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62. GRIEVING

It didn’t take long before Soo and Leeteuk came upstairs and after checking on their boys went to the last vacant bedroom. The room’s closet held some of their family’s clothes. Within a few minutes there was only silence. Puppy picked up his phone and messaged Minho to make sure that Byong did not leave his bed at night. Minho responded in affirmative and Puppy smiled in relief.

He quickly closed and locked our bedroom door. His clothes were off his body by the time he approached the bed. I sat up to remove my clothes, ably helped by my Puppy. There was a certain urgency in Puppy’s loving and I could almost hear his desperate thoughts through his touch. He repeatedly kissed and touched my surgery scars during his loving. Long after that as I lay with my head on his shoulder, trying to breathe normally again and not give in to my overwhelming desire to cry, his fingers continued to trace the two scars.

Chen and Ren had slept through our silent loving. To divert myself from my sadness I began to wonder at why Taemin and Kibum couldn’t manage what Puppy and I effortlessly did despite all the babies that slept with us over the years. I made a mental note to tell Kibum to practice not making any noises at night.

Once we had cleaned up and re-donned our clothes, Puppy went out to look on Duckie and Byong again. I heard soft whispers and went to check. It was nearly two in the night and no one was expected to be awake at that hour. I found Puppy standing at the entrance of Byong’s room, talking to Minho in low whispers.

“-I get some warm milk for you? It might help you sleep.” Puppy was asking Minho.

“No Jonghyun, but thanks for asking. This is not the first night I’ve had trouble sleeping. As I can see, you didn’t sleep either,” Minho answered.

“I don’t need much sleep. Should I get you another book?” Puppy again asked.

“Why are you being so nice to me Jonghyun? Including me in your family events. Letting me stay tonight. Why?” Minho sounded puzzled.

“Come on down. I will make us a cup of tea. Jinki is not sleepy either. Let me tell him,” Puppy smiled at our guest. I touched his back to let him know I was by his side. Puppy kissed my cheek and I went to get the baby monitor from our room. Switching on the device in our room, I handed Puppy his phone to watch over the babies.

Puppy and Minho settled in the living room as I put on water for boiling. Puppy arranged the tea service and put a selection of tea bags in front of Minho. We had a wide variety of tea at our home because in our large family almost everyone had a different type of favorite tea. I handed Puppy a platter of rice cakes and he immediately popped one in his mouth before offering them to Minho.

I briefly wondered about all the places Jaejoong could have placed the cameras and whether I should ask the two in the dining room to search for them, but then decided that it really made no difference. It would be easier to ask the culprit himself in the morning. I was so comfortable with my life that it took another few minutes to realize that there were aspects of my life with Minho that our family did not know. I poked my head in the dining room to tell Puppy to search for the cameras only to find the two of them extracting a camera from the digital clock on the wall.

“Where did that devil get the money to buy such expensive spy camera? It is the latest model and not easy to get hold of,” Puppy admired the small piece of equipment in his hand. He opened it and removed its tiny battery. They found another one in the same place in the living room and removed its battery as well.

“Knowing him, he would have talked Junsu, Yoochun, Yunho and maybe even that little Changmin to pool in to buy the stuff. Where is the innocence of our childhood gone?” I muttered in exasperation as I put the tray with the kettle on the table.

“I wish I had the money to buy a spy cam when I was his age. There was this girl in the house next to ours that I had the hots for, for a long time,” Puppy grinned.

I poured the water in cups and added a chamomile tea bag to ours, “I have no idea how a dog like you remained a till the ripe old age of 22.”

“Oh yeobo, if you only knew all the hot dreams I had every night featuring that girl,” Puppy winked at me and handed Minho a cup of water. He slid the teabags in front of him.

“Aided no doubt by the tons of video clips you must have watched every day. No wonder you don’t sleep much,” I poked my tongue at him and laughed when Minho groaned in annoyance.

“Can we not talk about ?” Minho whined, “I would like to remind you both that I have not had any since my ex-wife served me divorce papers.”

“That was three years ago Minho. Byong is right. You really do need a girl friend,” Puppy winked at him.

“What I need is Jinki,” Minho mumbled under his breath, thinking we couldn’t hear him. But the night was too silent for his words to be inaudible.

I was irritated but Puppy laughed, “In your dreams only Minho. You cannot handle the Jinki of today. The meek mouse who lived with you is long gone. My Jinki is a real tiger in bed.”

Minho’s face flushed and his voice had a hard edge to it, “What makes you think I cannot handle the tiger Jinki?”

Puppy grinned again and winked at me when I pinched his thigh to silence him, “Because you don’t like equality in bed. You want Jinki to bottom all the time, which he has difficulty tolerating.” Both Minho and I gasped in shock at Puppy’s bald words. But he continued without hesitation, “For you, your bed means your way. My ‘ god’ Jinki will scare you to death. Trust me you will swear off forever.”

Puppy laughed when Minho again lost his capacity to speak and his mouth opened and closed wordlessly. My love sat back on the couch and tucked me into his side with an arm around my shoulder as we sipped our tea from a single cup. I wanted to hide my mortified face in his neck but one look from him kept me holding my head high. Puppy was right. There was no need for me to hide my uality or prowess in bed. We had an absolutely awesome life and there was every reason for us to be proud of it.

Puppy was preparing our second cup of tea when Minho began breathing normally again and pouted, “You may deny it all you want Jonghyun but it is a fact that you love to torture me. I really did not need to know all of that. You want me to treat Jinki like a friend and a few hours later you tell me about your bedroom activities. I think you’ll be satisfied only when you drive me totally mad.” Minho drank his cold tea quickly and poured himself another cup. He looked defiantly at Puppy as he slowly sipped the second cup.

Puppy and I sat quietly watching him first struggle to control himself and then lose that control and get vexed with Puppy. Once Minho’s little rant was over, Puppy offered him rice cakes. Minho made a face but picked one and chewed on it. Usually, I let Puppy deal with Minho. I knew Puppy would continue to speak his mind openly with Minho and sooner or later Minho was going to explode.

“Minho, ignore what Puppy said, he’s using your wild reactions to his teasing to improve his mood. I have lived with you and you know me pretty well. I have not changed all that much,” When Puppy wanted to protest my lies, I put a finger on his lips and he subsided. I looked back at Minho and asked, “So, what is keeping you awake tonight?”

“You have a very nice family Jinki. Once I stopped feeling jealous, I began wondering why you are doing it?” Minho went back to his old habit of talking in riddles.

“Doing what?” It was better to get it directly from the horse’s mouth instead of puzzling hours over it.

“You know what you are planning to do,” Minho sipped his tea and tried to explain it the best way he could - in more riddles.

“If I knew, I wouldn’t ask you to explain Minho,” I tried not to sound as irritated as I was feeling with the man.

“Yeobo, I think he means why you are planning to have a baby,” Puppy explained and smiled when I threw Minho another irritated look.

“Can’t the idiot understand that I just love being pregnant with your babies?” I wanted to kick my sweet Puppy for asking the idiot to stay the night.

Minho began choking on the rice cake he was eating. Puppy got up and thumped his chest to get him breathing again and scolded him, “Stop doing this all the time. One day you will really keel over due to lack of breath.”

“I just heard Jinki say he loves being pregnant,” Minho gasped out.

“He is kidding. He is upset with me because I am not letting him keep his promise to me,” Puppy gently patted Minho’s back in consolation. “He hates to break any promise and he has never broken any as long as we have been together. He is going to be very cranky for the next few days, till I can talk him into forgiving himself.”

“Don’t you think it should be me whom you should be consoling instead of that idiot?” I tried to sound miffed with the amount of attention my Puppy was giving Minho, but I couldn’t. All I wanted to do was kick Minho out of our home. Yes, that’s what I should do. I should kick Minho. That would help my mood improve. I really wanted to have a baby. I wanted to be upset with Puppy for listening to Duckie and deciding against having one. But there was no way I could be upset with Puppy. He was feeling just as sad as me and his teasing Minho was only a cover to hide from his emotions.

I wanted to cry for the baby we were never going to have. I wanted to hold my Puppy and mourn together for our loss. I knew why Puppy had made love to me so desperately earlier. He didn’t have to say anything but his body had shouted out his decision and grieved with mine. I rubbed my flat abdomen and tried not to think about it remaining the same forever. I looked at my hand on my flat tummy and thought about not seeing my body swell again with our baby.

A drop of water appeared on my hand. Through a misty haze I saw Puppy’s fingers approach my face. His fingers touched my chin and lifted my face. When my eyes met his, all I could see was the blur of his face through my tears. Puppy groaned in distress and pulled me into his arms. He kissed my eyes preventing any more tears from falling.

“Yeobo, I love you so much. My love for you sometimes makes me act thoughtlessly. You know, you don’t have to indulge my every whim. I am happy just having you in my life.” Puppy kept kissing my eyes as he berated himself, “I promised to never let you shed any tears. Please yeobo, don’t cry because I am so stupid. Give me a smile love. Please smile for me.”

I opened my eyes and looked at the blur of the sweet face which was frowning in despair, however much I tried to control it a whimper escaped my lips and I moaned between sobs, “Jagi we will never have another baby.” I hugged my Puppy tight and hid my crying face in his shoulder.

Puppy put a hand to the back of my head and rubbed my hair to console me. His harsh intakes of air conveyed his own tenuous grip over his anguish. He kept kissing my hair and whispering, “I love you yeobo. I love you so much. Please don’t cry love. I love you. It is enough for me that you want us to have a baby. We don’t really need another baby. I need you more in my life yeobo. More than any baby. I’m so stupid. In a few years Byong and Duckie will have a baby and it will be with us 24 hours a day. We don’t need another baby yeobo. Please stop crying. I love you. It hurts to see you cry.”

I began quietly wailing at his words, “We will be with a baby but the baby wouldn’t be in me. I will never feel her move when she hears your voice. I will never feel her kick when you rub your hands over my tummy. You will never draw another red circle that keeps widening every week as she grows inside me. I will never see you suffer from morning sickness. When you love me so much why can’t you let me keep my promise to you and have a baby? Why do you have to make both of us sad like this?”

“Yeobo, my love, my life, please stop crying. We can’t have another baby because your hormone levels will never return to normal if you get pregnant again. I’d rather have a healthy you in my arms for life. We should be thankful that you successfully carried two babies. I don’t want to risk another one. We have sweet memories of you with Byong. I have not forgotten even a minute of it. They’ll be enough for us, yeobo. If you don’t remember any bit, we have all those videos we can watch together and relive our pregnancy. But I don’t have any desire to see myself puking because imo made me eat spicy kimchi stew instead of the fried chicken that you were eating.” Puppy had lifted my head and was raining kisses all over my face as he tried to console me the best way he could.

“I want Siwon to call me in the middle of the day because you are crying during work again,” I hiccupped into his lips.

“Oh no yeobo. I cannot afford to cry at work anymore. My team will lose all respect for me. You have no idea what heartless monsters those youngsters are,” Puppy my lips and rubbed my head and back.

I wailed again, “How will I know? You don’t bring home any more colleagues for dinners. I miss your old work friends. Your new team does not like me at all. I think they are homophobic.”

“Hush yeobo. Everyone likes you. Are you forgetting that more than half my team studied in JinHee Hagwon? I do not invite them for dinner because then they’d never leave. The way we both are, my entire team will take up permanent residence in our home. It’s easier to keep them away from temptation,” Puppy’s words made me look at him.

He was smiling tremulously and his eyes shone with unshed tears. Minho sat next to him, silently rubbing his shoulder and back to keep him calm. I kissed his eyes and let the talk about his team divert us from our pain. We knew the kids would worry if they saw us unhappy. We needed to get our grief under control and present our usual cheerful selves to our family.

“Don’t be mean jagi. Invite them for lunch tomorrow. We have Minho, Jaejoong and Junsu as free labor in the kitchen. They can cut the onions,” I kissed Puppy’s cheek as I planned the lunch and the punishments in one go. I turned to pour more tea for us but the kettle was empty. The prospect of Minho crying over onions had considerably cheered up Puppy, so I decided to prepare more tea, all chamomile. I wasn’t bothered about being a good host to Minho anymore.

I took out Puppy’s favorite sweet dish from the refrigerator and warmed it up for him. Then I added two more plates in the microwave for me and our guest. When I returned to the living room, Puppy was explaining about parenting hormones to Minho.

“-Teukkie hyung tested us every time there was a baby born in the family and I’d pester Jinki to get pregnant again. He found that both of us had very high levels of parenting hormones, sometimes more than the actual parents themselves. The more time we spend with the babies, higher the level of parenting hormones in us and greater their effect on our life. Usually Jinki is our voice of reason and refuses to have another baby because we know his age is not in favor of any more pregnancies.”

“Then what happened this time to Jinki?” Minho asked curiously, trying to understand our strange behavior for the past many hours.

“If I have understood it correctly, Jinki takes care of Minx’s toddlers all day long and now Key hyung brings with him Amber’s twins as well. At least once he’s back home he gets some respite from the effect the babies have on him, giving him time to recover. But the twins are with us much longer today. The more our kids tried to convince Jinki to not have a baby, more he remembered about holding them as newborns and caring for them. He had a very good time carrying Byong. I guess his parenting hormones were stronger than his will tonight. And I want to kick myself for taking advantage of his weakened will,” Puppy looked at me when he said the last part.

“If any kicking is going to happen, then it will be me kicking Minho,” I said, resolutely pushing down my grief over our un-conceived baby.

“Why? What did I do now? I was only trying to calm down Jonghyun and understand what has driven both of you so crazy tonight. Since when did you become so violent Jinki?” Minho looked at me with his big round eyes.

“Just because, Minho. I don’t need any reason to want to use you as my punching bag. At least you will be of some use to me that way,” I responded uncaringly as I handed him the plate of dessert and sat down to share one with Puppy. “Stop looking like Pororo and have your tea before it gets cold again. This is the last pot for the night. You need to sleep and be ready as the kitchen slave labor tomorrow.”

Having vented out some of my irritation on Minho, I kissed Puppy’s forehead and asked, “Remind me again why we have such a large family and why it is important to invite them for lunch along with your team?”

“Is it because we love them? Maybe it’s because you don’t want to be nagged by the two divas at work on Monday? Maybe it’s to keep me also sane at work on Monday. A lunch with my team without Super and Boss present to lord over me is unimaginable by them. For all we know Ji and Beagle would be bundling up their three to catch the early morning train to spend the day with us,” Puppy fed me the sweet dessert as he thought more reasons. “I am the youngest of the lot yeobo. But as your husband I am senior to all of them. It bugs the hell out of Donghae hyung. Should we make him also cut onions tomorrow yeobo?” Puppy stopped feeling sad when he thought of Donghae crying over the vegetable.

“What will we do with a mountain of chopped onions? Better make him change the diapers tomorrow. Maybe we should send the twins home with DongHae and Hyukkie. Do you think the four of them would still be alive on Monday?” We schemed together, anything to stop ourselves from thinking about our baby that would never be born.

“Boss knows how to change diapers. Remember he took care of Amber as a baby. Send Jaejoong to their house with the cameras. No, don’t do that. I have no desire to see Boss making out with Hyukkie,” Puppy couldn’t decide what to do.

Just then, Chen began to fuss as he woke up from his sleep. Puppy and I quickly gulped down our tea and cleaned off the sweet dish. I cleared off the table and went to prepare the feeding bottles for the twins. Puppy and Minho went up to take care of them. When I reached our room, it was to see Puppy showing Minho how to change a diaper. Minho was nodding but keeping his distance.

Ren was blinking his eyes open from his sleep and Chen was gurgling at Puppy as he was sweet talked while getting a new diaper. Minho picked up Ren and rubbed noses with him muttering, “Kibum is crazy to dress him as a girl. I hope he regains his senses soon or the boy will really suffer from an identity crisis.”

Puppy and I laughed making Chen gurgle louder with us. Ren pouted his lips and his eyes went all round. Minho quickly scrunched up his nose and handed the baby to Puppy, “Here, you have another candidate in need of your expert services.”

I took Chen from Puppy to feed him. Puppy began singing to Ren while changing him. Chen snuggled deeper into my arms in contentment as warm milk began to flow into his tiny belly. He put his fisted hand over my chest and my aching heart skipped a beat. I knew that the coming days would be difficult to bear for me and Puppy, what with our agonizingly strong desire for me to carry another baby.

Chen had almost finished his bottle by the time Ren was ready for his. Puppy placed the baby on the bed and Minho began playing with him as Puppy went to wash his hands. When he returned, I put the empty bottle on the bedside table and handed Chen to Puppy to burp. Ren, just like his twin, happily snuggled into my arms to drink his milk lazily.

Puppy burped Chen and began pacing the bedroom crooning lullabies to him. It was too early for the babies to wake up. They needed more sleep. Our eyes met over Minho’s head. I suddenly realized that this was the first time Minho was in our bedroom, hungrily watching the two of us take care of the twins. I handed Ren over to him for rest of his feeding.

As Minho smiled down at the baby on the milk bottle, he quietly asked, “Why did you never tell me that you fed Minx?”

“We were like two strangers living under the same roof by the time Minx was born. I had no idea why I did whatever I did during those years. I think I lived on auto-pilot,” I sat back against the headboard and wrapped my arms around my bent knees.

“I loved you and Minx without inhibitions,” Minho looked into my eyes.

“Yes you did,” I saw no point in arguing about it. “In your own way you always loved us. I am sorry if it wasn’t enough for me.” I looked at Puppy who was gazing at me with a smile. He knew that I was long over my painful life with Minho and could talk about it casually without feeling any further pain.

“Don’t be sorry Jinki. I know I was a jackass at that time. If I could turn back time, I would do so many things differently. I would appreciate your love and never let you leave me,” Minho softly rubbed a long finger over Ren’s forehead as he spoke without looking at me.

I put my chin on my knees and hugged them tighter to my body, “We can’t turn back time. Things happen for a reason. I was destined to spend my life with Jonghyun. You can alter the destiny a little Minho, but cannot completely change it. Thank you for the good memories.” Minho looked up into my eyes when I said that. I gave him a small smile, “Thank you for Minx.”

Minho blushed and mumbled out of habit, “You are welcome.” He hid his face on Ren’s head and the little one grasped his hair in one fist and pulled. Minho tried to untangle Ren’s fingers from his hair but the baby only pulled harder. I reached over and gave Ren my fingers to hold and he immediately let go of Minho’s hair. I knew Ren would take a long time to finish one bottle of milk. I had fed him enough times before. He was like Kai, easily distracted during the feeding.

“You asked Puppy earlier why he included you in our family. It has to do with the sort of person he is,” Ren continued to play with my hand as Minho fed him. We were close enough to smell each other’s colognes. “You have to know Puppy to understand that he has no malice in his soft heart.” I looked at my love walking an almost asleep Chen.

“His pure heart is what made me fall in love with him,” I continued. “His heart is big enough to house all the people in the world and forgive most of them their mistakes. Ten years ago, he would’ve beaten you to a pulp if you’d showed up at our doorstep. But, he’s turned into a great ball of mush since he became a grandfather. You were lucky when you came to meet the triplets and encountered this gooey cornball. I would have turned you away.” When I looked at Puppy he gave me another of his toe-curling smiles. I hoped that all my love for him shone through my eyes.

I looked back at Minho who was now staring at me in remorse. “I am sorry Jinki. I am sorry for all the times I treated you badly,” Minho’s voice was heavy with regret. “You were the only person to truly love me and I never understood it enough to appreciate the gift you’d given me. When I see you with Jonghyun, I realize even more what I have lost through my foolishness. Is there absolutely no place for me in your heart?”

I stared at him fixedly and Minho guiltily looked down at Ren in his arms. My voice remained soft as I tried to make him understand, “I can perhaps make place in my heart for you as a friend. That is all. As anyone else, there is a no possibility. I am Jonghyun’s and his alone. I don’t want to give you any false hopes.” Minho nodded in understanding, not looking up from Ren. I looked at Puppy and his sweet smile made me speak more, “We know it is not easy for you. You can restrict your visits for the children to once a week like in the beginning and Puppy will not ask you to participate in our family gatherings anymore.”

Minho quickly shook his head, “Call me a glutton for pain, but I don’t want Jonghyun to retract his invitation to be a part of your family. Like I learned to live without you by my side, I will learn to treat you as a friend Jinki. I’d rather have your friendship than nothing at all.”

I placed Ren’s hand over Minho’s heart and patted it, silently comforting the grieving man. To me it felt as if Minho was mourning for my long-gone love for the first time. My sweet Puppy put a sleeping Chen back on the bed and sat down on Minho’s other side. He wrapped an arm around the older man’s shoulder in consolation. I once again wondered at his big heart and his ability to console my ex-husband who had reiterated his love for me only a few moments ago.

As a tear rolled down Minho’s cheek to surprise Ren, I picked up the baby from his arms. Puppy enveloped Minho in his warm comforting hug. Minho immediately broke down and began sobbing. Huge tears fell from his eyes. “It hurts Jonghyun. So damn much. I feel my heart breaking in two. Why does it still hurt after so many years?” Minho wept as Puppy quietly soothed him by rubbing his back and hair. Minho cried for a long time. Puppy sat holding him through it all.

Ren had fallen asleep before finishing his bottle. I gently placed him next to his brother to sleep. Once Minho’s tears stopped flowing, I handed Puppy a tissue to wipe his face. Only when Minho was composed again, Puppy began speaking to him. He continued to hold the older man gently in his arms and his caring hands moved over Minho’s back in soothing motions. Minho’s head was somehow tucked into Puppy’s shoulder.

“Minho, there are many stages of grief. You’ve been through them over the years but not reached the final stages till this moment. If it is hurting, let it hurt. Only when it stops hurting, you’ll finally begin to heal. You were two people deeply in love but things went terribly wrong. Jinki grieved over it for many long years. You did as well, but no one really helped you recover from it. But we are there for you now. Talk about it with someone you trust. Someone, who will guide your thoughts positively and not push you back into blaming Jinki. It does not matter who was right or wrong, or whether things were right or wrong. They happened. You need to learn to deal with the outcome. You were alone at one time. You are not alone any more as part of this family. Even if you call one of us to be with you in the middle of the night, you will find that person at your doorstep.”

“Learn to look beyond Jinki. You know Taemin hyung loves you more than he loves Jinki. You have Kibum hyung, Kai, Minx, Sehun, all the little babies and even Uncle who invited you to stay over tonight. Byong and Duckie are there for you as well. Don’t become overly sensitive to their teasing. If anyone teases you, give them a smart response and then enjoy it when they laugh. Teasing is what this family does best. Two things you will have to leave at home when dealing with this family – ego and pride.”

Minho lifted up his head to look at Puppy and pouted, “I don’t have either of them.”

Puppy laughed, “Oh yeah? Tell them to a troll who might believe you. I don’t. And neither will anyone else in this family.”

A moment later there was a knock on our door and I opened it to let in Byong who was rubbing his sleepy eyes, “Hey knock it off you two. I can hear appa’s wild laugh clear to my room. By the way, do you know where Minho uncle is?” As soon as he took his fingers away and opened his eyes, he saw Puppy holding Minho in his arms. Our moronic son gasped aloud, “Are you having a ? Can I record it?”

I whacked his head in annoyance while Puppy laughed in amusement. Minho turned a deep shade of red. Puppy looked at blushing Minho and his eyes danced in merriment, “Minho observe and learn.” Minho obediently lifted up his eyes.

Puppy turned to Byong and extended his leg to kick our idiot son, “You can record it if you’ll allow us record your with Duckie.”

“You must be joking appa!” Byong moved out of the range of Puppy’s short legs. He wagged a finger at his father, “No one is touching Duckie except me. She will break their fingers. And mine is the only body her fingers will ever touch.”

“Then stop talking nonsense about your parents,” Puppy aimed another kick at Byong which fell way short of its intended target. “Go make yourself useful and get us some ice cream.” He then turned to Minho, “Nothing works better for a broken heart than a tub of ice cream.” Minho nodded his head like an imbecile. Well, I always knew he was a bird-brain.

“But I want to watch your . When you can do it in front of the babies, you can do it in front of me as well,” Byong’s brain was definitely still asleep.

“Yah, you idiot! Duckie is right to call you a moron. We are not doing anything. Minho was upset and your father was only consoling him. Get your mind out of whatever filthy gutter it has entered,” I whacked Byong once more, putting all my strength into it.

“Ummappa, stop hitting me to take out your ual frustrations. Who asked you to keep the twins when you know very well that you need appa every night?” Byong rubbed the back of his head and pouted at me.

“What in the world makes you think that two sleeping babies are going to stop your father?” I answered without thinking. When Byong started to laugh, I thought about my words and turned beet red.

I sat down on Puppy’s other side and buried my face in his neck, groaning incoherently. He wrapped one arm around and began laughing in tandem with our son. No wonder our son talked nonsense all the time. He had taken after his father.

Byong managed to speak between his laughter, “If Joongie wants to learn anything for his future, he should place a camera in your room instead of the living room. No wonder Hee umma calls you both encyclopedia. How can I get you to give me tips? Duckie and I will also have babies and I don’t want to become crazy like Tae appa,” The boy really had no compunction discussing intimate stuff with us.

Speak of the devil and the devil appears. Our open room was next invaded by Jaejoong with disheveled hair and annoyed face, surely because the loud laughter must have woken him up. The moment his eyes fell on the three of us sitting on our bed, his large eyes widened to dominate his face. “Omo, don’t tell me you are having a ummappa? I have to record this.” He quickly left the room to fetch god only knew what.

Byong doubled up in laughter at Joongie’s exclamation, “See, what did I tell you? Appa let go of Minho uncle if you don’t want the entire house to think the three of you are either sleeping together or planning to.”

Both Minho and I tried to move out of Puppy’s arms but he tightened his grip around our shoulders and softly commanded, “Stay and don’t move an inch.” We promptly stopped struggling.

Jaejoong returned with a sleepy Junsu following him. In his hands, the devil carried the clock from the dining room. He passed Byong without seeing him and placed the clock on our bedside table and adjusted the angle to cover the bed. “There now you can do it. Carry on with what you were doing. You can use the clock to tell you when it’s time to stop. Come Junsu, stop gawking at them. You will make them nervous. I told you they are having a but you wouldn’t believe me.”

Byong and Puppy laughed harder. I was certain that Minho and I had turned red from head to toe. Byong wrapped his arm around Joongie and the younger boy yelped in fright. He really was so focused on us that he had failed to notice there was someone else also in the room. When Joongie realized it was his older brother, he stopped whimpering in fright.

Byong advised the hyperventilating boy, “Take your clock away ert. They are talking only. Run away before appa lets go and ummappa comes after you with the largest knife in the kitchen. Your little Joongie will breathe its last before it even learns to rise properly.”

Oh my god! Where was our son learning to talk like this? Maybe it was the result of being surrounded by so many males and not enough females. Our family really needed more girls. Maybe the younger boys were coming to him for advice regarding their teenage problems.

Junsu began whining, “You woke me up from my wonderful dream about my Chunnie. That too when I finally got him to kiss me with an open mouth and his tongue was feeling so nice playing with mine. Just like we saw ummappa kiss Puppy appa two days ago,” Junsu yawned and hit his younger brother in irritation. “They are only talking. Next time don’t disturb my Chunnie dreams until you see at least one of them without clothes. I still say we place a camera in umma and appa’s room. We will learn a lot more. These two only kiss. So disappointing.”

“We at least got to learn how to kiss Junsu,” Joongie protested.

“Only a kiss Joongie. Chunnie and Yunho are already after my life to see more than just a kiss. Changmin wants lunch for a whole month unless he gets to see something that he considers worth his money. On top of it all, Duckie noona told us to take permission first. I don’t think umma and appa will allow us to place the camera in their bedroom. Do you think Sehun hyung will agree? He does seem to have more knowledge in the department and lets us talk to him about our problems. Too bad Byong hyung is still not married. I am sure he’d allow us to record his honeymoon if we promise to give him a copy. I think we need to work on a clock in this room, may-” Junsu as usual had begun talking nonstop.

“Yah, Junsu stop blabbering, you idiot,” Jaejoong shot out of Byong’s arms and ran out of our room pulling a still talking Junsu by the arm.

“Does he know that clock is recording nothing?” I asked Puppy who shook his head still not able to control his laughter.

Byong picked up the clock and checked it out, “So you found their cameras?”

“Yes and they are minus their batteries now,” Minho responded when Puppy continued to laugh.

Byong took Minho’s hand and pulled him up. Puppy let him go. “Come Minho uncle, we will go to sleep. If you stay around these two, you will also turn into a ert like them. We like you better as you are. It’s more fun to tease you.”

“We will turn him into a ert?” Puppy tried to muffle his laughter with the pillow, and then turned to face the two walking out the door. “Little Byongie, Minho is a bigger ert than your ummappa and I put together.”

Minho looked back into our room and put what he had learnt from Puppy into practice.

“Jinki has a way of turning even saints into sinners.”