A.N: Thank you very much for your continuous support and love for 'What Should I Do' and 'What Should We Do?'.
Special thanks to Cari-Bum for the trigger of idea for this story.
Disclaimer:
I do not own all these BOF characters, but the children.
Chapter 1: The So Family
"I want to sit next to Omma," Jae Hwa said while pushing Dae-Hyun out of his chair next to Omma's. Before her brother could do anything, she quickly sat on it.
"Noona! I want to sit next to Omma. Please Noona. Noona can sit with Hyung over there." Dae-Hwan cried. He stomped his feet and pulled his sister's arms.
"But I don't want to sit next to Oppa." Jae Hwa refused, not budging from her seat. Dae-Hwan kept pulling her arms.
"Who wants to sit next to you?" Dae-Hyun replied, poking Jae-Hwa's shoulder with his finger. "I'd rather sit next to a mannequin."
"Omma! Oppa poked me!" she complained. Dae-Hyun quickly ran to Appa's side.
"Appa, Baby wants to sit on Appa's lap," said Dae-Jung, already 8 years old but still addressed himself as Baby when talking to his parents. He was leaning against Appa's thighs while looking at Appa, hopeful.
"Abbedada mammammam nanaa" Jae Eun cheered. The nine months old baby girl who was on Omma's laps then grabbed Jae Hwa's long silky hair. Jae Hwa's flower headband nearly fell from her head. Jae Eun wanted to eat her sister's hair.
"Owwww Jae Eun. Omma! Appa!" cried Jae Hwa, trying to release Jae Eun's grip of her hair. When she succeeded, Jae Eun tried again.
It was noisy. It was chaotic, every single year.
The So members were having their yearly family photo session in the So Mansion's huge hall.
It was the family's tradition, Ga Eul's idea. After the family photo, it would be children only. Next, each of the children will have his and her pictures taken individually, and lastly Ga Eul and Yi Jeong together. They had a stack of these family albums neatly arranged in their mini library, not including their numerous vacation albums and others.
Jun Pyo used to tease Yi Jeong for being old fashioned for still having the papered pictures and physical albums. "It's the new millennium, if you haven't realized Yi Jeong. There are these things called digital camera and digital world," as Jun Pyo would say. Yi Jeong would roll his eyes and ignore the leader of Shinhwa's comments.
Hey, if you have a wife who is a photo freak, Jan Di's term, not his, then of course you'll have all these albums. She's a sentimental and as traditional as she could get. But he still loved his wife, papered photo freak or not. If Ga Eul did not choose child education as her degree, Yi Jeong strongly believed that she would have been a great photographer, telling the whole wide world the stories and secrets of the magnificent nature surrounding them.
The photographer whom Yi Jeong hired for the day just stood there behind the camera stand, scratching his non-itchy head. His assistant had his jaw agape. Both were amazed at the sight in front of them.
Three handsome young boys plus two pretty cute girls equaled havoc.
The photographer and his assistant could only imagine how it would be like to be in this particular household day in and day out. They had only high respects and admiration for the children's parents.
"Children!" Appa had finally spoken. His voice sounded firm.
Dae-Hyun, great and honor, is 13 years old. Jae Hwa, respect and beauty, 10 years old. Dae-Jung, great and righteous, is 8 years old. Dae-Hwan, great and brilliant, 5 years old, and lastly, so far, little baby Jae Eun, talent and kindness, 9 months old.
After Dae-Hwan was born, Ga Eul's Omma advised her that she might want to stop at four to focus on her children and also her health. Ga Eul was grateful that Omma was only thinking of her family's and her well being, but she said that if they were meant to have more than four, then she will accept it with an open heart and try her very best to be a good mother.
Plus, Yi Jeong was more than happy to have lots of children. Both Ga Eul and Yi Jeong had had this discussion before. He told her that since there were only him and Il Hyun, his childhood was kind of lonely, what more with the whole fiasco of his family way back when. Only when he had met the F3 his life became better. He liked to be surrounded by people. They made him forgot the loneliness that awaited him at home. Therefore he wanted his children to not experience what he had gone through.
Furthermore, Jae Hwa had started to whine that she had too many brothers. "I don't have any sister to back me up in our fights, Omma." Fights meant wrestling sessions, consistent competitions about everything and loud banters among the siblings. "Three versus one is very unfair, don't you think so Omma?" as she further complained. "Omma, Appa, at least let me have another sister, please?"
Ga Eul and Yi Jeong would laugh hearing her reasons. "Why do you always fight with your brothers Darling?" Yi Jeong would ask and her answer would always be "Because I love them," baffling both husband and wife. They never understood it, but were very glad that she loved her brothers very much even though her way of showing it was a little bit abnormal.
After Ga Eul had first confirmed on her fifth pregnancy and told everyone of the good news, every day Jae Hwa would pick a flower from their beautiful garden or asked one of the house staff to buy her a flower. She would then give it to her Omma. Jae Hwa insisted that Ga Eul kept the flower next to her bed and took a sniff of the flower before she went to sleep. Ga Eul was surprised at the odd request, but Jae Hwa said that she felt that if she gave Omma a flower and Omma sniffed it every day, then the baby would be a girl. Yi Jeong laughed out loud when Ga Eul first showed him the flower and told him its story when they were getting ready to retire for the night. Still, both parents were deeply touched by their daughter's sweet gestures.
The parents held a family meeting with regards to the new baby to come. They carefully explained that Omma and Appa did not have the power to set the gender of the baby, much to their only daughter's frustration. Her face was glum throughout the whole meeting. The parents told them to continue with their prayers to have a healthy baby and to love the baby, regardless of the gender.
So every night Jae Hwa prayed for a baby sister. 8 months later, her prayers were answered and Jae Hwa declared that she was the happiest girl on the whole planet Earth.
Now, Omma watched Appa took control of the situation. It was Appa's turn. Omma had had her turn at breakfast earlier that morning.
The children went quiet, but Dae-Hyun managed to jab another poke at Jae Hwa. She glared at him, with a pout on her pretty face. She can't wait for Jae Eun to get older and be on her team.
"Children, please behave. We have visitors." Appa gestured his hand to the visitors in front of them. The photographer and his assistant smiled and waved their hands to the children. The children bowed to them, smiled and waved back, still quiet.
Yi Jeong apologized to the two men, asked for some moments and turned to the children.
"Appa think that you children forgot about what we have discussed this morning," he said and then continued, "Can someone please tell Appa what it was?" looking at each of his children's faces.
Dae-Hyun tilted his head and looked up to the grand chandelier above. Jae Hwa drummed her slim fingers on her thighs and Dae-Jung pressed his index finger onto his temple. Dae-Hwan simply looked at his Hyungs and Noona alternately. Jae Eun patted her Omma's cheeks happily with her cute chubby small hands and giggled. Everybody was thinking hard of what was discussed earlier. Well, except for Jae Eun.
"Appa," Dae-Jung was the first to raise his right hand, always the polite one.
"Yes, Baby," Yi Jeong nodded to his third born.
"Emm… we discussed about the seating arrangement, Appa." was his answer.
And that triggered another round of verbal fights among the four So children as to whom got to tell Appa and Omma about what they remembered from before.
"Children! Visitors! Behave! Please!" Yi Jeong ordered. He massaged his temple. Ga Eul let out a small laugh.
She rubbed her husband's shoulder gently and kissed him on the cheek. She would usually kiss him on the lips to calm him down but their visitors were still there and she was still shy in initiating public displays of affection (PDA). She then kissed Jae Eun on her forehead, passed the baby to Yi Jeong and took over the command, again. Only Omma could control the little monsters.
Ga Eul stood up from her seat.
"So Dae-Hyun, So Jae Hwa, So Dae-Jung and So Dae-Hwan," she called. Not loud at all, just her normal loving omma's voice. The children immediately stopped fighting. When Omma called out their full names, Omma meant business, serious business, really serious business.
"Thank you for your attention. Alright then, should we start with Dae-Hyun? Then Darling, Baby and lastly Hwannie?" Omma suggested. The children nodded in agreement. Their visitors still watching them, still feeling amazed.
"Omma and Appa will sit in the middle," Dae-Hyun began.
"Hwannie gets to sit next to Omma," Jae-Hwa continued, sulking a bit. A big smile plastered on Dae-Hwan's cute face. He was another mini Yi Jeong, including his eyes.
"Baby can sit next to Appa, yeaayyy!" Dae-Jung clapped his hands, happy. Even though he could not sit on his Appa's laps, at least he would still be close to Appa. Dae-Jung was a little too attached to Appa.
"Hwannie, sweetheart? It's your turn now," Ga Eul called her fourth born softly. He was looking at the photographer's equipments. This little one had shown interests in photography like her, even if he was only 5 years old.
"Sorry Omma. Umm… What was it? Ah yes, Noona and Hyung will stand behind Omma and Appa," he finally said.
Dae-Hyun and Jae Hwa gave each other a stern look. After all these years, Jae Hwa still constantly disturbed Dae-Hyun, and now, he disturbed her as well, much to her annoyance.
"Dae-Hyun, Darling, please?" Omma pleaded. "Next year we'll change the seating arrangement so that it'll be fair to all, OK?" Both elder children sighed heavily and agreed to refrain themselves from 'killing' each other.
"Thank you. Omma loves all of you. You are all good children." Her praise was awarded with hugs and kisses on her cheeks from the four young Sos.
"Now, can we have this photo session started? Ahjussis have waited for so long for us," gesturing to Mr. Photographer and his assistant. "It's not nice to keep others waiting when we have promised to start earlier. We don't like it too if other people do it to us right?" Ga Eul further asked.
The children shook their heads. They turned to their visitors and bowed to them again. "We're sorry Ahjussi." The two nodded their head. A smile etched on each face. The children then took their places, ready for the shoot.
Yi Jeong had lost count of the times throughout his parenthood life that he was proud of his wonderful gorgeous wife. More lessons were sent today.
What should they do when they made a promise? Respect other's precious time, be punctual and stay true to one's promise.
Yi Jeong could not help but pulled his wife towards him with his free hand and kissed her deeply.
"Saranghae Jagiya," he whispered. "Thank you."
Ga Eul blushed red. The children had big grins on their faces.
Mr. Photographer and his assistant turned their heads away, shy at the sudden PDA by the former Casanova. They had heard of So Yi Jeong's great love for his family and wife. And here they were in the So Mansion witnessing what people had been fussing and awing about, up close and personal. They considered themselves lucky for this once in a lifetime chance.