8 years later

-

“Should we be doing this?” Jongdae whispered worriedly after jumping over the fence.

“We’re trespassing,” Baekhyun deadpanned, “What do you think?”

Kyungsoo threw the basket to Hana and then jumped. Sehun was right behind himwith another one of the many baskets they had brought along.

“Tell me why we couldn’t just go up the front entrance?” Kai asked heaving himself up.

“You want him to find out we’re here?” Chanyeol raised a brow, Kai didn’t ask any more questions.

“Where’s Kris? And Luhan and Suho?” Hana asked looking at their group.

“They refused to climb so they said they’ll figure something out.” Sehun replied as he caught his breath.

“How about I just ask Krystal to sneak them in?” Kai suggested but Kyungsoo shook his head.

“You can’t expect her to ditch the dinner and run down here just to sneak them in. Besdies, if Lay sees and asks what she’s doing back, what’s she supposed to say?”

Sehun patted Kai’s back and shook his head, “Useless input but thank you for the contribution.”

“Don’t,” Jongdae held up his hand, “Don’t you two dare start bickering here or I swear I’ll stuff your mouths with dirt.”

Hana shook her head with a small smile. Eight years but they still behaved the same. She looked behind her to find the open garden behind the guest house. They had to sneak in to avoid getting caught by Lay.

Hana hadn’t seen him in a while, she wondered how he was.

“Let’s get to setting these up,” Kyungsoo said and helped Baekhyun in distributing the baskets and plastic bags.

“Remember guys, be as discreet as possible. Because if that dimpled unicorn head guitar boy hears even a sneeze from us, we’re doomed.” Baekhyun warned.

Sehun scratched his head, “How sure are we that he’s alone in there?”

“Krystal said he was staying back because he was sick,” Kai supplied.

Jongdae nodded, “And Luna made sure to count everyone before they left.”

Hana struggled with the rope lights, “How are they, by the way?”

“Great,” Jongdae and Kai said in unison with wide smiles. Hana shook her head while Kyungsoo and Baekyun suppressed their chuckles.

“Look how happy they are talking about them,” Baekhyun tried saying without raising his voice.

“You look ten times dorkier when we mention Jiyeon,” Kyungsoo said untangling the decoratons, “Don’t make fun.”

“Sometimes I wonder what Sora was thinking when she started dating you,” Baekhyun smiled. Kyungsoo would’ve hit him if he wasn’t afraid risking exposure.

Chanyeol grabbed the paper lights and hung them up at a corner. Sehun and Hana grabbed the rope lights and covered a portion of the garden with them. They had to make sure the lights had no power, or else they’d start turn on and it’ll all be ruined.

“Hey,” Sehun nudged, “Wasn’t Yuri supposed to move to Sydney today?”

Hana hung a crepe paper flower, “Yeah. She must still be in the plane. I’ll text her once we’re done with this.”

“This looks nice,” Sehun complimented once he took a better look at the portion they had decorated.

“I know right.” They turned to the other side where Kai and Chanyeol were setting up the speakers. Kyungsoo was arranging the food while Jongdae was setting up the paper screen and the projector.

“Where are the hyungs?” Sehun mumbled. As if on cue, a figure jumped over the fence, the same area where they had come from, and landed soundlessly. Hana didn’t have to struggle to know who it was.

“Help me!” Luhan mouthed and they both ran to him.

“Kris is going to throw the bags with the inflated balloons, make sure they don’t burst.”

“I thought you guys weren’t gonna jump?” Sehun asked but couldn’t get a reply because the next thing they heard was the sound of someone hitting the ground.

“Suho! Get up from the floor! This is no time to play games!” Luhan scolded. The brunette, clearly in pain, looked up.

“Gee, I’m fine. Thanks for asking.”

Luhan rolled his eyes as Sehun and Hana reached to help Suho up. Just as Luhan said, one by one black plastic bags containing colourful balloons flew toward them. The last to come thorugh was Kris.

“How can Jessica live with someone as insensitive as you?” Suho shook his head disappointedly.

“What do you mean?”

“How can you just throw me like that?” Suho whisper shouted, “I landed on my face!”

Kris took a good look at him, “It’s not broken so I don’t see why you’re complaining.”

"Eunji will kill you if she finds out you threw Suho like that," Luhan snickered.

Sehun and Hana glanced at each other and grabbed the bags, making a run toward the rest of the group because clearly the hyungs were going to take a while. Within the next ten minutes, just five minutes before twelve, they had finished their set up.

Now all they had to do was light it up and hope things went as well as they imagined.

“Five minutes left,” Hana clocked, “I’m going to call him.”

Receiving nods Hana sent them an ‘ok’ sign and called the number she couldn’t forget even after she tried. They could hear Lay’s phone ringing inside, the all too familiar ringtone that he kept every now and then. In the mean time, they all took their positions.

“Hello?”

“Hey.”

Hana couldn’t see through the windows but she could hear him shuffling.

“Hey,” his voice was a little hoarse.

“Did you take your medicine? Your voice sounds bad.”

Lay chuckled, “I did. Not sure if it’s working.”

“How can that be?” Hana furrowed her brows worriedly, “You aren’t taking them regularly, are you? I thought you said Yoonmi was-“

“Is that why you called me?”

Hana sighed. She glanced behind her, everybody looked expectant.

“No.”

“Then?”

“Yixing, its two minutes until 7^th, why would I call you?”

“I don’t know,” she could hear the smile in his voice, “Why are you calling me?”

“Eight years, and you still ask?”

“Yeap,” he popped the ‘P’. Hana smiled widely.

“Well, you’re going to have to wait a while to get the answer to that,” Kyungsoo threw a flower to her head, “In the mean time, there’s something I want you to do.”

“Does it involve getting up?”

“Yes.”

“Then I can’t.”

“Time’s ticking.”

“What is it?”

“Luhan and Irene sent you a birthday present. According to the delivery people, it should be at the guest house doorstep.”

“How did they know the address?”

“Jongdae and Kai have connections, need I remind you.”

“Oh, right.”

“Up now. Open it and tell me how it is.”

Hana heard him move at the other side. The moment she heard him draggin his feet to the door, she took quick steps toward it, standing right at the entrance.

“Can’t you just tell me what it is?”

“That’ll ruin the whole thing.”

Hana glanced at her watch, only twenty seconds left. She took one quick glance behind her again, they were all ready too. A click at the door and she felt blood rushing to her head. She took a deep breath to steady herself.

The door opened and everything stopped. Lay, who had expected a box at the step, slowly looked up after he saw boots. His mouth hung open and he rubbed his eyes. Hana cut the call shoved the phone in her jacket.

“Surprise.”

“No way.”

Hana’s smile grew wider, “Yes way.”

“Come here.”

It had been almost two months since she last hugged him, at the airport before their flight took off. She could feel the burn of his fever and the struggle he had breathing, but she couldn’t point that out right now.

“Happy birthday!” shouts came from behind them and confetti, glitter, and foam flew everywhere as the garden lit up. Lay couldn’t believe his eyes as he looked at all his friends, some whom he hadn’t seen in so long. Lay had forgotten how sick he was and ran barefoot to the garden. Kyungsoo grabbed him first, joined by Baekhyun, then Kai, and eventually everyone else too.

“When did you guys get here?!”

“Two hours ago!” Kris fist pumped, “We’ve been planning this for a month now.”

“But- but- how did you even pull this off?! How did you get inside?”

“The fence,” Suho pointed as he rubbed his nose with his other hand.

Lay held his head, shaking it over and over again, “I can’t believe this.”

“Credits to your wonderful wife,” Jongdae piped, “It was her idea.”

“It was? But I don’t see her, where is she?” he asked looking around. As he did, the others shook their heads.

“No really, where is she?”

Someone wacked Lay’s head, “Just because sick does not mean I’ll let you pretend I don’t exist.”

He rubbed the sore spot as he looked down at Hana with a cheeky smile, “Never said you don’t exist.”

“You get the point.”

“THE CAKE!” Luhan announced as Kyungsoo and Kris brought it over.

Lay couldn’t stop smiling as Kyungsoo talked. “I know it’s been a while since I baked and frosted these but I tried my best.”

Lay couldn’t help but hug Kyungsoo. “You guys have no idea how happy I am right now.”

They didn’t know where the rest of the hours went. After eating, they started explaining their plan to him. He couldn’t help but stare in awe.

“Weren’t you even curious about how a staff dinner could stretch this long?” Kris asked, “I mean, it was almost twelve when we called you.”

“I honestly didn’t keep track of the time,” Lay defended, “I’d been sleeping all day, and I’ve been so lazy. The last thing I remembered was Krystal and Luna waving me goodbye and Yoonmi-sshi leaving my meds at the table.”

“I should really thank her for taking care of you,” Hana said, “If it wasn’t for her, you wouldn’t even be taking your medicines on time and I’d be freaking out more.”

“Sorry,” he sheepishly replied and the others cooed.

“Awww look how adorable they are!”

Lay playfully glared at Chanyeol before Luhan and Suho brought over the gifts. They were sitting on the pillows in the garden and cheering with every opened gift. Hana had brought Lay’s jacket in case he’d feel cold and watched him open and smile at every gift.

“Mine’s the best,” Kai announced as Lay opened his.

“It’s a DVD,” Lay said spinning it around. Kai reached over and grabbed it walking to the projector and switching it on.

“This is a collection of our memories that I started snapping in our first year of highschool. There are some old photos too that I managed to gather from all of our moms. So please, sit back and enjoy this trip down memory lane.”

“Sehun, help switch the lights off.”

Sehun moved upon Kai’s instruction and the garden was dark with only the projector giving off light. The songs changed as the boys grew up in their photos. The first few were of their childhood. Baby photos, kindergarten photos, the photos that made everyone laugh. There were few Hana had already seen but some were completely new to her.

They then moved to middle school when everybody had embaressing hairstyles. Lay kept hiding his face behind her back, too embaressed to look and asked out loud why his mother had done this to him. Kris was getting a knack out his brother’s misery.

Then came highschool and the quality of photos dramatically improved.

“Not bragging but I took all these.” Kai pointed as the photos rolled. Highscool year had some videos too. Like the video of Lay trying out for soccer team during freshmen year, Baekhyun doing a crazy dance in on of the spare rooms. There was one where Kyungsoo was acting out a scene from an anime. Chanyeol’s videos mostly included his pet ferret that Hana recently found out he had before it died in their second year. Jongdae would be impersonating people and Kai’s dancing bloopers were all there.

Hana was surprised when she popped up in one of the photos. She had expected it, of course, but she had almost forgotten how she looked back then, she couldn’t recognize herself.

“I can’t believe you fell for that,” Hana whispered to Lay. He looked down at her in confusion, “What do you mean?”

“Look at me,” she pointed but he only shrugged, “I looked terrible.”

“You’ve always looked gorgeous to me.”

“Please, I’m not even smiling.”

“Yet.” He said and tapped her nose with his finger.

There was a video in which they were practicing for the winter festival. Nostalgia hit them hard.

“That feels like it was yesterday,” Kyungsoo recalled while smiling.

“I can’t believe it’s been so long,” Chanyeol shook his head.

“Listening to you guys go at it over and over was torture,” Jongdae chuckled. Kyungsoo didn’t need to tear his eyes off the screen to hit him behind the head.

There were a few pictures no one even knew when Kai had taken. Like the picture of her and Lay when they were sitting behind the couch in Baekhuyn’s house. Hana remembered how their surprise went downhill because of the shot circuit. There were so many amazing random photos of everyone that Kai had taken. There were videos and photos from the games, the graduation, the festival, everything. There was one photo that was taken as Lay and Hana were coming back from their talk after the festival.

“I still remember how you turned me down,” Lay whispered.

Hana shrugged, “I thought that was the right thing to do then.”

“The things I had to do to get you to change your mind,” Lay shook his head.

Hana nudged him playfully, “You should be happy I did or else you’d have ended up with Jina.”

Their university photos were rolling now but it had half their attention.

“Don’t even remind me.”

“You were the one who almost went out with her.”

“Almost. I couldn’t imagine myself with anyone else. It’s so awkward even thinking about it.”

“Well, it’s a good thing you married me then,” Hana beamed.

Lay coughed to clear his chest and nodded, “Best decision ever.”

“You should also be lucky I said yes.”

“Don’t push it.”

“You know you love me.”

Lay sighed, “Yeah, I do.”

He pinched her cheek and grabbed her hand, interwining them as they looked through rest of the photos. Hana’s ring sparkled under the projector lights as she took a look around her. Her family was here. She looked up at Lay and leaned her head on his shoulder.

Things weren’t always easy; sometimes they’d fight, sometimes they’d cry, sometimes they’d laugh and smile. But as long as they had each other throught the rollercoaster of life, they knew things would be fine. Their friends, their family, that was all that mattered. 

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The End.

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A/N: 

There Shinee_blue, i secured it for you XD