Why would it be so enormously difficult to bring any baby food home, right? You could see it like regular grocery shopping with one taunting mother-in-law behind you who keeps asking the workers if there are any coupons to save money. My brains fried in hot oil, not filled enough with oxygen to make me function normally as I stood unrelentingly in front of an aisle occupied by tons of labels and boxes. Slapping two hands on my cheeks to wake myself up, I mentally started cussing the hell out of my two best friends. Wonder whether that was worth the effort? Definitely. My dark eyebrows twitched at the sight of Joshua snoring on the greyish slouchy couch, shaking my head in disapproval as I reached the kitchen. Well, the chaos could now begin to roll. I heard those dimwits murmuring and groaning from short distance, the mascot already sensing some kind of stupidity that I have been born with as he picked one of the bought boxes up. 'Seungcheol, what did you even bring home? What is all this stuff?'
I rolled my dark eyes in a tumble, giving Jeonghan the benefit of the doubt while I spotted the other lazily sleepy one nearing me. 'Are you playing with me right now? Got amnesia in one hour? This is the baby food that we need for that frail malnourished kid. Do you know what, it was quite fascinating to be in the baby food aisle as an everlasting handsome bachelor. Amazing experience. They even sell this baby cereal and oatmeal.'
Deliberately dragging the "a" in amazing way longer than needed, I sighed while randomly picking a box to read the instructions. Took me a second to lose focus, Joshua wringing his right eye while he titled one of the packages up to his squinted left eyesight. 'And is this box for me?'
Eyeing to what the gentleman had picked up, an audible sigh left my lips as I continued lingering my dark brown eyes over the blurred words. 'That is for the baby too dude.'
Jeonghan lingered his hand over the fruit drink, clicking his tongue mockingly while tapping his index finger over the glass surface. 'This orange juice must be for the baby too, right? And the cookies because who knows, the baby might need a kick of sugar.'
Closing my eyelids for a long-dragged second, the anger raged up my temperament as the meter sent danger signals. 'No, that is for the three of us. Let me please adjust to this all without you all just glaring at me.'
The gentleman could not care less, opening the cookie packaging with much joy as if he won the lottery. 'Hey, you got my favorite cookies!'
I slammed both of my clenched fists on the cooking table, staring at all the things I assumably unnecessarily bought. Jeonghan added fuel to my flaming headache again. 'And how are we supposed to make this baby food? I have no experience whatsoever, just saying.'
Shooting my glance while raising my thick eyebrow high, the annoying smirk on his lips made me despise him more as I grabbed the carton box without looking at it. 'As if I do. It is not my fault that you were brought up like a wicked prince. And about preparation, that is nothing. We just need to take a bowl and take this thing out, and then we open it...'
Opening the baby food mixture is such a nuisance, or at least it came to be one. The white solid substance hit me directly in the face, two bothersome guys laughing their asses off while they gawk at me. Nobody taught these two manners, not even their lovely mothers. It is their fault that they laughed, grabbing the package while smearing Joshua's face full of it. Jeonghan followed the same path, all of us getting into a nasty fight until I screamed in a high-pitched sound. 'STOP, THIS IS FOOD FOR THE CHILD YOU MORONS! It is not for playing! Are you guys going mad?'
This first day was just a trailer to the endless comedy movie, our lives turning into someone thinking that they are watching the Truman Show. From changing diapers every minute to showering this unthankful child, feeding non-stop and our lives getting darker by each sunset. I was moreover tired, the guys were exhausted and we had finally had some little spare time to ourselves. We sat on our rooftop, crouched up on the lawn chairs while Jeonghan came slumping towards us, yawning like he had not done before. 'Good morning, guys.'
He fell almost on top of me, my hand jerking the back of his head away as Jeonghan groaned in pain. 'What's so good about this morning? Get your ass in someone else's face.'
I shifted my focus to the gentleman, him almost in a deep slumber again which I certainly did not appreciate. 'Try to wear clean underwear at least once in your life Joshua.'
His deer-like eyes shuttered open slowly, the sunlight squinting them as Joshua sniffed the air around him on my hygienic request. 'Huh? It is fresh though. I washed it last week.'
Jeonghan started talking but this was almost inaudible like he was acting so timid. 'Guys, can I ask something?'
Groaningly spewing the acknowledgement out of my mouth, I grabbed my forehead with one hand to massage my temples while keeping my eyelids closed. 'Ask.'
A familiar hymn entered the midday cloudy sky, the mascot asking himself something pure obvious in the meantime. 'Around the time that we used to be infants, were we those kinds of monsters?'
Yoon Jeonghan is the only one who could get on my nerves like that. My lower lip seemingly turned reddish from nibbling on it, repeating his irrelevant question while increasing my volume in the middle. 'Can I ask you something? Why are we SPEAKING SO SILENTLY?! BYUNGSHINIYA (ASSHOLE) SPEAK LOUDER!'
I felt a hold on my left bicep, Joshua shushing my strongly displeased self down as upcoming concerns were thrown at the backdoor and his deer-like eyes expanding larger in size. 'Shut up idiot! She will wake up if you keep acting like Godzilla.'
This was the last drop of water that was left over in the tap, cringing all of my fingers together at the thought of that forsaken creature. 'Let her be awake! I just hate kids. I just hate them.'
Shrugging his both of his shoulders at once, Joshua bent forward while a giant yawn left from his lips. 'Even I cannot take this shit anymore man. As you all know, my persistence level is the highest between us and this took a toll on me.'
Thinking back about that dreadful Sunday when Jeonghan accidently threw the baby's diaper on my face instead of the dustbin, I slapped the back of Joshua's head to get his attention. 'Excuse me. You are the last person to be granted to say such things. You did not take the shit. I took that yellow shit on my face, remember?'
Joshua's sinister smile came in my eagle view, pinching his nose shut while he waved the breeze around him. 'You still stink.'
You could almost call it a standard procedure, grasping the fact that Yoon Jeonghan had to stop us from killing each other every damn time. Let's just give him the title of a mediator, shall we? 'Stop it guys. The thing that you are calling shit, she perhaps could be the daughter of one of us. We should act to be the mature ones here, right?'
Matured and my friends, that is the biggest joke in the entire universe. Joshua stated accuracy while I agreed with the gentleman almost immediately. 'She could never be my child.'
The mascot cleared his throat, smacking his lips yet being right on with his point. 'Okay fine, she is not my daughter either. Can we however give any guarantee to what we are claiming? I was pondering around with this last night and came to a conclusion. Searching her mother seems like a great plan and once we find her, we will find out whose daughter she actually is.'
Clever idea my friend, is what I actually wanted to say. Still, the process towards this ending was less colorful than it was supposed to be. We all reunited with those wonderful women again, most of them already moved on with their lives and the inappropriate question whether we fathered their baby was too much to ask. And with this burden on our heavied shoulders, our daily jobs added more unbearable bricks to it which eventually led to a stormy downfall. Beaten up and frustrated on how we could move on from this difficult journey, drinking throat-hurting alcohol seemed like the best choice at this point. The eve of our precious Christmas came into twilight, little hushes heard from the other side of the room showing that the baby had finally fallen asleep. Joshua tugged the whole wine bottle in his left hand, leaning his elbow on the table while exclaiming something I could not agree with more. 'You guys just lost your jobs. My precious chance to be on the front cover of Vogue, the audition call by the ear-piercing cried of that baby. I missed out on freaking 30.000 dollars. 30.000! I cannot think or do anything straight if this child is in this house!'
I know my best friends very well, thus good that we just must look into each other's eyes to understand one another. If the tide was high, it must be in the moment of now. Jeonghan is someone who kept his genuine words mostly to himself, especially regarding swearing and profanity. However, the mascot did not hold back this time as he gritted through his white teeth while swirling his beer bottle. 'That bitch is not even our child. Her reckless, irresponsible mother left her for the dogs to be eaten. Even if we were her real father, we even would have left this piece of shit.'
The salty tears threatened to leave my eye corners, swiftly taking a large sip from my beloved beer can as I cried my bottled-up resentment. 'The club that I created, established, given seven precious years of my life to, my boss kicked me out in one deep breathe. Do you want to know what he said to me? "Seungcheol, you are fired! Get out, you are fired!" Seven years I have worked there and this child, this witch, she took my job within two weeks. A haunting nightmare, which is what this slut is!'
My dark brown eyes extinguished the dark vision out, but that dizziness faded instantly when Joshua darkly spoke the sentence that had been lingering around in my head. 'Let's throw this wench away. Why would we raise someone else's trash in our house? I know a place where we can dump her for all Grace's good.'
A holy church invites the angel within all to spread confident wings as shelter for mankind. That is what I had once read, drinking my beer which had the most bitter taste I have had in ages. The three of us were seated on the small barstools after getting rid of the baby for good at St. Paul's Chapel. Did I feel a slight amount of guiltiness? Maybe. Somehow, the feeling transferred over towards my best friends, neither of them talking until the increasingly sumptuous rain started pouring waters in high amounts. The blasting Christmas Eve music sounded in the most annoying sounds that I meditate myself from existence in one swift. Still, Jeonghan spoke up with meager concern suiting his voice that woke me up. 'Someone must have opened the door at the church, right?'
My dark brown eyes set open, not spilling another second in this celebrative atmosphere as we made a run for it. All we could care about was the little child who was now drowned in dirty rainwater because of our reckless behavior. Slipping the unmoving baby into my strong hold, we came down to the busy hospital in rush and panic. Jeonghan and Joshua were both screaming around for needed help, a on-call doctor was nowhere in sight as we approached the desk where the woman asked to calmy fill the forms in. I lost my uncontrollable cool, screaming unintentionally towards her as I peeked around to spot someone who could perhaps provide care. 'Hey, are you a doctor?'
The man in dark green scrubs and a white coat nodded swiftly, my trembling arms shifting the baby closer to him as he checked her vitals at high speed. 'Oh my god, her breathing has stopped. Nurse, take her to the ICU and prepare the ventilator quicky!'
The nurse took her from my hold and into the emergency room where we were stopped by the staff. After a couple of minutes of impatiently wait, the doctor came out to deliver the aggravating news. 'I am so sorry. The little girl is in a severe critical state. I honestly do not think that she will last through the night. Her lungs are filled with excessive amounts of water. This is a case of acute pneumonia. We are trying our best but saving her will be highly impossible.'
And with those difficulty loaded sentences, the doctor disappeared behind the white walls again. Joshua oversaw this painful situation on his own as he ran away from sight, not having it in me to stop him from whatever he was planning to do. I saw huge droplets of tears falling from Jeonghan's hazy eyes for the first time since I have known him. His voice cracked in sad emotions, my lips quivering at his declaring phrases which showed the one and only truth. 'What have we done? We killed her man. Seungcheol, we killed her!'
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Sorry, mianheeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
I can make up a thousands excuses now but here is the update that y'all have been waiting for. Exams, being extremely ill and a minor writer's block got me stalling this imagine but I am back and will be finishing this one in a week I guess.
Btw, what's your favorite song from "Seventeenth Heaven" and from Jungkook's "Golden? Mine are "SOS", "Yawn" and from JK's "Yes or No" and "Too Sad to Dance".
I miss Scoups, period.
Don't forget to vote if you read it <33333333 I would appreciate it a lot <3
Love,