When 6 became 7

Chapter 14

As Seokjin had predicted, Jungkook loved the zoo. They arrived an hour ago, but so far they had seen only three animals because Jungkook couldn't say goodbye to them. His first favorite animal were the lions, but after seeing some giraffe he quickly changed his choice. At the moment penguins won over the rest, but they knew his choice would change at least 10 more times before he could decide. Sejin had come along with them as well and promised Jungkook to buy his favorite animal at the end of the day in the souvenir shop, so the little one was very serious in making his choice.

"Look Jungkook! Very big elephants! Let's go see them!" Hoseok said and pointed at the next part of the zoo. The boys took turns to point out different animals so they could see the rest as well, because if it was up to Jungkook he would stay with one animal for the rest of the day.

"They have -this- big ears!!" the toddler commented and showed with his tiny arms how large their ears were.

"And look, they have a baby brother as well! They are just like us. 6 big elephants with one little one. Maybe his name is Jungkook as well" Yoongi said as he knelt down to be at Jungkook's height. The boy squaked and clapped his hands. "Hi Jungkookie!!!!" he shouted while waving at the baby elephant.

Thankfully the zoo wasn't busy at all and most visitors were grandparents with their grandchildren of the same age as Jungkook. So when Jungkook started to yell more Korean words towards the elephants, they only received fonds looks towards them.

"Beautiful boy you have there" an old man said who was sitting on one of the wooden benches. The 5 members all turned to Namjoon, who smiled and translated the comment for the rest. "Thank you sir. He's our baby brother"

"Where are you from? If you don't mind me asking" the man asked politely.

"South Korea"

"Oh that's on the other side of the world!! Are you here for holidays?"

"Yeah we are" Namjoon lied, but he was secretely very happy that the man didn't recognize them. All visitors didn't seem to recognize them because they were either too old or too young, but it felt like freedom to spend a day at the zoo like normal people without people asking for pictures and autographs all the time.

"Well I hope you have a great time here in Canada. I must go because my lady is calling for me right over there" the elder one said and pointed at a lady with grey hair. "If you go left and then right you can see red pandas. I'm sure your little brother will love them. There're also my wife's favorite" he said before leaving, so Namjoon thanked the man and said his goodbyes.

"Jungkook!!" the leader then shouted "Let's visit the red pandas!"

~-~-~

At the end of the day, Jungkook was still buzzing with energy, but the older ones were drained of theirs. And maybe it had something to do with the fact that they had lost the toddler twice that day. Jungkook was walking better every day and it only seemed like yesterday when he learned how to walk, but today they had figured out how fast he could run already. Especially when he was very excited. The squirrel monkeys provided the visitors a nice show of running and jumping around, but that was when Jungkook ran of the first time. The toddler loved the monkeys but a tiny mouse caught his attention so he decided to follow it until it disappeared in a waste bin. A waste bin that was near the elephants at the entrance of the park... But thankfully, the old man they had met earlier had recognized Jungkook and brought the little one back to his brothers before they could panic too much.

But scolding Jungkook and telling him to not run away like that didn't seem to be effective since Jungkook got lost a second time. This time a butterfly was to blame... But Taehyung had came up with a briljant idea to buy an animal shaped ballon and tied the string to Jungkook's wrist. The big ballon caused a lot of attention and the tiny human was easily recognized even when he was shielded from their view. But Jungkook couldn't walk very far anymore since one of his hyungs was always holding his hand.