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“I’m telling you, Sou. It’s too much. I’m not one to be dramatic, but my birthday may as well be my death day. I’m not going to last.”
Soushi frowned as his friend’s voice echoed through the receiver. It was only Mori’s luck that he’d wind up swamped with projects and meetings on his birthday—no matter how many times Soushi suggested that he should move them, he refused, claiming that work took priority over his livelihood. That was his workaholic nature again. Mori hadn’t agreed to take on a producer’s tasks out of a half-hearted conviction, after all. He loved SOARA, and he loved the work he did for SOARA. (Soushi only wished Mori would love himself a little more.)
He sighed into the phone. “Mori, you need to take a break. Cancel your next meeting, at least. Stop overworking yourself.”
“I’m not overworking myself!” Mori protested, though there was a clear pain in his voice. “I’m… giving myself the gift of a job well done. Happy birthday, Arihara Morihito, you’re twenty-one and you’re living the life of a salaryman! Congratulations!” He let out a strained laugh.
“If you’re reverting to bad sarcasm, something’s wrong.” Soushi drummed his fingers on the tabletop, gazing at the sun that began to fall over the city skyline he saw through the common room window. While Mori didn’t seem the type, he was stubborn, more so than even Soushi could handle sometimes.
“I’m fine , Sou. I’ll be fine . Don’t worry about me, okay?”
“I will worry about you. You don’t worry about yourself, so someone has to. Listen, Mori. I care about you. I don’t want you to come home and immediately pass out without even trying to celebrate.”
Mori laughed on the other end. “It’s going to be alright. Please don’t worry. Now, I have to go to my next appointment, so I’ll talk to you later, okay? Bye!” He hung up without letting Soushi respond.
Soushi was never the kind of person to leave things unfinished. Certainly not when it came to Mori, one of his closest friends, and also the one he happened to have somehow developed slight tiny little feelings for sometime down the road. He really did care about Mori. He did.
And that was why, fifteen minutes later, eight of the nine members of ALIVE—Mori excluded—gathered in the SOARA common room, with Soushi at the front, ready to put his operation into motion.
Sora yawned. “Why are we here?”
“Yeah,” Nozomu agreed. “Ya told us there’d be cake.”
Soushi rolled his eyes. “You’ll get the cake later. It’s part of the plan. So be quiet and listen up or the cake doesn’t happen.”
Both of his bandmates fell silent.
“Right,” Soushi continued. “Who here can tell me what day it is?”
“Is it National Cake Day?”
“ Shut up, Mamoru.”
“Ryouta, be nice.”
“I don’t want to. You’re not my mom.”
“Hmm?”
“…Sorry, Kou-kun.”
Soushi cleared his throat.
“Today is our beloved Mori’s birthday,” he said with a groan. This might be harder than he had anticipated. “And you know who’s not here?”
Sora jumped out of his seat. “Ooh! Ooh! It’s Mori!”
“Good job, Sora. You get a gold star.”
“Do I really?! Yay!”
“No.” Soushi smacked Sora’s forehead, earning a quiet whimper from his childhood friend. “Stop talking and listen up. Mori’s working all day, and I thought, y’know, we can do something nice for him. So I want to throw a party. A surprise party. Can you guys help me with that?”
Sora gasped and began poking Soushi’s cheek. “Ooh, is this ‘cause of your biiiiiiiig crush on him? Mori-kun’s gonna love you, isn’t h—”
“Shut up.” Soushi, who had become beet-red, swatted Sora’s hand away. “As Mori’s friend , I feel responsible for helping him have a good day, yeah? And he’s having a really shitty day so far. So it’d be appreciated, a lot. Who’s in?”
After brief hesitation, the other seven idols agreed to help. Soushi had everyone on posts: he and Kouki would cook, Sora and Ryouta were on decorations, Ren and Kensuke would keep Nozomu from calling Mori and telling him, and Mamoru… Mamoru was asleep on the couch. Everything was going according to plan. It was perfect. Soushi was positive that Mori would have the best birthday of his life.
(Well, maybe not the best , given the rest of his day, but a pretty good one nonetheless.)
A few hours later, the cake was out of the oven, the common room was covered in green streamers and confetti, Nozomu’s phone had been confiscated, and everything was still perfect. The sun was almost gone behind the skyscrapers outside the window. And Soushi’s phone buzzed.
“Mori?”
“Hey, Sou, listen. This meeting’s going late. I won’t get out for another two hours at the least. I know you wanted to spend the evening celebrating, but I’m afraid there won’t be time.”
Soushi blinked. No, there would be time. Everything was perfect, right? “Hey. Mori. You’ll be okay. Deep breaths—”
“I have to go. Bye, Soushi.” The line went dead.
Soushi stared at his phone and sighed. The room around him was silent until Sora spoke up: “Hey, Soushi? What’s up? Somethin’ wrong?”
“Mori’s gonna be busy longer than we thought,” Soushi mumbled, looking up at the group.
A collective murmur rose around the room. “Oi, is it okay if I go to bed then?” Nozomu asked with an exaggerated yawn. “I’m tired, yanno?” Sora and Ryouta nodded in agreement.
“Perhaps we can save the cake for tomorrow,” Kouki thought aloud, gently moving Mamoru’s hand as he tried to sneak a taste.
Ren was asleep on the couch.
Even though it was past nine-thirty, Soushi didn’t feel tired at all. He couldn’t even consider going to sleep at this point. Perhaps it was his adrenaline, perhaps it was Mori, but he didn’t want to give in. “No. No sleeping. Keep the cake out. We’re not done here.”
Sora frowned. “Eeh? Sou?”
“I’m not going to sleep until Mori has showed up and been surprised and eaten his damn cake and enjoyed his damn party. Stay with me or not, but this is for Mori. He’s strong. He’s put up with whatever bullshit work he’s been doing all day, and he hasn’t dropped out. Are you guys gonna drop out? Huh? You’re not even doing half of what Mori does every day. Do it for him, y’know? For Mori’s sake. You can sacrifice a little sleep to see his smile, yeah?”
After a pause, Kouki nodded. “Indeed. Morihito is very hardworking, and we should persevere as well to show respect for him.”
“Kou said so, so I’m in!” Kensuke cheered.
“A rousing speech, Sou-nii,” Ren said quietly.
Soushi smiled. “For Mori. This is all for Mori.”
To put it simply, Mori wanted to die. He hadn’t had such a long day since… He couldn’t remember. It must have been a while, since he always remembered long days. And this certainly was one. His watch read 11:25 when he finally got in the company car to head back to the dorms, and his eyes closed as soon as the wheels started to move. Everyone was probably asleep by now, he figured. There was no reason to try to stay awake.
He had signed up for this, he remembered reluctantly—he could picture himself organizing each and every one of these meetings, the date of his birthday having somehow completely slipped his mind until the day itself came. Along with his coffee this morning came regret and impending exhaustion. It’d be a miracle if he even had time to think about his birthday at all.
A few of his bandmates and coworkers had sent him messages of goodwill, but it wasn’t far out of the ordinary: a stressful, busy, tiring day full of work upon work upon work. Although today was even more work. Perhaps a fourth work-upon-work must be added to the list.
Mori was beyond the descriptive capacity of the word “exhausted.” By the time he dragged himself out of the car and into the dorm elevator, he felt as if he were about to fall asleep while standing. (Could he even do that? Perhaps he’d find out.) He was so devoid of all energy that when he opened the common room door and was greeted by all his friends shouting “Happy birthday, Mori!” he didn’t react for a good five seconds.
“…You did all this for me?” was the first thing he could muster.
Sora ran up to him and hugged him tightly, which proved to help wake him up rather effectively. “Yeah, yeah! ‘Cause it’s your birthday! And Mo~ri~ku~n is the be~est!” Mori laughed, patting Sora’s head, and tried to walk farther into the room.
“Happy birthday, Mori,” Soushi said quietly. Mori wasn’t sure if it was his sleep-deprived delirium, but Soushi’s smile seemed almost sheepish, which he did find particularly adorable but nobody could know that or else he would have to kill them and himself. He gave Soushi a sweet smile of his own, one that—unknowingly—set the other’s heart into rapid pulsations. He wasn’t sure how long he held eye contact with Soushi, but it didn’t exactly matter to him. Despite his tiredness, he suddenly had all the energy in the world just from that smile.
Mori was brought out of his daze by Nozomu, who dragged him to the kitchen table, where the rest of the group was gathered. A two-tiered cake, elegantly decorated with green and yellow frosting, stood right in the middle, and Kensuke rushed to light the candles that stuck out of it. Mori grinned. “Do I get to make my wish now?”
“Yeah! Yeah!” Sora cried. “B-but don’t say it aloud, or it’s not gonna come true!”
Mori chuckled. “Alright, I won’t.” He closed his eyes, leaned forward, and blew.
I wish for all of SOARA to be happy, and for Soushi to know how much he is loved.
The room erupted into cheers. Mori found it difficult to stop smiling as the cake was cut and served (it was lemon cake, his favorite) and afterwards, when he opened thoughtful gifts from each of his friends. Perhaps his day hadn’t started well, but it had become a lovely birthday, he thought, looking around at the chattering group of idols from the balcony. They had waited so long for him, hadn't they? He could never put into words how much it meant to him.
“Mori, you got a minute?” He turned around to face the source of the voice—Soushi, whose face was slightly pink, was scratching the back of his neck and smiling that same sheepish smile.
Mori nodded. “Of course. What did you want to talk about?”
“You see,” Soushi said, looking down at his feet, “I had another present I wanted to give you. I know I gave you one already, but I hope you’ll accept two.”
Although Mori was shocked, he nodded carefully. “Y-you do? What is it?”
“Here. Take it.” Soushi held out his hand. When Mori reached over to grab the gift, he found his hand clasped in Soushi’s, which was, concerningly, empty.
“S-Sou, what—”
He hadn’t even noticed his friend’s face coming so close to his own, not until their lips touched gently, causing Mori’s chest to do a full-on gymnastics routine. He froze. Soushi. Soushi was kissing him. That was Soushi, whom he found to be a very lovely person, and he was kissing him. He really was.
When Soushi pulled away, Mori was at a loss for words. He couldn’t decide between blurting out an “I love you” or jumping off the balcony, so he settled for a startled, confused “W-what was that for?!” He could feel the heat in his cheeks—in his entire body, really—and, once again, he wanted to die.
Soushi squeezed Mori’s hand gently. “Happy birthday, Mori,” he whispered. “That was what I wanted to give you.”
Nobody in the world could have come up with a proper reaction to that statement. Mori’s closest approximation of a “proper reaction” was to open and close his mouth like a lost goldfish for about ten seconds before throwing himself against Soushi, connecting their lips again in some act of relief or love or something. It made sense at the time, probably.
He released the kiss after a while, breathing heavily, and smiled. He didn’t think he had ever smiled like that. “Is it okay if I give you a return gift?” he giggled, releasing Soushi’s hand and wrapping his arms around the other’s neck.
Soushi chuckled. In the light pouring outside from the common room, Mori could see that Soushi’s blush was almost as bad as his own. “Only if I can give you a return gift for that,” Soushi teased, giving Mori a tiny, quick kiss. “You know, this gift exchange might go on for a while.”
Mori kissed Soushi again, laughing quietly. “I wouldn’t mind that at all.”
The sun was long since gone, the moon taking its place in the sky, but Mori’s exhaustion and misery had faded away completely. What had been tiredness was now happiness, excitement, and love. Love not only for Soushi, but for his friends, who had all done so much to ensure his happiness despite the interruption of their own sleep schedules. And he couldn’t have been happier.
Today had been the best birthday of his life.