A/N (Sorry, Not Sorry:) This will probably be the last update I do before next week, which is important because a week from today will be the one-year anniversary of my joining AFF.

Nearly a year, 600 unique subs, and 1100 karma later, I wanted to thank all of you :) Rather than yap about it in length here a week in advance, I'll just go make a blog post and let you guys get to reading <3

Dear reader, when was the last time you or someone you know of wished for something in their life to be completely, unpredictably random? If you actually thought of a time, you can cross it off your list, because your answer is "now".

"There's no way this thing is actually depending on how well I do. It's doesn't really match up well, anyway. People just... just naturally see patterns in things; I think it was D.O. who told me that. It's probably just random, and I'm overthinking it. And plus, who's judging this, saying what I do is good or bad? It just doesn't make much sense; you're completely getting ahead of yourself, Z.

"But... What if I'm not?"

He groaned internally and bit the inside of his lip, having long ago zoned out from whatever plans the interviewer was explaining. No matter how neurotic he thought he might be being, his thoughts returned to the fact that even if he was wrong, no harm would be done by putting in some selfless hard work, but if he was right, what he was doing (i.e., a pretty darn good job yesterday, or so he'd thought,) wasn't good enough, and he'd be stuck doing it until he could do it selflessly.

What was so wrong about getting a little extra help yesterday, though? Every parent felt some level of relief when putting their children in the care of another set of good hands for a while. Hadn't whatever force was judging him heard of a babysitter?

He didn’t have time to ponder the double standard, as he zoned back in once he realized the cameraman was already two numbers into the countdown, finishing off with, “Three, two…”

“What’s up everyone, I’m EXO’s AB-style T.A.O. Tao!” he said, giving his trademark cutie bad boy smirk to the camera. “Today you’ll get a sneak peek at our dorm! Everyone else is out right now, so I’ll give you the deluxe tour. Come on in!”

‘I want them out of here so bad. Just follow the gameplan, Z. Show them around, show them a few ‘shockers,’ answer the questions, and they’ll be on their way, you’ll get the kids back, prove yourself, and get this nightmare over with.’

It wasn’t like Tao wasn’t used to their cluttered dorm being crowded with people, but after the recent… reduction in biomass, having a film crew made of adults with full equipment in the dorm felt restricting. Nonetheless, Tao managed to squeeze them all into the first stop on their tour: The kitchen.

 “Can you show us what’s in the fridges?” the interviewer asked, gesturing first toward the smaller of the two fridges they’d managed to work into the space.

“Yeah, of course.” He laughed internally as he imagined the confusion that would have been on the faces of the crew if they’d seen the state of the smaller refrigerator one day earlier: Stacked with baby food on one side and on the other, bowls of half-eaten cereal that’d been placed there lazily to keep the milk from smelling the way it did when it was poured into the sink and didn’t quite drain due to the mountain of dishes and cups that were stacked in said sink. Tao had been sure to remedy that whole mess the night before. Oh, the creeped-out yet quizzical looks they would have had on their faces.

Kind of like the ones they had now.

“Baby food?” the interviewer asked, referring to the one package that Tao hadn’t seen but now looked so obvious, on the corner of the door, partially obscured by a bottle of syrup and a jar of pasta sauce. Eyebrows on all faces but one were raised curiously.

“Oh… oh yeah,” he stammered, frog catching the words in his throat. He paused for a moment to clear it with a cough, which brought an idea to mind. “I was sick all week and my throat was swollen so badly that for a whole day I couldn’t eat anything, so Sehun bought me this as a joke.”

“It looks like someone ate some of it,” he commented with a laugh.

“Sehun lost a bet with Chen,” he said. He hadn’t had to think that one up; that was actually an answer they’d come up with as a group years ago in case anything weird happened.

They seemed to buy that and the rest of the excuses Tao came up with. The child-size toothbrush left in the bathroom was what Kai used to clean the bathroom sink: He was very meticulous about keeping the stainless steel faucet sparkling. The fact that it wasn’t? He added that Chanyeol and Baekhyun had managed to spew toothpaste all over it while rushing out that morning, and Kai would probably kill them later. The stegosaurus toy sticking out of the corner of D.O.’s bed had been sent to him by a young fan and sometimes he liked to play around with it. The crayon markings on the corner of the wall, the sippy cup that’d rolled down from a mountain of other kids’ things shoved under the sofa, and the crayon that came tumbling after it were artefacts from Xiumin’s little cousin’s recent visit. He made sure to blame as many things on as many people as possible. Feeding fangirls little tidbits about how their favorite members “really live” was what kept them happier than anything.

Within an hour (and thankfully, no more ‘discoveries,’) the film crew were happy with what they’d captured, and headed back to the studio, leaving Tao alone with the manager who’d been assigned by Youngjun to be present at the filming. Tao fell back onto the sofa and was about ten minutes into small talk about what had been going on, when the front door was thrown open and in poured the other pint-sized residents of the dorm.

Lay was the one who caused the new chip in the paint of the door where it had hit the door stop, and before Tao had time to cringe in sympathy for said door, Lay had already dive-bombed him, wrapping his arms as far as they would go around Tao’s torso and worming his way up into his lap.

“I knowed you wouldn’t leaved us for long,” he grinned before throwing his arms around Tao’s neck now that he could reach it. Tao couldn’t help but smile back, but it faded from his face as he realized Lay seemed to be the only one so eager to see him. He gave the three-year-old a quick pat on the back before standing up (picking him up with him, seeing as he probably wasn’t going to let go of his neck anytime soon,) and walking toward the others.

“Hey…” he tried to start, but the syllable was hardly out of his mouth before Suho, who stood in front of the pack, with Chanyeol, Baekhyun, Chen, and Kai standing right behind him looking none too pleased, cut him off.

“I know it now,” he said. “I know why it hurt when you lefted us.” He fell silent for a moment, prompting Tao to open his mouth to reply, but he started again before Tao could say anything. “You didn’t lef- leave us because of the TV show at all, did you.”

Tao had realized earlier that he’d been more concerned with getting some time to himself than the fact that sending them away was clearly the best plan, but the more he’d thought about it, the more it had become apparent that he hadn’t been concerned with the efficiency of the latter at all.

“No,” Tao sighed. “I didn’t.”

“Huh?” Lay pulled back a bit, so he could see Tao’s face more clearly. “What do you mean?”

“It’s like I told you. He wanted us gone.”

Even if it hadn’t made an iota of sense, he would have vouched for it, because all he’d cared about was getting the kids out of his hair, and apparently, he wasn’t the only one who’d realized it.

Lay’s expression faded from confused to rejected as he realized that the sheepish expression on Tao’s face meant Suho was right. “Oh.”

“Come on, it was obvious from the beginning,” Sehun said.

“If it was o-bi-bous, why didn’t you sayed it earlier?” Lay muttered, sulking.

“I’m not heartless,” Sehun said. Lay raised a quizzical eyebrow. “Okay, fine, I was gonna use it to blackmail hyung, but Sherlock here figured it out and Chanyeol and the Justice Squad wanted to talk to you. Dummies,” he added under his breath. “Anyway, the question now is pretty obvious too.”

“…What question?” Suho asked.

Sehun pursed his lips and blinked slowly before clarifying. “Why does he want us back now?”

“Yeah…” Suho said slowly, pondering. “Come to think ovit, why do you want us back all ova sudden?”

“I… I realized when you were gone that it was way too quiet here without you,” Tao explained. “I missed you guys. Ever since you left, I missed you, and I wanted you back here. I know I was selfish yesterday, but I promise, from now on I’ll never leave you again unless it’s absolutely necessary. Just let me know how I can make it up to you, and I’ll do my best.”

Suho sighed. “I mean… I guess we can’t be mad at you forever for just being tired of us, but I wish you told the truth.”

“Gonna take a lot of cookies to make up for the gaping hole in my heart,” Sehun mocked.

Tao smiled as Lay leaned in again to give him a forgiving hug. “Come on guys, let’s go find the cookies. Everyone can have a couple of cookies to make up for everything.”

One step was all he made it before:

“Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Sehun, even you’re buying this!?” Chen laughed forcefully. “That is the biggest load of horse hockey he’s delivered all day,”

“What? Horses can’t play hockey,” Baekhyun said, earning himself a slap on the arm before Chen continued.

“Suho, you asked him on the phone this morning if he missed us, and what did he say?”

“….Nothing...”

“Exactly. If he’s missed us since last night, why didn’t he answer when you asked him twice if he missed us?”

“Look, I’d just realized what was going on with you guys regressing again, and what it meant, and I was a bit shaken up, okay? Is if my fault if I didn’t reply immediately?”

“What did it mean, Tao?” Chen asked in a sing-song yet biting way, using his own words against him.

Tao’s face had twisted into an annoyed scowl at this point. Even if Devil’s advocate was Chen’s favorite thing to be, he was four. With a somewhat older mind, but still, a child. Especially after taking into consideration the earlier regression, how was he arguing toe-to-toe with him?

“Tao… I just said,” Suho said (and Tao realized that he was also sounding more mature than he has even at the beginning of the conversation,) his face twisting up as well, “that all I want is the truth. Please. No more half-truths. No more lies.”

‘How freaking poetic, coming from a three-year-old.’ "Managers, thanks, but you guys can go now."

"Are you sure?" Youngjun asked, receiving a nod in response. They'd discussed everything earlier, about Tao's plan to tackle everything himself, and Youngjun nodded back, opening the door and walking out along with the other manager, with a, "Call if you need anything," before closing it.

“Okay, you guys want the whole truth?” he said, running his free hand through his hair, “If you can handle it, you can have it. What it ‘meant’ was that in order to get you guys back to being adults, I would have to take perfect care of you. Not just good care. Ungodly. Perfect. Care. Every time you guys get worse, it’s because I screwed up somewhere, so I’m not letting you all out of my sight for a second, I’m not letting anyone else help, and yeah, I was kind of eager to get you guys back here so you would stop being children as soon as frickin’ possible. No, I didn’t miss taking care of nine kids at once. That’s not to say there haven't been good moments. Sometimes—actually, pretty often—you guys are actually kind of fun. But you’re also always work, and it’s tiring, so when I got the chance to give you up for a bit, I went for it, and when I figured out that keeping you with me is part of the deal, I wanted you back ASAP. That’s it. That’s the truth. Happy?”

He didn’t wait for a response; instead, he put Lay down and walked toward the kitchen, not caring if the others were following, opened the cabinet above the stove, and started rummaging around. “Now, we’re going to go get a box of unopened cookies, eat all of them, try not to destroy the dorm before the sugar high wears off, take a nap when it does, and after that, I am going to put in one hundred fifty percent until you guys are back to normal. Does anyone disagree with that?” He stared dead at Chanyeol, then Suho, both of whom shook their heads.

“Good,” he said, finally turning back around with three boxes in his hands. “Peanut butter, chocolate chip, or peanut butter double chocolate chip?”