(FIVE DAYS LATER)

The whole day had been terrible—heavy rain, thunder, and lightning had been going on from midnight straight into the afternoon, forcing Seungho back home from his photoshoots, G.O. back home from his recording sessions, and Thunder back home from his filming time.

One at a time they arrived at the dorm, each one shaking out of his jacket and wet shoes in favor of a warm, dry towel and their slippers. Seungho was the first one to get back, and graciously made tea for the other two to have when they trudged in from the storm as well, looking just as drenched as he had.

"Welcome home," he greeted Thunder, who'd been in the middle of unbuckling his soaked jeans when he'd passed by the kitchen; he paused and bowed his head a bit before heading off to go change, his tea enticingly steaming in the cup in his hand.

G.O. came next (and last), shaking his hair and running his fingers through it to get it to slick back against his head, out of the way of his eyes. "Hey, thanks," he said to Seungho once he'd grabbed his own tea, before he too disappeared into his room with Thunder... which left their leader all by himself in the middle of their dark, dirty, and cold dorm.

That didn't last too long though, because Mir showed up a few moments later, rubbing his eyes and his tummy. "Hyung, you're home," he murmured, and Seungho nodded back to him in reply.

"The storm," he then carried on to explain, and Mir looked up and outside the window to see rain harshly pattering against the glass, before a bright flash of lightning crossed; a deafening thunder strike followed in its wake. "You can see why our schedules were cancelled..." he finished, shrugging his shoulders.

"Doongie-hyung and G.O.-hyung are here too?" Mir asked, suddenly searching about for his other two bandmates.

"Yeah, they're in their room changing," Seungho nodded in the general direction of where Thunder and G.O. had gone. "Has Bear-hyung called yet...?" he suddenly asked, but Mir only shrugged in response.

"Noona said he'd probably call later on," he said a beat later, remembering the conversation he'd had with his sister earlier on that morning. "He had to go to a meeting during lunch to discuss something for the five of us, so he's going to have to wait to call us until he's done... That's if he even has an answer by then."

Seungho exhaled deeply. "This is torture, you know," he said, speaking in a more rhetorical fashion than directly to the maknae. "They've already made us wait five days—"

"How do you think I feel, hyung?" Mir asked, crossing his arms. He looked kind of moody, and Seungho knew that the pregnancy was the reason why. "This is my career, my fame on the line, and for them—especially Noona and Hyung—to keep me waiting this long is making me super frustrated... And more than I think I've ever been before."

"Well, look on the bright side then," Seungho shrugged, causing Mir's eyebrows to raise questioningly; he really couldn't see a bright side to being knocked-up as a male K-pop idol... and notably not when he had no idea whether he was going to stay and continue performing with his group, or get kicked out forever, "you get to stay here as long as they're still figuring things out. So even if you're leaving soon, you can at least be here with us until they tell you to go."

Mir's face fell, and so did his arms; now he looked just about ready to cry. "Yeah..." he whispered, feeling the tears well up in his eyes. Seungho moved around the counter and hugged him as the sobs began to leave him; and he held on tightly, never wanting to let go. "I want to stay though..." he gasped. "This is my family, my home, and Doongie-hyung..."

"Doongie is going to be here to help you, even if you have to leave," Seungho assured him, rubbing a hand up and down his back. "He's a good person, and after what he went through with his own family... No, he'd never do that to you and her."

Mir quickly shook his head, feeling his legs wobble unsteadily; Seungho just pulled him that much closer, and let him rest his full weight on him. "But hyung... if I have to go home, and he stays here as a part of the group... he won't be able to see her... I don't want them to go through that... I want us to be together... All of us, even you, and G.O.-hyung, and Joonie-hyung..."

Seungho sighed as the maknae only cried that much harder; he looked around the room helplessly for something—anything—to help make the depressing moment any better. What he found instead though, was G.O. and Thunder standing in the doorway to the kitchen, looking worried. He nodded his head up for them to move, and soon the four of them were wrapped up in a tight hug; Mir readjusted his arms to reach around his three hyungs as best he could, and they did the same to him, refusing to let him go until he stopped crying and smiled like the Bang Mir they loved.

"We're not going to let you leave, Mireu, even if J. Tune says you have to," Thunder told him, lovingly kissing at his temple. "We're not going to let them break up our family..."

The four of them stood there for a long while, not speaking, though saying more in their gestures and gazes than they could have ever hoped to express in words. Mir eventually quieted and laid his head on G.O.'s shoulder, closing his drooping eyes; he was already tired enough—just from his crying—to be well on his way to sleeping again. Seungho noticed this too, and raised his eyebrows to Thunder to let him know he had his permission to lead their maknae to the couch and hold him close as he napped.

The leader ran a hand through his hair and sighed, glancing over to the equally stressed-looking G.O. Neither of them could really quite imagine what their lives would be like without Mir there to be their baby. They were a family, and for one of their members to just up and leave so suddenly was like losing a younger brother for good. "This is going to be hard..." Seungho murmured, leaning his elbows onto the island countertop as he watched Thunder cover Mir up in a blanket and soothingly pet his hair. "No matter what the answer from Bear-hyung is, we're going to have to face hardships. But if he says that Cheolyong has to go..."

"Seungho, calm down—we already know he's going to stay here," G.O. assured him, even though his own voice shook in uncertainty. "His brother in-law... he's going to make sure we keep him... And he and the baby are going to live here in the dorm, and he's going to stay an idol... No one's going to go anywhere..."

Silence graced the dorm, leaving the three who were still awake to their own thoughts and prayers, all of which revolved around their maknae. Seungho dropped his head to the counter's surface to avoid the blinding light of the kitchen... and to keep G.O. from noticing the wet trails on his cheeks. Thunder stayed close to Mir, caressing his face and rubbing at his stomach, a mess of tears falling from his own face. And G.O., well, he tried his hardest to be the stronger of them—someone had to be after all. But as the minutes ticked by agonizingly slow, he felt his will break, and soon he was burying his face in Seungho's shoulder as a last ditch effort to keep from crying like the other two; he failed.

"Look at us," he heard Seungho whine, before an arm s around him to pull him close. "Four grown men crying like this... We're really pathetic..."

"No," G.O. countered angrily, shaking his head. "Cheolyong is our baby, our maknae—we have every right to act like this when he's in danger of leaving us."

His hand began to rub soothing circles along Seungho's back as his shoulders shook in what G.O. could only guess was sobbing. He was trying to cover up his weakness, his worry, and the fact that he cared more for his bandmates and their unity than anything else in the world. He was the one who was supposed to be strong, brave, never showing his fear or anxiousness—he was the hyung, so he needed to be that way—but the stress, the anticipation, was getting to him.

And the fact that the whole thing revolved around an innocent, unborn baby only made him feel abysmally more guilty. He really should have done better for the five of them; he really should have tried harder to make sure something so scandalous and... forbidden didn't happen, and least of all to his maknaes. But no, he'd failed, and now they were all paying the price—and he was the whole reason why.

"Come on, just call already," he groused, rocking his body back and forth in impatience; G.O. backed off and just watched, waiting for the moment when he would need to step back in and calm him down again. "We want to know the answer..." his voice grew louder, and suddenly his hands were slamming down onto the counter, stirring Mir from his sleep just as Thunder jumped up in surprise. "Tell us! Tell us! We want to know!"

"Seungho, stop... You're going overboard," G.O. gripped his wrists and pulled him away from the counter—from the whole kitchen—before forcing him to plop down into the chair beside the couch in the living room. "They're going to tell us, okay? One way or another, even if we have to march into J. Tune's offices and demand an answer, they're going to tell us. But you acting like this... you're only going to make things more stressful, more tense for us, and Cheolyong can't be around those kinds of things. So please... just take a deep breath, and hold in your impatience until tomorrow, if we haven't gotten the call by then."

Seungho yanked his arms away from his singing dongsaeng, but he made no other move towards rebellion. He just sat there, his gaze focused on his lap, his hands clenching and unclenching in anger, his bottom lip being gnawed up by his teeth. But G.O. was right—he needed to relax a little, and think first and foremost of Mir and the baby. "Fine," he surrendered, raising his head to look up at G.O. "However, if that call doesn't come in by tomorrow morning, I'm canceling my schedule, and heading over to J. Tune to demand that they tell me."

"Me too," Mir joined in, raising his hand up. "That way I can yell at Hyung and Noona face-to-face for making me wait so long."

"I want to go too," Thunder also chimed in, wrapping his arms tighter around the real maknae's middle. "Mireu and I are the ones who need to know most after all."

G.O. chuckled, before taking a seat down on the small coffee table in the middle of the room. "I guess we're all going then," he said; Mir and Thunder nodded their heads vigorously in reply. "Well... almost all of us anyways. Joon isn't going to be back here for another few weeks, so either he's going to find out about this through the media and fans, or he's going to come back to a group of three instead of four."

"Yeah right," Mir laughed loudly, shaking his head. "Joonie-hyung is so oblivious to everything—even when things are being thrown right at his face—so I already know that we're going to be telling him directly one way or another..." his voice dropped from there, and he suddenly seemed nervous. "He's going to be supportive though, right?" he asked, and the others exchanged a glance.

They had no idea themselves about how Joon would react to such a thing, but if he ever tried anything, or even so much as uttered one wrong word to their precious maknae, he would receive the worst punishment of his life; Seungho and G.O. would even gladly hold him down for Thunder to beat on, even though he was the hyung.

"He'd be pretty stupid to not be," Seungho finally spoke up, and G.O. nodded along in concurrence, "... but I doubt he would be," he added, when he noticed Mir's expression fall even more; he must have thought that there was a good chance of being rejected by Joon if Seungho had to say such a thing.

"He likes kids way too much to be like that anyways," G.O. continued, sounding more confident in his words than their anxious leader did. "So when he finds out that you and Doongie are having one of your own, he's bound to be super happy... and supportive. He's going to have a kid around to take care of forever after all, instead of for just a few months."

Mir looked down to his lap, his hands wringing nervously; Thunder noticed his dubious mannerisms and pulled him closer, kissing his wavy brown hair. "Yeah, I guess G.O.-hyung is right..." he murmured a moment later though, and the other three relaxed... Maybe (hopefully) they really had convinced him that Joon would behave, because even they still weren't all that sure.

"Well..." Seungho sighed and pushed up from the chair, ready to move on to doing something a little less heart-wrenching than watching, or making, their maknae cry. Not that he didn't want to be there to comfort him; no, he just didn't know how much more he could take before he really went off the deep end... and in a way that could seriously harm one of the others.

But before he could even take a step to leave, the sound of his phone buzzing echoed through the room. He immediately froze—as did Mir, Thunder, and G.O.—before he slowly reached down into his jeans, and pulled the thing out to hold to his ear. "Bear-hyung..." he said, notifying the other three of just who had called him. "Yeah... You know about Cheolyong?" his eyes raised up to gaze at the maknae. "Go on—tell me... Oh, okay... Yeah..."

He suddenly turned away from his listening dongsaengs, causing them to lean forward eagerly and groan at the fact that he was making things way more suspenseful than they needed to be. But he only continued to pace back and forth across the living room, listening to Hyung Sub rant on and on about Mir's fate.

When nearly ten minutes had passed, he nodded and gave his goodbye before clicking off his phone screen, ending the call. He turned back to the others, who all looked more than ready to hear what he'd just been told... He had to say they looked kind of intimidating though—almost like predators gazing hungrily at their prey.

"Calm down, calm down," he moved his hands in a fashion complimentary to his words, but Mir only seemed to grow that much more anxious; and Thunder and G.O., well, they looked about ready to tear off his head and feed on him. "Bear-hyung said... Cheolyong can stay."

A couple beats passed in utter silence, as his dongsaengs processed the words fully; but then there were smiles spreading across their faces, and all of them—including Mir—were jumping to their feet and cheering. Thunder wrapped the maknae up in a loving hug, and G.O. moved across the room to Seungho to do the same. Laughs and murmurs of gratefulness echoed on for what seemed to be ages, before Seungho had to pull away from his singer to tell them that Bear-hyung had had more to say.

Mir immediately took another seat down on the couch to rest his feet and back, and Thunder followed, holding a hand to his swollen stomach protectively; no, he was never going to let his baby girl go, no matter what anyone said... especially now that he knew she and Mir were going to be living in the same home as him forever more.

G.O. stopped in his cheering and quieted down too, though he stayed right where he was, holding onto Seungho closely around the shoulders. "Come on, Seungho, just tell us already..." he said, his breathing still ragged from their celebration.

"Okay," Seungho nodded, his expression and demeanor completely sobered in comparison to before. "Bear-hyung told me that J. Tune has allowed Cheolyong to stay here as an idol and group member... but we're going to have to work around his body, and try as hard as we can to keep him from showing his stomach off in public... something about his shape being scandalous or whatever... And we're still going to be on shows and everything—he just has to cover up like the girls do."

"Did Bear-hyung say when our next show is?" Thunder asked, perking up more and more as the seconds ticked by. "Have any of the studios called us to tell us we're still allowed to go on—Mireu too?"

"Yeah..." Seungho paused and squinted his eyes, wondering just how they were going to react to hearing his next answer. "He said that we're going to announce the news on... Weekly Idol..."

"What, really?" G.O. sounded, and looked, utterly confused as he backed away, but Seungho merely sighed and shrugged his shoulders.

"They're the only ones who have called back so far," he continued from there. "And Bear-hyung figured that Hyung Don-sunbaenim, and Defconn-sunbaenim can provide enough comedy for us to lighten the... well, the blow that the news is going to bring. Plus, I heard that the two of them were really supportive, and had even begged their producer to let us go on, even if we only end up talking about the baby."

"Do we really have to do that though...?" Mir asked quietly, sounding just as nervous as he'd been before the call. "Do we really have to go on TV to announce this? And do I have to be the one to say something?"

Thunder held him impossibly close. "This is the only way we're going to be able to tell the world and receive the least amount of backlash, Mireu," he explained, and Mir nodded in understanding.

"I know... but I'm still kind of anxious," he mumbled.

"Then we can tell them initially," Seungho offered, moving over to kneel in front of the true maknae. "And you can answer all the questions they have after that... but only if you want to. The show is going to be for breaking the news, not for explaining everything and going into crazy detail about how you and Doongie—"

"Yah, not now," G.O. snapped, slapping a playful hand across Seungho's head. He chuckled nervously and stepped back however, when the leader stood up, his hand poised to strike back... only, his attack would be three times as harsh. "Sorry, sorry," he laughed, running back around to the kitchen where Seungho quickly followed, chuckling and smiling despite his threatening demeanor.

"Get over here, dongsaeng," he ordered, moving to jump up over the countertop; but G.O. shoved at his shoulders, forcing him to slip and fall back onto the ground. A heavy body landed on him from there, and soon he and G.O. were rolling around, arms and legs locked in a tussle that Mir would have usually joined in on, had he not been so worried... or knocked-up...

Thunder leaned forward to lay his chin on the maknae's shoulder, sensing his tensed mood. "You don't have to say anything if you don't want to," he said reassuringly, gently rocking their bodies from side-to-side; Mir smiled in reaction, and turned to properly look at him. "You know that the hyungs won't make you, even if J. Tune does... Besides, she's my baby too—I need to stand up and say something about her as well, so I can be a proper appa like I want to be."

Mir chuckled, tucking some of his messy hair back behind his ears. "Are you trying to tell me you want to announce my pregnancy then, instead of me? Well, that's okay with me... And you already are a proper appa, babo," he added a moment later, "so stop being so insecure."

"A better appa then," Thunder teased, his pouty lips brushing against a newly-exposed earlobe. "And yes, I'm saying I want to break the news."

"Tell Seungho-hyung that then, before he gets too invested in the idea that he's going to, and actually does," giggled Mir, before he leaned back and allowed Thunder to hold him as closely as possible. "And you know he would too... especially after what we saw of him today."

"Yeah, I guess I should," Thunder nodded, before his eyes wandered back over to their two play-fighting hyungs. "Maybe later though—I don't think I want to get caught up in their game over there..."