"So hungry," D.O. moped. They'd finally found him under a bundle of blankets on the sofa (which was where he'd fallen into a food coma after stuffing himself with chicken the night before,) peacefully unaware that he was now somewhere between the ages of Xiumin and Suho.  As crazy as they had all gotten this morning, all nine of the boys now seemed pretty lethargic, as they lazed around the blaring TV participating in the most sacred of Saturday morning traditions: Watching cartoons.

"Tao will come back with stuff for breakfast soon. It'll be okay," Lay advised.

"Does Tao even know how to shop for anything but expensive clothes?" Kai snorted. "Most of the time he actually goes to the store, it's with Sehun or Suho—

"Because you won't," Suho added,

"—and the times I did go with him," he continued, ignoring Suho as he was so good at doing, "it was almost a babysitting job. He kept trying to get a bunch of stuff we didn't need. If it were up to him, he'd just come back with pineapple yogurt."

"We're gonna starve to death…" Chanyeol groaned. He watched the cartoon in silence the others for about three minutes before he boredly started looking for something more entertaining, settling on repeatedly poking Baekhyun in the side.

"Stop," he said, worming away from the finger that continued to poke him regardless.

"I'll stop if you find something to eat."

"No," said Suho, "Lay's right about Tao coming back soon, so stop it. He told us not to touch anything until he comes back.”

"It's not like we can't do it ourselves. And what if he acutally doesn't come back ever, like, not even after infinity?" Chen asked, surprising himself and the others with the rather childish word choice, but he continued anyway. "We have to eat before that."

"Even if I'm a kid, I'm still the leader," Suho asserted. "So I'm in charge since there's no adults around, and I say—"

"If you're the leader, why are you listening to what Tao says? He just said not to touch anything 'cause he's afraid of us making a mess."

"So am I. We don't know what we're capable of yet, and I don't want anything getting broken, so I say—"

"Yeah, whatever, I'm the biggest, and I say we vote. Who wants to make food?" His hand along with Baekhyun, Chen, and D.O.'s rose. When he realized they were in the minority, Chanyeol looked with wide eyes at the other five, flabbergasted.

"Kai, you don't want to eat? You always want to eat!"

Kai just shrugged, more engrossed in the cartoon than whatever it was the others were discussing, sort of wishing they would be quiet, because the good part was coming up soon. As loud as the TV was, Chanyeol's voice was still disruptive.

"Sehun?"

"Be quiet; the good part's coming up soon."

Food was more important to the now possibly oldest of the group than some cartoon, so Sehun's request went ignored. "Xiumin?"

He failed to acknowledge him altogether, drooling over the two fingers he had shoved in his mouth.

"You guys, I'm hungry!" Chanyeol yelled, finally losing his patience as he pounded his feet on the floor. This resulted in him getting shushed by Kai and a "Shut up!" from Sehun.

Chanyeol gasped. "You can't tell me to shut up, I'm your hyung!" No response from Sehun. "Fine," Chanyeol said, bristling, "you poopy-heads don't have to eat; I'm gonna go make food, and I'm just gonna make enough for us four!" Purposely being as loud as he could, he stomped off toward the kitchen, and Baekhyun, D.O., and Chen scampered to their feet to follow him. Xiumin, not entirely aware of what was happening but having taken in that it involved food, took the wet hand out of his mouth and pulled himself to his feet, toddling after the others to see if someone would share.

"And I'm supposed to know what a 12-15 month old looks like how?" Tao hissed to himself, unable to decide between the different sizes of diapers. Repeated texts to Lay and the members' group chat, as well as calls, had gone unanswered. He'd given up once already, going to the kids' clothing store and picking out some things that looked like they might fit the others, before returning to the grocery store. The only things that had made it into his basket were the cold medicine and some baby food. He wanted nothing more than to head to the meat or produce section to quickly pick out food for the guys (only because they would kill him if he returned without it,) but he was not going to be dealing with changing Lay's, Kai's, or anyone else's sheets in the middle of the night, as Lay had warned him he might have to. He figured once he'd arrived that Xiumin and D.O. might be in need as well, but he wasn't having any luck figuring out what size to get.

"Bigger is better than smaller, right?" he reasoned as he decided on 15-18 and 18-24 month pull-ups with tabs, and the small-sized night-time pull-ups for the older two. He was about to put them in his basket, before he decided that having rumors started about him having a secret illegitimate child would not be good, and that he would swing by and grab them right before he left.

"Yeah, I've got this," he smiled, pleased with himself. "Of course I've got this. I'm awesome."

"You can't put that in kkakdugi!" D.O. screeched, grabbing for the bowl Chanyeol was trying to mix.

"Wait, he's making kkakdugi? But I wanted moo saeng chae!" Chen pouted, arms dropping from the cabinet to his sides

"You're so picky! Just keep look for the soup packets!" Baekhyun grunted. “You’re heavy!”

"I'm making it, so I can put what I want in it!" Chanyeol said as he held it away from D.O.

"You can't make it right; gimme!" He lunged, and his chubby hands finally made contact with the bowl.

"Stop!" Chanyeol whined as he tried to grab the it back out of D.O.’s clutches, grabbing it enough to loosen it from D.O.'s grip but not enough to get it securely into his own. It hit the floor with a terribly loud shattering noise, followd by even louder wails from Xiumin.

Lay and Suho rushed into the room at the instant Baekhyun's foot lost traction on the slippery countertop, causing him and Chen—who was sitting on his shoulders—to topple onto Chanyeol, who knocked over D.O., who narrowly missed crushing Xiumin—who missed the chaos due to his ear-piercing bawling at having been cut by shards of the bowl. The next second, four other wails joined his, Chanyeol's miraculously outshining the rest.

"My wrist!" he shrieked loudly enough to be heard halfway across Seoul. His wrist wasn't strong enough to take the force of him and the two who’d fallen on top of him, and although Xiumin and D.O. were relatively uninjured aside from minor cuts, Chanyeol's wrist was already visibly swelling.

As Lay and Suho attempted to make sense of absolute mess they’d walked into, Kai and Sehun—who had peeled themselves away from the TV during the commercial break—came in to find a kitchen of rice, radish, broken glass, and several other unidentifiable ingredients, over which their crying, bleeding groupmates were spread.

"What happened?" Kai asked, taken aback.

"That's what I want to know!" Suho shouted back over the torrent of crying. "But first, get them away from the glass!"

Upon realizing they weren't that badly hurt, Baekhyun and Chen's sobs quieted down to sniffling and blubbering, and Xiumin and D.O. were also pulled away. Chaneyol attempted to stop crying, but refused to be touched or moved, and would start up again whenever someone tried to do either one.

"Jeez, guys, I warned you!" Suho chided. Kai, who had left and come back with the first aid kit, handed him a roll of gauze and tape to patch up the slice on Xiumin's leg. He took some bandaids for himself, and began to address D.O.'s glass splinters and smaller cuts. Lay continued to work on the Chanyeol issue, not making any progress, until he had an idea. He left before reappearing with a mostly empty bag of lollipops. He gave one each to the less wounded four, before going to Chanyeol. "Want one?" he said, holding out the offering to the boy, whose body was curled protectively over his injured wrist. He received a sniffle and a nod in reply. "You can have it if you let me take care of your wrist."

Chanyeol thought about it, and finally gave up his wrist in exchange for a lollipop. Sehun, who had finished dressing Xiumin's wound, already had an ice pack ready, and soon, Chanyeol was content with his lollipop, examining his puffy, feverish wrist through the ice water in the bag.

"So firstly," Suho asked as he helped to clean the disaster zone of a kitchen, "Who thought it was a good idea to fight for a glass bowl over a baby?"

The four looked down sheepishly from where they were standing in a line against the wall, before D.O. admitted, “Me and Chanyeol”

“I’m sowwy,” Chanyeol said tearfully around the lollipop in his mouth.

“No, it was my fault,” Baekhyun said, tearing up a bit as well. “I shouldn’t have made Chen get on my shoulders…”

“Well…” Suho trailed off before sighing. “It’s done now. But we have to clean up before Tao gets back or we’re in big trouble. I mean, it's not like I care if he gets mad, because I'm still the leader, and he deserves this punishment, and..." He trailed off again, looking down in embarrassment when he realized no one else was really interested in what he had to say. "Let's just clean."

The others nodded, avoiding the glass on the floor as they started the cleanup.

It was nearly another hour before Tao returned with everything on the shopping list.

“You don’t know how hard it was to pack all of this stuff so the crazy fans outside wouldn’t see—“

He stopped mid-sentence when he saw nine smiling faces around the table, mouths messy with red sauce from the jars of kimchi they’d managed to pry open.

“Tao!” Lay and Suho shouted, running up to hug the waist-hip area of the now much taller man.

“Thank God you're back!” Suho added.

“Why, did something happen?”

Suho opened his mouth to inform Tao of the near disaster that had occurred earlier, but upon being met with the pleading looks of the four culprits, he opted to smile and shake his head instead.

“Nope. Just happy you’re back, is all.”

Tao noticed the half-melted ice pack at Chanyeol’s seat, and the red stains painting the edges where the kitchen counter met the walls. He met eyes with a more nervous-looking Suho, back at the stains, then back at Suho.

"Cool. I got some good beef on sale, who wants to cook it up?"