Chapter 13: The chiken and the cats.
"One day I will find the right words and they will be simple"
Jack Kerouac—
A dream.
A nightmare.
I wake up feeling more exhausted than when I went to sleep.
Noona isn't with me. It's late in the afternoon so she's probably gone to help around with the kids. It's time for them to start bathing and getting ready for bed.
I sit up and realize I had a blanket over me, so I carefully fold it and leave it on the armrest of the couch before walking out of the room to look for Aera.
As soon as I step outside, Soonbok and Nari playing tag pass next to me, running like little devils. Nari hides behind my legs.
She screams when Soonbok tries to get her and I just realize their hair is dripping wet and they're half naked. I sigh, they were probably supposed to be with their pajamas on already, warm and cozy before going to bed, not making messes and waking up all the half asleep kids around them.
But this girls are a bit difficult and just listen to Noona and me, so I get that whoever was taking care of them must be going crazy right now.
"Nari, you're cheating! You can't hide behind Minmin!" Soonbok complains, throwing a fit.
I scoop her in my arms and start blowing kisses everywhere I can, just to make her laugh as I make fart sounds in her stomach, something that really tickles kids for some reason.
"No! The kissy monster!" she laughs, trying to get me away.
Nari pouts. "My turn! It's my turn!"
Panting, a boy comes down the hallway. He's the new kid, the one making some money by taking care of this little devils whenever he has some free time. I try to remember his name, but it vanished from my head.
"Sorry!" he apologizes. "They— they were with me and then suddenly weren't and I panicked and—"
I place Soonbok in his arms. "It's okay."
He looks relieved. The girls are quiet now for some reason.
With that little devil still in his arms, he deeply bows. "Thank you, Minho!" he exclaims. Now I feel a little bad for not remembering his name.
I feel Nari tugging at my t-shirt and I pick her up in my arms.
"Girls, you can't be running off without telling anyone!" I scold. They apologize with small smiles on their lips that show how they really aren't sorry at all.
"We're sorry, Jeonginnie!"
Ah, Jeongin, that's his name.
The guy looks exhausted, honestly. He has eyebags that reach the floor. "You can go home, I'll take care of them." He shakes his head and now I remember seeing him through the hallways at school. He's a year behind me, if I remember right. Always alone. "At least let me help you with these little maniacs."
The girls laugh at the same time, but I bet they don't even understand what I just said. "Is Minmin gonna tell us a story for bed?" asks Soonbok, clutching Jeongin's shoulders with her little hands excitedly.
"Only if you guys are good."
I tap the boy's arm as I pass by him, telling him to follow me to the bedroom where Nari and Soonbok should be getting dressed in their pajamas and getting their hair dried.
Jeongin smiles and mumbles a 'Thank you.'
In no time, the girls are put to bed and waiting for me to tell them a story.
"Sit here, Jeonginnie! You're gonna love Minmin's stories!" Nari pats a spot next to her on the bottom bunk bed. I'm sitting on the floor with my back to the wall, facing them.
I can admit that someone other than my girls listening to something I say is unusual and a bit embarrassing, even, but I just give Jeongin a reassuring smile so that he doesn't feel like he's invading or unwanted.
When the boy does as the bossy little girl has told him, I say "What story do you wanna hear?"
"One about Sunggie!" exclaims Soonbok, Nari immediately backing her up. I should've known, stories about my childhood best friend are their favorites.
I see Jeongin's face shift into something I can't recognize, so I don't give it much thought. "Did I tell you guys the one about the chicken and the cats?" I ask.
The girls say I didn't, but that they like the name because 'chiken' sounds funny, so I settle on telling them that one and I rummage through my mind to find the details on how it happened back then. It's uncomfortable thanks to this past weekend's events.
"A long time ago, there wasn't a big fence at the end of the orphanage's garden." I start telling. "Just a very small one that everyone could jump over but no one did. Sunggie and I used to escape through there, because there were a lot of kitties next to trash bins. Noona didn't know where we were when we went there, so we stole food and milk and left to feed the cats almost every day to escape her because she was always scolding us."
"You were such a bad boy, Minmin!" says Soonbokkie.
"Shh, let him go on!" scolds Nari.
I laugh at how cute they are, at how much they remind me to when Jisung and I were kids. The troublemakers, that's what we were. "One day, in one of the trash bins, we heard something weird." both girls gasp at the same time.
"An alien?"
"A monster?"
I shake my head. "We didn't know. And Sunggie said 'let's investigate, Minmin!' I told him that where should we look for the weird thing making weird sounds and you know what he said?" the girls say no in unison, expectant. "He said we should get inside the trash bins."
"Ewww!" they both scream at the same time. I can see Jeongin scrunching his face in disgust too from the corner of my eye.
"Sunggie was the one to find it, ten minutes after we started looking. We had banana peels all over our heads." That's not true, we had far more disgusting things on our heads, but the banana peels are what make the girls laugh. "He called me and said 'Minmin! Minmin, I found it!' and when he turned around, he had a chicken in his arms."
Soonbok and Nari start laughing and I have to wait until they've calmed down to continue with the story.
"We thought we shouldn't leave the poor chicken alone, so we named it 'Alfredo' and brought him to the orphanage with us to give it food. When Noona saw us—"
"She got red like when she gets mad?" Nari asks.
"Mhm. She started screaming 'A chicken! A chicken! What are you doing with a chiken?!'" I get up from my spot on the floor and give Jeongin a look, mouthing that he does as I do with the other child as i walk towards Nari. "And the chiken was trying to bite us like this!"
I start tickling Nari and Jeongin understands what I meant and starts doing the same to Soonbok. They both burst out laughing as my new partner in storytelling and I start making chicken sounds to further amuse the girls.
Then, Aera Noona enters the room. "What is this I'm hearing?" she says, a smile clear in her voice.
"A chicken, a chicken! What are you doing with a chiken?!" starts imitating Soonbokkie. Nari joins her.
Jeongin and I stand guilty next to the girls beds. We were supposed to be calming them down enough to sleep.
"Ahh! So the chicken story!" Noona walks next to me and smacks the back of my head lightly. The girls laugh harder. "Him and Sunggie tried to keep Alfredo and hid it from me for a week. That's when we installed the fence. Now, say bye bye to Minmin and Jeonginnie because they have to go home."
"Bye, Minmin! Bye Jeonginnie!" they say at the same time. I kiss the top of their heads and walk to the entrance of the orphanage to finally go home for the day. The boy follows after me with a little smile.
We reach the door and Aera smaks my head, now with a bit more force than last time. "Ow!"
"You have to stop getting ideas into those devils' minds!" she scolds. I laugh and hug her goodbye, not without apologizing first.
She kisses both my cheeks at least ten times.
"I'll call you when I get home, Noona." I promise.
She nods and smiles, getting on her tiptoes to kiss my forehead. I'm not that tall but she's still shorter than me. "Be safe, don't break windows with your demonic best friend and tell that demoic best friend that I miss him."
I hug her again and she whispers 'I love you'. I say it back and finally turn to leave.
Aera says goodbye to Jeongin too, thanking him for the good work today. I don't stay to see it because I'm dying to get home and snuggle Felix while we eat whatever instant noodles we have.
I'm surprised when I hear steps quickly approaching me. "Minho!" Jeongin calls.
I turn around with a smile and hum, but in reality I really want him to go and leave me alone so I can go back home already.
"About the story you told the girls."
I crook an eyebrow and then remember the expression he had when Jisung's name was mentioned. "What about it?" I say, aware that I sound overly defensive.
"You're that Minho, right?" he asks. I tilt my head. What's this prick on and why is it bothering me so much?
He looks at me with firm eyes, not intimidated by me for being older.
"I'm Jisung's best friend."