Chapter Text
Taeyong have always been told that he was living a very boring life, even his best friend always encouraged him to get out and have some fun, but Taeyong wasn’t really one for getting out and he always insists that just because he didn’t get out much, didn’t mean he wasn’t having fun, it’s true though, it’s just that people refused to accept that. Too Taeyong, fun was baking cookies with his younger brother, even when Jisung was much better at making a mess of their ingredients, fun was snuggling on the couch with his thirteen year old brother while they watch a movie, fun was hanging out with his brother and his best friend; that was fun for Taeyong and he was content with that. Taeyong’s life could basically be summed up with three words school, chores, and Jisung, those are what Taeyong lived for, it’s simple and it’s just the way he liked it. That unfortunately all changed when his parents passed away.
Taeyong’s parents were always more like that crazy aunt and uncle who would appear every so often then immediately disappear after a short while; so their death, while saddening wasn’t as heartbreaking as it should have been for the brothers. Taeyong’s worries geared towards the issue of guardianship; as a minor, Taeyong can’t legally take over his brother’s guardianship, even if he has been raising Jisung since childhood. To make matters worse, Taeyong didn’t know any of his parent’s relatives, besides the short anecdotes about his paternal grandfather; none of his parents had ever mentioned any relatives that Taeyong could approach. Taeyong worried that he and Jisung might get separated and put into the system, so he scoured his parents stuff, trying to find anything that could give him some information on his parent’s relatives; needless to say, Taeyong didn’t find anything.
The next day, when Taeyong was just about ready for another breakdown, a phone call came from a man who had introduced himself as Jung Jaehyun, their grandfather’s secretary. The man had informed Taeyong that he wouldn’t have to worry about funeral arrangements as his grandfather’s people was already handling it, he also assured Taeyong that he and Jisung wouldn’t have to worry about a thing as their grandfather would support them, everything had been going fine until the man dropped the bomb and told Taeyong that their grandfather has requested that they move back to Korea. Taeyong had felt his breathe coming faster and abruptly asked the secretary to call again at a latter time, after Taeyong has hopefully thought about it.
Taeyong brought it up when Johnny had brought over take out for all three of them and they were all sat on the floor, their meal on the coffee table and some random movie on the screen. Johnny looked sad after hearing the news but was obviously doing his best to be supportive, mostly just asking how Taeyong truly felt and encouraging him to really think about what he wanted for their little family of two. Jisung had also been no help at all, just saying that he would follow whatever Taeyong would decide on. That’s how three weeks later, Taeyong found himself and Jisung on a nearly thirteen hour flight to Seoul, South Korea; Johnny had dropped them off at the airport and Taeyong nearly cried after noticing the tears in his brother’s eyes after saying goodbye’s, Johnny’s parents always joked that Jisung was more Taeyong and Johnny’s child than he was their parent’s. Johnny had made Jisung swear that would always keep in touch and threatened them both that he would just pop up on their doorstep if they failed to keep him up to date.
The flight to South Korea was an experience in itself, as the last time Taeyong had ridden an aircraft was when they left South Korea with his parents, and now he was going back with his little brother. Jisung had gotten bored early in the flight, and Taeyong can hear the music his youngest brother was blasting even when the fifteen year old was using his earphones; Taeyong started fidgeting with his hands when the announcement for their descent came, noticing his brother hadn’t heard, he poked Jisung and pointed out the sign when he finally got the younger boy’s attention. He smiled when he saw his brother carefully stow away everything and straighten his sit before putting his belt on; the second announcement, reminding passengers to stay sited and to keep their belts on while the plane was on it’s landing maneuver, had Taeyong fidgeting with his hands again in nervousness and soon a large hand had pulled away one of his own and held in gently. He looked at his younger brother and almost cooed at the little smile on his face. Soon enough they had disembarked the plane, got through immigration, got their baggages then customs.
Mister Jung had told Taeyong that he himself would be waiting for them at the airport but Taeyong hadn’t really known what to expect when he’d thought of his Grandfather’s secretary, maybe an older man with graying to white hair? That’s definitely not what he got though, as a tall, dimpled, young man was holding up a sign that had both his and his brother’s name on it. Taeyong gently squeezed his brothers hand and pulled him towards the secretary…
“Ex- excuse me sir, are you Mr. Jung?” He flushed as he stumbled over his Korean words, he had spoken the language so rarely that he should really just be thankful he can still converse with it. The man looked at them and Taeyong had felt like those sharp eyes scanned his entire being in those few seconds.
“Young master Taeyong, young master Jisung, it is my pleasure to welcome you back to Korea. It is unfortunate that your grandfather cannot meet you, but I will do my utmost best to make this transition as easy as it could be for you.” The man did a legitimate bow, which had Taeyong internally freaking out; he had a vague picture in his mind when his father had mentioned that their family was rich, this wasn’t really how he pictured it.
“There’s no need for all that sir, I’m just Jisung and that’s Taeyong-ie hyung.” Jisung told the secretary, and smiled despite stumbling over the honorifics.
“I understand young master, not if you would follow me, I will have you settled into your new home.” Taeyong, finally snapping out of it, grabbed his luggage and followed the man. Outside they were led to a luxury car and another man had taken their baggage from them while Jaehyun opened the door for them; sat in the car, Taeyong once again started fidgeting with his hands as he nervously looked around, Jisung immediately grabbed one of his hands and started drawing imaginary circles on it. Soon enough Jaehyun and the driver slid inside the car and they were on their way.
“Welcome back young masters, Forgive me for forgetting to introduce myself, I am Kim Jungwoo, I will be in charge of taking you, wherever you choose to go.” The driver introduced himself politely; Taeyong and Jisung introduced themselves to the man, all the while Taeyong is wondering just what kind of family his father had. Jisung distracted him from his thoughts by tugging on the hand he still held and pointing out the scenery they were passing by, the busy streets of Seoul have been replaced by a quiet and serene scenery of high-walled houses; soon the car pulled into an open gate and Jisung and Taeyong finally caught sight of their new home.
Taeyong could feel Jisung’s hand squeezing his own as they both looked at the house- no, mansion dumbfounded; they both couldn’t quite believe that their grandfather, whom they have never met was giving them so much. The double doors opened and Taeyong gulped when he saw an entourage of uniformed house help welcome them.
“Taeyong, Jisung, this are the staff who will be looking after you. This is Doyoung, he is the head butler, and this is Joohyun, the head house-maid.” Taeyong bowed a few times and introduced himself, Jisung also introduced himself but with much less… enthusiasm?
Later, Jaehyun bid the brothers farewell after explaining some more stuff and told them he would probably see them around, afterwards the brothers settled into their new rooms. Taeyong sat on his bed uncomfortably while a maid who had introduced herself as Seulgi, transferred his stuff to the wardrobe, Taeyong had tried to tell her that he can do it but the woman had insisted that it’s her job to take care of them. Taeyong was also uncomfortably aware that every single person he has met that was in his grandfather’s employ so far had looked quite unreal, he wondered if his grandfather hired based on the looks…
Jisung pulled out his phone as soon as he got into the room and kindly asked the maid who was taking care of his stuff for the Wi-Fi password. Connected, he immediately called the only other family he has known beyond his brother, to his delight Johnny had picked up his phone on the second ring…
“Johnny! We’ve arrived safely!”He chirped, switching back to the language he was still most comfortable with. He noticed that the man looked disheveled and then checked at the time on his watch, snickering when he realised that he must’ve woken the older boy up.
“Hey brat, so how was the flight? Have you guys settled in?”Jisung excitedly told Johnny everything, from the flight, the man who had welcomed them from the airport, the drivers, maids and the huge house. Johnny smiled as he watched the enthusiastic boy, tell his tale.
“…you won’t believe it Johnny, every one I’ve seen so far has been drop dead gorgeous- like movie star, magazine cover- gorgeous!”Johnny wrinkled his nose at the term drop dead and wondered just how accurate Jisung was being.
“Really, more gorgeous than Tae and I? That hurts Sung, you’ve only been there a few hours and I feel like you’ve already replaced me…”He showed the young boy a pathetic looking pout, which made the thirteen year old giggle.
“Of course not! No one can replace you Johnny!” Johnny’s heart warmed at that little statement. He and Taeyong, with some help from his parents had raised Jisung, and seeing the boy so grown up, was making his heart soar.
“That’s good to hear buddy, where’s your troublesome brother who hadn’t even thought to give little old me a message to tell me you’ve arrived?” Jisung’s eyes sparkled with mischief and Johnny knew he wouldn’t like what the young boy was going to say.
“Oh, I’m sure he’s very busy in his mind right now; as I’ve said everybody we’ve met so far has been gorgeous, you should’ve seen Tae blushing and tripping over his words while he talked to our granddad’s princely secretary, you might just have some competition John~”Johnny shook his head and grinned at the teasing tone; Jisung is often times quite the quiet child, he was only ever so hyper when he was talking to people he really cared about and even then, only when he was overly excited about anything, as such he always saw things that sometimes he shouldn’t see, like the huge crush Johnny has on his best friend, per se.
“Brat, just let me talk to your brother!” Jisung laughed and told the maid- Sooyoung, that he was going to his brother’s room and she just smiled at him.
“Tae, I’ve got a sulky puppy, who wants to talk to you~”Jisung barged into his brother’s new room with a smile, which immediately put a smile on Taeyong’s face.
“Hey! Is that anyway to talk to your father?”Johnny asked, mock sternly; Taeyong perked up after hearing his best friend’s voice.
“Would that make Tae my mother then?”Taeyong hit his brother upside the head gently and grabbed the phone.
“Go explore my room or something, demon child. Hey Johnny, sorry I didn’t message you, my head’s been a mess since our arrival.” Taeyong smiled, noticing that his best friend was still in bed and had clearly just woken up.
“Oh don’t worry Tae, Sung has told me all about it, even the princely secretary who made you trip over your words- his word’s not mine~”Taeyong rolled his eyes and told himself to hit his brother a little harsher next time.
“Stuff it puppy, so how have things been since we left?” Taeyong plopped down onto the bed and leaned back onto the headboard, not noticing the longing in Johnny’s eyes.
“You’ve literally been gone, like half a day Tae. Mom and Dad regret not being able to go to the airport with us though; last night she asked me what I was doing home for dinner, before realizing that you guys had left, I swear I saw tears in the corner of her eyes!” Taeyong looked at his exasperated best friend fondly; The Seo’s had been the only parent figures in Taeyong’s life, with his parent’s consistently away, and they had always treated the brothers like they were their own children.
“Awww… tell them I miss them already?”
“And what about me? What about your very awesome best friend, you don’t miss me?”Johnny pulled out his best, wounded puppy pout.
“Of course I miss you, idiot. I’m so nervous Johnny, we hadn’t even met our grandfather yet, and he’s giving us so much already. Secretary Jung said that he is going to be enrolling us in some well known school, and I’m just so nervous; what if they think we’re weird, I mean we still stumble over our Korean, what if Jisung has a hard time, you know how it was there when he advanced grades, what if-”
“And what if they totally fall in love with the two of you, like the people at our school fell in love with you two. I never told you but I’d had to deflect so many people who were going after you at school, they thought you were living a boring life, but they still knew you were hot.”Taeyong blushed at his best friend’s words; he was just about to rebuff the statement when Jisung jumped onto the space in front of him with a huge pout.
“How come you have a balcony? That is so unfair! I want a balcony too~”He whined and then just fell onto his brother, making the older boy giggle.
“Oh thank god, you don’t have a balcony. Tae, you better watch our son like a hawk while I’m not there. He’s got my good looks; we wouldn’t want any girl or boy cozying up to him. Remember baby, if anyone tries anything at that new school of yours, you kick them right between the legs, girl or boy, they’ll both go down.”Jisung looked at him in confusion but nodded anyway.
“You really shouldn’t be teaching him violence, but I agree, if anyone messes with you, take them down, we’ve thought you enough; and how the hell did he get your so-called good looks? If anything Sung takes after me!”
“Oh hell no, have you seen the kids hands and feet, he’s gonna be a giant, I can tell, he can’t get that from you, tiny!” Taeyong gasped dramatically, his free hand, clutching at his chest; Jisung giggled at his parental figures’ silliness. The three of them kept talking and soon Doyoung was knocking on Taeyong’s door and calling them down for dinner.
“We’ll talk to you later John, you should prepare for school soon anyway.”Johnny nodded and told the brother’s he’d see theme again soon.
“Please follow me, we don’t know your preferences, so I believe that they have gone a bit overboard with the meal.” Doyoung told the brothers as he led through the long hallways.
“Oh, it’s alright, I’m not picky with food and Jisung is a growing teenager who eats anything.” Taeyong gave the man a smile; another thing that Taeyong was finding weird, other than their good looks, was how he couldn’t quite figure out the staff’s ages, They didn’t look older than him but at the same time there was something about the way they held themselves that made him believe that they were much older than they looked.
“That is good to know, young master, I shall inform the maids.” Taeyong nodded, hoping they wouldn’t be that much of a bother to the house help. Doyoung led them to a beautiful and intimate looking dining room, he also mentioned that it was the family dining room, not to be confused with the main dining room which was where they used received guests for dinner parties.
“Oh wow, this looks great! By the way Mr. Doyoung sir, can you just call me Jisung or Sung? I mean, if I’m going to be living here, I’d rather if we weren’t so formal.” Jisung looked at the butler with a pleading pout; Doyoung looked quite uncomfortable and conflicted, so Taeyong was about to interfere.
“All right Jisung-ah, you may call me hyung then, would you like me to inform the others?” Jisung nodded happily.
“Uhmm… Can you also just call me Taeyong too? The young master is kind of… yeah.” Doyoung nodded, and the brothers finally began their meal. They were about half way through their meal when another gorgeous man barged into the room aggressively.
“Yah! Kim Doyoung!” Taeyong froze up, his fork halfway to his mouth, while Jisung dropped his cutleries in surprise. Taeyong noticed that there was another man following the shorter, aggressive man, he noticed Taeyong looking at him and gave the teenager an apologetic smile.
“You really shouldn’t barge into people’s homes like this Ten, what is it that you need anyway?” Doyoung sounded resigned, and not much like the polite butler the brothers have been hearing.
“Where the hell is your boss? He hasn’t been answering my calls and my messages have been going unread, so tell me where the hell he is.” Both Doyoung and the gentle looking man behind the short blue haired man sighed.
“The man just lost his son Ten, give him a break.” Doyoung said, sounding as exasperated as he looked.
“So what, I’m supposed to just leave him alone? And who the hell are these kids?” He asked, still sounding as agitated as he was, when he barged into the dining room. Wary, Taeyong moved to stand up in front Jisung’s chair; he didn’t think the man would really attack him, but just as a precaution.
“I’m Lee Taeyong, this is my brother Jisung, I’m sorry I didn’t catch your name…” The blue haired man’s eyes narrowed, switching from scrutinizing Taeyong to Jisung.
“So these are his brats, I didn-”
“Chittaphon,” Taeyong almost sighed in relief when he saw secretary Jung at the doorway, Joohyun was also there, although the kind smile that she had when they were first introduced had been replaced with a frosty expression as she glared at Ten.
“You know how much I hate being called that Jaehyun, so you called him?” He turned to look at the guy who had arrived with him.
“Unlike you, I don’t have a thing for punishment. I’m really sorry about this, I’m Sicheng by the way, you can just call me Winwin or Hyung.” Distracted by the man who had stepped closer, to introduce himself, neither Taeyong nor Jisung noticed Jaehyun dragging Ten away.
“It’s fine, I guess… Why doesn’t your friend like us?” Jisung asked; the thirteen year old, already had his fair share of being disliked for things he had no control off in the past, he really would rather avoid it if he could.
“It’s not you… He just, he’d not a fan of how your dad left his father.” Taeyong nodded in understanding; while he didn’t understand how Ten was related to his grandfather, he could see where the man could be coming from.
“Well, it’s not like he stayed with us either, you know? Taeyongie-hyung and Johnny-hyung practically raised me.” Winwin nodded, promising that he would tell his friend. Unbeknownst to the brothers, Ten had heard the whole conversation and was already feeling guilty.
“What do you have to say for yourself? Does Kun even know what you’re doing? I swear the man needs to put a leash on you!” Jaehyun hissed; were Ten any other person, he would’ve flinched at the severe tone.
“This wouldn’t have happened if your god-damn leader, wouldn’t shut people out when he’d feeling fragile!” Jaehyun raked his fingers through his hair.
“He needs space Ten, he has just lost his son and judging by how the boys have been acting, he never told the boys about us, which means he can’t even reveal himself to them.” Ten had to suppress a growl; Ten had never liked the man that Taeil’s son grew up to be- no, he hated the man that the sweet child had grown up to be.
“Fine, fine, just tell him to talk to me okay? I don’t want a repeat of what happened back then.” Jaehyun nodded, Ten gave him a nod of his own before going back into the dining room to retrieve his friend.
“You’re done?” Winwin asked, sited on the table and casually dining with the kids who were looking at Ten like he was a time bomb, about to explode.
“Yes, do excuse my temper children, it doesn’t have anything to with you.” He drawled and popped onto the chair beside the youngest, noticing how the teenager stiffened,
“I, o-okay. How’d you get back so fast Secretary Jung?” Taeyong diverted his attention towards the other man.
“I hadn’t gotten far when I received Winwin’s call. I forgot to ask you earlier, but do you have formal clothes for the funeral?” Taeyong looked down at his plate and shook his head; he felt horrible about how blasé he is acting about his parent’s death.
“I see; no worries, I’ll take care of it.” Doyoung said as he served both Ten and Jaehyun meals of there own. Over dinner, Jaehyun had told the siblings more about the new school they were being sent to, and if he was focusing more on Taeyong, no mentioned it.
That night, when Taeyong was already in bed and ready to sleep, Jisung came into his room with pillow in tow, asking if he could sleep with his brother. Taeyong didn’t need convincing and immediately scooted over, patting the bed to invite his brother.
“We’ll be fine, right?” Jisung asked, all cuddled up into his brother with his face buried into the Eighteen Year Old’s chest.
“We’ll be fine.” Taeyong promised, brushing his fingers through his baby brother’s hair; in his mind, he repeated those words, We’ll be fine.