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The sunlight streaming through the window woke me up.  I rolled over in bed and glanced at the clock.  7:32.  

Ugh.  Really?  Time to get up already?  

I need my morning BTS fix to convince me it’s worth it to crawl out of bed.  To face four gorgeous kids and a mountain of schoolwork.  I open my phone.  

WHAT?!! Where is my usual background?  Wait.  Jungkook is still there, but so are my kids!  What?!  Why is Jungkook with my kids?  

I don’t remember photoshopping him into any of our family pictures!  (Although I often call him my eldest son). The kids must have been messing with my phone.  I grin as I stare at the picture.  

How wonderful it would be to have Kookie as my son!  Hmm.  

As I gaze at the picture, I realize my daughter must have used an older photo of Kookie.  He looks about sixteen here.  But I’ve never seen this photo.  

Where did she find it?

I open my Instagram to check in with my boys.  The beautiful Bangtan Boys.  All seven of them.  Some new pictures have loaded.  I grin as I scroll through photos of Namjoon and Yoongi together.  There’s Tae and Jimin sitting side by side, an arm thrown around the other as the best friends grin at the camera.  Now Hobi and Jin, both revealing a worldwide handsome smile.  Then a pic of the six of them.  

Wait?  Where’s Jungkook?

I begin to scroll through old posts. Posts that I know once contained Jungkook.  

He’s not there!  

Frantically, I begin to google BTS. Up pops picture after picture of six young men.  Jungkook is not in a single one.  Then I begin reading an article about the band, the SIX Bangtan Boys.  

SIX?!  What did y’all do with Jungkook?

I’m feeling a little nauseated.  

Am I hallucinating?  Maybe I’m dreaming.  If I am, this is a nightmare.  

Or at least I think it is.  Then there’s a knock on my bedroom door, and the voice of my eldest son floats through the wooden barrier to my waiting ears.  

What’s going on with Everett?  

His voice sounds lower.  It’s a beautiful voice.  It sounds familiar.  But it doesn’t belong to an eleven-year-old.  “Mom?  Can I come in?”

I’m dressed, so I tell him to enter.

My eldest son walks in, and my mouth hits the floor as my eyes bug out of my head.  

I’ve found him!  Here he is!  

In the flesh!  Claiming to be my flesh and blood.  

My eyes travel from his head to his toes.  First, I notice his beautiful face.  Those long, dark locks are trying to hide his eyes from me, but those obsidian orbs are shining out to me still.  His straight nose rounds off at the tip to meet the lovely divot above his lips.  He grins at me, and his top lip nearly disappears, yet the bottom one is still visible.  My eyes quickly take in his black T-shirt and shorts then his bare calves and feet.  My eyes fly back up to Jungkook’s face.  He is standing in my bedroom calling me “Mom”!

I must be dreaming, or this is some amazingly elaborate practical joke!

Jungkook continues, “Mom, I have taekwondo at six tonight.  Can I borrow the car?”

As I stare wide-eyed at this beautiful boy, I realize he appears to be about sixteen years old.  There’s no way he’s twenty-two.  My voice still missing, I stare at him, bewildered.

Just then my daughter, Janna, comes striding into the room.

“Jungkook!  Did you take my comb and my gel again?!  I don’t care how much you want to impress the girls.  I need my comb!”  My honey-haired daughter flings these words at Jungkook as though he really is her brother.

I start to laugh.  

How on earth did she meet BTS?  And where was I at the time?  How did I miss such a momentous happening?  And how did they convince my justice-minded daughter to play such a prank on me?

I look from one to the other. She’s glaring at Jungkook, and he’s grinning back at her.

“I think I accidentally dropped your comb in the toilet.”  Now he’s just provoking her on purpose.  This comment is over the top.  She rounds on him, and I burst out with, “OK, guys!  That’s enough. I know I’ve been pranked.  You can drop the dramatics now.”

They both look at me quizzically.  She drops the arm that was about to smack her “brother,” and his grin disappears.

“Mom,” he calls me again, “what are you talking about?  I really did drop her comb in the toilet.”

She turns her eyes towards him again and starts huffing.

“You two.  This is a joke.  I don’t know how you managed to mess with my phone wallpaper AND my Instagram feed.  Or how you two met each other.”  Wide-eyed, I stare at my daughter, “Or how you kept meeting Jungkook a secret from me!”  Her mouth forms an O, but no sound comes out, so I narrow my eyes as I study Jungkook’s sixteen-year-old face.  “Or how you managed to drop six years.  The right makeup, I suppose?  Besides, you always looked much younger in your real photos.  So maybe it’s not such a stretch.”

Now perplexed, Janna turns to me.  “Mahmmmmm, what are you talking about?  I didn’t mess with your phone.  And how on earth could someone mess with your Instagram feed?  Like it’s not working?”

“No.  Like all the pictures of Jungkook that were on my feed yesterday are gone today.”

“What pictures?  Since when do you allow pictures of us to be displayed on your Instagram?  You’ve always been so protective of us! I had no idea you were posting pictures of me!” He suddenly grins at me.  “Mom, did any cute girls comment on my pics?”

I start laughing.  Why?  Because I have clearly gone nuts.  I spent too many hours staring at photos, articles, and videos of seven cute, sweet young men.  And it has clearly gone to my head.  I’ve apparently confessed too often that I have seven South Korean sons, and my youngest one is named Jungkook.  Now I’m even hallucinating that he actually is my son!

I take a deep breath and close my eyes.  Then I open my Instagram again.  I go to my profile.  The picture of seven Bangtan Boys is no longer.  Six young men all lined up with different shades of hair smile back at me.  Jin, Yoongi, Hobi, Namjoon, Jimin, Tae.  Jungkook is not among them.  My profile picture is no longer the adorable one of him with curling hair, the one in which he looks even younger than the boy in my bedroom now does.  Yoongi is the face staring back at me out of the little circle on my page.  

Hmm.  Why am I so distressed?  

The boy I’ve adored from afar is now my son.  He’s standing in my home fighting with my daughter.   Who suddenly speaks, “Mom, are you feeling all right?  Did you say all that just so I wouldn’t kill Jungkook for flushing my comb down the toilet?  I mean, you don’t need to go to such lengths to protect him.  I know he’s the oldest, but only by five minutes!”

WHAT?!!!  Now I’m supposed to believe that I have TWO sets of twins?  

Just then, my younger twins come bursting into my room.  My youngest son flings the door into the wall in his haste.

“Mahmmmmmmy!  Alastair just poked me in the eye!”

My older twin must get his defense in before I can make a judgment.  “That’s because Abs hit me!”

“How many times have I told you that two wrongs don’t make a right?  That hurting your brother because he hurt you doesn’t fix anything?  It actually causes more problems.”  Apparently, the shock hasn’t affected my mommy auto-pilot function.

They both pout up at me.  Then Jungkook does what I always dreamed he’d do.  He squats down next to them.  And he reaches out both of his hands, each one ruffling one of the twins’ heads.

“Hey, guys.  Remember what I always tell you?  You are each other’s best friend, so treat each other nicely, ok?”  He is speaking in that sweet, low voice of his.  

Why do I find it so soothing?  And right now, I’m so proud of him.  Look at my eldest son!  Being such an amazing role model.  I spoke those very words to him and Janna so many times!  This is one of those moments that makes us moms cry.  I’m so touched right now.

But Abner’s lightning quick mind points out the flaw in Jungkook’s argument.  “But you and Janna argue all the time.”

Jungkook wrinkles up his cute nose and excuses his behavior with a wave of his hand.  “That’s because she’s a girl and I’m a guy.  If I were as blessed as you are to have a twin brother, I would treat him better.”

“Hey!” Janna yells at her twin.

I laugh.  These two really are acting like siblings.  And if they’re faking, the little twins are in on it too.  I find that hard to believe.  Alastair is so earnest.  I don’t think he could pull off the acting job.

So now I am faced with a bizarre reality.   My memories of yesterday begin blending with this new dimension.  I’m starting to remember raising Janna and Jungkook from birth.  Lectures I gave them are coming back to me.  Pictures of the two of them snuggling as infants suddenly surface in my brain.  His first steps meld with her first word.  I can see the matching outfits I bought them for years until they were old enough to assert their independence.

I look back and forth from one to the other.  They look nothing alike.  She still has her jade green eyes and dark honey hair, her rosy cheeks and her fuller, red lips.  He’s still sporting those midnight eyes and raven locks, tanner skin and thin upper lip.  The only feature they share is their dark eyebrows.  He’s five-foot-eight, and she tops out at five-three.  Now I remember the age he overtook her.  She was the taller one for years.  Then puberty hit him like a ton of bricks, and he grew a foot overnight.  It happened last year right before they turned fifteen.  She was done growing, but he was just beginning.

My, how the years have flown!  

They’re nearly adults now.  This truth is mixing with the knowledge that yesterday Jungkook was twenty-two years old.  I’m feeling very confused again.

Just then my original eldest son comes walking quietly into the room.  

“Mommy,” he speaks in his soft voice.  “Can I play the Switch?”

“Nice try,” I respond.  “But school starts in…” I glance at the clock.  “Oh, my goodness!  Fifteen minutes!  Everyone up and at ‘em!  I have to drop you off in fifteen minutes.  Let’s go!!”  

I jump out of bed, and we are off and running.  It only occurs to me after I drop them all at the door of their various schools that yesterday I was a homeschooling mom.  And today I somehow remembered where all my kids go to school and what time they had to be there.  Living in parallel universes is bizarre stuff indeed!