The Unexpected Gift

“Three things remain with us from paradise: stars, flowers and children.”

Dante Alighieri

When Seungyeon entered the impressive lobby of The Plaza she felt like the winner of a secret mission on the famous variety show Running Man. Amazingly she  had somehow managed to achieve the impossible: she actually travelled all the way to New York without blowing her cover, successfully fooling numerous fans and reporters in and outside of Korea about her spontaneous undercover getaway. There was no denying it, the training which she received for her latest spy film surely came in handy today.

“Nari-ah, wake up sweetie. We arrived already.” Seungyeon whispered as she directly made her way to the reception, knowing that her secret helper had disposed an envelope with everything she needed for her there.

A pair of familiar golden-brown eyes looked back at her dozily as the small body of the two year old toddler slowly came alive.

“It’s time to meet daddy now.”

*****

The crowd at the classy main entrance instantly went crazy when CNBLUE reached the hotel. The four brothers had to make their way through a large amount of fans and reporters who were either wildly shouting love confessions or asking questions about the band members’ private lives while pointing photos for autographs or microphones towards their faces. If Jonghyun didn’t know better he would have thought he was preparing for an upcoming concert somewhere in Asia, not in America. It felt great to receive so much love from the public, especially since they were foreigners here.

But where light was, shade wasn’t far. The downside of leading a celebrity’s life was undisputedly that they were all away from home many weeks or even months during the year, which generally made it very complicated to maintain healthy relationships. Just like most of his fellow colleagues Junghyun felt under pressure sometimes, particularly now though because of his current situation.

“Yah, Jonghyun Hyung! Are you sleep walking?” Jungshin tried to wake up the lead guitarist from his deep thoughts. “Aren’t you getting off the elevator with us?”

“Don’t be so stringent. You should know better than anyone who’s keeping his mind busy lately.” Minhyuk answered instead. “Are you sure you want to get involved with this family, too?” He asked teasingly, earning himself a nudge from the tall Maknae.

“Stop worrying about her, Hyung. Destiny always has a way of working things out.” Jungshin advised like the new owner of the philosopher’s stone, but Jonghyun was not really interested in his counselling attempts.

“Jungshin-ah, let it go. Try being Mr. Know-it-all again when you got as much on your plate as Jonghyun-ah does. Let’s all get some rest now. We only have two days left before the concert. I am willing to give you some leisure time if practise goes well tomorrow.” Yonghwa tiredly chimed in at last, swiftly settling the matter on a high note like a true leader.

Jonghyun was thankful, too. He certainly wasn’t in the mood for the usual banter, at least not while these worries were still lingering in the back of his mind. He hadn’t been able to reach his special someone all day and it really started to take a tool on his nerves. He just prayed she was alright. If something happened to her while he was busy travelling across the world he didn’t know what he would do. But he doubted he could ever forgive himself if anything went wrong.

The four men eventually said their goodbyes on the magnificent top floor of The Plaza and Jonghyun was just about to enter his room, when he suddenly noticed something strange. Downlights already enlightened the spacious suite and he could have actually sworn that he had turned them off when he left for his schedule in the morning.

Also there was a set of delicious dinner dishes, a bouquet of lilies and an eye-catching cream cake placed right in the middle of the coffee table, right next to the comfortable vintage couch. These treats definitely hadn’t been there in the morning, if anything he was sure of that. Did his brothers tell the hotel that it was his birthday today or did they perhaps all get a special meal because they missed dinner due to their final band practice tonight? After all it was quite late already.

“Hello, is somebody here?” He hesitantly asked from the floor, not really sure how to proceed next. Perhaps the staff was still here? There wouldn’t be a crazy fan waiting for him, would there? He really didn’t have the energy for something insane this late at night, not that it never happened before though…

No one answered. It didn’t seem like the last option. Luckily!

Jonghyun eventually got rid of his jacket and made his way over to the seating group to check out the food and drop off his guitar on one of the artistically decorated armchairs. There however, something totally unexpected caught his attention.

His movements instantly froze, almost as if he had turned into an ice sculpture. It felt like his soul was suddenly jumping out of his body as he gave his best to supress a probably highly unmanly scream.

Nearly completely hidden by the backrest of t