The worst of the storm had passed by the time Tao awoke, but little did he know, other things were brewing.

The light in the corner was once again illuminating its space, and the piles of children had almost completely dissipated. Only Lay remained in bed, having taken the exodus of the others as an opportunity to stretch out his limbs until he lay spread eagle, having forgone any of the sheets in the pile next to him. Suddenly, the pile twitched, then started to move before a little black head of hair popped out, which Tao recognized by the sleepy, blinking eyes and pouty lips.

“G’morning, Sleeping Ugly,” Tao said with a sly smirk.

Jongin looked past him and to the vintage alarm clock that occupied Sehun’s half of the nightstand. “What’s for dinner?” he asked.

“Dinner?”

“You know, that thing we usually eat at like 6 or 7 in the evening.”

“What do you think it is? Cereal- Say that again.”

One of Jongin’s eyebrows creased in sleepy crankiness and confusion, as Tao stared him dead in the eyes.

“Say what again?”

“I don’t know, anything!”

“…You’re being weird.”

Kai gave an uncaring blink as Tao’s face lit up like a Christmas tree and he shot up from the floor and ran- ‘OW, OW, LEG CRAMP’ rather, limped to the common room.

Suho and D.O. were in the kitchen brainstorming what they could make (that was not cereal-based) out of the sparse ingredients Chanyeol and Sehun were standing on their tip-toes on top of the cabinets to dig from the backs of the shelves, while most of the others sat in front of the TV watching some sort of ‘battle-mon’ show. Xiumin had taken to building towers out of a cheap set of blocks Tao had found on the discount toy rack at the clothing store, and knocking them over with a dinosaur toy, before knocking over said dinosaur toy with an action figure, roaring and laser beam sound effects coming out of his mouth so explosively that he was drooling. His face only brightened as he saw Tao standing in the hallway gawking, and after swiping his chin free of wetness, he called out, “Hyung, hyung, play wif me!”

Kai wasn’t messing up his Rs. D.O. was giving his opinion on cuisine. Xiumin was making sentences again.

“Oh my God…”

Xiumin’s face went from excited to worried as he watched Tao slowly kneel on the ground and cover his face, and silent sobs began to wrack his body. The sudden breakdown of their guardian caught the interest of everyone else in the room as well. “What’s wrong?” D.O. asked as he walked over to Tao’s side, tugging slightly at his wrist. He could see Tao’s face reddening behind his hands, a sign that whatever had caused him to start crying was really serious. Heck, Tao himself hadn't realized just how much his emotions had come to hinge on this.

“You guys… you’re getting better…”

They all looked at each other with relief on their faces, and Sehun (like always) crossed his arms, smirked mischievously, and said what they were all thinking: “Is that all this is about? Sheesh, you’re such a baby.”

He sniffled loudly and indignantly. “Shut your mouth, Oh Sehun! I was really worried!”

“It’s like you were afraid we were gonna stay kids forever,” Chen piped up, snickering.

“Of course I didn’t,” Tao lied, "that would be stupid." He finally lowered his hands from his face, before lifting his forearm up to wipe the tears away. They weren’t adults again just yet, but they were like they had been the first day, and that was the best sign he could have hoped for. Heck, maybe they’d be better by tomorrow! All he had to do was wait.

“Hyung, we have stuff for pasketti sauce, but we don’t gots pasketti,” D.O. informed him. “It’s not super rainy anymore, too.”

He was able to piece together D.O.’s request, and he obliged, with a laugh and one final sniffle. “Yeah, spaghetti sounds cool. I’ll be back in twenty minutes. Sehun, you’re in charge.”

“I know,” he called out as Tao stood back up and went to get ready for the short trip.

There was still a light drizzle outside and the awful-looking storm clouds were still churning to his left, but fortunately they were moving away from where he was headed, bringing lighter and lighter clouds behind them. He expertly weaved his way through the debris (branches, unsecured objects, a- How did a sofa get in the middle of the street!?) and the dodging only added a couple of minutes to his trip.

Baby diapers. Spaghetti. More cookies, and whatever of the few ingredients for simple meals that were still there and he could carry. He loaded them into bags and was about to put them on his bike handles for the return trip, when his phone pinged. After sliding one of the full, white plastic bags onto a handle to free up a hand, he went ahead and checked it, in case it was Sehun letting him know of something else they’d thought of. He wasn’t leaving the dorm a second time.

From: Youngjun-manager
To: {Group} EXO

“Hey guys,

I’m sorry we got stuck at the wedding. I made it to about an hour south of Seoul before they stopped the trains b/c of the typhoon, and the lines have been cleared, so I should be there in 2-3 hrs, weather permitting.

As far as I know, the filming of the dorms for the variety show is still on for tomorrow afternoon, so I better not find a huge mess in there.

See you soon!”

The other bag (thankfully not the one with the pasta in it) fell from his hand.

To: Sehunnie

“DEFCON 1. DEFCON 1. Youngjun is coming back in 2 hours.”

Sehun barely had time to get the message and reply “WTF is a DEFCON” before Tao burst back through the door panting and wheezing so hard that the group (including Kai and Lay, who’d finally woken up fully) wondered if he was dying.

“Don’t use… that sort… of language…” he breathed at Sehun, but was cut off by a coughing and gasping fit. After stumbling to the fridge and taking a sip from a bottle of water, and several more deep breaths, he was finally able to speak coherently. “What took you so long to reply!?”

“You put our phones on the top shelf of the closet!” he shrieked. “You told us not to touch them unless it was an emergen-“

“THIS IS AN EMERGENCY!!!”

“Yeah, well, okay,” he said curtly, folding his arms across his chest. “Just be glad I recognized your text tone and we were able to get it down. So, what are we gonna do?”

“I…” He had been so focused on rushing back to the dorm and dodging the debris again that he hadn’t taken a second to think.

“Why do we have to do anything?” Suho asked. “The managers already know things like this can happen." He added, half-jokingly, "I thought you would be happy to have someone else to take care of us.”

Tao paused for a moment. In the past couple of days, such an emphasis had been placed on trying to hide the kids from everyone that Tao hadn’t even thought about the fact that there were people who already knew, and having even one of them around would be a godsend. Then, he remembered the second part of the message.

“Yeah, but it’s not just that. They’re filming the dorm tomorrow.”

Around the room, jaws dropped and dramatic gasps were gasped, but other than Suho's eyes narrowing pensively, his face remained calm “Do we all have to be here for that?”

“I guess I can get away with doing it alone, but look at this place.”

The condition of the apartment was far below what was acceptable for even the busiest of boy bands. None of the towels in the pile had been put away, but they had clearly been played in. Cheap toys, coloring books, and other forms of entertainment were splayed about. Milk and juice stains were crusting on the kitchen table, and the whole place just generally looked like, say, nine children with hardly any age-appropriate toys had been allowed to go to town for two days straight.

“If the manager doesn’t have my head for turning you all into kids, he’ll definitely have all of ours for letting this place get so messy. Clean-up time.”

“C-“

“No, you cannot have a cookie, Sehun, not until this room looks like twenty-somethings live here.”

“But what about-“ Kai piped up, also being shut down immediately.

“No dinner until the place is clean; we only have a couple of hours!”

The cacophony of angry whines made him take back his statement immediately, “Fine, I get it, I GET IT! You guys clean, and D.O. and I will make dinner.” A few eyebrows stayed furrowed and mouths opened again to protest the fact that D.O. got to cook instead of clean, but Tao didn’t allow a syllable out of their mouths. “Final offer.”

Grumbling, they took it.

Two hours and sixteen minutes was how long it took for the anticipation Tao was feeling to reach its peak. As he’d made dinner, eaten, cleaned the dishes, and helped the kids return the room to its former state (as well as keeping Xiumin out of the toy buckets,) he couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that he would finally have someone else to take over caring for the kids. It was the managers’ job, not his, to look out for the wellbeing of the group, and maybe now, Tao could get a full-night’s sleep and be over his cold within a day or two. He’d even only taken one decongestant with dinner instead of two. Things were really looking up, and as the doorknob turned for real (not like the other seventeen times he thought he’d heard it,) he exploded off the couch to greet the head-manager.

“Hey, Tao, I’m sorry I-“ his face fell immediately as he watched a baby who looked oddly like Xiumin toddle by. “Who are these kids?”

Tao’s eyes widened slightly in surprise. “You didn’t get my message?”

“I didn't receive anything from you.”

That was when he remembered that the one thing he’d forgotten in the pandemonium was to inform the manager of what had happened.

“I… think you’re going to want to sit down for this one. Come in.”

“Is this something related to those superpowers of yours?"

“You have no idea.”

The other kids dropped what they were cleaning and greeted Youngjun excitedly, and Tao shrunk as the look of realization and horror on the man’s face grew as he recognized more and more of the little faces. This was so not in his job description.

Tao got the manager onto the sofa, and set to explaining what had happened over the past two days before explaining, “But they’re starting to go back to being adults, so they could be back to normal as soon as tomorrow,” he explained to the exasperated man, who looked as if he’d aged about ten years in three minutes.

“I should have just stayed at the wedding,” he groaned. “Out of all the bands I had to be in charge of… Why couldn’t they have assigned me to Super Junior?”

Tao didn’t have anything to say in response, so he settled for swallowing nervously and a quiet, “My bad.”

“Okay,” he said firmly, as if trying to force his racing thoughts and worries about his career out along with the word. “The filming tomorrow is a big deal, and it’s not negotiable. The company is already going out of its way to ensure that the roads will be clear in time for the filming crew to travel. They don’t care who’s here as long as someone is, so you can do it alone. Everything else can be postponed; that would be... Chen’s OST recording, D.O.’s commercial shoot, aaand I think you had a commercial shoot tomorrow too, Tao, so we can postpone that as well. With that face, they won’t want you there, anyway.”

Through narrowing his puffy, red eyes, Tao showed he was not amused.

“You guys did a good job of keeping the dorm clean while I was gone,” he said, looking around. “The only issue is where we’re going to keep the kids during the shoot.”

“Yeah..." Tao was silent for a moment, before his eyes widened and he snapped his gaze back to Youngjun. If I remember correctly… Your house is pretty big, isn’t it?”

He shot him back a look. “Not ‘nine kids’ big.”

“Not even ‘nine kids for one night’ big?”

“No, no way. That’s not happening.”

“Your own kids are at a sleepaway camp right now, right? And,” Tao started, propping his elbows on the table, slowly lacing his fingers together, and propping his chin on them, “what happens when the film crew shows up and sees Daddy Tao and his nine children? The film crew might find that entertaining, but I doubt S.M. would.”

“Tch. You really need to learn to respect your elders, kid.”

“Sorry,” he said, keeping up the faux catty edge his voice had gained. “Haven’t had much practice these past couple of days.”

“Alright, I’ll take them.” he sighed. Tao was ready to hit the ceiling with excitement, but he settled for sitting there with a giant grin and sparkling (but still red) eyes. The manager grumbled, scratching the back of his head out of stress. “What am I supposed to tell my wife?”

“I don’t know, but you’re creative. Make something up. Do you have the van?”

“Yeah, I brought it in case you guys needed to go somewhere; I heard you’ve been cramped up in here since this morning.”

“Perfect!” Tao said, his voice cracking under the stress of being ill and the high-pitched tone Tao had just tried to make. “Help me pack their bags.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Suho said, standing up from a cross-legged position on the floor. “We’re going tonight!?”

“Yeah,” Tao said, not entirely following. “Something wrong with that?”

“I thought we'd go tomorrow, just long enough for the filming! Didn’t you see the storm warnings?” he demanded, ing a finger at the television, the cool demeanor he'd been trying to keep up melting away. "The typhoon isn’t over; they said this afternoon was just the main storm, and there's gonna be more tonight!”

“…And?” Tao shrugged. “That’s all the reason more to get you guys out of here.”

“But… but…” Suho said, suddenly going from argumentative, to dejected, to looking like he was about to cry. “Y-you’re coming with us, right?”

“Suho... Look, he said, kneeling down and putting a hand on the little one's shoulder. "This is my first shot at a worry-free, full night of relaxing sleep in days. I’m an idol, and I’m going to film a spot for a variety show tomorrow. Plus, I need to stay here in case the roads aren't clear. You can understand that, right? Don't be such a drama queen; you're supposed to be one of my brave little leaders.”

“But... If you’re not coming, how are you gonna make sure Sehun doesn’t eat too many cookies?” Suho said meekly, voice on the verge of breaking.

“Who’s gonna double check to make sure I put on Baby Baozi's diaper right?” Sehun asked, the words coming out of his mouth shakily as well.

“Who’s gonna bring us water before bed?”

“Who’s gonna read us bedtime stories?”

“Who’s gonna sing us lul-ba-lies?”

Tao’s brows furrowed in confusion at Chen, Chanyeol, and (of all people the people to troll him,) D.O. “I didn’t do any of those last three things.”

“Yeah…” the disappointed two-year-old said softly, looking down at his feet, and Tao realized that while the other two were being facetious, D.O. wasn't. “But I know you would if we aksed.”

Tao sighed, steeling his inner resolve and standing back up. Someone who actually knew something about raising kids taking them out of his hair for a night was the best thing that could possibly happen, to him and the kids, and he wasn’t about to let their self-interests get in the way. “I’m sure Youngjun and his wife will do all those things if you ask them. You guys'll be back here before you know it. Now go and get your things together.”

“But Hyung-” Lay tried to protest, but Tao wouldn’t hear any more objections, not even from the one child who hadn't argued with him yet.

“Go. I have to catch up on my sleep if I want to look decent tomorrow and cover for you guys.”

The dejected group gave heartbroken looks toward Tao before they trudged off one-by-one to get together their overnight bags. At last, Suho turned around and whispered,

“…Whatever you think is best, hyung.”