One, two, three, four, five.

Baekhyun takes a deep breath and closes his eyes to compose himself, trying to drown out the sound of crying, bickering and screaming in his ears. It doesn’t help that he’s in wolf form, so every sound seems ten times louder.

Six, seven, eight, ni—

“!” Baekhyun screams just as a tree – albeit a small one – comes flying straight at him. He dodges it as quickly as he could, his only priority being the safety of his babies he is still carrying. Fortunately, the flying tree does little damage, just grazing his flank. He glances to his right in the direction the tree has come from to see his oldest pup battling it out with one of the younger ones, tackling each other to the ground.

Baekhyun had promised himself that no matter what happened, he would at least count to ten to try to calm himself down before he lost his cool but he hadn’t even reached nine and he was already fuming mad.

Baekhyun howls with all the strength left in him, yet it is barely enough to attract their attentions. He is left panting and out of breath. Trying to balance between taking care of his babies in his stomach and handling his other pups who were all going out of control around him was taking a toll on his health. Baekhyun can practically feel the depletion of his energy.

Chanyeol. Damn it! He needs Chanyeol! He sobs internally at the fact that he has to do this alone with Chanyeol gone for a few days.

Baekhyun feels his face contort weirdly as he scrunches up his nose in a desperate attempt to stop his youngest, who was in front of him, from crying.

Baekhyun quickly abandons trying to calm his wailing pup and sprints (more like stumble) over to another group of his baby wolves who were engaged in a terribly serious scuffle. Profanities and saliva are being brutally exchanged with none of them sparing a thought for anyone but themselves.

He tries yelling at them to shut them up but once again he fails at attracting the trio’s attention.

Baekhyun sighs in frustration, wondering how on earth he has managed to get himself in such a messy situation, but all questions aside, he was drowning in a sea of slobber, mud and responsibilities.