Staring at the clock, she watched as the big hand ticked closer towards the small hand, soon to be joining it at twelve. Just a few minutes till midnight, a few minutes till she had been in the world for yet another year.

Tick...tock...tick... tock...

11.59

Her eyes were closed and her hands were brought together in prayer, the same words repeating over and over in her head.

“Please work, please please please work.”

Cuck-coo!

She opened her eyes slowly, hoping that her prayers worked its magic. Slightly glancing at her surroundings, she let out a sigh.

Still in this damn bedroom, with only that annoying bird for company.

She turned to the clock, eyes throwing daggers at it.

“Hey bird, aren’t you going to wish me a happy birthday?”

No response.

“Hmf.” And the closest thing next to her, a book of grammar, was thrown with full strength at the cuck coo clock – only to end up knocking over a box of nail polish metres away from it. After a long 'ugh!', she quickly buried herself under her covers, mumbling into her pillow about how much of an idiot she was for even hoping that her wish would come true.

“Stupid stupid stupid.” She cursed. "Why would EXO even want to spend their time with some stupid girl on her birthday?"

“Babe, you ain’t stupid.”

“Bwoh?!” her head snapped back to where the second voice came from, but all that she turned to was an empty side of a double bed. Odd, I swear I heard someone. She sighed in disappointment.

“Happy birthday to me...Happy birthday Halia...” She whispered to herself, before drifting off.

At what seemed like hours later, a strong howling of wind accompanied by a single flash of lightning woke the stubborn Halia from her sleep. Growling at the disturbance of her sleep, she shouted at the inanimate wind to shut up, crushing her head underneath her pillow to block the noise out. But the howling didn’t seem to get any less quiet; in fact, it was getting louder, almost as if it was inside the room with her. Is this a hurricane? Should I scream for help? No wait, hah I can’t even scream anyway....plus I live in a hurricane free zone anyway…Could it be a storm? But what’s a storm without rain…or thunder......nothing in the weather forecast about this either… but the lightning.... A loud clack interrupted her in the midst of thoughts, and she shot up as fast as it was humanly possible. The room was dark, and with Halia’s eyes still blurred from sleep and unadjusted to the lighting, nothing was to be seen. She contemplated whether she should get up and investigate, but the silence of the scene made her decide to stay put. As she was going to set back off to sleep, another clack has heard, followed by a quick and quiet ‘oops’.

“Who’s there!?” Halia squeaked, huddling herself in a ball for defence.

“Dammit. Way to go dude.”

“What’s the point of having powers when you can’t use them properly?”

“Now you just made us look like some creepy rapists or someth-“

“Show yourself!” Halia squeaked out again, with a little more confidence.

“We’re right in front of you.”

Halia searched up and down, but all that she saw was darkness.

“Can’t see us? Allow me to be of your assistance~” and hovering in the space of black appeared a flame, illuminating the room and the thirteen faces that stood before her.

“What a gentleman.” A man with thick eyeliner rolled his eyes.

“I know.” Grinned a guy with flames blazing out of his hand. The flare flickered. “Sorry, little faulty tonight. I don’t concentrate well when I'm next to pretty girls, and damn the one we're assisting tonight is no less than a goddess. Even prettier than Dara noona.”  He winked. The man with thick eyeliner gagged.

“Hey, are you okay? You look a little pale, are you feeling sick? ” Another said, concern written on his face.

But Halia wasn’t listening to a word any of them were saying, her senses numb. The men from the posters on her wall - the albums that slept on her book shelf beside her bed - the videos that overtook her YouTube favourites list were now standing in front of her, all conversing with each other casually. Before she could take any of it in and accept it, a tide of darkness had overtaken her consciousness.

Halia woke up to an embrace of warmth. Half-expecting to roll over to her cat sleeping on her pillow, she was surprised to find an arm anchoring her down. She glanced up, eyes meeting a rather nice - yet familiar - pair of lips. She blinked several times, trying to figure out what was going on. When she couldn’t think of any logical explanation, the owner of the nice lips looked down at her.

“Oh you’re awake! You look a lot better than before, it’s nice seeing colour in your face. My healing has done well.” The face beamed a beam that stunned her. Snapping out of it, she zoomed up and blurted “Lay?!”

“Yes?” he responded, rising up with her. She just blinked at him. “What? Are you still feeling unwell?” concern re-gushing through his face.

“N-no…but…what…are…you…d...”

“Oh, what we’re doing here? We’re all here fo-“ he stopped midsentence, looking around the room that only now had two other people in it. “Well at least, we were all here. Luhan! Telepethy everyone to come back! And wake up Chanyeol before he burns the house down.” Halia followed where Lay’s voice was travelling to and saw Luhan sitting in the corner of the room with Chanyeol dozing away in the other.

“Sleep well Halia? I was making sure Yixing here didn’t try anything funny on you. I’ve been monitoring his thoughts, and overall they were pretty innocent. There were a few times when he thought you looked cute while you were sleeping but nothing beyond wanting to your face. Good job Lay.” Luhan nodded at him, leaving Halia’s cheeks to go red.

“See! Your face looks so much cuter in colour.” Lay commented, making her cheeks burn.

“And Yeol there was waiting for you to wake up and kept the room alight, but as you can see, he fell asleep on duty.” Luhan continued.

“Why not just turn on the lamp?” Halia suggested, trying to forget the compliment she got before.

Lay and Luhan blinked at each other, and in unison asked “What’s a lamp?”

Out of nowhere, 10 guys popped up from midair. Halia yelped in surprise and clinged onto Lay’s arm, who placed his hand on top of hers.

“Woa, that was one of my roughest landings yet.” said a man, brushing invisible dust from his shoulders.

“Kai!” Halia exclaimed, slapping her hands on realising that it was a lot louder than she anticipated. Kai smirked slightly and waved in response. He then walked to Chanyeol who was still sleeping sound fully, calling over the person who Halia identified as Xiumin with him. With a quick exchange of words and Xiumin walking in front of Chanyeol, the rooms light source suddenly went out and a deep scream was heard. Within seconds, an alternative light source had lit up the room showing a frosty Chanyeol.

“Dude!” he shivered out before using the flames from his hands to warm himself up. Xiumin simply shrugged and turned to Halia, flashing a huge grin. She just laughed. Hearing this, Chanyeol shoved Xiumin aside and grinned even wider than Xiumin had, drops from his now wet her dripping onto his face. Halia again couldn’t help but giggle.

"Oh yeah, just go on and laugh. Don't mind the guy who was oh so nice enough to replace the lighting of the room." 

Halia found the guy with thick eyeliner talking to himself loudly at the side, light streaming out of his pores. Before she could control herself, she squealed out his name. "Baekhyun!!!!" He smiled genuinely in response, happy that she has had said his name most excitedly out of the lot. She continued awkwardly "Uh...thank...you.....but really you can just turn on the lamp." His smile was replaced with an expression of utter confusion.

Together in unison, all 12 of them, asked "What's a lamp?" Halia chuckled to herself, mentioning something about how they really were one.

"Did you sleep well Halia?" someone with panda eyes had stepped towards her and sat at the end of the bed. Halia smiled and nodded, screaming 'Tao!' inside. "Then I can resume time again right?" Halia looked at him bewildered.

 "See the time?" a blonde spoke up, planting himself behind Tao. Halia mumbled 'Kris!' under her breath, and silently laughed at how he had creeped up with Tao. "3.15am. It’s been 3.15am for the past 2 hours, and it’s been 2 hours since you fainted."  she tilted her head, puzzled. "You see Sleeping Beauty, we have to go before sunrise, and we figured you didn't want your sleep included in that time." Kris smiled down at Tao, hands massaging his shoulders. "So Tao here stopped time for you. Because he's a thoughtful mother fu-"

"Hey. Language. And there's no need to thank me Halia." Tao smiled. All she could do was return the smile.

"Oh and by the way. I'm sorry for flying away before." Kris apologised to Halia, who had no idea what he was talking about. "I didn’t want ruin the surprise, but I didn't like hearing you call yourself stupid babe." 

"That was you?!" she said in disbelief. Moving to the direction of those who hardly spoke a word -  after a few seconds of soaking in all their beauty -  she continued her theory. "So that wind and lightning....was you two?" looking alternately between Sehun and Chen. Both exchanged looks, followed by sheepish nods. The two seeked for forgiveness together, which was granted without any difficulty. Sehun explained that they needed to wake her up, Chen leaching off his statement saying that waking her up physically would scare her – she brushed it off. The room was suddenly embraced by silence.

"Y’know...you guys still haven’t told me why you’re here.”

“Oh! Guys!” Lay pounced up from her side. The members traded glances with each other, eyes widening in realisation. They all stood up in a bundle, trying to spread out and use as much space the little room had to offer. Figuring out their positions, they beamed at Halia who was sitting curiously on her bed. They stood there, as if they were waiting for something. But the thing never came. Lay snapped, “Chen!”  and with a quick ‘oh!’, a flash of lightning appeared from nowhere.

“We are one! We are Exo! We are here to grant your wish. Happy birthday!” they all bowed together, or at least did so in the most un-synced way possible.

Halia sat there blankly, staring at the 12 awkward boys that stood at the centre of her room. They side glanced at each other nervously, anxious that they did something wrong. To their relief, she burst out in laugher.

“My wish? But I didn’t wish for you to come here. I wished for me to go there.” She corrected, causing the strangely quiet Suho to rattle around in his pockets. He picked a parchment of paper, skimming through it. He then looked up and grimaced, cursing under his breath.

“We got it wrong again guys.”

“Blame D.O. He was the one who brought it up.”

A shy and embarrassed D.O immerged from the back, looking down at the floor as if he just got scolded. He scratched his head awkwardly, apologising to s and Halia. “I guess I misread it..”

“We’re the worst genies ever.” Suho sighed, placing himself at the end of Halia’s bed. “Do you have a glass?” he asked her, and she gave him cup that sat on her bedside table. He took it from her hands, and placed his palm over the top of it. When his palm was removed, the cup was full of water. He drank it all in one shot as if it was alcohol. His eyes met Halia’s puzzled ones, and explained that water had the same effect as alcohol had on humans, and that it’s sort of become a tradition that they’d all intoxicate themselves every time they failed.

As the glass of intoxicating water was passed around, with Suho refilling it for every member, Halia felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned her head towards the culprit, and there stood a very awkward and smiley D.O, his hands behind his back. She blinked at him, mirroring his smile. Bringing his hands from beside his back, he revealed a pot of soil. Her thoughts still not any clearer, she continued to gawk at him. And within seconds, the soil opened up to sprout out a long stem, pink drooping petals quickly spawning out of it. Bleeding hearts. Frozen by the gesture and sudden appearance of her favourite flowers, D.O smiled warmly, every little tooth of his exposed.  Just as she gathered enough sanity to raise her arms a receive it, a very drunk Sehun threw himself in her arms, falling asleep in an instant. Before she could react, a rain of drunken Exo splattered onto her bed, all already in dream world. Even D.O had joined the human – or alien – hamburger. Halia, being at the bottom of this chaos, tried to struggle out, only to fail miserably. Deciding that none of these morons would wake up and move, she took advantage of the warmth the alien blanket had to offer, and dozed off – once again questioning why she loved these idiots.

“I hope Tao still has time paused...”

And that was that.

........*falls into an OTL position*

Seungil chukha hamida! Seungil chukha hamida!  Seungil chukha ham- ah i have no energy for this unnie.
So, my attempt at an Exo fic gone horribly wrong xD did you expect it? Did you? Did you? Did i surprise you? Did i? Did i? I should really leave the fanfics to the fans next time tho... but hey it was fun! I enjoyed writing this so much dsfsgsdnjds like seriously I’m sorry I’m not sorry if its crap (which after reading again, it is cuz it’s not my signature depressing ) but i am sorry for the ending i was completely brain dead *217 degrees bow*

And  for anyone who just happens to be randomly reading this, I’m sorry if the personalities don’t match the real members or the otps are wrong or blah but I tried ._. And thank you for reading. Please do comment and criticize away~

Anyways! I hope this made a difference to your birthday in some way, shape or form ;3 even if the ending was total bull. happy birthday again my pibo, and have a freaking awesome day *grins*

......./reads again and cringes