CHINGUX 2014: (fairy tale) adventure time (1/2) for anita_dee
Title: (Fairy Tale) Adventure Time
Author: epitheliyeol
Recipient: anita_dee
Pairing/Focus: OT4 (friendship)
Rating: PG
Warnings: mild violence
Length: 9.5k
Summary: Children!chinguline love to spend their summer pretending to be great heroes of magical fairy tales, but after a series of bizarre and unexplainable events throw a new quest into their hands, they find that their adventure isn’t so pretend anymore.
If someone asked seven-year-old Jongdae what the treasures of life are, he would readily list them out on his fingers as follows:
1. minty chocolate chip ice cream
2. saturday morning cartoons
3. chinguline
4. fairy tales
And Jongdae’s summer is a happy routine of said treasures. On weekday mornings, he gets dropped off at one of his chingu’s houses and plays to his heart’s content alongside his childhood friends and schoolmates: Baekhyun, Chanyeol, and Kyungsoo. The four friends come together to form one of Jongdae’s self-proclaimed treasures of life: chinguline. But besides playing with his beloved chinguline buddies, the best part of his day revolves around his fairy tale bedtime stories. Every night before he goes to sleep, Jongdae pulls out his worn copy of fairy tale collections that his parents gifted him with for his birthday years ago. Little Jongdae’s seven-year-old mind happily entertains the tales filled with magic and knights in shining armor. He often daydreams of protecting an enchanted, faraway kingdom from evil alongside his beloved chinguline. Tonight, he flips to the page telling the unconventional tale of a dwarf, elf, giant, and fairy who turn into heroes and fight against a dark witch and goblin who threaten to overtake their kingdom…
---
“Bye kids! Have fun! I’ll be back at five!” Jongdae’s mother yells out the car window as Jongdae and the babysitter wave at her from the front porch of Chanyeol’s house.
“Joonmyun-hyung! I’m hungryyy,” someone whines from inside the house.
The babysitter lightly chuckles as he shakes his head.
“C’mon, let’s head on inside Jongdae. It’s still early, but I’ll fix you kids some snacks. I bet that’s Chanyeol who said he’s hungry…”
Jongdae smiles brightly at his hyung and dashes into the house. Favorite part of his day featuring chinguline, part one: start!
The four chinguline friends sit around the kitchen table while picking at the variety of fruits and vegetables that their babysitter prepared for them. Joonmyun-hyung is only in high school, but he is already a bit of a health freak. He frequently encourages the kids to take their vitamins and tries his best to prepare healthier snacks for them. They all love their hyung and know that he wants what’s best for them, but what could they say? They’re still a group of kids who just want a simple bag of chips or a candy bar sometimes.
“Hey boys, I gotta talk to you guys about something,” the babysitter says as he takes a seat with them at the kitchen table.
Four pairs of eyes turn their attention to Joonmyun while they continue to munch on the carrots with ranch dressing.
“Hyung has a big project that he’s been working on, and he needs some help from Yixing-hyung now. So if you guys don’t mind, could Yixing-hyung come over today and tomorrow to help hyung out? He’ll be bringing Tao and Sehunnie with him too. You guys remember them, right?”
“Yeah! Tao’s the one who has a funny accent!” Baekhyun pipes up.
“Baekhyun-ah, that’s not very nice to say...and stop making fun of his accent. He’s still learning Korean, okay? He hasn’t been here for very long,” Joonmyun scolds.
“Hyung, we can take care of Tao and Sehunnie while you and Yixing-hyung are working on your project if you want!” Jongdae proclaims.
Chanyeol quickly bobs his head up and down in agreement, and Joonmyun smiles at their enthusiasm.
“Aw, you guys would really do that for me? It would help me out a lot.”
He turns his head to Kyungsoo to gauge the last kid’s feelings, and Kyungsoo replies with a silent nod. He’s always the quiet one...Then again, maybe it only seems as such because the other three drown him out with their hyperactiveness.
“Okay!” Joonmyun claps his hands together. “It sounds like you all are cool with the arrangement, so I’ll go tell Yixing to head on over with Tao and Sehun.”
Baekhyun’s eyes form little crescent moons at his hyung before turning his attention on devouring the delicious apples on the table. Jongdae continues to dip his baby carrots in the ranch, while Kyungsoo helps Chanyeol peel his tangerine. Joonmyun watches the kids with affection after texting his Chinese friend Yixing. He feels lucky to have landed this babysitting job with the four boys. They’re cute, fun to be around, listen to him, and behave well (for the most part). Working on his project for the next couple of days with Yixing should run smoothly...right?
---
Six little pairs of hands entangle themselves while grabbing at small, jagged cardboard pieces left and right in an attempt to complete two different sets of jigsaw puzzles. The air is silent as the boys focus hard at their task, tongues sticking out haphazardly and eyes squinting in concentration. Their babysitters are upstairs in the computer room working diligently on Joonmyun’s project together. The two boys monitored the activity and interactions of the six children earlier for an amount of time before deeming that six-year-old Tao and five-year-old Sehun were in good hands. Unfortunately, as the fairy tales often note, things are not always what they seem…
“Sehun-ah, pass me that piece over there…” Tao requests to his best friend.
“Sehun-ah, pass me that piece over there!” Baekhyun repeats in the most butchered accent he can manage.
Tao pouts at his mockery as Sehun frowns and Jongdae giggles in amusement. The other two boys are too busy arguing over whether or not Chanyeol’s puzzle piece fits into the opening. (It doesn’t.) Baekhyun snickers at their reactions before passing the requested puzzle piece over to Tao himself. Tao accepts it as a peace offering, and all the children fall back into completing the jigsaw puzzles.
But as it soon turns out, Baekhyun never intended the puzzle piece to be a peace offering. Tao was mistaken.
Bright laughter and giggles fill the air as Tao joins Baekhyun and Chanyeol in chasing the other three kids around the house with mini-nerf guns.
“C’mon, guys! They’re getting away!!” Chanyeol hollers at his companions.
Jongdae looks over his shoulder before launching a shot at Chanyeol. The taller boy ducks just in time before immediately retaliating with a barrage of nerf foam bullets. Jongdae cries out in feigned pain before dropping dead onto the ground.
Kyungsoo witnesses his comrade’s death and reciprocates the act by hitting Baekhyun spot-on in the chest with a foam bullet, sending said boy choking back in surprise and dramatically grasping at his chest. Kyungsoo replies with a mischievous smirk before aiming at his right arm for good measure and achieving success with another direct hit. He cooly blows at his nerf gun barrel. One down, two more to go.
Meanwhile, Sehun, who had been missing in action, spent time sneaking up a small mountain (it’s actually upstairs to the hallway balcony) where he locks in on his best friend slash target. The nerf bullet accidentally hits Tao on the back of his head, and the Chinese boy grabs his head and lets out a whine. He breaks character and turns around to confront the culprit.
“Hey! That hurt!!” he whimpers as he rubs the back of his head.
“Hey! That hurt!” Baekhyun repeats in the same butchered accent while lying on the ground. Even death cannot stop Byun Baekhyun’s mouth from running.
Tao is too preoccupied mumbling about his head to fully react. Jongdae laughs and joins in on the mockery while Kyungsoo secretly plots more ways to hurt Baekhyun with the nerf gun and Chanyeol picks up bullets off the ground to reload his gun. Sehun frowns in guilt on top of the stairs before squinting his eyes at Baekhyun making fun of Tao again.
A deliberate shot to the back of the head effectively shuts Byun Baekhyun up. Tao and Sehun hope that by midday, Baekhyun would grow tired of copying Tao.
He doesn’t.
Joonmyun and Yixing head back upstairs after fixing the kids’ late lunches. The boys enjoy their turkey breast sandwiches and cherry tomatoes after hours of playing various activities around Chanyeol’s spacious house.
“Chanyeol-ah! What are we going to play next?” Tao questions excitedly.
“Chanyeol-ah! What are we going to play next??” Baekhyun repeats.
Tao turns to glare at him, his anger beginning to overpower his hurt.
“Baekhyun-ah, c’mon, let’s try to play nice,” Kyungsoo sighs. He begins to grow tired of Baekhyun’s shenanigans and his target’s reactions.
Baekhyun giggles and raises his hands in mock defeat, and then continues to finish his turkey breast sandwich.
“Well first of all, that’s Chanyeol-hyung to you, and I’m not sure. Does anyone have any suggestions?”
The lunch table grows silent before Jongdae gains enough courage to blurt out his desired gameplay.
“Can we do another fairy tale adventure??” he pleads.
“Hyung, you still like fairy tales?” the youngest cackles.
“Yeah, I do! You got a problem??”
Sehun shakes his head, and continues to grin at his hyung.
Chinguline is well aware of Jongdae’s fascination with fairy tales, and they always humor their friend to make him happy.
“Okay, let’s play that next then,” Kyungsoo announces.
Little fists pump into the air and cheers sound around the table as the boys quickly devour the rest of their lunches.
After rounds of rock, paper, scissors, Tao was declared the role of the hero with Baekhyun as his sidekick. Kyungsoo was assigned to the evil overlord role with Jongdae and Chanyeol as his minions. Little Sehun was to act as the guiding fairy to Tao and Baekhyun on their journey.
Their fairy tale gameplay was reaching its climax where Tao subdues the evil overlord and saves the world.
“I hereby banish you from this world!!” Tao proclaims as he points his sword to Kyungsoo who lies defeated on the ground. “Take this defeat and leave my kingdom forever! And never return!!”
“Leave my kingdom forever!” Baekhyun repeats as he mimics Tao’s action with his own toy sword.
Tao breaks character once again, putting down his sword and turning to glare at Baekhyun.
“Sogogi! This is my time to shine! Why are you still doing this to me? You’re even my sidekick!!” Tao whines.
“Sorry, Tao-yah. I just can’t help myself,” Baekhyun giggles. “Your accent is so fun to make fun of!”
Tao chucks his sword, and trudges away upstairs.
“I don’t want to play anymore…” he grumbles.
The atmosphere becomes awkward, and chinguline all turn to look at each other, wondering what to do with the situation. A conclusion isn’t met before Sehun sprints upstairs in haste to check up on his best friend.
“Should I go apologize…?” Baekhyun mutters quietly. The hyperactive seven-year-old has the decency to look ashamed.
“Baekhyun-ah, maybe you really should stop making fun of him,” Jongdae answers. “Plus, I don’t think Joonmyun-hyung will be very happy if he finds out.”
---
Tao and Sehun sit together in the back of Yixing’s car on their way home from Chanyeol’s house. Only the sound of Yixing’s light humming is heard in the car while the two kids look outside their respective car windows.
“Zitao, are you feeling better?” the babysitter asks in Chinese.
“Yes, I am. Thank you for asking, Yixing-ge,” Tao answers back in Chinese with a small smile.
Sehun turns his head to Tao and squints his eyes at him before turning his head back to the window with a swift turn. His best friend’s reaction doesn’t go unnoticed by him, and Tao attempts to relieve Sehun.
“What’s wrong Sehunnie?” Tao asks.
“Why are you talking to Yixing-hyung about today, but not me?” Sehun replies with a pout.
“It’s not that Sehunnie, Yixing-hyung was just making sure that I’m okay. And I am now!”
“Are you sure?...Baekhyun-hyung was being a little mean today…”
“Uh-huh, I’m okay! Besides, sogogi-hyung apologized to me. That means he won’t make fun of my accent anymore!”
“Tao-yah, Baekhyun-hyung never said that...he only said sorry.”
“Oh...well, as long as he doesn’t make fun of me tomorrow then I’ll be fine!”
If only Byun Baekhyun knew.
---
The next day, chinguline begins their day off with more fairy tale playtime. They decide to create the setting of a kingdom that has the pinnacle of its magical power rooted into a special relic. The friends play rock, paper, scissors again to assign roles.
“But I don’t want to be the guardian!” Kyungsoo protests.
“Too bad! You lost!” Baekhyun throws back as he sticks out his tongue at him.
“Think about it this way, Kyungsoo-yah,” Jongdae begins. “Without the triforce, our kingdom would lose its balance of power. And if it falls into the wrong hands, then our kingdom would fall into darkness and be doomed forever!”
“Yeah!! You have a really important role, Kyungsoo-yah!” Chanyeol brightly adds on. “You have to try to stop me from stealing the triforce!”
“Fine then, I’ll be the guardian…” Kyungsoo mumbles as he takes the large pyramid-shaped block (complete with the label: THE TRIFORCE on it) with him upstairs to find a suitable setting to keep it protected.
“All right! Chanyeol-ah, you’re the bad guy! And me and Baekhyunnie will try to go after you once you steal the triforce,” Jongdae informs.
“Man, we haven’t even started yet but Kyungsoo is already doing badly at his role,” Baekhyun mentions.
“But the triforce has to be stolen! Or else this game won’t be any fun! We need some danger and adventure up in here!” Jongdae proclaims.
Those last words ring in their heads as the children begin their fairy tale play time. Danger. Adventure.
Yixing arrives with Tao and Sehun in tow in the middle of the boys’ playtime, resulting in the older boys rejecting their requests to join the game.
“You guys can go play something else together while we play this!”
“But-but I want to play too…” Tao mumbles.
“C’mon, Tao-yah, let’s just go do something else,” Sehun consoles as he grabs the sad boy’s hand and drags him to the playroom.
The two boys play with action figures inside the room while their hyungs actually play out the roles themselves around the house. Judging from their man-made sound effects and heroic cries, the hyungs seem to be having fun. Tao suddenly throws his action figure down and turns to Sehun.
“This isn’t fair!” the boy complains. “We should be able to play with them too! I’m going to go ask again!”
He stomps off to where the older kids are with Sehun following closely behind.
“You think you can take over our kingdom on our watch? Well think again!” Jongdae declares.
Chanyeol snickers at him and Baekhyun.
“And you think you two can stop me? Don’t make me laugh!”
He charges at the other two boys with his magical staff until Tao runs into the middle of their battlefield, halting their gameplay.
“What is it ,Tao-yah? We’re kinda in the middle of something here,” Chanyeol grumbles to him.
“Me and Sehun want to play too!!”
“But guys, we already assigned the roles and started playing before you two got here…” Jongdae replies. “We’re already in character and everything.”
Tao begins to fidget with anger.
“But we want to play!!” he shouts.
“But we want to play!” Baekhyun mocks.
And that was the last straw for Tao. Unforeseen gusts of wind knock the three chinguline friends off of their feet, and the lights in the room begin to flicker.
“Wha-what’s going on?” Baekhyun says with fear in his voice, uncharacteristic of him.
The three boys look at Tao and watch him visibly shake with his head cast down.
“I SAID WE WANT TO PLAY!” he roars before the room starts shaking. “If you guys won’t let us play, then fine! I’ll make room for us. And we’re gonna play this game my way,” he finishes off with a different tone of voice.
Sehun cackles before summoning more gusts of wind to knock the boys over again.
“See if you guys can save your triforce and your kingdom!” Tao taunts as he and Sehun disappear in the blink of an eye, leaving behind a puff of smoke.
The room stops shaking and the lights stop flickering. The boys slowly get up, groaning and rubbing their heads. Once they get their senses back, the barrage of questions flow out.
“What the heck is going on?!?” Baekhyun exclaims.
“What just even happened??” Chanyeol adds.
“Am I dreaming right now??” Jongdae questions.
His grip on the wooden sword replica in his hand tightens, and he lightly stabs Baekhyun with it.
“Ouch!”
Nope, guess he is not dreaming.
“You’re supposed to pinch yourself, not another person!” Baekhyun complains as he rubs his hip.
The room grows silent as the boys begin to fully process the situation.
“So...Tao and Sehunnie really did disappear? The room really was shaking? That wasn’t just my eyes?” Chanyeol asks aloud.
The other two slowly nod, confirming his questions.
“What did Tao say right before him and Sehun disappeared? Something about the triforce?” Baekhyun ponders.
Jongdae’s mind rewinds the events of the last few minutes. Triforce…Save…
“Oh no!” he thought.
“KYUNGSOO!” they all shout simultaneously.
The boys dash upstairs and swing open the door of the room where Kyungsoo guarded the triforce. They collectively gasp at the sight that greets them. Furniture is overturn everywhere, and Kyungsoo is nowhere in sight.
“He took Kyungsoo too!” Chanyeol barks.
“What kind of children does Yixing-hyung babysit??” Baekhyun exclaims.
Jongdae stays quiet as he slowly surveys the room with his eyes. He couldn’t believe what was happening. He loves fairy tales and daydreams about them all the time, but magic and secret powers can’t actually exist in real life...right? He suddenly remembers something that fairy tales often say in his book, and unwanted shivers run down his back.
Things are not always what they seem…
→ PART 2
Author: epitheliyeol
Recipient: anita_dee
Pairing/Focus: OT4 (friendship)
Rating: PG
Warnings: mild violence
Length: 9.5k
Summary: Children!chinguline love to spend their summer pretending to be great heroes of magical fairy tales, but after a series of bizarre and unexplainable events throw a new quest into their hands, they find that their adventure isn’t so pretend anymore.
If someone asked seven-year-old Jongdae what the treasures of life are, he would readily list them out on his fingers as follows:
1. minty chocolate chip ice cream
2. saturday morning cartoons
3. chinguline
4. fairy tales
And Jongdae’s summer is a happy routine of said treasures. On weekday mornings, he gets dropped off at one of his chingu’s houses and plays to his heart’s content alongside his childhood friends and schoolmates: Baekhyun, Chanyeol, and Kyungsoo. The four friends come together to form one of Jongdae’s self-proclaimed treasures of life: chinguline. But besides playing with his beloved chinguline buddies, the best part of his day revolves around his fairy tale bedtime stories. Every night before he goes to sleep, Jongdae pulls out his worn copy of fairy tale collections that his parents gifted him with for his birthday years ago. Little Jongdae’s seven-year-old mind happily entertains the tales filled with magic and knights in shining armor. He often daydreams of protecting an enchanted, faraway kingdom from evil alongside his beloved chinguline. Tonight, he flips to the page telling the unconventional tale of a dwarf, elf, giant, and fairy who turn into heroes and fight against a dark witch and goblin who threaten to overtake their kingdom…
---
“Bye kids! Have fun! I’ll be back at five!” Jongdae’s mother yells out the car window as Jongdae and the babysitter wave at her from the front porch of Chanyeol’s house.
“Joonmyun-hyung! I’m hungryyy,” someone whines from inside the house.
The babysitter lightly chuckles as he shakes his head.
“C’mon, let’s head on inside Jongdae. It’s still early, but I’ll fix you kids some snacks. I bet that’s Chanyeol who said he’s hungry…”
Jongdae smiles brightly at his hyung and dashes into the house. Favorite part of his day featuring chinguline, part one: start!
The four chinguline friends sit around the kitchen table while picking at the variety of fruits and vegetables that their babysitter prepared for them. Joonmyun-hyung is only in high school, but he is already a bit of a health freak. He frequently encourages the kids to take their vitamins and tries his best to prepare healthier snacks for them. They all love their hyung and know that he wants what’s best for them, but what could they say? They’re still a group of kids who just want a simple bag of chips or a candy bar sometimes.
“Hey boys, I gotta talk to you guys about something,” the babysitter says as he takes a seat with them at the kitchen table.
Four pairs of eyes turn their attention to Joonmyun while they continue to munch on the carrots with ranch dressing.
“Hyung has a big project that he’s been working on, and he needs some help from Yixing-hyung now. So if you guys don’t mind, could Yixing-hyung come over today and tomorrow to help hyung out? He’ll be bringing Tao and Sehunnie with him too. You guys remember them, right?”
“Yeah! Tao’s the one who has a funny accent!” Baekhyun pipes up.
“Baekhyun-ah, that’s not very nice to say...and stop making fun of his accent. He’s still learning Korean, okay? He hasn’t been here for very long,” Joonmyun scolds.
“Hyung, we can take care of Tao and Sehunnie while you and Yixing-hyung are working on your project if you want!” Jongdae proclaims.
Chanyeol quickly bobs his head up and down in agreement, and Joonmyun smiles at their enthusiasm.
“Aw, you guys would really do that for me? It would help me out a lot.”
He turns his head to Kyungsoo to gauge the last kid’s feelings, and Kyungsoo replies with a silent nod. He’s always the quiet one...Then again, maybe it only seems as such because the other three drown him out with their hyperactiveness.
“Okay!” Joonmyun claps his hands together. “It sounds like you all are cool with the arrangement, so I’ll go tell Yixing to head on over with Tao and Sehun.”
Baekhyun’s eyes form little crescent moons at his hyung before turning his attention on devouring the delicious apples on the table. Jongdae continues to dip his baby carrots in the ranch, while Kyungsoo helps Chanyeol peel his tangerine. Joonmyun watches the kids with affection after texting his Chinese friend Yixing. He feels lucky to have landed this babysitting job with the four boys. They’re cute, fun to be around, listen to him, and behave well (for the most part). Working on his project for the next couple of days with Yixing should run smoothly...right?
---
Six little pairs of hands entangle themselves while grabbing at small, jagged cardboard pieces left and right in an attempt to complete two different sets of jigsaw puzzles. The air is silent as the boys focus hard at their task, tongues sticking out haphazardly and eyes squinting in concentration. Their babysitters are upstairs in the computer room working diligently on Joonmyun’s project together. The two boys monitored the activity and interactions of the six children earlier for an amount of time before deeming that six-year-old Tao and five-year-old Sehun were in good hands. Unfortunately, as the fairy tales often note, things are not always what they seem…
“Sehun-ah, pass me that piece over there…” Tao requests to his best friend.
“Sehun-ah, pass me that piece over there!” Baekhyun repeats in the most butchered accent he can manage.
Tao pouts at his mockery as Sehun frowns and Jongdae giggles in amusement. The other two boys are too busy arguing over whether or not Chanyeol’s puzzle piece fits into the opening. (It doesn’t.) Baekhyun snickers at their reactions before passing the requested puzzle piece over to Tao himself. Tao accepts it as a peace offering, and all the children fall back into completing the jigsaw puzzles.
But as it soon turns out, Baekhyun never intended the puzzle piece to be a peace offering. Tao was mistaken.
Bright laughter and giggles fill the air as Tao joins Baekhyun and Chanyeol in chasing the other three kids around the house with mini-nerf guns.
“C’mon, guys! They’re getting away!!” Chanyeol hollers at his companions.
Jongdae looks over his shoulder before launching a shot at Chanyeol. The taller boy ducks just in time before immediately retaliating with a barrage of nerf foam bullets. Jongdae cries out in feigned pain before dropping dead onto the ground.
Kyungsoo witnesses his comrade’s death and reciprocates the act by hitting Baekhyun spot-on in the chest with a foam bullet, sending said boy choking back in surprise and dramatically grasping at his chest. Kyungsoo replies with a mischievous smirk before aiming at his right arm for good measure and achieving success with another direct hit. He cooly blows at his nerf gun barrel. One down, two more to go.
Meanwhile, Sehun, who had been missing in action, spent time sneaking up a small mountain (it’s actually upstairs to the hallway balcony) where he locks in on his best friend slash target. The nerf bullet accidentally hits Tao on the back of his head, and the Chinese boy grabs his head and lets out a whine. He breaks character and turns around to confront the culprit.
“Hey! That hurt!!” he whimpers as he rubs the back of his head.
“Hey! That hurt!” Baekhyun repeats in the same butchered accent while lying on the ground. Even death cannot stop Byun Baekhyun’s mouth from running.
Tao is too preoccupied mumbling about his head to fully react. Jongdae laughs and joins in on the mockery while Kyungsoo secretly plots more ways to hurt Baekhyun with the nerf gun and Chanyeol picks up bullets off the ground to reload his gun. Sehun frowns in guilt on top of the stairs before squinting his eyes at Baekhyun making fun of Tao again.
A deliberate shot to the back of the head effectively shuts Byun Baekhyun up. Tao and Sehun hope that by midday, Baekhyun would grow tired of copying Tao.
He doesn’t.
Joonmyun and Yixing head back upstairs after fixing the kids’ late lunches. The boys enjoy their turkey breast sandwiches and cherry tomatoes after hours of playing various activities around Chanyeol’s spacious house.
“Chanyeol-ah! What are we going to play next?” Tao questions excitedly.
“Chanyeol-ah! What are we going to play next??” Baekhyun repeats.
Tao turns to glare at him, his anger beginning to overpower his hurt.
“Baekhyun-ah, c’mon, let’s try to play nice,” Kyungsoo sighs. He begins to grow tired of Baekhyun’s shenanigans and his target’s reactions.
Baekhyun giggles and raises his hands in mock defeat, and then continues to finish his turkey breast sandwich.
“Well first of all, that’s Chanyeol-hyung to you, and I’m not sure. Does anyone have any suggestions?”
The lunch table grows silent before Jongdae gains enough courage to blurt out his desired gameplay.
“Can we do another fairy tale adventure??” he pleads.
“Hyung, you still like fairy tales?” the youngest cackles.
“Yeah, I do! You got a problem??”
Sehun shakes his head, and continues to grin at his hyung.
Chinguline is well aware of Jongdae’s fascination with fairy tales, and they always humor their friend to make him happy.
“Okay, let’s play that next then,” Kyungsoo announces.
Little fists pump into the air and cheers sound around the table as the boys quickly devour the rest of their lunches.
After rounds of rock, paper, scissors, Tao was declared the role of the hero with Baekhyun as his sidekick. Kyungsoo was assigned to the evil overlord role with Jongdae and Chanyeol as his minions. Little Sehun was to act as the guiding fairy to Tao and Baekhyun on their journey.
Their fairy tale gameplay was reaching its climax where Tao subdues the evil overlord and saves the world.
“I hereby banish you from this world!!” Tao proclaims as he points his sword to Kyungsoo who lies defeated on the ground. “Take this defeat and leave my kingdom forever! And never return!!”
“Leave my kingdom forever!” Baekhyun repeats as he mimics Tao’s action with his own toy sword.
Tao breaks character once again, putting down his sword and turning to glare at Baekhyun.
“Sogogi! This is my time to shine! Why are you still doing this to me? You’re even my sidekick!!” Tao whines.
“Sorry, Tao-yah. I just can’t help myself,” Baekhyun giggles. “Your accent is so fun to make fun of!”
Tao chucks his sword, and trudges away upstairs.
“I don’t want to play anymore…” he grumbles.
The atmosphere becomes awkward, and chinguline all turn to look at each other, wondering what to do with the situation. A conclusion isn’t met before Sehun sprints upstairs in haste to check up on his best friend.
“Should I go apologize…?” Baekhyun mutters quietly. The hyperactive seven-year-old has the decency to look ashamed.
“Baekhyun-ah, maybe you really should stop making fun of him,” Jongdae answers. “Plus, I don’t think Joonmyun-hyung will be very happy if he finds out.”
---
Tao and Sehun sit together in the back of Yixing’s car on their way home from Chanyeol’s house. Only the sound of Yixing’s light humming is heard in the car while the two kids look outside their respective car windows.
“Zitao, are you feeling better?” the babysitter asks in Chinese.
“Yes, I am. Thank you for asking, Yixing-ge,” Tao answers back in Chinese with a small smile.
Sehun turns his head to Tao and squints his eyes at him before turning his head back to the window with a swift turn. His best friend’s reaction doesn’t go unnoticed by him, and Tao attempts to relieve Sehun.
“What’s wrong Sehunnie?” Tao asks.
“Why are you talking to Yixing-hyung about today, but not me?” Sehun replies with a pout.
“It’s not that Sehunnie, Yixing-hyung was just making sure that I’m okay. And I am now!”
“Are you sure?...Baekhyun-hyung was being a little mean today…”
“Uh-huh, I’m okay! Besides, sogogi-hyung apologized to me. That means he won’t make fun of my accent anymore!”
“Tao-yah, Baekhyun-hyung never said that...he only said sorry.”
“Oh...well, as long as he doesn’t make fun of me tomorrow then I’ll be fine!”
If only Byun Baekhyun knew.
---
The next day, chinguline begins their day off with more fairy tale playtime. They decide to create the setting of a kingdom that has the pinnacle of its magical power rooted into a special relic. The friends play rock, paper, scissors again to assign roles.
“But I don’t want to be the guardian!” Kyungsoo protests.
“Too bad! You lost!” Baekhyun throws back as he sticks out his tongue at him.
“Think about it this way, Kyungsoo-yah,” Jongdae begins. “Without the triforce, our kingdom would lose its balance of power. And if it falls into the wrong hands, then our kingdom would fall into darkness and be doomed forever!”
“Yeah!! You have a really important role, Kyungsoo-yah!” Chanyeol brightly adds on. “You have to try to stop me from stealing the triforce!”
“Fine then, I’ll be the guardian…” Kyungsoo mumbles as he takes the large pyramid-shaped block (complete with the label: THE TRIFORCE on it) with him upstairs to find a suitable setting to keep it protected.
“All right! Chanyeol-ah, you’re the bad guy! And me and Baekhyunnie will try to go after you once you steal the triforce,” Jongdae informs.
“Man, we haven’t even started yet but Kyungsoo is already doing badly at his role,” Baekhyun mentions.
“But the triforce has to be stolen! Or else this game won’t be any fun! We need some danger and adventure up in here!” Jongdae proclaims.
Those last words ring in their heads as the children begin their fairy tale play time. Danger. Adventure.
Yixing arrives with Tao and Sehun in tow in the middle of the boys’ playtime, resulting in the older boys rejecting their requests to join the game.
“You guys can go play something else together while we play this!”
“But-but I want to play too…” Tao mumbles.
“C’mon, Tao-yah, let’s just go do something else,” Sehun consoles as he grabs the sad boy’s hand and drags him to the playroom.
The two boys play with action figures inside the room while their hyungs actually play out the roles themselves around the house. Judging from their man-made sound effects and heroic cries, the hyungs seem to be having fun. Tao suddenly throws his action figure down and turns to Sehun.
“This isn’t fair!” the boy complains. “We should be able to play with them too! I’m going to go ask again!”
He stomps off to where the older kids are with Sehun following closely behind.
“You think you can take over our kingdom on our watch? Well think again!” Jongdae declares.
Chanyeol snickers at him and Baekhyun.
“And you think you two can stop me? Don’t make me laugh!”
He charges at the other two boys with his magical staff until Tao runs into the middle of their battlefield, halting their gameplay.
“What is it ,Tao-yah? We’re kinda in the middle of something here,” Chanyeol grumbles to him.
“Me and Sehun want to play too!!”
“But guys, we already assigned the roles and started playing before you two got here…” Jongdae replies. “We’re already in character and everything.”
Tao begins to fidget with anger.
“But we want to play!!” he shouts.
“But we want to play!” Baekhyun mocks.
And that was the last straw for Tao. Unforeseen gusts of wind knock the three chinguline friends off of their feet, and the lights in the room begin to flicker.
“Wha-what’s going on?” Baekhyun says with fear in his voice, uncharacteristic of him.
The three boys look at Tao and watch him visibly shake with his head cast down.
“I SAID WE WANT TO PLAY!” he roars before the room starts shaking. “If you guys won’t let us play, then fine! I’ll make room for us. And we’re gonna play this game my way,” he finishes off with a different tone of voice.
Sehun cackles before summoning more gusts of wind to knock the boys over again.
“See if you guys can save your triforce and your kingdom!” Tao taunts as he and Sehun disappear in the blink of an eye, leaving behind a puff of smoke.
The room stops shaking and the lights stop flickering. The boys slowly get up, groaning and rubbing their heads. Once they get their senses back, the barrage of questions flow out.
“What the heck is going on?!?” Baekhyun exclaims.
“What just even happened??” Chanyeol adds.
“Am I dreaming right now??” Jongdae questions.
His grip on the wooden sword replica in his hand tightens, and he lightly stabs Baekhyun with it.
“Ouch!”
Nope, guess he is not dreaming.
“You’re supposed to pinch yourself, not another person!” Baekhyun complains as he rubs his hip.
The room grows silent as the boys begin to fully process the situation.
“So...Tao and Sehunnie really did disappear? The room really was shaking? That wasn’t just my eyes?” Chanyeol asks aloud.
The other two slowly nod, confirming his questions.
“What did Tao say right before him and Sehun disappeared? Something about the triforce?” Baekhyun ponders.
Jongdae’s mind rewinds the events of the last few minutes. Triforce…Save…
“Oh no!” he thought.
“KYUNGSOO!” they all shout simultaneously.
The boys dash upstairs and swing open the door of the room where Kyungsoo guarded the triforce. They collectively gasp at the sight that greets them. Furniture is overturn everywhere, and Kyungsoo is nowhere in sight.
“He took Kyungsoo too!” Chanyeol barks.
“What kind of children does Yixing-hyung babysit??” Baekhyun exclaims.
Jongdae stays quiet as he slowly surveys the room with his eyes. He couldn’t believe what was happening. He loves fairy tales and daydreams about them all the time, but magic and secret powers can’t actually exist in real life...right? He suddenly remembers something that fairy tales often say in his book, and unwanted shivers run down his back.
Things are not always what they seem…
→ PART 2