Jongin thought that getting an F in biology class was the worst it could get. He thought he could scrape a couple good grades in English and History classes, maybe, but not biology. He wasn’t good with living things.

            On Jongin’s birthday, Sehun woke him up at o’clock in the morning by jumping on his bed and yelling, “Jongin! Wake up! It’s your birthday!”

            Jongin groaned and rolled over. “What time is it?”

            “Birthday time!” Sehun yelled, tumbling off of Jongin’s bed. “Happy birthday!”

            “Sehun,” Jongin croaked, “it’s four in the morning. Go away.”

            Sehun pouted. “But,” he said, “it’s your birthday!”

            “So?” Jongin said, rolling back over and burying his head in his pillow.

            “You’re 26,” Sehun said. He probably thought that he was being helpful.

            “All the more reason to not get up,” Jongin groaned. “I’m old.”

            Kyungsoo groaned from the other bed. “Sehun, go away.”

            “No,” Sehun said, cheerfully. “I’m going to wait until you both wake up. Then I’m going to make breakfast.”

            That woke Kyungsoo up. “That won’t be necessary,” he said hastily. “I’ll make breakfast.”

            Sehun laughed as Kyungsoo rolled out of bed and stumbled into the bathroom.

            “Jongin,” Sehun whispered into Jongin’s ear. “Wake upppppp.”

            “No,” Jongin groaned. “Go away, I want to sleep.”

            “Wake uppppp.”

            Jongin smacked him with his pillow and Sehun made an indignant noise. “Jongin! Why would you hit me?”

            “I don’t like people in the morning,” Jongin said, throwing his blankets over his head. “And it’s morning now.”

            Sehun pouted some more. “I’m going to eat all the food then,” he warned, and Jongin didn’t react. Sehun pounced on Jongin, and Jongin yelled.

            “Sehun! Get off me!”

            “No,” Sehun said, too cheerfully. “Not until you get up. It’s your birthday, you’re supposed to be excited.”

            Jongin groaned. “Fine, fine, I’m getting up.” He stumbled out of bed right as Kyungsoo came out of the bathroom. The elder laughed as Jongin walked into the wall and smacked his head before finding the door.

            “So do you have anything you want to wish for?” Joonmyun asked later, during dinner. Jongin shrugged.

            “I don’t really know,” he admitted. “I guess I could wish for passing grades, but I don’t think it works that way.”

            Joonmyun laughed. “It doesn’t.”

            “Jongin!” Baekhyun yelled. “Everyone else is on the webcam!”

            Jongin walked over to the computer screen to see the camera lens dominated by Luhan’s nose.

            “Luhan, will you scoot back,” Jongin heard Wu Fan say irritably. He laughed as Luhan pouted and sat back down.

            “Happy birthday Jongin!” Yixing said, and Jongin smiled. He really missed Yixing.

            “Happy birthday!” everyone else said, and Jongin just smiled awkwardly. He never really knew what to do when people told him happy birthday.

            “You’re so awkward,” Luhan said, earning himself a smack from Minseok.

            “What Luhan is trying to say,” Minseok said, “is that you’re a year older, and wiser now.”

            “Are you sure about the wiser part,” Sehun said from behind Jongin.

            Everyone laughed, including Jongin, and Minseok said, “Well, he’s probably wiser. You never know.”

            When Kyungsoo walked in the door with the cake, Sehun jumped off the couch and Jongin yelled, “You are NOT throwing another cake in my fa–”

            Jongin really hated that Sehun has good aim.

            “Cake is good,” Sehun said, laughing as Jongin glowered at him. Joonmyun tried to look disapproving, but in the end, he laughed, and Sehun looked pleased.

            “Now we’ll never get to eat the cake,” Kyungsoo said, sadly, and Sehun shook his head.

            “Just do this,” he said, and wiped a bit off icing off of Jongin’s face with his finger and on it.

            Kyungsoo’s eyes widened. “I think I’ll pass.”

            “So,” Sehun said, throwing himself on Jongin’s bed after Jongin cleaned the cake off of his face, “are you done with your homework?”

            “No,” Jongin said, “and I can’t believe you threw another cake at me.”

            “You look cuter with icing on your face,” Sehun said, blinking innocently.

            Jongin rolled his eyes. “Are you done with your homework?”

            “Yes,” Sehun said, smiling. “I finished last night.”

            “Shut up,” Jongin grumbled. “I still have five pages of translations for English.”

            “Which is why I decided to drop that class this year,” Sehun said cheerfully. Jongin thought that Sehun was a little too cheerful today.

            Jongin sighed. “Okay, now go away while I finish this.”

            “No,” Sehun said, rolling around on Jongin’s bed. “I’ll stay here.”

            Jongin just rolled his eyes again and started writing.

            Sehun fell asleep before Jongin finished, and Jongin walked over and brushed Sehun’s hair out of his eyes. Sehun murmured in his sleep and snuggled up to his pillow. Jongin thought that he should probably hate the younger after everything, but it was hard to hate Sehun when he was as beautiful as this.

            Jongin smoothed out the covers and turned off the lights before he left the room.

            “Still up?” Kyungsoo asked, when Jongin came into the living room. “What’s wrong?”

            “Sehun fell asleep in my bed,” Jongin said, throwing himself on the couch. “So I guess I’m sleeping on the couch tonight.”

            Kyungsoo laughed and turned the TV off, rubbing his eyes. “So how does it feel, being twenty six?”

            “Nothing’s changed,” Jongin deadpanned. “I don’t think they ever will.”

            Kyungsoo stopped rubbing his eyes. “What do you mean?”

            Jongin shrugged. “Is something going to change?”

            Kyungsoo opened his mouth and closed it again before he said, “Joonmyun didn’t tell you?”

            “What?”

            “Our last album was our last one.”

            “Okay.”

            “Our last one.”

            “Last–oh. Ohhh. Wait. Last one?”

            Kyungsoo nodded. “Joonmyun told me last week, and said that our manager told him. We’re not releasing any more albums together.”

            Jongin bit his lip. “Then what are we going to do?”

            “What we normally do,” Kyungsoo said, stretching. “Dramas, variety shows, composing, stuff.”

            “You’re telling me this on my birthday,” Jongin groaned. “Why.”

            Kyungsoo laughed softly. “Yeah, I guess I am.”

            “Does anyone else know?” Jongin asked, sliding off the couch.

            “No, I don’t think so,” Kyungsoo said. “I don’t think Joonmyun told anyone else. I think he’s planning to later.”

            “Later as in…”

            “Probably in the next week or so.”

            Joonmyun told them three days later, when Baekhyun and Chanyeol came home from filming. Baekhyun cried, and Jongin saw Chanyeol roll his eyes a little while comforting him. Baekhyun cried over everything. Sehun cried too, but not as much, and Jongin put an arm around him.

            “Nothing’s going to change,” he murmured into Sehun’s ear.

            “Yes, it is,” Sehun said. “Everything’s going to change.”

            They all went home for a couple days, and the drive back was silent between Sehun and Jongin. They both went into their respective apartments, and Jongin was greeted by his entire family; his mother, father, and both of his sisters.

            “You guys are all home,” he said, dazedly. Everyone was usually at work, and it was rare for them all to gather.

            “For you,” his mother said, hugging him. He hugged her back. He had really missed his mother.
            “Eight years,” his father said, clapping him on the back. “You did well.”

            Jongin flushed, and turned away, running right into his sisters.

            “You were so cute onstage,” they said, patting his cheeks. “You were never cute to us.”

            Jongin blushed this time, and they laughed and pinched his cheeks.

            “Stop pestering him,” his mother called from the kitchen, but she was laughing.

            Jongin had almost forgotten what it was like to have dinner with his family. It was nice, he thought, and they laughed and talked about past things.

            “Remember our first hiking trip with all five of us?” his mother said. “Jongin couldn’t climb, and your father and I had to take turns carrying him up the mountain.”

            His sisters laughed, and Jongin said defensively, “I was seven!”

            “Still,” his father said, laughing, “You were really heavy.”

            It was nice sleeping in his old room, seeing his sisters walk around in sweats and no makeup. It was nice being home.

            When they all went back to the dorm, Kyungsoo was carrying an enormous notebook stuffed with papers.

            “What is that?” Joonmyun asked, curiously, Jongin behind him.

            “Recipes that my mom gave me,” Kyungsoo said excitedly. “I can’t wait to try them out.”

            Jongin laughed until Kyungsoo smacked him and threatened not to give him any food.

            Sehun was quiet all throughout dinner, and Jongin asked him why later. Sehun sighed and closed the door before he said, “My parents had a girl over.”

            “Okay.”

            “She’s twenty five.”

            “Okay.”

            “They want me to marry her.”

            “What.”

            “They want me to–”

            “I heard you the first time.”

            Sehun sighed.
            “Are you going to?” Jongin asked, more roughly than he intended.

            Sehun looked away. “I don’t know. We decided to go for coffee tomorrow, but I don’t know her very well.”

            “What’s her name?”

            “Nayoung. Kim Nayoung.”

            “Was she someone we went to school with?”

            “No,” Sehun said. “She’s an intern at my dad’s office, and he said that she seemed like a girl I would like.”

            “So you’re actually going to give it a try?” Jongin said, his voice breaking.

            “Yes,” Sehun said, not looking at him. “Yes, I am. My parents want me to start a family, and that’s why I should do.”

            Jongin turned away.

A/N: um, sorry if your name is Nayoung

but lol you should have seen this coming it was in the foreword