Chapter Text
⠀⠀babysitting is the temporary care of a child or other being by someone who is not their own parent or guardian. child care was not an easy job and is definitely not a job just anyone could have. most babysitters start pretty young with their own siblings whether it was volunteered or forced by their parents. others start when they are in high school with the children of their parents' friends or kids in their neighborhood who had busy parents. babysitters did not often start their careers in the midst of their often busy and crazy college lives but for some, it was the only job they could get. that some consisted of a guy named dong sicheng.
⠀⠀dong sicheng was entering his third year in college as an honors student at his school. while honors had gotten him some well needed extra money for his tuition, sicheng needed to start thinking of the big picture. he was not going to be in college forever and it would be nice if he had an amount of money saved up for when he finally graduated. although he wanted this, with the cost of lunch most days, taking the bus when he needed to go out, helping his mother with various house payments, and with the costly price of hanging out with his friends, it was getting quite hard to save the little money he had.
⠀⠀sicheng had applied to many jobs before this point but everyone he was competing with was far more experienced and much more open than he was. this left sicheng to do a few odd jobs here and there, he remembered their once being a guy who paid him just to watch him clean, that was the last time he ever did something like that. now, with his future creeping up on him, sicheng was starting to get desperate.
⠀⠀babysitting was the last thing sicheng thought he would do for a job, but as a struggling college student, he was beginning to think anything was worth trying once. sicheng did not think he was necessarily cut out for babysitting either. he was not assertive or much of a leader, not that babysitters had to be either of those things, but sicheng just could not see himself doing well as a babysitter, no matter how much he thought about it.
⠀⠀well, at least not until his mother introduced him to a friend of her friend who needed someone to watch her twin sons for a more than reasonable salary. the kind mother admitted that everyone in the house was extremely busy and she needed someone to be home when her children were out of school for the afternoon. she explained that the boys were both eleven and fairly well behaved, all sicheng would need to do is make sure they did their homework, feed them when necessary, and put them to bed if she could not come home at the usual time. as someone who had never babysat anyone before in his life, sicheng was nervous to take on such a big job but couldn’t possibly say no.
⠀⠀that was one of sicheng many pitfalls, he had a hard time saying no to people older than him even when every fiber in his body was against the decision. the mother asking seemed very sad about having to ask him to do this, there was not a thing he could say besides yes and agree to the entire ordeal.
⠀⠀sicheng had been incredibly nervous about the job he had agreed too. his mother attempted to ease his mind by saying that childcare was only hard in the earlier years of life, the boys were at a good age so it wouldn’t be too hard on him. this did not ease him in the slightest but it did cause him to do as much research on babysitting as humanly possible. he had a week to prepare himself for every possible situation, become an expert babysitter, and process the fact that he would be in charge of two children for multiple hours very soon.
⠀⠀as the week rolled by, sicheng realized very quickly that this might not have been the best job for him, he could barely take care of himself, let alone two children who would be almost entirely dependant on him. when he asked his mom how bad it would be if he backed out but with only one day before he was supposed to start, she could only pat him on the head and say good luck.
⠀⠀that was how sicheng became the babysitter of eleven year old twins, qian kai and qian wei. the first day he met them was a little awkward but after two months of getting to know them, the three had become very comfortable with each other. sicheng learned a lot about kids in the time he had watched the twins and had come to find that kids these days were much different than when he was younger.
⠀⠀kai and wei were just as well behaved as their mother had described them but sicheng soon became conscious to the fact that while the twins were well behaved, they also liked testing his patience. it was almost like some days, before the boys entered the house, they mutually agreed that they would be particularly defiant and just not work with sicheng at all and other days they would agree to be perfect angels. he was forced to adapt to the twins many moods and behaviors, finding different ways to deal with what was happening around him in relation to the twins.
⠀⠀sicheng would come to their house every monday, wednesday, and friday afternoon to make sure the boys did what they needed to before their mother would return later that night. some nights, sicheng would put the boys to bed himself while other nights their mother would come home in time to do it herself. regardless, after the boys were in bed, sicheng would report the events of the night to their mother and she would pay him for his time. sicheng really enjoyed talking to the twins mother because she always had something kind and encouraging to say, even on the days when the twins were rough, talking to their mother seemed to wash his exhaustion away.
⠀⠀finally, after an often long afternoon of watching kai and wei, sicheng would make the short walk back to his own house which was only a few streets away. there were some times when his mother would pick him up but he enjoyed walking as it was a nice break from the complications of life around him, he could lose himself in those walks. it was also good exercise as sicheng was not one to go to the gym every other day like some of his more athletic friends, babysitting was the most exercise he ever had.
⠀⠀all in all, babysitting was not nearly as crazy as sicheng thought it would be, two months passed with little to no problems, besides the sudden bouts of misbehavior, and it seemed to just be smooth sailing from there.
⠀⠀but nothing had prepared sicheng for all of that to change one fateful friday afternoon.