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Ricky is turning twenty (nineteen, in international age) tomorrow before he turns nineteen again in another month once South Korea demolishes their age system which still sends him into a fit of giggles whenever he thinks about it. He shared his thoughts with Gyuvin once when they saw the congratulatory post on their coming of age the company made for them. “And then what? Are they going to un-congratulate us and send us back into the closet?” Gyuvin was left unamused, being the subject of torture as the only token 2004 liner besides Ricky himself.
But, case in point. Ricky is turning twenty in just less than a few hours and he is excited. He’s always loved birthdays because there was more reason to indulge in cakes — and oh, does he love strawberry cakes. And strawberry milkshakes. And strawberry cookies.
Ricky is the kind of person who finds a liking in something once when he was five and has been loyal to it ever since.
He’s also excited because it’s the first time he’s celebrating his birthday as an idol and most importantly, as a ZeroBaseOne member. His last few birthdays were cosy though a bit dull — Zhang Hao had made sure to still get him his favourite strawberry ice cream cake and Seungeon whipped up some homemade recipe of a strawberry caramel latte and that had been nice but they were still trainees at that point in time and weren’t given the liberty to use the company card for karaoke rooms or indulge in alcohol.
Well, he doesn’t think they’ll be drinking on camera anytime soon when they have barely debuted but that is something he could wait for. He’ll be the first member to have an Instagram live and since he’s never ranked first in any of the elimination episodes back on the show, he’s taking every advantage to gloat about it now.
Ricky also suspects his members are planning something up their sleeves. It’s unfortunate that most of them are horrible liars — Hanbin turns red as a tomato the moment he has to make something up, Matthew starts stuttering even in his mother tongue, and Gyuvin was never the best at hiding secrets. If they ever played a game of ‘mafia’ it’ll be finished in five minutes. Well, except for Yujin, who seems to use his doe eyes to his advantage and let everyone believe he’s innocent. But Ricky has lived with him in the dorms long enough to know the telltale signs of when he’s lying.
He wakes up the morning of his birthday with a light stretch, happiness jostling in his body. The members bombarded into his room at midnight and gave him a hug as they wished him and promised they would celebrate at noon before he prepares for the Instagram live. He walks into the kitchen and is surprised to see Gyuvin sitting alone at the counter, scrolling his phone and munching on bread.
“Happy birthday!” Gyuvin cries out, stumbling out of his chair and pulling Ricky into a tight hug, the poor bread in the grip of his hand flailing everywhere. Ricky pats him on his head. He has to admit that Gyuvin can be cute in his expression of love though disastrous on most occasions.
“Call me hyung, I’m older than you now.” He blows a raspberry when Gyuvin denies his request, very mature of him, and Gyuvin retaliates by shoving the last bite of his bread into Ricky’s mouth.
“There, there, hyung-nim. Eat up before your old rattling bones give up on you.”
“Where are the rest? The dorm is so quiet for once,” Ricky asks once they stopped fighting. He still has an armful of Gyuvin and he doesn’t think Gyuvin would be letting him go anytime soon. He tries to bite back a smile when Gyuvin stiffens in his arms and coughs awkwardly, eyes suddenly gaining an interest at the wall behind Ricky. What did Ricky say about him being an awful liar?
“I think they went out to run some errands,” he mutters, clearly trying his best to not surrender. “But that’s not important! I have a surprise for you.”
The surprise in question led Ricky into one of the store rooms next to their training areas. It was usually vacant except for a few musical instruments so Ricky surely hopes it isn't a prank or someone is going to have a real, painful punch to his shoulder. Gyuvin holds Ricky’s hand as they make their way into the dark room. He locks the door and turns the lights on, and Ricky sees him grinning like a Cheshire cat.
“Close your eyes,” he instructs.
“Absolutely not.”
“Ricky,” Gyuvin whines. “Come on, I promise you’ll like it.”
Ricky narrows his eyes. “The last time you said that I ended up with a nosebleed.” It was true. Gyuvin had good intentions when he surprised Ricky with a hilariously long selfie stick for Christmas two years ago, except that he had been overly excited as he extended the stick and it accidentally collided into Ricky’s face. Zhang Hao was not pleased having to spend his Christmas night at the clinic.
“Okay that was one time,” Gyuvin pleads. “I promise this is an extremely safe surprise and no one is going to get hurt.”
“Fine,” Ricky gives in. “But if this ends us up with another lecture from Zhang Hao, I will kill you.”
He shuts his eyes and Gyuvin cheers gleefully. “Don’t open your eyes until I tell you so!” He hears Gyuvin’s footsteps to the back of the room, shuffling some boxes around and of course tripping on air, before he stands in front of Ricky again.
He clears his throat, “You can open your eyes now.” Ricky follows.
Gyuvin was holding a slice of cake in a transparent, triangular box. It might just be a normal cake for anyone else, but for Ricky—
“Where did you get this?” He gasps. He thinks he might actually cry.
Gyuvin smiles shyly, “It was a little difficult, honestly. I found a cake shop in the outskirts of town ran by a Chinese couple and they were familiar with the recipe of your favourite cake from your hometown. I begged them for a delivery and a slice was the best they could do, so I’m only giving it to you.”
Ricky might love all strawberry cakes, but this was his childhood cake. Sure, it might be from a different cake house, but it has the same sugar decorations in the shape of auspicious characters that his mother used to get for him. Even the packaging was similar. There’s a sting behind his eyes as he whispers, “This means the world. Thank you, Gyuvin-ah, I love it.”
He actually tears up after having the first bite and Gyuvin giggles at him. “Did I manage to sweep you off your feet?”
“Yes.” Ricky’s heart soars as he savours each bite in his mouth. “If you give me another, I'll fall in love with you.”
That earned a playful slap to his shoulder. “What’s your birthday wish this year?”
Ricky shrugs, “It already came true.”
“Which is?”
“To debut.” Ricky finishes the cake in one last bite, already missing it dearly. He thinks for a second and continues nonchalantly, “And to debut with you.”
Gyuvin’s eyes softened. “That was mine too,” he says quietly. “I wanted to debut and especially with you.”
And maybe because they were standing in a closed room with nothing but a small fan on, but Ricky feels heat rising in his cheeks with the way Gyuvin is looking at him. Because Gyuvin looks at him all the time so why—
Wait, pause. Gyuvin looks at him all the time?
Now that Ricky thinks about it, he actually can’t recall a time when Gyuvin does not look at him, reach out to him, or talk about him. Even when they were separated for that short period of time during Boys Planet, every time Ricky turned to look at where the K-Group was seated, Gyuvin was already looking back at him with that smile on his face. Gyuvin was constantly hanging on his shoulders and sitting next to him during meals. Gyuvin was the first person he confided in when he joined Yuehua, the one who hugged him the tightest when his name was called out during the finale night, screaming in his ear, I promised you we’ll make it together, didn’t I?
Ricky always thought it was a platonic friendship but—
They’ve been staring at each other as these thoughts run through Ricky’s brain at high speed and he sees redness starting to dust on Gyuvin’s cheekbones.
Is this… something? Is this an epiphany that is striking him now that he’s a legal adult?
Ricky opens his mouth, about to say something smart like Bro, I thought I liked you but turns out I might actually like you before Gyuvin lets out a blood-curdling scream in that split second and pushes himself into Ricky’s arms, “There’s a fucking lizard!”
Startled, Ricky drops the fork he was holding and the icing stains Gyuvin’s jeans before it falls to the floor. He sighs and squats down to pick it up, “Gyuvin, chill, you’re bigger than the lizard—
“Where did it go? I hear it moving!” He cries out, hands gripping at Ricky’s hair and Ricky is truly in an unfortunate position as his face gets pressed into Gyuvin’s thigh. He stammers, “Gyuvin, please—“
It’s as if Ricky was fated to be embarrassed on his first day as an adult because the door slams open with a loud “Surprise!” and Ricky can physically hear his heart falling onto the floor.
The world stopped moving for five seconds as the other members stared at them without a sound.
Gunwook lowers down the banner that says “King Ricky Slays” almost comically. Taerae, who was blowing the party horn, has his mouth gaped open in shock and the paper roll flops sadly. Matthew covers Yujin’s eyes, even though the boy has seen the entire tragedy, muttering alright we’re leaving and takes him away. Jiwoong looks like he’s contemplating between being disappointed and giving them a thumbs up. Hanbin gulps and turns to look at Zhang Hao, who immediately closes his eyes with a long-suffering sigh.
Ricky is still on his knees with Gyuvin’s hand fisted in his hair and it looks… well. Not very PG-13.
Zhang Hao has his thumb pressed on his forehead. Ricky thinks he might grow grey hair after this. “Shen Quanrui. Kim Gyuvin.” Oh god, the only time Zhang Hao calls Ricky by his full Chinese name is when he’s mad and loses the Korean translator in his head. “In my room. Now.”
Ricky is going to kill Gyuvin.
Zhang Hao lied. He took Gyuvin into his own room but pushed Ricky into Hanbin’s room instead, assigning his fate into the other’s hands.
Ricky never even had a private, one-to-one conversation with Hanbin up to this moment. Sure, they hangout in groups and make jokes together and Hanbin teaches him some dance techniques more frequently now. Hanbin had ruffled his hair and gave a playful tap on his butt when he wished Ricky happy birthday at midnight. He also might have accidentally walked in on Hanbin and Zhang Hao making out once, which is a core memory burned at the back of his head, and Hanbin had pulled him aside to apologise sheepishly because Zhang Hao was not sorry at all about it and burst into laughter when he saw Ricky’s reddened face. That was the most personal conversation they had.
Other than that? Ricky mostly watches from afar with amusement at his interaction with Zhang Hao, who constantly sings praises about how cute his boyfriend is.
Said boyfriend is now standing in front of him and it’s awkward and not at all how Ricky would imagine their first private conversation to go.
“Hanbin hyung, I promise we weren’t doing anything weird!” Ricky begs to get out of this before Hanbin says anything that could humiliate him further. “We were eating cake and just having a moment together and then Gyuvin pushed me to my knees—“
“Okay, okay.” Hanbin puts both hands on Ricky’s shoulder. “I’m going to stop you there before you do more damage to yourself. Listen, Ricky, I didn’t want to do this either—“
“But you have to because Zhang Hao is your boyfriend”, Ricky finishes lamely for him.
Hanbin nods. “I have to because Zhang Hao hyung is my boyfriend.” He looks at Ricky with determination in his eyes. “I guess that makes me your pseudo-step father.”
Ricky groans into his hands. “God, who even says that? You are worse than Zhang Hao.”
“Did he give you the birds and bees talk already? Should I talk to you about it?”
Ricky looks horrified. “We are not doing that.” He won’t be able to look at Hanbin for the next two and a half years if he ever gives sex-related advice to Ricky.
“Hey, it’s my first time being in a situation like this too,” Hanbin says. True enough, his face is beet red and Ricky feels slightly guilty that he got dragged (by Zhang Hao) into this… family conflict. “Cut your leader some slack, alright?”
Ricky’s shoulders slumped in defeat. There is definitely no way out of this. “Okay, fine. But I promise, it’s really not what it looks like.”
“I believe you,” Hanbin says. “I don’t think you guys are that dumb to be doing things like that in common areas.”
“Yeah, we won’t.”
“Oh?” Hanbin perks up. “So you do want to make a move on Gyuvin?”
“What? How— No! I mean, not exactly no, but— that’s not the point! Look, can we just drop the topic?”
Hanbin tilts his head back while laughing and Ricky thinks he might have gotten a little more evil ever since dating Zhang Hao. After all, the elder is a menace living in the body of a harmless man. Hanbin takes one look at Ricky’s exasperated face and sighs, “Listen, sometimes we might see things quicker than you can catch on. You and Gyuvin have an… interesting dynamic.”
“Right,” Ricky deadpans. “We fight all the time if that’s interesting.”
“It’s cute,” Hanbin coos and Ricky wants to die. “It could mean you both trust each other to know the fights won’t necessarily break you. It’s common in healthy couples.”
“You and Zhang Hao never fight,” Ricky points out.
“Oh, we do,” Hanbin winks. “Just in places you don’t want to know.”
Ricky covers his ears. “Alright, I’m done hearing! Thanks for the talk Hanbin hyung, but Gyuvin and I aren’t a couple. He doesn’t even like me like that.”
“Do you like him like that?” Hanbin asks. It doesn’t really sound like a question when it comes from Hanbin and Ricky feels like he’s being read like a book. Does he actually like Gyuvin as more than a friend? The thought of it sounds so bizarre especially because he’s known Gyuvin since they were children, but when he pictures Gyuvin’s face in his head — dumb, chaotic, careless Gyuvin with a kind smile and a kinder heart and various talents, it suddenly doesn’t seem too odd if Ricky were to fall for someone like him.
“I don’t know,” Ricky admits after a seemingly long pause. “Maybe? It’s still new to me and I don’t want to read into it too much.”
Hanbin pats his arm. Ricky tries not to think that it felt like how his own father would pat him to reassure him. “That’s okay,” Hanbin says. “You’re both best of friends and nothing won’t change that. You’ll figure it out.”
Hanbin finally opens the door and Ricky bows, making a beeline to the washroom so he can silently scream to himself.
Since Gyuvin fought tooth and nail to be with Ricky for his birthday party on Instagram live, Hanbin was assigned to overlook things, or in other words, to be on a parent’s duty. He feels a little bit of a third-wheel doing this after hearing Ricky’s confession, which is probably karma for all the times the kids had to third-wheel him and Zhang Hao, but he thinks it’s part of the package as a leader. He just hopes there won’t be another similar incident like the one in the store room earlier today because that would be hard to explain to the audience.
Well, Gyuvin did propose to Ricky with a bright pink ring half-way through the live show but he thinks it could still pass as family friendly. They’re behaving as they normally do despite the lectures they endured earlier on, so Hanbin takes it as a good sign.
Gyuvin pulls Ricky to the balcony once they make it back to their dorms. He juts his lips into a pout, “I’m sorry about today.”
Ricky instinctively punches him on the shoulder, making him yelp. “What do you have to be sorry for? You got me my favourite cake and a ring. This is the best birthday ever.”
Gyuvin’s eyes light up. “Really? You’re not mad at me? You were in the room with Hanbin hyung for a long time just now so I thought he might have given you a long lecture.”
“Nothing I can’t handle,” Ricky shrugs. “Besides, it’s over now. I had a lot of fun today. You made it better by joining me for the Instagram live.”
“Well, I’m happy that you’re happy,” Gyuvin says. “It’s your day so that’s all that matters to me.”
Filled with a surge of happiness, Gyuvin extends his hand towards Ricky, inviting him to hold on. Ricky reaches out and looks at how their fingers have been intertwined since their trainee days at Yuehua to Boys Planet to now, such a simple act of holding hands yet it manages to bring a small smile to his face, mirroring the other’s expression. The pink ring on his finger glistens underneath the night light with a soft glow.
“Since I’ve already debuted with you, I’ll make another wish for my birthday,” Gyuvin says.
Ricky looks at him curiously. “What is it?”
Gyuvin only offers him a wide grin. “You’ll find out when the time comes.”
(“Did you give Gyuvin a scolding?” Hanbin asks, cuddling closely to Zhang Hao on the bed.
“Nope,” Zhang Hao says.
“You didn’t?” Hanbin is surprised. “Why not?”
Zhang Hao merely waves a hand, “It’s time for him to realise his feelings. Everyone in the world knows it except the both of them. Might not be the best time or place, but it works. He immediately confessed to me that he might have had a gay awakening in the store room. I told him, it’s about damn time.”
“Ah,” Hanbin sighs happily. “So cute having your first love.”)