The six brothers gathered around in the living room after their parents had went off to bed while their wives and the two kids were upstairs talking amongst themselves. Xiumin cleared his throat as he looked at his five younger brothers who were still in shock about the news of their father-- with the exception of Tao and Yixing. “We need to know what to do,” he let out a sigh as he thought about his parents. “We’ve been gone for so long and now we’re here.” Xiumin covered his face with both of his hands as he inhaled.

 

“What are we supposed to do?” Yi Fan asked as he closed his eyes and tried to think, racking his brain for an answer that may help their family.

 

“Forget about everything we did,” Chen answered solemnly, making the rest look at him with raised brows. “You expect us to stay here with all of the things we did? Do you really want mama and baba to look at their sons and ask where we went wrong?” Chen let out a dry laugh as he looked at his brothers.

 

“Real talk then,” Luhan stated. “I’m going to get this off my chest if that’s fine with you guys,” he looked at his brothers, his eyes ignited in flames of anger at the moment.

 

When no one said anything, he took the initiative to begin.  “I didn’t enjoy the pain Yi Fan put mama and baba through when you ran away because of a girl,” he shot the said male a glare. “You left home and you ran away because you thought you would find her, but no, you didn’t find her did you, you dumb .”

 

Yi Fan looked at his older brother with wide eyes. “We said we’d never bring that up again,” he stood up from his seat and looked at Luhan with angry eyes. “I came back, didn’t I?”

 

“After two weeks of leaving home and going from place to place, following her like a lost puppy because she “promised” that she’d be with you forever,” Chen added to the small feud. Yi Fan let out a scoff at his younger brother. “You weren’t there to see how crazy they went because of you.”

 

“And after you were done with college, you and Ting Na left us to go to Beijing before moving again and getting married,” Tao fumed.

 

“Stop,” Yi Fan said. “Just stop talking about me like I was the only one who did bad things to them!” He shouted at them. “You all did something that broke the family and you can’t even say that I was the main cause for this because you know what, after we all lost--”

 

“Don’t even say anything,” Xiumin warned him, sending him a glare. “Don’t even bring it up at all. That’s something that we promised that would never be brought up again.” Yi Fan looked at his oldest brother and saw the sadness in his eyes. “We are never talking about it again.”

 

“Fine,” Yi Fan said quietly, dropping the subject. His eyes landed on Luhan who started the blaming game and he sent him a glare. “You’re the dumbest,  piece of , Lu,” he said angrily. “You did some stupid things back in the day and because of you mama and baba had to bust your out of trouble so many times.”

 

“You need to quiet yourself down right now,” Luhan growled. “My wife doesn’t know anything about it and she doesn’t need to know from you,” he stood up from the sofa and made his way towards Yi Fan despite the warnings his brothers said to him. He looked at the taller male and shoved him away. Yi Fan looked at his brother with wide eyes at what he did to him.

 

Before Yi Fan could do anything, Xiumin interviened, pushing the two away from each other. “If you idiots are going to fight, do it outside where no one has to clean up after you two,” he warned them.

 

“Min Shou,” Xiumin turned around at the sound of his wife’s calm and quiet voice. “Where did you put Min Hoa’s snacks?” She asked as she adjusted her gray, oversized, tee-shirt.

 

“You look pretty Jie-jie,” Tao commented as he looked at his sister-in-law in her pajamas (which consisted of her tee-shirt and a pair of black boxers which he assumed was also Xiumins.) that earned him a small jab to the stomach from Yixing, telling him to shut his mouth before Xiumin exploded on them again.

 

“I placed them in the pantry,” Xiumin replied softly as he watched his wife nod her head and made her way over towards the kitchen then returning a few moments later with the container of rice cereal. “Is he okay?” He asked her, before she went back upstairs to the room they were staying in.

 

“He’s restless,” she smiled at him, “But he’ll sleep soon.”

 

“I’ll be up soon to put him to bed then,” Xiumin told Li Hua who nodded her head.

 

“Don’t work yourself up, ai ren,” she said to him before she went up the stairs and into the hallway.

 

“You idiot,” Chen sighed as he smacked Tao on the back of the head. “You don’t say that to your sister-in-law.”

 

“Especially when her husband is angry,” Yixing added as he watched his younger brother rub the spot where he was hit.  He shook his head, disappointed at how he acted so casually, especially towards Li Hua, as if they were the best of friends and she wouldn’t get embarrassed at his comment.

 

“We can’t bring up anything from the past,” Chen said as he rested his elbows on his knees. “Nothing can be talked about from back then.” He eyed Luhan and Yi Fan as the two sent a glare at each other, as if blaming each other.

 

“We have to think about our family,” Yixing said. “Mama and baba aren’t stable right now and we can’t stress them anymore with our old feuds from lifetimes ago. Baba isn’t the same anymore. He misses us a lot and--”

 

“Mama and baba cried to me the other week over the phone. Mama was so scared that she’d lose baba after she lost us,” Tao sniffled. The four quiet brothers felt their hearts sink at the thought of their parents crying. They didn’t deserve this and if God was playing a foul game with them, then let them loose, but not with the loss of someone precious. “Mama misses her, too.” Tao began to cry after those words escaped his lips. Yixing brought his head into his chest and began to tell him it was okay, just like he did back in the day.

 

“They don’t know at all,” Luhan said quietly. His voice drained from it’s usual tone. “I’ve only told Fang Yi after a year of being married to her, she doesn't know anything about what happened,” Luhan’s voice cracked as he began to have a breakdown. His mind began recalling all of the memories from ten years ago. The way she looked that night and how she got drunk and -- Luhan let out a small, frustrated cry.

 

“Get Fang Yi,” Yixing instructed as Xiumin and Yi Fan tried to calm down Luhan who was close to hyperventilating. Chen got up from the sofa and made his way upstairs as fast as he could and retrieved Fang Yi, informing her of Luhan’s situation.

 

The two arrived in the living room and immediately, Fang Yi made her way towards her husband, who was laid on the ground in a fetal position. She gently took his hands in

hers and called his name, telling him to breathe. The five brothers watched in pain and pity as the second oldest continued to cry for and how his wife was comforting him. Feeling helpless, Xiumin and Yi Fan stepped back from the two.

 

"Come on, Han," Fang Yi calmly said. "You need to snap out of it. It's over, okay? It's all over, love." She continued to repeat herself as she pulled Luhan into a small hug and began to pat his back in a soothing manner. "Nothing is going to happen, okay? Everything is fine," Fang Yi told him as Luhan began to breathe normally again. She cradled them back and forth and began humming a song that always seemed to calm Luhan down.

 

She felt her heart constrict the moment his tears began to soak her shirt. She could feel the sweat from his forehead on the crook of her neck and was thankful her hair was down at the moment because it gave Luhan a small curtain to hide from his brothers. "Are you ready to go to sleep now, Han?" She softly asked as she patted his back.

Luhan nodded his head. Fang Yi smiled then looked at her brother-in-laws,  motioning them to gently help him up. Yi Fan and Chen helped Fang Yi up as she held onto an unstable Luhan and led him up the stairs with Chen and Yi Fan following behind the two in case something happened. When they made it to their room,  Fang Yi thanked the two before she closed the door.

 

Before the two made it to the staircase, they saw their six brothers making their way up the steps. "It's been a long night," Yixing explained. "We're calling it a day."