Bears and Trips.

You have 27 kids with Kim Jiwon.

27.

Twenty-Seven.

At least, last time you checked it was 27, who knows?

Not kids in a literal sense, not biological, nor adopted — though if you tried explaining that to Liz, she'd give you a look so sharp it could cut through the very fabric of reality and your attitude that it gets you to fold easily.

They are plushies.

Stuffed animals.

Inanimate objects filled with polyester fluff and zero capacity for emotional attachment.

Or at least, that was what you thought.

Jiwon, on the other hand, had a very different opinion.

"Gerald needs his blanket," she announced randomly at the very appropriate time of 11:11 PM, just three days before your trip to Jeju Island, she’s standing in the middle of the bedroom floor surrounded by what could only be described as a textile explosion.

Sweaters, scarves, two different kinds of sunscreen, your toiletries, her toiletries, and approximately twenty-six other plush animals arranged in a semicircle around her like she was about to lead a very soft, very round board meeting.

Or a cult.

You looked up from your phone, squinting your eyes and sighing. "Jiwon…"

"Hmm?" She didn't look up. She was carefully folding what appeared to be a miniature knitted blanket — pale yellow, with little cloud patterns — around the largest plushie in the room.

Gerald.

Gerald was a bear. A very large, very fluffy, honey-brown bear with round ears and a dopey, gentle expression that seemed perpetually frozen somewhere between confused and content, and maybe a bit arrogant.

He was almost the size of a toddler. He had been living on your bed for approximately eight months, which was longer than most of your friendships.

"We don't need to pack a blanket for the bear."

Jiwon looked up. Her long blonde hair was half-tucked into a pink scrunchie, strands falling loose around her face, and she was wearing your oversized university hoodie — the one you'd been looking for since Tuesday. She blinked at you with the patience of someone who had expected this conversation and had already prepared three counterarguments.

"First of all" She started. "He’s not 'the bear' he’s 'Gerald'." She said as she picked up the bear, no, Gerald, in her arms.

"Secondly, It's his blanket, Y/N. He sleeps with it."

"He doesn’t even sleep. He's stuffed."

A beat.

The temperature in the room dropped approximately four degrees.

"Excuse me?" Jiwon said, very quietly, turning her body fully toward you with Gerald still cradled in her arms like an infant.

You gulped.

"Could you not say that in front of him?"

You stared at her. She stared back. Gerald stared at nothing, because he was a stuffed bear, but somehow his expression seemed faintly accusatory.

"Jiwon—"

"He has feelings, Y/N."

"He doesn't have—"

"Feelings."

You closed your mouth. This was not a battle you were going to win tonight, or probably ever. You had learned, over the course of your relationship with Kim Jiwon, that there were hills worth dying on and hills that would simply bury you alive, and anything related to the plushie children fell firmly into the second category.

"Okay," you said. "He gets his blanket."

Jiwon immediately smiled and her mood brightened, the storm clouds clearing from her expression like they'd never existed. "Thank you." She kissed the top of Gerald's head with complete sincerity and set him gently against the suitcase. "See? Dad said it's okay."

You put your phone face-down on the pillow and stared at the ceiling.

Dad.

She had started calling you that three months ago, the first time you'd accidentally referred to Gerald as "the kids" in conversation with your own mother, and you had no one to blame but yourself. She was Mommy. You were Dad. Gerald was the eldest. It was a whole thing.

The packing process began the following morning.

You woke up to sunlight and the sound of Jiwon in the living room, talking. You lay still for a moment, foggy with sleep, trying to parse the conversation.

"— and you're sitting next to Boba, okay? I know you two had that thing last week but we're going on a trip and Mommy needs everyone to be on their best behavior—"

You stood up from the bed still half-asleep and walked to the living room.

The living room looked like a plushie summit. All twenty-seven of them had been arranged across the sofa, the coffee table, and the floor, and Jiwon was crouched in front of them in her pajama shorts and your hoodie, gesturing expressively as she spoke.

"Jiwon," you said. "Who had a thing last week?"

She pointed without looking up. "Gerald knocked Boba off the nightstand and she's been facing the wall ever since. I've been mediating."

You looked at Boba — a round, black-and-white panda — who was, in fact, currently facing slightly away from Gerald. You looked at Gerald, who sat at the center of the sofa with the particular authority of someone who knew he was the favorite.

"Right…?" you said. "I'll make coffee."

"Make enough for two!" she called after you, then, quieter, to the assembled plushies: "Don't worry. Dad always makes enough for two."

You stood at the coffee machine for a long moment, listening to your girlfriend reassure a stuffed panda that travel was a healing experience, and felt the very particular warmth that came from knowing — knowing, bone-deep — that you were exactly where you were supposed to be.