My Baker's Dozen

4

Hansol's POV

Josh? Where are you?

With Chan in his room.

I nodded to myself and shoved all of my papers I was using to write the essay onto my bed. Jeonghan hyung had been useful, but he got bored after a while. I walked out of the room I still shared with Joshua, Jun and Minghao, and made my way to Chan's room to talk to my twin. I needed a break anyways.

I saw the two of them on the top bunk, and I stood at the ladder since I didn't quite want to interrupt. But it was definitely in my better interests to do so.

Can I come up?

Joshua's brown eyes snapped open, and he looked over at me, startling Channie a bit.

Yeah, come on up.

My twin made room for me up top, and Chan turned his body so we were in a triangle.

"Can you two not talk in your minds in front of me?" Josh and I laughed at what Chan requested, and Joshua nodded.

"Sorry about that, Channie. It's habit." I apologized, but he just waved me off. I turned my attention towards Joshua, and he smiled while pulling down his sleeves. Nervous habit?

"What happened earlier?" I asked, and Chan turned his attention to Joshua too. There was no way he was escaping this now.

"Nothing. I was just getting frustrated with the guy I had to tutor." He sounded convincing, but I wasn't going to buy it. I know he's been holding a lot in, even keeping it from me. And that's hard to do.

"Try again." I said, and Joshua dropped his head. I watched him play with the hems of his sleeves, but I wasn't going to let up on him.

"You can tell us, hyung." Chan said gently as he placed his hand on Joshua's knee, and I just realized how much we missed his quiet presence in this household.

"I quit tutoring today. I can't handle the guy anymore. He just keeps saying I don't know what I'm doing and I'm just some fake. He almost punched me and..." Another tug on his sleeve.

"Hey, it's okay Shua. How long has he been doing this to you?" I spoke softer just because I could see how much this kid had affected my twin. I knew something had been up, but Joshua had just kept pushing me away each time.

"Since the beginning of the year." He whispered, and I closed my eyes to take a deep breath and not flip out. Almost an entire month of verbal abuse, and he kept it all in. I'm just glad he's saying something now as opposed to letting it go on longer.

"I snapped at him, Hansol. I shouldn't have done that." A tear fell onto the blanket, and he brought his hands up to roughly wipe them away.

"He deserved much more than that, hyung." Chan commented, and I laughed, but Joshua didn't seem too happy.

"No, it isn't my business to do that. I should have just ignored him and continued on with the lesson. Maybe tell an adult later..." He started mumbling to himself incoherently, and Chan looked at me with concern written on his face. Chan motioned with his head towards Joshua's wrists, and I nodded to let him know I had noticed. Sometimes it would be nice if I could communicate with everyone in my mind, but then I look at the triplets and decide it's okay.

"What you did is just fine, Shua. You know that anything a teacher says to him won't matter. Maybe you got through to him a bit." I said, and Joshua snapped his head up.

"I shouldn't have! Don't you get that?" Joshua yelled and a few tears trickled down his face. It's been a while since I've seen him so broken, and it hurts. He quickly dropped his head back down and whispered an apology. Chan wrapped an arm around him and pulled him closer to him. Joshua leaned into the embrace and started crying heavier.

"I'm sorry. So sorry." Joshua kept mumbling apologies in between sniffles until he finally calmed down enough to stop crying. It's honestly a miracle no one else has walked in on us at this point. This isn't even our room.

"Why do you keep pulling down your sleeves?" Chan asked quietly, almost as if he was scared to ask.

"I think something is wrong with me. And my sleeve fell down and he saw it and that's when he left and I think he's going to tell everyone and it won't go away and-"

"Just show us." I butted in, and Joshua hesitantly pulled up his left sleeve. A patch of scaly, red skin covered a portion of his wrist. I can't believe no one has noticed this before now.

"You said it won't go away?" Chan asked, and Joshua nodded pitifully. I quickly jumped down from the top bunk and grabbed Mom's old laptop from Jeonghan hyung's desk. I turned it on and pulled up an internet search. Since I wasn't quite sure what to search for, I typed in "red scaly skin." I set the computer down on the bed, and the three of us adjusted ourselves so we could all see.

Something called "psoriasis" came up first, and I searched for that independently. Since none of the scientific stuff made sense, I clicked on the images tab. It looked exactly like what was on Joshua's wrist.

"Hey, it could be in a more noticeable place." Chan noted, pointing to an image of a guy with it on his face, and I nodded in agreement. I tried looking up ways to make it go away, but the word chronic kept popping up.

"Don't we have some of this?" I asked once I saw petroleum jelly pop up as a home remedy to reduce it, since nothing seemed to really make it go away. Chan shrugged and Joshua just stared at the screen. I looked back on the screen and noticed one of the main causes of psoriasis was stress.

"You know, giving up tutoring seems like a pretty good thing." I commented, and Chan agreed with me.

"You're scared of what everyone else is going to think if he tells them, right hyung?" Chan asked, and Shua nodded slowly. I closed the tab on the computer and put my arm around Joshua.

"We'll protect you, right Channie?" The younger nodded eagerly, and Shua finally smiled.

"Thanks. I needed this." He leaned into me and rested his head on my shoulder. I allowed for him to stay like that a bit, but then I playfully nudged him up.

"Come on, I think we've invaded their room for long enough. Someone is about to get suspicious." Chan quickly wiped the tear trails off of Joshua's face before we all got off of Jeonghan hyung's bed.

"I'll go look to see if we have that thing." Chan said before running to the bathroom, and Joshua smiled fondly at him.

"I've missed him being around." Shua mumbled, and I hummed in agreement. It's not the same without the youngest around.