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The first time they sang to him had been more of a formality, an announcement to everyone in the room that Hey! We’re celebrating Wonwoo’s birthday now. We’re wrapping up practice and eating this cake. Soonyoung had been on the other side of the room then, talking to a staff member about something. Wonwoo assumes it’s for their stage performance. He’s not too keen on finding out.
From the mirror, he sees him perk up once Seokmin starts belting Our Wonwoo-hyung! Haaaappyyy birthdaaayy, syllables playfully dragged out. Just as immediately, he gets out of the corner and moves toward the center, whatever conversation he had then abandoned halfway in favour of being a part of the celebration.
“Wonwoo-hyung,” comes Mingyu’s shout even before he enters the practice room. “Happy birthday!” The rest of them flood into the room, huddling around him as Mingyu hands him the cake, three candles in the shape of a heart all lit up.
Because 29 candles is too many for a cake this size, Seokmin will say later. Not that it matters to Wonwoo anyway. At the very least, he’s glad it’s not his face again that greets him when he receives the cake.
He holds the cake in his hands now, careful to not let it slip as the flames flicker wildly.
They sing him Happy birthday again, restarting in English first and then Korean. A pair of hands finds their way to his waist when Wonwoo’s distracted, a touch so familiar that he doesn’t need to think twice about who it belongs to--the added weight on his right shoulder mollifying all uncertainties. His hands snake their way around Wonwoo’s torso until it rests over his stomach, tenderized where they meet.
Soonyoung’s hugs has the propensity to be a little constraining for a second before it turns into an embrace so full of affection that you can’t resist, partly because he’s already gripping you tight and making sure he gets his fill first. But also because it turns gentle, gentler once you relax into it.
“It’s grounding,” Wonwoo had confessed to Jihoon years back, slightly inebriated.
It’s something embarrassing, something he doesn’t want to bring up again, told in the private space of Jihoon’s studio because it had unearthed something vulnerable within him like a fruit cut open. “I get it. Soonyoung is hard to ignore,” he’d said in response, not unkind because Jihoon is anything but.
“You don’t understand.” Wonwoo had slurred in retaliation, then, Oh, mouth agape once he realized.
Jihoon doesn’t think of himself as kind but when Wonwoo’d replied, Because it’s Soonyoung, an almost-truth, he understood. Didn’t probe more than the drunken confession Wonwoo’d given him and switched the bottle in his hand for water.
Wonwoo says next, “Jihoon-ah, you’re such a good friend and I know I don’t say this often but I really appreciate you.” Or at least, it’s what he thinks he says because the next thing he knows he’s waking up a few hours later to a stiff neck, blanket draped over him and an impatient huff from Jihoon, “You’re not allowed to drink in my studio again."
The confession comes without strain now, Soonyoung’s embrace seamlessly guiding the words that refuse to leave his throat. Left, right. Left, right. Happy birthday Wonwoo, they sing.
He hums the song instead of singing it in Wonwoo’s ear but it’s done in a Soonyoung-like manner, which is to say he uses the same decibel as his usual talking voice. The humming fades away to a discontinuous buzzing of Hmm… hm hmm.. as Seokmin leads the song before the buzzing eventually stops and then it’s just Soonyoung, Wonwoo, and the casual rhythm they fall into. Wonwoo feels Soonyoung tightening his embrace slightly, pulling him closer. Then—
The mark that he left, Wonwoo could’ve brushed it off as an accident. Except the second time it had happen, it comes just as surprising but equally light and tender in its execution, intention as clear as it gets. It seems to say: Wonwoo, happy birthday.
It wants to say: Wonwoo, thank you.
It says: I love you.
It’s the full truth that Jihoon gets when he raises an eyebrow at a flustered Wonwoo and a grinning Soonyoung behind him, gratified at the sight of the pinkish tips of Wonwoo’s ears.
Jihoon’s no stranger to it, grown accustomed to the casual intimacy since their trainee days but it still doesn’t stop Wonwoo from feeling prickly at having the fleshy, vulnerable parts of himself laid bare.
He only hopes he’s spared of the interrogation he knows Jihoon’s already building up to.
“Make a wish, hyung.”
It comes easy, wish already at the tip of his tongue.
“Let’s be happy always,” he smiles. What it entails: hands cupping his face, a grin where they connect and where their breaths tangle and mix with one another, fingers curling the soft strands of hair at his nape. Wonwoo, said like a prayer and the sounds he’d swallow after. He’d gather the sure weight of a warmth he can effortlessly recognise in the dark as a product of years being acquainted onto his lap; heavy and light at the same time.
He blows the candles and Soonyoung blows on his nape, right on the spot where he kissed him earlier. It doesn’t do anything to quell the stampede in Wonwoo’s stomach.
By the time he turns around—absence of a warmth felt— Soonyoung’s already being dragged away by Seungcheol, caught red-handed and reprimanded with no real bite to it. Only that it’s too close to a fact.
(They’ll watch the footage later and sigh in relief that it’s strategically obscured by Soonyoung’s cap. The only evidence of it ever happening is the grin he wears when the clip cuts to Wonwoo’s face and the color that rises to Wonwoo’s cheekbones, barely seen in the blurry clip they’d gotten.)
“It’s not even a kiss, Wonwoo. You consider that a kiss?” Soonyoung had laughed at him when Wonwoo pulled him aside, thrilled at the mischief even after the scolding he received from Seungcheol prior. Wonwoo’d say, It was definitely a kiss, Soonyoung, but the warning in his tone would be lost to the cheeky smile that Soonyoung gives him. Ultimately, it’s what undoes him.
“Wonwoo-ya,” Soonyoung says now, annoyingly sweet and placating. He’d say I’m sorry, you were right. I shouldn’t have done that in front of the camera, but that’s just not how they function. Instead, there’s a palm on his nape and there’s Soonyoung in front of him, thumb rubbing soothingly in repetition over the spot he kissed earlier.
This Soonyoung says: “Happy birthday. I’ll treat you to something good after this.”
What he doesn’t, Wonwoo allows it to linger.