(Two months later)

“Yoon Doojoon, come on! Let’s go already!” Hyunseung called impatiently, trying not to be too loud so that he didn’t wake the baby girls up. He had no idea what was taking Doojoon and Yoseob so long; he’d reminded them time and again that they had to leave at exactly 10am today. He even gave them a morning call four hours ago, knowing that they had to get the girls ready.

“Give us a minute, we’re almost done,” Doojoon replied tiredly. He knew that having twins was going to be challenging but ever since they brought the twins home about five weeks ago, he and Yoseob literally slept for two hours every day. If Jihyun wasn’t crying, then Sohyun was, otherwise both of them would be screaming together.

“Fine,” Hyunseung grumbled, sitting down on the couch and looking at the pictures in his phone. A smile made its way to his face as he scrolled through the dozens of pictures of Ilhoon. As the doctors predicted, the premature baby was moved to an open crib in the last week of November, and now Hyunseung was finally going to be able to bring him back home.

He was afraid of course. He didn’t know how to be a good parent, and he didn’t want to disturb Doojoon or Yoseob in the middle of the night because they had enough to deal with. He heard the twins wailing sometimes and he wondered how he would cope with Ilhoon. Honestly, he respected all parents now, even his mum. She may be a terrible mother now, but she raised him well.

Doojoon came out of his room a couple of minutes later, carrying Jihyun in one hand and a baby bag in the other. Yoseob followed behind him, bouncing Sohyun in his arms in an attempt to make her fall asleep. Both Doojoon and Yoseob had eye bags from lack of sleep, and Hyunseung could only imagine that that’d be him, in about three weeks’ time.

“Let’s go?” Doojoon asked, looking at Hyunseung who nodded eagerly. The five of them made their way down and Hyunseung held onto Jihyun as Doojoon unlocked the car and put the baby bag away. The baby girl was still fast asleep, which was pretty good because according to Yoseob, she’d already been knocked out for about two hours. It was a miracle.

The two girls were then put into their car seats and Hyunseung climbed into the seat beside them. The current arrangement was such that Doojoon and Yoseob sat in front, while Hyunseung and the twins sat in the middle row. However, with Ilhoon coming home, Hyunseung would sit in the back with his son, while the others stay in their respective places.

The only reason Yoseob and the twins were going as well was because they had scheduled the twins’ two-month check-up that day. It would be a lot more convenient for them to go to the hospital together, instead of on separate days. Doojoon was back to working at the store, and was thinking about being a part-time soccer coach as well. There were a few middle schools nearby; surely he would be able to find one that needed a coach.

Meanwhile, Hyunseung had contacted Donghee and was discussing about working there part-time. Yoseob, on the other hand, had no plans whatsoever. He was just going to stay home and take care of the twins, and maybe help out with Ilhoon when Hyunseung was at work. It sure as hell wasn’t going to be easy, but Hyunseung’s dad did promise to come over whenever he could.

The drive to the hospital was, thankfully, quiet. Yoseob fell asleep seconds into the journey, and Hyunseung could see that Doojoon was fighting the urge to sleep, too. Hence, Hyunseung took it upon himself to start a conversation with the elder. He was pretty sure that none of them wanted to get into a car accident.

“Seobie’s birthday is coming up, isn’t it?”

Doojoon yawned and nodded. “5^th January. I have twenty days to plan something and I have no idea what I’m going to do. Who’s going to take care of the twins if we go out?” he asked.

Hyunseung rolled his eyes and looked at his best friend. “Thanks for the immense trust in me, Doo. Because, you know, you didn’t totally imply that I’m incapable of looking after your daughters.”

Sighing, Doojoon looked at Hyunseung through the mirror. “I’m sorry, I thought you’d be too busy with Ilhoon. Taking care of three babies alone is no joke, Seung.”

Hyunseung shrugged. “I could call Jungsu hyung over. He could bring Changseob too. And there’s appa and Geurim to help. Just plan something nice for Seobie, and leave the twins to us,” he reassured with a grin.

Doojoon smiled, nodding and thanking Hyunseung. “What about you?”

“What about me?” Hyunseung asked, frowning in confusion.

“Isn’t Junhyung’s birthday in three days?”

“…yeah. But what can I do when I don’t even know where he is?”

“Honestly, I think Sungjong knows where he is. You could ask him to pass your present to him?” Doojoon suggested. He didn’t want to doubt Sungjong – he was so nice and helpful. However, he couldn’t help but feel that Sungjong was hiding something from them. It wasn’t just Sungjong, too. Even Sunggyu and Howon seemed to be hiding a secret, and Doojoon was willing to bet that it had to do with Junhyung’s whereabouts.

Hyunseung bit his lip, debating over whether or not he should ask Sungjong to do this favour. Ultimately, he shrugged.

“I guess it won’t hurt to try.”

---------------------

Yoseob was still rather soundly asleep when they reached the hospital, so Doojoon woke him up reluctantly because they didn’t want to be late for their appointment. Hyunseung helped carry Sohyun until they got to the waiting area, and then he was running off to the neonatal ward to check Ilhoon out of the hospital.

It didn’t take long for the nurses to handle the paperwork, and Hyunseung had never been happier to see his son. He’d waited over two months to bring Ilhoon back home, and it killed him to have to visit the hospital daily just to have a glimpse of his son and, occasionally, to hold the baby in his arms. Hyunseung was so excited that he was grinning and thanking all the nurses that he recognised for taking care of Ilhoon.

“Mr. Jang, you’re all good to go,” the head nurse said, laughing when Hyunseung sped off to the room that Ilhoon was in. He quickly went in and acknowledged the nurse, thanking her as well before he went over to Ilhoon’s crib and carrying him into his arms.

“We’ll miss you, Hyunseung-sshi, but please don’t come back again,” she told him.

Hyunseung nodded and grinned. “Hopefully I won’t see you again, at least not in the hospital.”

The nurse chuckled and waved as Hyunseung went off with Ilhoon. The baby boy had woken up due to suddenly being lifted out of the soft crib, and opened his eyes to see his mother smiling down at him. He rubbed his eyes and yawned, making Hyunseung coo because Ilhoon was just too adorable. He couldn’t help but sigh when he noticed how much smaller his son was compared to the twins, though. And then Ilhoon smiled right back at Hyunseung and the young mother couldn’t help but grin. It didn’t matter if Ilhoon was smaller now – he would catch up soon enough.

Hyunseung made his way over to the paediatrics ward and noticed that Doojoon and Yoseob were gone, meaning that they were probably still doing the twins’ check-up. Sitting down, Hyunseung made faces at Ilhoon until the infant was laughing, and then he decided to coax his son back to sleep. It wasn’t as if there was anything for Ilhoon to do at the hospital anyway.

It was almost a half hour before the family of four came out of the doctor’s office, and headed towards Hyunseung while giving him a thumbs up. Hyunseung nodded, glad that the twins were healthy so far, and walked to meet Doojoon and Yoseob in the middle. They agreed to eat at the hospital cafeteria, and managed to do so before any of the three babies woke up.

They left after that, going over to the store to find Dongwoon and Gikwang. The two were on vacation now, with school being closed for the next month. They mostly worked to spend time, and when they saved enough they were planning to go on a little vacation to Jeju. It wasn’t much, but they were still students after all. They had to save for other stuff, too.

“Hey guys look who’s here!” Hyunseung announced as he walked into the store with Ilhoon in his arms. Gikwang and Dongwoon immediately looked up and grinned at the sight of the baby boy, waving at their hyungs.

“Geurim isn’t with you guys?” Gikwang asked, used to seeing Hyunseung’s younger sister around almost all the time. Hyunseung shrugged, shaking his head. Apparently Geurim had something important on, so she couldn’t go to the hospital with them. Mr. Jang, too, had to go for a meeting with his wife to discuss who would take over the restaurant.

“She was too busy to pick Ilhoon up with us.”

“Hi guys,” Yoseob yawned, walking in behind Doojoon with Jihyun in his arms. She was being cranky after waking up, and Yoseob had to spend some time in the car making sure she wouldn’t cry.

Gikwang looked at the couple and shook his head. “You guys look exhausted.”

“We are,” Doojoon agreed, yawning as well and sitting behind one of the empty counters. “But it’s all worth it when these two cuties smile at us,” he added, cooing at Jihyun who was drooling slightly while smiling.

Dongwoon nodded, looking longingly at the three babies. “I wish we could start a family soon, too.”

“After you guys graduate, alright?” Yoseob advised, causing the others to laugh in agreement.

The three left with their babies after about an hour or so, as the crowd started coming in and the babies got restless. Doojoon and Yoseob, too, were exhausted, and just wanted to get home to take a short nap. Gikwang and Dongwoon promised to drop by their apartment someday to play with the babies, probably buy something small for them to play with too, and bid their hyungs goodbye.

After getting back to their apartment building, Hyunseung went up to his own place to get Ilhoon settled into the new environment. After all, his son had been in the hospital for the past two months now. He was expecting a fussy baby tonight, which probably wouldn’t be a fun experience but he didn’t really have a choice now did he. If Junhyung was around then maybe they could take turns, but he was going to have to do this child raising thing alone.

By the time he got up to his floor, Ilhoon was awake and looking like he was going to cry. Hyunseung hurriedly went into his house and checked Ilhoon’s diaper, before he figured out that the baby was probably just hungry. He groaned when he realised that the bottles weren’t sterilised, and that there wasn’t any warm water. He so wasn’t prepared to take care of Ilhoon alone.

When the water was boiled and the bottles sterilised, Ilhoon was already crying and Hyunseung was struggling with calming Ilhoon down while preparing the bottle. He tested the temperature of the milk and when he was satisfied with it, quickly went to feed Ilhoon. The baby stopped crying almost immediately, and Hyunseung heaved a huge sigh of relief. He made a mental note to always have sterilised bottles and hot water from now onwards.

Being a mother wasn’t an easy task, and his life in parenthood had only just begun.

Day one with Ilhoon home, and it’s already a disaster.

I was kinda running dry on ideas for this chapter soooo it might be boring I'm sorry

But I had to do this chapter cause ILHOON'S HOME!

And the next chapter will probably be Seob's birthday?

I don't really intend to write a whole chapter for Junnie's birthday cause... he's still in prison lol

Ok anyways I'm sorry for the late update and again, no promises for the next either ><

That's all from me for now. Annyeong~! ^-^