In hindsight, maybe this wasn’t Lu Han’s best idea for a birthday surprise.

He’s thinking now especially, with fake frosting plastered to the side of his head, hair now a wreck. There’s confetti in his shirt collar and some down his pants--Lu Han doesn’t even know how that got there.

He throws open the door of the bakery, marching straight to the cake counter and meeting no one’s eyes. Three people are line ahead of him. He purses his lips, blows a raspberry into the air and sighs, still not meeting anyone’s eyes. He bounces restlessly in place, more confetti floating down from his hair until he forces him to stop, wait, and be patient. He checks his watch. Minseok said he had to be back in fifteen minutes. It’s now been eight.

“Hi, can you wrap up that cake for me, please, thanks? Wait! How much? Actually, who cares. I’ll take it, please can you hurry?”

The cashier behind the counter stares at him, beady eyes popping at the sight of pink plaster icing and that one streamer which somehow got stuck around his neck. Lu Han looks down cursing, and rips it away. Damnit, but he thought he’d gotten all of them off.

He stuffs the streamer inside his pocket, bouncing a little more patiently on the balls of his toes. He’d said ‘hurry’ but the cashier is still staring at him, with not a little judgment, and moving slower than molasses.

“You want a cake? I’d say you’d just popped out of one.”

Lu Han titters, but his eyes narrow menacingly. “Funny you’d think that. Actually I d- you know what? Please just wrap that cake. Thank you.”

Because seriously, whatever possessed him to think that was a good idea?!

Lu Han clearly watched too many old movies. He thought it would be funny. He thought Minseok would laugh.

Well, Minseok did laugh, but only after he’d fumed for five minutes after getting the disappointment of his life.

“What do you mean, this isn’t a real cake? You JUMPED. OUT. OF. A. CAKE!? LU HAN???! AND IT WASN’T EVEN REAL?!!!”

Shame too, because Lu Han had gotten such a nice cake, created to match his exact specifications because he knew a guy in the art department. Five tiers and five feet tall in all colors of the rainbow, with polka-dots, butterflies, cute little dinosaurs, and topped with a somewhat smaller than lifesize replica of a cat which looked like Minseok’s cat, Lu Han thought it was a Perfect idea, with a capital P.

Minseok’s birthdays had never been exactly low key. Boy liked to party, and all of their friends were there. Lu Han was the man in charge of planning it.

So how on earth did he manage to create such an event, surprise cake and all, and forget the one-important-thing, which is that Minseok had a sweet tooth and would actually want cake.

Clutching his little box of bakery cake with all the fruit on top, Lu Han runs back as fast as can be. He’s supposed to be the MC, he’s the man in charge of entertainment. What if something goes wrong?! He’d left Chanyeol in charge of games, Kyungsoo in charge of the champagne, Jongin in charge of the fried chicken… surely there couldn’t be anything too disastrous in those instructions. On the other hand, Baekhyun was still in the house and that was always room for a disaster. Not to mention Lu Han has never been entirely sure that Minseok won’t someday jump one of their super hot friends and Lu Han will walk in to find his best friend making out with someone like… he thinks quickly to the worse case but likeliest scenario… maybe Yixing? Sehun? Kris?!

God, Lu Han is so stupid. He’s been nursing this crush for ages now and Minseok doesn’t know a thing. Night after night he’s stayed up listening to Minseok describe his ideal type, someone tall, blond, and cute.

“If Sehun so much as touches him , boy’s dead to me,” he growls threateningly to the staircase as he take it three steps at a time.

The party’s still in full swing when Lu Han arrives back at their shared apartment. He does a quick scan of the activities. Half the room’s taken up by a rousing match of Castle Crashers, there’s beer pong set out, but nobody’s actually drinking anything, they’re just throwing ping pong balls across the table. He watches with delight when Sehun catches one right in the eyeball, Junmyeon on the other side screeching half deliriously in glee, half apologetically.

“Okay, Minseok, Minseok, where you at?”

He makes a beeline for the kitchen, tripping over a collection of used party poppers and their accompanying mini streamers. Tao is hunched over a box of chicken with half the streamers in his hair.

“Hey, did you leave me any?” Lu Han growls.

“Mmlkjwwmhhmm what?”

“Never mind. Where’s Jongin?”

“He went to get pizza after Kris scolded him for not getting enough chicken,” answers Jongdae.

Lu Han whines painfully. He backtracks through the house, through the dining room and around the wreckage of his once beautiful faux cake, out of which anyone! Anyone! Would have been glad to see himself jumping out of.

“Minseok?!” He calls, still not finding his friend. He asks a wandering Chanyeol, “Have you seen Minseok?”

The man shrugs but points in the direction of the bedroom. “He went that way? Maybe he had to change clothes? Baekhyun accidentally knocked over a whole liter of coke on top of him.”

Lu Han sighs. So apparently he’s not the only person with a Birthday Disaster mechanism linked to his entire being.

He reaches the bedroom door just as Yixing’s coming out of it. Both of them stop in their tracks, Lu Han because he’s thinking things , Yixing for… well, Lu Han doesn’t know what for but he looks tremendously shocked and just a little bit… guilty?

“Oohh, hey, Lu Han, you’re back. Did you get the cake?”

Lu Han glares at him. “Yes, I did, actually. Where’s Minseok?”

Yixing tosses his head and grins. His smile wavers though and Lu Han absolutely doesn’t trust him. “He’s in there. Really thankful too for the strippers you hired.”

“WHAT?!” Lu Han roars. “I did.. What.. I did NOT hire strippers! What kind of birthday party do you think this is?! And where did the strippers come from?!”

“No clue, man, but maybe you should go and check?”

Yixing slinks past him and Lu Han all but breaks down the door.

“Minseok, don’t you dare touch anything or I’ll- Oh.”

Lu Han freezes. Minseok is on his hands and knees on top of the bed, grunting in frustration. Lu Han doesn’t know what to say, because this certainly… isn’t… what he expected.

“You’re back finally! Good, come help me. I can’t get this collar on. Yixing was trying to help me but I sent him away because it just wasn’t working with him. Also, I think the harness was a bad idea. I knew it was the wrong size. , I’m sweating. This has been so annoying having to wait for you. Hurry, pleeease.”

Lu Han rushes to the bed, hands shaking because Minseok looks so wrecked .

“What happened?” He reaches for him, and his cat.

“Your cat got all tangled up in this thing. It’s not meant for an animal his size, and then when I tried to get him away from it he started biting his collar and then that got stuck, and he hissed at Yixing but I think I’ve managed to get him calmed down. I pulled the collar out of his mouth but he won’t let me get it back on. God damnit, this is not how my birthday was supposed to go!”

Minseok looks exhausted, his eyes are little red.

“I’m sorry,” Lu Han whispers, hands petting his poor little kitty who has immediately settled down. “I’ll do this. Thank you.”

Minseok sniffs and sits back. “I’m sorry.”

Lu Han hums.

“I’m sorry I got mad at your for the cake. It was a really nice surprise actually. I didn’t mean to almost kill your cat.” MInseok sniffs some more.

“S’ok. Wasn't your fault. This is just one stupid cat.”

A full minute later he releases the animal who promptly darts under the bed, and then goes back to observing Minseok.

“Happy Birthday, by the way. I bought you a real cake.”

Minseok smiles. “You didn’t have to… I was joking earlier.”

“No, I wanted to. You should have cake for your birthday. Not a stupid cardboard and paper mache cake with a stupid guy jumping out of it. That was a bad idea.”

Minseok’s smile just continues to increase. “It wasn’t that bad of an idea, actually?”

“It wasn’t?”

“No. Not too bad.”

“Oh well, then. Good.”

He stares at his lap, Minseok curiously stares somewhere else too.

“Uhm.”

“Then I guess we should head back to your party. Before Jongin eats practically all the food?”

Minseok nods. “Sounds like a good idea. Okay. Wait!”

Lu Han looks up. “Huh?”

He’s never really seen Minseok looking this sheepish before. There’s something about the angle of his face, the slant of his jaw, the way he doesn’t quite meet Lu Han’s eyes. “What’s the matter.”

Minseok shakes his head before he’s even said anything. “Feel free to say no, but there’s… something I was thinking would be nice… to get on my birthday.”

“Anything. What do you want?” He may be overstepping here, but Lu Han desperately wants to oblige him, this friend of his, this person he may kind of like actually, love .

“Ok,” says Minseok. “Just remember you can turn me down.”

Not likely, thinks Lu Han. But then he sees what Minseok is doing, where’s he pointing. He’s got a finger on his lips, and he’s looking up at Lu Han through halfway downcast eyes.

“Kiss.”

Lu Han gulps. “What?”

“I want… would like it maybe if… you… kissed me.”

Lu Han can only stammer. “W-what?”

Minseok’s hand drops away from his mouth. “Yeah I thought it was stupid. Should we go outside now-”

“No, wait! I’ll do it!”

“Huh?”

“I’ll do it.”

“You will?”

Lu Han nods, frantically nods. “I mean, I want to. Really badly. Kiss you. Have for years actually. , this is the worst confession, but uhm. Happy birthday, can I kiss you now?”