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It starts off a month in advance.
Had it not been because of the weird occurrences following that day, Erwa wouldn’t have made the correlation between them. However, if there was one thing he could be good at, it was sniffing out even the tiniest change in his sibling’s behavior. Like the time Wu-di was suspiciously quiet during dinner, and tensed up when Liu-di brought up his report card. That had led to him finding out about Wu-di’s less-than-ideal grades. Or, that time San-di was oddly insistent on him not using the coffee machine. It was very quickly deduced that it was because the coffee machine was broken.
Admittedly, it wasn’t like his brothers weren’t trying to hide it from him. Erwa was sleeping, curled up on the couch under the patch of sunlight that seemed into through the window blinds. It was a weekend, so pretty much everyone was home, except the twins, who’d gone out for some food.
He wakes up only because the sun that he’d previously been sleeping under had moved, and he’d been cold. He was only slightly conscious, enough so he could shift towards where the sun had moved to. When he settles back down, eyes closed, that’s when his keen ears pick up on the slight murmur in the other room. He ignores it at first, ready to drift back off into sleep, but in that little pocket of time he was awake, the words only streamed in.
It was San-di’s voice, hissing about something Erwa had not yet deciphered. He was whispering, but that wasn’t the unusual part. His brothers always tried to keep quiet when he wanted to sleep, knowing his ears would pretty much catch anything.
“— make a joke out of everything! What if he doesn’t like it?”
It was Liu-di’s voice that cut in, indignant, “He likes oranges! Who doesn’t? And he’s, you know, orange too — so it matches!”
“You don’t know for sure! What if it turns out he actually wants a different flavor? Like — strawberries! He likes strawberries too.”
“But it’s so perfect! Search up some orange cakes, ge —“
“We gotta make sure first! We need to ask him!”
The conversation was beginning to drift away from him, as he fell deeper into sleep. He’d been too tired to really care about listening to the rest of the conversation, and before he knew it, he’d been dead asleep. Although, it wasn’t very hard to figure out what they were talking about, especially with Liu-di’s statement about being orange.
Erwa was quite certain the each of them fit into color classifiers, being who they were and, well, everything. And it was clear they were arguing about the flavor of something, most likely for him. He’s also certain he caught a bit at the end where they were planning on asking him what flavor he liked specifically — or at least, San-di was preparing for that. He should expect the two of them to go through lengths of suspicious behavior in order to “prevent” him from “finding out”. Erwa had only smiled. He’ll give them the benefit of ignorance; pretend he truly never knew.
It starts off small, like that.
Erwa accompanies his Da-ge to the supermarket in the morning, after they’ve sent the two youngest to school and made sure the twins had their lunches packed. It’s crisp and cold out, the sky a bleak gray. Da-ge threw a maroon colored scarf over his shoulders and patted him down. “San-di, we’re going!” He calls at the still-sleeping lump that was their younger brother. San-di made a muffled groaning noise before lazily shooting them a thumbs up.
Erwa shook his head at Da-ge in exasperation, which earned him a little ruffle to his head. He follows his brother to the front door to slip on his shoes. There’s a string of sound from outside, and it’s only made clearer when Da-ge opens the door. There were certain times, like this one, where he wasn’t sure if the sounds around him were really this loud, or if it was only him. There’s a couple fighting somewhere around them, not yet yelling but with raised voices nonetheless.
The stairs are stony and has collected rust along the railings. Wu-di had advised them, countless times now, to avoid touching them unless they really had to (as if any of them had trouble going up or down a few stairs) lest they fancied collecting germs. And it was a little funny with Si-di stared him dead in the eye and swiped a hand over the orange rust. Da-ge then had to run outside as fast as he could because Wu-di had splashed Si-di with a jet of water and Si-di sent a plume of fire against the wall and Qi-di had gotten a mysterious nosebleed all of a sudden.
Erwa touches down onto the cracked stone beneath his feet and adjusts the scarf that had fallen slightly from the trip downstairs. He brings it up tighter around his mouth, cheeks cold and mouth dry. Da-ge was dressed warmly as well, a light gray coat over a hoodie. His own dark red scarf was tied securely around his face.
“What do you want to have for lunch today?” Da-ge asks, looking up from his phone. Erwa catches sight of his screen opened up to the messaging app before it’s promptly shut off.
“I don’t know. I’m fine with whatever,” Erwa replies simply, licking his lips to try and provide some moisture to the dryness. He should really start drinking more water. Wu-di does his fair share of nagging pretty much everyone to have some water any time he could, but since Erwa had been spending more time at university, he’d gotten used to skipping out on it.
“At least give me something,” Da-ge whined playfully. “Beef? Pork? Vegetarian? Rice or noodles?”
“I really don’t know.”
“Fish? Tofu? How about some peas? We haven’t had those in a while.”
Erwa stares his brother dead in the eye and says, “Takeout.”
The responding gasp of offense sends the two of them cackling, arms wound against each other. The sun is covered up behind grey clouds, but at least it wasn’t the kind that promised rain. Such dullness was only emphasized by the quietness of the streets, the lack of other people. There were, of course, still some students rushing to get to class either on bikes or by foot, or the occasional auntie hiking across the streets to get her errands done. But it was much unlike the sunny days, where every inch of the ground was taken up by another set of human feet.
Erwa checks up on his siblings real quick, just to make sure they were in class. And like good little children, they were. Qi-di was taking out his textbook from his worn-down backpack (Erwa makes a mental note to check if they have enough money to buy a new one soon), Liu-di was chatting with a boy in his class, and Si-di and Wu-di were playing footsie under their desks. However relieving it was that they made it to class on time, it seemed only Qi-di was interested in getting a proper education.
He spends the rest of the time talking with Da-ge about any expeditions at university. Da-ge never fails to try and draw out as many stories from him as possible, even boring little ones. He wanted to know everything there was to know, perhaps to make it seem like Erwa wasn’t as far away as he was. And to be frank — he really wasn’t that far away. Their tight money situation made it hard for them to be able to afford luxury colleges (despite Da-ge’s insistence that Erwa would’ve made it in Tsinghua, no sweat), and so the closest one was only about an hour away by train.
He talks about the broken printer, the loud dorm mates, the missing papers, the cat someone snuck into a lecture, the soggy and weirdly textured cafeteria food, the cheap boba shop nearby. He talks about all of these and Da-ge listens with a nodding head and attentive eyes. Erwa also wishes he wasn’t as far away as he seemed to be.
“What do we have to buy?” Erwa asks once they hear the shop. There’s immediately a swarm of voices and scuffles coming from inside the building, one he’s too accustomed to. Someone’s arguing about the price going up for some fish, someone else is asking for a discount on potatoes, and there’s a child somewhere whining about wanting to go home. They’re all a tangle of sharp, acidic blemished noises that filter into his ears like a stream of water.
Da-ge gives him a list of items, mostly ingredients for the week. “Let’s get the things outside first,” he suggests, nodding his head at the row of market stalls right outside. This was where most of the produce would be sold, while the shops inside carried its meats and diary. Erwa nodded, and quickly the two began to rifle through each vendor and stall, ticking off each grocery item.
It’s a slow, loud, and terribly mundane task, but Erwa likes it best. To know that he could be doing this instead — brushing past shoulders, listening in to the sharp arguments, hands growing sandy with the weight of the bags — when a million years ago he couldn’t have dreamed of such luxury. And Erwa only needed to look to the side and see Da-ge’s face next to him.
They pass by a fruit market, and Da-ge stops. He picks up an orange, still green around the stem. “Didi, do you want some of these?”
“Hm? That’s not on the list,” Erwa says. They’d already gotten some apples, and a group of bananas, which pretty much counted for their fruits of the week until they go shopping again.
Da-ge, however, doesn’t budge. “If you want,” he says, “we can get some.” He holds the orange in front of Erwa’s face, as if trying to tantalize him. Erwa remains impassive, because it’s not too unusual for Da-ge to offer to buy anyone a treat when he sees it. At least to some degree. “Do you like oranges?”
“They’re alright,” Erwa says, hoping his voice wasn’t as cautious as he thought it was. If Da-ge continued to press on this matter, he would have reason to be suspicious.
Instead of doing so, Da-ge decided fuck-all and put down the orange, and ask, “What about something else, then? Strawberries? Or uhhh… chocolate? You like chocolates, right?”
Erwa narrows his eyes. He sees the exact moment Da-ge seemed to catch himself. His body freezes, minuscule, and throws an arm around Erwa with a laugh. “Never mind! Da-ge was just curious! Is it so wrong for me to want to know my favorite didi’s preferences?”
“Preferences,” Erwa repeats dryly, smushed under Da-ge’s arm. The fact that he’d actually used a bit of force in his panic proved this was more than him trying to know Erwa’s favorite foods. “I’m not your favorite didi. You have no favorite.”
“Right! Haha, right! You’re all my favorite!” If it was possible, Erwa was sure he could hear the sweat in Da-ge’s voice. “How about I get you some — uh, some dessert, to make up for it! What would you like? Any…any flavor you fancy?”
Oh. Ohhhh. Erwa gets it now. He’s only a little bit surprised San-di and Liu-di managed to get their oldest brother in on this as well. But it was improbable for Da-ge to refuse requests from his younger brothers. Erwa pacified his suspicious demeanor and put on his neutral face again. Best to spare Da-ge the heartbreak and pretend he never knew of this little plan of his. “Orange is fine,” he says, “let’s get some.”
It was worth it, because Da-ge absolutely lights up. Erwa was suddenly very glad they had never gone on any kind of infiltration mission, because surely Da-ge’s golden heart would have shined through. Any of his intentions would bleed through eventually. It’s one of the good things about Da-ge, who wears his heart on his sleeve. Erwa will protect that heart with his damn life.
They buy some oranges.
Qi-di is the one that makes it all click.
Obviously, their littlest didi doesn’t know this. And obviously, he went along with his day thinking that Erwa had not a clue what they were planning. In fact, he probably left that interaction thinking he was much more discreet and sly than he actually was.
It would have been adorable, had it not been for the circumstances. Unfortunately, it only left Erwa wallowing in despair, and he’s too focused on said despair to even care. He thinks this might be the biggest prank the universe pulled on him. He thinks he was the biggest laughing stock in the world. He thinks everything is terrible and life is misery and nothing is worth it in the end.
Qi-di creeps into his room, where Erwa was lounging around. He flicks his eyes up when his baby brother opened the door, shuffled in, then closed the door behind him with a click. A determined expression on his face, Qi-di marched over to his bed, a piece of printer paper in one hand. In the other was his Doraemon mechanical pencil they bought for him last year. Erwa sits up straight, putting his phone down.
“What’s this, then?” Erwa asks as Qi-di dumps the two supplies onto his lap. It must be really important if Qi-di was willing to let someone else use his prized pencil.
Qi-di clambers onto the bed with him and tucks his legs behind him, leaning forward with fiery eyes. “Er-ge needs to write all his life’s wishes onto this paper.”
…Of course, why didn’t this silly Er-ge think of that!
Erwa clears his through behind a fist, then picks up the pencil. Crossing his legs to provide a surface for the paper, he asks, “And what is Qi-di planning on doing with my life’s wishes?” He has no idea what his life’s wishes include. How does one think of this on the spot?
“Nothing,” Qi-di claims confidently. “I will do nothing with it.”
“Really?” Erwa raised an eyebrow and watched his baby brother’s unwavering face suddenly, well, waver. Aww, how cute. Maybe this was for a project at school? “You wouldn’t lie, would you?”
“No!” Qi-di blurts in a panic. His eyes are wide, and his eyes shoot up as if in surrender. Erwa has to hold back an amused chuckle. “I-I mean, I would never lie! That’s bad!” Qi-di hesitated for a second, hands falling limply at his knees. “Um…I just wanted to get…Er-ge a present…”
Erwa pauses his movements — not that he’d really written anything yet. He looks up. “A present?”
“Because…because Er-ge is the best! And I think everyone else will also want to get Er-ge a present, too! So, um, it’s also best if Er-ge writes at least six options… or ten just to be safe.”
Presents…
… Oh.
Erwa stifles down the urge to glance over at the calendar hanging on their wall. It’s a little less than a month, only about three and a half weeks. But once that time was over, it would be February. And the biggest day in that month would be Erwa’s own birthday.
…His brothers were cruel. They were so, so very cruel. What kind of face did they think he would make when they threw this surprise party? A face of actual, genuine surprise? They thought they could hide this from him. Out of the goodness of their hearts and their big, overflowing love, and incredible cruelty, they were tiptoeing around him to throw a birthday party for him.
And Erwa had just ruined the surprise.
This is worst form of bullying. This is straight up assault. I swear to my-fucking-self. My beloved siblings are bullying me.
How could they put him through this torture?
How could they be so naive as to think he wouldn’t find out as soon as they started their plans?
Erwa keeps his eyes trained on Qi-di and doesn’t let even a pinch of skin twitch. He will not — will not — ruin this for them. He will not be the reason their eyes lose their sparkle and their shoulders deflate and their mouths to say. He will not be the reason someone awkwardly says, “Well it was worth a try” and for another to laugh deprecatingly. He will not be the reason they apologize for not having a good enough party for him. He will not let them know.
Erwa will help them throw the best fucking birthday for him ever.
“I have such wonderful brothers,” Erwa says instead, keeping his voice light and oblivious. He’s unable to miss the way Qi-di relaxes, relief evident. “I can’t believe you would all buy me a present. Without any special occasion!”
“O-of course!” Qi-di says, rubbing the back of his neck. “It’s a good thing Er-ge is home for break, otherwise…”
“Mm,” Erwa hums simply, turning back down to his papers before Qi-di incriminated himself. Now he knew the reason why. His birthday was usually just a few days after his break had ended, so he was never able to spend it with his brothers since starting university. This year, it just so happened to land on the date two days before break ended. It’s no wonder they wanted to throw him a birthday party, on such a rare occasion.
Qi-di helps him come up with some ideas for gifts he wanted. Erwa doesn’t have many things he wanted, and when he told Qi-di he’d much rather just have his brothers all safe and happy, his little brother puffed up his cheeks and said, “That’s boring. Er-ge, I’ll help you!” Erwa ends up writing down a couple of books, some new school supplies, a journal, gloves, and a new coat.
Qi-di suggests Play-doh and Legos.
Erwa writes it down.
Si-di is even less subtle. Erwa catches him bringing a piñata inside the house.
The two for them freeze. Erwa is mid-coffee sip. Since Da-ge was at work today, he could drink as much of the stuff as he wanted and get rid of all evidence before getting caught. San-di had taken the two younger brothers to the park, a rare occurrence (aka, Liu-di and Qi-di had bugged Erwa to take them, and he forced San-di to do it instead because it was way too damn cold (and San-di needed to get out the apartment more often)).
Si-di looked quite comical, his body frozen up tight as a board, hunched over like he was in a sneaking position. As if Erwa hadn’t heard the damn door open. They stared at each other, and Erwa slowly brought the cup of coffee down from his lips.
The silence is broken by the door jingling open once again, and Wu-di bursts through. “Hurry up, we have to —“ very much like his twin, Wu-di freezes in a similar manner. There’s a fucking bat in his hand. Erwa looks slowly between Si-di and Wu-di, merely taking in the sight.
“I can explain,” Wu-di says after a beat. He swings his hands up in an arc, trying to appear innocent, but he seemed to forget about the bat in his hand. The bat smacks the back of Si-di’s head.
“OW!” Si-di cries out, stumbling and proceeding to drop both piñata and bag of candy that was supposed to go in it. He turns around, readying to lunge at his brother, when there was a loud smack! as the candy bag falls to the floor and shattered.
Sharp droplets sounded through the ear as the candy bag exploded, one piece flying in every direction. Erwa finally manages to let out a surprised noise as he watched it fucking rain candy. They bounce on the floor a few times before rolling away, an affair that goes on for maybe a whole minute. The silver clanging was like mini fireworks, sharp. Erwa winced.
Finally, it falls quiet.
Si-di has his hands bunched up in Wu-di’s shirt, just a second away from punching him. Wu-di holds the bat between them in a defensive motion. They’re both staring down at the pile of candy on the floor, breathing almost nonexistent. They look up at Erwa.
“Um,” Si-di says intelligently.
Erwa worries his bottom lip between his teeth, lamenting about how he was supposed to save this. Eventually, he coughed lightly. “What’s all this?”
“A…a school project!” Wu-di exclaims, fingers clutching around the bat so hard his fingers turned white. “Me and Si-ge have a presentation about…about the benefits — uh, the risks! The health risks of…of candy…eating.”
Internally, Erwa is breathing in very long breaths. Internally, he is holding his head in his hands. Internally, he is lighting a candle for his sanity. Externally, he only nods and says, “Be careful, then. Let me help you clean it up.”
They spend the next ten minutes picking up every last bit of candy they could find. Si-di and Wu-di are very consistently silent. Erwa wonders how the hell he is going to get through another two week of this.
The apartment gets dirty very easily, as is expected when you live with six other brothers with magical powers and no sense of self-control. Between the normal mess that came with boys, there was also the added destruction of two physically overpowered rock-heads, two elemental bickering kids, and one particular brother who had a mischievous streak and too convenient powers that allowed for him to preform pranks. The only one who did not contribute to Erwa’s headache was Qi-di, because of course it is.
The younger kids are all at school today, where they will spread their chaos to elsewhere instead of in their barely-standing home. Erwa is sweeping the floor and brushing dust away, almost to an obsessive degree. Having too much — and frankly inhuman — sight pointed him in the direction of all dirt. And that meant he had to get every last one of it, otherwise his brain will start itching and everything just feels wrong.
Everyone also had a habit of dumping their discarded clothes everywhere. Erwa couldn’t count the amount of times he had to put down the broom just to pick up a dirty sock or sweaty hoodie. Eventually, by the time his arms were full, he huffs and gives up on sweeping. Might as well make sure the coast was clear before trying to clear up the tinier messes.
He picks up clothes like they’re video game collectibles. If he pretended hard enough, he could even imagine a little musical chime each time he located another bit of dirty laundry. Erwa shook his head and made his way to his shared room with his two brothers, opening it slightly to a peek.
“San-di,” he whispered, grabbing his younger brother’s attention. He luckily wasn’t in the middle of an active game, so he turned around and met his eyes. The set up told him, at least, that his brother was in the middle of a stream. “Have you got any dirty laundry you didn’t put in the hamper?”
“Uhhh…” San-di squinted and looked around the room. “I think I have some socks under the bed.” He looks back at his computer and makes a disgruntled noise. “No, he doesn’t have to — well — Er-ge, do you want to say hi?”
Erwa shuffles over to the desk and leans over the chair, peering at the screens. There’s a steady flow of viewers chatting, and he catches many of them asking for a close-up on him specifically. He never really entered the room when San-di was streaming, and his face was typically out of the frame of his videos if he ever stumbled in on one. He didn’t really care about hiding his identity, though. “Hello,” he says simply, leaning down slightly. The chat begins to grow crazy. “Ew, don’t call me that.”
Erwa’s arms are full of dirty clothes, so he can’t really pat San-di on the shoulder like intended. He tries his best to just knock his elbow against him, wincing when he accidentally swings too hard. San-di, at least, doesn’t feel the pain of the contact. “Do try to keep your dirty clothes inside the laundry hamper, didi,” he calls as he walked over to the bed, squatting down and using his eyes to locate the socks.
“It was like four AM, and I was super tired!” San-di complains.
Erwa furrowed his eyebrows when he sees a big, brown box pressed against the wall under the bed. There’s the two aforementioned socks, obviously, but the box catches his eye. Does he dare? He knows this isn’t their boxed of cursed artifacts, and San-di wouldn’t be so stupid as to keep actual dangerous things under his own bed. As a good older brother, shouldn’t he make sure his didi wasn’t harboring something unpleasant?
Mind made up, Erwa uses his powers to peer inside the box.
…It’s a bunch of paper.
No, on further examination, it’s actually a bunch of colorful paper. A lot of orange, actually. There’s also strips of plastic, tissue paper packs, streamers, and…. oh.
Goddamnit.
“ER-GE!” comes a sudden screech in his ear, and Erwa jumps. He flips his head around and sees San-di crouching beside him, face beaded with sweat. His voice was shaky. “HEY! Hi! Oh, um, you…you don’t have to worry about what’s…under…there…let me get those socks for you! Ahaha, silly me, letting my weakly brother do all this work when he should be resting!”
Erwa is lightly nudged to the side as San-di dove under the bed frame and fished up those socks. He then very conveniently places himself in a way that blocked the box from Erwa’s view. As though he forgot Erwa could literally see through him if he wanted to. “Let me grab those for you, ge!” San-di sings in another state of panic, then yanks the rest of the clothes out of Erwa’s arms.
This was even more cruel. Erwa wants to lay on the floor and start crying from stress. “Whatever’s in there, I didn’t look,” he says, a complete lie. San-di just smiles wildly and grabs his arm, practically yanking him up to his feet. He needs to redirect the topic somehow. “There’s a lot of dust under there. San-di, you need to be more sanitary —“
“HAHAHA! Of course! Yes, yes, I will! Anything my Er-ge says!” San-di slings a hand over his shoulder and begins guiding him out the door. “Is there anything Er-ge needs? Are you cleaning! Let me help! Let’s just stay out of the room okay?”
“San-di, wait —“ Erwa, compared to his oldest didi, is very weak. He cannot break out of San-di’s iron grip hold on him. “You’re streaming —“
“My ge is more important, of course!”
“San-di, go back to work —“
“Who needs work, haha!”
Erwa squirms around and tries to kick his brother in the leg to get him to stop. When that doesn’t work, obviously, Erwa kicks him square in the ass. San-di squeaks and stumbles, effectively releasing Erwa from his hold. He gives Erwa a betrayed, wide-eyed look, rubbing the sore spot.
Erwa makes him give back the clothes and head back inside. San-di walks away like a kicked puppy (he kind of was kicked, wasn’t he?), invisible tail tucked between his legs and ears drooping. Once the door was closed, Erwa leaned against it.
Silently, he screamed.
On the day of his actual birthday, his brothers are a jittery, frantic mess.
Erwa wakes up as usual, and all of his brothers are awake before him. That, already, is a massive sign of them having something up their sleeves. He has to take a moment to breathe in to himself, hands tucked around his mouth. Alright. He can do this. He just needs to act a bit more nonchalant and oblivious for a while longer. Just until the party started, and he can pull off his surprised face, and he never has to worry about this again.
Everything better go right, or he will redo this party for his brothers if it’s the last thing he does.
Erwa gets dressed, brushes his teeth, mentally prepares himself, and walks out of the room. There’s nothing out of the ordinary yet, but he’s sure this is merely the calm before the storm. He walks into the kitchen, face blank and nonchalant once more. Everyone was gathered around.
“Good morning,” he greets first, and watches everyone echo it back. There’s a very obvious tick to their expressions — a little clench in San-di’s jaw, the slight furrow in Wu-di’s eyebrows, Liu-di’s fluttering hands. It’s all so apparent, and none of them think he’s able to see it. He won’t say anything.
Nobody else mentions the date, either. Da-ge makes one of Erwa’s favorite for breakfast, peanut butter sesame noodles. A very inconspicuous start. They eat in their usual fashion — that is to say, absolute chaos. It seems that even Erwa’s birthday on everyone’s mind was not enough to quell their thirst for stressing him the fuck out.
Because Siwa tried to steal some noodles out of Da-ge’s plate, and shoves him too hard, and then he goes barreling into Wu-di, who smacks Qi-di in the fact. All action is quickly stopped to comfort a hiccuping Qi-di on the verge of crying. Then it’s resumed as Siwa tries stealing noodles out of San-di’s bowl instead. Liu-di goes to swipe noodles out of Si-di’s portion, probably to avenge his only didi.
No one dives for Erwa’s bowl, despite everyone deeming it a free-reign battle. He eats his noodles slowly, in peace, and watches the scene play out. Breaths of fire threaten their old wooden table, as well as an increasingly irritant San-di. Maybe he could sit out having to calm down this storm, for once, because it was his birthday and he should get a little treat.
(Was it really his birthday, though? Every one of them picked a random date they liked, because no one knew when exactly it was that they were made. Or when they popped out of those hulu gourds, seeing light for the first time (or was it? He wasn’t sure). The month of February didn’t felt like it was his, but it was the date he picked in the end.)
“Si-di,” Da-ge says sternly, “if I see your chopsticks move another inch away from your bowl, I’m throwing you in the air.”
It was not a light threat, because Da-ge could really do it. It was also a pretty light threat, because just because Da-ge could doesn’t mean he would. Si-di scowled and merely pointed at Liu-di. “What about him!?”
Da-ge looks over, but all of a sudden Liu-di is gone. He sends the empty spot an unimpressed look. “Liu-di, what did I say about being invisible during mealtimes?”
Their brother shimmers back into form, a pout on his lips. “That it should be done to keep Si-ge from killing me?”
“Your Si-ge wouldn’t kill you,” Erwa finally intercepts, putting his chopsticks down. “He would keep you alive to torture you. Then you’d wish you were dead.”
“No I —“ Si-di stops, thinks for a moment, then nodded. “Yeah, actually, that’s a good idea.”
Wu-di leans against his brother and whispers into his ear: “And you could let me waterboard him.”
Qi-di very valiantly defends his brother from any forms of torture, and Liu-di sends him a very heartfelt, appreciative look. Da-ge sighed and shook his head, because this was just an average meal between their family members and he unfortunately cannot stop the subject of torture being involved. Frankly speaking, it was probably Erwa’s fault that torture was brought up in the first place, but he liked being the provoker.
Da-ge refuses to let Erwa help clean up dishes, growing very insistent even when Erwa decided to push a little. San-di boldly takes up the task himself, something he usually dragged his feet to do despite how old he was and how he shouldn’t be acting so childish over a few dirty dishes. However, once he’s over the sink, he sends a pointed look and a nod in Liu-di’s direction, which again goes very noticed by Erwa.
“Er-geeeeeeee,” Liu-di promptly whines, tossing his arms around him. Erwa looks down at the mop of hair glued to his chest. “Will you help me with my weekend homework? We should go to the library! Everyone is too loud for me to focus.”
Ahh. So, Liu-di’s task was to act as the distraction for today, huh? No worries, Erwa can handle this. He cleared his throat. “Sure thing. How much homework does Liu-di have? I know you wouldn’t want to stay at the library too long.”
Liu-di freezes and looks over to Da-ge, who’s very not discreetly watching them. He holds up a few fingers. Liu-di nodded and looked back at him. “I don’t know! It’ll probably take two or three hours. I have a lot of homework!”
“Of course,” Erwa says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “School kids are so very busy these days. Let me grab a jacket, and we can go.”
As he leaves the room, he hears the little whispered shout of triumph from all six of his brothers, and he has to stifle a smile. They may not do it very well, but they’re trying their best to prepare a surprise for him. Erwa, for a moment, truly wishes his powers did not exist, and he could remain in the bliss of ignorance. Maybe then his surprise would be genuine, and he wouldn’t feel so bad about ruining the surprise.
When he’s waiting for Liu-di to get ready, he’s about done in a second. When he takes Liu-di to the library, his brother walks ridiculously slow. When they reach the inside, it’s somehow terribly hard for Liu-di to find a good spot to start. When they finally sit, Liu-di is extra slow taking out his textbook and pencil.
Erwa lets him do all of this without rush.
“Math, Mandarin, and English? All for this weekend?” Erwa asks, once he realizes Liu-di had pulled out three separate books. He really hoped his brother didn’t cram all of his homework from the week to be finished today, no matter if it was for the sake of birthday party. His little brother’s education is important!
Liu-di nodded. “Mu Laoshi is so mean! He always gives us so much homework, and it’s so hard, too!” He flips open the first textbook to about midway. “I don’t get graphs at all. They’re impossible to read!”
Erwa guides him, a bit frustratingly, through the process of writing graphs and functions. He wonders if his brother was only exaggerating his terrible ability to solve these problems, or if they were genuinely troubling to him. In this case, Erwa couldn’t really tell. He prayed it was the former.
After math, they move onto mandarin. This one, at least, Liu-di was better at. His handwriting was terrible, though (“Liu-di,” Erwa says with a frown, “ I can’t read this. How does your laoshi even grade your work?”). He also wasn’t necessarily the kind to use very sophisticated words or phrases, which once again sent Erwa contemplating his actual intelligence level.
As he waits for Liu-di to slowly chicken-scratch his way through a sentence, he uses the time to make sure their house wasn’t on fire. Or broken. Or all the cleaning he’d done a while ago was put to waste. After closing his eyes for a moment, he reopens them to a scene back at the apartment.
The first thing he notices it that someone was screaming. It turns out to be San-di, because he’s gotten trapped in a mess of streamers. Da-ge has cake batter over his mouth and shouts for Qi-di to help untie his brother. Erwa winces at the apparent havoc being wreaked, and he’d only just done a little peak. The place was half decorated, and when he turns his head, he sees Si-di and Wu-di sitting in the corner blowing up balloons.
“Er-geeee!” Liu-di’s exclamation broke him out of his focus, and he zeroes in on his face. A disgruntled expression meets him. “What were you looking at!”
“I wasn’t,” Erwa claims immediately. And he’s lying, again, but he’s good at that. “I just zoned out. Are you done?”
Liu-di’s frown is twisted into a suspicious one. Nonetheless, he nodded. They move on to the next question.
(Gods. Erwa can still vaguely hear the echoing screech of San-di’s scream in his ear. Why does his brother have to scream so goddamn loud, and because of some plastic?)
English is the final one. Erwa checks the time, and it’s almost three goddamn hours already. One and a half hour spent, each, on the textbooks. What the fuck. Was Liu-di really that good at deliberating distracting him? It’s not like Erwa resisted any of it, but he still can’t believe how long they’ve been out here already.
Erwa was bad at English homework. Liu-di takes after him, because he’s also dreadful at it. He doesn’t remember any of the words they were taught, and Erwa barely remembers any himself. And how much English does he use now, when he’s done with school? The answer was simple: none. He doesn’t use English at all. The best the subject had done was teach him how to laugh at the occasional English-orientated joke on the Internet.
“It’s not like we live in a tourist city,” Liu-di complains as he struggles to pronounce the English word for ‘ bathroom’. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone use English here.”
“Maybe you’ll meet an exchange student from the west.”
“I would just not become their friend,” Liu-di claims immediately.
Terrible. Liu-di was practically everyone’s friend at school. Erwa waits for another moment where his brother is distracted before checking back in on the house.
Balloons have quite literally covered the entire floor. Food was being set up. Presents have started to be wrapped. The cake was being decorated. The piñata was filled up. There was a notable lack of screaming. Erwa is quite impressed with his brothers for having so efficiently set up a birthday party, on their own, without him! They weren’t even trying to kill each other right now! He’s quite touched. And then he realized they don’t have any candles at home.
Erwa sighed, but it’s fond. “Liu-di, we need to stop by the store on our way home,” he says. His brothers are trying their best, and it’s more than enough for him. It hits him now how much this gesture meant to him — that they would think to try and make him a surprise despite knowing the level of perception he had. Perhaps they didn’t want him to miss out on the feeling of surprised joy.
Liu-di nodded, and they finish his homework in another half hour. He still packs slowly, and walks at a snail’s pace despite being known for his quick speed. Erwa just lets him do this all over again.
He’s mastered the surprised-yet-pleased face they were all expecting from him. He thanks each of them for their contributions and acts shocked when they tell him they’ve been planning this for a whole month.
Erwa slips the candles into a cabinet, and pretends not to hear Da-ge’s relieved sigh when he finds them at last.
The cake is good. It’s orange-flavored.