Kyuhyun gasped, jolting awake.

Where was he?

This wasn’t his room. It felt too hot. The ground too hard. Was it even the ground? Disoriented. Heart pounding. Kyuhyun could barely lift his head. He couldn’t get enough air. Not enough air. Like waking up from a nightmare. Blinking numbly, Kyuhyun tried to clear his mind but the air was smoky and thick and he couldn’t get enough. His body was smothered in heat and cloth making him sticky with sweat.

A small whine cut through the daze.

The baby was crying.

Almost instinctively, he tried to sit up to care for the doll, but he couldn’t. Because his arms wouldn’t move. Or his legs. He could feel them twitch but when he ordered them to get up they would not respond.

Like waking up to a nightmare.

Taking several deep breaths, Kyuhyun tried his best not to panic. That was sure hard to do when he could barely breathe. Why couldn’t he breathe!?

Pressure.

Yes. Pressure.

There was pressure on his chest.

Gasping for breath, he tried not to think of all the medical complications that implied. Instead, he focused on his neck. Yes, his neck could still move. With a great amount of effort, Kyuhyun managed to lift his head.

He could see a lot of blackness. As his eyes slowly adjusted shapes began to form. There was something blocking his view. It looked like his own body except he’d been pretty sure he could see toes when he’d fallen asleep.

Kyuhyun struggled to wrap his mind around this. What was on top of him? Had the couch flipped on top of him during the night? Because judging from the amount of pressure on his chest the general weight of the object had to be quite heavy. Almost as heavy as - Ryeowook!

Yes, yes! Flashes of last night came racing back. Kyuhyun had fallen asleep with Ryeowook in his arms! And now Ryeowook was sleeping on top of him! That explained why he was so hot and couldn’t breathe; he tiny little boyfriend was crushing him!

Kyuhyun dropped his head back, fully relieved with the knowledge that his spine had not been snapped. His relief was short-lived however as the doll cried out yet again. Groaning, Kyuhyun set to move Ryeowook without waking his exhausted boyfriend.

First Kyuhyun managed to get his arm out from under the smaller. While he’d been sleeping coffin style, Ryeowook had sprawled out all over him. Talk about clingy. Shaking out his numbed up arm, Kyuhyun then wrapped it around Ryeowook’s small waist and attempted to roll his boyfriend to the side.

Meanwhile, the baby’s whimpers increased in volume.

Removing Ryeowook wasn’t going to be as easy as it seemed their legs were intertwined in a style usually reserved for contortionists. It didn’t help that his legs were also completely numb.

By the time Kyuhyun righted himself the doll’s whimpers were almost a constant whine. His two minutes to get to the doll were running out.

Desperately trying to ignore Ryeowook’s hands which were now grasping at his chest, Kyuhyun tried faster to move Ryeowook to the side. He’d freed his upper half already with only their tangled legs to go. While he was focused on releasing his legs, Ryeowook’s head dropped back and the smaller elicited a moan from the disturbance.

Kyuhyun froze at the sound. Suddenly, he became acutely aware of the feel of Ryeowook’s warm skin against his. He’d been aware of it before, but now the slightest twitch sent shocks up his spine. The, ah, intimacy of the situation did not help either. Kyuhyun's fingers were itching to pull Ryeowook back into his chest. His pounding heart and quickened breathing meant one thing. And of course, there was the lower region of his body. Of all the times to get ….

Just too make sure his boyfriend was still asleep, and not because he couldn’t help themselves, Kyuhyun's eyes traced their way back up his torso.

Sure enough, Ryeowook’s head was tilted backwards, exposing a long stretch of pale, smooth neck...And, and eyes. His eyes were closed. Yes, and his lips kept moving in a silent mumble, simply inviting themselves to be kissed… but other than that, the smaller showed no signs of waking up. Yet Kyuhyun continued to stare.

It was the sudden silence that pulled him from the trance.

“Oh no,” he jerked up, heart pounding, “Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no.”

Gently setting Ryeowook aside, Kyuhyun scrambled to get to the armchair’s base. The doll was lying there in its carrier; unblinking and totally quiet.

“Please be dead. Please be dead. Please be dead,” he whispered, hurriedly pulling back his sleeve to reveal the plastic charm on his wrist. He pressed the sensor to the doll’s chest.

Nothing.

He tried the bellybutton.

Nothing.

Then the speakers crackled to life and the doll let out two consecutive coughs. And as much as Kyuhyun was willing to believe the thing had caught a virus, the instant shrieking said otherwise.

The punishment cry.

“No, no, no, no, no, no,” Kyuhyun’s voice increased in volume with the doll.

The punishment cry was the worst after head-support-failure. Signaled by silence followed by two coughs, the punishment cry was unstoppable. It lasted for ten minutes straight and occurred every instance you didn’t chime-in to the doll on time. Needless to say, Kyuhyun had spent most of last night listening to this torture and now being exhausted, , and sore did not make tonight any better.

“Kyu-Kyuhyun?” he heard Ryeowook gasp behind him. “The baby. It’s crying.”

And there went his earlier efforts.

“Go back to sleep Wookie.” Kyuhyun called before turning back to the doll, “There’s nothing we can do.”

He vaguely heard his boyfriend moan “Oh, Kyu,” before falling silent, adding more torture to the night.

There was no describing the sort of pain that came from listening to a baby cry. Every scream was grating. Your very insides twisted at the thought and with each shriek a part of you died. It also kind of killed any drive you might have had. It certainly killed Kyuhyun's. 

Sometimes there were hopeful moments where a cry would wither out and he could trick himself into believing the torture was over. But then the screams would resume, and he would wish he were dead.

The breaths in between were the worst. Every inhalation signaled the coming of something worse. Louder, higher, a thousand times more desperate. It was a moment of pure anticipation where he both knew the scream was coming but could do nothing to stop it from striking. Like watching a tsunami on the beach.

Grabbing a pillow from the armchair, Kyuhyun shoved it against the doll’s body. The volume instantly died down, though its face was covered by pillow. A real baby would have suffocated. But then again, real babies didn’t have speakers blasting out of their chests.

With his head dropped in defeat, Kyuhyun let his shoulders relax. All he could do now was keep the screaming muffled while listening to his GPA drop by the minute.

By the time his ten minutes were up, his eyes were ringing with the scream. Most of his insides were in knots. Already, his eyes had gotten heavy and he could barely remove the pillow.

Groaning, Kyuhyun pulled away from the couch. When the first thing he saw was the fluffy top of Ryeowook’s head, he smiled. The smaller’s scent lingered on his shirt, and in the chilly night air his warmth never seemed so inviting. He couldn’t wait to snuggle up against his clingy boyfriend.

But before he could set the pillow down, the doll let out a static-filled whimper.

‘Oh no,’ Kyuhyun thought.

But sure enough, the whimpers increased. The baby needed a care session. And several more after that.

Kyuhyun wasn’t sure how many times the baby had whimpered. He always managed to care before it became pure scream, yet it never seemed to stop. Every time she went quiet the baby would start to cry again. That brief moment of silence from before turned out to be the longest pause of the night. Kyuhyun was rocking and feeding, and burping the baby for nearly three hours.

His only consolation was that Ryeowook seemed to be sleeping. Perhaps his nightmares were of babies possessed by banshees. But the fact that Ryeowook needed sleep, that was enough for him to keep caring for the doll. He thought he was doing okay. It would almost never break out screaming. Until it did of course. Always for no reason.

Except… wait. It was all for no reason; the baby was fake.

This was how tired he was.  

At some point, Kyuhyun had resorted to walking in loops around the kitchen. It sort of kept him awake.

You’d think that after a while the drowsiness would wear off and you would be wide awake in the dark but no.

The weariness just stays with you, dragging you down and making every movement a chore. More than a chore; it was like moving an arm was lifting a table stacked with books. Demanding and pointless.

When for the third time the mechanical doll began to cry without reason, Kyuhyun could feel himself hit a breaking point.

He wanted to shake the doll. To hit it. To throw it against the wall and scream right back in its face. He was overcome with a pure senseless rage. All Kyuhyun wanted to do was harm the thing.

But then it passed. The anger dissipated into apathy and with a shuddering breath, he loosened the grip he’d not realized he’d tightened and went right back to rocking the doll.

It was something like an hour later before Kyuhyun finally got to set the doll down. As he laid it in the carrier, his eyes were drawn to his boyfriend.

Ryeowook was sound asleep, tucked against the sofa’s edge. Even in near darkness there was something breathtaking about him. The way he curled himself up or the slender form of his body. The slopes of which Kyuhyun knew too well. An intense sensation of longing filled him, as if Kyuhyun needed, quite simply, to feel him.

So as new whimpers broke the air, that was exactly what he did. He Ryeowook’s hair, held his pianist’s hands, and planted a soft kiss on his cheek before tucking him in.

A large part of him wanted more. That part could not stop thinking about how Wookie looked without all that pesky clothing. But that part would just have to wait because if he went on any longer the baby would start screaming and no one would be in the mood.

Picking the doll up from the carrier, Kyuhyun started to feed it. He seated himself on the couch because he was too tired to keep walking, and the last thing he remembered was that he needed to feed with motion….

…

“Kyu.”

Gosh, he was tired.

“Kyuhyun.” Somebody was shaking him. “Kyuhyun.”

He mumbled something in a daze; he wasn’t sure what. That person kept moving him.

“Five more minutes…” he managed to get out. Or did he? Maybe not since the person kept rocking him... back and forth and back and forth and -

“Kyuhyun, wake up!”

Kyuhyun jumped, jolting awake. “Are we late?” he blurted, blinking blearily. There was far too much light. Why would someone turn on the lights ? God, what was wrong with his arm?

“Chime-in,” a voice ordered.

“What?” Kyuhyun blinked, trying to figure out what was going on. 

Before he could react, somebody grabbed his wrist and placed it something hard.

“Hey, what-?” An electronic ring interrupted him. Suddenly, Kyuhyun was wide awake.

“Damn,” he said, blinking at the plastic doll in his arms, “that’ll bring you back.”

“Don’t curse in front of the baby,” Ryeowook warned him as the smaller pulled himself up off the couch. “Geez, Kyu. I thought you were taking care of her. She’s been screaming for over an hour!”

“An hour…?” Kyuhyun frowned, looking around. It was bright. Like daylight bright. Because it was morning.

Oh ; he’d fallen asleep.

He looked down at the doll, the terror inside him growing. An hour of crying? A full hour, sixty minutes. His brain was not processing this. How did- What did- Wait a second. His heart nearly stopped.

Oh god. Oh god. Oh god. His grade. His grade was going to tank. One hour of crying translated into one hour of neglect. Oh god. This was the biggest assignment for the class and he’d just neglected it for an hour straight. How many times had the doll cried during this time? Five, ten times? And he’d slept through all of it?

“How!?”

Ryeowook peered over at him. “You feel asleep, Kyuhyun. You were feeding her ear.”

He looked down at his other hand which was still loosely holding the bottle.

Oh, .

Oh, . Oh, . “Oh, !” he yelled. Ryeowook glared at him but he couldn’t have cared less.

Kyuhyun shot up, pacing the floor in a panic. He was officially freaking out now.  It was late, so late. How many times had he missed the whimpers now? Two from last night; now at least five. Or ten. Or fifteen. , , .

“Why didn’t you wake me earlier?” he cried, spinning around to face the smaller.

Ryeowook, who was in the midst of rubbing his temples, gave him an irritated look, “It’s not my job to help you cheat, Kyuhyun,” he snapped harshly. “And beside, I thought you were taking care of her; I didn’t think you were taking a nap.”

“I was exhausted!”

He inhaled heavily then returned to pacing around the living room. Sunlight was pouring through the windows they forgot to close, adding to his disorientation.

“, , ,” he muttered as he walked.

Ryeowook groaned behind him, “Stop cursing, Kyuhyun; it’s a bad example.”

“Bad example?” He stared bewildered, “I’ve got bigger problems than setting a bad example for a fake baby that will never grow up!”

He turned away before seeing Ryeowook’s expression darken, but hysterical as he was, it probably wouldn’t have registered anyway.

Stomping around the room, Kyuhyun continued to fume. He could only feel himself getting more and more worked up but he couldn’t stop. It was all just so… infuriating. What was he supposed to do?

He didn’t even notice Ryeowook had gotten up until the smaller grabbed him by the shoulder.

“Kyuhyun. Stop it.”

He yanked at his hair. “But this doll-”

“No. Just stop it,” Ryeowook’s stare bore into his. “She cried. You missed it. Move on. You can’t change anything now.”

"Yeah but-"

"Nothing. You. Can do."

Kyuhyun felt himself deflate like an untied balloon. Ryeowook was right. There was nothing he could do. The stupid computerized doll had recorded his mistake, and now he was stuck with it. Forever.  

Gaze softening a little, Ryeowook held out his arms, “Come on. Let’s eat some breakfast and get our energy back up, okay? I don’t know about me, but you look like crap.”

Kyuhyun snorted. 

Eyes trained on the floor, Kyuhyun handed the doll over and followed Ryeowook into the kitchen. When the smaller set it on the table, Kyuhyun made sure to sit as far away as possible.

The kitchen was silent as Ryeowook gathered bread and plates for toast. It wasn’t as late as Kyuhyun had thought; only around seven. That meant he’d gotten at most six hours of sleep.

‘And not good sleep either,’ Kyuhyun thought to himself, cricking his neck. 'Crappy, half-hallucination, half-reaity sleep.'

The adrenaline had worn off as quickly as it came, leaving him with a torpid mind and hollow sense of exhaustion. He rubbed his eyes, body aching. Kyuhyun didn’t even jump at the crash of pots hitting the floor.

Ryeowook was on his knees, scrambling to pick up the fallen pieces. Kyuhyun had to sigh before getting up to help him.

“Are you okay?” he asked, handing him a pot top.

“I’m fine,” Ryeowook replied irritably. Kyuhyun cringed when he snatched the cover over and stuffed it back in the cabinet with far more force than necessary.

“Are you sure? I could give some help-”

“I said I’m fine, Kyuhyun.”

Ryeowook slammed the cabinet door before getting back up. Kyuhyun blinked, surprised by his boyfriend's moodiness. 

“I’m sorry,” he said.

Ryeowook exhaled, “It’s fine, Kyuhyun.” Obviously it was not. The smaller was glaring furiously at the toaster.

“No, I’m really sorry. I'm not mad at you. I’m mad at myself for falling asleep. And that baby – doll. I don’t know what it is. I’m just mad at it; I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay-”

“And this project,” Kyuhyun kept going, “I am really pissed at this project; like what even?”

“Kyu…”

“I mean, what is it?” Words kept coming. “Is it like a test to see how light of a sleeper you are? What kind of merit does that hold? Just this entire weekend-”

“Kyuhyun.”

“It’s this project! This project is stupid; it’s ing stupid! Why do we even do this ing thing!? I can’t take anymore of this-!”

“STOP IT! Stop cursing! Stop it!” Ryeowook screamed.

Kyuhyun froze mid-rant. He was so caught up in his own yelling that Ryeowook’s threw him off.

“Wha-?”

“Stop cursing!” Ryeowook cried, hands unsteady on the counter.

Kyuhyun dared not move. “I wasn’t planning to.”

Ryeowook stared at him with eyes of pure red. Where anger, exhaustion, and frustration blended into an unreadable mess. “I don’t want you cursing anymore, Kyuhyun,” he spat out the other’s name like a foul word. “Not while that baby’s around.”

He broke from the steely gaze and turned back to the counter. His shoulders were still tense in bitter moods.

Kyuhyun gaped. Then he nearly laughed out loud.

“Really?” he called, “Are we still talking about this?”

His boyfriend didn’t respond.

“Come on Ryeowook; the baby is fake. How many times do we have to go over this? If it weren’t for my GPA that thing would be sitting in a closet right now-”

“That doesn’t mean you can treat her so badly.”

“It,” Kyuhyun corrected. “That thing is an ‘it.’ Not a she, not a he, it's an it. Because it is a doll. And even if it weren’t a doll, a baby couldn’t comprehend anything at this age so it doesn’t matter if I cuss!”

The last word was accentuated with a slam of the plate. Ryeowook whipped around to face him.

“How many times do I have to tell you, Kyuhyun, that this is not a joke?” he practically hissed. “This project is to teach you about parenting but all you want to do is cheat your kid every chance you get!”

Kyuhyun glowered down him. “Well, maybe I don’t want to be a parent. Did you ever think of that?”

“Like that wasn’t obvious,” Ryeowook retorted. “You'd probably be the worst parent ever. You just want to skimp your way through this assignment because right now you cannot find any value in it. Well guess what, Kyu? I don’t have to be here if you really want to cheat.”

He didn’t even give him a moment to process what that meant. Crossing his arms, Ryeowook fixed Kyuhyun with a stern look. “It doesn’t matter if you want this or not; it’s here now. You have a responsibility to take care of this child and to do it to the best of your ability. But so far, all you’ve been is terrible father.”

Kyuhyun inhaled sharply, nails digging into his palm. He could not believe he was hearing this. Ryeowook continued to stare at him with an unwavering gaze, and suddenly, Kyuhyun felt very, very trapped.

Exhaling, he shook his head. “This is such a waste of time,” he spat before turning and sprinting for the other direction.

“Feel good about yourself Kyuhyun! At least you’ve stuck around!” Ryeowook’s taunt floated down the hallway.

Racing into the office, Kyuhyun slammed the door behind him.

He couldn’t listen anymore.

Sleep, lust, and mood swings: yep, that's a teenager. For Gabycane2 who suggested I do something on teenage hormones.