My Baker's Dozen

64

Joshua's POV

"Are you okay, hyung? I think you should take a break." Seeing Jeonghan hyung that out of it as he ate the sandwich that Minghao had made him was very concerning. But he shook his head none the less in his stubborn ways.

"I can't take a break, Joshuji. There's too much that needs to be done." The doorbell rang and Samuel jumped up from his seat on the couch to go open the door for Minseo Noona. I ended up having to run over and help her since she had two sleeping children on her. I took Kazen and laid him down on the couch, and then Minseo Noona did the same with Jaehea.

"Thank you guys. Tell Appa I said thanks. We're already late, so we'll both hang out a little when we pick them up. Thanks!" She waved and was out the door, causing me to frown. The two little ones clearly caused some sort of trouble today.

"Sam, I'll be back in a few minutes to help you when they wake up. I'm going to go type up my essay while Jeonghan hyung is taking a little break." The ten year old nodded, and I entered the Meanies room so I could steal the computer. It was an absolute mess of papers and books all over the room, and the twins were deep into all of that on their beds. I'm just glad I wrote out my essay on paper first so I wasn't hogging the computer. A group of us already went to the library for a different study space and for the computers to type up essays.

It's strange to see everyone all focused and working. Normally we're all very fast essay writers so we can get back to hanging out with all of the younger siblings. But right now I think all of us have used up our last brain cell.

I brought the computer to my own room and sat down on Hansol's bed so I didn't have to climb up to my own with the computer. Hansol and Jun were in the group that left for the library, so it was only Minghao and I in our room.

I pulled up my own blank document, even though it wouldn't have mattered if I used the one Jeonghan hyung had pulled up, and I started writing from the piece of paper I had. It looked like Minghao was starting his own paper copy after realizing Jeonghan hyung was going to need the computer a lot more than the rest of us.

"Shua hyung, can you play the song Jihoon made? I'm pretty sure he put it on there." I opened up the sound files on the computer at Hao's request, and I searched through to find the one I was looking for.

"Do you want the one with voices or without voices?" How very convenient of him to label them both separately. 

"With voices since I want the words. Would it bother you if you put it on loop?" I shook my head even though he probably couldn't see me from his top bunk, and I played the sound file he wanted. It had been a really long time since I had actually heard this song, so I definitely didn't mind that it was on loop. Especially since I could work in another tab as it played.

I finished writing my essay and submitted it online like my teacher wanted before returning the computer to the Meanies' room since Hao didn't need the lyrics anymore. I'm not sure what his essay topic is about, but it sounds real personal if he needed the lyrics to this song.

"Uncle Shua!" I turned around to see Jaehea running down the hallway towards me. I swooped her up onto my hip and placed a kiss on her cheek, causing her to smile ever so sweetly. Gosh I love this child.

"What's up, Bubbly?" 

"Uncle Sammie was pwaying cars wit me an he wen to go find someting an Uncle Hanhan said he had to work." She rambled off on all sorts of things she had done in the ten minutes she's been up, and I listened as intently as I could while walking into the living .

"Joshua, I'm going to go out shopping. I should be back in less than an hour." Appa said, messing up Jaehea's hair as he walked towards the front door to grab his shoes.

"Okay, I'll hold down the fort." I didn't even realize that he had woken up, but I'm sure with all of the noise we always have around the house no one can ever sleep for very long in the daytime.

"Oh hey, hyung." Sam sat down next to us with a small collection of stuffed animals. All of them were very worn down and slightly discolored from the years, and I'm surprised that Samuel got our brothers to allow literally anyone to touch them. I think all he had to say was they were for Jaehea to play with and any one of us would have reluctantly given them up.

Mingyu's elephant was in the pile along with Wonwoo's turtle and Jihoon's lion. Minghao's frog was also there, which was the biggest surprise because he never let anyone touch it. I saw my own brown bear in the mix next to Jeonghan hyung's giraffe.

"I hope you don't mind, hyung." I was about to say something, but then Jaehea squirmed off of my lap and instantly started playing with the small pile. It was way too adorable to say anything against my bear being added against my will, so I just let it go.

"It's fine, Sam. It's not like she'll do any harm. Kazen on the other hand..." We both looked over at the still sleeping one year old and back at the stuffed animals.

"Yeah, I'll make sure he doesn't do anything."

"Oh you better."