Meori Apeuda

Chapter 23

"Happy Birthday to you...Happy Birthday to you..."

"생일 축하합니다! (saengil chukahamnida), 생일 축하합니다..."

We were all assembled around the dining table, two adorable little cakes standing in front of me and Seungmin and the guys were singing in Korean and English at the same time, making it a complete chaos. I loved everything about it and couldn't stop grinning.

After being woken up by Chan kissing me softly and wishing me a Happy Birthday we had spent the morning in the house, eating and playing games. The guys introduced me to "Shout in Silence", a game where both players wore headphones with music, sitting across from each other.

Behind one of them stood another person with a notebook, where different terms were noted. The player seeing the terms now had a certain time-limit to describe these to the other player, by shouting.

I think I had never laughed this much in my entire life. Watching the guys shouting at each other, trying to figure out the terms was simply hilarious. Of course I didn't understand every term, because when they played with each other, they used Korean.

But with the help of Felix, Chan and Seungmin translating it for me, I followed along quite well. I had to play too, together with Han. But I had hardly been able to concentrate, because of his mimics and the awesome ways he had tried to describe dolphins for example.

"FIIIISH!!" he had cried, "FIIIISH....but...NO FIIIISH....KANGAROO FISH....!!!" I had fallen over backwards, laughing, along with everyone else, when he finally had started imitating dolphin sounds.

While playing I hadn't noticed that Felix and Hyunjin left for a while. When I saw them return with a bag in their hands I hadn't thought of anything. And now here I was, sitting in front of a cake, with a koala drawn on it and suddenly felt tears burning in my eyes.

These guys had known me for a WEEK, and made more of a fuss about my birthday than almost every other person had in my entire life, except for Cara of course. I swallowed and held back the tears with all my might. I didn't want to spoil anything. But I soon felt that I would lose this battle and quickly stood up before that happened.

Chan and Lee Know had gone to the kitchen to get a knife and plates for the cakes, the others were gathering around the baked goods to inspect them closer. I caught IN's gaze and quickly put a smile on my face, pointing upwards. "Just gotta use the bathroom real quick." I choked, hoping that no one could hear the strain in my voice.

He just blinked in surprise and I quickly walked towards the stairs, heading for Chan's room. I fled inside and with my back pressed against the closed door I slid to the ground, exhaling sharply.

'Honestly, Kaylee? What's this all about huh? You shouldn't cry, you should be happy as hell, and enjoy everything.' I scolded myself, but my weak attempt at a pep talk was no use.

Silent tears were running down my cheeks and I tried to wipe them away with an angry gesture, but it was no use. Why did it still bother me so much? It was ancient history. Not worthy of any of my tears.

A shy knock on the door made me wince and I felt someone pushing. 'Who wants to bet that it's a handsome Korean man with chocolate brown eyes?' I thought a little sarcastically and slid to the side, making way for the door.

He entered silently, accompanied by Jisung, to my surprise. Both crouched down in front of me, Chan laying his hand on my knee. I hid my face in my hands and sighed. "Please don't worry... I'm just a little overwhelmed, that's all." I murmured and rubbed my eyes.

I felt them sitting down on either side of me. Chan tried to lay a hand around my shoulders but suddenly Han protested: "Naaa na na na.... you can hold her all the time, hyung, now it's my turn!" He pushed Chan's arm away and replaced it with his own.