[Neo Zone] Population: 23 Kids

Sibling Fight

It had taken a long time for Mrs. Suh to convince her husband that this was a good idea. Mainly because he was a softy and hated leaving home. It had taken three months for him to actually start listening to her, and now he was excited about it too.

What exactly were they planning? An early retirement.

The two of them were nearing fifty and they knew they would have to take care of their parents at some point in the near future. So why not have an early retirement? They had the funds to do it. If they got out all their traveling before they had to start taking care of their parents, it wouldn't be too bad stuck in a house with them.

Mr. Suh's only problem with this had been missing out on the kids' lives. He wanted to be there for all the graduations still to come and all the milestones in between. Of course Mrs. Suh did too, she didn't plan on missing out. So they decided they'd call them frequently in between coming home for all the important stuff.

Now came the hard part: talking this over with her sisters.

Mrs. Suh had no idea why her husband was making her talk with her sisters about this. In her mind it was her life and her little sisters had no right to have a decision in this. Apparently her husband thought it would be a good idea since it involved their kids and their parents too.

She thought that was garbage.

So now the two of them were sitting in their bedroom with the laptop on the bed in front of them, the house listing they had been looking into pulled up on half the screen while the other two sisters' faces filled the other half.

"If this is about wanting more custody of Mark, I'm leaving. He's my son and it's unfair that you keep turning him against me." Was the first thing Mrs. Lee had said as soon as she entered the call.

"Your fault for sending him here in the first place."

"You have custody rules for Mark?" Mrs. Jung asked, her other two sisters sighing.

"We've had them for years. Keep up."

Mr. Suh nudged his wife, a subtle reminder to be nice.

"It's not my fault you guys always forget about me!"

"Middle child problems." Mrs. Lee and Mrs. Suh said at the same time, immediately calling jinx and wishing they were in the same room so they could punch each other.

"Alright, so fill me in. What's going on?"

"Your son just went to prom with five other guys and he's a barista."

"Ha. Try again."

"No, she's serious. He looked amazing too." Mrs. Lee butted in, Jaehyun's Mom now frowning.

"One: why didn't you send me pictures?! Two: I thought you were going to get him to go to college!"

"He doesn't want to! I'm not going to make him! That'd be stupid!"

"Hey, calm down." Mr. Suh put a hand on his wife's shoulder, his attention still on the phone in his hand as he sent the pictures to Jaehyun's Mom from prom.

"I'm not going to calm down if she's going to try and control his life from way over there when she's the one who sent him over here!"

This is when Sungchan and Jisung started going down to the basement, not wanting to stick around for much longer.

"He's still my son! Don't I deserve some say in what he's doing?!" She paused as her phone dinged, smiling as she saw the pictures that had been sent to her. "Oh he does look nice."

"I know, right?"

"Was there an actual reason to call us tonight?" Mrs. Lee interrupted.

"Of course there is. You think I'd want to just talk to you losers?"

Mr. Suh took over before they could start fighting again.

"Your Dad's been running the farm a long time, and he's really getting up there in age, so we were thinking we'd help them downsize the farm and move in with them just to help out if they need anything."

"You just want to get rid of the goats because you don't like them." Mrs. Lee butted in, narrowing her eyes through the screen at him.

"No, I wasn't going to do that. We were doing this purely for them."

The goats had been the first thing on his mind to downsize, but he wasn't going to do that to his father-in-law. He'd just suck it up and face his trauma. Besides, they were traveling first, so it'd be fine.

"Then what's happening with the cafe?" The youngest sister asked.

"Well we were going to pass it on to Johnny and the kids and let them run it on their own while we travel for a few years before moving in with your parents."

"So now our kids are being unsupervised there? That doesn't sound too good." Mrs. Jung butted in, both her sisters scoffing.

"That would mean they've ever been supervised."

"They'll be fine, trust me. We were planning on checking in on them frequently anyways." Mr. Suh reassured them.

"Plus the youngest one here is eleven. That's not too bad." Mrs. Suh added in, though maybe this wasn't the greatest idea just yet.

I mean, what's the worst that could happen? Whatever you just thought, that was exactly why they shouldn't leave. Though, in the same sense, how much supervising did the adults really do?

They'd probably be fine. In Kun we trust.

"So why did we need to be here?" Mrs. Jung asked, Mrs. Suh immediately giving her husband a side glare.

"Because they're your parents and children too, so we were just checking first."

"You are one hundred percent able to take care of the parents. That's all you now." Mrs. Lee said, the middle child nodding too.

Mrs. Suh turned to her husband with a look that said she knew this was unnecessary, ending the call without warning or saying goodbye.