If I Could Dance With You Again

IICDWYA: 57

Chapter 57

The night was supposed to be simple.

Soonyoung had told himself that over and over as he stared at the candles flickering on the cake his friends had bought. Just a quiet birthday, nothing extravagant, nothing loud. He didn't want the clubs, didn't want the neon lights, didn't want the hollow laughter that had filled his nights for months. He wanted something steady, something that reminded him he was still tethered to the world.

But even as Mingyu joked about the cake being too small for someone who "ate like a bear," and Jun teased him about turning older but not wiser, Soonyoung felt the familiar ache gnawing at his chest. 

Aaliyah's absence was a wound that refused to close.

It had been so many months since her last message. Months since she had said she needed space. Over a year since she had told him she wouldn't come back.

The days had blurred into seasons, yet the emptiness remained.

Soonyoung had walked through the city streets as though they were echoes of her laughter, every corner carrying a memory he could not let go.

At night, he lay awake, listening to the hum of the world outside his window. It was in those hours that her absence pressed hardest against his chest. He wondered if she still remembered the way he used to hold her hand, the way his voice softened when he spoke her name.

He never spoke of her to anyone. His friends thought he had moved on, but in truth, he carried her like a secret wound—hidden, but never healed.

And yet, beneath the grief, a fragile hope flickered. He imagined her returning, perhaps by chance, perhaps by fate. He pictured the moment their eyes would meet again, and how the silence between them would break into something whole.

Until then, he lived in waiting.
Every sunrise was a question.
Every sunset, a prayer.

And he had tried—God, he had tried—to move on. He had drowned himself in music, in dancing, in the blur of strangers' faces under strobe lights. He had made mistakes, one mistake in particular that had cost him more than he could bear. And when Aaliyah found out, she had cut the last thread between them.

Now, on his birthday, surrounded by friends who loved him enough to keep him afloat, he thought maybe—just maybe—the night would pass without the shadow of her memory pressing down on him.

Until the doorbell rang.

At first, he didn't move. He thought it was another late guest, maybe Vernon arriving with his usual casual grin, or Dino with a bag of snacks he'd forgotten to bring earlier. But the two boys were there with him. Maybe it was his two hyungs, but they were in the military. Still in the military and about to get discharged. 

The ringing persisted, sharp and insistent, cutting through the laughter in the living room.

"I'll get it," Soonyoung muttered, pushing himself off the couch.

The hallway felt longer than usual, each step echoing with a strange anticipation. He opened the door—and froze.

There, on the threshold, was a stroller. A large one, the kind meant for more than one child. Three baby bags hung neatly from the handles. And inside, nestled under soft blankets, were three tiny babies, their chests rising and falling in perfect rhythm.

On top of the stroller sat a folded letter.

Soonyoung's breath caught. His hands trembled as he reached for the paper, unfolding it slowly, as if the words inside might shatter him.