positive, giving a smile.

The girl just shrugged with an expression. "I won't tell you I told you so." Checking her phone again, she saw the time and sprung up in an instant. "他妈的 I'm late already. Once again, thank you for letting me stay at night." After bowing thankfully, she grasped her stuff and sprinted her way outside the house.

"You're welcome, I guess?" uttered Jihyun, being left alone in the kitchen.  

"Yang Jihyun," Jihee's sudden scream coming from behind her startled her, making her almost fall off the chair. It was followed by Jihee laughing at her. "I finally got my revenge from last night. Anyways, Ryoko called."

"I didn't hear the phone?"

"She called me to my phone, genius." The oldest flicked her fingers on her sister's forehead. "She said her mom sent us and the boys some gifts and asked you to pick them up and taking them to the boys."

"Why can't you do it?"

She rolled her eyes at the younger's laziness. "Because she asked you to, now go."

≫ ──── ≪•◦ ❈ ◦•≫ ──── ≪ ≫ ──── ≪•◦ ❈ ◦•≫ ──── ≪

"Who did you say sent these?" Donghyuck asked, looking at the presents in Jihyun's hands in confusion.

"Your in-laws, now take them. It's cold and I want to be in bed."

Suddenly, a woman's voice was heard from inside, saying, "Haechan! Who's at the door? Oh, hello there, Jihyun! It's been ages since I last saw you this close, you've grown up so much! How's your knee?" Mrs. Lee was standing now next to Donghyuck, looking at the young girl in front of her.

𝐼𝓃 𝒴𝑜𝓊𝓇 𝒟𝓇𝑒𝒶𝓂𝓈 ~| Huang RenjunWhere stories live. Discover now