WITH GRACE.

8장

three weeks went by in a blur. there wasn't anything significant enough to within those weeks, except for the occasional lunches with the crew (sunghoon, jay, jake and heeseung). besides that, my life went by like usual ㅡ studying, working and looking after the big babies. within those weeks, however, i wasn't able to visit the orphanage as my schedule got nominally tighter with the exams coming up.

it's weekend and i've been awake since four in the morning.

it's jungwon's birthday!

i got up early to prepare a little birthday meal to celebrate ny cousin's birthday. preparing early is the best option available, seeing as how the two is so used to sleeping in until noontime during weekends.

i already made a rice cake and prepared some side dishes earlier. i reckon it's around nine in the morning already and all that was left for me to make was the seaweed soup and noodles. i had planned a typical korean birthday meal for jungwon. traditionally, miyeokguk is eaten on breakfast. however, with the changing times, i guess we just have to compromise.

aside from mujigaetteok, i also discreetly made oreo macarons last night before i went to bed. jungwon loves oreo desserts. i initially planned to make yet another oreo cake, but we've had it for so many times already that i had to revise my plan and make something else even though the original oreo cookies and oreo macarons are essentially the same thing.

a little while later, i heard gentle footsteps coming my way. i was getting anxious, thinking that jungwon might have woken up already. instead, it was dongkyu who emerged out of the shadows.

dongkyu had apparently just woke up. he seemed to be a little dazed, pouting while his eyes were barely open. as if on instinct, he spread his arms and came closer to me. good thing i wasn't doing anything that might've potentially harmed him before he engulfed my relatively smaller frame in his warm embrace.

you see, my brother loves hugging people, especially me.

"noona,"

"yes?"

"i wanna help,"

"go wash up first and make sure you're totally awake. just use my room's bathroom so you don't wake jungwon up." he nodded and disappeared from the kitchen.

he came back awake and fresh in the morning about fifteen minutes after i told him to wash up.

it was already ten, almost eleven in the morning. in a little while, jungwon would be up.

i let dongkyu carry over cooking the seaweed soup. stews and soups are his specialties. it was a good thing that the two of us grew up with a common inclination to cooking. it proved useful after we've been plunged into this unforeseen future.

when the clock hit eleven thirty, jungwon emerged from the halls. as i had expected, the kid did not wash up before going out of their shared room. he just changed his pajamas to sweatpants and wore his favorite pair of white slides. nevertheless, dongkyu and i carried over the birthday greeting as we felt absolutely famished after all the preparations.

while we sang him a happy birthday, jungwon's face did not fail to show a look of surprise. he scanned his eyes on the table where we set up the food (minus the oreo macarons, it's reserved for later). when he looked at dongkyu and i, his eyes were already glistening in tears. sniffing, he came closer and hugged us both.

"thank you, noona, dongkyu-ah," it was a simple display of gratitude, yet it radiated an immense amount of sincerity.

we started to eat, casually talking about whatever we could talk about. i asked them about school, as the two had exams the week before. the two were in the university's highschool division, with dongkyu being a grade level below jungwon.