[ enjoy the image above of baby chan ]

i highkey want to change chan to a five year old now

i made him six instead whoops

also i hate pledis WHY CANT THERE BE A SHOW ON A WEEKEND IN NEW ORLEANS THAT I CAN GO TO I HAVE SCHOOL ON THE DAY OF THE DALLAS SHOW F U C K Y O U

also xu minghao is a GOD

///

"you're not minghao."

the six-year-old looked up at junhui, sitting criss-cross-applesauce on the couch with his arms crossed across his chest.

"no, i'm not," jun replied. "i'm filling in for him today."

"where is he?" chan asked, reaching for the juice pouch on the coffee table in front of him.

"with his friend," junhui answered, sitting on the chair adjacent to the couch chan was sitting on.

"is it jeonghan?"

"yeah, how did you know?"

"he's my brother's friend, too," chan said, smiling. his expression slowly changed to a slightly confused one as he continued. "though, he's not as close to him as minghao is. he came over a few times when minghao was babysitting." he paused.

"one time jeonghan went to the spare room to take a nap and minghao brought him a glass of water. it took him a long time to come back up front and i heard a lot of strange noises. jihoon told me to wait for him in the living room instead of the hallway and put my earphones in."

junhui had to cough to hide his laugh. he was definitely going to make fun of minghao about this. "jihoon is your brother, right?" he asked.

"yeah. he's upstairs right now. he won't come down."

"why not?"

chan shrugged, finishing off his juice pouch and setting it back down on the table. "i don't know. he's probably busy with homework or something."

"speaking of homework," junhui started before pointing to the toy story booksack which so obviously belonged to the young boy, "do you have any to do? your mom didn't say anything about it, so-"

"i need help with my math," chan said, cutting him off a bit. "i remember minghao would help me out sometimes and say that he got a lot of help from you even when you both were younger."

"i still have to," junhui muttered, rolling his eyes with a small smile. chan giggled, covering his mouth. "go get your work and i can start helping you."

///

"and... finished!"

junhui cheered through a mouthful of pizza as chan wrote down the answer to his last question. "that's great!"

chan looked up at the older and smiled broadly, showing off his missing top left canine, which junhui almost cooed at. he wished he could be the permanent sitter just so he could have this cheery little boy around him but he knew that this was the only time that he would babysit chan; minghao was bound to be able to do it the rest of the times.

"would you like anything else to eat?" junhui asked, picking up his and the younger's plates and standing up. the boy seemed to think for a while before he spoke up. "another slice of cheese pizza, please, and a juice."

"how about a water?" the older asked, raising an eyebrow. "you've already had two juices."

chan pouted softly, but junhui quickly added, "if you drink all of your water, then i'll let you have a cola." and he immediately smiled and nodded his head.

"okay!"

after three full glasses of water, due to junhui constantly filling up chan's glass when he wasnt looking, the older went into the kitchen to get a soda for the younger. he was looking through the fridge when a door slamming from upstairs made him jump. he heard chan call out a "hey, hoonie" and another voice speak, but he couldn't hear it fully. he just chose to ignore it, opting to focus on stacking some boneless wings on a slice of pizza and find a way to take a bite.

the kitchen door swung open and he froze, chan's soda in hand and half of his hot-wing-topped pizza in the other, the other half in his mouth. he turned slowly to see a short boy with blond hair and a bandaid under his right eye staring at him, his brows furrowed. junhui smiled -- well, at least the best he could with his mouth full -- and waved with the pizza hand.

the boy cocked his head to the side, brows still scrunched together as he pointed at the boy in front of him. "you're not minghao."