Sea of Stars 별바다

Chapter 24

Me and my brother decided to get working on the basement right away and Nari came to help too. It was filled with lots of junk from over the years as well as the kid's old baby things, which I'm sure they'll use for the new baby. We had been working for about an hour and I didn't realize I didn't have my phone on me the entire time, so I made my way to the stairs to head up and grab it. 

Just before I could go up, I heard a loud thud coming from behind me. I quickly turn to find Nari planted on the floor with an old bookcase next to her. One wrong move and she would've been under that bookcase. Me and my brother rush over to help her up and pick the bookcase back up. 

"Just go back upstairs, we'll handle all of this down here," I said to her as I picked up everything that fell off of the bookcase. She came up behind me and gave me a hug.

"Oh thank you eonni for saving me," she said. I lightly pushed her hands off of me and distanced each other hoping she'd get the hint. 

"I didn't save you I just helped you. Now go upstairs, you're in the way," I said to her in a flat tone. Apparently, my nonchalance didn't click with her because she gave me a chirpy 'okay' and then skipped up the stairs. 

For the next three hours, Dae Hyun and I were cleaning up the basement as well as we could. It looked a lot better than it did a few hours ago so at least we were making progress. It was around lunchtime when Soo-min called to us that lunch was ready but I didn't feel like eating right now. The quicker this basement got done, the quicker I could get home to wifey. Wow, I can now start calling her wifey 🤭. 

I stayed in the basement for a while dusting and mopping the place making sure it was clean then I went out to the backyard to discard some dirt on the pavement. Nari came downstairs and saw me outside so she decided to join me.

"Eonni" she yelled from inside the basement as she skipped her way to my direction. I mentally face-palmed myself seeing as how she was here to slow me down. 

"I brought you a sandwich, you didn't eat lunch with us a while ago," she said pouting. 

"Take it back upstairs, I'll eat later when I finish this," I said focusing on getting all the dirt off the rug in my hand. 

"Oh come on, take a break. You've been at this for hours Bada," she said before tugging at my arm for me to come to sit down. She was officially starting to get on my nerves. Doesn't she see that I'm busy and want to get this over and done with? I pull my arm back from her to show her my slight annoyance. 

"Look, I'm just trying to hurry and finish this ok? This is the only way you'll get a place to sleep tonight so just please let me finish this in peace." I said looking at her hoping she'd understand me. She nods and goes to take a seat on the outdoor patio furniture as she watches me get back to work. After a few minutes, she decides to get up and come over to where I'm working. 

"I should help you huh? It'll be quicker if it's the both of us," she said before taking a shovel and scooping the dirt I had on the ground in a nearby bucket. 

"No, just go sit down," I said to her. I saw how she was earlier and the girl had no sense of cleanliness. When she lived next door to our house when we were younger, her family was much more well-off than ours so she always had a maid to pick up after her. And it looks like that didn't change after all these years. If she helps I'll just be here for another century. 

I go over to take the shovel from her but she starts running around the backyard with it. 

"Wait, just look. I can shovel this for you," she says standing by a large mountain of dirt and aggressively stabbing at it. 

"Stop! You're gonna make a ..." I exclaimed then she shoveled an insane amount of dirt in my direction covering me immensely in it.

"A mess" I let out the last part and sighed looking down at how dirty I was. I was covered from head to toe in the dirt.