Family Bonds

Plans For the Future

Zarc woke up the next day feeling exhausted. He had spent half the night tending to the babies, who kept waking up crying. Whenever one of them started crying, the others were sure to follow. It was mostly the green-and-redhead that would start crying first, followed quickly by the one with purple-and-black hair, then the one with blue-and-yellow hair and the pink-and-purple one, usually in that order.

Half the time they didn't even need feeding or their diapers changed, but just seemed to miss Zarc. They did usually stop crying when Zarc picked them up and cradled them.

Zarc sighed as he made himself some coffee, knowing he wouldn't be able to leave the babies home alone while he was at work. He would have to take them in with him. Which would raise a lot of questions, seeing as he had a live interview with the Duelist Entertainment TV station scheduled for today.

"Hopefully the interviewer won't be bothered by the sudden appearance of the babies," he said.

"We still need to name them," said Dark Rebellion. "Got any name ideas?"

Zarc nodded, having been thinking about that since the babies' arrival, "I'm thinking Yuto, Yuri, Yugo, and Yuya. In that order, based on the order they were born according to the note."

Odd-Eyes was cooing over Yuya, who had woken up without crying for once. "You like that name, lil Yuya?" Yuya gurgled happily, grasping Odd-Eyes's finger with his tiny hand. "Aw, I think he likes his name!"

"They're probably going to be hungry again soon," Starve Venom said. "We should make them some formula."

No sooner were the words out of his mouth, Yuri woke up and started wailing. Which caused Yuya to start crying too. Which in turn woke Yuto who started crying, followed immediately by Yugo. Zarc rushed to prepare their bottles, which the dragons took to feed the babies while Zarc sipped his much-needed coffee. Fortunately the babies calmed down immediately as they started drinking their milk.

"They're so tiny!" Clear Wing cooed. "But they have such big appetites. Don't you, Yugo? Yes you do! Yes you do, yum yum!" Yugo looked up at the dragon as he gulped down his bottle.

"Are we sure they should be going to the interview with you?" Dark Rebellion asked, looking at Zarc. The duelist nodded, "I would leave them here with you four, but I'm worried about that crazy fan that left them here. I don't want to risk whoever it is deciding that they change their mind, and breaking into the house to take the babies back. They clearly know where we live, and if they're crazy enough to clone me, they're probably crazy enough to do other illegal stuff."

"Fair enough," Dark Rebellion said. Starve Venom looked around thoughtfully. "In that case, we should probably move to a new home. This apartment is only a studio apartment anyway. It's not going to be big enough for all of the babies for much longer."

"True," Zarc agreed. He thought for a minute. "I make enough money from my duels that I should be able to afford a nice place big enough for all of us. I may have to dip into my savings, but it'll be worth it if I can get a bigger place. It doesn't need to be very big right now, the kids should be able to share a room while they're younger, and use bunk beds as they get a bit older. A nice two-bedroom apartment should be big enough for now. Maybe three bedrooms, and we could use the third bedroom as a playroom for the kids."

"That sounds good!" Starve Venom agreed. "You can always save up for a proper house later on, when the kids are older!"

The rest of the dragons nodded in agreement, and Zarc smiled. Truth be told, he'd been considering getting a bigger place recently, but he'd never been able to really justify spending more money on a bigger place when there was no real need to upgrade. Now that he had four kids to raise, it was just the push he needed.