OT12
Continuity: Chapter 4

#12 : Welcome to Our Family Time

It’s never a simple thing when it involves all 12 of them doing something together as a family, but the thing is they have to do things together as a family, because that’s what they are—a family. And they needed to start acting like one, and the best way to do that was to force everyone to spend time together and hopefully have fun.

On a nice day in autumn, Suho and Kris planned to take the kids for a hike so they could admire the colors of the leaves. They wanted to leave after breakfast—an early breakfast—and so the first challenge was waking up.

Kris was not a morning person by any means, and Suho and Xiumin practically had to sit on him to make him get up. Once Kris had hauled himself upright, he and Suho knocked on everyone else’s doors and went to forcibly drag Kai and Lu Han out of bed. They shared a room with Sehun, who had no problems waking up and even tried to help wake up his roommates. Unfortunately, his cuteness only ever won over Lu Han.

“Lu Han!” Sehun whined, sitting on the older boy’s chest. “Sehun is hungry!!”

“D’you want me to feed you?” Lu Han mumbled.

“Yes! Yes!” Sehun cried, clapping his hands. Lu Han sat up and smiled sleepily at his little shadow.

“Okay, hyung will go eat with you.”

Watching them leave, Suho shook his head. “The only reason I haven’t told Lu Han that Sehun is old enough to feed himself is because he’d never get out of bed otherwise.”

Right after he said that, Lu Han’s pillow smacked him in the face, having been hurled by Kai.

“Get out,” he growled groggily. “Or I will bite you.”

Kris usually wound up piggy-backing a half asleep Kai into the dining hall, since he was the only one Kai would not cause bodily harm to, and Suho would attempt to force some kind of food into Kai.

Once they’d all eaten, they needed to go through the process of getting everyone dressed.

“Chanyeol,” Kris said patiently, “You cannot wear a toga hiking.”

Chanyeol looked scandalized. “It’s not a toga, it’s what all Princes wear when they go to meet the Sparrow Princess!!!”

Off to the side, Baekhyun rolled his eyes and muttered, “Crazy,” under his breath.

Kris shoved Chanyeol into the direction of his room. “It’s going to fall off of you and I won’t have you walking around the woods stark , do you understand me?”

Chanyeol pouted but went to change.

“Kris?” Suho called, “Can you work on getting Kyungsoo to put on his shoes? I’m kinda busy…”

Suho and Lu Han were trying to explain to Sehun that he could not wear white pants hiking, and Kyungsoo was glaring at his shoes like they were possessed.

Kris knelt down in front of Kyungsoo. “What’s wrong with them?” He asked wearily.

“I saw a spider crawl out of them yesterday,” Kyungsoo hissed. Right away Chen shrieked and ran to the opposite side of the room.

Kris closed his eyes and counted to ten. They hadn’t even made it out the door and he had a headache.

///////////////

When they finally made it into the woods, the whining started.

“My knee hurts,” Tao cried, clinging to Kris’ arm.

Kris shook him off. “Your knee is fine, I saw you practicing Wushu last night and you didn’t hurt yourself. You just want to be carried.”

“So will you?” Tao asked hopefully, blinking up at Kris with wide eyes.

Kris smiled at him. “No.”

Tao pouted and Kris patted his head just as Baekhyun ran in front of them, hands over his ears and eyes shut.

Kris sighed and looked over at Suho. “What is he doing?”

Suho threw an arm out to stop Kris and Tao just in time to save them from being knocked down by Chanyeol. “Baekhyun is running in circles around us and Chanyeol is following him,” he explained as they started walking once more. He side-eyed Kris who held up his hands.

“Not my kids,” he reminded Suho.

Baekhyun ran in front of them again—he was running in a wide arc so they weren’t in danger of running into him, but Chanyeol was another story. As Chanyeol passed by (coming dangerously close to knocking over Lay) Suho grabbed onto him and nearly gave him whiplash. “Chanyeol, if Baekhyun has his hands over his ears and is running away from you, chances are it’s not a good idea to follow him,” he said tiredly.

Chanyeol’s eyes brimmed with tears. “But—”

“KRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIS!” Chen wailed from somewhere behind them. “KAI SAYS HE’S GONNA MAKE ME WATCH HIM EAT A WORM!”

Kris glared at Suho, who threw his hands up. “Not my kid.”

“Yes he is!” Kris fired back.

“The wailing one?”

Kris practically hissed in frustration. “He’s my kid—but the one who is constantly tormenting him is not mine!” Chen came running over and ducked under Kris’ arm, talking a mile a minute in a tearful voice.

“He’sreallygrossKrisIdon’tlikehimatallmakehimleavemealone…”

Kai ran over and started shouting. “I never said I’d make him watch and all I did was this!” And he held up the worm in his hands—Chen shrieked and grabbed the edge of Kris’ wing, pulling it over his face so he wouldn’t have to look at Kai—and dangled it over his mouth.

Suho grabbed Kai’s wrist and pulled it back. “Put that thing down are you nuts do you want to contract salmonella?!” He fired at his second youngest headache.

Kris looked around. Lu Han and Sehun were walking ahead, blissfully unaware of what was happening, Kyungsoo had grabbed Baekhyun and was muttering to him and Xiumin and Lay were playing a game of “I Spy.”

“Alright!” Kris yelled, making everyone jump and stop in his tracks. “Lay and Xiumin, can Chanyeol and Tao join your game?”

They nodded.

“Good. Kyungsoo, you and Baekhyun go walk ahead with Sehun and Lu Han. Kai, you go up there too and if you can’t say something nice don’t say anything.”

Then he looked down at Chen. “You do whatever you feel like doing,” he said. Chen tightened his grip on Kris’ arm.

Once everyone had scampered into their appropriate groups they started off again. Suho patted Kris’ arm sympathetically.

“You can take a nap when we get there if you want, I should be able to handle them.”

Kris figured he’d take Suho up on that.

/////////////

Kris wound up lying down for five minutes and then getting up because there was no way Suho could handle this on his own.

“Chanyeol, get down from the tree, I’ll get you a branch.”

And somehow doing that one thing for Chanyeol meant he had to do a hundred things for everyone else, and after some time Kris finally staggered away from everyone hoping to sit down…and then he saw Chen.

Kris didn’t know how it happened or what had been said, but Chen was standing by himself and his bottom lip was quivering and he was starting to hiccup.

“No!” He yelled, running over to Chen and hugging him tightly. “There will be no crying today!”

Still clutching the young boy, he whirled towards Kai. “What did you say to him?” He demanded as Chen clung to him and tried to calm down.

Kai looked genuinely offended. “It wasn’t me! I was accosting Kyungsoo!”

Kyungsoo stomped his foot and pointed at Kai. “He was dangling spiders in my face!!”

“It wasn’t a spider! It was a leaf that looked like a spider!” Kai hollered back, and then he launched himself at Kyungsoo and tackled him to the ground.

“Get off me! OW! SUHO HE BIT ME!”

“HE KNEED ME IN THE STOMACH!!”

Kris dragged Chen away from the brawl and made him look up at him. “What happened?” He asked softly, ruffling Chen’s hair.

Chen didn’t look like he was about to cry anymore, but he did look faintly upset. “They told me not to tell.”

Kris put his hand on Chen’s shoulders and bent a little bit so they were eye level. “Who told you not to tell?”

Chen fidgeted. “Lu Han and Sehun,” he muttered quietly. “They walked off.”

Kris felt his heart leap to his throat. “When?”

“About a half an hour ago?” Chen guessed. “Am I in trouble?”

Kris calmly patted Chen’s cheek. “No dear, you’re not in trouble. Why don’t you go play with Xiumin and Baekhyun now?” Then just as calmly he walked over to Suho, who was trying to flip Kyungsoo onto his back.

“You aren’t dying and you don’t have rabies,” he was saying. “Now get your face out of the dirt before you inhale a worm.”

“Inhale a worm!” Chanyeol shrieked from where he was jabbing a twig in a shrub. “Do it, Kyungsoo! It’d be totally cool!”

Kyungsoo scrambled to stand up and Kris grabbed Suho’s arm, quickly getting his attention.

“Where’s Sehun?” Kris asked in the same calm tone.

“He’s with Lu Han,” Suho answered automatically. “He’s always with Lu Han.”

He made to turn away but Kris pulled him back. “Where’s Lu Han?”

Suho opened his mouth and then closed again. “Uh,” he said intelligently. “Oh.”

“Yeah!” Kris cried, finally leaving calm behind. “Where the heck did they go??”

“Are you talking about us?”

Suho and Kris whirled around. Lu Han was leading Sehun into the clearing they were set up in, and they were munching on…

“What’ve you got there?” Kai asked, abandoning his taunting of Kyungsoo.

Sehun held up his hand. “Raspberries!” He announced happily. “There’s a whole ocean of them!”

“It’s true,” Lu Han told them, jumping up and down in excitement. “There’s like an entire forest of bushes over that way!”

“Is it like getting to the blueberry patch?” Tao asked, wandering over from goodness only knew where.

Lu Han shook his head. “Not at all, it’s really easy. Come on, we’ll show you!”

///////////

It was Kyungsoo who finally looked up and asked.

“Guys? Where are Suho and Kris?”

Everyone stopped dead and looked around the raspberry field, and sure enough their leaders were nowhere in sight.

“Oh well, more for us!” Kai cheered happily.

Kyungsoo nearly smacked him. “This is serious! Did they leave without us?”

Chen and Tao both gasped. “Never!” Tao swore. “Kris would never leave me behind.”

Chen’s lip started quivering and Xiumin ran over to him and hugged him. “There, there,” he said, rubbing Chen’s back soothingly. “I’m sure they’re around, they wouldn’t have left without us.”

“But where could they be?” Lay wondered aloud. He turned around and nearly tripped over a bush.

Lu Han sighed. “You just can’t stay on your own two feet, can you?”

“Hey,” Baekhyun yelled, startling everyone. “They went that way,” he pointed behind himself, back to the clearing they’d originally been in. “About an hour ago.”

The ten of them went back to the clearing and found Suho and Kris lying on the ground fast asleep. Kris was lying on his back and Suho was using his stomach as a pillow.

“That’s totally adorable!” Chanyeol squealed.

“Yeah,” Kai agreed. “Let’s put worms in their hair!”

“I love you too, you little monster,” Suho mumbled.

“It’s alive!” Sehun shrieked, running at the pair of them and throwing himself on top of them.

Baekhyun grinned “DOG PILE!” he screamed, but before any of them could move Kris shot up, taking Suho and Sehun with him.

“Maybe some other time,” he said firmly.

Suho stretched. “So, did you all have fun picking berries?”

Xiumin nodded. “We did! We had a lot of fun and…and…we didn’t fight at all.”

They all gaped at each other. They’d never gone without somebody arguing for that long before!

Kris and Suho grinned at each other. “Score!” They cried and high-fived.

“You planned this?!” Kai shrieked. “And somehow I’m the manipulative one?”

Suho took Sehun’s hand and started walking away. “Come on you little monsters, let’s all go home.”

/////////////

This was kinda rushed but after 5 semesters college is finally starting to punch me in the teeth with work, so updates may be a little sporadic at best for the next 14 weeks and I wanted to get this out while I could. NOBODY CRIED, HOORAY!!! (Even though there were some close calls, it did not happen!!)

If you like this story I shamelessly urge you to check out my new Taoris story "My Boyfriend is a Pet" (http://www.asianfanfics.com/story/view/263934/my-boyfriend-is-a-pet-fantasy-romance-taoris) if you have not already done so.

Title taken from the song on the "Brother Bear" soundtrack. Another fabulous Disney movie and I find the song HIGHLY appropriate for this chapter ^^