Shang stares down into his baby brother's cradle with ill-disguised suspicion. “Why do I need a brother?” He asks petulantly, still not convinced that his fathers have thought this through.

“So you have someone to play with,” Yixing tells him, tone all forced cheerfulness. He glances at Jongdae, who shrugs helplessly at him. They knew Shang wasn't particularly enamoured with the idea of a sibling, but since he's here, they thought he'd just...go along with it.

They were wrong.

“Like me and uncle Jongdeok,” Jongdae supplies helpfully. “You like uncle Jongdeok, don't you?”

Shang gives him a withering look worthy of his mother, which is a little frightening considering he's only four years old. “Yeah. But why do I need someone to play with? I have lots of people to play with.” He tip-toes over the cradle, tiny nose wrinkling as he tries to figure out the baby's point in his life. “Besides, he's no fun.” It hasn't been very long, but Shang has quickly figured out that his new brother is only good for two things: screaming and sleeping, neither of which are conducive to much fun.

“He will be when he grows a little,” Jongdae says encouragingly, “and you'd like that, won't you?”

“I don't know,” Shang replies, blunt as only a four year old can be. His tone implies he doesn't hold out much hope, and Yixing is torn between being amused and a little afraid. He's pretty sure Shang is capable of sabotage.

Scratch that, he knows he is.

“He'll get more interesting eventually,” Yixing silently apologises to baby Jongseok, but it is true – babies don't really do anything interesting until they're several months old, “and then he'll be fun.”

“Where did he come from?” Shang asks, still leaning over the cradle. He's half tempted to poke the baby, just to see what would happen, but he knows that if he does his parents will be on him like a shot, and then he'll be in trouble. And he'd really rather be in trouble for something worth it.

“Er...” Jongdae flails mentally for a second, because they really should have prepared for this, but how do you explain to a four year old that their brother was conceived via IVF with a woman who is not their mother? He's four seconds away from saying the stork brought him, and he promised himself he wouldn't do that to Shang because it's such a dumb explanation. He settles for pushing the responsibility on Yixing, instead. “Bàba?” He says, “do you want to explain it?”

The look of loathing he gets in response shrivels his balls a bit. “Oh, no, daddy, why don't you?” Yixing says through gritted teeth. “I'm sure you have a wonderful explanation.”

Oh, crap. Yixing just rebounded it back onto him. Not fair.

Shang watches them curiously, wondering what's going on. “So how did he get here?” He prompts them, in case they forgot. His dads can be very forgetful.

“Uh, um,” Jongdae dithers, completely at a loss as to what he should say, and Yixing just folds his arms, clearly trying not to laugh. . He sighs. “Bàba and I decided we wanted another baby, so we...uh, found a nice lady to have him for us.” He skips over the part where he had to spunk into a cup. “And now he's born, we have him.”

Shang's forehead screws up. “Why did you want another one when you have me?”

Oh, . “Because – because we love you so much, we wanted another one to love too.” Shang looks confused by his logic. Jongdae doesn't blame him; he's confused too. “It does not mean we love you any less,” he adds hastily, “just that we wanted a, um, bigger family.”

God, this is hard. Why don't people tell you about this when they encourage you to have more kids?

“I don't think you do,” Shang shakes his head, unimpressed, “I just think you need me,” he announces confidently, walking away from his little brother. He gives him a dismissive look over his shoulder. “You should send him back.”

Jongdae and Yixing share a panicked look. Dammit. Jongdae's father was right when he said they weren't going to get out of this unscathed.