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"Aren't you tired?" Changbin panted as Yong giggled loudly, shaking his head at the elder

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"Aren't you tired?" Changbin panted as Yong giggled loudly, shaking his head at the elder. Changbin bent over, hands on his knees and sweat wetting his hair. He swallowed, even though his throat was completely dry and in desperate need of any liquid to soothe it.

Yong sprang from left to right, a prideful grin on his face at the defeated play-goalie. "Kick the ball back to me!"

"Come on, kid... I'm not as energetic..." he pleaded, falling to his knees, careful to not dirty his clothing on the moist soil. He saw the way Yong stopped jumping to turn to Nabin and Jinyu who sat on the pavilion, ready to cry to them and quickly got back up. "Oh, I'm ready now, though! Let's go!"

Yong beamed happily as the soccer ball rolled to his feet and began doing a few tricks in hopes of impressing his older cousin. "Yuyu, look at me!" He kicked the ball into the sky and bounced it on his head, a trick Aunt Jinhua hated because she genuinely believed that it would cause him to lose brain cells, but he did it anyway.

Jinyu couldn't help but smile back brightly with fond eyes at the boy who had gotten recently lost a tooth. Her heart melted at the sounds of his laughs in real life and seeing his growing body. His speech had also gotten much better from the speech therapy sessions he went to due to his miniature cleft lip. "That's so cool!" Praises were the only things escaping her mouth directed to him ever since she arrived.

She also couldn't help but speak to him in a baby voice at some times but had to get used to speaking quicker and in more complex sentences to not hold him back from maturing. Treating him like a baby would take longer to stop, though. "Nabin taught me!"

"I could never thank you enough," Jinyu said to Nabin, who waved her off with her good arm.

"It's a pretty easy trick—"

"You know that's not what I mean," Jinyu sighed. She leaned back to prop her elbows up on the step behind her. She took a deep breath in; it was about to rain. "It's really nice to be back. I missed this."

Nabin narrowed her eyes at Jinyu. "You speak so calmly now," Nabin shifted carefully to face the younger female and watched her reaction, or lack thereof. "I hear you speaking in riddles with a constant tone unless it's Yong you're addressing. Nicotine that effective?"

Jinyu's eyebrows furrowed at that, but she kept her gaze on the two boys on the field. She kept silent to guilt trip Nabin into an apologetic mess, which worked, and then they resumed watching Changbin and Yong. "Maybe I matured," was the answer she gave after a while. Nabin couldn't deny that at all; the younger's eyes felt so much wiser if that makes any sense.

What she saw and experienced in Australia would explain all that, but in Jinyu's time and pacing. Maybe it wasn't even whatever happened within Australia that had her like this— maybe nothing happened at all.

"Did you tell Changbin about Chan?" Nabin could see the nod Jinyu gave from her peripheral vision and sighed. "I still think it's a mistake. You and Changbin go way back."

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