“No, Tao! Get away from the cake!” Kris screams as a pair of tiny mischievous hands sneak up to the tabletop, inches away from the bare, undecorated bubblegum-flavoured pastry.

Suho laughs as he pries the hands away, revealing an un-guilty looking Tao and a very messy Baekhyun, who’s somehow managed to acquire a dubious-looking box of glitter, which he offers as sacrifice for the decoration of the cake.

Suho politely declines and sends them out of the kitchen with a gentle tap to their butts.

“I never knew you could control children.” Kris comments amusedly as he reaches for the whisk to stir the vanilla icing.

“Ha ha ha. Very funny.” Suho responds dryly and adjusts his pink apron. “You control them too much.”

“They need to be controlled. Otherwise they’d end up like Chanyeol.” Kris an eyebrow as he inspects a spoonful of sugar before dumping it into a mixing bowl.

“You should go check up on them.” He says just as a crash and a scream cause Suho to fluster out to the living room hurryingly.

“My glitter!”

“My hair!”

“My ears!”

“My ! Look at my !”

All eyes turn to Chanyeol, who’s twerking doing a cute little dance in the middle of the room.

Suho ignores him for the time being and rushes over to the two affected victims of the Glitter Box. Kai, and Baekhyun.

Kai’s running around screaming, shedding a trail of multi-coloured glitter wherever he goes while Baekhyun’s on the verge of throwing a tantrum as he sees his precious sparkles being cast away everywhere he doesn’t want it to be.

“Stop! Guys. Calm down.” Suho crouches and grabs the hysterical Kai with one hand across the stomach as he runs past. With the other hand he pulls Baekhyun closer and lets him cuddle into the crook of his neck.

“Ok, now here’s what we’re gonna do.” Suho announces to the rest of the room. Chanyeol stops shaking his and walks over to his guardian, grinning. Everyone else turns to him to listen.

Suho’s rather glad with himself. It’s one of the rare days he’s able to control everyone without Kris’ help.

“I’m gonna take Jongin for a bath. The rest of you, help Baek pick up his glitter and put it in the box.” He stands up, taking Kai with him, causing Baekhyun to detach from him and re-attach to Chanyeol.

“Ok!” Everyone replies nearly in unison and scatters to follow and collect the large path Kai’s left behind.

Suho dusts some of the glitter from Kai’s head into the nearby box before heading for the bathroom.

“Appa?” Kai mews from beneath Suho’s arm.

“Hmm?”  Suho pushes open the bathroom door and reaches for the tap.

“I don’t want bath.” Kai whines and struggles weakly.

Suho shakes his head and quickly strips Kai of all his glittery clothes before placing the toddler into the tub.

Kai pouts and sulks as Suho begins the arduous task of washing him.

***

“Wow, what happened? I could hear you shouting from here.” Kris turns his head as Suho trudges in, damp and partly covered in glitter.

“Kai didn’t want a bath.” He says simply as he pulls on a pair of plastic gloves and begins shaping a few icing petals for the cake.

 “Ah.” Kris replies and returns to covering the cake in icing, one side chocolate and one side vanilla (because Chanyeol likes both flavours equally).

“I’ll make little figurines of us.” Suho mutters as he carefully places a sculpted petal onto a baking tray to dry.

“Good idea. Chanyeol will like that.”

“He’ll like anything we do.” Suho smiles fondly.

***

“Guys! Get ready, the cake’s almost done!”

“Yay cake!”

“I want!”

“No! Yeollie, don’t leave me!”

“I said it’s almost done! It’s not finished!” Kris yells exasperatedly. Suho chuckles as he adjusts the hair of the sugar-replica Kai and sprinkles on some edible glitter on it.

“There. You done?” He turns to Kris.

“Wait, just a sec.” Kris reaches for the tubes of coloured, sugary goo to decorate the sparse top of the cake.

“Hey.” Suho grabs Kris’ wrist and stops him. “Let’s let the kids decorate it.” He smirks with a mischievous twinkle in his eye.

Kris stares blankly at him for a few seconds before his face morphs into an expression similar to the other.

“Ok.”

***

“Hey, Tao? Come in here. Oh, and Baek too.” Kris sticks his head just out the kitchen door and beckons Tao in.

As quickly as his short legs can take him, Tao waddles into the kitchen, holding hands with Baekhyun.

Immediately, he grabs Kris’s hand and follows him. Baekhyun grabs Suho’s, letting go of Tao's hand to do so.

“What’s this?” Baekhyun looks up at Suho, then turns his head to Kris.

“You guys can decorate Yeol’s cake.” Suho swings Baekhyun into his arms and points to the coloured goo. “Use that.”

“We can prettify the cake?” Tao gasps and reaches up for Kris to carry him so that he can see over the tabletop.

“Yeah.” Kris takes Tao into his arms.

Tao grins, a pure, happy smile of bliss and contentment.

Kris’s glad Suho stopped him from decorating the cake.

***

By the time all nine children are done, the cake is a beautiful collection of various doodles and illegible scribbles ranging from unicorns to pigs to owls and pandas. Chanyeol’s completely oblivious to his siblings disappearing in pairs and threes, and busies himself with just helping Baekhyun gather up his glitter.

Kris does a quick scribble of a dragon next to Suho’s illegible 'Happy Birthday' and gives the cake a once-over before deeming it to be suitable. He carefully picks up the platter it’s sitting on and motions for Suho to open the door.

“Guys, come to the dining table!”

Kris silently curses Suho for causing a ten-child strong stampede as he’s engulfed in a flood of skinny limbs and dark heads. He doesn’t drop the cake though. That would be disastrous.

“Come on, birthday boy.” Suho lifts the tall kid easily. Chanyeol shrieks in ecstasy as he flops one half of himself over Suho’s shoulder dangerously.

“Cake!” Tao exclaims as Kris puts it down on the dining table which is too high for any of the kids to reach, thankfully.

“Channie cut the cake! We wanna eat cake!” Sehun tugs at Chanyeol’s foot impatiently.

“Sit down, kids. We have to take a picture.” Kris commands. Quickly, he darts to the camera which he’d set up earlier before and prepares to press the timer.

Suho’s not having a smooth time managing the kids. Most of them are trying to carry someone else so that they can see the much-awaited finished cake. Chanyeol, in Suho’s arms, is so ecstatic he’s just grinning without saying a word.

“Settle down. The sooner you guys get ready the sooner we can eat cake.” Suho catches Sehun as he leans back a little too much on Luhan’s shoulders.

Kris, smiling a little, presses the button then hurries to Chanyeol’s side, pressing his lips to the child’s cheek just in time for the shutter to go off. He takes Chanyeol from Suho and beams.

“Let’s cut the cake.”

***

"Kris, get the camera!” Suho squeals from the living room.

Kris, in the kitchen washing up, yells back. “What is it?”

“Not so loud!” Suho shushes him as he crosses the room to the kitchen door. “Quick, you have to see this.” He grabs Kris’s wrist and gently tugs him to where the kids are gathered.

Chanyeol and Baekhyun have fallen asleep, resting their heads against each other as they rest peacefully. Both their faces are smeared in the chocolate cake, bowls in their crossed laps. To their side, Tao’s nodding further and further down, face just an inch away from smashing into his half-finished cake.

“Aww.“ Kris grabs the camera and nimbly twists around to snap a picture just as Tao finally splats his head into the chocolate cake.

“Lift his head, quick, before he suffocates.” Kris laughs as he takes a couple more pictures.

“Wha- appa? Cake?” Tao mumbles as Suho pulls him up softly by his shoulders. In about five seconds, he falls asleep again, on Suho’s shoulder this time and leaving chocolate and vanilla marks on it.

“Appa?” Chanyeol murmurs drowsily.

Kris walks over and bends down so that he can hear him. Suho does the same, resting a hand on Chanyeol’s shoulder.

Chanyeol smiles.

“Thank you.” 

************

Oh gawd, I just managed to finish this in the nick of time. I was 1 second late in posting though D: ah well, I hope you guys liked this special chapter ^__^ My writing sort of deteriorated towards the end. Not really happy with it... I might rewrite it sometime in the future.

A very happy birthday to our happy virus!