Page 75 of GR8VITY

I lift my head to capture his mouth again, and I can feel his smile against mine. "Thank you for my song and...everything else," I tell him.

"I'll end up writing you a dozen songs if you keep kissing me like that," he promises.

"What if I say I'll do it for free?" I ask.

He grins down at me. "Either way."

Rolling to the side, he adjusts himself before standing and reaching down to help me up. I want to offer to take care of him, too, but I feel like the moment has passed and would just be awkward.

"How do you feel about an early dinner?" he asks, letting me fix my pants before reaching for me again.

Considering it's been hours since we had breakfast and the adrenaline plus emotional rollercoaster, I could definitely eat. I tell him such and he chuckles. Taking us over to his desk, he gathers up the GR8VITZ from there before stopping to let me pick his fox up off the floor.

"How did you manage to carry all of these by yourself?" he asks, struggling to open the door while carrying five of them.

"Determination," I tell him, receiving another heart-stopping smile in return. There's no way I'm going to tell him it would’ve taken getting hit by a train to make me let them go. We won't get on the fact that it's what it felt like yesterday afternoon when I walked down the hall already half heartbroken to find Yoon Ji standing there looking at me curiously. Poor guy even tried to catch the things before they hit the floor when I dropped them.

Walking down the same hall with Seong Su now, I take more notice of the way that he moves, the muscles in his back flexing with every step as he carries the weighted stuffies. I reach out and hook my finger in his back belt loop, slowly pulling him to a stop. Reaching up on my toes, I press a kiss against the side of his neck. His chin turns so that he can steal that kiss for his lips instead and I oblige him.

We stroll into the kitchen both wearing smiles, only to find one of my favorite dishes being laid out on the counter. Right next to the little lion cub that is colored like the night sky that I saw Jae-un holding last night. The dish also being the chicken that he licked off my fingers standing in the middle of the sidewalk.

"What's this?" I ask, setting my fox down next to the lion and snaking my arms around Jae-un from the back.

I can feel him huff with my hands against his stomach. "Only our girl's favorite chicken in Seoul."

"You know me so well," I tell him, giving him another squeeze.

Pinching a piece between his fingers, he turns in my arms to give me a bite of it. Roles reversed, I grab his wrist and lick his fingers clean. "I think they did something different with it today. It tastes better."

Dav En, who walked up to the end of the counter halfway through, laughs. I pinch him softly on the side as I walk by, tickling him. We sit down at the table and have our early dinner, joking and laughing all the way through. It feels like any other day. Until they bring out the cake.

Jae-un sets it in front of me, and I immediately break down. He hugs me from the side, kissing the top of my head as Kyung grabs my leg, squeezing it gently.

"I'm sorry," I tell them, trying to hide my face.

"Don't be sorry, baby," In Se says from across the table.

"My omma made almost this same exact cake for me every year," I tell them, thinking of all the times I'd helped her put the strawberries on the whipped icing. "I wasn't prepared to see it."

"I'm sorry, Lizzy," Jae-un apologizes.

"Oh, no," I tell him, leaning back so I can see his face. "Don't be sorry. Please. You gave me a part of her today and not even on purpose. There's no way I can tell you what that means to me. It just caught me by surprise."

I pull him down for a quick kiss before he lights the candles and they sing to me. Closing my eyes, I don't wish for anything for myself, because what could I wish for that I don't already have? I wish for their happiness and their success as a group and for themselves before blowing out my candles.

"Does it taste like your omma's?" Yoon Ji asks as I take the first bite of my cake.

Smiling down the table at him, I answer honestly, "Almost exactly the same."

Tears gone but not forgotten, we make a new memory around my birthday strawberry cake. Afterward, I get pushed out the door with Kyung so that we can't help clean. As we walk out back, I find that he's got a blanket laid out in the grass with his brightly colored deer with a cute little comet tail sitting in the middle on top of a wrapped thin rectangle. We drop the other seven at the top of the blanket before taking off our shoes and sitting down on it.

"So, have you had a good birthday?" he asks, taking both of my hands in his and playing with my fingers.

"Better than just good," I answer, smiling as I think about everything they did for me today.

"Mmm," he says. "I'm glad you decided to let us spend it with you."

"Me too," I tell him. "Thank you guys for everything."