“It isn’t fair!” complained Kyuhyun the next morning.

            “What’s not fair?” Ryeowook asked, sitting on the floor of the living room, hiding his face behind his hands and playing peek-a-boo with Chaewon. 

            “She likes you better than me,” he said, folding his arms over his chest and glaring down at Ryeowook.

            “She’s seen me more than she’s seen you; of course she likes me better.  This isn’t very unlike your own reluctance to welcome strangers,” he pointed out.  “Just like you, Chaewon likes to know someone for a little while before she trusts them.”

             “I’m way more fun to play with than you are,” Kyuhyun whined, still pouting as he walked over to the sliding doors.

            Ryeowook smiled while his husband wasn’t looking and then began playing with Chaewon again.  “Peek-a-boo!” Ryeowook called out as he removed the hands from his face momentarily.  Then she began laughing again, her smile never quite vanishing as she anticipated the next surprise.

            There was a knock at the door and Kyuhyun walked over to answer it.  He opened the door and then jumped in surprise.  “Jonghoon!  What brings you here?”

            “I just drove Henry home from the studio and I thought I’d drop in to check on you two,” he said, his eyes suddenly going wide when he heard baby laughter from inside.  “What the hell is going on?”

            “Um,” Kyuhyun said, not knowing what to say as Jonghoon skirted past him and walked into the living room which was littered with toys.  He had to step over and around the obstacles to get close to Ryeowook. 

            “Oh!” Ryeowook said in surprise, looking up at Jonghoon.  “Well, hello!”

            “What the hell is this?” he asked in confusion.

            Ryeowook’s eyes narrowed and he smacked their manager in the leg hard.  “No swearing in front of the baby!”

            Jonghoon covered his mouth with his hand and gave Kyuhyun a curious look.

            “Shame on you,” Kyuhyun said, wagging his finger at their manager as a joke.

            “Obviously, we’re babysitting,” Ryeowook informed him, continuing to play with Chaewon.

            “Our neighbor needed some help and doesn’t know many people in the area, so she asked us if we’d mind watching her, since we’ve offered to in the past,” Kyuhyun explained.

            “Two superstar idols taking care of a baby…without a film crew around…that’s a new one,” he said, running his hand through his hair.  “I don’t think I’d make mention of this to the public if I were you or you’d have a lot of explaining to do.”

            “Ya’ think?” Kyuhyun said, shaking his head at the obviousness of Jonghoon’s statement.

            “When I want someone to give me some lip, I’ll track Heechul down,” Jonghoon warned Kyuhyun.

            “So if you didn’t come to have me smart off at you, why did you come?” questioned Kyuhyun.

            “I was curious.  I said something about seeing if we should all get together and have dinner, since we don’t have a schedule this weekend, and Henry said that there’d be no way that the two of you could leave the apartment, but then he wouldn’t explain what he meant when I asked about it, so I decided to stop by.  I thought that either you were both sick with the flu or something or that Ryeowook had grounded you for some reason.”

            Ryeowook started laughing at the implication that he could tell Kyuhyun to stay in the apartment and he would because, quite honestly, he probably could.  It was no secret from the members that Kyuhyun always caved to Ryeowook’s demands long before Ryeowook gave into his.  Although that didn’t mean that Ryeowook wasn’t as whipped on Kyuhyun as Kyuhyun was on him, it just meant that Kyuhyun had a little less pride and patience. 

            “Were you going to rescue me if that was the case,” Kyuhyun flatly asked, not finding it as funny as his husband did.

            “Hell no, I’m not stupid!  I would have brought you meds if you had the flu though.”

            Ryeowook smacked Jonghoon even harder and he jumped back and hobbled on his foot.  “Language!” Ryeowook barked, giving their manager a dirty look.

            Jonghoon scowled, but didn’t dare say a word.  For one, there was a baby in the room and if he caused a scene, the thing might start crying.  Secondly, if he said something nasty to Ryeowook, Ryeowook would surely respond in kind, and the man had an amazing ability to cut people down and make it hurt.  Thirdly, if he said something nasty to Ryeowook, Kyuhyun would literally toss him on his out of the apartment.  And lastly, he did just swear in front of the baby, which he shouldn’t be doing in the first place.

            “You’re a lot stronger than I give you credit for,” Jonghoon admitted, rubbing his shin.

            “No one ever believes me when I complain about being a battered spouse,” Kyuhyun said.

            “Sadly, I think you actually get off on having an abusive husband,” Jonghoon said, glaring at Ryeowook.

            “Actually, he’s much more playful when he hits me.  It’s like a girl hitting you.  Even Amber hits harder than he does,” Kyuhyun said, keeping well out of reach of his husband.

            “Why you little…”

            “Who’s little?” asked Kyuhyun, in the mood to live dangerously since they had company and he knew his husband would behave himself to a certain extent around Jonghoon and Chaewon.

            “That’s it!  I’m making you change diapers the rest of the day!” threatened Ryeowook.

            “I’m going to have to change her diaper tonight while you’re gone anyway, so that doesn’t scare me,” Kyuhyun shot back.

            “I know better.  You’ll end up making Sungmin do it like you did last night.”

            “Sungmin has a performance tonight, so that won’t be an option.”

            Ryeowook and Jonghoon stared at Kyuhyun in disbelief.

            Jonghoon pointed from Kyuhyun to the baby.  “You’re going to watch her by yourself?” he questioned.

            Kyuhyun nodded.

            “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he warned.

            “I don’t think it’s a good idea either.  You wanted to give her candy yesterday,” Ryeowook reminded him.  “What if you hurt her?”

            Kyuhyun walked over to Chaewon and picked her up.  “Chaewon and I have come to an understanding now, so we’ll be fine for a few hours.  Uncle Kyu will sing to her all night long, if she just promises to save the messy diapers until later and doesn’t spit up.”

            When Kyuhyun looked down at his husband, he shook his head.  “That sounds like a really bad idea, Kyuhyun.”

            “It’s only a few hours,” Kyuhyun justified.

            “A lot of things can go wrong in a few hours,” Jonghoon pointed out.  “And frankly you don’t need the bad publicity right now, since people are starting to accuse you of being an on Radio Star.  You need to maintain your image.”

            Ryeowook jumped to his feet.  “I swear to God, if you swear one more time, I’m going to drag you out that door and beat you to a pulp!”

            “He’ll do it too…just not in front of the baby,” Kyuhyun said.  “There’s a whole list of things he is willing to do in front of the baby that doesn’t make logical sense, but swearing and beating people isn’t one of them.  Although hitting apparently doesn’t count.”

            Ryeowook’s eyes went wide at Kyuhyun’s apparent jab over their middle of the night argument over what could and couldn’t be done in front of the baby, and that did nothing to calm him down.  “I am not—under any circumstance—leaving you here all by yourself with Chaewon.”

            “You going to stay home with us then?” Kyuhyun asked, flying her around the room.

            “No!  I’m not losing my job, thank you very much.  I’ll just have to call in some reinforcements.”

            “My mother is out of town,” Kyuhyun informed him.  “And leaving her with Ahra is about as bad as leaving her with me.  There’s not a maternal bone in her body.  But, how about this, I’ll call Hyukjae to help me out.”

            “Oh, because that will put me completely at ease.  Now I’ll be worried that you guys will start playing video games and forget she’s even here.”

            “I will not,” countered Kyuhyun, offended at his accusation.

            “All the same, I’m going to call someone that I trust.  I’m not stupid enough to leave her here alone with you two clowns!” Ryeowook informed him.

            Jonghoon took that opportunity to sneak out of the living room and head for the exit.  The last thing he wanted to do was spend the night watching a baby.  He didn’t even want to listen to them argue about it any longer.  Clearly he was wrong to assume that the maknaes needed his assistance and from that moment on, when one of the members implied that the newlyweds were having any problems, he stayed the hell away from them until the coast was clear.  Lesson learned!

            They’d just finished eating dinner when Chaewon woke from her nap.  Kyuhyun was still finishing the dishes, so Ryeowook set Chaewon in the highchair and secured a bib around her neck before grabbing the bowl of pureed peas and a spoon.  He moved a kitchen chair over to the high chair and sat down.

            Curious about what his husband was up to, Kyuhyun looked over his shoulder at Ryeowook, his brows furrowing.  “What are you doing?”

            “I’m going to feed her baby food,” he said, spooning up a little bit.

            “I want to do that!” Kyuhyun said, sounding furious that he wasn’t asked first.  “Why do you get to do all the fun stuff?”

            “I don’t get to do all the fun stuff!” Ryeowook objected.  “Who had to clean up after her blowout earlier?  It certainly wasn’t you.  You were out on the balcony trying to keep your breakfast from coming up!”

            “I can do anything else except the dirty diaper bit!”

            “All the more reason I’m not leaving you alone with her,” he grumbled to himself.

            “Give me a turn!”

            Ryeowook sighed and stood back up, handing the bowl off to Kyuhyun.  Kyuhyun quickly dried his hands and snatched the bowl away from his husband, smiling to himself at his easy victory.  He sat down in front of Chaewon, who didn’t care who fed her as long as she got something soon, and began to open even before Kyuhyun had food on the spoon.

            “I should warn you though,” Ryeowook mentioned, leaning back against the counter and folding his arms over his chest, “she doesn’t like peas.”

            “Sure she does!  Look at her opening .  I can’t feed her fast enough,” Kyuhyun countered, stuffing the spoon in .  No sooner had he removed the spoon from and she shook her head and then spit the food out of , spraying Kyuhyun down with bits of green goo.  “Ah!  Yuck!”

            Ryeowook pressed his lips together, trying not to laugh, but his eyes shined in amusement and he took enough pity on his husband to get him a paper towel to clean up with.  “I warned you.”

            Kyuhyun stuck the spoon back in the bowl and tried the food himself and also made a face.  “This tastes terrible!”

            “I can’t believe you just ate that,” Ryeowook said, wrinkling his nose.

            “They could at least add butter to it or something to make it tasty.”

            “Actually, I can believe you’d eat baby food, because you really would eat anything.” 

            “Why are we making her eat this?”

            “Because it’s good for her!  She’s going to eat healthy—unlike someone we know—and she’ll grow up with good habits.  Then she’ll never get fat like I was or get sick all the time like you do.”

            Kyuhyun spooned up some more, but little Chaewon was wise to him this time and turned her head out of the way, just in time, so he got food on her cheek instead.  He moved it quicker and then after a few attempts, managed to get some in .  This time, he’d stuck it against the roof of and she was forced to eat some of it.

            “Ah-hah!”

            “I’m surprised that worked,” Ryeowook admitted, watching as he managed to get another spoonful in, although she pretended to gag at this point to avoid eating more.

            “I just thought of it as a game and I never lose games.”

            Ryeowook pat Kyuhyun’s shoulder as he continued to feed the baby and got periodically sprayed on.  “When that’s gone, I’ll let you feed her the peaches.  She likes those best.”

            “Hear that Chaewon?  If you eat all your food, Uncle Kyu will feed you peaches.  That sounds way better,” he informed her.

            At that moment, Ryeowook’s phone began to ring and it happened to be Micha.  He quickly answered the phone.  “Micha?  How is everything?”

            Kyuhyun glanced back at Ryeowook, trying to listen in.

            “Really?  That’s wonderful,” Ryeowook said, giving Kyuhyun a thumbs up before pacing the kitchen floor.  “No, we don’t mind.  She’s doing rather well.  Kyuhyun’s feeding her right now.  She just took a two hour nap.”

            There was a pause and Kyuhyu