[Fic] The Fifth Melody - 5/5
Title: The Fifth Melody
Author: Coley Merrin
Rating: R overall
Pairing: Zhou Mi/Girl!Kyuhyun
Warning: AU, Genderswitch
Summary: A sequel to The Other Side and Special Performance. A couple of years into their marriage, Kyuhyun deals with unexpected urges and family life, and Zhou Mi struggles to take his career to the next level.
WARNING: Pregnancy, childbirth, sex in conjunction with pregnancy...if the thought of it makes you ew... I would rather not be responsible for anyone's decline in mental health. That being said, I probably wouldn't call it too bad, but this is me!
***
Part One * Part Two * Part Three * Part Four * Part Five
***
Carrying one child was a little different than carrying two. She gained less weight. She could see her feet for a little longer. The doctor wasn’t urging her to take it quite as easy.
As though easy were possible with two active, mischievous boys racing around the house and screaming bloody murder at each other. She and Zhou Mi were quite aware that she wouldn’t be working for a while after the baby’s birth, and Zhou Mi began to take extra hours working. He could be found sitting at home late at night with his earphones on, so that the noise didn’t wake the boys, writing music. Sometimes she would sit with him, pressing her ear close so she could hear the music he played, reading the lyrics he wrote. One of them was a song for her, and it made her cry. (Hormones, she reminded herself.) Sometimes that late at night went beyond what her body could endure, and she was asleep long before Zhou Mi was finished.
After the first time he slept on the couch, thinking he would wake her, he hadn’t done so again. The scolding she gave him in the middle of the night probably removed a layer or two of skin. So he would crawl into bed as gingerly as possible, though she told him it didn’t matter. Knowing he was there was more important, and she would wake if he got into bed quietly or not. Just the feel of him against her, someone for her to lean her back against, or if he was curled to her, to feel his hand or arm against her rounding stomach...
Zhou Mi, if she had asked him, was probably most thrilled that the doctor hadn’t forbade bedroom activities. She was a little ambivalent at times about that herself, but when it came to Zhou Mi, it was really hard to say no and mean it. And the man gave really good massages. Even a saint couldn’t have denied him.
“I want to be inside you,” he whispered, kissing the back of her shoulder.
She hummed in amusement. “I figure you know how to get that done by now, don’t you?”
“It’s nice we can, still... With the boys, we’d barely got married before the doctor warned us off.”
“Mmhmm,” she murmured, enjoying the attention he was showing her neck.
He hadn’t complained that they had started having to be a little...creative...in their positions. The stomach made things a little harder. But if it was less satisfying to him, he didn’t show it, rocking against her and telling her how amazing she was, how good it felt.
“Are you okay?” he whispered, cupping a breast, rolling her nipple between his fingers to great effect.
“I think so,” she whispered back in the same way, making him almost laugh.
“Close...”
She turned her head, their faces brushing, and she murmured the dirtiest Mandarin she knew, dirty enough that Zhou Mi, who was male in the end even if he tended to be somewhat fussy about things, immediately inhaled and his eyes started to almost blur in a sexual haze just to hear her say it.
If he was close before, that finished him, and he moaned her name to her smirking satisfaction. There wasn’t any point being married to someone if she couldn’t push his buttons once in a while. Or...again and again.
“That was uncalled for, Kyu,” he gasped.
“Just taking care of business.”
“Want me to take care of your business?” he growled playfully, which was, if she were honest, just the response she had wanted.
***
They argued over names.
In fact, she had to say that some of the most intense fights of their early relationship had been deciding names for the twins. They both had rather particular ideas.
So it had been the Great Compromise that had resulted in Jihyun for the firstborn twin, and Juhyun for the second.
So even though she had argued that was a few too many “hyun”’s in one household, Zhou Mi had been set firm on it. Of course it had grown on her... Even if she had ribbed him about it right up to the day they were registered.
Which was how she ended up with the ultimate veto power on the name for their daughter, thank you very much.
***
Kyuhyun glanced at the clock for the 25th time in the last 40 minutes. Which meant that Zhou Mi was a decent 30 minutes overdue. She had seated the twins and gotten them eating, lest they eat too late and be bouncing little meatballs far past her exhaustion point.
Zhou Mi... Was rarely this late. And if he was, he usually called first.
She stared hard at her son, who was in the middle of fisting a piece of broccoli to lob at his brother’s head. No, he hadn’t started throwing it, but she could see steps three (the windup), four (the toss), and five (the wailing) of that action as though she had seen it before.
Oh wait. She had.
“What do you intend to do with that, Jihyun?” she asked, and she thought very sweetly too.
He wilted, shoving the small floret into his mouth and watching for the next opportunity to wage war with his double.
Finally, finally she heard Zhou Mi’s key in the lock. She turned, ready to fix him with her best evil eye and ask where he had been, when she actually got a good look at him.
He didn’t look quite as normal. Eyes wide. Posture just...strange. Papers in his hand.
And that was when it hit her.
The song. The song that had gotten the nibble.
“You didn’t!” she exclaimed.
When he realized she understood, he nodded vigorously. As though lost for words.
“You didn’t!”
He nodded again.
And whooped, loping for her, and squishing her as gently as he could.
“You sold it to who? For how much? Did they want more, and...”
He cut off her questions with a kiss, a rather naughty one, too, for all that their sons could be watching. It was too important a moment to censor.
She looked at him, really looked, and saw the absolutely amazement, the joy it had brought him, and beyond her control... Sprung a teary leak.
“I’m so proud of you,” she got out, voice only really catching on the very end.
“Oh Kyu... Kyu... Darling, it’s because of you...”
“No, it’s you,” she said, and realized his hands were trembling around the paperwork he had brought to show her. And then she was laughing though her tears.
“Why is Mama sad?” Juhyun wanted to know.
“She’s crying because she’s happy,” Zhou Mi told them. And they looked back as though Zhou Mi had informed them that the sky was really green. He hummed a few bars of the song he had sold. “You know this song of Baba’s? Someone liked it so much that they bought it. Mama is happy because of that.”
The boys got the impression that it really was a good thing, even if they didn’t really understand how someone could buy a song but...
She had to gather herself, pressing her face into Zhou Mi’s shoulder.
“That’s why you didn’t call.”
“I knew if I talked to you, I’d have to wait to come home... I was shaking almost too hard to drive as it was.”
“We have to celebrate,” she whispered, as he pressed kisses against the side of her head.
“I am celebrating.”
Hugging her didn’t count as a full enough celebration in her books.
“Maybe a special dessert or...”
“Dessert!” the twin sweet tooths behind her chorused.
She frowned at them. “Three more big bites, and you can have some.”
“What are we having?” Zhou Mi wanted to know.
“I have no idea...”
He giggled against her neck.
“Zhou Mi... You waited so long for this...”
“I’m just... So happy. That little extra for when the baby comes, I don’t...”
“The money’s not the important thing... It’s just... It’s a start for you.”
“Not important?” he asked, sounding a bit amused and insulted at the same time.
“You wanted this...” She smirked up at him through her lashes. “I won’t make you send it back though.”
He kissed her again, curving her close.
“Dessert?” their parrots wanted to know.
Ice cream had been the dessert for the boys.
She’d made it special for Zhou Mi by curving against his side and feeding it to him after the twins were in bed.
***
She kept pretty good track of her body, the activity of the baby, how she was feeling. It wasn’t really easy for her to miss that the tightening across her stomach, the pain, wasn’t just routine. She sat on it for a couple of hours, waiting to see if she was right, and the contractions slowly got closer together. She breathed in, and finally picked up the phone.
“Hey Kyu, what’s up?” Zhou Mi answered when she called him.
“It’s not going to happen in the next five minutes, but I think we’re having a baby.”
There was silence, and then he exploded with the 300 things his mind thought she should be doing. Sit down, lay down, rest, call the sitter, her bag, the hospital, the doctor...
“I’ll call the sitter so she can get here. Just drive home carefully okay?”
“Okay. Okay... If you have pain, or blood, or... Kyu, I love you.”
“Love you, too, worrywart. See you in a while.”
He worked fifteen minutes away, tops, so she called the sitter, and focused on her breathing. The boys seemed to know something was up, and she had one on her lap, one squeezed to her side as they sat and waited, the cheerful noise on the tv muted.
“Mommy is going to go have a baby sister for you,” she said, kissing the closest forehead. “How lucky is she, to have to big brothers like you?”
“I’m a big boy,” the oldest told her confidentially, and rubbed her stomach. “Baby coming to play?”
“Some day. She has to get bigger first.”
“I love baby sister, Mommy,” the youngest said, laying his cheek on her stomach.
“Sweet baby... Me, too.”
“Me too, Mommy.”
She accepted their hugs, careful not to hug too tightly as she worked through the heaviest contraction yet. The human body was amazing, trying to get this object from the inside out. She was appreciative of that fact.
But she still wished there could have been a trap door or something.
A big sigh escaped her as she heard Zhou Mi’s key in the lock. “Daddy’s home! You’ll stay with the sitter just like we planned, okay?”
“We can’t come?”
“Not today, baby. You’ll have fun playing though!”
The sitter came in with Zhou Mi, and it gave them precious moments to check her bag, kissing the boys goodbye with only minimal fuss.
“How are you?” he asked as he settled her into the car.
“Ready for an epidural,” she snarked, though it was the truth down to her bones. “Go cervix, go.”
He petted her leg as they waited at a light, touching her stomach. “Almost there, darling.”
“Which of us are you calling that?” she asked.
“You. You’ll be my only darling. She’ll have another nickname.”
She pushed his hand back to the wheel, but was secretly mollified.
***
A bed was ready for her almost immediately, and she was a full three centimeters dilated to her great relief. No guessing games were required in her request for an epidural. She leaned against Zhou Mi as they numbed her down. He pressed his lips to her cheek and just held still there, not wanting to annoy her, she knew. But the comfort was immediate.
They left her to relax, the monitor on her belly and Zhou Mi beside her. She pulled him for a kiss, smiling at him.
“If I tell you I hate you and never want to see you again, don’t believe it, okay?”
He smoothed her hair, his smile big and bright for her. “Oh, Kui Xian. I love you.”
“Love you.”
“You’re doing so well... So brave. I’d be crying on the floor by now.”
“Imagine the world’s biggest needle trying to squeeze out your...”
She bit at his shushing fingers.
“I don’t need that imagery, Kyu. It’s bad enough watching you go through it.”
“Hopefully quicker this time.”
By midnight, she had stolen the smallest of catnaps, a minute here, a minute there. She had passed five, six, eight centimeters. Zhou Mi was beside her though all of it. One of the nurses brought him a sandwich and some juice, when they had brought her the light meal she was allowed.
She fumbled for the nurse button, pushing it.
“What’s up, Kyu?”
“I need to push,” she said, groaning. “Or I’m going to get out of this bed and hit someone. No more five more minutes, child, it’s time to come out.”
“You’d fall to the floor if you got out of bed, darling. You can’t even feel your toes.”
“I’d catch someone on the way down.” Her breath caught. “Mimi...”
“Oh, baby. Oh Kyu. Kyuhyun. Soon.”
She so rarely called him by a nickname.
The nurse immediately called for the doctor. “You’re having a baby!” she exulted as she stepped out.
“No joke,” Kyuhyun muttered.
Five minutes wasn’t an overestimate. The nurse had barely made it back into the room before the next contraction started.
“Need to push!” she nearly shouted, her hand clamping on Zhou Mi’s.
“The doctor’s coming down the hallway. She’ll be here in just a second.”
And not a second too late. Two pushes, and little more, before a squalling baby was laid on her stomach.
Zhou Mi was babbling about something, her name, little baby, so cute, oh Kyu.
She touched the dark-haired head, laughing a bit out of relief and joy. Zhou Mi manned the scissors, severing them from each other as he had done for the boys. And the baby was lifted to be cleaned and weighed.
“Six pounds, ten ounces,” the nurse announced. “A big girl. And lots of hair!”
“You’ll have trouble with her, Kyuhyun,” the doctor said with glee, peeking at the baby as all was wrapped up. “She’s gorgeous.”
“No dating until she’s sixty at least,” Zhou Mi said. And then trailed into silence as the baby was laid into Kyuhyun’s arms.
“Looks like you,” Kyuhyun said, grinning up at him.
“I think she looks like you... Definitely your nose and mouth.”
“Your ears. Here, hold her.”
The baby made a little mewling sound as Zhou Mi lifted her. He crooned at her, a strange mixture of Mandarin and Korean that proved how off kilter he was. One of the nurses very kindly picked up the camera they had brought at Kyuhyun’s frantic waving, and snapped a picture. The two so close that their noses were nearly touching, father and daughter considering each other. Though in the case of the baby, more just enjoying being held by such a welcoming presence it seemed. At least until he touched her mouth with the tip of his finger, and she opened it up, ready to suckle and quite put out that there was nothing there to offer.
“I think that’s Mama’s job,” he said, soothing her softening cries. “Here we go.”
Kyuhyun leaned into him as he brushed her cheek with a kiss. And their daughter sliding easily, solidly into her arms.
“Look at her go,” Zhou Mi said admiringly. Kyuhyun had wondered if she would forget what it was like, how to nurse, but it was almost easy. The baby’s natural instinct helping, because there was little that Kyuhyun could do to make her. Zhou Mi kept his hand on the baby’s back, touching both of them. Now all she hoped she remembered was how to deal with lack of sleep.
“You’re so amazing, Kyu,” he whispered as he watched the enthusiastic baby.
“Don’t you dare cry,” she whispered back, bumping his forehead with hers. “Don’t you dare.”
“She’ll grow up to be beautiful, just like you.”
“Or like you,” she countered.
There was a pained silence. “I hope you mean that as a compliment, because my masculinity just started weeping.”
“I’m sure it’ll recover after a while. Besides, just think... You contributed to making this slobbery little person.”
“Oh yeah.”
She rolled her eyes at the sort of amazed wonder in his voice, as though that had just occurred to him again.
“The boys will think this tiny little fairy has dropped down to live with us,” he marveled.
“Maybe not when there are three children and two laps, and she’s crying in the middle of the night.”
He smiled, because they had been preparing the twins for this moment for months. It would be a shock to them all... But to Zhou Mi, he believed there would be peace and happiness for all.
At least after the first six or eight months.
***
Zhou Mi had gone to get the twins to bring them up to see their sister, and Kyuhyun’s parents had come and gone. She didn’t know what it was, about a mother seeing her daughter with her newborn child. But it seemed to bring tears out in the both of them. Even Zhou Mi’s parents planned to fly in within the week to see their new grandchild. Zhou Mi sent them huge zip files full of pictures of the boys each week, and she could only imagine how that would increase.
She heard a noise at the door, and saw a familiar face peeking from around the curtain.
“Donghae!”
Clearly a recipient of one of Zhou Mi’s “It’s a girl!” texts. He had even mistakenly sent one to himself, jumping in shock as his pocket started vibrating.
“Oh good, you’re awake. We didn’t want to disturb you...”
The we was obvious, a stoic-faced Kibum being tugged along behind his girlfriend-almost-fiancee (in Donghae’s words). And considering the two had been dating a little longer than the twins had been alive, Kyuhyun was inclined to believe her.
“You’re not disturbing us, don’t worry. Come on in.”
“Oh, oh Kibum look...” Donghae said, seeing the little cream-blanket wrapped baby in Kyuhyun’s arms.
“I see,” he said, guiding Donghae ahead of him.
“We brought a gift,” Donghae said, brandishing a gift bag. “Oh Kyuhyun...”
“This is Miyun.”
“Miyun,” Donghae repeated. “She looks just like you.”
“That’s what my mom said. I don’t know why people keep saying that like it’s a good thing. The nurses were helping to point out where bits of Zhou Mi snuck in. Did you want to hold her?”
“Please.” Donghae took the baby with the ease of someone who had done so before. “How big is she?”
“Only a couple ounces under seven pounds. And 21 inches.”
“A tall girl, then.”
“I don’t think she had any chance not to be,” Kyuhyun said. Between her and Zhou Mi, if the child had been small it would have been odd.
“Did you want to hold her?” Donghae asked Kibum. And for some reason, Kyuhyun expected him to decline, but he edged closer, allowing Donghae to put the baby into his arms.
He adjusted immediately, rocking when the tiny kitten cry indicated Miyun was upset that she’d been jostled again. “She’s cute,” he said, looking up and flashing the killer smile that had hooked Donghae.
Donghae was sending smoke signals with her eyes. Doesn’t he look divine with a baby? her expression screamed at Kyuhyun, all melty brown eyes for the cuteness of a baby snugged in Kibum’s arms.
It’ll be your turn soon enough, Kyuhyun tried to telegraph back, achieving a grimace to indicate her desire on that front.
“How are you doing?” Donghae insisted, ignoring Kibum’s leanings that he had had his baby fill. “Everything went okay?”
“Everything went great. I almost named her “Epidural” though. I’d say next time, but I think the shop is closed.”
Kibum chuckled at that, and finally got his girlfriend to relieve him of Miyun, who was just about to fuss.
“So tiny,” Donghae cooed.
“Can she be a big girl and tiny at the same time?” Kibum teased.
He got a stuck out tongue for his efforts. Donghae had barely put the baby back in Kyuhyun’s arms when a squeal from the doorway alerted them.
“Mama!” Jihyun warbled, arms tight around Zhou Mi’s neck, as Juhyun walked beside him with a couple of Zhou Mi’s fingers in his hand.
“We’ll see you later,” Donghae said, smiling at Zhou Mi. “Congratulations!”
Zhou Mi smiled at the two of them as they left, and Kyuhyun scooted over to accommodate her children. Both twins knelt on the bed, staring at the baby in her arms.
“This is the baby that was in Mama’s tummy,” she said. “This is Miyun, your baby sister.”
“Our baby, Mama?” Jihyun asked, his hand grasping the edge of her gown as Zhou Mi stood behind them.
“Our baby. She’ll stay in the little bed you helped put together. And you can sing to her every day.”
“Can she play with us? Play toys?” Juhyun wanted to know.
She could read between the lines on that one. Was the baby coming home with toys? Her mercenary child. “When she’s bigger. Do you like the shirts Daddy brought you?”
Their shirts read “I’m a big brother” with a happy face on them, and they both nodded, pensive in the unfamiliar room.
They both leaned in close, touching the soft, new skin. Giving her soft kisses. They sat like wide eyed little stones as Zhou Mi laid the baby in Jihyun’s lap. He squeezed gently with his pudgy arms, kissing her capped head as Zhou Mi took pictures. And then repeated the same with Juhyun.
“She’s lucky to have two big brothers like you,” Zhou Mi said, kissing both of them
“I’m good big brother, Baba,” Juhyun said, snuggling his head against Zhou Mi’s stomach. Jihyun crawled higher, snuggling under Kyuhyun’s free arm and pensively watching the sleeping baby.
“I love you, baby,” she said, kissing him.
“Not a baby,” Jihyun insisted. “Miyun is!”
“I love you anyway,” she told him. “And Juhyun, too.”
Juhyun sent her a wide smile. “Love you, too, Mommy,” he said sweetly.
“Love you, too, Mommy,” Jihyun echoed.
“Love you, too,” Zhou Mi said, leaning over the boys to give her a kiss.
If this was what she had, she thought with a sigh, then yes, the shop was definitely closed. Maybe they hadn’t planned the boys as they had Miyun, but the family they had gotten seemed wonderful just the way it was. Zhou Mi was glowing, and the boys were cautiously excited. And Miyun had a precious little face.
Even if Kyuhyun still wasn’t sure she looked that much like her.
***
The first few weeks were an echo of the first few weeks with the twins, in the way an echo was a softer follow-up. If the baby slept, she slept whenever possible. With the twins, when one was sleeping, one was fussing. And then they’d switch or wake each other up. But at night, when the twins were fast asleep and Zhou Mi was dead to the world, and the tiny snuggling little person in the bassinet had dozed after feeding, it was her turn to pass out. And it was lovely.
It had been just a few weeks after the twins had come home with them that she had reached some sort of critical mass, staring at the spitting up, pooping little bundles she had never planned for to begin with, who needed something every five seconds and she was a terrible mother, and...
She’d had the least amount of sleep she’d ever had in her life. Zhou Mi had tried. But he had gone back to work and had some little blissful picture in his head of a happy functional family, that he missed the part where she was slowly splitting at the seams, and she hid all she could of it from him. Because other mothers did it on their own. Why couldn’t she?
So after they had fed, when she dissolved into a puddle of hysterical tears inside of her and Zhou Mi’s bedroom, he got it.
“Kyu... Kyu.”
He had sat beside her as he called her parents, who were there within minutes, packing the twins into their carriers and whisking them away like good fairies. He stood with her, undressing her chastely and laying her in their sheets with a kiss. She was so tired she lay staring at the wall for several minutes, uncertain even of how to sleep. He scooted in behind her, holding her at first tentatively, then tightly, but with such comfort. A few more tears escaped and she slid into sleep for a solid three hours.
She popped out of sleep like a light bulb, fully on and ready, and she had showered and felt nearly human again. Zhou Mi was nearly finished feeding her, spoonfuls of soup to her amusement, when her parents got back.
She inhaled when she heard the sound of baby whimpers, her milk urgently ready. Her babies needed her, she...
She wasn’t a bad mother. She just needed help. And Zhou Mi was there. Her parents were. She kissed Zhou Mi, thanked him, and enjoyed it for the first time in what seemed like years. They had not, as one of her late night fear sessions had conjured, married only because of the babies. On some functional level, they were more solid together than they were apart. And at the twins’ birth, they had still been learning how to be husband and wife. And mother and father on top of that. She knew he had felt ashamed and helpless, that he had let her become that run down. His apologies still rang in her ears. But it wasn’t that it happened that impressed her as much as the fact that it hadn’t happened, never to that point, again.
They said that mothers became “touched out,” that the constant contact with the baby left the touch of the baby’s father as something extraneous and unwanted. But most of the time when he held her, breathed against her, she had never felt so lucky.
So when she made it through the first month with their daughter without wanting to scream or cry too hard at least, it was a blissful little accomplishment.
***
“You know what’s different this time?” Zhou Mi asked, the baby cuddled on his shoulder as he burped her. It wasn’t unusual to see Zhou Mi with the baby in tow. She was surprised the baby really got alone time at all, with the twins staring at her at all hours, and Zhou Mi carting her around like the world’s most necessary fashion accessory.
“What?” she asked, stretched back over their couch in bliss.
“You’re not telling me ‘It’s okay, it’s okay,’ nearly as much. We’re talking about things.”
She smiled. “Clearly it was insanity.”
“We’re better at this this time, yeah? You and me?”
She smiled, crossing her legs against his thigh. “Yes... I think so.”
She snoozed there, content to be near him, until he stroked her ankle to let her know they should sleep. The baby went without fuss into her bassinet, and Zhou Mi curled against her back until they fell into dreams
***
During the pregnancy, they had cuddled sometimes, stomach to stomach. When the baby had been particularly active, Zhou Mi could sometimes feel the movement as well. It was something they had started even when she was pregnant with the twins. But the last pregnancy though, had been something quite special to her... To have Zhou Mi with her at every milestone. She couldn’t love the boys more, but the experience itself was something she cherished.
And as she looked at the picture of her boys in their little suits, their pink-clad baby sister cuddled carefully between them... Two identical faces, a blend of both of them, and the little girl with her bead bright eyes and rounded cheeks. The light of her father’s life, and of Kyuhyun’s as well. Of course right after that perfection, one twin had punched the other, and the otherwise perfect baby had sent up a hungry whine.
Still, as she cradled her passed out daughter, and watched the twins lay siege to Fort Zhou Mi, who was squirming on the floor and trying not to laugh at their tickles...
No, it was obviously insanity. But she still had Zhou Mi’s smile.
(Among other things. She had tried on the little lace outfit for the first time in almost a year, and was gratified that A. It fit, and B. She could look at herself in the mirror without squinting too hard to get a better image. Zhou Mi had come up on her accidentally in her examination session, standing in the doorway of their bathroom with increasingly widening eyes. His pretty mouth dropped open in some kind statement, but...definitely not a verbal one. Things had been a little...scant for a while in the bedroom area for a few multitude of reasons.
“The boys are down?” she asked.
He blinked, processing, and finally nodded. “The baby, too. She was sleeping when I checked on her.”
She touched his shirtfront, staring up at him coyly. “So it’s just you and me?”
Just him and her. And the widening grin on his face let her know that he’d make it worth her while.)
***
“Hey, Sexy Kyu...” Zhou Mi whispered, after they had dozed against each other for a while.
“Hm?” She was tangled up in a sheet and some lace, and Zhou Mi had wormed a thigh between hers. “What, Sexy Mi?”
He chuckled at her imitation of the nickname, kissing her cheek. “Love you.”
“Love you, too.” She opened her eyes, staring hard at him in the dark. “Are you horny again?”
His hum was not one of embarrassment but definitely confirmation.
“I really love you, Kyu.”
She sighed, but pushed him over onto his back. She could see the gleam of his collarbones in the light. The dark of his eyes, as he reached to steady her arms.
“I swear,” she said, kissing a line up his breastbone. “You can’t do anything without me.”
***
The End~
No really, the end. Miyun clearly is daddy’s little girl and grows up blessed with their pretty genes, while her big brothers (at Zhou Mi’s urging?) try to beat up any guys who look her way, until she beats her brothers up, and gets Kyuhyun’s help.
I am sure the twins are both tall and thin and gorgeous as well. (Does one of them marry SiHan’s daughter and have “You held her as a baby!” pictures paraded around their wedding? You decide.)
SiHan has another child, because as Kyuhyun promised, the horror passed for Hankyung, and no one, no one can say no to Siwon’s puppy eyes.
KiHae got married (finally...), and waited a while before having a couple of terribly cute kids.
And they all lived happily ever after.
***
***
Thank you all for sticking with this side trip into insanity. <3 Thanks for all the encouragement and letting me know how it made you felt... made me feel like less of a dummy for writing it. :) And nice as it was, if my writer's license hasn't been revoked, then I think it's full steam ahead with boys, boys and more boys (and maybe a few more kids. just a few?). Thank you as always to the people who calm my neurotic tendencies (is it a requirement for a writer to have them? I don't know. But I do.). Anyway. wings_strength9 (plots SiHan forever) and wobaozhewo (wait, we're secretly doing what?), thanks for keeping me sane. <3
Author: Coley Merrin
Rating: R overall
Pairing: Zhou Mi/Girl!Kyuhyun
Warning: AU, Genderswitch
Summary: A sequel to The Other Side and Special Performance. A couple of years into their marriage, Kyuhyun deals with unexpected urges and family life, and Zhou Mi struggles to take his career to the next level.
WARNING: Pregnancy, childbirth, sex in conjunction with pregnancy...if the thought of it makes you ew... I would rather not be responsible for anyone's decline in mental health. That being said, I probably wouldn't call it too bad, but this is me!
***
Part One * Part Two * Part Three * Part Four * Part Five
***
Carrying one child was a little different than carrying two. She gained less weight. She could see her feet for a little longer. The doctor wasn’t urging her to take it quite as easy.
As though easy were possible with two active, mischievous boys racing around the house and screaming bloody murder at each other. She and Zhou Mi were quite aware that she wouldn’t be working for a while after the baby’s birth, and Zhou Mi began to take extra hours working. He could be found sitting at home late at night with his earphones on, so that the noise didn’t wake the boys, writing music. Sometimes she would sit with him, pressing her ear close so she could hear the music he played, reading the lyrics he wrote. One of them was a song for her, and it made her cry. (Hormones, she reminded herself.) Sometimes that late at night went beyond what her body could endure, and she was asleep long before Zhou Mi was finished.
After the first time he slept on the couch, thinking he would wake her, he hadn’t done so again. The scolding she gave him in the middle of the night probably removed a layer or two of skin. So he would crawl into bed as gingerly as possible, though she told him it didn’t matter. Knowing he was there was more important, and she would wake if he got into bed quietly or not. Just the feel of him against her, someone for her to lean her back against, or if he was curled to her, to feel his hand or arm against her rounding stomach...
Zhou Mi, if she had asked him, was probably most thrilled that the doctor hadn’t forbade bedroom activities. She was a little ambivalent at times about that herself, but when it came to Zhou Mi, it was really hard to say no and mean it. And the man gave really good massages. Even a saint couldn’t have denied him.
“I want to be inside you,” he whispered, kissing the back of her shoulder.
She hummed in amusement. “I figure you know how to get that done by now, don’t you?”
“It’s nice we can, still... With the boys, we’d barely got married before the doctor warned us off.”
“Mmhmm,” she murmured, enjoying the attention he was showing her neck.
He hadn’t complained that they had started having to be a little...creative...in their positions. The stomach made things a little harder. But if it was less satisfying to him, he didn’t show it, rocking against her and telling her how amazing she was, how good it felt.
“Are you okay?” he whispered, cupping a breast, rolling her nipple between his fingers to great effect.
“I think so,” she whispered back in the same way, making him almost laugh.
“Close...”
She turned her head, their faces brushing, and she murmured the dirtiest Mandarin she knew, dirty enough that Zhou Mi, who was male in the end even if he tended to be somewhat fussy about things, immediately inhaled and his eyes started to almost blur in a sexual haze just to hear her say it.
If he was close before, that finished him, and he moaned her name to her smirking satisfaction. There wasn’t any point being married to someone if she couldn’t push his buttons once in a while. Or...again and again.
“That was uncalled for, Kyu,” he gasped.
“Just taking care of business.”
“Want me to take care of your business?” he growled playfully, which was, if she were honest, just the response she had wanted.
***
They argued over names.
In fact, she had to say that some of the most intense fights of their early relationship had been deciding names for the twins. They both had rather particular ideas.
So it had been the Great Compromise that had resulted in Jihyun for the firstborn twin, and Juhyun for the second.
So even though she had argued that was a few too many “hyun”’s in one household, Zhou Mi had been set firm on it. Of course it had grown on her... Even if she had ribbed him about it right up to the day they were registered.
Which was how she ended up with the ultimate veto power on the name for their daughter, thank you very much.
***
Kyuhyun glanced at the clock for the 25th time in the last 40 minutes. Which meant that Zhou Mi was a decent 30 minutes overdue. She had seated the twins and gotten them eating, lest they eat too late and be bouncing little meatballs far past her exhaustion point.
Zhou Mi... Was rarely this late. And if he was, he usually called first.
She stared hard at her son, who was in the middle of fisting a piece of broccoli to lob at his brother’s head. No, he hadn’t started throwing it, but she could see steps three (the windup), four (the toss), and five (the wailing) of that action as though she had seen it before.
Oh wait. She had.
“What do you intend to do with that, Jihyun?” she asked, and she thought very sweetly too.
He wilted, shoving the small floret into his mouth and watching for the next opportunity to wage war with his double.
Finally, finally she heard Zhou Mi’s key in the lock. She turned, ready to fix him with her best evil eye and ask where he had been, when she actually got a good look at him.
He didn’t look quite as normal. Eyes wide. Posture just...strange. Papers in his hand.
And that was when it hit her.
The song. The song that had gotten the nibble.
“You didn’t!” she exclaimed.
When he realized she understood, he nodded vigorously. As though lost for words.
“You didn’t!”
He nodded again.
And whooped, loping for her, and squishing her as gently as he could.
“You sold it to who? For how much? Did they want more, and...”
He cut off her questions with a kiss, a rather naughty one, too, for all that their sons could be watching. It was too important a moment to censor.
She looked at him, really looked, and saw the absolutely amazement, the joy it had brought him, and beyond her control... Sprung a teary leak.
“I’m so proud of you,” she got out, voice only really catching on the very end.
“Oh Kyu... Kyu... Darling, it’s because of you...”
“No, it’s you,” she said, and realized his hands were trembling around the paperwork he had brought to show her. And then she was laughing though her tears.
“Why is Mama sad?” Juhyun wanted to know.
“She’s crying because she’s happy,” Zhou Mi told them. And they looked back as though Zhou Mi had informed them that the sky was really green. He hummed a few bars of the song he had sold. “You know this song of Baba’s? Someone liked it so much that they bought it. Mama is happy because of that.”
The boys got the impression that it really was a good thing, even if they didn’t really understand how someone could buy a song but...
She had to gather herself, pressing her face into Zhou Mi’s shoulder.
“That’s why you didn’t call.”
“I knew if I talked to you, I’d have to wait to come home... I was shaking almost too hard to drive as it was.”
“We have to celebrate,” she whispered, as he pressed kisses against the side of her head.
“I am celebrating.”
Hugging her didn’t count as a full enough celebration in her books.
“Maybe a special dessert or...”
“Dessert!” the twin sweet tooths behind her chorused.
She frowned at them. “Three more big bites, and you can have some.”
“What are we having?” Zhou Mi wanted to know.
“I have no idea...”
He giggled against her neck.
“Zhou Mi... You waited so long for this...”
“I’m just... So happy. That little extra for when the baby comes, I don’t...”
“The money’s not the important thing... It’s just... It’s a start for you.”
“Not important?” he asked, sounding a bit amused and insulted at the same time.
“You wanted this...” She smirked up at him through her lashes. “I won’t make you send it back though.”
He kissed her again, curving her close.
“Dessert?” their parrots wanted to know.
Ice cream had been the dessert for the boys.
She’d made it special for Zhou Mi by curving against his side and feeding it to him after the twins were in bed.
***
She kept pretty good track of her body, the activity of the baby, how she was feeling. It wasn’t really easy for her to miss that the tightening across her stomach, the pain, wasn’t just routine. She sat on it for a couple of hours, waiting to see if she was right, and the contractions slowly got closer together. She breathed in, and finally picked up the phone.
“Hey Kyu, what’s up?” Zhou Mi answered when she called him.
“It’s not going to happen in the next five minutes, but I think we’re having a baby.”
There was silence, and then he exploded with the 300 things his mind thought she should be doing. Sit down, lay down, rest, call the sitter, her bag, the hospital, the doctor...
“I’ll call the sitter so she can get here. Just drive home carefully okay?”
“Okay. Okay... If you have pain, or blood, or... Kyu, I love you.”
“Love you, too, worrywart. See you in a while.”
He worked fifteen minutes away, tops, so she called the sitter, and focused on her breathing. The boys seemed to know something was up, and she had one on her lap, one squeezed to her side as they sat and waited, the cheerful noise on the tv muted.
“Mommy is going to go have a baby sister for you,” she said, kissing the closest forehead. “How lucky is she, to have to big brothers like you?”
“I’m a big boy,” the oldest told her confidentially, and rubbed her stomach. “Baby coming to play?”
“Some day. She has to get bigger first.”
“I love baby sister, Mommy,” the youngest said, laying his cheek on her stomach.
“Sweet baby... Me, too.”
“Me too, Mommy.”
She accepted their hugs, careful not to hug too tightly as she worked through the heaviest contraction yet. The human body was amazing, trying to get this object from the inside out. She was appreciative of that fact.
But she still wished there could have been a trap door or something.
A big sigh escaped her as she heard Zhou Mi’s key in the lock. “Daddy’s home! You’ll stay with the sitter just like we planned, okay?”
“We can’t come?”
“Not today, baby. You’ll have fun playing though!”
The sitter came in with Zhou Mi, and it gave them precious moments to check her bag, kissing the boys goodbye with only minimal fuss.
“How are you?” he asked as he settled her into the car.
“Ready for an epidural,” she snarked, though it was the truth down to her bones. “Go cervix, go.”
He petted her leg as they waited at a light, touching her stomach. “Almost there, darling.”
“Which of us are you calling that?” she asked.
“You. You’ll be my only darling. She’ll have another nickname.”
She pushed his hand back to the wheel, but was secretly mollified.
***
A bed was ready for her almost immediately, and she was a full three centimeters dilated to her great relief. No guessing games were required in her request for an epidural. She leaned against Zhou Mi as they numbed her down. He pressed his lips to her cheek and just held still there, not wanting to annoy her, she knew. But the comfort was immediate.
They left her to relax, the monitor on her belly and Zhou Mi beside her. She pulled him for a kiss, smiling at him.
“If I tell you I hate you and never want to see you again, don’t believe it, okay?”
He smoothed her hair, his smile big and bright for her. “Oh, Kui Xian. I love you.”
“Love you.”
“You’re doing so well... So brave. I’d be crying on the floor by now.”
“Imagine the world’s biggest needle trying to squeeze out your...”
She bit at his shushing fingers.
“I don’t need that imagery, Kyu. It’s bad enough watching you go through it.”
“Hopefully quicker this time.”
By midnight, she had stolen the smallest of catnaps, a minute here, a minute there. She had passed five, six, eight centimeters. Zhou Mi was beside her though all of it. One of the nurses brought him a sandwich and some juice, when they had brought her the light meal she was allowed.
She fumbled for the nurse button, pushing it.
“What’s up, Kyu?”
“I need to push,” she said, groaning. “Or I’m going to get out of this bed and hit someone. No more five more minutes, child, it’s time to come out.”
“You’d fall to the floor if you got out of bed, darling. You can’t even feel your toes.”
“I’d catch someone on the way down.” Her breath caught. “Mimi...”
“Oh, baby. Oh Kyu. Kyuhyun. Soon.”
She so rarely called him by a nickname.
The nurse immediately called for the doctor. “You’re having a baby!” she exulted as she stepped out.
“No joke,” Kyuhyun muttered.
Five minutes wasn’t an overestimate. The nurse had barely made it back into the room before the next contraction started.
“Need to push!” she nearly shouted, her hand clamping on Zhou Mi’s.
“The doctor’s coming down the hallway. She’ll be here in just a second.”
And not a second too late. Two pushes, and little more, before a squalling baby was laid on her stomach.
Zhou Mi was babbling about something, her name, little baby, so cute, oh Kyu.
She touched the dark-haired head, laughing a bit out of relief and joy. Zhou Mi manned the scissors, severing them from each other as he had done for the boys. And the baby was lifted to be cleaned and weighed.
“Six pounds, ten ounces,” the nurse announced. “A big girl. And lots of hair!”
“You’ll have trouble with her, Kyuhyun,” the doctor said with glee, peeking at the baby as all was wrapped up. “She’s gorgeous.”
“No dating until she’s sixty at least,” Zhou Mi said. And then trailed into silence as the baby was laid into Kyuhyun’s arms.
“Looks like you,” Kyuhyun said, grinning up at him.
“I think she looks like you... Definitely your nose and mouth.”
“Your ears. Here, hold her.”
The baby made a little mewling sound as Zhou Mi lifted her. He crooned at her, a strange mixture of Mandarin and Korean that proved how off kilter he was. One of the nurses very kindly picked up the camera they had brought at Kyuhyun’s frantic waving, and snapped a picture. The two so close that their noses were nearly touching, father and daughter considering each other. Though in the case of the baby, more just enjoying being held by such a welcoming presence it seemed. At least until he touched her mouth with the tip of his finger, and she opened it up, ready to suckle and quite put out that there was nothing there to offer.
“I think that’s Mama’s job,” he said, soothing her softening cries. “Here we go.”
Kyuhyun leaned into him as he brushed her cheek with a kiss. And their daughter sliding easily, solidly into her arms.
“Look at her go,” Zhou Mi said admiringly. Kyuhyun had wondered if she would forget what it was like, how to nurse, but it was almost easy. The baby’s natural instinct helping, because there was little that Kyuhyun could do to make her. Zhou Mi kept his hand on the baby’s back, touching both of them. Now all she hoped she remembered was how to deal with lack of sleep.
“You’re so amazing, Kyu,” he whispered as he watched the enthusiastic baby.
“Don’t you dare cry,” she whispered back, bumping his forehead with hers. “Don’t you dare.”
“She’ll grow up to be beautiful, just like you.”
“Or like you,” she countered.
There was a pained silence. “I hope you mean that as a compliment, because my masculinity just started weeping.”
“I’m sure it’ll recover after a while. Besides, just think... You contributed to making this slobbery little person.”
“Oh yeah.”
She rolled her eyes at the sort of amazed wonder in his voice, as though that had just occurred to him again.
“The boys will think this tiny little fairy has dropped down to live with us,” he marveled.
“Maybe not when there are three children and two laps, and she’s crying in the middle of the night.”
He smiled, because they had been preparing the twins for this moment for months. It would be a shock to them all... But to Zhou Mi, he believed there would be peace and happiness for all.
At least after the first six or eight months.
***
Zhou Mi had gone to get the twins to bring them up to see their sister, and Kyuhyun’s parents had come and gone. She didn’t know what it was, about a mother seeing her daughter with her newborn child. But it seemed to bring tears out in the both of them. Even Zhou Mi’s parents planned to fly in within the week to see their new grandchild. Zhou Mi sent them huge zip files full of pictures of the boys each week, and she could only imagine how that would increase.
She heard a noise at the door, and saw a familiar face peeking from around the curtain.
“Donghae!”
Clearly a recipient of one of Zhou Mi’s “It’s a girl!” texts. He had even mistakenly sent one to himself, jumping in shock as his pocket started vibrating.
“Oh good, you’re awake. We didn’t want to disturb you...”
The we was obvious, a stoic-faced Kibum being tugged along behind his girlfriend-almost-fiancee (in Donghae’s words). And considering the two had been dating a little longer than the twins had been alive, Kyuhyun was inclined to believe her.
“You’re not disturbing us, don’t worry. Come on in.”
“Oh, oh Kibum look...” Donghae said, seeing the little cream-blanket wrapped baby in Kyuhyun’s arms.
“I see,” he said, guiding Donghae ahead of him.
“We brought a gift,” Donghae said, brandishing a gift bag. “Oh Kyuhyun...”
“This is Miyun.”
“Miyun,” Donghae repeated. “She looks just like you.”
“That’s what my mom said. I don’t know why people keep saying that like it’s a good thing. The nurses were helping to point out where bits of Zhou Mi snuck in. Did you want to hold her?”
“Please.” Donghae took the baby with the ease of someone who had done so before. “How big is she?”
“Only a couple ounces under seven pounds. And 21 inches.”
“A tall girl, then.”
“I don’t think she had any chance not to be,” Kyuhyun said. Between her and Zhou Mi, if the child had been small it would have been odd.
“Did you want to hold her?” Donghae asked Kibum. And for some reason, Kyuhyun expected him to decline, but he edged closer, allowing Donghae to put the baby into his arms.
He adjusted immediately, rocking when the tiny kitten cry indicated Miyun was upset that she’d been jostled again. “She’s cute,” he said, looking up and flashing the killer smile that had hooked Donghae.
Donghae was sending smoke signals with her eyes. Doesn’t he look divine with a baby? her expression screamed at Kyuhyun, all melty brown eyes for the cuteness of a baby snugged in Kibum’s arms.
It’ll be your turn soon enough, Kyuhyun tried to telegraph back, achieving a grimace to indicate her desire on that front.
“How are you doing?” Donghae insisted, ignoring Kibum’s leanings that he had had his baby fill. “Everything went okay?”
“Everything went great. I almost named her “Epidural” though. I’d say next time, but I think the shop is closed.”
Kibum chuckled at that, and finally got his girlfriend to relieve him of Miyun, who was just about to fuss.
“So tiny,” Donghae cooed.
“Can she be a big girl and tiny at the same time?” Kibum teased.
He got a stuck out tongue for his efforts. Donghae had barely put the baby back in Kyuhyun’s arms when a squeal from the doorway alerted them.
“Mama!” Jihyun warbled, arms tight around Zhou Mi’s neck, as Juhyun walked beside him with a couple of Zhou Mi’s fingers in his hand.
“We’ll see you later,” Donghae said, smiling at Zhou Mi. “Congratulations!”
Zhou Mi smiled at the two of them as they left, and Kyuhyun scooted over to accommodate her children. Both twins knelt on the bed, staring at the baby in her arms.
“This is the baby that was in Mama’s tummy,” she said. “This is Miyun, your baby sister.”
“Our baby, Mama?” Jihyun asked, his hand grasping the edge of her gown as Zhou Mi stood behind them.
“Our baby. She’ll stay in the little bed you helped put together. And you can sing to her every day.”
“Can she play with us? Play toys?” Juhyun wanted to know.
She could read between the lines on that one. Was the baby coming home with toys? Her mercenary child. “When she’s bigger. Do you like the shirts Daddy brought you?”
Their shirts read “I’m a big brother” with a happy face on them, and they both nodded, pensive in the unfamiliar room.
They both leaned in close, touching the soft, new skin. Giving her soft kisses. They sat like wide eyed little stones as Zhou Mi laid the baby in Jihyun’s lap. He squeezed gently with his pudgy arms, kissing her capped head as Zhou Mi took pictures. And then repeated the same with Juhyun.
“She’s lucky to have two big brothers like you,” Zhou Mi said, kissing both of them
“I’m good big brother, Baba,” Juhyun said, snuggling his head against Zhou Mi’s stomach. Jihyun crawled higher, snuggling under Kyuhyun’s free arm and pensively watching the sleeping baby.
“I love you, baby,” she said, kissing him.
“Not a baby,” Jihyun insisted. “Miyun is!”
“I love you anyway,” she told him. “And Juhyun, too.”
Juhyun sent her a wide smile. “Love you, too, Mommy,” he said sweetly.
“Love you, too, Mommy,” Jihyun echoed.
“Love you, too,” Zhou Mi said, leaning over the boys to give her a kiss.
If this was what she had, she thought with a sigh, then yes, the shop was definitely closed. Maybe they hadn’t planned the boys as they had Miyun, but the family they had gotten seemed wonderful just the way it was. Zhou Mi was glowing, and the boys were cautiously excited. And Miyun had a precious little face.
Even if Kyuhyun still wasn’t sure she looked that much like her.
***
The first few weeks were an echo of the first few weeks with the twins, in the way an echo was a softer follow-up. If the baby slept, she slept whenever possible. With the twins, when one was sleeping, one was fussing. And then they’d switch or wake each other up. But at night, when the twins were fast asleep and Zhou Mi was dead to the world, and the tiny snuggling little person in the bassinet had dozed after feeding, it was her turn to pass out. And it was lovely.
It had been just a few weeks after the twins had come home with them that she had reached some sort of critical mass, staring at the spitting up, pooping little bundles she had never planned for to begin with, who needed something every five seconds and she was a terrible mother, and...
She’d had the least amount of sleep she’d ever had in her life. Zhou Mi had tried. But he had gone back to work and had some little blissful picture in his head of a happy functional family, that he missed the part where she was slowly splitting at the seams, and she hid all she could of it from him. Because other mothers did it on their own. Why couldn’t she?
So after they had fed, when she dissolved into a puddle of hysterical tears inside of her and Zhou Mi’s bedroom, he got it.
“Kyu... Kyu.”
He had sat beside her as he called her parents, who were there within minutes, packing the twins into their carriers and whisking them away like good fairies. He stood with her, undressing her chastely and laying her in their sheets with a kiss. She was so tired she lay staring at the wall for several minutes, uncertain even of how to sleep. He scooted in behind her, holding her at first tentatively, then tightly, but with such comfort. A few more tears escaped and she slid into sleep for a solid three hours.
She popped out of sleep like a light bulb, fully on and ready, and she had showered and felt nearly human again. Zhou Mi was nearly finished feeding her, spoonfuls of soup to her amusement, when her parents got back.
She inhaled when she heard the sound of baby whimpers, her milk urgently ready. Her babies needed her, she...
She wasn’t a bad mother. She just needed help. And Zhou Mi was there. Her parents were. She kissed Zhou Mi, thanked him, and enjoyed it for the first time in what seemed like years. They had not, as one of her late night fear sessions had conjured, married only because of the babies. On some functional level, they were more solid together than they were apart. And at the twins’ birth, they had still been learning how to be husband and wife. And mother and father on top of that. She knew he had felt ashamed and helpless, that he had let her become that run down. His apologies still rang in her ears. But it wasn’t that it happened that impressed her as much as the fact that it hadn’t happened, never to that point, again.
They said that mothers became “touched out,” that the constant contact with the baby left the touch of the baby’s father as something extraneous and unwanted. But most of the time when he held her, breathed against her, she had never felt so lucky.
So when she made it through the first month with their daughter without wanting to scream or cry too hard at least, it was a blissful little accomplishment.
***
“You know what’s different this time?” Zhou Mi asked, the baby cuddled on his shoulder as he burped her. It wasn’t unusual to see Zhou Mi with the baby in tow. She was surprised the baby really got alone time at all, with the twins staring at her at all hours, and Zhou Mi carting her around like the world’s most necessary fashion accessory.
“What?” she asked, stretched back over their couch in bliss.
“You’re not telling me ‘It’s okay, it’s okay,’ nearly as much. We’re talking about things.”
She smiled. “Clearly it was insanity.”
“We’re better at this this time, yeah? You and me?”
She smiled, crossing her legs against his thigh. “Yes... I think so.”
She snoozed there, content to be near him, until he stroked her ankle to let her know they should sleep. The baby went without fuss into her bassinet, and Zhou Mi curled against her back until they fell into dreams
***
During the pregnancy, they had cuddled sometimes, stomach to stomach. When the baby had been particularly active, Zhou Mi could sometimes feel the movement as well. It was something they had started even when she was pregnant with the twins. But the last pregnancy though, had been something quite special to her... To have Zhou Mi with her at every milestone. She couldn’t love the boys more, but the experience itself was something she cherished.
And as she looked at the picture of her boys in their little suits, their pink-clad baby sister cuddled carefully between them... Two identical faces, a blend of both of them, and the little girl with her bead bright eyes and rounded cheeks. The light of her father’s life, and of Kyuhyun’s as well. Of course right after that perfection, one twin had punched the other, and the otherwise perfect baby had sent up a hungry whine.
Still, as she cradled her passed out daughter, and watched the twins lay siege to Fort Zhou Mi, who was squirming on the floor and trying not to laugh at their tickles...
No, it was obviously insanity. But she still had Zhou Mi’s smile.
(Among other things. She had tried on the little lace outfit for the first time in almost a year, and was gratified that A. It fit, and B. She could look at herself in the mirror without squinting too hard to get a better image. Zhou Mi had come up on her accidentally in her examination session, standing in the doorway of their bathroom with increasingly widening eyes. His pretty mouth dropped open in some kind statement, but...definitely not a verbal one. Things had been a little...scant for a while in the bedroom area for a few multitude of reasons.
“The boys are down?” she asked.
He blinked, processing, and finally nodded. “The baby, too. She was sleeping when I checked on her.”
She touched his shirtfront, staring up at him coyly. “So it’s just you and me?”
Just him and her. And the widening grin on his face let her know that he’d make it worth her while.)
***
“Hey, Sexy Kyu...” Zhou Mi whispered, after they had dozed against each other for a while.
“Hm?” She was tangled up in a sheet and some lace, and Zhou Mi had wormed a thigh between hers. “What, Sexy Mi?”
He chuckled at her imitation of the nickname, kissing her cheek. “Love you.”
“Love you, too.” She opened her eyes, staring hard at him in the dark. “Are you horny again?”
His hum was not one of embarrassment but definitely confirmation.
“I really love you, Kyu.”
She sighed, but pushed him over onto his back. She could see the gleam of his collarbones in the light. The dark of his eyes, as he reached to steady her arms.
“I swear,” she said, kissing a line up his breastbone. “You can’t do anything without me.”
***
The End~
No really, the end. Miyun clearly is daddy’s little girl and grows up blessed with their pretty genes, while her big brothers (at Zhou Mi’s urging?) try to beat up any guys who look her way, until she beats her brothers up, and gets Kyuhyun’s help.
I am sure the twins are both tall and thin and gorgeous as well. (Does one of them marry SiHan’s daughter and have “You held her as a baby!” pictures paraded around their wedding? You decide.)
SiHan has another child, because as Kyuhyun promised, the horror passed for Hankyung, and no one, no one can say no to Siwon’s puppy eyes.
KiHae got married (finally...), and waited a while before having a couple of terribly cute kids.
And they all lived happily ever after.
***
***
Thank you all for sticking with this side trip into insanity. <3 Thanks for all the encouragement and letting me know how it made you felt... made me feel like less of a dummy for writing it. :) And nice as it was, if my writer's license hasn't been revoked, then I think it's full steam ahead with boys, boys and more boys (and maybe a few more kids. just a few?). Thank you as always to the people who calm my neurotic tendencies (is it a requirement for a writer to have them? I don't know. But I do.). Anyway. wings_strength9 (plots SiHan forever) and wobaozhewo (wait, we're secretly doing what?), thanks for keeping me sane. <3