Min Haneul’s POV

A month after Heechan went to the amusement park with the SHINee boys, I got a phone call from Taemin.

“Yeobsaeyo?”

“Yeobsaeyo, Min Hanuel-ssi. How are you?” Taemin’s sweet voice came from through the landline phone in the kitchen as I stirred my hot cocoa.

“I’m great, Taemin-ah. Why are you calling?”

“I was wondering when Heechan’s birthday is. We want to surprise her, so we thought we would ask you.”

That was sweet of them. I knew Heechan hung out with them a lot, and I knew they were nice boys. Still, I wished she would spend more time with girls her age then taking time from the busy idols. If the press found out that my daughter was spending so much time with SHINee, it could cause some problems. At the moment, however, there was nothing wrong.

“Her birthday is May 8^th. That’s very nice of you boys to surprise her for her birthday.”

“Kamshamnida. But I want to ask you…”

“Hm?” I asked, sipping my hot cocoa.

“Is your relationship with Heechan okay? I mean, she never says anything aboutyou, and she avoids questions about you.”

“Really? No, we’re fine.” But I felt a twisting sensation in the pit of my stomach.

“Are you sure?”

The silence grew and stretched.

“Of course I’m sure,” I said firmly. I was a wonderful mother.

“Okay. Thank you, Min Haneul-ssi.”

I hung up and leaned against the counter, sipping my drink. Maybe I hadn’t been a great mother to Heechan… When had I ever done anything for her?

You took her into your home, I reminded myself. And, with her father…

I woke up on the morning of the 8^th with a smile. Today was my birthday. I yawned and looked at the clock. It was 11:00. I got to sleep in, cool. I smelled food and went downstairs, shuffling my feet in my fluffy slippers. Gang Daeho sat at the bar in his casual clothes.

“What’s up, Gang Daeho?” I asked in English. He looked at me and rolled his eyes.

“I don’t speak English, Heechan, and you know it.” He replied in Korean. I laughed, loving poking fun at him because I knew something he didn’t.

“Where is Umma?” I asked, taking some breakfast and sitting down.

“She went to some auditions. She said she won’t be here for a while. Also, you have an appointment today. You should get ready.”

I groaned inwardly. Another person to meet. On my birthday, too. At first they had been fun, but now they were just tiring. Didn’t the whole world know who I was yet? Aish. I quickly stuffed the rest of my breakfast in my mouth and ran back upstairs to take a shower.

“I’ll be down in a little while!” I called in English again, just to annoy Gang Daeho.

“Yah!” I heard him shouting back at me. I laughed.

After I had taken a quick shower and was all ready to go, I went back downstairs and I didn’t see Gang Daeho anywhere. I looked around, but I still couldn’t find him. Annoyed, I picked up my phone.

Where are you? Don’t I need to go the the meeting?

Didn’t you notice I don’t have my uniform on? It’s my day off, you know.

But how am I supposed to get there?

Just stay there, Heechan. Don’t worry about it.

I sighed at his vague answer and plopped down on the couch, messing around on my Ipod. A couple minutes later, the doorbell rang.

“Annyonghasaeyo?” I answered the door to see Minho standing there.

“Minho Oppa? What?” He smiled.

“I’m here to pick you up. Happy Birthday!”

“Pick me up? What for?”

“It’s your birthday. We have a surprise for you.”

“Really? Okay…” I closed the door  behind me and followed him to a very expensive-looking car. He smiled and opened the door for me. I scoffed at him and stuck out my tongue, sitting down on the nice leather seat.

“Heechan! I’m your Oppa, you know! Aish!” He said, closing my door. The ride was nice. We talked about this and that, really just killing time and awkwardness until we got… wherever we were going. But I learned about how much he loves soccer, which I guess I hadn’t really picked up before. He was pretty quiet in the group, but he was interesting.

I soon found out where we were going. The car stopped in front of… The SM building?!?

“Why are we here?” I asked, getting out of his (SO FANCY) car.

“I said it was a surprise!” He said, pulling me in.

“Yah! I can walk by myself!” I said, but he wouldn’t let me go. He just turned and smiled at me before dragging me through the building, nodding to the secretary and getting weird looks. We went to a room on the far side of the building, and he turned around to face me.

“Close your eyes.” He smirked.

“Wae?”

“Just do it!” he whined, moving to open the door. I obliged and closed my eyes, and Minho led me into the room.

“SANGIL CHUPKA HAMNIDA~” I heard singing. It was SHINee! I opened my eyes to see a large, mostly empty room with a stereo and blue screens painted with clouds. I smiled.

“SA RANG HA NUEN HEECHAN, SANG IL CHUPKA HAMNIDA!” They finished, cheering.  I laughed… until I was hit in the face by a cupcake.

“Oopsie!” said Taemin, holding the remains of the cupcake that was all over my face and looking totally unapologetic. I wiped the frosting out of my eyes and glared at him.

“You’d better watch out, Maknae.” I grabbed another cupcake off of the tray that was sitting in the middle of the room and ran after Taemin. He was easy to catch, and soon he also had pink frosting smeared across his face.

Nobody got to eat any of the cupcakes.

After we had cleaned up all of the frosting and washed our faces (with Key complaining about his eyeliner being ruined), we had pizza. And a lot of it, too. It was really good pizza. Then, Jonghyun told me that it was time for the real surprise.

“The real surprise?” I asked, throwing out the paper towel I had used to dry my face.

“Yup.” He said, grinning. “You, Min Hee Chan, are going to have the birthday of a lifetime. Any  girl in our generation would be jealous of you. SHINee is going to dance for you!”

I laughed. Jonghyun stared.

“Firstly, thanks. But,” I stopped laughing and stared Jjong in the eye.

“You got my name wrong.”

“WHAT?” Jjong looked overly shocked. Minho and Key started doubling over, laughing at his expression. I smiled softly.

“It wasn’t your fault. But my name is Kae Hee Chan, not Min Hee Chan.”

“But I thought Min Haneul was your mother?” He asked, still with that stupid expression on his face.

“She is. But she divorced my father, Kae Jung Gil. I guess she didn’t tell you, but it’s not a big deal.

“Huh.” Said Jonghyun.

“ANYWAY.” Said Diva Key, saving Jjong from coming up with anything to say. “Now you need to watch us dance! Sit down!” I sat on the ground where I had been standing and looked at the five boys. Onew started messing with the stereo, and soon, a song I didn’t recognize filled the air.

“I know you’re not our Noona, but I thought you’d still appreciate this,” Onew said with a smile as they got into position with everyone, surrounding Taemin.

“Noona Neomou Yeppon…”  They sang. The song was catchy and sweet, and the dance looked awesome but unreasonably hard. But, I was the queen of dance at my old studio. This dance looked fun. I couldn’t help focusing on the steps, trying to memorize and wrap them around my head… But I stopped myself. I should be focusing on them; this was their gift to me. I almost laughed. It was stupid, wasn’t it?

So I sat back and enjoyed the show, cheering when they ended.

“That was great!” I said. “You guys are really good dancers.”

“Well, why can’t you? We can teach you.” Said Key.

“Really?” I asked, standing up and laughing. “Okay.”

“Woah, You’re really good!” Minho said an hour later and I had the whole dance down. It was kind of awkward trying to do a 5-person dance with 6 people, so Minho decided to sit out and was watching us. I was right, this dance was fun.

Min Haneul’s POV

I showed my ID to the secretary at the front desk of SM. I had to come here to pick up Heechan from her little ‘Birthday Surprise’ because it was Gang Daeho’s day off. As I neared the door to the dance studio, I heard laughter. Before I went inside, I decided to look through the window, knowing full well that I would look like a creeper if I got caught.

Heechan was dancing with SHINee. And even I, who had seen countless groups rehearsing and performing, had to admit that she was wonderful.

And she was laughing. I hadn’t seen her being this  happy since she got here. Maybe I was a little harsh on her…?

I should change that, I decided. She WAS really good at dancing, and it was her birthday. So, I decided I should get her dance lessons. I happened to know the best choreographer in Korea who owed me a favor…