At least all the kids were asleep when it happened. That, he had to be thankful for, and he held his breath as he twisted and inched his way out from under the little heads and arms that surrounded him, making sure no one’s arm was moved too quickly and no one’s head was lifted and dropped back down on the bed. Fortunately for him, the guys slept like little kids they resembled, and nothing short of the building being blown over would wake them from their naps.

Making his way back into the common room, he walked around the giant pile of towels and toward the window again. The windows of the few buildings he could see reflected the same, dark emptiness of their dormitory. The wind was howling, sending chills down Tao’s spine, blowing the rain sideways, and dragging and tumbling all sorts of poorly secured objects down the street. A few loftier objects bobbed up and down with the irregular flow of the torrent.

His thoughts began to flow as the chills died down and he stared into the grayness. He would need to run out for some more suitable food (maybe takeout) as soon as the storm blew over, because even if the little ones could eat nothing but cereal and milk for a month straight, cold cereal wasn’t his speed. Neither was hot cereal. In fact, he hated all things cereal, and the only thing he’d had to eat that day was the bowl of Cheerios, because that was what he’d been able to buy the most of, and the last thing he wanted was Chanyeol leading the other kids in throwing a coup over being out of Frosted Flakes!

'Sigh it out, Zitao, sigh it out. You're cool, you're calm, you're good, you're awesome.'

Speaking of Chanyeol throwing a coup: Why was the kid so insubordinate, so hard-headed, so… ‘urgh’? Sure, the adult version of him had been known to be attention-crazy at times, but that had only ever lead him to be a total -up at worst; he’d never shown the slightest interest in being in-charge, especially not in such an obnoxious way. And Chen. Chen loved a good practical joke, but out of the three members of the Beagle line, he was usually the first to realize when things were going too far, and redirect them with a laugh and half-jokingly calling out the person who was in the wrong. Now, he’d gained a snarky edge to his personality, and not in a good way. Despite that, Tao could see that his kindness and willingness to let things go was still there, in the way he’d been arguing with Baekhyun about the clock, but immediately comforted him when he started crying. Baekhyun… He’d always been a little impressionable, and the fact that he’d fallen into the same disruptive antics as his friends was no surprise whatsoever to Tao.

He did have his good kids: Lay, and Suho. The former had always had a super-kind nature, and apparently whatever had happened hadn’t changed that. However, even if he was kind, he had never been a doormat, and was never afraid to refuse to do something he didn’t want to do. Kid Lay would do anything Tao told him, without complaint or question, which was a little unsettling, but Tao needed all the allies he could get. His relationship with Suho was, however, very murky under its superficially bright surface. Something he didn't quite understand was lurking there, and as always, Suho seemed to be trying to keep everyone else's conflicts from reaching boiling points, but letting his own issues build until he was dangerously annoyed. Just like Lay, he was following orders well, but he was obviously doing so not out of respect for Tao, but out of the obligation he felt to be the main peacekeeper ("as a leader should,") even though Tao had relieved him of the duty in favor of the  now much more mature Sehun. Sehun, who seemed ambivalent about pretty much everything, unless he was in a mood (then everything went south, fast.) Pretty much nothing about him had changed. His loyalties, as usual, lied with whoever was agreeing with how he currently felt, and the cookie bribes had set Tao pretty solidly in his favor.

Xiumin was too little in mind to have any particularly difficult or worrying characteristics; all he wanted to do was play with toys and say the occasional one- to two-word sentence, and D.O. had gone the same way overnight; his syntax (simple sentences with weird word orders and verb tenses) now mimicked the way Xiumin had been speaking before the kids’ second, mental regression. Before that regression, though, Tao hadn’t failed to take notice of the fact that even though D.O. was so little, he’d quietly taken to being Xiumin’s guardian as best he could, and Tao couldn’t even speculate on why that was; he simply had no idea. He was grateful for it, but it was odd.

Then, there was Jongin. Jongin had been mostly good, but a complete wild card so far; whether he was going to be good or bad was like the dichotomy between Jongin and Kai: Tao had no idea which one he would get, and he felt he was simply at the mercy of whichever Jongin was being. He, along with Sehun, had chosen to go with the Beagles when the two were disillusioned with Tao’s decision-making, but they had both decided that it wasn't for them. Unlike Sehun though, Kai had made that decision based on what he felt was right and not because the Beagles didn't offer him enough, hadn't need bribes to be obedient, and was otherwise proving to be a wonderful little angel.

...Except for when he wasn’t.

Sighing, Tao left the window and plopped down on the couch. The eerie wind and the way it was screaming at a whisper was chilling, unnatural, and reminded him of the sounds of a haunted house, but he was too exhausted to be afraid anymore. He was the one who checked for monsters under beds now; he had to be brave. The ones he’d relied on to protect him were the ones he had to protect, and he was pretty sure that "The Nine" would run him into the grave before some ghostly-sounding wind would.

He occupied the sofa for five, ten, twelve minutes before he’d tossed and turned enough times to realize he wasn’t going to be able to get comfortable, and he knew why. A baby was on a bed in his room, surrounded by a bunch of other kids. Xiumin could easily be smothered by one of the sleeping logs around him, and Tao wouldn’t have known until it was too late if he were sleeping in the common room. He got up and gracefully stumbled over the pile of towels cloaked by the midday darkness, before quietly continuing back to the room where the baby slept peacefully, not dead, and surrounded by his hyungs, a pull-up, and ten feet of duct tape. Tao smiled at the two piles on the beds before laying down on the thin rug next to his bed, on top of at least one mismatched pair of socks and a wadded-up tissue that had miraculously missed the trash can right next to his bed, and resting his head on his outstretched arm.

He drifted off to sleep in seconds.

A/N tyme:

I know this is a short chapter, but it was meant to be a little break from the normal flow of the story because I just wanted to take a moment to firmly establish the traits of all the little munchkins, and talk to y'all. If you're at all interested in a few of my feelings about the story and my writing as they now, (which I know you're not,) I wrote a blog post about it here: http://www.asianfanfics.com/blog/view/1058161

Thanks as always! ^///^