--

“Suzy’s getting fat, so I assume the pregnancy’s going well.” Sungmin tells Eunhyuk while they’re lunching together one sunny afternoon. “How are you two coming along?”

“I’m doing pretty well, I guess. Though finding a job is harder than I thought.” He admits as he dips a fry in ketchup. “Donghae, on the other hand…well, he’s going through a sympathy pregnancy.”

“Which means?”

“Which means Donghae sobs in the middle of the night and craves fish food, so I run to the pet store in my pajamas to buy some while I listen to Suzy on the phone sobbing even harder and telling me to bring her raw cookie dough.” He complains, not even realizing that he’s been dipping the same fry in ketchup for the past minute. “I thought that whole ‘weird cravings’ thing was a myth or something. And why do I have to deal with two needy women when I’m only married to one—the one who isn’t actually pregnant? My life .”

“I wish you could hear how selfish you sound right now.” Sungmin shakes his head, clucking his tongue. “You have a husband—I’m sorry, a wife, who loves you even after you kissed another woman and is working his off to pay the bills, and you have a friend who’s willing to sacrifice her whole body just to give you a child. Granted, it’s not that great of a body, but still.”

Eunhyuk is so tired that he completely misses Sungmin’s point. “Is everyone going to bring up the cheating thing in every conversation now?”

Sungmin takes the ketchup-soaked fry away from Eunhyuk’s fingers and tosses it away. “Let’s go; we’re cutting this lunch date short. You obviously need some rest—your dark circles look horrendous, by the way—and I have an appointment with a client coming up.”

After parting ways, Eunhyuk sits in a taxi and struggles to keep awake, and then suddenly he realizes what Sungmin had just said. He wonders aloud, “Sungmin has a job?”

--

Eunhyuk’s eyes flutter open when he feels something warm against his neck. He blinks a few times to clear his vision and sees his wife snuggled up to him, still dressed in his work clothes. He glances at the clock and sees that it’s barely six o’clock—this is the first time Donghae ever came home this early.

“Hey baby,” Eunhyuk runs a hand through Donghae’s messy hair. “What are you doing home so early?”

“My tummy hurts,” he says, clutching at his stomach. “Siwon let me go home early. Do you think it’s something I ate?”

“It was probably all the fish food.” He sits up and takes his arm out from under Donghae’s head. “You stay here while I make you some soup. How does that sound?”

“Great,” Donghae cracks a smile when Eunhyuk puts a kiss on his forehead. “Afterwards, can you maybe give me a massage? I swear, my s are just so tender—it’s probably because of this pregnancy thing. I wonder if Suzy feels the same; I should call her and compare notes.”

Eunhyuk one eyebrow, “You want me to give you a massage?”

“Yes.” He answers simply.

“But you don’t have s.”

“Well, then pretend I do.”

Eunhyuk thinks about it for a minute, before shrugging. “Eh, alright.”

--

“Hyukkie?”

“Hm?”

“Don’t be afraid to really dig into the s.”

“Duly noted.”

Donghae flips through the channels as Eunhyuk continues giving him his massage—which both of them seem to be enjoying a little too much.

“So, have you thought of any names yet?” Donghae asks. “I was thinking something cute and simple like Sunny or Sulli.”

“It felt weird thinking of names without you.” He says, running his hands through Donghae’s pecs. “I could only come up with a few. What about Jina?”

“You mean your ex with the double D’s?” he snorts. “Hyukjae, I’d rather castrate you than name our child that.”

“Okay, I’ve been meaning to tell you this for the longest time now: you say the word ‘castrate’ to me too much; it’s terrifying. I am genuinely scared for my .”

“You should be.” Donghae says with an evil smile.

“Can we go back to the original topic now?” If Donghae weren’t lying on his lap right now, Eunhyuk would cross his legs for safety precautions. “What about Sooyeon? Sooyeon’s cute.”

“Uh-uh,” he wags his index finger. “Sooyeon is Jessica’s Korean name. I don’t want our baby girl named after my ex. Or your ex, for that matter.”

“It’s so weird to think that you used to have a girlfriend. I mean, I know she was just a beard, but just think, you were this close to a —”

“Stop it; I’m gonna get nightmares.” Donghae shuts his eyes and sighs. “Sungmin can be a girl’s name. Let’s name our baby after Sungmin to piss him off.”

“I love the idea of pissing Sungmin off, but knowing him, he’d probably love it instead.”

“Hm, you’re right.” Donghae nods, considering his point. “I’ve always liked the name Yuki; what about Yuki?”

“That’s actually not bad.” Eunhyuk admits. “Yuki. Baby Yuki. Something sounds really right about it, don’t you think?”

Donghae gets off his lap and looks at him. “So we’re naming the baby Yuki?”

“Apparently.” He says with a laugh.

“That’s it? No more changing our minds?”

“Nope.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

“Do you promise?”

“Donghae, yes, yes, I promise.” Eunhyuk would roll his eyes if he weren’t so relieved that they’ve finally settled on a name. “It looks like we’re having ourselves a little baby Yuki.”

Donghae squeals, “I can’t wait.”

They kiss and hug, Eunhyuk holding Donghae’s waist as the latter sits on his lap, both beaming with excitement. Once they finally calm down and revert to what they were doing just a while ago, Eunhyuk raises a question. “So how’d you come up with the name Yuki?”

“Oh, that’s the name of the male stripper Sungmin and I hire whenever you guys aren’t around. He works at the club we always go to; do you want me to introduce you?”

Eunhyuk deadpans. “Somehow I have a feeling our child is going to grow up hating you.”

--

When Eunhyuk comes to pick Donghae up from work to go out to lunch, he’s not the least bit surprised to see his wife putting correction fluid on the screen of his computer. He doesn’t even stop him—though he assumes they’re going to owe the office a lot of money for this—but instead sits on the edge of his desk and talks to him like nothing’s out of the ordinary.

“What’s the matter, Hae? Did you make some typos?” he asks.

Donghae nods. “I really should pay more attention to the screen when I’m typing. I’ve already used up two bottles of correction fluid.”

He clears his throat. “Honey, why don’t you just use the backspace key on the keyboard?”

Donghae looks at him like he’s crazy. “The what? Hyukjae, you can’t just make up stuff like that.”

Eunhyuk inhales sharply and decides to let this one go.

With Suzy being six months into her pregnancy and Donghae still going through his sympathy pregnancy, both have started to exhibit serious symptoms of the phenomenon called ‘pregnancy brain’. Frankly, Eunhyuk hates it. Donghae was bad enough with his normal brain, but with his pregnancy brain, he’s started doing some very stupid stuff. Stupid, even for Donghae. Like for instance, putting a bar of soap in the kitchen and a stick of butter in the bathroom (Eunhyuk walked around all day smelling like popcorn) and going into the wrong apartment and taking a bath (thank goodness their neighbor decided not to press charges).

As for Suzy, she’s staying over at Kyuhyun and Sungmin’s house for a couple of days so they can be there to look after her, to make sure she doesn’t get herself killed. That didn’t stop her from accidentally dying her hair a wild shade of purple, and sobbing about it to Kyuhyun and Sungmin while they’re in the middle of taking a romantic bath together.

“Hae, if you’re done, we can go now.” He takes the bottle of white-out from Donghae’s hands. “We’re gonna go to our favorite restaurant to celebrate.”

“Celebrate what?” he asks as he picks up his coat. What the heck is it doing in the trash bin?

“Donghae, I told you on the phone. I got a job. After so many job interviews and so many hours spent sending out resumes, I finally got a job.” He says, helping Donghae when the poor thing puts his coat on backwards. “You said on the phone you were happy for me and that we should go celebrate.”

Donghae looks surprised. “That was you? I thought that was a wrong number.”

Eunhyuk is about to say that doesn’t even make any sense, but then he realizes that nothing in his world makes much sense anymore. Instead he just takes Donghae by the arm and drags him out of his office before he can wreak any more havoc.

--

“MY HAIR IS PURPLE! IT’S ING PURPLE! I LOOK LIKE A ING TOOTHBRUSH!”

“This is your fault, Lee Hyukjae.” Sungmin hisses on the phone as he continues to comfort the pregnant, hysteric girl on his couch.

Eunhyuk flinches when he hears another complaint from Suzy on the other line, this time about not being able to see her feet anymore when she looks down. “Why me? For all we know, that could be Donghae’s in there. Oh my God, that would actually explain a lot, wouldn’t it?”

“Whatever. I want this baby out of this fattie and this fattie out of my house.” He says before hanging up. Though he calls again a minute later to leave a sweet message: “I hate you two; you both.”

“Seems like this pregnancy is making everyone miserable.” Eunhyuk quips. “Let’s hope it’ll be worth it in the—Donghae, what are you doing?”

“I’m testing the soup.” He answers simply.

“By putting your hands in it?” Eunhyuk is this close to facepalming. “Isn’t that like, really hot?”

“Well, now that you mention it…” Donghae tilts his head, trying to figure out why he felt a burning sensation in his hands.

“Oh, for God’s sakes.” Eunhyuk snaps, takes away Donghae’s soup bowl and wipes his partner’s wet hands with a towel. “How do you even get dressed in the morning?”

“Well, I wasn’t going to say anything, but…I kinda forgot to put on underwear this morning.” He admits sheepishly.

Eunhyuk pauses for a moment. “That’s actually kind of hot.”

Donghae smiles, but then frowns again as he asks, “You think I’m stupid, don’t you?”

Eunhyuk takes a long time to answer. He breathes in deeply through his nose, blinks several times before dragging out a slow, “No…?”

 “I don’t know what’s wrong with me, Hyukkie.” Donghae holds his head in his hands. “I feel so uncoordinated nowadays—even more than usual.”

Now Eunhyuk feels bad for being so impatient with him. “Oh, sweetheart, that’s okay. It’s the pregnancy. Well, actually, it’s the sympathy pregnancy. There’s another human being growing inside Suzy and she has to share everything with her, including some of her brain. And the fact that you’re going through this with her just goes to show how much you care. Suzy’s not suffering alone, you’re suffering with her, and I think that’s really, really sweet.”

“You make everything sound so much better.” Donghae thanks him with a kiss. Although, he gripes, “Why couldn’t you have been the one to suffer with her?”

“Because if you’re the sane one, then we’re going to have to use Heechul’s bomb shelter after all.” He jokes, and Donghae chuckles because he knows it’s all in good humor.

Later, while they’re enjoying their meals and gossiping about Sungmin’s new hairstyle, Donghae puts his chopsticks down and becomes serious.

“Hyukkie?”

“Hm?”

“I really hope the baby gets your brain.”

Eunhyuk doesn’t say anything to him and just smiles, but mutters to himself, “Me too.”

--

Donghae later wakes up in the middle of the night and shoves his husband in the chest to wake him up.

Eunhyuk snorts, startled, “Wha—?”

“I just realized,” he starts, “you never told me what your new job is.”

Eunhyuk decides to take advantage of Donghae’s pregnancy brain and evades the subject. “Say, Hae, I bought a new box of fish food. It’s in the kitchen, if you want.”

“Oh, goodie!” Donghae squeals as he runs out of the bedroom, trips, gets up and continues running to the kitchen.

Eunhyuk smiles as he goes back to sleep. Maybe this pregnancy brain isn’t so bad after all.

--

Kyuhyun looks around, feeling uncomfortable being surrounded by so many pregnant women. “So why am I here again?”

“Because Donghae has work, Sungmin is apparently too busy with a client, and Suzy is late because she’s too busy puking at home.” Eunhyuk explains again. He isn’t too thrilled about this either. It was Donghae’s idea for them to go with Suzy to childbirth class, not his, and neither of them could even make it.

“Morning sickness?” Kyuhyun asks.

“No, she just watched a couple of childbirth videos last night and the thought of having to push out a human being through her made her sick. Literally. It’s gonna be a while before she gets here.” He reveals. “We might as well just get this over with.”

“Okay, but who’s gonna be the mother?” he asks, eliciting an equally horrified expression from Eunhyuk.

“Well…you’re the one who bottoms to Sungmin, so you be the mother.” Eunhyuk shrugs.

“That only happened one time!” He protests, though no one really believes him no matter how many times he says that. “Besides, after Sungmin and Donghae and Heechul, you are the girliest person in the group, so you do it.”

“This will get us nowhere. And I resent that, by the way. Gunhee has way more girly traits than I—oh forget it.” Eunhyuk sighs. “Rock-paper-scissors?”

Kyuhyun agrees. He puts out paper, Eunhyuk does scissors. Kyuhyun curses very loudly, earning dirty looks from everyone else in the room, particularly the women who are holding their stomachs to cover their unborn children’s ears.

The next hour goes by with much more humiliation than either of them could have imagined. It was bad enough when the instructor tells them to give their partner a jaw massage while looking them straight in the eye, but when she makes the wives go on all-fours on the floor so their husbands can give them back massages, Kyuhyun and Eunhyuk almost die.

Especially when she says, “Don’t worry; she’ll let you know if she wants it harder.”

“That’s it. I’m not doing this.” Kyuhyun stands up and leaves abruptly, and a red-faced Eunhyuk soon follows.

That whole ordeal is enough to convince them to never step foot in a Lamaze class ever again.

--

On the way home, Kyuhyun and Eunhyuk’s long-lasting semi-friendship is displayed perfectly in the following conversation.

“So, what does Sungmin do anyway?”

“You don’t wanna know.”

Eunhyuk nods, though he’s secretly annoyed since he’s been wanting to find out what kind of job Sungmin actually managed to land himself in. Nobody knows what it is, nobody but Sungmin and Kyuhyun.

“So, I hear that you have a job now.” Kyuhyun says. “What is it?”

“Oh,” Eunhyuk smirks at his chance for a little revenge. “You don’t wanna know.”

“Okay,” Kyuhyun nods. “I didn’t really care anyway.”

Eunhyuk’s not surprised, “Okay.”

And they spend the rest of the ride home in comfortable (okay, maybe slightly awkward) silence.

--