Despite her daughter's illness, Kim 'Wendy' Seungwan took time to visit Baekhyun at the hospital the next morning. Five years old Sooyeong had wanted to come with her, begged for her to take her along since Jongdae called them last night to inform them of Baekhyun's condition. But alas, Sooyeong's fever was still high, so the thirty five years old housewife promised her to pass her daughter's hug and kisses to Uncle Baekhyun for her (she'd ask Jongdae to give it for him later), and set off after telling her daughter to just sleep and she would be back after two hours. 

The Parks had been like a family to her, after getting acquainted with them nine years ago through Jongdae. They had only started dating a few weeks then, when Jongdae had brought her to meet his family. She had expected to meet Jongdae's cousins or the like - since his parents had passed away previously - but had been mildly surprised when instead of aunts, uncles, or cousins, she had met a family of four. A tall, lanky man with bright face and wide smile, a shorter man with cheerful and playful face, a five years old boy with huge owlish eyes, and a three years old boy with expressionless face being cradled in the petite man's arms. Wendy immediately loved Jongdae's 'family'. And fortunately, the Parks loved her also. After getting closer to Jongdae over the years, she had also considered the Parks as her family, despite the lack of blood tie between them. The news of Baekhyun getting pregnant brought her tremendous joy and happiness, but Jongdae's additional sentence, "but he caught this disease called vivera abdominus whatever. The obstetrician will check on him tomorrow," also brought a frown on her face. She had read about the disease in passing in a pregnancy book when she had been pregnant with Sooyeong, but had no further knowledge of it.

With anxious heart, she knocked on Baekhyun's door and walked in, her hands holding some container boxes filled with her specialty dish, kimchi spaghetti. She had cooked it just before going off that morning, knowing her husband and the adult Parks' utter hate of hospital food - they had enough of hospital food for a lifetime after eating them for two years straight back in college when Jongdae's mother was hospitalized, they had said. What greeted her eyes were the sight of her husband and the small Parks talking in hushed voice with an elderly man and Chanyeol sitting beside Baekhyun's bed, sleeping on his propped up elbows on the bed, one hand holding his husband's tightly. She had to clear to gain Jongdae and the kids' attention, and when they did, both Kyungsoo and Sehun exclaimed her name happily.

"Aunt Wendy!" they half-screamed, trotting towards her from the elder man's bed. "Good morning, boys. I brought spaghetti for you guys," she smiled, showing her paper bags. The boys made some overjoyed sounds and dragged her towards Jongdae's side after taking the paper bags to set at a table. 

Jongdae took her hand and kissed her cheek. "Morning, babe. Where's Sooyeong, by the way? Is she alone at home?" Wendy smiled and ruffled her husband's hair, she grimaced at the tired face Jongdae's sporting. "Morning, Dae. Yeah, her fever's haven't gone down. She's okay, though. She's sleeping now." Jongdae smiled his infamous chesire cat smile and brought her closer to the elderly man. 

"Wendy, this is Mr. Zhen Zidan. Mr. Zhen, this is Wendy, my wife," the curly haired man said,  gesturing to his wife and the elderly man. "Nice to meet you, Wendy," the man - Mr. Zhen -  said warmly, offering his hand. "Nice to meet you too, Mr. Zhen," the only female in the room said "If I may ask, what happened to you?" she gestured to said male's bandage covered body. Looking down on his own body, the elder man laughed warmly, "I fell from the stairs at home. It doesn't hurt as bad as it looked, don't worry." Wendy offered him a sympathetic smile, then turned to face her husband. 

"Baek-oppa?"

"Oh, you know they're not early risers," Jongdae nodded towards his best friends' figures across the room, "the doctor should arrive any minute now, though, so let's go wake Chanyeol up." With that, the couple excused themselves from the elder man and approached the Park family. Kyungsoo was setting the food containers neatly on the bedside table like the perfectionist he was and Sehun was playing with his daddy's hair sadly. Wendy tapped on Chanyeol's shoulder, earning a muffled groan from the tall man. He shook his head a little before lifting up his head and stretching his body with one of his hand still holding to Baekhyun's tightly. 

"Wendy?" he muttered groggily, eyes still half lidded while taking in his surroundings. "Morning, Chanyeol-oppa," Wendy greeted warmly, then reaching out her hand to brush at Baekhyun's cheek. "He's so pale..." she mumbled dejectedly, brushing the bangs covering the sleeping man's face. "He is," the tall man said, thumb rubbing his husband's hand while yawning, "fortunately the ER doctor yesterday said he's not in danger whatsoever." Hesitantly, Chanyeol pulled his hand and stood up, approaching his sons to ruffle their hair. "Morning y'all," he yawned, and faced Mr. Zhen to say his morning greeting too. Kyungsoo gave his father a bottle of water, and Chanyeol ruffled his hair again appreciatively. After gulping down half the content of the bottle, Chanyeol heard a knock on the door and a second later, in came a doctor clad in white robe, hair black and neat, sporting a warm smile on his face. He looked like he just woke up though, Chanyeol thought warily. 

"Good morning," the doctor said, standing in front of Chanyeol offering his hand, "My name is Zhang Yixing, Mr. Park Baekhyun's appointed obstetrician. Are you by any chance Mr. Park Chanyeol?" "Yes, nice to meet you, Dr. Zhang," Chanyeol grasped the doctor's hand tightly. This was the obstetrician that Dr. Kim had mentioned last night, the one that would explain things to them and helped his husband got through the pregnancy safely. Seeing the worried look on the taller, the obstetrician smiled and put his hands on Chanyeol's shoulders. "Calm down, Mr. Park. I assure you that your husband will be fine." Chanyeol nodded slowly.

"Now," the doctor walked near Baekhyun's bed, "has he woken up yet after last night's incident?" Sehun approached the doctor innocently, "You knew that daddy woke up last night, doctor?" Dr. Zhang crouched down to the boy's level and extended his hand, "Hello, little one, my name's Dr. Zhang. You are?" Sehun pouted. "I'm not a 'little one'!" 

"Sehun!"

Both his appa and elder brother exclaimed impatiently, startling the youngest.

Kyungsoo stepped in beside his brother and put his hand on Sehun's head to shove him down. "I'm sorry for his behavior, doctor. He's plenty childish. My name is Kyungsoo, and this is my younger brother, Sehun." The friendly doctor smiled wide, showing his deep dimples, "Nice to meet you, Kyungsoo and Sehun. I'm sorry for calling you little even though you're already really big, Sehun." Hearing the sentence, Sehun brightened up immediately, and gave the doctor a small smile, "I'm sorry too, doctor, for being rude.." "It's fine, it's fine... Now let's look at your father's condition, okay?" Both boys nodded and the doctor proceeded to stand beside Baekhyun's bed. 

"He hasn't woken up yet, doctor," Jongdae quipped sheepishly from the other side of the bed, "I'm Jongdae, by the way. And this is my wife, Wendy. We're friends of the family." The doctor shook Jongdae's hand, "Nice to meet you. I'm Dr. Zhang."

The obstetrician took out a stethoscope and listened to the sleeping man's breathing briefly. The other people in the room stared at the act tensely, and heaved a sigh when the doctor smiled and gave them a thumbs up. 

"I think we should wake Mr. Park up. I want to explain about his condition and what precautions you should take," the doctor finally said, earning nods from his audience. Sehun ran to his daddy's side and shook him softly.

"Daddy," he call-whispered, "Daddy, wake up."

After a while, Baekhyun's eyelids fluttered open. He blinked a few times, and as he suddenly remembered the events of past day, his body shot up, making him nauseous.

"Argh," he groaned, hand clutching at his head. Chanyeol hurried to his side, rubbing Baekhyun's back soothingly, "Baek, baby, slow down. You just woke up." Baekhyun heeded his husband's suggestion. He took steady breaths while leaning towards his husband. Familiar with Baekhyun's habit to lean on him whenever he's calming himself, Chanyeol sat on the bed and leaned Baekhyun's head on his shoulder. "Better?" Baekhyun nodded, "Thanks, Yeol."

When he finally looked up, Baekhyun saw his children and friends' worried faces and another face he didn't recognize. The stranger smiled warmly and extended his hand. "Good morning, Mr. Park. My name is Dr. Zhang. I'm an obstetrician, and I had actually checked on you last night." For some time, Baekhyun was entranced by the man's bright smile, and unconsciously extended his hand too. "Park Baekhyun," he said softly. 

"Well then," the doctor took out some papers from his clipboard and smiled even more brightly that his dimples deepened even more, "first things first, allow me to congratulate you on your pregnancy!" At this, Baekhyun visibly tensed. Sensing the gloomy atmosphere, the doctor's smile slipped off his face and inquired confusedly, "What's the matter, Mr. Park?"

"Sehun told me...that I'm ill.. Will my baby-" Baekhyun chocked on his own words, eyes starting to glisten in tears, "Is my baby in any harm?"

The doctor let out e loud sigh, "Oh, thank godness. I thought you didn't want them or something."

A screeching 'NO! What would I not want them!' came out from Baekhyun's mouth, his face contorted in utter horror.

"Uuh doc," Jongdae started, "Sehun didn't exactly said what the illness was, and we didn't either, we wanted to wait for you so there would not be any misinformation." Dr. Zhang's mouth opened slightly in understanding, "I see."

The Chinese doctor then took a stool and put it beside Baekhyun's bed to sit on it. "The first thing that I'm going to tell you is that both you and your baby are not in any danger, Mr. Park, so you can rest assured." Baekhyun nodded. "There is, however, a complication in your current pregnancy," he continued, "and it is caused by your current age. As you may already know, normal male pregnancies happen untill someone is forty years old. That is because a male's body is less flexible than a female's, hence why after forty, the stretching of abdominal muscle and skin become significantly more difficult. Are there any questions for now?" The doctor looked around to study his audiences' faces. When he saw no confused faces, he smiled and continued.

"When a male is pregnant after forty, he sometimes suffers from viverra externus abdominis." He heard a hum from the ill man and the woman, and continued, "I see you may have heard of it. Viverra externus abdominis is a condition where you suffer from continuous pain in your abdomen because of the extra force it uses to stretch your belly to accommodate the baby. The theory is actually as simple as that: your stomach works extra hard to stretch your already inflexible belly muscles and skin, hence the continuous pain, but it's nothing fatal or life threatening." He earned a nod from the pregnant male, and took out an x-ray photo. He motioned for the curve, just as Dr. Kim had done the night before, "this is your belly. As you can see, here we have some contraction marks all around your stomach. They are solid proof that your belly is indeed expanding to accommodate your future baby. After the ER doctor saw this yesterday, he called me and I did a blood test on you. And tadah!" 

He took out another ultrasound picture and gave it to Baekhyun. The pregnant male stared at it for a long time in silence before a lone tear escaped his eyes, followed by another, and he went all out sobbing. Chanyeol immediately hugged Baekhyun in panic, while the sobbing male buried his face in his husband's chest. 

"Baek, baby, what's wrong?" Chanyeol asked worriedly, his hand kept rubbing on his husband's trembling back. With shaky hands Baekhyun pulled out of his husband's embrace and lifted the ultrasound picture.

"Look at her, Yeol. She's so beautiful," he wheezed, tears still running down his pale face. Chanyeol choked out a sob before following in his husband's footsteps and sobbed loudly too. He hugged Baekhyun tightly, laughing while choking out some broken 'She is, Baek.' 'Really beautiful' continuously. At the sides, the obstetrician, Wendy, and the kids almost teared up watching the heartwarming scene in front of them, but then Jongdae just had to groan, "Oh my god you do this every time you found out you're pregnant!" Wendy slapped her husband's back loudly, earning another groan from the man. "No, really! It had took me and the obstetrician half an hour to calm them when they found out they're pregnant with Kyungsoo!" he shrieked, but there's a smile on his face and finally he bursted out crying too. The Park couple laughed loudly and motioned for the curly haired man to join them. Jongdae instantly threw his arms around his best friends and cried together.

After a minute though, he let go of the couple, earning confused looks from the two. "This is supposed to be family time," he said, and pushed Kyungsoo and Sehun to their parents.

"Oh babies," Baekhyun moaned, and took his horror stricken sons inside the family hug. 

Jondae cackled loudly looking at the teenagers' awkward hug, on one side feeling funny being hugged by their sobbing parents and on other side also feeling a bit sentimental. "How Park and Byun managed to get those calm as hell kids, I won't ever understand," Jongdae wheezed between his laugh, earning another slap from his wife and another 'he's a Park, Dae!' from Chanyeol, making him roll his eyes.

Luckily, Kyungsoo and Sehun needed less time to calm their parents (after all, even though he won't admit it, Jongdae always cried too, so of course it would take longer time to calm themselves down). The obstetrician cleared his throat and gave them another of his bright smile. "Congratulations once again," he said happily. Chanyeol thanked him with a nod and some grumbling sounds.

"However, there are pressing matters that we should address. Such as what you will go through for the next nine months," he continued, looking straight at Baekhyun. Baekhyun nodded.

"Total rest will be recommended."

And Baekhyun let out another shriek of 'WHAT?'

Dr. Zhang lifted his hands in surrender, "Please calm down first, sir." Baekhyun wanted to say more, but Jongdae beat him to it by covering his mouth with his palm. "Please continue, doctor," he urged.

"I'm not saying that you will be totally incapacitated. You can still function normally, but won't it be hard? You did experienced the first pain yesterday, right?"

Baekhyun stopped struggling inside Jongdae's hold.

The doctor smiled, "Just as I thought."

"Some of my past patients with the same case said that it's like suffering from contractions all nine months long."

Baekhyun felt like all the strength in his body had been drained. He fell back to Chanyeol's body, but ended up falling on Jongdae's body, surprisingly, with Chanyeol falling on Jongdae also. "Baekhyun was so cranky when contractions happened!" the taller man whined, eliciting a gasp from his husband and a slap to his head and laugh from his sons. "Rude much?" Wendy muttered playfully. 

"Will the pain be non stop, though, doc?" Chanyeol asked, turning serious. The obstetrician shook his head, "It will come and go for the whole nine months. But the worst of it will be in the first and last months. The pain will increase by day on the first month, and on the second it will deplete, but still exist. At least it will become somehow more bearable. But then on the last month it will increase again until your due date." The whole room nodded slowly.

"Why must he stay here for a week, doc?" Wendy suddenly inquired, earning her appreciative looks from the trio best friends. "We need to monitor his pain level so we can prescribe suitable pain reliever medication for the following months. Past cases indicated that if the pain's not treated, patients will have difficulty to even function minimally." "God, I agree," Baekhyun suddenly quipped. Chanyeol abruptly turned towards his husband. "So you don't mind staying here for a week?" Baekhyun smiled dejectedly, "It can't be helped, can it? We need to bring this baby safely." Chanyeol let out a squeak and engulfed his husband in a bear hug.

"I'm sorry though," Baekhyun continued, "that you would have to visit me in this god forsaken place." Chanyeol and Jongdae only sniggered. "Anything for our eldest and wisest hyung," Jongdae cackled, quoting Baekhyun's words from when the trio were elementary schoolers