The Maknae Has to Be an Idol

February 29th was Yeon-Hoon’s birthday. It was rare for people to have a birthday on February 29th because February usually only had 28 days. However, an additional day was added every four years to keep the calendar year synchronized with the astronomical or seasonal year; and those special years were called the leap years. Therefore, people born in leap years only had their birthdays every four years. Yet, I doubted if there was even a family that celebrated birthdays only on February 29th.

Anyway, that unique and complicated day was Yeon-Hoon’s birthday, and today was February 24—no, since it was just past midnight, it was now February 25th. Since this year had no February 29th and ended on the 28th, there were only about three days left until Yeon-Hoon’s birthday. Thus, the reason why we had all gathered together for a walk at night was to prepare for Yeon-Hoon’s birthday.

“We’re here to decide what to do for Yeon-Hoon’s birthday.”

“Tae-Yoon, how can you forget this?”

“It’s hard to forget Yeon-Hoon’s birthday.”

If I recall properly, I think we did this for everyone every year. Rather than just doing a birthday celebration on a member’s birthday, we always planned a surprise.

“Let’s sit somewhere first and talk over there.”

“Will the café be open at this hour?”

“Let’s go to my studio,” Do-Seung said and led the way.

Yeon-Hoon’s birthday- I thought about what I had done around this time before I regressed.

‘I was probably at the hospital.’

I was probably lying in the hospital bed during this time, still healing from the injuries after the car accident. I only remembered chewing my lips in despondency when I saw the phrase, ‘Woo Yeon-Hoon’s birthday’ come up on my phone’s calendar alarm. Thus, this birthday felt even more special to me than usual, as it was a birthday I thought I would never be able to celebrate again.

‘I should prepare really well this time.’ I walked behind the members and swallowed a bitter smile alone.

* * *

The morning of the 25th arrived. Woo Yeon-Hoon, who had a nasty sleeping habit, was constantly moving his body while half-asleep. Although it was already past 9 a.m., he was still wandering in his dream. Originally, Bong Tae-Yoon would have woken him up around 6 a.m., but no one was around to wake him up today.

“…Agh?” Yeon-Hoon, who had moved his body while deep asleep, woke up when he realized that there was no one next to him. He looked around in a drowsy haze. Since Bong Tae-Yoon had been waking up early these days, it was natural for him to be gone, but Park Dong-Jun, who should be on the other side, was also missing. This was strange since Dong-Jun was also in the 'late-riser club' with him.

“…What?” His surroundings were way too empty. He raised his upper body and stared at the open space in a daze. Then, his mind slowly began to clear up. He quickly checked the time on his phone.

“9 a.m.?” He had an inkling that he had overslept, but he had slept three hours more than usual. It was only then did the puzzle pieces finally matched in his head. The members must have left him behind to go to practice today. They usually woke him up even if he overslept, but he must have been too deep asleep.

“Ahhhh! What do I do!” He was losing face as a leader, but most of all, he felt apologetic to his members. This was an important time when things were about to go well, but instead of setting an example as a leader, he overslept and missed practice.

He skipped washing his face and taking a shower. After brushing his teeth quickly, he put on his hat. He thought he should go and apologize and quickly start practicing. While he was thinking he should buy dessert to apologize, he opened the dressing room, and an unexpected sight unfolded in front of him.

“…What?” Currently, Woo Yeon-Hoon was wearing only pajamas and a hat. He was planning to go into the dressing room and change into a training suit, but in the closet—

“Ah.”

Sigh.

“Damn it.”

“That’s why I said we should hurry up…!”

All four members were huddled together in a small room where they could barely even store their clothes. The members all wore cone hats and had a cream cake between them. Bong Tae-Yoon wore sunglasses with the words ‘Happy’ and ‘Birthday’ on them, and Lee Woon was holding a long piece of colored paper, which was the group card they all wrote on, and Kang Do-Seung was holding the cake. Lastly, Dong-Jun held a firecracker in his hand. They were obviously preparing for a birthday celebration.

“Ah, um.” Woo Yeon-Hoon froze and couldn’t say anything. After this awkward confrontation lasted for about 10 seconds—

“S-surprise!” Park Dong-Jun shouted ‘surprise!’ for the hell of it.

Pop!

Dong-Jun popped the firecrackers like a machine carrying out a set command. Pieces of paper fluttered in the air for a moment. It was a shabby and awkward celebration, and it was the most unsurprising surprise birthday party in the world.

* * *

The birthday party we planned was nothing like this.

We went to Do-Seung’s studio at the crack of dawn and made plans for Yeon-Hoon’s birthday. We wanted to do something really special for him, but we had a very tight budget. Thus, we were going to prepare the best birthday party within our budget.

First, we had to get a cake, and there was a specific cake we needed to buy. Yeon-Hoon was a foodie and always saved restaurants and foods he liked on his phone. Among them, there was a whipped cream cake that had occupied a place in his gallery for a long time. It was a cake from a famous restaurant bakery in Hongdae, and the price was not too outrageous, so I thought we could afford it.

The next problem was the gifts, and this was the most challenging problem. Yeon-Hoon didn’t have a strong desire for material goods and didn’t say what he wanted often. On the contrary, he was the type to be deeply moved by gifts like letters. Thus, we finished our preparation by making a group card and getting simple gifts for him. We decided that this simple gift would be prepared individually.

With our plans completed, we woke up early in the morning and lined up to buy the whipped cream cake from the famous bakery. When we came back to our dorm, we also created a group card on a long piece of paper to hand it to him. Then, we prepared firecrackers and made simple props to celebrate. However, an unexpected variable hindered our plan.

“I think Yeon-Hoon just woke up?”

“What?”

“Really?”

“What, you said he’d sleep until ten!”

Yeon-Hoon had woken up earlier than expected. I didn’t wake him up on purpose in the morning, so I thought he’d sleep at least until 10 o’clock, maybe until 12 o’clock since he was a sleepyhead. However, did his circadian rhythm change because he had woken up early these days? He had woken up an hour earlier than expected.

“Do I go out now? Should I go out or not?” Do-Seung asked in a flustered panic.

“Ahhhh! What do we do?” Woon also was in a panic and couldn’t easily make a decision.

“Let’s just go out.” I calmed the members and told them to stick to the original plan since it still could be a successful surprise if we moved faster than Yeon-Hoon. However—

Squeak.

The door opened, and we confronted Yeon-Hoon, who was wearing a hat and pajamas.

“Ah.”

Sigh.

“Damn it.”

“That’s why I told you to hurry up…!”

“S-surprise!”

Pop!

A small birthday firecracker popped and pieces of colorful paper fell. A surprise birthday party in the closet—I thought there was no worse surprise than this. I had wanted to prepare a good surprise party for him, so I felt a bit upset. I wondered when this awkward confrontation would end when—

“Ah, ahh.” Bawwl…

“…?”

“Yeon-Hoon?”

An unexpected development followed. It was a terrible birthday surprise without question, and it should have been much more organized. But even while seeing our terrible birthday surprise, Yeon-Hoon stared at us with tears in his eyes. Tears dripped down his whole face.

“Umm…” Then he went to the front and just hugged the closest person in front of him–which unfortunately happened to be me.

“When did you guys prepare all this…?” His voice was muffled as he continued, “This is the cake I wanted to eat too…” He must have seen the bakery mark on the cake.

Yeon-Hoon also said, “I thought you guys would never make a group card like this…”

He hit the mark on this one; frankly, none of us had ever written a group card like this. Thus, we had all awkwardly written our portions, hoping that no one else would see what each of us wrote.

“…Thank you,” Yeon-Hoon said and rubbed his face in my arms. “Let’s go and eat the cake quickly. Everyone must be hungry because we didn’t eat breakfast.”

After crying as much as he wanted, he moved away and led us out of the room. We took out the folding table and placed the cake on top. As expected of a famous bakery, the taste was exquisite. It sure didn't feel like a waste to have gotten up at dawn to go and buy it.

“It’s delicious…!” Yeon-Hoon was especially impressed by the taste and exclaimed, wide-eyed. After that, there was a simple gift presentation time. Thanks to everyone’s thorough packaging, it was hard to tell what the others prepared. It seemed as if they all managed to buy gifts and wrap them in the short time we had.

“Take this, Yeon-Hoon.” I gave my gift to Yeon-Hoon. The gift I had prepared for him was a tumbler. Since it was winter and his throat would probably get dry, I bought a tumbler in hopes that he would drink warm drinks with it.

The fact that he only used disposable café cups because he didn’t have a decent tumbler while on schedule had been bothering me. I wanted to buy something really nice, but I didn’t have enough money. I planned to get him something much better than this when I got more money in the future.

Yeon-Hoon cried once again after receiving the gifts we gave him.

“Thank you, I’ll use them all really well.”

After he said this, Dong-Jun said as a joke, “What if there’s something weird inside?”

“Whatever it is, I will definitely use it. Thank you all so much,” Yeon-Hoon said and forced his tears back in. It seemed as if he didn’t want to cry again in a joyful situation like this. After we ate cake for breakfast, we all got up together.

“Shall we go practice?”

“Yes.”

“Let’s go.”

It was now time to go practice. I changed my clothes and went down to the first floor.

While we were going down the stairs, Yeon-Hoon asked as if he had just realized this, “But why did you guys celebrate my birthday today when it’s on the 29th? I know there isn’t the 29th this year, but don’t you guys normally celebrate it on the 28th?”

“Ah, I don’t think we’ll have the time if not now,” Do-Seung answered.

“Huh? Why don’t we have the time?”

When Yeon-Hoon tilted his head, Do-Seung answered, “Yesterday, when we were sleeping, we didn’t just plan your birthday party but also sketched out ideas for the next performance.”

“What? Without me?” Yeon-Hoon seemed upset that he was excluded.

Then Woon said, “We were going to finalize it after talking to you today and getting your opinion.”

“Ahh, really? But why did you guys say that we won’t have enough time for my birthday party?”

“Because I think we’ll have to practice like crazy nonstop for the next two weeks.”

“…What?”

“2 weeks may be too short to implement the ideas Tae-Yoon came up with yesterday.”

Yeon-Hoon’s expression turned pale as a ghost at Woon and Do-Seung’s warning.

“Well, w-what are we doing…?” Yeon-Hoon asked with a very frightened voice.

“We mixed mythology into science fiction.” I said succinctly and continued, “I’m going to go with a genre that feels like a space opera.”

“What? Space opera?” Yeon-Hoon seemed not to know what space opera was.

I said, “Simply put, it’s like Star Wars and Dune.” Space opera was a genre called the peak of imagination with a tremendous amount of CG added in. Since we didn’t have that amount of money, we needed to make it up with practice, as a highly developed choreography was just as good as CG.