TRACK 18 #3
"Determination," I tell him, receiving another heart-stopping smile in return.
There's no way I'm going to tell him it would’ve taken getting hit by a train to make me let them go.
We won't get on the fact that it's what it felt like yesterday afternoon when I walked down the hall already half heartbroken to find Yoon Ji standing there looking at me curiously.
Poor guy even tried to catch the things before they hit the floor when I dropped them.
Walking down the same hall with Seong Su now, I take more notice of the way that he moves, the muscles in his back flexing with every step as he carries the weighted stuffies.
I reach out and hook my finger in his back belt loop, slowly pulling him to a stop.
Reaching up on my toes, I press a kiss against the side of his neck.
His chin turns so that he can steal that kiss for his lips instead and I oblige him.
We stroll into the kitchen both wearing smiles, only to find one of my favorite dishes being laid out on the counter.
Right next to the little lion cub that is colored like the night sky that I saw Jae-un holding last night.
The dish also being the chicken that he licked off my fingers standing in the middle of the sidewalk.
"What's this?" I ask, setting my fox down next to the lion and snaking my arms around Jae-un from the back.
I can feel him huff with my hands against his stomach. "Only our girl's favorite chicken in Seoul."
"You know me so well," I tell him, giving him another squeeze.
Pinching a piece between his fingers, he turns in my arms to give me a bite of it. Roles reversed, I grab his wrist and lick his fingers clean. "I think they did something different with it today. It tastes better."
Dav En, who walked up to the end of the counter halfway through, laughs. I pinch him softly on the side as I walk by, tickling him. We sit down at the table and have our early dinner, joking and laughing all the way through. It feels like any other day. Until they bring out the cake.
Jae-un sets it in front of me, and I immediately break down. He hugs me from the side, kissing the top of my head as Kyung grabs my leg, squeezing it gently.
"I'm sorry," I tell them, trying to hide my face.
"Don't be sorry, baby," In Se says from across the table.
"My omma made almost this same exact cake for me every year," I tell them, thinking of all the times I'd helped her put the strawberries on the whipped icing. "I wasn't prepared to see it."
"I'm sorry, Lizzy," Jae-un apologizes.
"Oh, no," I tell him, leaning back so I can see his face. "Don't be sorry. Please. You gave me a part of her today and not even on purpose. There's no way I can tell you what that means to me. It just caught me by surprise."
I pull him down for a quick kiss before he lights the candles and they sing to me.
Closing my eyes, I don't wish for anything for myself, because what could I wish for that I don't already have?
I wish for their happiness and their success as a group and for themselves before blowing out my candles.
"Does it taste like your omma's?" Yoon Ji asks as I take the first bite of my cake.
Smiling down the table at him, I answer honestly, "Almost exactly the same."
Tears gone but not forgotten, we make a new memory around my birthday strawberry cake.
Afterward, I get pushed out the door with Kyung so that we can't help clean.
As we walk out back, I find that he's got a blanket laid out in the grass with his brightly colored deer with a cute little comet tail sitting in the middle on top of a wrapped thin rectangle.
We drop the other seven at the top of the blanket before taking off our shoes and sitting down on it.
"So, have you had a good birthday?" he asks, taking both of my hands in his and playing with my fingers.
"Better than just good," I answer, smiling as I think about everything they did for me today.
"Mmm," he says. "I'm glad you decided to let us spend it with you."
"Me too," I tell him. "Thank you guys for everything."
He kisses my hands. "You still have one more present."
"You?" I ask, making his head fall back with his laugh.
"You can have me any time you want me, because I'm already yours," he states around his grin. Taking my hands, he closes them around the wrapped present before moving his deer up to where the others are sitting.
Unwrapping the paper, I feel my eyes welling up again, even when I swore to fight off the next round of tears.
Inside a glass picture frame sits the photo of all of us with my jellyfish in the background.
I hug it to my chest. It'll fit nicely with wherever I decide to put my GR8VITZ.
A reminder of my first birthday in years that I haven't spent alone.
I put it up there with all the little animals so that when we lay down all I have to do is look up to see it.
We lie outside hand in hand, talking until the sun starts to set and the stars start to come out.
Kyung turns to his side and pulls me into his arms. We share soft kisses and watch the stars come alive until we start to get cold and take our stuff inside.
There he gives me the last present of the night.