im unoriginal so the kids name here is seokmin too and the toys names are from toys story
also not everything here is literal hehe
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Three year old Kim Seok Min was a good boy. His commander—his appa—told him so as the older Kim kissed his cheek and squished him in a hug.
Good boys like him were always the center of stories. They fought with one-eyed aliens and giant robots and intergalactic space pirates. They travel to faraway galaxies and shoot laser guns. They find treasures and rescue princesses.
Good boys, as his commander also told him, took on daunting missions and finished them regardless of what happened.
"Are you brave enough to see this mission through, soldier?" his commander asked, his thick lips pursed at an attempt of seriousness, his brows drawing together as he looked down on him.
The gallant warrior—small boy— received the piece of paper with both hands, all the stars in the galaxy twinkling in his eyes. He gave a single affirmative nod causing his helmet—an old box of his appa's Mario toy that he called 'action figures' (but Seokmin was sure were just the same as his toys) with a small square cut out in the middle for his face and red, green, and blue circles of crayons for buttons—to slide down his head.
Jin saluted, a ghost of a smile playing on his lips. "Godspeed soldier."
With one hand, Seokmin clutched the small piece of paper to his chest, the other, a steady hand onto the carpeted step in front—or rather above him—as he ascended the tall humongous staircase in his efforts to complete his mission. He moved as quickly as his short legs could. Before the fearsome six-legged creature crawled out from under the darkness of their stairs and touched his ankle with its venomous spikes.
Behind him, he could hear the whispers of the footsteps of the creature.
Seokmin peeked behind him, his eyes doubling in size when he saw that it was a mere foot away. He gasped loudly.
"You'll never take me alive!" He stuffed the letter into his space suit—the white shirt he wrote buttons on with red and black markers—and climbed the remaining steps on all fours, desperate to do just about anything that would put more distance in between him and the atrocious roach.
"Don't play on the stairs!" his commander called out, blissfully unaware of the race to the top of the stairs—nay, the race to victory and to life itself!
His heart hammered in his chest, his helmet was sliding down again, impeding his vision—a ploy from the devilish creature to delay him, no doubt! But he trudged on, climbing step after step, breathing in huff after puff.
Just as the brown-winged monster was just about to touch him, just when bitter defeat was nigh and death was nearing, a howl from the bottom of the stairs. A flash of white. A ray of hope.
His trusty side-kick!
"Janggu!"
Janggu was an old and gentle soul who always liked to curl up on the general's—his eomma—lap. But underneath all the white huggable facade were sharp fangs that Seokmin could always rely on in a pinch.
She bravely lunged at the step in between Seokmin and the cockroach. Her growl reverberated through the wood until a single line drew itself between her and the awful creature. It grew in power until the stairs broke in two.
Seokmin knew then that he won.
With one final push, he overcame his first hurdle. He spent one last glance at the brave hairy soldier and gave him a nod of recognition.
