It wasn't a solid hypothesis, but it was the first thing that came to mind that would causes the unique issues in these four to make sense.

Then again, was it really limited to the four, or was Tao just missing something in the other five? He pondered their behaviors, watching them covertly as he pretended to be involved in a game of Chutes and Ladders with Baekhyun and the recovering Chen, the former of whom had taken a definitive stance (or 'definded stand,' as he'd put it) in defecting from their group along with Chen, due to Chanyeol's outlash.

Tao didn't notice anything he'd consider particularly un-Baek- or un-Chen-like, and he drew the same conclusions as he watched Kai and Suho have a sword battle with two paper towel roles, Suho accidentally tripping over his towel-cape and falling to the floor as Kai slayed him in a rather flashy finishing move before asking if he was okay. Xiumin was impossible to tell, but "smiley and giggly" were well within his demeanor. Putting everything in his mouth to taste it was not, but normal baby behavior was not on Tao's list of points to scrutinize.

D.O. had essentially said himself that he was protecting Xiumin because his own younger brother had died in infancy. Lay had, at some point in the past, having had a rough early childhood before he was placed in the care of other relatives and flourishing as a child star. It wasn't something he liked to discuss, and Tao had forgotten about it until he learned about D.O.'s childhood, an hour prior. Exactly what this had to do with Chanyeol and Sehun, he was uncertain, and that was where his hypothesis became more flimsy. "Sehun extorting people and Chanyeol being so protective over being leader...?" The more he thought about it, the less certain he became about whether or not their childhoods had anything at all to do with their issues.

Which made him all the more certain that he was going to have to ask.

"Why is being a leader so important to you?"

Chanyeol frowned slightly. "Why didn't you ask that the first time?"

"Because I didn't think of it. Can you think of why you want to be a leader so badly?"

Chanyeol rocked back and forth, legs crossed, on the Bed of Interrogation once more. "Uh... Just 'cause people will listen to me?"

"But we already listen to you," Tao suggested. He was met with furious head-shaking.

"Nuh-uh, you make everyone listen to you!" he said, pouting. "So I made a group where everyone will listen to me, but then Chen said I was bad at it, and...!" He trailed off before giving his best impression of a gorilla alpha male's roar, pounding his chest for emphasis. "Well, at least his arm's healed," Tao thought as he shrunk back from the loud noise.

Unfortunately, the conversation as of yet hadn't giving him any new insights. "Think back to when you were little, when you were actually a kid. Were you a leader then?"

"No," he retorted, sulking even harder. "I couldn't be 'cause of my stupid sister."

"Yura?"

Now, perhaps, they were getting somewhere.

"Yeah," he said after jutting out his tongue in displeasure at the mere mention of the name. "She was cool, and cute, and popular, and I was weird, and everyone listened to her, and do what she said, even my friends, 'cause she gave them all cooties, and no one listened to me! And even after that, no one listened to me, not even when I was their sunbae, and even you, D.O., Kai, and Sehun never listened to me, but then this happened! And I was finally a leader, then Chen tried to take it away."

Tao blinked, not having known that Chanyeol had any sort of resentment toward the relationship he’d forged with the younger members of the group. Thinking back, he hadn't once tried to assert his dominance as their hyung, and instead had tried to be as cordial and as much of a kiss-up as he could, especially with Kai, A.K.A. the one of the four most likely to respect him as his elder. Once the fragile ice of their new relationship had been broken, they had quickly stopped treating him as a hyung. Coupled with his natural-born follower personality, he’d never complained about the lack of respect or disturbances in the normal hierarchy.

“Why is this the first time I’m hearing of this?”

“’Cause you just asked now,” Chanyeol replied quickly, but tilting his head sharply to the side in confusion.

“I mean, if you had a problem with how us dong-saengs were treating you, why didn’t you say anything?”

Chanyeol shrugged before flopping backwards on the bed, giving a sharp “Ow!” when one of his knuckles connected with the wall. “It wasn’t important. I was okay with it. If we were all friends and got along, it didn’t matter who was in charge. Then I got little again and I cared again, I guess.”

“So. If I’m understanding you,” Tao annunciated slowly, “you were upset about no one listening to you when you were little, because of your sister.”

“Yup.”

“So you could say you’re acting this way now because it’s how you acted when you were actually five?

“Mmm, I guess so,” Chanyeol said.

“Alright. Thanks.”

“Do we have to talk again later? Because I just wanna get it over with, and watch TV for hours after this,” he grumbled as he rolled over to get off the bed.

“I think you’re good to go,” he replied, smirking.

“So I can watch TV now?”

“Sure.”

Chanyeol perked up excitedly as he raced toward the door of the room. Unfortunately, Tao immediately realized his error.

“No TV! You’re still on punishment.”

“Aw man!” he said, as he continued his trip through the doorway at a depressed trudge.

As pesky as Chanyeol could be, Tao had to admit that the animated little guy was kind of cute sometimes. When he wasn’t wreaking ultimate havoc, that is.

Sehun was going to be trickier. Trickier, but not so tricky that he could outsmart a 21-year-old with a well-conceived plan. Tao figured he was sure to lose a few points with whatever authority was judging him, but it was something from which he knew he could recover.

“Hey.”

Sehun didn’t react immediately; only when he finished the mini-boss battle on his 3DS game did he finally turn his head to look up coldly at Tao, who stood by his bedside.

“I thought I asked you to clean the kitchen,” Tao said, arms folded and eyebrows furrowed slightly.

“I did,” came the quizzical reply. Of all the things Sehun hadn’t done, this was not one of them, and he was keenly aware of the time he’d spent putting things away, sweeping the floor, and wiping down the counters. What he wasn’t aware of was the fact that Tao knew Sehun had, in reality, done his assigned task to a reasonable extent.

“You need to get back in there and do a proper job. I counted at least three fish scales stuck to the counter and the sink has grease residue in it.”

“Scales!?” Sehun scoffed. “We didn’t even eat fish yesterday night; that’s whoever was supposed to have cleaned the kitchen yesterday’s fault, and don’t even get me started on how hard those are to see. And since when were you so picky about the grease; that sink’s been that way for days, and it doesn’t even look that bad! Why am I the only one who gets yelled at!? You’re always such a jerk to me!!!”

Tao hadn’t been expecting such an outburst, but it would only make his work easier. As Sehun continued ranting, the twisted-up face in front of him was growing redder and redder, and when it reached its peak, Tao finally said, “Because you’re the only one who’s such a brat,” raising his voice just enough to push Sehun over the edge.

“I AM NOT A BRAT!!!”

“You’re always thinking of sneaky ways to force things out of people for your own benefit. Is this how you were when you were actually five?”

“Yeah, what’s it to you!?”

“Nothing,” Tao said, bringing his voice down to its normal level. “Just curious. I mean, if you were like that back then, I bet you made a killing off that older brother of yours.”

“I did.” The reply was still angry-sounding, but a bit less so.

“What was the best thing you got out of him?”

“Why do you care!?” he grumbled back.

“I don’t. I just said, I’m just curious.”

“Well don’t be. I don’t want to talk to you.”

“Come on. Tell me about it and I’ll forgive the counter and sink.”

“And if I don’t?”

“Then I’ll be taking that 3DS from you.”

“I’d like to see you try.”

“Would you? Because if it gets broken while I’m prying it away from you, I’m not buying you a new one.”

Sehun merely huffed in reply.

“Come on. I’m sure you have a story or to you’d be proud to tell. It’s not that big of a deal, is it?”

“Whatever. If this is one of your stupid efforts to take better care of us, it isn’t going to work. So listen good, so you at least get a story out of it.

I’ve probably told you before, but my brother was not a good kid. He got into all sorts of trouble. I, on the other hand, was a pretty good kid.” He checked Tao’s face for signs of disbelief, and finding none, continued. “But my mom and dad, they were always super focused on him, giving him rewards when he did stuff I did normally. But then one night, he snuck out of the house with some other bad kids, and they snuck into our neighbor’s yard and let out all the farm animals they had fenced up. I woke up when he came back, and he begged me not to tell mom, or else she wouldn’t let him go to this party he was looking forward to. Until then, he had just threatened to beat me up if I told, but he was so scared this time; you should have seen him!” Sehun had the beginnings of a grin on his face by this point. “So I told him that he had to go get me a whole new box of cookies from the back of the top shelf of the cabinet in the kitchen, since I couldn’t reach that high even if I was on my tippy-toes of the counter, and he did it! I told mom he was sleeping the whole night, and she never found out that he let out the animals or about the cookies! Oh man it was great! So from then on, any time he did something bad, I made him give me something for it. Then I learned that adults have secrets too, and I started keeping my mom and dad’s, and pretty soon I was able to outsmart them all into getting tons of stuff!”

“How come I’ve never heard any of this before?”

“You mean before you turned us back into kids?”

“Yes,” Tao muttered.

“I didn’t really wanna talk about it before; I thought it was kind of bad. But now I can do it all over again.”

“I see. Thanks for the story, kid,” Tao said, leaning over and ruffling Sehun’s hair, causing him to raise one annoyed but bemused eyebrow. “Oh, and by the way?”

“Yeah?”

“You did a great job of cleaning the counter. Not a fish scale in sight.

“Wait, you mean… hey!”

He couldn’t help but laugh as he ducked out of the room with Sehun chasing—partially angrily but mostly playfully—at his heels.

A/N: I have no idea how much or how little sense this chapter makes. I'm in kind of a weird mood at the moment. Also, I had a totally different idea for how this part of the story would go, but it didn't make as much sense as this did, and this is what I ended up with. Hopefully I can somehow bring back the original idea in a different form.