A surprise birthday party for Jim - A Soy Luna Fanfic

Chapter 16: Wait, there's more?

A never ending dream

The group continued eating; occasionally bringing up new topics, but mostly staying silent and just enjoying the food.

One thing that had to happen of course, was that Ramiro fell off of his chair for not being able to stay still for more than three seconds.
He was pretty annoyed that he was now laying on the floor, not being able to get back up without further help.
After a bit of disputing between the boy and Yam and a fed up 'Well, maybe I do need help', Yam reached out her hand towards the floor, so he was able to stand up again, this leading to an uproar of laughter for the two.
They kept on denying liking each other, but their blushing and stubbornness definitely said otherwise.

Another situation which completely went in another direction followed up quite quickly.

In advance, Nina had calculated that the cake would consist of roughly 14 slices if they were cut in medium thickness, of which 10 were already gone after the first round of eating.
This then meant that four extra slices were left for the really hungry ones. The group was in luck; the only people that actually ate more than one slice per cake, were Luna, Jim, Simón and Jazmín, the rest just simply didn't want more than one piece or wanted to leave the pieces to others.
So, after Luna and Simón had gotten their second slice, it was finally Jim's turn.
She might be a very hungry girl, but she's also a very slow eater.
Politely, she asked into the group whether someone could hand her another piece of the cake, while slowly sliding her plate towards the tray.

The sound of the porcelain hitting against the glass woke up Nina and Gastón's sense of generosity.
Simultaneously, the two reached for the cake server, in order to put a piece on Jim's cake.
But what actually happened, what that their hands touched on the handle of the cake server, making Nina notice just how warm Gastón's hand, the one that was above hers, felt.

'It had the perfect warmth to make you cozy inside on a cold winter's day', Nina started to daydream.

Is that a crush?

Ever since getting a crush, she had always imagined what it would be like to hold hands with somebody like him.
He must be a lot different to me, she thought.
Even though her actual crush was a person she met online named 'Rollertrack', she still felt a certain attraction to Gastón.
Sure, he was popular, knew a lot of people and was friends with Matteo, but he also, sometimes, found interest in talking to her, the shy nerd that enjoyed reading books and photography.

He wasn't like the rest of popular people, he actually showed deep interest in her and seemed to enjoy when the two regularly worked on projects for their photography class.
Hell, he even kept a picture of Nina since he thought it was a 'nice image'.
But surely, he didn't see Nina in the way she saw him, right?

Nina didn't want to get ahead of herself, he most likely just wanted to be on good terms with everybody.
Besides, even to Nina, he was just a great friend, nothing more.
But why does he seem so close even if he's supposed to be so distant?

Even though the position was very romantic, the two quickly got embarrassed and pulled their hands away from the server.
Nina also caught Gastón blushing for a split second, which was very much unlike his usual character.

Did he feel something special as well?

Their blushing got more intense when the whole table starting saying things like 'Ooh~' and 'Gastón and Nina sitting on a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g' and so on.
After the pair had finally gotten them to stop, they agreed on Nina holding the plate, as Gastón placed the cake on it.
They soon noticed that communication definitely was the key to a lot of things, since this time around, their job worked effortlessly.

Jim nicely thanked the pair for their rather funny way of giving her the piece, to which the two looked away in embarrassment.
Hopefully these accidents didn't become a stable in their 'relationship' anytime soon.

20 minutes after these, rather unusual, interruptions, the 'extra hungry' guests were finally full and everyone thanked Nina and Simón for their absolutely gratifying cake.
"It was delicious!"
"Absolutely amazing!"
"Thank you so much!" were things that were yelled at the two, with Luna even making a flower-throwing motion.

"So uhm, can we maybe at least dance a little bit before you all go home again? You know, as a nice ending perhaps?", Jim carefully asked.
Pedro giggled.
"Hmm?", Jim questioned him.
"Go home? Oh no, we are far from done", he told her.
"Wait wha-"
"We've got plenty of surprises for you today, did you really think you were going home after some singing and a piece of cake?", he interrupted the rather confused girl.
"I mean, I'm not expecting anything here, Pedro! Besides, as if this hasn't been a lot already-", Jim pouted.

"C'mon Jim, you know the drill, just close your eyes."
"Pedro, I'm in shock since this feels like a never ending dream, let me cope already!", she playfully stated, causing everyone to notice just how well this all had been planned out. Yam really knew everything about her best friend, now didn't she?

"Ok Jim, coping time over. Close your eyes or were bringing in Simón in a bear costume to do it for you, permanently", Ramiro motionlessly said.
"Yo what-", the crowd just answered in unison, while Jim burst out laughing at the thought of seeing Simón in a cute, fluffy costume with little ears on his head.
"Ooh I'm sooooo frightened", she said in a ghost voice, while holding her eyes closed once more.
"You should be, Jim!", Simón finished off the joke.
"But hurry up this time, alright?", Jim scolded her friends.
"We'll try our best", Nina answered.

That didn't go smoothly

After having made sure Jim didn't peek, Yam quickly motioned a hand gesture for everyone to run to the stage and grab their gifts.
What seemed like an easy job slowly turned into a disaster.

It was nuts.

With nobody being able to find their gift due to the pure chaos, eventually, they had to resort back to elementary school techniques: having everyone line up before the messy pile and, one-by-one, looking for their gift, which took a very long time.

"Is everything alright with you all?", Jim asked in a concerned matter.

"We're okay!", Jazmín gleefully answered, as she almost fell into the pile of gifts, with Delfi luckily being able to grab her by the waist before she made a sound.
Even after Jazmín had found her gift with Delfi's help, she still didn't make her best friend let go of the grip.

After astonishing 10 minutes, everyone returned to the table, sitting down in their old seats.
They all placed their gifts, if possible, underneath the table, to add to the surprise effect.

Yam made a, sort of useless, silencing motion, since everyone was already quiet.
After a bit of waiting, everyone yelled "Open your eyes!" in a chore.

The more the merrier

"Open your eyes!", everyone exclaimed in a chore as, as Jim opened her eyes.

She was in complete awe.
Now before her were her beautiful friends and some beautiful gifts too!
Jim was beyond happy to be receiving gifts.
She was a typical birthday girl, even though she hadn't expected there to be gifts after the beginning of the party had already been so complex.

"GIFTS? OMG, I absolutely love gifts, but I didn't think I'd still get some after how huge this party has already been!
...I'm pretty sure I don't even want to know how much time this took you all", Jim said, shocked.
"Well, it actually...", Jazmín started, but ending getting interrupted by Delfi again.
"Well, what would a birthday girl, or, more precisely, our Jim do if she didn't get any gifts?", Yam asked, mockingly.
"Hmm, let me think. She would... attack!", Jim exclaimed, while forming bear claws with her hands and supposedly 'attacking' Yam, which got a laugh out of everyone; Ramiro couldn't even snap back out of it for some reason.

"Yam, I have a question...", Jim asked her, while poking her arm repeatedly.