“I can take him!” Taekwoon sits up eagerly in bed even though his sister can’t see him over the phone. “I’m serious. I have nothing on these few days. My next thing is on Thursday. Noona, I can take him.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she scoffs back at him, and he just can imagine the expression on her face before she is attacked by a sneezing  fit. “How – sniff – how are you going to look after a baby-” she breaks off, having to sneeze again.

“Noona, you and brother-in-law are way too sick to look after him and with mum and dad away in China you know the next logical person to turn to is me,” Taekwoon tries to keep his voice from sounding too excited. “You can trust me. I’ll take such good care of him. Please.”

“How is the next logical person – sniff – you?” his sister croaks out, but Taekwoon bulldozes her. “Jinsoon and Jiyoung noonas are busy working. Your parents-in-law have their shop to look after. Whereas I am totally free for the next two days straight and I’m surrounded by helpers.”

“Helpers?”

“The members.”

“You say ‘helpers’ like you mean ‘servants’. Are the other kids off too?”

“We’ve all got a short break, yeah. Does this mean you’re saying yes?”

There is silence on the line during which Taekwoon holds the phone fast to his ear in high anticipation, hardly daring to breathe.

“Alright, I have no other objections. Can you come and pick him up this evening? I’ll pack everything you’ll need for him. I shouldn’t need you to take him for more than a day or so… I hope.”

“Yes!!” Taekwoon jumps off the bed. “I’ll see you soon, noona!”

He opens the door to his bedroom dramatically, the effect rather spoiled by the fact that everyone else was in their own rooms and not around to see him importantly exit his doorway. “Kids! And Hakyeon!”

“’Kids’ he says,” Hongbin mutters, joining the general shuffle towards the living room and the impromptu general assembly. “What’s going on, hyung?”

“Minyul is coming over to stay for a day or two, my noona and her husband are sick,” Taekwoon announces. “None of you are to come near him. You’re all bad influences.”

Hakyeon snorts with incredulity. “Are you serious?”

“Yes. I will look after him myself. He is out of bounds to all of you. Especially you,” Taekwoon looks at Sanghyuk, who feigns indignance.

“Wait, wait, wait,” Jaehwan interrupts, holding out his hands. “We didn’t vote on this. What if the rest of us aren’t okay with having a baby in the house?”

“Why wouldn’t you be?” Taekwoon asks, baffled.

Sanghyuk and Hongbin both begin laughing at the same time, and Jaehwan gives them an unimpressed look.

“He’s just worried he won’t be the cutest one here when Minyul comes,” Sanghyuk declares, watching Jaehwan gleefully. “Right? I’m right, aren’t I?”

“He’ll still be really cute,” Wonsik says loyally, but Jaehwan has no time for second-best.

“Hmph,” Jaehwan folds his arms. “We’ll see.”

“Anyway,” Hakyeon rolls his eyes. “Don’t be stupid, Taek, we’ll help you with him.”

“I don’t need you to help me with him,” Taekwoon replies, shrugging confidently.

“Famous last words,” Jaehwan mutters.

*

Five hours later

“Do you need help now?” Hakyeon raises one eyebrow, looking at the baby vomit slowly dripping down a horrified Taekwoon’s shirt. “Taekwoon, snap out of it. It’s vomit, not battery acid.”

“Why would he do this to me?” Taekwoon whispers, looking at the baby he’s holding out in front of him like it’s radioactive. “He hates me. Why? I love him so much.”

“He can’t help it,” Hakyeon takes Minyul from him, rubbing the baby’s back soothingly. “Maybe if you hadn’t jiggled him around so much after he’d had his milk? Now we have to feed him again. Go make him another bottle.”

“I feel like I’ve been dropped into an alternate reality,” Hakyeon tells Wonsik as he sits down with Minyul on the sofa. Wonsik carefully moves a few centimetres away. “Oh, for god’s sake, Wonsik. You’re not going to break him just by sitting there.”

“He’s too small,” Wonsik murmurs, keeping his distance. Minyul tries to lean over to grab at Wonsik’s bright red hoodie, smiling gummily at him, and Hakyeon can see Wonsik begin to melt.

“Ahem,” Jaehwan announces, from the other end of the sofa.

“Yes, Jaehwan,” Hakyeon asks, amused. “We can see you there. We haven’t forgotten your existence.”

“Yet,” Hongbin offers, and breaks into giggles as Jaehwan tries to kick him. “Face it, hyung, you can’t win against a baby this cute.”

“Even with this?” Jaehwan puts everything he has into the aegyo he performs, puffing out his cheeks and pouting his lips, but all he gets is sniggering from Hongbin and a complete non-reaction from Wonsik who is slowly inflating with squee at Minyul’s chubby little hands still trying to grab curiously at his hoodie. Hakyeon sends him a pitying look.

“Quit while you still have some dignity left,” Hakyeon advises, turning to the kitchen. “Taekwoon, what is taking you so long with that milk? If he starts crying you deal with him.”

As if on cue, Minyul lets out a few ‘testing’ sobs, the kind babies give as warning before they start full-on yelling, and Taekwoon runs in from the kitchen with Minyul’s bottle.

“Here,” Hakyeon gives Minyul over to Taekwoon, but Minyul doesn’t stop fussing. He turns fitfully in Taekwoon’s embrace and holds out his arms to Hakyeon, cries raising in pitch the longer Hakyeon stands there taking in Taekwoon’s devastated expression.

“Shall I..?” Hakyeon asks carefully, sliding over slowly to take Minyul back and the moment he does Minyul quietens down, taking his bottle readily and contentedly.

“Hah,” Jaehwan pronounces, smug. “I told you this baby was trouble.”

“He – he prefers you,” Taekwoon says dazedly. “Over me. I’m his uncle. Flesh and blood.”

“You also jiggle him about too much and hold him too loosely,” Hakyeon rolls his eyes. “It’s no surprise. Children love me. Isn’t that right, children?”

Hakyeon nudges Hongbin and Sanghyuk with his foot, the two of them sitting on the floor playing with Minyul’s toy cars.

“No,” Sanghyuk immediately answers.

*

“There,” Taekwoon says, and stands back to admire his handiwork.

“That’s more like a prison,” Wonsik ventures uncertainly, looking at the four walls of (stolen) pillows and bolsters Taekwoon has built in his bed to make sure Minyul doesn’t roll off the mattress during the night. “I don’t think you need to stack them all that high.”

“Better safe than sorry,” Taekwoon says firmly. “Pass him to me. My noona said he needs to sleep by nine.”

Wonsik looks at him blankly.

“Where is he?” Taekwoon asks, noting Wonsik’s total lack of Minyul.

“I don’t know?” Wonsik answers, bewildered. “I never had him.”

Taekwoon pushes past him and hurries to Hakyeon’s room, thinking that since Minyul betrayed his own kin for an outsider Hakyeon is the next best bet – but Hakyeon is lying in bed listening to music with no baby in sight. Taekwoon tries to breathe calmly.

He bustles into the living room, finding Hongbin lying on the sofa watching television and Sanghyuk still sitting on the floor with Jaehwan this time playing with Minyul’s cars and trains. “Where’s the baby?”

Sanghyuk stills. Hongbin sits up, looking around them as if Minyul is going to pop out from behind a chair and yell ‘surprise!’ while Jaehwan looks positively delighted. “Lost him, have you? Tsk, babies these days… more trouble than they’re worth. You would never lose me. I’m unlose-able.”

“Uh,” Sanghyuk begins guiltily, looking like he’d rather not say anything. “I was playing with him here while you went off to ready his bed. But I think I got distracted.”

“Distracted?!” Taekwoon cries. “What do you mean?”

“I think he must have crawled off?” Sanghyuk offers, trying to look sweet and innocent and not at all the reason why Minyul is missing.

Taekwoon sways a little on the spot, his life flashing before his eyes. If anything happens to Minyul his sister is going to flay him. “Find him!”

Hakyeon is gathered up and recruited into the search, and they eventually find him in the kitchen, pulling out clothes from the dirty clothes hamper and happily sitting on a throne of used shirts and underwear. Taekwoon thinks he may have had a heart attack for real, trying to get his heartrate down to normal as he scoops Minyul up despite Minyul’s loud protests at being separated from his kingdom of laundry.

“I think we should bathe him again,” Hongbin says. “Look what he’s been doing.”

“A wipe-down should be fine,” Hakyeon replies, shaking his head. “I can’t believe you, Sanghyuk.”

“I’m just a baby myself, I can’t be trusted to look after other people’s babies,” Sanghyuk sulks, grabbing his chance at a convenient excuse, and Hakyeon pounces.

“What did you say? You’re a baby? You can’t take that back now. Every time you want to declare you’re all grown up I’m going to remind you of this!”

“I’m no-” Sanghyuk begins, and then catches Taekwoon’s accusing eye, and subsides. “Yes. I’m a baby. Irresponsible and immature.”

“And whose baby are you, Sanghyuk?” Hakyeon coos.

“Hakyeon hyung’s baby,” Sanghyuk sighs, defeated.

*

“Why are we awake,” Wonsik grumbles, half-asleep, his face propped up unglamourously against Hongbin’s shoulder. “It’s seven a.m.”

“Because some unholy infant decided it was time to rise and shine,” Jaehwan muttered, glaring at a wonderfully-awake Minyul, happily and noisily banging his spoon against the table as Taekwoon blearily tries to feed him his pumpkin puree; stridently hungry wails quietened now that he is being fed.

“I’m never having kids,” Hongbin yawns. “Ever.”

“It’ll be a shame not to pass on your dimple genes, though,” Wonsik mumbles, eyes closing.

Hakyeon comes into the kitchen with something bundled in his arms – and upon closer inspection it turns out to be Minyul’s winterwear.

“Come on, we’re all up already anyway. Let’s bring him downstairs to play.”

“At this time?” Sanghyuk asks, horrified. “It’ll be so cold!”

“You have winterwear too,” Hakyeon says witheringly. “Suit up.”

“Can’t we just go back to sleep?” Jaehwan pleads. “Now the beast has been pacified surely the rest of us don’t have to suffer anymore.”

“Don’t call Minyul a beast,” Taekwoon admonishes. He’s got pumpkin on his face.

“No. All of you, get dressed,” Hakyeon orders, and there’s no disobeying that tone of voice.

Hakyeon and Hongbin wipe the excess pumpkin that didn’t make it into his mouth off Minyul and put him into his puffy winter coat and thick pants – and the result is so cute Wonsik nearly dies from it.

“Oh gosh,” he says, almost teary-eyed. “Look at him. He’s so round.”

“I can be round too,” Jaehwan says, inconsequentially, and Sanghyuk pats his shoulder in consolation.

Minyul holds his arms out for Hakyeon to carry him, twisting the knife in Taekwoon’s heart, but he swallows it down and puts on Minyul’s shoes before shrugging into his own coat. There is a small playground with a slide and swings at the end of their estate, and if he’s right that is Hakyeon’s destination. It has a little sandpit too, and Taekwoon goes to get a few disposable spoons for Minyul to use as makeshift spades.

“What is he saying?” Wonsik asks, in awe as Minyul rambles away to himself in babytalk as they all walk slowly down the street. “What do you think he’s thinking about?”

Hakyeon smiles back at him and pretends to babytalk back at Minyul, Hongbin and Sanghyuk joining in to amuse themselves. When Minyul starts laughing for some reason or other their combined squeal of delight would make anybody doubt that they’d all been sulking just half an hour ago at being woken up by this same baby. Jaehwan pouts, and Taekwoon cuddles him a bit.

The cold really is no joke, and soon Minyul’s round cheeks are rosy with it. Sanghyuk squeezes them until Minyul threatens to start yelling, so Sanghyuk starts squeezing Hakyeon’s cheeks instead until Hakyeon in turn threatens to start yelling.

The playground is, unsurprisingly, deserted – nobody else sane apparently thought it was a good idea to bring their children down at this hour so they get the whole place to themselves. Hongbin and Wonsik race each other to the swings while Taekwoon and Hakyeon put Minyul on the slide and carefully slide him down to his delighted shrieks. Sanghyuk grabs Jaehwan by the hand and drags him over to the merry-go-round and starts spinning Jaehwan until Jaehwan is screaming for him to stop and it devolves into a mad chase around the playground, their laughter steaming in the cold air as Sanghyuk runs away from Jaehwan.

“Six men and a baby,” Hakyeon tells Taekwoon, amused, watching the four younger ones play as if they’d all meant to come here for themselves and not the one actual child sitting in Hakyeon’s arms. He slowly swings back and forth on the swing Wonsik vacated to get up and push Hongbin in his, Hongbin daring Wonsik to swing him higher and higher. Taekwoon wonders what will happen if Hongbin gets launched right off the swing and into the air, and then shrugs and decides that in the great scheme of things that isn’t his problem.     

They put Minyul on the merry-go-round, and then back again on the slide, and then hold both his arms as he unsteadily toddles around, Taekwoon following him with his phone taking a million photos and videos while Minyul beams to be walking around like real people.

“He’s a genius. He’s only nine months and he’s already walking,” Taekwoon declares once they have deposited him in the sandpit, Minyul eyeing the sand with purpose.

“I don’t think that counts as walking?” Wonsik laughs, giving Minyul a spoon to let him dig. “Minyul – nodon’tputthatinyourmouth-”   

“Nobody is to tell my sister that he ate sand,” Taekwoon announces on the way back. “Or that we lost him in the dorm and he played in our dirty underwear.”

“You let him eat sand and play in our dirty laundry. We weren’t supposed to come near him, remember?” Sanghyuk replies airily.

“It really is all your fault,” Jaehwan agrees, Wonsik nodding along.

“Honestly, next time your noona should give him to us and not you,” Hongbin replies.

Taekwoon sputters, turning to Hakyeon, his last refuge.

“They’re right,” Hakyeon says, blowing raspberries on Minyul’s cheek to make him laugh. “You’re such a bad influence. Isn’t he, Minyulie?”

Minyul gurgles happily.

“New blackmail material,” Sanghyuk whispers to Jaehwan, bumping fists. “Score!”

*

By the time Taekwoon’s sister comes to pick Minyul up the six of them are exhausted while Minyul is still going like the Energizer Bunny. She smiles knowingly, taking in their tired faces as Hakyeon hands an ecstatic Minyul over to her and Taekwoon goes to get Minyul’s bag of things.

“I hope he wasn’t too much trouble?” she smiles at Jaehwan not even having enough energy to get up from the sofa where he’s lying down, unable to move.

“No trouble, Jikyung noona. We have had enough practice with babies,” Sanghyuk gestures generally in the direction of Taekwoon’s room.

“And if he has strange things coming out in his poop it’s all Taekwoon hyung’s fault,” Wonsik says quickly before Taekwoon returns.

“Strange things?” Jikyung frowns slightly. “What strange things?”

“It’s nothing,” Hakyeon beams at her, turning her away from Wonsik who is trying to fend off Hongbin surreptitiously hitting him in punishment for his big mouth. “Minyul was a delight. We’d be glad to have him back any time.”

“Yes!” Taekwoon says enthusiastically, returning with Minyul’s bag while his sister eyes him suspiciously. “I think he was almost going to say the word ‘uncle’ earlier.”

“Wasn’t he burping?” Hongbin asks. “I thought that was a burp.”

“Anyway,” Taekwoon speaks over him. “Are you sure you’re better? You can leave him here for another day, you know.”

“I think she looks well,” Jaehwan cuts in, suddenly perking up and smiling his sunshine smile at her. “You look radiant. In the pink of health. He should go home with you.”

“Oh, thank you,” Jikyung blushes a bit before she catches herself. “Well, I’m off then. Thank you all.”

“Bye!” Jaehwan waves her off extravagantly, feeling like things are finally back to normal and he is the Number One Cutie again once the front door swings shut while Taekwoon droops dramatically like a wilted flower.

An hour later Jikyung calls, apologetic but sounding harried. Taekwoon listens to her, and then turns to the rest gathered in the living room having their dinner.

“Did any of you see Minyul’s red car? It wasn’t with the other toys and he’s been crying nonstop wanting it.”

Sanghyuk stops chewing, clear guilt written all over his face.

“Sanghyuk!”

*