“Is she asleep?” Yesung yawned, rolling to face his lover as the younger finally slipped beneath the covers beside him.

          Ryeowook nodded, yawning as well as he curled up beside the older, his face burrowing lightly into Yesung’s chest. He was careful not to accidentally touch the pinkening scar on his lover’s abdomen, fully aware that even though it appeared healed, or almost so, underneath everything was just beginning to scar over, making it excruciatingly sore if contacted to forcefully. He’d made that mistake once before by accident, and still hadn’t lived it down all those years later.

“Aemi’s test is tomorrow.” Yesung reminded the younger after a few moments of silence.

          Ryeowook smiled, shifting a bit in excitement. “I know.” He replied giddily “I’m taking her at ten. Sungmin said he’d be available to help you with Yun.”

          “I can take care of my child by myself you know.” Yesung informed, one of his arms curling protectively around the younger as he closed his eyes to sleep.

          “No you need to rest. The last time you thought you were healed enough to take care of our child you almost dropped Aemi on the floor. We’re managing just fine. It’s only a few more days, then you’ll be fine and can do whatever you want.” Ryeowook assured, leaning forward to press a soft kiss to the older’s pouting lips.

          Yesung kissed him back, stubbornness momentarily forgotten as the younger’s warm lips on his own melted his resolve. He groaned as Ryeowook pulled away, disappointed, and the younger chuckled.

          “You’ve got to wait a awhile for that too.” He teased, curling slightly against the older and hushing him before he could start whining and possibly wake Yun.

           Sleep was in sight, their eyelids heavy and minds blank, both anticipating what little rest they would be able to achieve before their daughter would wake them for another bottle, and then another disturbance brought them back from the verge of dreamland.

          Ryeowook jerked up as their bedroom door creaked open, ready to hush whoever walked in, when Aemi came creeping inside, blanket clutched to her chest. She rushed to her mother when she realized he was awake and watching her.

          “I can’t sleep.” She mumbled, rubbing weakly at her eyes as she gazed up at her parents, pleading silently for them to do something about it.

          “She can’t stay in here. She needs sleep, and Yun will keep her up all night.” Ryeowook worried.

          “I can go with her to her room.” Yesung offered.

          “Pff, you’re awfully quick to volunteer to leave me here with the spontaneous alarm clock.” Ryeowook grumbled, though he still helped Yesung sit and eventually, ever so slowly, stand.

          “Like you said, she can’t stay here. Plus, ‘I’m not capable of taking care of the baby anyways.’”. He mimicked, taking his daughter’s hand and guiding her slowly towards the door.

          Ryeowook watched them go, disappointed that he wouldn’t have his lover to cuddle with, or help him, but he knew Aemi wouldn’t be able to sleep until she had one of them to comfort her, and Yesung was surprisingly good at that.

          He sat silently for a few minutes, listening to Yun’s quiet breathing that emanated from the bassinet just to his right, and fighting the urge to hold her, knowing it would only result in another battle to put her back to sleep should he accidentally wake her.

          Eventually his fatigue won and he was forced to lie back down. He was out the moment his head hit the pillow.

          ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

          “Minkyung….that’s enough! Change now so you can get ready for school.” Leeteuk finally snapped, his patience running out. Unfortunately all he received from the large white blob currently occupying his son’s bed was a huff, and a groan in response.

          Sighing in defeat, he plopped down beside the boy, running a hand irately through his hair. He glared down at the bear, who blatantly avoided eye contact, his actions only serving to further anger his mother.

          Since Minkyung was getting older, he was growing, not only in his human form, but his animal form as well. As a human he weighed only fifty pounds, but as a polar bear, nearly three times as much, easy for Kangin to lift, but not Leeteuk, and the boy had caught onto that. He used the tactic often to try and avoid going to school, since he, like most kids his age, found education boring, but it rarely worked. He was a good enough kid, and angering his parents was not something he liked to do, especially since in the end the consequences would outweigh just attending school in the first place. He usually gave in, or his mother told his father on him, and that always ended things pretty quickly. It seemed that day, it was going to be the latter.

          “One,” Leeteuk began, nudging his son lightly with his hand. “Two,”

          Minkyung merely growled in response.

          “Three.” He waited a moment, and then vacated the bed, stomping straight to the door, “I’m getting your father!” He called behind him, having to resist the urge to slam the door open as he went.

          “Kangin!” He shouted down the hall, and a few moments later, the younger emerged, Jaehyun half dressed in his arms.

          “What’s wrong?” He asked curiously, though he already had an idea.

          “Minkyung won’t cooperate.” He grumbled, stalking up to his lover and taking his youngest son from him. “I need you.”

          Kangin chuckled, leaning down to leave a quick on the older’s lips. “I got it.” He smiled “and don’t worry. It’s just a phase.”

          “Or it’s not, and he’s going to grow up to be just like Heechul.” Leeteuk grumbled.

          This time Kangin laughed, loud and wholeheartedly “Yah, let’s hope it doesn’t get to that point.”

          And with that, they split up, Kangin heading to Minkyung’s room while his lover headed to Jaehyun’s to finish dressing him.

         They met in the hall minutes later, each with a child; one giggling and tugging at his Mother’s hair, while the other trudged dejectedly along in front of his father, arms crossed over his chest as he glared at the floor.

         They met in the middle.

         Kangin nudged his eldest son and the boy scowled, but stepped forward.

         “I’m sorry.” He mumbled, before stepping back again.

         “He’ll be going to bed early tonight. Anything you want to add to that?” Kangin asked, and Leeteuk shook his head.

         “No, that sounds fine.” Leeteuk smiled.

         The second the words left his mouth, Minkyung was dismissed and he took off towards the stairs like his life depended on escaping his evil parents.

          Leeteuk and Kangin followed slowly after him, Jaehyun being passed playfully between them.

          “How do you get him to listen to you?” Leeteuk questioned as they descended the stairs.

          “It’s a secret.” Kangin teased, much to his lover’s annoyance.

          “Tell me! I don’t like having to rely on you for everything.” The older grumbled, and Kangin laughed.

          “That’s the only thing you rely on me for! You’re in charge of everything…it’s nice to know you still need me sometimes.”

          “Kangin, I’ll always need you, you know that.” Leeteuk smiled, leaning up to place a small kiss on his lover’s cheek.

          The younger rolled his eyes, but smiled back as they entered the dining room, twining his fingers with his lover’s.

          They took a seat in their usual spot, Leeteuk and Kangin at the head of the table with Jaehyun on their right. Minkyung was supposed to take up their left, but the spot was empty not even a chair to fill it’s place, and after scanning the table for a few moments they found him wedged between Eunhyuk and Donghae on the opposite side, picking dejectedly at his food.

          Donghae smiled at them once he caught their gazes, shaking his head to signal it was fine with him and his lover.

          Again the room was quieter than usual. Yesung, Ryeowook, and Aemi were all missing, but that didn’t justify the eerie silence that was settled over the table. No one spoke, even the twins ate their food without their normal fuss or food fight. It was like they could all sense the elephant in the room, but no one dared speak a word of it.

          Kyuhyun and Sungmin sat on the left side of the table, both eating silently with Jinsang seated between them as though they were using him as some sort of barrier.

          Every day the tension between them seemed to grow worse and worse, like a bomb, and it was obvious to everyone that there were mere days left before it finally went off.

          “Maybe someone should go check on Yewook.” Leeteuk spoke at last, clearing his throat. “They need to leave for Aemi’s evaluation soon.”

          “I’ll go!” Both Hangeng and Eunhyuk volunteered, standing as soon as the words left their mouths, despite protests from their respective husbands.

          They met in the hall, heading slowly towards the stairs.

          “Someone seriously needs to talk to them.” The younger began quietly.

          “But is there really anything anyone can say to make things better? They need to work it out themselves.”

          “We’ve given them months to do that and they’ve hardly spoken to each other… I don’t want them to break up, Geng.”

          “And you think I do? I just don’t think intervening will help. We can lecture them and push them together all we want, but unless they realize that they want to be together…” Hangeng stopped, knowing he didn’t need to finish the sentence for the younger to understand what he was saying.

          “And what if they don’t? Do you realize how difficult things will get if they decide not to stay together? They can’t both live here. And what about Jinsang, with Sungmin acting the way he is, they’ll probably end up forcing the poor kid to choose and-”.

          “Oh my god don’t say that.” Hangeng interrupted, a chill running up his spine at just the thought of a child having to make that kind of decision. “Look, we’ll give them a little bit more time and if nothing comes of it, we can try to talk to them. Nothing has happened yet so let’s save the doomsday talk for when something actually goes wrong.”

          Their conversation was forced to end before Eunhyuk could respond as they reached the door to Yewook’s room. Pushing it open softly they found Ryeowook sprawled across the otherwise empty bed, completely out of it, Yesung nowhere to be found.

          “I’ll get him up. You go find Yesung and Aemi.” Eunhyuk sighed, already heading quietly towards the bed to wake the younger.

          Hangeng backed out into the hall, moving to the door straight across from Yewook’s that he knew led to Aemi’s room.

          He pushed it open silently, stepping within the dark room and almost immediately tripping over a stray stuffed animal. Stumbling a bit before regaining his footing he glanced up to find Yesung watching him, the older’s golden eyes practically glowing in the dim lighting.

          “What time is it?” He hissed, glancing down at Aemi who was still sound asleep in his arms.

          “There’s only thirty minutes until her appointment.” Hangeng whispered back, and Yesung swore softly, already shaking Aemi gently to wake her.

          “Yesung!” Ryeowook shouted, bursting into the room and flicking the light on. “We’re late!”

          “I know!” the older growled in response, shielding his eyes from the harsh light as his daughter yawned and sat up.

          Ryeowook immediately scooped her out of the bed, carrying her over to her dresser to throw together a decent enough outfit for her to wear while he simultaneously brushed the knots from her hair, a bit too roughly for her liking, and pretty soon he was comforting her to keep her from crying as well.

          Hangeng helped Yesung climb slowly to his feet while Eunhyuk moved to help Ryeowook with his niece, all of them soon rushing to get the child ready for her appointment on time.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

A/N: I'm Sorry! I know I ! I got stuck on the beggining to this chapter so I put it off for a few days and then my work hours just got really crazy, today was the first day i've had off in over a week so I wrote pretty much this entire chapter this morning and I know it's kinda crappy... sorry! The next chapter should hopefully be up more quickly since I have a pretty solid plan for it. I'm gonna try guys. Thanks for sticking with this so far and subscribing, upvoting and commenting...ESPECIALLY COMMENTING PLEASE CONTINUE TO DO SO...or start if you haven't...

PLEASE COMMENT!!!