"Where are you going, Mister?" Taeil turned around and put his hands in the air in surrender, but I saw him inching towards the door. No one's escaping that easily.
"There was an issue with some of the wiring in the satellite and I was called in to fix it. I'll be back as soon as I can, promise."
On any other day of the week, this would be no problem. But this was our monthly family dinner with the grandparents, my sister, and Yumi that my sister was making me host this month. It always switched between our houses even though we all knew mine was the only one we could actually fit comfortably in with all of us.
The boys knew that we all had to be here for the meal since it was really important to my sister, but this did sound like an emergency. I don't want to be the one responsible for something blowing up because I didn't let him go.
"Alright, but this better not be an excuse to skip out." Taeil smiled and ran to the door with my car keys instead of taking the public bus there.
"Can I go with him? I wanna see a rocket." Jisung asked, his eyes very pleading as he bounced a little on his heels.
"Sorry, Ji. No kids are allowed on the floor."
"Plus, you have to stay for the dinner." I added in, and Taeil left the house before he could beg further. The four year old pouted and sat himself on the floor, almost causing Lucas to trip over him.
"What's wrong?"
"Dad wouldn't let me go with Taeil hyung." Lucas just reached down and pushed his head slightly, and he flopped dramatically onto the ground and stayed there. Probably making him even more of a tripping hazard with everyone walking around down here.
"It's not going to be that bad. If I can be somewhat quiet the whole time, you can survive." Jisung scrunched up his nose at his older brother, prompting Lucas to step on his stomach lightly before continuing on with whatever he was originally doing.
"Where's my three dinner helpers and the table setter?" I asked loudly, and Jaemin tapped on my shoulder from behind.
"We're right here." Jaemin, Doyoung, and Johnny were all standing in the kitchen waiting for me, while Ten was already working on setting the table. I must have somehow missed them with all the commotion.
"I need someone to start on the noodles, someone to wash vegetables, and someone to cut vegetables." They started claiming jobs and starting on them, and I turned to address the rowdy children in the living room. "Has everyone done their chores yet?"
YangYang and Haechan immediately ran off to complete theirs, and I got to starting to prepare the chicken. I'm almost an hour behind on starting dinner, so we'll see how this goes. I'm just hoping they end up running late for some reason, though that's unlikely.
After thirty minutes of speed cooking and hoping the kids don't accidentally kill themselves or each other without supervision, they started shouting that they were here. Who needs guard dogs when you can just have lots of kids?
Normally, there were never this many of them in the living room unless we were doing something together, but I always made them stay downstairs when they were coming over so they couldn't hide upstairs. I didn't set that rule the first time we all had dinner at my house, and the kids made it seem like it was just us adults in the house once dinner was over.
"Someone let them in! I can hear them still knocking, you know!" The last thing I need right now is my parents accusing me having my kids lock them out of the house. That had happened before.
My parents entered the house first and started saying hi to everyone, but they had a whole "no hugs" policy with my kids for some reason. Whenever they see Yumi they demand hugs, but not mine. So in other words, they were soon in the kitchen with me setting down dishes they had brought right in my way, and giving me a very fake smile.
"Hey, Yongie! That smells pretty good." My sister came up from behind and put a hand on my shoulder, inhaling deeply to further relish the smell.
"You know, Uncle Taeyong, it's illegal to own monkeys if you're not a zoo keeper." Yumi shared as a greeting, a mischievous smile on her face. I switched the ladle to my other hand so I could give her a side hug, and she leaned into my side.
"It's a good thing I've got my zoo keeping license."
"Told you he'd say you were monkeys!" She immediately called out, running out to the living room to go back with the boys.
"So Johnny, how's the stripper business?" My sister asked, and my mother's look of pure horror and disappointment was probably just what she meant to come out.
"It's going pretty good. I'm just waiting for Jaemin to be an adult so we can really start."
"We're going to be the best chicken strippers there are!"
My Mom slinked over to stand next to me, and hissed into my ear while the other three continued their conversation Jaemin still didn't fully understand.
"You're letting them do what?!"
"It's just a joke. Jaemin thinks they're going to make chicken strips. Besides, Johnny's teaching high school English now while he finishes up college." She practically sighed in relief, and my Dad left the kitchen to probably just sit on the couch and try to watch basketball with Jaehyun even though there would be people talking over the game and walking in front of the TV.
Jaehyun was really the only kid my Dad would talk to since they both shared a love of sports and old music. Yuta has tried talking soccer with him before, but apparently he's not into that sport.
Yumi was already creating chaos and messing around with the younger portion of kids in the living room, and I think Kun was getting out a game for the older kids to play. Chenle was on Jaehyun's lap watching the game with him, and Jisung was still laying dramatically on the floor, but now he had Hendery laying next to him so he didn't look out of place.
The only ones not creating more noise was Renjun and Jungwoo, since they were just coloring in a corner of the room.
"Come sit! Dinner's ready!" I called out, really hoping they all weren't going to rush to the kitchen like I've been starving all day. Last time that happened, my Mom threatened to call CPS on me without even listening to them themselves that they were joking.
"You know, we always used to use a bell to get you two to dinner instead of yelling."
"That's nice, Mom."