Woohyun’s POV

On Saturday morning, I was greeted by the familiar buzzing of my alarm clock. I turned over and snoozed the button before I went back to sleep. The sun was up; I could see that through the blinds. But I was too lazy to get up.

Then I smiled.

My bedroom door opened and my mom came inside the room, bringing a tray of yummy, and delicious-smelling food. “Morning, sweetheart,” she told me. “Happy birthday, my darling son. You are officially seventeen this year. Soon you’ll be graduating and off to college!”

I sat up and laughed. “Whoa, Umma, not so fast,” I said lightly. “I just turned seventeen. Let’s not get carried away. Let me enjoy being seventeen, arraso?”

She kissed the top of my head. “Arra, arra,” she said smoothly, placing the tray in front of me. “I made your favorite Western breakfast because I think you deserved to have a little treat today. It is a special day, after all.”

“Gomawo, Umma!” I beamed. I positively love my mother. She was so sweet. It was a no wonder my dad fell for her.

Speaking of my dad, he entered the room with a bright smile on his face. “Don’t worry, I tasted it beforehand,” he joked, referring to my mom’s cooking. “It’s clean. In fact, it’s more delicious than what you can get outside.” He gave my mother a wink.

My mom just swatted a handkerchief at him.

“Ewww, Appa, not here,” I grimaced but I didn’t mind. I loved seeing my parents so lovey-dovey all the time.

He just laughed and ruffled my hair. “Happy birthday, son.”

“Don’t you have work today?”

He nodded. “I’ll leave around noon, so at least I get to spend some time with my son before I go off to work,” he explained.

My dad is the coolest.

“What do you want to do today?” he asked.

I thought about it while munching on my toasted bread with bacon (but not too greasy, since I can’t take greasy food). “Hmmm . . . we haven’t played soccer in a really long time,” I mused. I looked outside. “The weather is so nice. Can we hit the park later?”

He nodded. “Soccer it is.”

Umma frowned. “Make sure you don’t stress yourself too much.”

My dad and I grimaced. “Umma,” we said at the same time.

Umma got up and laughed. “I should start preparing for the picnic later,” she said. “So that you can take it with you when you go play. I’ll be the umpire, of course.”

“Will Boohyun hyung be here?”

“I heard my name.”

My older brother, Boohyun, who was eighteen this year, entered the room. “Happy birthday, little bro. You wanna play soccer? Bring it on.”

I pointed to my mom. “Umma, you’re teaming up with me!”

“Then who’s going to be the umpire?” she laughed.

My dad threw his arms up in the sky. “Love shall be the umpire; because of our love for one another, we will play fair.”

Mom grimaced. “Cheesy.” She looked at me. “There’s where you got your cheesiness from,” she added. “Thank goodness Boohyun isn’t like that.”

Boohyun just smirked. “Hey, Woohyun, why don’t you ask your friends to come and play with us?” he asked. “That way Appa and Umma can spend quality time with each other and we still get to scrimmage.”

I nodded. “I think that’s a great idea.”

I called my friends (disturbing Myungsoo and Dongwoo in their sleep, those pigs) and soon it was all set. We were going to play soccer in the morning and later in the afternoon, I was going over to Sunggyu’s house to celebrate my party like how Infinite always celebrated each other’s birthdays.

But I wonder if they would invite Kasumi. I mean, she’s my girlfriend and obviously I would want her t be part of it. But then again . . . it was a tradition for Infinite to hang out with only each other and the member’s family on their birthdays.

Maybe she will appear in Sunggyu’s house for a little bit, at least, so I would know that she knew it was my birthday today.

Either way . . . I can sense that today was going to be exciting!

Later in the night after we had showered from the sweat we had from playing soccer with my brother today, we were sitting around Sunggyu’s dining table, eating the food his mom had made for us before she and Sunggyu’s dad had to leave for a business dinner. They were really sorry they couldn’t stay but I completely understood; they were both very busy. But it was a good thing they still found time to interact with Sunggyu.

During dinner, I was wondering if they were going to invite Kasumi over but I didn’t want to ask them in case they might get offended. So I was wondering how I was going to approach the question when Hoya spoke up, “Is Kasumi coming tonight?”

I breathed a sigh of relief.

I didn’t have to ask them that.

Sunggyu looked at Myungsoo.

Myungsoo shrugged. “I called her this morning,” he replied. “Remember she said that she was busy today?”

I frowned. “She doesn’t know it’s my birthday?” I asked, feeling hurt.

“She remembers, all right,” Myungsoo quickly went on. “We actually invited her a long time ago but she already told us she wasn’t free. But she did tell me to wish you and that if she could, she would try finding time to come over.”

“She didn’t even text me.”

Sung Jong gave me a withering look. “Are you really going to jump to conclusions without knowing the full story yet?”

Dongwoo chuckled. “Don’t worry, she’s just too busy to pick her phone up.”

“What is she doing?” I wondered.

“Her grandmother wanted her to help clean the house,” Sungyeol explained. “She said she would try to finish as fast as she could.”

“Oh.” I felt gutted, but at least I know she didn’t forget me. I looked out of the window. But then I shook my head. “At least she remembered,” I said, smiling, while the other members all looked at me. “Whether she comes or not, it doesn’t matter because I have all of you here with me.” I gave them a cheesy grin.

Sungyeol stood up and everyone looked up to see what he was doing. “Bye, I’ll see you on Monday,” he said.

I pouted. “Yah!”

“Wait for me,” Dongwoo spoke up.

I frowned. “Wow, you guys are really mean.” I pretended to be angry with them but of course they knew I was kidding.

They just laughed and sat down and we all began to eat dinner, laughing and exchanging jokes and just having a good time.

This year wasn’t any different than last year, but I like it like this. Maybe it was better to keep the old traditions despite the many changes we have gone through throughout the entire year.

But I still couldn’t help but hope that Kasumi would come. I mean, there’s no way she would miss my birthday.

Right?

Kasumi’s POV

I looked up to the clock and saw that it was ten-thirty at night already. I winced slightly, wiping the sweat off my face as I glanced around the bare kitchen. Well, it wasn’t bare, exactly. The cupboards were bare, but the stacks of plates, cups, cutleries and everything that belonged in the kitchen were laid out on the counter smacked right in the middle of the kitchen, as well as on the floor, along with empty boxes tossed to a side, near the empty fridge that wasn’t even . All right, some of the stuff was already packed away into their cupboards, but I still have more than half-way to go.

I don’t think I’d be able to go for Woohyun’s birthday party at Sunggyu’s party on time. Not when I still have so much to do.

Why my grandmother wanted to renovate the whole house, I’d never understand. Sure, she made the space bigger and everything but I loved how it was before. And I really hated the after-work, where it was time to put everything back into place because that took a lot of time.

I really wanted to be with Woohyun and the rest of the members of Infinite right now instead of being covered in dirt.

I heard creaking of footsteps and looked at the entrance to see Changmin leaning against the wall with an amused smile on his face. “Hey. . . . Aren’t you supposed to be at your boyfriend’s birthday party by now?” he asked me with raised eyebrows, folding his arms across his chest.

I shot him a look. “How do you know about things like this? Are you stalking my boyfriend or something?” I asked back.

He chuckled softly and came over to where I was. “You’d be surprise of how much things f(x) have been telling me about,” he replied.

My facial expression turned into a scowl as I tur