Dresses and Buffaloes

Note: Words in Italics are spoken in Korean. Words in bold are spoken in Chinese

BANG! BANG! BANG!

Instinctively, you screamed and ducked down, covering your ears and squeezing your eyes shut.

A faint scent of smoke lingered in the air.

You started. Something had landed on the crook of your arm, but it didn't feel like an explosive - it was far too light and airy.

More of the stuff floated down and you tentatively picked a piece up.

It was light and thin and felt like... tissue paper?

Then you saw a flame out of the corner of you eye.

You were covered in strips of tissue paper or something and there was a fire burning in the same room.

Easy conclusion: someone was trying to burn you alive.

Your brain went into a further panic mode but as you desperately tried to get the tissue paper off yourself, voices around you started singing:

"Happy birthday to you~

Happy birthday to you~”

Wait… what?

“Happy birthday our dear Kellyyyy~

Happy birthday to you~!"

The pulsating flame can to a halt in front of you and someone finally had the brains to turn the lights back on.

Luna held a magnificent birthday cake out for you, smiling as brightly as the single flame did in the darkness just before.

Your brain felt sluggish and jumbled, not quite able to comprehend the situation. It must have shown on your face because Song Qian pulled you forwards saying, “What are you waiting for? Blow out your candles, birthday girl!”

“You were surprised, right?” Jongdae asked, with a satisfied grin.

"What's the date?" you asked blatantly. "Sorry, I mean what's the date?"

"It's November 1st, of course!" Tao said in a mix of Chinese and Korean, "Hui Ling, did we frighten you so badly that you forgot it was your birthday?"

"Haha... it's just, it's not my birthday today," you say, gaining a better grasp on the situation.

"What?"

"But Yixing took attendance and official documents from 'school class' on your first day, and he saw your birthday on the forms you handed in," Kyungsoo said, "He said your birthday was the first of the eleventh!"

"Sorry guys, my birthday's the eleventh of January - 11/1, not 1/11 - the first of the eleventh," you explained.

Yixing looked incredibly confused and guilty. His mouth opened in an 'Oh', making him look even more like a unicorn than usual.

"I'm sorry, Yixing. Don't look so bad - it was an easy mistake to make."

"But we prepared so much! We were gonna have a party and everything!" Krystal pouted. “And we can’t even make it a celebration for Kevin’s birthday either," she mumbled in English, "‘cause we prepared something else for him as well.”

Just as you were about to apologise again, Joonmyeon spoke up, “It’s alright guys. Cheer up Yixing! The preparations aren’t going to go to waste, we’ll just make this Kelly-ssi’s welcome party!”

There was a moment’s silence, then Jongdae clapped Joonmyeon on the shoulder and gave him a thumbs up.

Yixing’s face lit up and everyone was nodding approvingly all round.

Victoria jumped up clapping and beaming excitedly. She squealed, "You saved the day, Joonmyeon-ah!" before rushing you upstairs with Krystal, Sulli and Sunyoung following close behind.

“What’s going on?!” you asked, bewildered as they something light and creamish, pale pink into your arms.

“Getting you dressed up, of course!” Sunyoung said.

“You’re going to love your dress,” Sulli added cutely.

“And we’ll have to do something with your hair as well," Song Qian said, more to herself than you, "Pony-tails don’t make a big enough statement...”

“So quickly get changed! Quickly!” Krystal squealed, stomping her feet around in excitement.

Meanwhile, downstairs in the living room Joonmyeon was being bullied by Jongin.

"You like Kelly that much, hey?" Jongin laughed as he swung his arm around Joonmyeon.

But Joonmyeon simply looked Jongin in the eye, seriously.

"Jongin, you and I have known each other for a while now. There's no point in trying to pretend it's nothing."

Jongin's expression softened as Joonmyeon continued, "You, of all people should know that I don't like Kelly-ssi, not in that way. I've talked a lot about all of you kids to my parents - mum's just extra excited about Kelly-ssi because her dream holiday home is in Australia, where Kelly's from."

Back upstairs, you stepped out of Joonmyeon's walk-in wardrobe wearing this

Sunyoung squealed and said, "You look so pretty!"

She sighed, "The dress really shows off your long legs."

"Thank you, unnie," you accepted the compliments shyly, "You girls look really pretty as well!" For they too, had changed into dresses, though ones much simpler than yours.

Except Amber, she wore a white blouse, tucked into some jeans - the most feminine outfit you'd seen her in. And she actually looked great.

The girls then ordered you to sit down and proceeded to do your hair and make up.

Amber sat on the side, chatting the whole time and curiously examining all the different sorts make up products.

They curled the ends of your hair and swept it all to one side, pinning it and hair-spraying it.

Song Qian took a while to decide what to do with the make-up. Jinri (Sulli) and Amber argued that you didn't need to apply make-up at all because your natural beauty was the best, but Song Qian and Krystal were obstinate on putting something on.

In the end, they settled for the minimalist amount of makeup - just a bit of blush, a touch of lip gloss and highlighter.

Back in the living room, Joonmyeon continued on, "I can tell that you like Kelly-ssi. You're so obvious about it, Jongin! Staring and trying to talk to her all the time," he patted Jongin's head, laughing a bit.

Jongin silently watched Minseok and Luhan, cackling madly, being chased all over the room by Sehun.

"Joonmyeon," Jongin began, fiddling with the sleeve of button-up shirt.

"I know, I know. You're not the type of person to tell a girl that you like her," Joonmyeon said.

"You'll watch over her, looking after her and make sure that if she ends up with someone, that

person will be able to make her happier than you could ever make her."

"You're like that as well, hyung... we're both silent guardians," Jongin laughed. "But Kelly's different... she's a bit different - I can't quite finger it, but there's something different about her."

Joonmyeon smiled as he saw Jongin zone off into his own world. He could walk away right now and Jongin probably wouldn't even notice.

"Her smile's really something- it lights up the whole world," Jongin was saying. "And her personality is so cute- she's so friendly and caring. And she's-"

Jongin suddenly stopped talking. Joonmyeon heard him murmur "beautiful" under his breathe as the chatter from the boys who were waiting in the living room suddenly ceased too, as the girls accompanied you into the room.

You saw that the boys had also changed outfits. You chanced a look at Jongin and he looked really nice in a black, collared, button-up shirt with his sleeves pushed up. Everyone else was also wearing casual-formal clothes, but even then, you felt out of place in a dress.

It wasn’t that you didn’t like your dress - it was absolutely adorable and comfortable, yet elegant - but dresses just weren’t your thing. Most dresses didn’t let you run and jump around freely, so you avoided wearing them in general.

“She actually looks pretty now,” you heard Tao whisper, and you couldn’t help the smile that crossed your lips when Luhan whacked him over the head.

The evening was spent playing small party games like Truth, dare or double dare, Guess the song, Never have I ever, Charades, Chubby Bunny, etc.

Baekhyun, Krystal, Chanyeoland Luna went wild with the truth questions and dares.

Sehun blushed birght pink and was hassled by everyone when he admitted that he was crushing on someone in the room. You had a suspicion that it was Krystal by the way he avoided looking at her for the next 5 minutes. Or maybe it was Luhan, who was sitting next to Krystal.

Jongdae was dared to eat strawberries straight from Joonmyeon's hands, like a dog, with his hands held behind his back. Very messy and ticklish business.

You found out that both Jinri and you had never been allowed to sleepover at a friends' place, even though no one else believed the two of you.

You laughed so much when Victoria tried to act out showering. She exaggerated everything and while everyone knew immediately what the word was, we let her carry on -it was really funny- until she yelled, "Hurry up and guess already!"

But Kris' [failed] attempts to mime out a buffalo was even more hilarious- after 10 minutes, he just hung his head, exhasted while the rest of us fell around laughing, completely clueless to what he was doing.

Afterwards, someone would casually start rolling on the ground and making faces, causing Kris to hide his face and everyone else to crackup laughing all over again.

Minseok won the Chubby Bunny game, though Tao came close behind. They almost made it to 30 - Minseok got 28 and Tao managed 27

Everyone decided to have a dance battle and Jongin & Yixing were declared winners.

Jongdae and Chanyeol meanwhile battled to avoid the worst-dancer position. Things were geting very heated up and the two were throwing their entire bodies into it, especially Chanyeol. But after Chanyeol knocked over a light stand 10 metres from the set dance-battle area, Joonmyeon's mother decided everyone had had enough games and announced dinner.

Joonmyeon's mother had prepared a traditional Korean-styled dinner and there was also of course, cake and presents.

The girls’ presents were all the clothes they had bought you in the morning (you refused to accept anything else from them) and the boys had got together to make a ginormous card with lots of cute drawings and sweet messages.

It was a seriously fun night full of laughs, memories and bonding - a night you promised yourself, that you would remember for the rest of your life.

Finally updated!

I'm so sorry T_TT I know I promised to update more, but I hit exam period and then I went away for a couple of weeks and I didn't get to write anything in that whole time.

Anyways, I'm on holidays now so hopefully I'll get more done now^^

The year's almost over now.. but Merry Krismas everyone~! Happy holidays :)