Chapter Text
At age twelve, jihyo saw her granny pull out a book from the inside of a flower engraved box for the very first time. She recognised it as the case that would be pushed all the way back to a corner under the guest bed, the same one her toys would sometimes end up lost next to when she was younger. Curiosity always got the best of her, but the one time she retrieved her dinosaur and noticed how the pretty box was buried under a thick layer of dust, she thought that maybe there was a reason it was left into such solitude and was smart enough to not ask questions.
At least, until granny called out for her in a slow voice one day and pulled the child to sit close to her on the sofa. Jihyo remembers looking up confused, only to see her all-smiley grandma hold an expression she couldn’t understand very well. But, no matter how much jihyo didn’t know, she could tell there was heartache and despair behind those teary eyes. Jihyo could tell. She felt like that, some times.
It turned out to be a photo album, one of a baby. A cute one. Granny explained how the baby always had the reddest and biggest cheeks. How she would love to hold them and tease the little girl as she grew older. Jihyo just listened attentively because that’s what she thought her grandma wanted. At some point she found herself enjoying the stories behind every picture and she would ask a question or two, making granny laugh.
By the time the baby grew into a twenty-year-old, jihyo had found it easy to tell who the woman was. It wasn’t her grandma who told her, nor the name tag the girl wore over her work clothes in the last picture. It was the familiar eye shape, the small nose, the mole by her eyebrow. The resemblance made jihyo feel like she was staring at a mirror from the future. But nothing. Nothing. Nothing about seeing this woman made her feel special to the child. Nothing moved within her. There was no sense of longing or hope or love. This woman was a stranger to her, and nothing would change the feeling.
Now, as she stared at the same picture ten years later, there was still nothing. Dry. Her feeling remained the same over the years and she couldn’t be more grateful. This was something she would carry to the grave and even when she learned to completely let go, the scars would never let her.
Jihyo was older now, wiser, had more responsibilities; there was no time for crying or resenting people from the past. That’s just how the world works, some people are fortunate enough to live a good life, others not so much. At times it can go so well and in a blink everything around you crumbles like it was nothing. She’s experienced this countless times and knows it’ll continue happening because she’s learned to accept the way life likes to be.
With all these experiences at hand, however, there has only ever been one thing she found soul sucking above any other troubles she’s had to go through, with nothing exceeding the literal blood, sweat and tears she’s poured into it.
‘’unnieeeee’’ jihyo felt herself reacting to that in a panic before she could even open her eyes.
‘’sshhh sana! It’s almost midnight, the neighbours will get scary again if you shout like that!’’ three years have passed, and yet this was the first time she realised the true dangers of choco milk before bedtime.
‘’but again you fall asleep, unnie’’ in a pout, sana’s eyes stared back at jihyo’s with so much life it had her wondering if the night would ever finish. Would her baby sister ever sleep again? Because she could never forgive herself if she caused sana some form of insomnia—
‘’it’s ‘you fell’ not ‘you fall’, kiddo’’ jihyo sighed, rearranging herself on the chair she had slowly curled into as she started falling asleep, picking up the book she dropped on the floor along with her.
‘’I didn’t fell’’ sana blinked a few times, looking at her sister blink back with heavy eyes.
‘’right. No, you didn’t, okay’’ jihyo sighed once more as she reached over for the pack of wipes, only to find the lid open and all the tissues inside dry. Not again…— So, she opted to lick her thumb, as much as sana didn’t like it, and wiped away at the dry trail of boogers under the child’s nose.
‘’unnie… stop’’
‘’just a second’’
‘’don’t like thisss’’
‘’if I stop, will you finally sleep?’’ she stopped at sana’s request but still held her thumb in warning.
‘’nopi’’ the child smiled wide with zero recognition of the damage her behaviour was causing jihyo’s soul.
‘’sana, please…’’ she could only beg at this point.
‘’I don’t wanna!’’ in two seconds the first grader had rolled to the far side of the bed, burrito style, and held the blankets over her mouth to try hide from her older sister ‘’no nO NO SLEEPY!’’
‘’but I’M sleepy— ‘’ with a groan, jihyo held back from losing it so the five-year-old wouldn’t lose it even more. She rather chose to open the storybook again and put on one of her best smiles “fine!’’
Hopefully by the time she got to the two frogs kissing, sana would be out cold and jihyo could still manage to squeeze in 6 hours of beauty sleep before dropping off the youngest park to school.
~
‘’sana, unnie is very tired…’’ an hour later, jihyo was still getting persistently shaken awake every ten minutes by a very upset sana. The older girl wondered how sana’s forehead didn’t hurt from the frowns she held between her eyebrows ‘’tell you what, I’m going to go wash my face and get some water for the two of us, okay?’’ jihyo caught the small smile sana showed at the mention of water but just as quickly put back her grumpy face to not lose her point.
so persistent at five years old, she could be a politician… ew, nah, scratch that.
By the time jihyo got back to the room yawning, she could see her sister had relatively calmed down as she had her eyes closed and her tim bear clenched close to her chest. Jihyo knew she wasn’t asleep and was right because when sana heard the chair squeak she immediately opened her eyes and sat up to reach out for her lighting mcqueen bottle.
something’s off.
‘’is that refreshing, honey?’’ jihyo waited until she drank enough to close the bottle for her and put it on the bedside table. Sana only nodded and hugged the bear closer without meeting eyes, instead, looking out at the distance.
probably just the sugar finally running off.
But still, the lack of response got jihyo on alert and she couldn’t help worrying.
‘’what’s up?’’ she reached over to give sana’s plump cheek a gentle pinch.
‘’unnie…’’ sana visibly shrunk into herself, like she was trying to hide from the world and that itself got jihyo’s heart pumping at overlimit ‘’is sana a bad kiddo?’’ there it was, what she feared the most. In her twenty-two years of life, jihyo, like any other human being had learned to dread a bunch of things; from forgetting her umbrella on a rainy day to people judging her life. But there was one thing, one huge thing that could claw at her soul and tear her heart apart: her baby sister doubting herself. That’s what she was, a baby. So why in the world was sana feeling this way? Where was she being fed such insecurities? because if it was that new dodgy student teacher, jihyo would surely have to rip some—
‘’oh no baby, of course not!’’ thoughts aside, jihyo had priorities she needed to attend to before making any plans of destruction ‘’why do you think that?’’ putting everything in her hold down, she moved from the chair and into her side of the bed with arms wide open to invite sana for cuddles. Of course, the clingy five-year-old (and the only reason why they had an untouched, fully furnished, child sized room in the apartment that still smelled of new and a king-sized bed in the room next door that smelled of johnson baby and child drool) instantly shook off the bed sheets and jumped into her sister’s warm embrace, still firmly holding tim bear by the tongue.
‘’timmy too…’’ sana mumbled, like she had to remind herself of what she had to do. She adjusted her seat on jihyo’s lap to put the bear between them and manually closed her sister’s arms around them, with just the right pressure she liked. Jihyo felt all tension and previous worries leave the child as she saw her physically melt into the hug and was glad she still had that effect on her.
After a few minutes of not saying anything, jihyo suspected sana had forgotten she was even asked anything. Any other day she would’ve been happy to just drop the topic, but she felt this wouldn’t be the first time, and it was getting quite worrying for her.
‘’hey sana’’ jihyo whispered softly in case the child had fallen asleep, but in a second, sana had her head turned and her full attention on jihyo ‘’why did you think that?’’ sana blinked looking at her sister in the eyes ‘’about you being bad?’’ and in the next second jihyo could see wheels turn in the child’s head. When sana’s eyes landed on her again after thinking it over, she found a distinct frown along with them.
‘’unnie is sleepy, but sana wanna finish the princess story’’ jihyo frowned in complete disagreement.
‘’awe, but darling. You could never be a bad kiddo to me’’ she shifted sana in her arms to face each other so she could make sure she was looking and listening to her ‘’it’s true that unnie reaaally wants to sleep, and that you should have been having sweet dreams, like, five hours ago, but that is ultimately my fault and I should have known better’’ jihyo held sana’s smaller hand and started to rub circles with her thumb ‘’but do you know why I say you are not a bad kiddo?’’ sana takes the chance to shake her head and almost slam herself forward into her sister for another hug. Jihyo laughs fondly and swaps to rub circles over sana’s back ‘’because you are park sana, you are park jihyo’s baby sister, the joy and pride of my life’’ at that, sana firmly pushes herself back, surprising jihyo.
‘’I’m no baby, I’m five’’ she holds up five confident fingers to support her point but jihyo sees her slowly count them a few times to double check and she can barely contain in the giggles.
‘’you are to me, kiddo’’ jihyo gives her forehead a sweet kiss because she can’t resist the affection taking over her ‘’every day you make me laugh with your silly dances and your silly faces. I can’t imagine waking up without your smile quite literally above my face, and just that alone makes me so happy that I can have you in my life’’ jihyo doesn’t even know if sana is understanding her words, but she hopes she can at least feel her love. Although, she soon realises that sana had slowly gotten lost in the conversation with her head falling forward to rest over jihyo’s shoulder ‘’did you even hear me…’’ the brunette chuckles softly and just cradles sana closer.
‘’sana… is happy… too…’’ she lets out mumble after mumble trying to fight the urge to sleep as her eyes force themselves shut.
‘’and I’m glad you are, baby’’ jihyo rocks them side by side while embracing the silence she had been needing this whole time. It would’ve been so easy to just sleep like that, but jihyo had slightly more she wanted to say, for the sake of her baby sister ‘’you know, it’s okay if you are a little stubborn, or selfish, because you are still learning. When you hurt someone, you apologise and never do it again, that’s how you grow. Being bad means not learning from your mistakes’’ sana suddenly looked up with all the strength she had left to say one more thing.
‘’ ‘m sorry unnie…’’
‘’apology accepted kiddo’’ jihyo smiles and gives sana one last forehead kiss before setting her down in bed, laying down beside her and covering them both with the blankets.
‘’luv you unnie…’’ she cracks up another smile when she hears that. Carefully, she turns on her side to find sana long gone and already smacking her lips together.
‘’love you too, kiddo’’
****
‘’sana, saNA, SANA !!!’’ in the morning, jihyo was zooming across the house trying to manage her way around the consequences of sleeping in ‘’where’s your uniform?’’ she picked her up by the arms and sat her on the desk to get her dressed for the day.
‘’unnie…?’’ still half asleep and hugging her tim bear tight, sana rubbed her eyes trying to comprehend what her sister was saying to her.
‘’sana, your uniform. Remember we promised you would start helping unnie more, so we stop running late in the morning?’’
‘’alright honey, this means that when you get back from school you have to change your clothes, fold your jumper and skirt if they are still clean, and then throw the socks and your shirt with the dirty clothes and get new ones from this drawer. Then place your uniform somewhere you will remember in the morning, okay?’’
‘’yes, unnie!’’ ‘
’did you even understand what I just said?’’
‘ ’ummm… yes!’’ Trust a five-year-old to remember what you told them, they said. They understand more than you think, they said.
‘’do you remember now?’’ jihyo insisted further, but this only made sana nervous and confused, and the only thing she could do was shake her head feeling intimidated.
‘’don’t know unnie…’’
‘’…’’
‘’that DAMNED choco milk!’’