Everyone else threw parties and got ridiculously drunk on their birthdays but Roffy had a different way of celebration in her mind. “Can we go volunteer at the orphanage?”

            Yongguk, who had been thinking of a get together with their friends when he asked her what she wanted to do, was taken aback. “Volunteer?”

            She bit her lip. “Is that too weird? I just want to be able to spread some happiness on my birthday too, and what better way than to hand out toys to children?”

            A wide smile spread across his face and he hugged her. “I love you.”

            She wiggled away from his grasp. “It’s the kids who should be saying that, haha.”

            Roffat had done the research. There was an orphanage in San Jose that needed volunteers for their toy drive. She had already signed the two of them up for it, believing that Yongguk would not object and now she handed over the address.

            She was surprisingly nervous when they walked into the orphanage. The children were loud and crowded around the boxes. None of them looked up when they walked in until the president took the microphone. She went around and introduced all the people and then she handed out directions.

            “All you need to do is let the kids come up and take their pick. If they get too rowdy, try to calm them down. You two will be in charge of the toys and the other volunteers will handle the administrative things.”

            Roffy sat down cross-legged on the floor and the swarm of curious children came towards them. The little boys tugged on Yongguk’s arm. “Pick me up!” they demanded. He shot her a shy smile and allowed them to hang off his arm as he flexed and lifted them up and down.

            While they were preoccupied, Roffy handed out stuffed animals and other toys to the children who had pointed shyly to what they wanted. When all the toys were handed out, Yongguk sat down next to her and pulled out a Tigger. She side eyed him and he grinned.

            “Trust me,” he mouthed. Yongguk had all the kids sit in a circle in front of them. “Whoever can sing the nicest birthday song to this beautiful lady next to me gets to win this Tigger toy. Do you want to try?”

            Immediately, they jumped up and down, each wanting to try. She glared at him as all the more rambunctious kids tested their still budding vocal chords. One of them boldly asked Yongguk, “Is she your girlfriend?”

          This erupted a symphony of questions. “Yeah! Do you like her?” “Did you kiss her?” “Does she have cooties?” And then disagreement from the girls. “Boys have cooties!”

            Roffy inched closer to Yongguk and shot daggers at him. “Look at what you did. You made them too excited!”

            But Yongguk was laughing. “She’s my wife.”

            They were silent as they considered this possibility and then one particularly lively boy shouted, “Then that means you’re mommy and daddy!”          

            The kids went on and on and Roffy fielded their playful questions as Yongguk passed around the Tigger. Towards the end, Yongguk took a bunch of the kids out and came back in holding a large cake box.

Immediately on cue, all the children began singing the birthday song and Yongguk even humored their requests by leaning down and giving Roffy a movie star kiss, bending her backwards until she could barely breathe.

When it was time for them to go, some of the children had tears in their eyes. “Will you come back?”

            Roffy crouched down and hugged them one by one. “Of course.”

            On the car ride home, she glanced at Yongguk and saw that he was smiling. “Today was fun, wasn’t it?”

            He reached a hand over to cover hers without taking his eyes off the road. “Happy birthday, love.”

Happy birthday Roffy.

I love you so much and you don't really quite understand how much you helped me this year. I'm glad you deactivated Twitter for a while because otherwise I would never have had you on Facebook. Thank you for always being there for me and for offering your bits of wisdom to me.

This is so far, the most I can do for your birthday and so I hope you had fun. 

I know I had so much fun writing this, and I love you ♥