“you’d be surprised,” indy says. the chances of a child falling in the toilet on his watch are far higher than he’d care to admit. it’s not just anxiety, but a history of evidence of his bad luck, clumsiness and general irresponsible aura despite his best efforts. maybe, this time, they could’ve avoided catastrophe, but he really just feels better having yuseong do this, though it would be kinda funny if she fell in the toilet with yuseong watching out for her.
no, he doesn’t want to jinx it. there will be no falling in the toilet today.
yuseong ruffles his hair, and indy laughs. “you really do act like an older brother,” he comments. he might act even more like an older brother than indy’s brother himself does, at least in the responsibility department. indy would never want a brother other than harb, but he and harb can both be…a little slow, known to make questionable decisions from time to time, even with the best intentions. yuseong, however, has an unquestionable aura of knowing what he’s doing.
“yeah! you got it,” indy replies with a nod. cleaning-up-lego duty it is. he just grins as yuseong pats his head, too. maybe others would see it as condescending, or get insecure about their height (considering how short indy is…) but he knows it’s done in fondness, so he doesn’t mind it at all.
he watches as yuseong and the girl nyoom away, then drops to the ground, collecting legos and putting them back in the container at the speed of light. he thinks it would be nice if he could clean them all up before yuseong gets back. it shouldn’t be a difficult task; yuseong likely already did the brunt of the work.
sure enough, he finishes before the pair return, and he looks around for anything else to busy himself with. he doesn’t want to get caught up with one of the other kids yet, because he wants to make sure he’s available to thank yuseong again and tell the girl she did a good job. maybe that’s a weird thing to say, but kids need positive reinforcement, right?
they return before indy really finds anything to do, and he beams at them. neither of them look any worse for wear. “she didn’t fall in the toilet?” indy jokes, then looks down to her, holding out a hand for her to high five. “good job!”
he can't help but laugh a little bit at indy's comment just before he departs with the child that has suddenly become his responsbility, finding it amusing that indy would comment how much he acts like an older brother, because, of course, yuseong is the youngest child of his family. but like he always thinks, if he's a good older brother, it should be attributed to the fact that his sister had taught him well. that she had set a good example that he had inevitably learned from.
it doesn't take him too long to help the girl with everything, the more awkward part simply being that he's male and shepherding a girl into the bathroom, but the fact of the matter is that they just have too many males in their group. he's sure it hadn't been intentional, but it certainly does make for a slightly awkward situation when it comes to this particular issue.
before he knows it, though, they're heading back to indy, and yuseong holds her hand, having made sure that she had washed them. children often have a strange understanding of what's clean and what's not, and not wanting to take any chances, he'd made sure that she had done so. honestly, children are adorable, but they're also disgusting. if only he had the immune system they seem to have.
"let's go back and play with the nice oppa, okay?" he asks her, and she nods excitedly, obviously now very ready to get back to playing without the call of nature distracting her from having fun. when they re-enter the room, he smiles at indy, waving at the younger trainee, the girl copying his motions, and he laughs in response to indy's playful question. "not today," he says with an amused smile, the little girl eagerly meeting indy's hand with her own small one, even if she's not quite sure she's being told good job and given a high five, it seems to put her in a good mood.
"want to play in the kitchen," she demands of them both, seizing indy's hand as well without letting go of yuseong's, and he looks helplessly at the blond-haired trainee.
"kitchen time it is," he says with a rueful smile.
