When A Baby Rings The Doorbell - Part 1   It was still early in the morning when someone rang the doorbell. Both Kyuhyun and Jongwoon were instantly awakened, but both were too tired and too stubborn to be the first to get up and walk to the front door. After having an intense staring battle for a whole minute, Kyuhyun knew he had to be the one opening it. He, after all, was sleeping closest to the bedroom exit, and Jongwoon had to climb over Kyuhyun to leave.   Kyuhyun mouthed a hopeful ‘Can’t we just ignore it?’ to Jongwoon, but this one raised an eyebrow and Kyuhyun sighed while turning around and sitting up. He stretched himself exaggeratedly, before actually standing up, looking at Jongwoon sadly, hoping for some sympathy that never came.   Kyuhyun doubted that the person who rang their doorbell almost 5 minutes ago would still be there though. He sure wouldn’t have waited that long if he had been the one ringing the doorbell. But, on the other hand, Kyuhyun would never ring someone’s doorbell this early in the morning in the first place.   He unlocked the door with his own house key and opened it. As expected, there was no-one there anymore. He sighed, annoyed with the fact that he stood up for nothing, and was about to close the door, when something caught his eye.   A basket. A basket filled with what seemed like blankets, and on top of those, a large envelope addressed to Jongwoon.   Kyuhyun reached for the basket, and as soon as he lifted it up, he wondered what on earth could be in there that was this heavy. It had to be either bricks or stones or something as heavy as that.   Walking back to the bedroom with the basket still in his hand, Kyuhyun accidentally crashed it into the door post; however, he didn’t care in the slightest. It had to be a gift from one of Jongwoon’s admirers. It was no secret that Jongwoon had many. That is probably why Kyuhyun considers himself lucky, for out of all the admirers Jongwoon had, it was Kyuhyun who stole his heart in the end.   “For you,” Kyuhyun said, throwing the basket onto the bed towards Jongwoon, who stared at it, confused. “Maybe from Ryeowook or something.”   Kyuhyun giggled at his own comment. Ryeowook was probably Jongwoon’s number one admirer. Jongwoon’s biggest fan. Followed him seriously everywhere he could.   Jongwoon grabbed the envelope out of the basket and opened it. Kyuhyun, the curious boy that he was, sat down next to Jongwoon and stared at the short note that was hidden inside the enormous envelope.   He is yours. Take good care of him.   Jessica   “He is yours, take good care of him. Jessica?” Kyuhyun read the card out loud, confused.   First of all, he had never heard of a girl named Jessica before. Secondly, ‘he’, ‘him’, the card mentioned something.. Something alive.   A sudden sound coming from the basket caught both of the boys by surprise. Two pair of eyes shifted their gaze towards the basket, fear obviously readable in them.   It was as if something was about to jump out of the basket, and it probably wasn’t a sweet, harmless creature. No. It probably was a monster. Something terrible; something that could either eat them or kill them within 2 seconds.   Jongwoon, who was suspiciously whiter than Kyuhyun had ever seen him before, sat up a little better, inched towards the basket and moved the blanket aside a little.   Two huge eyes stared straight from inside the basket at them, two eyes that made Jongwoon gulp and stare at Kyuhyun in fear. Two eyes that made Kyuhyun stand up and walk out of the room as fast as he could. He didn’t even want to hear an explanation.   --------------------------------------------♫♪♫♪♫-------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------♫♪♫♪♫--------------------------------------------   "Kyuhyun, wait!” Jongwoon said desperately, as Kyuhyun was furiously roaming around the house in search of his shoes. Once again, his shoes had somehow moved away from the spot Kyuhyun had last seen them. “Let me explain-”   “Explain what?” Kyuhyun replied angrily, finally stopping the search for his shoes as he knew he wasn’t going to find them anyway. “It’s a BABY. Everything is perfectly clear to me.”   “Just let me-“   “Is it yours?”   Jongwoon was caught off guard by Kyuhyun’s question. He wanted to explain everything to Kyuhyun as soon as he settled down a little. Not like this. Not when Kyuhyun was going mad. And Jongwoon knew Kyuhyun was going mad; he always ran around the house furiously, in search of his shoes so he could walk out of here, whenever he was going crazy.   “O my god, it is yours!” Kyuhyun threw his hands in the air, assuming that Jongwoon not giving an immediate answer meant that the baby was indeed his; he probably just wanted to explain it differently, so it seemed less dreadful.   And back to searching for shoes.   Crying coming from their bedroom forced Jongwoon to retreat. He could not let his baby cry while he was trying to save his relationship. That would be selfish.   When he returned to the living room, baby in his arms sleeping peacefully, he found Kyuhyun completely dressed, wearing shoes and putting on his coat.   “Please Kyuhyun, don’t go. Not like this.”   Kyuhyun said nothing. He stared at his soon-to-be ex-boyfriend and his supposed baby, before grabbing his car keys from the kitchen table and leaving. Work started in an hour anyway, so he might as well arrive early for a change.   --------------------------------------------♫♪♫♪♫-------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------♫♪♫♪♫--------------------------------------------   “A baby?”   Kibum and Donghae stared at Kyuhyun curiously, as he had just finished explaining his two best friends what had happened earlier that morning. He had expected both of them to be mad at Jongwoon for keeping a secret like this from their best friend, his respectful boyfriend, but they weren’t. They were only curious.   Well alright, Kyuhyun had expected Kibum to be mad at Jongwoon for keeping this a secret, because Donghae being curious and not mad is nothing new. In the two decades that Kyuhyun had known Donghae, he had never seen the latter mad before.   “You guys are missing out on the point here. He has a baby. He never told me he had a baby. Let alone a relationship with a woman before me.”   “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you are jealous,” Kibum stated, only adding more fuel onto the already burning fire.   “We are no longer friends,” Kyuhyun mumbled, angrily. His friends were really not getting what the whole problem was about.   “Ah, come on. It’s not like he didn’t had any life before he met you. How long ago did you two meet?” Donghae asked, trying to stop the emerging fight his two friends were having. Kibum was never good at saying the right thing at the right time; he just liked teasing Kyuhyun too much for that.   “Ten months ago,” Kyuhyun answered grumpily, still mad at Kibum.   “And how old is the baby?”   That was a good question. Kyuhyun had no idea. It looked really young.   “Three months, maybe?”   “Well, nine months of pregnancy... Three-month-old baby… That makes twelve months. That means it was conceived two months before the two of you met. At least now you know that he wasn’t cheating on you with a girl.”   A giggle coming from Kibum, and a deadly glare aimed at Donghae from Kyuhyun was the result of this brilliantly raised statement.   “Thanks, Donghae, I feel much better now,” Kyuhyun sighed. Now he was feeling even more depressed with the whole situation than he had been before.   Kibum stood up, as his break had started earlier than Kyuhyun’s and Donghae’s and so finished earlier as well, and stood behind Kyuhyun. He hugged Kyuhyun from behind and Donghae couldn’t do anything but gasp at the highly unexpected event.   “Just let Jongwoon tell his side of the story before making up your own,” Kibum said softly into Kyuhyun’s ear. Kyuhyun could only nod, as he was too overwhelmed by Kibum’s sudden action to respond properly. “And I do expect an invitation to the baby shower!” Kibum added, before releasing Kyuhyun from his grip and running away. Kyuhyun growled, ‘damn Kibum’.   “There is a baby shower? Why didn’t you tell me?!” Donghae asked, deeply insulted that Kibum knew about this but he didn’t.   “Oh, Donghae...” Kyuhyun sighed, “I still don’t get how you got hired here.”   With that, Kyuhyun stood up as his break time was about to finish as well, and returned to his office; his mind fully preoccupied with the knowledge that he had some new things to think over before going home later that day.   --------------------------------------------♫♪♫♪♫-------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------♫♪♫♪♫--------------------------------------------   Heechul rushed to Jongwoon’s house as soon as Hyukjae had hung up the phone. Apparently, Jongwoon was being upset over some baby that did not stop crying, and Hyukjae had failed to ‘shut the baby up’ as well, as he had nicely explained.   Reaching Jongwoon’s house a mere 10 minutes later, he rang the doorbell and the door was opened within seconds by Hyukjae.   The first sound reaching Heechul’s ears was this earsplitting screaming sound, which could be nothing else but a crying baby. Following the source of the sound led Heechul into the living room.   There, he found Jongwoon holding the baby as far in front of him as possible, staring at it as if it could explode at any second. And even though Heechul had many questions welling up in his mind, he decided to help both Jongwoon and Hyukjae with the baby first, before launching his barrage of questions.   Unfortunately, even Heechul couldn’t get the baby to settle down with either his singing, cute but disturbing high-pitched speech, or tickling.   “You have to feed it,” Heechul eventually concluded, still holding the crying baby in his arms.   “Feed it what?” Jongwoon asked confused, staring at the baby sadly. What on earth do babies eat?   “Milk?” Heechul asked sarcastically. How could people not know this?   Jongwoon only looked at Heechul helplessly, and Hyukjae walked out of the room towards the kitchen, only to return with a carton of milk in his hands.   “Not normal milk, you moron!” Heechul semi-yelled, almost dropping the baby out of disbelief and frustration. “Baby milk!”   Now both Jongwoon and Hyukjae stared at Heechul helplessly, and the latter sighed. This was getting nowhere. He pushed the still crying baby into Jongwoon’s hands.   “Ah, seriously… I’ll be right back.” He sighed, before leaving the 2 men behind, with the crying baby, to get the poor thing some food.   --------------------------------------------♫♪♫♪♫-------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------♫♪♫♪♫--------------------------------------------   Heechul returned to Jongwoon’s house 30 minutes later. The baby’s cries were already clearly audible from the corner of the street and Heechul was almost ashamed that he had to actually enter the house where the unbearable sound came from.   He bought many things, since he knew Jongwoon had nothing in his house that was baby-proof what so ever. He bought baby milk, diapers, a few bottles, a baby-teat with the print ‘I love daddy’ on it, some toys, a clean set of clothes, etcetera, etcetera. Anything that could help them get through the first few days.   Inside the house, not much had changed. The baby was still crying, Hyukjae was still standing at the exact same spot with the carton of milk in his hand, and Jongwoon was still trying to stop the baby from crying. Only now he was crying himself too. Saying repeatedly that he was a bad father. That he was a good-for-nothing.   Leaving the whole scene in the living room for what it was, Heechul went to the kitchen to prepare a bottle for the baby. He was absolutely sure that the baby would stop crying after it was being fed. After all, Hyukjae did manage to tell Heechul that the baby had been dropped off at the house at 6 in the morning, and it was already 3 in the afternoon. The baby didn’t eat for hours. Hell, Heechul would cry too if he hadn’t eaten for that long!   After making sure the milk was neither too hot nor too cold, Heechul pushed the bottle into the baby’s mouth and this one instantly stopped his crying.   Three grownup men stared at the baby blissfully on its bottle, happy that it finally got what it wanted. It almost felt as if they had just witnessed a miracle.   A ringing sound still lingered in their ears though. It’s amazing how such a small, tiny human being could produce a sound louder than anything in the entire world. Now that the sound had stopped, their ears were still getting used to the sudden silence.   When the bottle was finally empty, the baby burped and puked out almost all that had finally entered its stomach, but it didn’t seem to mind. It fell asleep peacefully in Jongwoon’s arms, and the action was soon followed by three loud sighs.   Heechul and Hyukjae sank onto the couch, thoroughly exhausted, while Jongwoon sat down as softly as possible, too scared to wake up the now peacefully sleeping baby.   “Is it yours?” Heechul popped out.   Jongwoon grabbed the small note Jessica had left with the baby out of his back pocket, where he had stuck it as soon as he had gotten dressed, and handed it over to Hyukjae, who was sitting closest to him.   Hyukjae’s eyes widened after reading the note, and he handed it over to Heechul.   “I knew it,” Heechul said, as soon as he finished reading. “I told you she was no good.”   “I know...” Jongwoon mumbled, ashamed.   Heechul had indeed told Jongwoon multiple times that Jessica was no good. Jessica and Jongwoon had met in a bar around two and a half years ago. They became good friends almost instantly. Jessica had shown interest in Jongwoon during their friendship, but Jongwoon had made clear to her that his preferences didn’t go that way. She had told him she understood, but Heechul, who had met Jessica a few months later, had told Jongwoon instantly that he had a bad feeling about her. And anyone who is acquainted with Heechul knows he is practically never wrong. But everyone who is familiar with Jongwoon knows Jongwoon is stubborn. Eventually, Jessica somehow managed to convince him that maybe he wasn’t gay after all. They had a short relationship together, during which Jongwoon only found out that he was more gay than he expected.   But apparently, it was too late.   She had never told Jongwoon that she had gotten pregnant. She only suddenly broke up with him, but that hadn’t bothered Jongwoon much, for he had been planning the same thing anyway. That was how they ended their relationship and friendship, and it was the last time Jongwoon had seen her. Jongwoon had met Kyuhyun not much later after that, and had completely forgotten about her. If he had known she was carrying his baby, he would have done things differently, that’s for sure. He would have been there for Jessica and their baby.   “So what is his name?” Heechul continued, knowing that it wasn’t the right time for ‘I told you so’ comments.   “I...” Jongwoon started, staring down at the baby, “I have no idea actually.”   Hyukjae, wanting to be part of the conversation, grabbed his phone and threw it to Jongwoon, almost hitting the baby on the head, earning glares from both Jongwoon and Heechul.   “I- I’m sorry,” Hyukjae stuttered, already feeling stupid enough without getting daggers to head. “You- You should call her.”   “Monkeyhead has a good point,” Heechul replied after a short silence, earning a smile from Hyukjae, even though the comment wasn’t meant as a compliment. Heechul just rolled his eyes and continued before Jongwoon could say anything in response. “If you are going to raise him, you need to know his name. And maybe some other extra information.”   Jongwoon thought it over for a while before he nodded firmly and stood up. He placed the baby onto Hyukjae’s lap, who didn’t dare to move an inch at all anymore as soon as the baby was given to him, and left to the kitchen where the phone was.   Jongwoon was ready to confront Jessica, to ask her for the information he needed to raise his own son. It was time for him to take his charge of his own responsibility.   --------------------------------------------♫♪♫♪♫-------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------♫♪♫♪♫--------------------------------------------   The phone call took forever. Kyuhyun had already returned home, together with Donghae and Kibum who insisted on meeting the new family member, and Heechul had changed the baby’s diaper two times already when Jongwoon finally returned from the kitchen to the living room.   He stared confusedly at Kyuhyun and his two friends, before answering the one question they all had.   “Sungmin. His name is Sungmin.”   “So you are Sungmin?” Donghae started asking the awake but not-crying baby. He used this really annoying high pitched voice, something that most people use when talking to a baby. It amazed both Kyuhyun and Kibum that the baby didn’t cry instantly. They would have if they were a baby and if Donghae had used this really scary and fake high-pitched voice as if he was either a woman or a complete moron. “Sungmin came to visit his daddy? Yes, he did!”   “How old is he?” Kyuhyun asked, ignoring his friend’s embarrassing behavior.   Jongwoon smiled happily, happy about the fact that Kyuhyun was still talking to him, even though he had a baby and Kyuhyun had probably been hating him the entire day, and hence, he almost forgot to answer.   “Jongwoon?” Kyuhyun said, waking Jongwoon up from his thoughts.   “Oh.. 87 days. Born on the first day of this year. Isn’t that special?” Jongwoon still smiled happily, but no longer because of Kyuhyun, but because of Sungmin. His son. His little miracle.   Heechul and Kibum both started to whisper something to each other before standing up.   “We should go!” Heechul announced.   “Yeah, our two lovebirds have some stuff to talk over!” Kibum added, grabbing Sungmin from Donghae and deliberately handing him over to Kyuhyun. Kyuhyun, however, instantly handed the baby over to Jongwoon and moved away from him as far as possible.   As soon as all their friends left, both Kyuhyun and Jongwoon sat down together on the couch, with a sleeping Sungmin in between them, to have the long awaited talk together. And this time, Kyuhyun did give Jongwoon the opportunity to explain himself, because, after all, you don’t yell at someone when there is a 87-days-old baby sleeping in between the two of you. It was not the baby’s fault.   --------------------------------------------♫♪♫♪♫-------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------♫♪♫♪♫--------------------------------------------   Kyuhyun grunted when the sound of a baby crying reached his ears once again. He tried to muffle the sound by placing his pillow over his head, but somehow that sound could pierce through everything.   “Just feed the damn baby already!” Kyuhyun shouted in annoyance.   This had been the situation for a week already. Sungmin was a crybaby. A real crybaby. Every night, he would wake up around 10 times, and scream his lungs out because he was either hungry, scared, lonely or he just simply wanted to annoy them. It made Kyuhyun tired.   Probably not as tired as Jongwoon though. Kyuhyun didn’t help Jongwoon with Sungmin at all. He just couldn’t. It was not his baby. And he didn’t even like kids in the first place. All they were good for was crying and up money. Oh, and don’t forget the inexhaustible smell. That baby could stink like no-one else could. It was a miracle that Jongwoon didn’t hurl every time he had to change Sungmin’s diaper.   Kyuhyun could hear Jongwoon sigh before climbing over him and lifting up Sungmin from the cradle Heechul had brought the 2nd day Sungmin was here.   “Are you hungry?” He asked his baby, before leaving the bedroom together with Sungmin.   Oh, how much Kyuhyun looked forward to the day that the mother, Jessica, would pick Sungmin up again. She would not let Sungmin stay here forever, would she? Kyuhyun doubted he was going to survive that. Their relationship was really suffering because of this baby, and he had only stayed over for a week.   Kyuhyun sighed, shifted a little to make himself comfortable once again and eventually fell asleep once more. Not even noticing when Jongwoon had returned to the bedroom with the sleeping Sungmin in his arms.   --------------------------------------------♫♪♫♪♫-------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------♫♪♫♪♫--------------------------------------------   It has been a month. A month since Sungmin was dropped off at their front door.   Kyuhyun has been kicked out of the house by Jongwoon just a few hours ago. The exhaustion had finally caught up with the two of them, and after one more explosive fight, Jongwoon had said he had enough. That his baby didn’t need all this screaming around him.   It was Jongwoon’s house, so basically he had every right to kick Kyuhyun out. Kyuhyun didn’t think so though. It was not his fault that the baby kept crying and crying all the time, that Kyuhyun was really lacking sleep lately, and that he was tired of that .. that thing.   But Kyuhyun did leave the house anyway, and now, he was ringing Donghae’s doorbell. Hoping that he could spend the night there. Hopefully a good night, as Donghae didn’t have a baby. Well, at least not that he knew of.   “Kyuhyun?” Donghae asked, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. It was already 11 in the evening and he had been sleeping since 7 because he was struck by the flu.   “Let me sleep here... Jongwoon kicked me out.”   “Seriously?” Donghae asked, surprised, but stepped aside without waiting for the answer, to let Kyuhyun walk in with his little suitcase.   --------------------------------------------♫♪♫♪♫-------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------♫♪♫♪♫--------------------------------------------   Kyuhyun was delighted. It was probably THE best night of his entire life. He slept like a charm. No crying baby waking him up, no Jongwoon trying to make his way over him to get to the crying baby, no Jongwoon.   Wait.   No Jongwoon.   Thinking about that suddenly made Kyuhyun a little sadder, the night suddenly felt less amazing than it initially did.   Maybe he had done things wrong after all. Kyuhyun slept bad because of Sungmin, that was true. But it was Jongwoon who always got out of bed, fed the little thing, and changed his diaper. He probably got lesser hours of sleep than Kyuhyun did because of it. Now that Kyuhyun thought of it, he had been really unsupportive. Maybe, just maybe, if he would try to support Jongwoon a little more, things could still be fixed. Sungmin wasn’t going to be around forever anyway, and Kyuhyun wasn’t planning on losing Jongwoon over this little thing.   But first, he had to do something for Donghae as a ‘thank you’. Donghae who had welcomed Kyuhyun into his house, Donghae who had tried to listen to Kyuhyun’s story, but fell asleep in the middle of it because he was too tired and sick.   After making some chicken soup for Donghae, who was both surprised and delighted with Kyuhyun cooking something for him this early in the morning, Kyuhyun thanked Donghae for letting him stay for the night, grabbed his suitcase and walked back to Jongwoon’s house.   He promised Jongwoon that he would do better, and Jongwoon couldn’t do anything but hug Kyuhyun for coming back. He seriously thought that Kyuhyun would never forgive him for kicking him out and that Kyuhyun was completely done with him now Sungmin was around.   But Kyuhyun wasn’t going to give up this easily; Jongwoon was worth some trouble after all.   --------------------------------------------♫♪♫♪♫-------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------♫♪♫♪♫--------------------------------------------   It has been three months since Sungmin came. Things have changed drastically. It’s no longer only Jongwoon getting out of the bed, in the middle of the night, to help Sungmin with whatever he wanted. It’s no longer only Jongwoon taking care of Sungmin throughout the day.   As Jongwoon’s vacation days started to decrease rapidly at his work, he could no longer be home every day. Luckily, Kyuhyun was being supportive now too, and they both took half weeks off. How long they were going to hold that up wasn’t really clear, but they tried to hold on as long as possible, as Jongwoon insisted on not taking Sungmin to the daycare just yet.   It turned out that taking care of Sungmin wasn’t as horrible as Kyuhyun had thought at the beginning. He wasn’t just a thing that was only capable of crying, he could actually laugh too. And whenever Sungmin laughed at Kyuhyun’s funny faces, it made Kyuhyun smile back at him.   Kyuhyun slowly started to care. Care for this little human being that turned both his and Jongwoon’s life around.   Kyuhyun even had to admit that life had turned for the better with Sungmin around. His relationship with Jongwoon improved a lot, as Jongwoon loved Kyuhyun’s caring side. Random kisses were shared throughout the day, and even their life improved.   Because Sungmin was sleeping in their bedroom, they couldn’t do it there anymore. As Jongwoon said, ‘We should not taint little Sungmin!’ and ‘Kyuhyun, stop it! He can see us!’, it was pretty clear that the bedroom was now off-limits for any ual activity.   So they had to move. And damn, if Kyuhyun had known that having on other places could be this good, he would have done it a long time ago. They found new places to do it basically every day. It sure spiced things up.   Things couldn’t get any better, and one more month with Sungmin resulted in Kyuhyun almost accepting Sungmin as a stayer. Even though he had hoped for months that maybe Sungmin would leave them soon again, he slowly started to believe that having the baby around forever wouldn’t be that bad after all.   Things really couldn’t get any better.   But unfortunately, if things can’t get better, they can get worse.   --------------------------------------------♫♪♫♪♫-------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------♫♪♫♪♫--------------------------------------------   Kyuhyun was alone at home with Sungmin, as Jongwoon had left for work many hours ago, when the doorbell went off. Even though Kyuhyun knew it couldn’t be Donghae or Kibum, he also knew it could be Heechul or Hyukjae coming by to help Kyuhyun take care of Sungmin.   Yes, this baby sure ended up having many uncles.   Walking to the door with Sungmin in his arms, he opened it.   “O my God, my baby! He’s grown so much!” A lady screamed, grabbing Sungmin out of Kyuhyun’s arms.   Kyuhyun, too stunned to react to the sudden outburst of the girl, suddenly noticed she had snatched Sungmin away from him, and tried t