THE LITTLE COPY ⋮ markhyuck

Chapter 𝟭𝟮

"Hey, Channie," Donghyuck chirped, distracting his son from toy cars.

The kid looked up at Papa. Then focused his eyes on something his parent held in his hands.

"I had these magazines when I was younger. Today we got lucky—Grandma brought them to us. Do you want to read these together with me? It'll be fun. They have comics in here and everything else that is fun."

Dongchan would've ditched if Donghyuck didn't mention that it was comic books. Art styles always attracted the kid—he even tried to copy them. Therefore, leaving the floor where he played, he sat on his bed together with Papa.

They started reading. Dongchan did it slowly, looking at the pictures and trying to follow the storyline. To let him rest, Donghyuck read it, but he, too, slowed down and used a dramatic tone to get his son into the plot. The boy seemed to enjoy it as he asked Papa to continue even when it was already past his bedtime.

"Let's do that tomorrow, shall we?" he asked, chuckling. "Reading too much isn't good either. If you read too much, and in the dark, your eyesight might worsen."

"Is that why Teacher Lee wears glasses?"

"Yes. He loves reading so much that it's bad for his eyesight. But just because he wears glasses, he's fine!"

Anyway, Donghyuck and his son started reading those magazines every evening. Just like that, reading in their home got a warm feeling of nostalgia and learning of the past. At first, Dongchan only read comics, but soon he got curious about what else the magazines had to offer. He found a few articles about games, tricks, and even scary stories. Whenever his eyes sparkled in interest, Donghyuck asked him to read it, and the boy did. Dongchan started learning to read about the things he liked.

The week went by really smoothly, thanks to that. Donghyuck didn't feel when Friday came. Unfortunately, he didn't seem the only one with plans.

When he left his work to pick his kid up, he found his brother Dongwoo waiting near the school, leaning on the building wall and doing something on his phone. That was a weird sight because Donghyuck didn't get any text from his younger brother, but the latter seemingly knew Dongchan's schedule. The cleaning time was about to end...

Connecting the dots, as it was too obvious Dad did something, Donghyuck got out of the car and headed toward his brother. Before he could even approach the younger and scold the heck out of him, Mark came out of the building, opened the door widely, and accidentally hit Dongwoo with it. The teacher panicked and started apologizing, calling Dongwoo Donghyuck for some reason.

"Gosh, your nose is bleeding! Oh my god! I'm so sorry, Donghyuck. J-just wait, I-I wasn't looking where I was going, I—"

"Leave him to me," Donghyuck faked a laugh, drawing his brother into his arms and pulling him away from Mark.

"Oh?" Teacher Lee tilted his head. His eyes ran from one to another. Perhaps he noticed that the one he thought was Donghyuck had shorter hair and even brownish shade. His eyes widened. "Is that your brother?"

"Yup, my dummy brother," Donghyuck scoffed, ruffling Dongwoo's hair and shoving a paper tissue into the latter's hands a second after.

"Gosh, you look so similar that I mixed you up. I-I'm sorry... Mr. Lee."

Mark tried to see the door victim's eyes, but Donghyuck forced his brother to look down, as that actually helped with nose bleeding. Though, he kept pinching the latter's neck, which was an act purely out of anger.

"I'm fine," Dongwoo weakly mumbled.

"I'm taking you to my car, you poor thing," Donghyuck sighed, then turned to Mark and faked a smile.