The venue they arrive at is tucked away somewhere down a shady, bricked street. A band plays elegant and soft music on stage between sultry, red curtains and suited staff are ushering them in and seating the six of them, plus two managers, at the center table. Something can’t help but ache in seeing another table in front of them mirrored with eight empty seats. It shouldn’t stand out, but the restaurant is generally vacant, with only a few patrons dusting the bar and another or two eating by themselves on the outskirts of the room. The lighting is gloomy. It makes him more tired than he should be.

           He sits at the center of their half-moon that faces the stage. Suho is at the end ordering for them and, next to him, Baekhyun is trying to voice his own opinion on what to order. Chanyeol has his fingers impatiently rapping on the white table cloth and it’s about to drive Sehun crazy. He eyes the table, looking for silverware sharp enough to do away with those pesky phallanges. Kyungsoo is to Sehun's left, folding something crazy into their slate-colored napkins and Jongin is whining about how he should have napped in the car instead of entertaining Chanyeol’s bad puns. Sehun isn’t talking or moving much.

           He’s saving his energy to eat.

           The food arrives slowly, but he readily admits that Kyungsoo’s cooking is much more suited to his taste. He wants to ask to go home, but keeps biting his tongue. It’s his birthday. He should appreciate what the hyungs tried to do for him, but the music is slow and the singer isn’t that good and Sehun hopes that his shift ends soon so they can bring up someone that sounds better. He’s halfway through his meal when the singer steps off the stage and they clap out of courtesy. For a second, he thinks that something is happening between s, but they quickly hush themselves. He shrugs it off and digs back into his food, rolling his eyes when Chanyeol snaps a picture of him.

           “Happy birthday to our Sehunnie!” he coos and reads his caption aloud before posting it. “Twenty-one at last, right?”

           “Yeah.” He mumbles before taking a sip from his wine. It’s gross and he doesn’t understand what’s so ‘adult’ about this bitter, fruity that won’t leave his tastebuds alone. He’d much rather drink cola or sprite or anything else really. He likes sweet and bubbly or sweet and creamy and at this moment he wishes for a bubble tea to appear in his hands. He wants the bubble tea that Kris bought for him in Hong Kong or the bubble tea that he and Tao got after a late night of dancing or the bubble tea that Luhan snuck into practice for him when he just started as a trainee.

           “Cheer up, Sehunnie.” Chanyeol hugs him a bit haphazardly and knocks over his drink. Part of him is relieved that he doesn’t have to feel obligated to finish the whole glass anymore, but another part of him screams internally because the red wine is soaking into his most comfortable pair of sweatpants. And by ‘his’ he means ‘he borrowed’ from Yixing who has yet to notice them missing from his drawers back at their dorm because he isn’t there to investigate. “Sorry!” Chanyeol throws one of the napkins into his crotch and starts blotting away at the liquid.

           “Aren’t those Lay-hyung’s pants?” Kyungsoo looks over after noticing the quiet commotion. The music the band is playing is just loud enough to be heard over Sehun’s grumbling.

           Jongin suggests they should play a game between courses. If Sehun can guess who bought him what gift, he can keep them. Chanyeol snickers evilly about something like revenge for is torture segment on Showtime last year and he is smacked for it by Baekhyun who uses his clean napkin to blindfold Sehun as the members gather their gifts at the center of the table.

           Sehun opens his eyes and selects the first gift. It is obvious who got him what, but he feels obligated to entertain his older brothers and tires is best to slur his words between guesses. They giggle and laugh thinking that he’ll get it wrong. He feigns confusion for a brief moment, but matches them all perfectly. He kills the mood, but the gag present from Jongin is too obvious and the stuffed animal from Kyungsoo is too cute. The winter-hat-for-summer-time-weather hat from Chanyeol looks too similar to the rest of his collection and the PC game from Baekhyun is too close to the kind that he likes. Suho’s gift is practical and could have been from any of the members, but process of elimination ferrets him out. He thanks them all with a big smile and round of hugs, but greedily, Sehun wishes that he could have six more presents.

           He doesn’t even want to open them; he just wants to see them there.

           “Are we going to leave soon?” he asks.

           Chanyeol looks at Baekhyun, who bites his lower lip and looks at his phone before looking over at Suho and wiggling the screen at him under the table. Most of them are done eating and the managers have already retreated to the bar to have some time away from the boys. Suho types something into his phone and puts it back into his jacket pocket. “Why don’t we get dessert? I heard their cheesecake is really good.” Suho ignores Sehun’s eyes full of objection and orders two slices of cheesecake, two cups of chocolate mousse, and two strawberry tarts with white chocolate crème.

           They wait another twenty minutes for the dessert to come out and it is long past midnight; the time that Suho promised they would be home by earlier.

           The desserts are small and delectable and really too sweet for Sehun’s taste and he wonders why the members didn’t get him a cake. Maybe a cake would have made his day better, but he’s not even getting that. He stuffs a bite into his mouth.

           Dinner wasn’t very filling and sweets aren’t making it better. He just wants to relax at home with a bowl of instant noodles and watch some funny videos and sleep off this ‘missing the other half’ crap that’s been making him feel sick since this morning.

           Sehun thinks, ‘just one more minute and I’m going to get up and ask one of the managers to take me home. I can save the apologies for tomorrow.’ But he notices more commotion between Suho and Baekhyun and the two keep waving over to Jongin and Kyungsoo, trying to flag their attention behind Sehun’s back. Chanyeol throws an arm around his shoulders and shrugs, motioning to how ‘crazy’ their members are and rolls his eyes. Trapped, Sehun returns to eating whatever candied mush is in front of him.

           The music dies down gradually and a voice on stage lightly says, “This one is for Oh Sehun. Please listen to this song because it has traveled a long way just for you. Happy birthday.” And the soft voice strikes up a familiar ballad and there’s just something about how gentle the voice is. It’s almost like a lullaby. Soothing. Calming. Warm. And his brain sparks and clicks and his eyes dart up to the stage.

           There, in the bright spotlight, is Luhan in a pressed tuxedo and holding the silver microphone in his hands singing to him. Yixing strums along with his rich acoustic guitar and Kris taps a muted beat on the drums to keep tempo. From behind the curtains, Tao emerges with a stack of six presents. Minseok follows behind him with a bouquet of twelve silver balloons. And Jongdae trots up to Sehun, front and center, his hand shielding the flame of a candle atop a simple whipped-cream cake.

           His happiness bubbles up from nowhere.

           This is the present he’s wanted.

           He hears eleven voices sing a loud and rambunctious happy birthday too him in the silence of the upscale restaurant. Though the M-members look tired, all donning the same starchy tuxedos and bruised eyes, they bring the energy of unity back to EXO. His eyes well up a little and the members laugh and poke jokes at him through his tears. Sehun muffles the teasing with his hands over his ears and looks down at the space between his legs, hiding himself from the crescented gazes folding over him.

           With a deep breath and one last gaze at Luhan as the music stops and Yixing and Kris come down from the stage to gather around him, he blows out the flame.

           They eat the cake hurriedly because they are all worn out, “Sorry. Our flight arrived on time, but the traffic was horrible.” Kris explains as Suho chides him for being two hours late.

           “It was so bad that we thought ‘Oh my, it seems like all of Korea is flocking to Seoul for Sehun’s birthday'.” Jongdae laughs as he riddles out their reasoning in the car, “Tao said that it’d be faster to walk, but we didn’t want any fans following us.”

           “We came straight from our schedule.” Minseok pipes in, “Which is why we look so much better than you guys.” And he earns a group ‘ehh’ before being booed by Chanyeol.

           He’s so happy. Sehun is so happy. He misses the joking and the teasing and the childish meanness that s only exude when they’re intertwined. But, amidst all the commotion between the eleven bodies and four managers, he realizes that his singer hasn’t come down from his podium. He removes himself from his seat and waddles shyly up to the foot of the stage. Luhan’s eyes are still resting on their members who seem equally happy that they’re all together.

           “Hyung!” he calls up to the stage and Luhan finally looks down.

           “Oh my god, Lay is going to kill you.” And Sehun remembers the wine stain suddenly and pulls his shirt down to cover it up.

           “Hyung!” he calls attention back to himself and Luhan leaves the mic to come forward and squat at the edge of the stage, eyes only slightly higher than Sehun’s since the rim only comes up to his tummy. “Thank you.”

           “Shh.” Luhan dramatically shushes him, “Don’t mention it.”

           “Why don’t you come down?” he asks.

           “Because I want to be taller than you for as long as possible.” Luhan states as he cockily compares their height and he’s well above Sehun. But when Sehun shakes his head and turns around to motion the rest of the members to remove Luhan from the stage, he finds that the whole restaurant is empty.

           The two didn’t realize that while they were chatting Chanyeol quietly shuffled everyone downstairs to the lobby to party it up and give the two some privacy.

           Sehun bounds up to the stage in a swift motion, breaking the height barrier between he and Luhan. Luhan mutters sourly, “I don’t care if it’s you’re birthday. You need to stop growing.”

           He wiggles his shoulders cutely, happily trumping Luhan’s height, “Am I dreaming or did you guys really come back?”

           Luhan shrugs, “I don’t know. I can leave if you want.” He jokes.

           “No, no, no.” he says almost too fast. “This is good. This is the best.”

           He abruptly pulls Luhan into a tight hug, burying his nose into Luhan’s styled hair and while it smells like sweat and hairspray, it also smells like home. He holds Luhan tight enough to feel their lungs expand per breath and feels the soft thumping of his heartbeat drumming lightly against his own.

           “Sehun, I can’t breathe.” Luhan claws at his shirt before inhaling when Sehun lets go.

           “I’m sorry. I really missed you.” He nuzzles their foreheads together sleepily. Although he’s happy, the adrenalin of twelve bouncing bodies only lasts so long.

           “I missed you, too.” Luhan’s voice is barely a whisper.

           That night, as a personal present, Sehun asks if Luhan can sing him to sleep. He’s almost too shy to ask such an embarrassing request, but it’s drizzling rain outside in the middle of April and the air is just chilly enough to make cozying up to his hyung underneath the sheets a valid excuse for warmth.

           “When the rain pours and the music flows…” Luhan starts, but doesn’t continue until Sehun nudges him in the side, “I think of you.” He burrows into Luhan’s plush pajama shirt, unwilling to let go knowing that tomorrow morning they might not be together and there would be six cold spots in the dorm after the sun rises.

           He wants to hold on to it; the number 12. He wants to hold on to it; Luhan’s voice and the laughter and conversations rumbling outside of their room. He wants to hold on to it; consciousness. But it’s been a long day and a long week and he can’t hold back on sleeping. He prays, that night, to wake up to messy brunette locks and long lashes outlining shut eyes with the sunlight peaking through the blinds, highlighting strands of hair as if it was spun gold growing out of Luhan’s scalp.

           But when he awakes the room is dim and grey, his arms are empty, and everything is cold.

           He walks out to the living room and waddles through the kitchen with the icy wooden floor boards nipping at his toes. The other members haven’t woken up yet, but he feels alone.

           And just as a wave of bereft woe is about to drown him he spies a grocery bag of his favorites sitting perky atop the dining room table,

                                                                                                                                    “Oh, you’re up already? I was going to surprise you.”