(TWO DAYS LATER)

Seungho looked around the dorm, examining each speck of grime and bacteria that had the potential to harm his maknae and the baby. He was actually kind of disgusted—now that he really took in the horrid view—over just how messy the five of them could be, particularly when they were in such a line of work that required them to be in peak physical condition almost twenty-four/seven. But then again, he had some of the laziest dongsaengs in the world (not that he was any better most of the time), who absolutely refused to pick up their messes unless Bear-hyung was breathing down their necks to do so. G.O. and Thunder would sometimes take the initative to tidy up the easy things, and maybe even scrub down some especially nasty surfaces... but other than that, no kind of cleaning ever willingly happened in their dorm.

That was all about to change however, because the five of them now had a baby to worry about, and care for.

He drew in a deep breath before turning to G.O. and Thunder, who were slowly following his gaze around and realizing for themselves just how atrocious their dorm looked at the moment. "Wow," Thunder breathed, shaking his head in shame. "I never noticed how bad we all were until now..."

"Yeah... I guess having Cheolyong around has really opened our eyes to how much we let our messes take over," G.O. said, running a hand through his hair.

Seungho nodded and handed them a handful of cleaning supplies, all of which he'd bought the day before on his way back from his last meeting. "And that is..." he coughed when Thunder opened a container of particularly smelly scrubbing pads, "precisely why we're doing this now. We have to make sure Cheolyong and the baby stay safe, and the best place to start is by making sure they have a clean home to live in."

"Yah, you're sounding more like the baby's appa right now than Cheondoong," G.O. , only just missing the hard glare Thunder sent Seungho when he realized that the singer was absolutely correct. "But I agree with you—we need to make sure our dorm stays clean enough for a pregnant person, and eventually a baby, to live in. Otherwise, they'd have to leave... and we've already established that we don't want that."

"Okay, let's get this started then," Seungho announced, sliding a pair of plastic gloves onto his hands. "Cheondoong, you start in the kitchen, and Byunghee, you help me in here. Once we're done, we can move on to the bedrooms and bathrooms."

Thunder and G.O. nodded in concurence, heading off in their own directions to go clean... and clean and clean and clean. Hours passed of them doing nothing more than scrubbing, scraping, spraying, and tossing away various pieces of trash and broken items to be taken out to the dumpsters the next morning. Thunder even emptied the fridge and freezer out, and wiped everything down until they shined in utter cleanliness. Then he tossed out any old, rotted food and searched through the cabinets for expired cans, before he made a list of what they needed (for all of them too, not just Mir), and laid it down on the counter for G.O. to see when he went to cook dinner.

Seungho and G.O., in the meanwhile, had busied themselves in picking up their clothes and dividing them according to their owner (which could be hard to determine sometimes). When that was finished, they moved on to cleaning up dirty dishes and trash and giving them to Thunder to take care of. G.O. vacuumed and mopped once the hardwood was clear for him to do so, and Seungho moved about dusting in front of him, cleaning down the TV and its stand, the coffee table, and even the couch and chair.

When that was done, Thunder moved around spraying air disinfectant to clean out any more musty smells, and kill whatever germs were lingering in their breathing space.

He was just about to move on to the bathrooms like the other two had, when he heard a door creak open. He turned and found Mir standing next to the couch, his hand over his mouth as he coughed harshly... probably from the strong smell of cleaning supplies floating around the place. "Mireu!" he practically leapt over to the maknae in surprise, and covered his face protectively before pushing him back into his room where it was safe.

"Yah, hyung, what are you doing?" Mir shouted, looking quite confused in his half-asleep state. "Are you trying to suffocate me or something?"

"N-no," Thunder shook his head. "Look, sorry Mireu, but the hyungs and I have been cleaning all day... and as you can smell, the supplies we used are pretty strong. You shouldn't be inhaling those kinds of things right now. So just... stay here until some of the air clears out, okay?"

Mir gave him an odd look, but soon backed away and sat down on his bed, pulling out his cellphone to text one of his friends. Thunder took that as his way of saying "okay", and thanked him in return, before backing out of the room and closing the door. He was greeted though, by Seungho, once he reached the other side, and a blush swept over his face when he noticed the amused expression his hyung was giving him; clearly he'd heard his concerned outburst towards their maknae, and was trying his hardest to hold in his teasing sniggers and comments about how protective of an appa and boyfriend he was.

"Byunghee and I have already started on the bathroom by my room," Seungho said instead, causing a wave of relief and peace to wash over the visual. "You can join us there, or move on to the second one."

"I-I can do the second one," Thunder nodded, once again grabbing his cleaning supplies so he could move over, and head into, his destination; Seungho just watched him go, and merely shook his head and smiled when he was gone... G.O. was surely going to hear about this.

He picked up the water bucket he'd come out into the living room for, and carried it back to the bathroom for him to fill, then use, as he cleaned the floor and shower area. G.O. was already working on the sink when he got there, a surgical mask on his face to protect him from the nasty spores that were more than likely flying about his head as he used all of his strength to scrape layers of phlem, toothpaste, rust, and hundreds of other questionable things from the white feux-marble. "What happened out there?" he asked as Seungho climbed by him to get to the shower. "I heard Doongie yell something."

"Oh, you know, he was just being a worried appa," Seungho answered, knowing that the singer would only press him for more; and he did, in the form of a soaked sponge to Seungho's back. "Yah!" he laughed, tossing one right back in retaliation.

"Go on, Seungho, be more specific—just tell me what happened," G.O. urged him, a near-evil grin on his face, and another sponge poised for attack in his hand. "We both know already that Cheondoong has been acting like a worried appa ever since he found out, so you have to... elaborate a bit more when you're telling me things... Or are you being so vague on purpose, just to annoy me?"

Seungho shrugged, bending over to dump water and cleaning chemicals into the bucket, before he immersed his hand in and began his scrubbing. "Cheolyong woke up and came out into the living room... probably to eat something. When Doongie saw him though, he freaked out and pushed him back into his room. Then he said that the smells of the chemicals weren't safe for him to be breathing in. And surprisingly, Cheolyong listened—he's still in there."

"Yep, that sounds like an appa-to-be Cheondoong to me," G.O. chuckled, wiping his gloved hands over the sink's countertop to rub away the last few remnants of grime and mess... of what he could see anyways. "Then again, his personality has always shown him to be a protector... he just prefers to stay in the background until he has to step up and do something. He acts like that all the time with his family, especially Sandara-noona."

"And I bet he's going to be the exact same way with the baby," Seungho nodded thoughtfully, momentarily pausing in his work to exchange an amused glance with his singer. "At least he's being this way though, and not running away..."

"After what his family went through, he'd never be able to do such a thing," G.O. countered, standing up straight and stretching his arms up above his head, "even if he didn't want to be there to take care of her."

Seungho sighed, suddenly dropping his supplies into the bucket and turning to properly face his groupmate. "What about Joon though?" he asked, and G.O. froze mid-scrub to give him a questioning look. "What do you think he's going to say and do about all this? I mean, I know we told Cheolyong that he'd be supportive, and that his love for kids would keep him from acting out... but do you really think that's true?"

G.O. also stopped, snapping his gloves off of his hands and throwing them away in the trash bin nearby. "To be honest, I have no idea," he confessed, running his fingers through his messy hair nervously. "A part of me says that he's going to want to be there for the baby just as much as Cheondoong does, but another part of me says that he's going to be... well, creeped out by everything, and he may start to resent our maknaes for doing what they did..."

"Yeah..." Seungho closed his eyes to better help him think, and a reassuring hand on his shoulder a moment later only reinforced his hope that the five of them would remain as a unified group like before. "Besides, if he does do something—"

"We're going to be right there to stop him," G.O. finished, crossing his arms in a manner similiar to that of a bodyguard. "No one is going to harm Cheolyong or the baby, especially not one of our own groupmates."

The pair nodded in unison as they began to work again, using up the final few hours of the afternoon to scrub down each bathroom (Thunder had only been about halfway done with his when they'd finished theirs), before they opened all the windows in the dorm and let the cleaning chemical odors be blown away. Mir gratefully stepped out of his bedroom the minute Seungho told him he could, and headed straight for the kitchen to get something to eat, before he plopped down on the couch and the TV. The other three immediately crowded into his and Joon's bedroom when he did, and worked extra hard on the cleaning in there—even going so far as to temporarily change all of the sheets and blankets to their spares so they could wash the ones Mir normally used—wiping away every speck of dust, hair, dirt, and trash, until the place practically shined.

Their evening was then spent on doing the last two bedrooms, and when Seungho finally dragged the one remaining bag of trash over to the door, he collapsed back on the couch in a tired heap, followed by Thunder at his side, and G.O. in the chair. "Aish, that took forever," he groaned, throwing an arm over his eyes.

"A whole day," Thunder nodded, stretching his body out as much as he could on the small cushion he sat on. "Please, never make us do that again, hyung," he pleaded; Seungho merely snorted in reply.

The noises of the TV took over from there, echoing in the small space the four of them sat in until Seungho and G.O. inevitably fell asleep. Thunder on the other hand, was wide awake, because Mir had suddenly begun to groan and whine about how much he hated being stuck as he was (the baby was moving again, and her new position was not one to be favored). "Stupid kid, stupid stomach..." he gasped and brought his hands up to massage his back, "stupid spine."

Thunder creased his brow in worry, wondering if Mir really meant what he was saying. He'd just seemed so... happy before—in the time he'd been home from his parents'—that such a theory had never even occured to the visual. But was he really that upset? Did he really want to be rid of the baby as much as he was grumbling about right now? Thunder frowned at the thought alone, and nearly wanted to cry out for him to change his mind.

"Yah, Mireu," he said instead, his voice quiet and near-unheard. Mir immediately paused in his complaining to look over at him, but his gaze remained focused on his knees. "Are you happy about this?" he asked, and the momentary pause that followed made his heartbeat skip dangerously.

"You mean about the cleaning?" Mir finally chuckled, shrugging his shoulders. "Yeah, I guess I am. I mean, you three went so far as to clean this dump just for me and her... I should only be grateful for that, right?"

Thunder sighed, shaking his head in the negative. "That's not what I meant," he said. "I was actually asking whether or not you were happy about having the baby. I mean, you've been acting like you're excited—like you really want her to get here so you can take care of her and play with her... but is that true? Do you really want her as much as you say you do?"

Mir turned his face away, unconsiously holding a hand to his stomach to feel the baby push out to meet him. "Sometimes I am..." he murmured, noticing a hard lump forming in his throat; but from sadness or puke, he didn't know. "Sometimes I really like the idea of being an umma, and taking care of her like we did with the other three. I want to be able to spoil her, and play with her, and show off how beautiful she is to the world... But there are other times when I want it to end, when I just want things to go back to normal... you know, when the five of us were a happy group that didn't have to worry about such things. And to be honest with you, I'm scared, hyung... Taking care of three kids with the help of a production crew and a few nannies is a lot different than having to care for one of my own with no one there to help take the burden off of me whenever I feel defeated... Sometimes I wish I could just... do something to take her away, and not have to worry about what we're going to do for her anymore..."

Thunder squeezed his eyes shut at that last sentence, and an uncontrollable string of tears ran down along his face. He'd suspected that Mir would feel like this, that he would want to be there for his groupmates and their careers more than an unborn baby, but hearing the words come straight from his own mouth was more than the visual maknae could take. Mir just sounded so... cold and distant when he said those things, and the worry that he really would do something to harm her made the ache only that much stronger. "Are you going to?" he asked, hands wiping away his tears only for more to take their place. "Are you going to harm her, or take her away from us—from me?"

Mir leaned forward in his seat and shakily exhaled; he was crying too, and the hand placed at his throat only showed just how sick he was getting over having such a conversation. "No..." he finally answered, not really knowing whether he was telling the truth or not; his emotions were differentiating just so easily from one moment to the next lately, that most of the time he had no idea what he was going to do about anything, much less a whole other living being. "I would never harm someone like that... But I just... have these thoughts once in a while, and they scare me... because I want to be a good umma, you know..."

"And you will be," Thunder assured him, reaching over across Seungho to pet at his hair. "As long as you keep what you said inside your head... You know none of us would be able to forgive you if you ever hurt her, not even Seungho-hyung..."

"Yeah, I know... That's why I want to try hard, and be the best umma I can," Mir suddenly stood up, and Thunder followed, wrapping him up in a tight hug. "As long as you four are going to be here to help me... I can't do this on my own..."

Thunder nodded and gave his forehead a loving, comforting kiss. "We will, Mireu, no matter what, so just, take care of yourself and the baby, and let us handle the rest, okay? And if you ever need help, just come to us—we're always going to be here..."