"Changgu! Are you finished?" Hui yelled from outside.
"No, hyung, not yet! When shall we finish?" Changgu asked properly. The staff looked at his ancient wristwatch and showed up a thumb and index finger to Changgu. "Seven more... minutes! Wait me in seven minutes!" Changgu yelled.
These days Hui felt his head aching so bad from handling the nine boys (no actually, it was eight, since Jinho could at least take care of himself properly), especially after receiving the letter from his father. The pain wouldn't seem to go sooner, he thought. Seven more minutes were enough for a cup of tea, perhaps. So Hui took a short walk to the kingdom's kitchen, finding Shuhua, Shinwon, and Seonho making some sort of foods. Both of them bowed deeply when their eyes locked with Hui's.
"Annyeong, hyung," Seonho casually said. "Do you want some-"
Seonho was about to talk when Shinwon suddenly shoved a teacup of hot tea (wordplay intended) onto Hui's face, that some of it got spilled. "Hot tea yeah~ You want?" he asked proudly before his fingers got burned by the spilled liquid, causing him to place the cup on a small table. "Ouch, that hurts!"
Instead of laughing, Hui closed his face with his palm, as he saw Shuhua cleaning the spill fast and Seonho offering him more confectionery. He could hear Shuhua asking if Shinwon was okay. He rejected Seonho's offer afterwards and drank the tea Shinwon had prepared. At least it wasn't too sweet and too hot. Usually Shinwon prepared iced tea, and it really didn't match Hui's taste.
"For the first time, you actually succeed in making something," Hui said, chuckled.
"Ya, hyung, so you think I always fail?!" Hui nodded, and Shinwon slapped Hui's arm for a bit. "By the way, you don't look fine there, hyung. Have a rest."
"I will, after we discuss about that thing." It raised Shinwon's eyebrows, but the younger brushed it off. After a while, Hui left the kitchen, finding his way to his own room, and threw away his body onto the king-sized bedroom. Ouch. The pain grew larger than he expected. He closed his eyes, trying to trap himself into the world of dreams and imaginations.
Just as Hui fell asleep, Changgu had finished taking his photos. He couldn't miss the kingdom's most famous magazine's request, after all. He ran outside to the palace's hallway and he screamed Hui's name at the top of his lungs. "Hui-hyung! I'm finished!"
"Aish, shut up, Changgu," said a person carrying something inside his stomach so he looked pregnant. "Ya, Yananie! Are you carrying someone's child or something?" Changgu replied.
"Huh?"
"Your stomach. It's so big!"
"Oh, this?" The tall blonde pulled out a balloon with smiling emoji from inside his stomach, causing an eruption of laugh from Changgu following by his falling down on his knees. A big curve immediately made Yanan's lips, and he punched the older twin with his knuckles.
"Ouch! That hurts!" Changgu groaned.
"This is my son! Don't laugh at him," Yanan said angrily.
"But that's not your son, that's a balloon!"
Seems like their debate wouldn't end sooner, so let us move on to the other kids, shall we? We had Prince Hui sleeping, Prince Changgu and Prince Yanan debating, then Prince Shinwon with the younger kids... oh, there was someone in the hallway-
"HOLLUP!"
The only things that could put Changgu and Yanan's debate off were two things: either one of them surrendered or they were forced to be quiet. Fortunately, it was the latter, but it was not fortunate when the ones doing so were Hyojong and Wooseok.
"MOTHAFUCKAS, PUT YER HANDS UP!" Wooseok screamed loudly. He then banged the pan he held with a spatula, making noisy chinks and metal scratches throughout the hallway. It was followed with Hyojong's notorious scream that could wake up the entire palace. Yanan had always been sensitive with loud noise, so it was entirely common to find Yanan chasing on Wooseok and Hyojong and hitting them with the hardest knuckles he could make. On the left wing was Yuto and Hyunggu, both didn't come down the stairs in the most normal way possible. Yuto walked down the stairs with his hands (yes, he was legit going down the stairs by doing a handstand) and Hyunggu slid on the banister while doing some ballet moves before landing safely onto the ground.
"How did you two do that?" Changgu said, awestruck. Hyunggu's lips curved into a smile when hearing the appraisal from the older prince. Yuto couldn't handle it much longer so he placed his legs onto the next few steps and stood up and walked down the stairs as if nothing weird happened.
Yuto inhaled a few amount of breaths. "Nandemo nai," he said with the deepest voice possible. "It's nothing, really. Just trying some new stuffs in the palace."
The hysterical laughs coming from Changgu and Hyunggu and basically all the mess were the real reasons why the Emperor wanted to give a space for his special princes. He already dealt a lot of trouble taking care of King Eunkwang and the older sons, and he thought the new princes would be obedient and at least less problematic for the empire household. Well, at least they were more obedient than King Eunkwang and his fellows, but still, peace was still needed in the empire.
Prince Jinho could understand that, at least, but he would never understand why the Emperor would send him together with the rest of the princes. If he had the chance to choose, he'd rather stay in the empire household and teach Seonho singing all day. Not to mention that the island Emperor gave was incredibly huge, that it could be used to make a whole new nation or a war base. Prince Jinho was in the ballroom to practice his dancing with Hongseok and all he could think of was all the chaos he would face if he went outside the ballroom right now.
"I'm going out for a while," Hongseok said, smiling to Jinho. "Gotta have some fresh air."
Hongseok's last words were followed by a desperate laugh. "Fresh air? More like the breeze of chaos!"
Hongseok smiled again. "It's alright. We were also like that when we were kids. Remember when father said we are more amazing than Changsub-hyung and Eunkwang-hyung combined?"
"But that's not a compliment..."
"Take it in a positive way. They both are vocal prodigies! By the way, I'm still going out. You sure you don't wanna come, hyung?"
Jinho let out a heavy sigh, then stood up. Hongseok took that as a yes.
And so the ballroom door welcomed them to the outside world, full of epitomes of nation's destruction. They didn't expect the mess outside to be... at least cleaner? Usually Wooseok loved to pop out gigantic confetti and often there would be someone hurt by their actions, but "nothing really bad" happened. Jinho felt a little bit relieved since he was free from the job to heal his dongsaengs.
"Hyung!" Changgu shouted. "Didn't know that you were inside the ballroom! Why don't you tell me?"
"We just practice inside, nothing much," Hongseok replied. "You are busy for photo sessions, too."
Jinho scanned the room and noticed something was missing. "Where's Shinwon?"
"Shinwon-hyung's too busy with Seonho," Wooseok replied, his body on the floor. "We are damn bored without him."
"Come to think of it, where's Hui-hyung?" Hyunggu cut. "I didn't see him anywhere."
"Oh, yeah! I also looked for Hui-hyung when I saw Yanan pregnant."
"Pregnant?!"
"Yeah! And that smiley balloon is his kid!" And so Changgu got two hard punches from Yanan and Hyunggu.
They ended up looking for Hui and Shinwon through the whole palace. Jinho was the one telling them to separate. Jinho, Hongseok, Changgu, and Hyojong looked on the second and third floor, while the triplets and Yanan searched on the first floor and outside the palace. Eventually, the triplets and Yanan found Shinwon in the kitchen, and decided to play around for a while. The other four searched everywhere but there were left by nothing.
"Really, where is he...? His bedroom is also locked... that means he isn't sleeping, right?"
Hui could hear some voices from outside the bedroom. He just realized that he fell asleep and forgot about his appointment with the nine boys. He immediately rose up, feeling that he got better after the nap. He opened the door to be welcomed by four princes, and Hyojong immediately pecked Hui's cheek, causing the older to stay on guard and wipe his cheek.
"Yikes!" Hui groaned.
"There you are," Jinho exclaimed. "We've been looking for you."
"What's happening?"
"My photo session is done!" Changgu said cheerfully. "Why are you looking for me, hyung?"
"Ah, where are the other kids? We need to gather. You know, about the letter from father."
After a while, the ten of them settled their place in Hui's bedroom. It was not a small room for one person, but enough to keep ten people. Hui took the letter he was given to, and he read it once more. Mess sure happened a lot in their care, but a lot of time they took matters like this very seriously. The room was full with small talks and ideas until the moonlight shone through the hallway.
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[ hello! ]
this is my very first work on Pentagon-related fictions. please do not forget to vote, leave a comment, and share this to your friends and fellow Universe!