“Hello~!

Actually, we’re doing fine, and since the typhoon seems to be coming in earlier than the weathermen said, we don’t want any of ShinEE’s managers to be in an unsafe situation. We will sit tight here until the storm passes, so it’s okay with us if we just wait until our managers come back.

Stay safe!
~EXO”

Tao had no idea if the message would buy him some extra time, but it was worth a shot, seeing as he still hadn’t figured out a way to prevent others from learning about their situation. Much to his relief, he received a text a few minutes later from the manager in question saying that he'd received the message and that if they needed anything, to let him know and he’d try his best to provide it. Since Tao doubted the manager had a secret wizard alias and could turn his fellow members back into emerging adults, he simply sent him a message of thanks and went back to watching the kids.

“The sky is awful dark…” Chen murmured to Baekhyun a few hours later, as the two watched the angry clouds begin to drop big, fat raindrops again. Tao took a glance outside as well, hoping as he watched the churning clouds and strong wind that he really hadn’t forgotten anything else-

“Tao, where’re the diapers?” Sehun’s nasal voice said. “Baby Baozi stinks again.”

Tao turned away from the rain-streaked window and toward Sehun, who was scrunching up his face and pinching his nose shut for emphasis. Tao felt fortunate that the regression seemed to be affecting all of them differently (apparently how many years they’d lost when Tao transformed them correlated to how much they’d regressed overnight,) and his “first officer” seemed to have barely mentally regressed at all overnight, having gone from having the functional abilities of an eleven-year-old to a nine-year-old. Unlike Chanyeol, the actual oldest child, who was now functioning at the capacity of a seven-year-old, Sehun had the dexterity necessary to change diapers pretty well. Moreover, Tao was just relieved to have been able to buy the large quantity of cookies required to bribe the former maknae into being on diaper duty, so he was more than happy to tell him where they were. “D.O.’s closet, second shelf.”

“No, I mean the rest of them.”

Tao’s eyebrows creased. “What? What do you mean, ‘the rest of them’?”

“I used the last one of those this morning. You bought some at the store today, right?”

No, he hadn’t. He’d gotten plenty of food, but the idea of checking on their diaper stockpile had completely slipped his mind.

“We’re out!? You’ve got to be freaking kidding me!”

A few of the younger jaws, namely Lay, Kai, and Suho’s, dropped.

“Oooh, you said a wirty dord!” Lay called out. Kai snickered from his place beside him, helping with their 20-piece puzzle, while Suho continued to look appalled from where he sat, now distracted from the picture book he was reading.

“That’s not a worty- a dirdy- whatever, you know it’s not a bad word!” Nearly all the others in the room (Chen, Baekhyun, Lay, and Suho) began to giggle cutely as well, as Tao stumbled over whatever it was Lay had said. “Anyway, Sehun, are we seriously out of diapers?”

“Duh.”

Tao groaned and ran his fingers through his hair, looking again to the storm outside. Was it just him, or had it picked up in intensity in the few moments he’d looked away? At that moment, a particularly strong gust whistled by agressively and nearly blew the chairs off the balconies of nearby buildings, letting him know that no, it was not just his imagination. He’d barely wanted to go out earlier when the only risk was getting a little wet and blown around a bit, much less so now that the sky might actually try to kill him. He briefly considered contacting the manager, but balked when he thought about trying to explain why he would need him to leave the safety of wherever he was and brave the elements in search of diapers.

They were going to have to make do.

“Okay, Sehun, go find some safety pins. Everyone else, I want you to go get me some old towels or sheets or whatever you have that’ll work as a makeshift diaper.

“Eeew!” Chen drawled, sticking out his tongue. “I don’t want baby on my towels!” The scrunched-up button noses on the other faces in the room seemed to share the sentiment.

“I’ll buy you guys new towels later; just give me some you guys don’t mind getting messed up! Hurry up!”

The others still didn’t move, save for Lay, who hopped off the sofa and went to fulfill Tao's request. 

Rather than yell at the rest of them, Tao remembered his earlier pledge not to lose his cool, and went with reason instead. “This storm won’t pass until the early morning, so unless you want a smelly baby screaming his head off for the next sixteen hours, please go bring me towels.”

That was enough to get them to start moving, but Lay tugged on Kai’s sleeve with his freehand as  he passed him in the hallway.

“Hey, Kai-hyung, uh...” he whispered, with hesitance. “How many is sixteen?”

“Come on, maybe we can’t tink like gwown-ups, but you should know dat! It’s… it’s…” Sheepishly, he looked down and began counting on his fingers, and when he ran out of those, he plopped himself back down on the floor and started using his toes. “Dis much!” he finally said, presenting two hands and one foot with digits spread wide, and his other foot with all but his big toe curled down.

“You guys are such babies,” Chen snickered, pointing up to the decorative wall clock that hung near the door. “Let your hyung teach you. It’s when the little hand on the clock reaches the… the… er…" he squinted, trying to make sense of the circle of numbers, before picking one at random. "The three, for the second time.”

“Dat’s not right,” Baekhyun said, with a sigh. “It’s when it reaches da six for da second time.”

“Yeah, well no one asked you,” Chen said, the permanent cat-like smile on his face turning temporarily into a frown.

Baekhyun inhaled sharply to retort, but Tao cut him off before he could. “You’re both wrong, so hurry up and get those towels.”

They did as they were told, but figuring it was unfair for only the kids to throw in their towels for the sacrifice, Tao also went to his room to grab a couple of his old towels that were falling apart, and with the help of the other members, they managed to put together a pile that Tao figured should get them through the night without Xiumin getting too fussy.

“Tao?” Chanyeol piped up as D.O. dragged an old dish towel behind him that was about as long as he was tall, and tossed it on top of the pile with all his might.

“Yeah?”

“Why are we using towels when we still gots pull-ups? Can’t we just tape them on him?”

Tao stared blankly at the pile.

Fortunately, he didn’t have to answer to his major oversight, as a rogue umbrella smacked into the window with enough force to startle the bejesus out of all of them. Unfortunately, the sudden fright caused D.O. to start bawling, and once one scared child starts crying, a chain reaction (victims: Kai, Baekhyun and Xiumin (who was in the other room)) is inevitable.

Immediately, (he didn't dare to call it 'instinctively',) Tao crouched down and picked D.O. up, bouncing him up and down slightly in his arms. “Shhh, shhh, it was just an umbrella, look, it didn’t even hurt the window,” he said softly. D.O. blinked away tears and looked outside at the torrent that had started up. Of course, at that moment, more objects decided to fly by in the torrent that had started up, teasingly close to the window.

“No hurt us!” he choked out, turning away from the window, burying his face into Tao’s shoulder, and hugging him around the neck for comfort.

Tao sighed, continuing to bounce the scared two-year-old, and looking on the ground where the other members had taken to comforting the other criers. Sehun and Suho were already out of sight, having gone to check on the baby, Lay had taken to calming down a sniffling Kai, and Chen had Baekhyun in a protective hug. Even the ever-difficult Chanyeol was going back and forth between Kai and Baekhyun, petting their hair as they began to stop crying.

After a few minutes, Tao realized D.O.’s face was no longer buried in his shoulder and he was instead lazily resting his head, which was now tilted to the side. “You feel better now?” Tao asked softly. D.O. nodded sleepily before yawning. “Do you want to take a nap?” He felt the grip the little one still had around his neck grow tighter again. Tao smiled. “Don’t worry, nothing’s going to get in.” When the grip didn’t relax, Tao sighed internally. “Okay, I’ll stay with you and protect you, so will you take a nap?” D.O.’s arms finally relaxed, and he nodded. “Alright, let’s go.”

He took D.O. into the room that held Xiumin, but remembering that their smelly predicament hadn’t been fixed yet, he took D.O. to his room instead, laying him down in Sehun’s bed and pulling the covers over him.

Just as D.O. had finally fallen asleep, Chanyeol came in, carefully and slightly awkwardly carrying the also sleeping baby Xiumin, who had a pull-up secured to him with about ten rounds of duct tape. Chanyeol was followed by Sehun and Suho, and not soon after, more tired little ones began to come in the room. Even if they hadn’t cried earlier, they’d still all been pretty shaken up by the loud noise and raging storm, and none of them wanted to be too far from their de facto guardian.

They sat in silence, Tao sitting on his bed with Kai, Lay, Chen, and Baekhyun snuggled around him, watching D.O., Xiumin, Chanyeol, Sehun, and Suho drift to sleep on Sehun’s bed. As Tao’s eyes began to get heavy and flutter shut, he noticed all of the little ones, faces peaceful, holding hands, leaning on each other for comfort and support, and thought, ‘Maybe, just maybe, this will all end okay.’

Then, the power went off.