A/N: a fanfic I write for my birthday ^^

Feedback/reviews are much appreciated. thanks for reading^^

Seven had planned for this day for months. Every step, every detail of the way had been planned and spread out in his mind so thoroughly it's like checking things off an imaginary list.

First, he had Zen and Yoosung pick up Hyunsoo and take her somewhere. He had parked his car a few ways away and hid himself in the trees outside the apartment. He had seen Zen and Yoosung enter the apartment and waited for a good half hour before they came out with Hyunsoo tagging along—albeit a bit warily.

"Where are we going?" he heard her ask them.

"It's a surprise," Yoosung said with a beam.

Hyunsoo bit her lip and looked at them suspiciously. "You're not going somewhere weird, are you?"

Zen barked a laughter. "We're not Seven, so rest assured," he said. He turned on his heels so suddenly that Hyunsoo almost crashed into him. Zen held out a hand and steadied her. Once she regained her bearing, he stood straight and said in a deep voice, "Today is our princess's birthday,"—he made an exaggerated bow—"We are at your service, madam."

Hyunsoo laughed. Seven watched as she followed Yoosung and Zen down the driveway and to an awaiting car—Jumin's car that they had borrowed for the day, including his Driver Kim, who only came with them under Jumin's order. Zen entered the passenger seat while Yoosung and Hyunsoo entered through the back door. Seven could still hear their voices until they shut the door and the car moved away and disappeared around the bend.

But Seven didn't move until he was sure he couldn't hear the sound of the car's engine anymore. Once he was sure they were gone, he picked up his bag and bearings and entered the apartment.

Seven knew Hyunsoo's apartment like the back of his hand. He had monitored the place every day when Rika was still there and he had monitored it again in those early days after Hyunsoo first joined them. And now, entering the password of the apartment, he heard the click of a lock and gingerly opened the door.

The apartment was as clean and tidy as he'd seen it through the CCTV. Seven immediately dumped all of his stuffs at the living room and began sorting out through all the decorations he'd bought. It was still 8 AM and he had ten hours to get everything ready. It was more than enough.

So, blasting his music through his laptop, he began to work.

Setting decorations wasn't hard and it was coming along nicely, as Seven had prepared some of them back home. He set the HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Hyunsoo banner hanging on one wall. Then he took out the photos he'd printed and set on strings vertically and he hung them on either side of the banner. He pumped blue balloons, red balloons, green balloons, yellow balloons, and cat-shaped balloons and set them around the apartment along with more photos on a string.

And after a few hours, Seven looked up and around and knew Hyunsoo would love the surprise waiting for her when she got back home.

Now, all he needed to do was bake the cake.

This was the hard part as he had no experience baking a cake. Sure, he could make simple things like sandwich or cookies, but 707 had never baked a cake before. Yoosung had offered his help time and time again ever since Seven told them of the surprise he was planning, but he had always refused.

He wanted to be one to make it, no matter how many times he had to redo it.

So Yoosung gave him a recipe for a chocolate cake with written instructions of what he should do.

He was an agent. He had infiltrated places and disguised himself as various people. Baking a cake should be no problem.

So he set his jacket aside, put on an apron he had found in the closet, and began working.

But oh, how wrong he was.

Baking a cake was a problem.

And Seven didn't know what the problem was.

He had followed the recipe per se. He had followed Yoosung's instructions one step at a time. But when he took the cake out of the oven the first time, it came out burnt.

Seven frowned.

"Okay, it's only my first try and I still have time," he told himself.

Good thing he'd brought ingredients enough to make multiple cakes as he had seen this coming.

So Seven began making a second cake, setting the burnt one aside.

But the second one came out the same and he wanted to scream in frustration. He looked at his watch—only three hours left. He still had time. But what if he failed again? Maybe he should just buy a cake. That would save him the trouble and he'd still have time to set everything in place.

Seven was still contemplating what he should do, head hung low, propping himself against the table counter, when he heard the click of a lock.

Seven's head snapped up.

Who is it? Jumin? Jaehee? No, they don't have the password to this apartment.

Hyunsoo?

Seven's heart beat went up.

They shouldn't be here yet!

He still had three hours to prepare!

Seven tore off his apron and threw it to the counter as he left the kitchen and closed the door.

"Come on, Yoosung, stop playing around," a voice unmistakably to be Hyunsoo's came from the apartment's entrance. "I need to get inside."

The living room was still a mess. Hyunsoo couldn't come in!

"W—We haven't gone to the arcade yet!" Yoosung stammered, hysterically.

"We weren't planning to go to the arcade."

"We haven't bought you presents!"

"You've bought me enough presents to last me a life time."

"We haven't—"

"Hyunsoo," came Zen's cool voice. "Come on. It's your birthday. The least you could do is give us the chance to give you the celebration of your life."

And as Zen and Yoosung tried to persuade Hyunsoo to go with them to who knows where, Seven tried his best to clean up the place.

There was a pause outside. "The way I see it, you guys are hiding something in there," Hyunsoo said. "And the only one I know who would blast their music this loud you could hear it down the hall is Seven,"—she was practically screaming at the door and he knew she knew he was inside—"so—"

Seven looked at his open laptop. Curse his idiocy!

He immediately ran to the entrance hall just as Hyunsoo managed to push past Yoosung, who had apparently blocked her way to the door. They stumbled inside just as Seven reached the hall.

Using a small remote he'd made, he pressed a button and turned off the music. The silence that fell was deafening and Seven didn't realize he'd put his music volume too high again.

Hyunsoo met Seven's eyes and she smiled. "So I take it you're giving me the birthday celebration of my life?"

Seven scratched the back of his head. "The least you could do is play along if you already guessed that."

"I really did leave my wallet here, you know," she said.

"You could've borrowed their money," Seven said.

"We were near here so I figured I'd just grab it for a second. I didn't know you guys were actually planning something until I got off the elevator and heard your music."

"That is so not true—" Yoosung began.

But Seven nudged his arm. "Yoosung, shut it."

Seven winced.

"Okay, now you know. Tell me where your wallet is and I'll get it for you. Then go with them and come back in three hours."

Hyunsoo pouted. "But now that I'm here, I want to see what you did."

"It's not finished yet. You'll get to see it later when you come back—" Seven was trying to herd Hyunsoo back to Yoosung and Zen who waited just outside the door, but Hyunsoo, being small and nimble, managed to free herself from Seven.

"Ah, don't—"

But Seven was too late and Hyunsoo was out of reach and she'd reached the living room and he heard her gasp.

Seven frowned.

Yoosung sighed. "Sorry, hyung, the moment we tried to persuade her to just leave her wallet be, she got curious and we couldn't stop her."

"That's okay. It's not your fault."

"Of course it's not our fault, you blockhead," Zen said, playfully smacking Seven at the back of his head. "Pick up your phone once in a while. You know how many times we tried to reach you?"

They'd followed Hyunsoo to the living room and Seven's eyes fell on his cell phone just beside his laptop. A green light was beeping and yes, they had probably called him hundreds of times but he didn't hear.

Hyunsoo suddenly squealed, surprising the boys, and Seven's eyes followed her line of sight—the string of photos hung on the wall beside the Happy Birthday banner.

"This is the one we took when we went to the beach, right?" she said. "And oh! We took this one at the last party! Haha, Yoosung you look really cute here!" And she went on and on commenting on each photo and Seven couldn't look away. The brightness in her eyes, her smile—everything about her always seemed to absorb him in and the next thing he knew, he was staring at her.

"Dude, you're staring at her," Zen said quietly to him, and Seven jerked, and shook himself.

"Ah, yeah, sorry," he murmured. "Uh, so, Hyunsoo, where did you leave your wallet?"

But Hyunsoo wasn't listening and she was already heading to the kitchen. "Why's the door closed?"

Seven panicked, and before he could think, his body had already moved and wedged himself between Hyunsoo and the kitchen door.

"What the—?"

"You've seen the decorations, now find your wallet and go!" In his panicked state, he unconsciously shouted at them.

Hyunsoo blinked in surprise.

Seven gritted his teeth and shut his eyes. "Sorry, Hyunsoo, I didn't mean to shout."

"Are you making something for me?"

Seven's face immediately went red and he didn't know if it was because he had failed baking her cake two times and wonder how she would react when she found out about that, or because of the mere fact that he was making something for her.

He didn't want to confirm either.

"You are, aren't you?"

And damn his traitorous heart for beating so hard at that grin on her face.

"Let me have a look."

"No!" he said firmly.

"Oh, come on!"

"It's not finished."

"That's okay."

"You'll laugh at me."

"I promise I won't." But she was already trying to hide her smile.

"See? You're already laughing!"

"Okay, okay." Hyunsoo took a deep breath and calmed herself. The teasing smile was gone from her face, but she was still smiling. "Okay, I won't laugh."

Seven bit his lip. The cakes were a disaster. There was no way he would show her those.

He heard a snicker and his eyes shot to the other two guys.

"And don't you two laugh!"

"I'm not laughing!" Yoosung tried to defend himself.

"Yep, sorry," Zen said, though he was still snickering, imagining what they would find in the kitchen. Zen cleared his throat. "Okay, yep, I'm done."

And against his better judgment, Seven opened the door and stepped aside.

Hyunsoo, Yoosung, and Zen entered.

And neither of them spoke.

Then he heard another snicker.

"Yoosung," Seven said with a death glare. Because it was Yoosung who snickered this time.

He coughed. "Uh, yeah, sorry." He cleared his throat again.

"But seriously, what happened?" Zen asked, walking around the kitchen.

Because the kitchen was a mess even though Seven didn't really do anything but follow Yoosung's instructions.

"And what are these?" Zen asked again, staring at the burnt cakes near the garbage.

"What do you think?" Seven said sarcastically.

Zen touched the top of one of the burnt cakes and picked it up. It was so black and so hard Seven didn't know where he messed up.

Yoosung sighed aloud. "This is why I offered to help you last night." The younger boy stared at him. "Do you still want to make one?"

"I think we should just order one," Zen said. "Can we even bake a cake in two hours?"

"We can!" Yoosung said with full conviction.

They all looked at Seven, but before he could reply, Hyunsoo had already clapped her hands.

"All right! Let's make a cake!"

"Uh, no, birthday girl should wait outside," Zen said.

"No, birthday girl wants to help you make a cake," Hyunsoo said.

They had a brief staring contest before Yoosung clapped his hands once. "Okay! Birthday girl wants to make a cake, let's make a cake with birthday girl."

Hyunsoo struck a victory pose and Zen could only laugh. The two guys immediately went to clean the counter but Seven couldn't move from his spot. When Yoosung asked if he still had ingredients to make one more cake, Seven vaguely pointed to the plastic bag at the corner of the kitchen.

It wasn't until he felt Hyunsoo's touch on his arm that he jerked.

"You okay?" she asked.

"Uh, yeah, I'm fine." But he couldn't meet her eyes. This should've been a surprise. And now here she was, helping him make her cake. What kind of boyfriend was he that he couldn't even give his girlfriend a proper surprise party?

He felt her hand in his, their fingers intertwining. She tugged at his hand and he looked down and met her eyes.

"You don't have to be good at everything, Seven," she said quietly. "You've done plenty. The decorations are wonderful." She smiled. "Thank you."

She reached up and brushed her lips across his cheek.

Seven gave her a weak smile. "I wanted to surprise you. I already had this detailed plan in my mind. And I wanted to bake you a cake. But I failed."

"You didn't fail!" Hyunsoo told him firmly. "You didn't, okay? Just thinking that you've prepared all of this for me is enough." Seven still looked unsure, so she said, "You don't have to do everything by yourself, you know? You have friends who want to help you. I want to help you."

Seven looked away.

"Seven," she called him. "Seven, look at me. Seven,"—her cool hand reached up to his face and she gently turned his head her way. "I love you, Seven, and that won't change." She smiled and his heart melted a little at that smile.

"I know," he murmured, resting his forehead against hers. "I love you, too."

Hyunsoo's smile widened. "So no moping around, okay?"

Seven nodded. "Okay."

Someone cleared his throat and both of them looked up.

"Are you done?" Zen asked, a slight irritation in his voice. "'Cause we need some help here."

Seven grinned. "Jealous, Zen?"

"As if!" He grabbed a handful of flour from the bowl in his hands and threw it at Seven.

Seven laughed.

"No throwing food around!" Yoosung shouted over their laughter.

~ O ~

At six, the cat-shaped chocolate cake was finished. They'd even put ear-shaped chocolate at the top and drew eyes and whiskers and a mouth at the side. With Yoosung's help, the cake was finished in no time and they still had time to finish up the decorations.

When the doorbell rang, Yoosung left to open the door, and he brought Jumin and Jaehee with him, both carrying wrapped presents.

They both stopped at the living room door, eyes wide at what they saw.

"I thought this was supposed to be a surprise party," Jaehee said.

"Well, yes, plan's changed and now Hyunsoo's here," Zen said. "Come on, let's get this party starting!"

~ END ~