16^th November 2017

“Come on my babies! Time to get ready for your check-up.” Sings Jongdae as he pinches MInseok’s chubby cheeks causing him to giggle.

Jongdae had scheduled a doctor’s appointment for his kids, not because there was anything wrong though. It was just a general health check. Jongdae wanted to make sure that there wasn’t anything that was hiding, something they couldn’t see.

After all the boys had been bathed and dressed, Jongdae pilled them all into the car and started off on the journey to the doctors. Jumnyeon entertained himself by playing with his own hands and babbling to himself while Minseok and Luhan tried to imitate the pop songs that Jongdae had put on the radio, who was singing them as well. He was weak when it came to music.

The trip to the doctors wasn’t very long, only around 10 minutes so they soon arrived at their destination. Getting out of the car Jongdae puts the kids into the pram, whistling as he walked to the entrance. The drive had put him in a pretty good mood and it showed.

Entering into the building Jongdae beams at the receptionist.

“Appointment for Byun Jongdae.” He tells her.

“Just a moment.” She says, typing away at the keyboard, searching for his name. “Ah yes.” She says after a moment. “The doctor is running a little behind today, so he won’t be able to see you for a minimum of 30 minutes. Sorry.”

Jongdae waves the apology off. “No, that’s okay. It can’t be helped.” He says, giving the receptionist a little smile, conveying that he wasn’t upset with the news. With that Jongdae goes over to the waiting area and sits down in a chair and he can already feel the back pain coming on. The chairs at the doctors were not what he would want in his own house.

Suddenly, Luhan begins pointing and making noises. His eyes follow the direction in which he is pointing and laughs a little. Of course. The place in which Luhan had been pointing at was the little play area.

“Do you want to go and play?” asks Jongdae, already knowing the answer.

“Yes Mama.” They chorus. However, he can’t let them go rest yet.

“What do you have to say?”

“Please~” they both say, hopeful eyes looking up at him.

He hums, pretending to think about it for a moment. “Okay then. I suppose so.”

As soon as he had given them his confirmation both of them were out of their seats and running over to the toys with little excited squeals. Jongdae just smiles and takes a babbling Junmyeon out of his seat and into his arms. Junmyeon smiles at him, gums in full view as he plays with his mother’s face. All the while, not noticing the gaze that had focused on them from the other side of the room.

Jumnyeon places a sloppy kiss onto his cheek and Jongdae turns his head to the side. As he does that his sees a woman looking at him and his son.

“Um, can I help you?” he asks, sitting Junmyeon back in his lap. The woman continues to stare.

“You’re one of those, aren’t you.” She says disdainfully. Jongdae can feel a sick felling settling in his stomach.

“I’m sorry. One of those?” he asks. Jongdae’s leg begins to bounce up and down. It’s a tick that occurs when he’s nervous or in an uncomfortable situation. Baekhyun was the first person outside of his family to pick up on it.

“One of those abominations. A who can conceive.” She spits out, her words full of hate which is also depicted on her face.

Jongdae unconsciously tightens his grip on Junmyeon.

“I’m sorry you feel that way.” He says, trying to keep up a strong front. It’s not the first time that he had faced prejudice, though each time it wasn’t any less unpleasant then before.

“You and your kind should just disappear.” She continues, starting to get louder and more worked up. Jongdae flicks a glance over to Minseok and Luhan who are thankfully too absorbed in their play to pay attention to what is happening elsewhere. “How could you even think about bringing kids into that kind of environment? You’ll just infect them with your disease!”

Jongdae swallows hard, trying to reign in his emotions which were a wreck at that moment, ranging from angry to upset. He hugs Junmyeon closer to his chest as he begins to whine, seemingly sensing the tense atmosphere and his mother’s discomfort. Babies always seemed sensitive to emotions.

“Miss, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.” Says a voice from off to the side. It’s the receptionist. “We don’t tolerate behaviour like this on the premises. I can schedule you another appointment or you could go somewhere else but you still need to leave.” She says.

The woman huffs, clearly dissatisfied with what she had been told. She gets to her feet, glancing briefly at Jongdae and flashing him a dirty look.

“You should be ashamed of yourself.” Is the last thing she says before she walks away and out of the building, slamming the door behind her. A brief silence permeates the room, even Minseok and Luhan had stopped playing at the loud slam of the door but they soon resume their previous actions.

“I’m so sorry about that.” Says the receptionist who looks horrified by what she had just witnessed.

Jongdae gives her a tight lipped smile, the curls at the end of his mouth straightening. “It’s not your fault.” He tries to sound reassuring but he’s sure that his words sound nothing like the sort. They receptionist stands there for a while, not knowing what to do before she slowly goes and sits back behind her desk. Jongdae sighs. People were still so cruel.

Well, so much for his earlier good mood. That was completely gone now.

Around 15 minutes later, the door to the consultation room opens and a young man steps out. He steps out and closes the door, hand hovering on the handle for a moment before it drops and comes to rest at his side.

He turns on his heels quickly and speed walks down the hall. Before he hastily leaves the building Jongdae manages to catch a glimpse of wides eyes and tear stained cheeks, despite the fact that the man’s head was turned towards the ground.

I wonder what made him so upset, he thinks.

“The doctor will see you now.” Says the receptionist. “It’s the first room on the left.”

Getting up, Jongdae calls Minseok and Luhan. “We have to go and see the doctor now. Playtimes over.” Listening to their mother they haul themselves to their feet and walk over to him. With Junmyeon still in his arms he pushed the pram with one hand, though making sure to look behind him to make sure MInseok and Luhan were following him.

When he enters the room the doctor looks up. “Hello Jongdae, it’s been a while.” He says kindly.

“Yeah, it has, Dr Jung.”

“Look at those two. They’re so big now! Walking even.” He say happily, giving the boys a little wave which they cutely return, ever the polite little boys. “Now this little guy, I don’t think I’ve seen before.”

“No you haven’t.” Jongdae smiles. “This is Junmyeon. He’s 7 months old.”

“Isn’t he an adorable little thing.” He coos. “You planning on having any more or was he the last one?” he asks.

“Planning. No, not planning to have another but I’m not opposed to the idea of more kids.”

 “That’s nice.” Dr Jung pulls out a file from his drawer. “Now, from what I can see you’re just here for a general health check, right?

“Yeah.”

The check went fine. Dr Jung could find anything that was of concern through his consultation but to be sure he had said he would send the tests off to the lab to get a more thorough set of results. By the time they had all got back home it was 2 o’clock and all of his babies were tired. Not bothering to carry them upstairs to their rooms, he lies them all on the lounge room floor on a padded blanket with pillows surrounding them on all sides.

Suddenly his phone begins to ring and he knows who it is before he even reaches it, the familiar ringtone making him smile.

“Hey babe.”

“Hey yourself.” Says Jongdae. Baekhyun could always brighten up his day.

“How has your day been so far? Did everything go well at the doctors?” Baekhyun asks.

“It was fine. Everything was fine.” Jongdae says, a little too quickly.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s nothing.” Jongdae tries to brush it off.

“It’s not nothing. Tell me what’s wrong.”

Jongdae worries his lip. “It’s just…some people and their…views.”

“Oh Jongdae…are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m okay.”

“Don’t let people like that get to you.” Baekhyun says, neither of them are strangers to words like that.

“I know, it just…it still hurts. Every time.” And it does. They may be used to hearing people spew their prejudice views at them and they may try to act as it doesn’t affect them but even after years they can still feel the sting. Baekhyun encounters it at work all of the time. Not everyone had accepted that fact that he’s a gay detective, paired with the fact that he made it to detective despite being quite young. Not to mention his own family.

“I know, just try not to think about it.”

“I’ll try.” Jongdae promises.

“I’ll see you when I get home. Maybe I can try and…cheer you up.” Baekhyun says and Jongdae can see him smirking and wiggling his eye brows even over the phone.

“I’d like that very much.” Answers Jongdae, his usual attitude beginning to resurface.

“I can’t wait.”

“Just hurry up and get home.”

“Aye, aye Captain!”

“I’m hanging up now.”

Chapter 15 has arrived! I finally did it. I've been meaning to add a bit of prejudice and discriminatory views in this because even the world of this fic isn't exempt from it. Like I've briefly mentioned in previous chapters, while homouality and male pregnancy is more commonly seen and accepted there are still those who are against it. I'm a big supporter for social justice and marriage equality so when same marriage was legalised in America I was ecstatic! It's just a shame that I can't say that for my own country.

On other news, I voted for the first time on Saturday and wasn't that just one big around. I'm registered to vote but for some reason I wasn't on the role so I had to do an absent vote which took ages. We were there for like an hour and a half. I wanted to die D: And it hasn't been that much better since. Our political system is just a mess at the moment, accusations of miscounting votes and whole suburbs being excused from voting because they ran out of ballot papers. It's just ridiculous! Anyway, enough of that rant.

Something had only just occurred to me yesterday. Xiuchen/Chenmin is my Exo OTP and I haven't written one yet. Not even any of the stories I have planned after I finish this one had Xiuchen as a pairing. Like, what is this?! I have failed my babies! I think I'll just try and write a one-shot or something. Would you guys like that? They're so cute together. They're like each others biggest fanboys. Jongdae yelling out "IT'S XIUMIN!" when Minseok introduced himself at the opening of his movie was just aborable ^.^ and Minseok saying that Jongdae was like his wife on Travelling Without Managers made me squeal!

That's enough. See you guys next week! :)