“Dobin’s not crying, is he?”
Gyeon Hajun, who had been sitting in my studio, muttered in concern.
This was our plan all along—lower his expectations for a surprise party as much as possible and hit him with it at the most unexpected moment.
Seeing Ryu Jaehee’s text saying that Dobin had arrived at the dorm, I smirked and replied.
“Who cries just because they didn’t get a surprise party?”
“It’s Dobin.”
A clean, irrefutable statement.
Judging by how quickly he got here, Kim Dobin must have run with high hopes. As soon as he stepped into the studio, he handed me the USB and glanced around.
“What, are you looking for something?”
Though I knew exactly what he was searching for, I asked with a perfectly neutral voice, feigning ignorance.
Still clinging to hope, Dobin asked, “Hyung, where are Jaehee and Yehyun?”
“Why would they be here? They’re probably at the dorm after their lesson.”
Only after scanning my studio thoroughly did he finally let go of his hope that Ryu Jaehee and Seo Yehyun would suddenly appear before him holding a cake.
To keep up the realism, I had Dobin and Hajun sit behind me while I pretended to fine-tune my track a little longer. Then, I got up and gestured toward the door.
“Let’s go.”
“Hyung, you didn’t forget anything, right?”
“A cake? It’s in the dorm fridge. I bought it last night—didn’t you see it? Then again, I guess you wouldn’t know unless I set the table for you.”
Even as we trudged back to the dorm, Dobin’s eyes still sparkled with the last remnants of expectation.
This extra detour had truly been a masterstroke.
When we arrived, Seo Yehyun and Ryu Jaehee were watching TV in the living room.
Seeing that there were no balloons or cakes in sight, Dobin finally lost all hope and collapsed onto the couch with a defeated expression.
“Seriously, you guys are doing this to me?”
“That’s rude—watch your tone.”
“You guys are doing this to me? This is too much! Was not preparing anything the surprise all along?”
When I glanced at him, his eyes were shimmering with unshed tears.
“Hey, hey, Dobin’s about to cry. Someone get the cake from the fridge.”
A sweet potato cake was placed on the table.
Dobin dragged himself over with sluggish steps, and as soon as he saw it, he whined like a seven-year-old throwing a tantrum over dinner.
“Why sweet potato cake again?!”
“We went too late, and this was all that was left. Don’t blame me—blame the people who bought the other cakes first.”
I pulled out a chair and sat down. At least it wasn’t a mocha cake, okay?
“Hurry up and eat before the manager comes.”
“The manager? Why?”
“Oh, did I forget to mention? The styling meeting got moved up, so we have to stop by the company.”
We had just finished eating about half the cake when the manager arrived to pick us up.
The moment we stepped into the agency building’s elevator and pressed the button for the conference room floor, Dobin’s face became utterly void of expectations.
I exchanged a subtle glance with Ryu Jaehee, grinning slightly where Dobin couldn’t see.
And the moment he pushed open the conference room door—
Pop!
Jaehee and I, standing on either side of him, set off the party poppers we had hidden in our pockets.
The sudden explosion made Dobin jump like a startled cat, his fur practically standing on end.
Then, he spotted the conference room decorated with balloons and the lettered cake on the table. His eyes filled with tears of joy.
“I… I really thought you guys and Jaehee had forgotten…!”
“You literally told us you were expecting a surprise. How could we forget? Not celebrating at all would have been one thing, but…”
“But you twisted things around so many times! Sniff. You defied all my expectations!”
“Until you had absolutely no hope left.”
I chuckled, thinking of the hidden cameras we had placed in the practice room, dorm, my studio, and even the van, along with the footage Jaehee had secretly filmed of Dobin heading to the conference room.
This would all be neatly edited and uploaded tomorrow under some title like “Dobin’s Birthday Surprise Prank.”
The candles on the cake were lit, and we sang the birthday song together—something we had skipped while shoveling sweet potato cake into our mouths back at the dorm.
“Happy birthday to you~ Happy birthday to you~ Happy birthday, dear Kim Dobin~ Happy birthday to you~!”
Once the song ended, Dobin—now wearing a party hat—took a deep breath and blew out the candles with all his might.
Before digging into the cake, we also held a little gift-giving ceremony with the presents we had left in the conference room beforehand.
For my gift, I prepared something that perfectly matched his tastes—a cash envelope. The others had done the same.
Holding four envelopes of money, Dobin scratched his head with a conflicted expression and muttered,
“I think I kind of get why people prefer giving actual gifts instead of just cash now.”
“We went out of our way to match your tastes, and now you’re complaining?”
While picking at a cake that, honestly, wasn’t much better than the sweet potato one, Hajun slyly asked,
“Dobin, you know we had cameras set up the whole time, right? You didn’t say anything too bad when you were alone, did you?”
“Um… I might’ve said, ‘Damn it, these jerks.’ That’s not too bad, right?”
Typical Dobin.
And so, after successfully pulling off the surprise birthday party, we returned to the dorm.
At exactly 11:59 PM, I posted on the official account.
REVE_official @LnL_reve
[From Eden]
Happy last teenage birthday, Dobin.
I can’t believe you’re becoming an adult next year—time really flies.
#happybirthday
#Shining_Dobin_Day
#Dobin_who_will_always_shine_at_19
(📸 Group photo from the surprise party) (📸 Eden & Dobin two-shot)
Shares: 8,920 | Quotes: 1,101 | Likes: 17.9K
Watching the share count climb even faster than before, I could really feel how much our fanbase had grown.
PuppyDobin @puppybin
Yoon Leader finally acknowledges the existence of birthday hashtags.
Shares: 3 | Quotes: 1 | Likes: 11
I didn’t really have anything else to say, but hashtagging makes posts look longer, you know?
The title track was out, and we had learned most of the choreography, but there was still a mountain of work left to do.
Since this was a full-length album, we had to include more than ten tracks, and we still had music video shoots, concept photo shoots, and fan club kit photoshoots left to complete.
Before we knew it, the calendar had flipped to June, and with our comeback scheduled for early September, we had to keep up the pace. There were still five songs left to record.
Thankfully, thanks to our lessons, the two hopeless vocalists had shown some improvement, which shortened our work time compared to before.
I opened the September chart using a selection ticket from an item draw. I was curious to see which competitors we would be up against.
KICKS, my number one source of frustration, wasn’t even on the September chart, meaning our promotions wouldn’t overlap. Meanwhile, ALTAIR, my number two rival, was sitting in the middle-upper ranks of the chart, meaning they had likely made a comeback in late August.
In terms of music, ALTAIR was a stronger competitor than KICKS, but KICKS was undoubtedly more infuriating.
Seeing ALTAIR on the chart, I found myself wondering, Did they have a song like this? Judging by its placement, it didn’t seem like a big hit. After all, songs are released daily, but only a few manage to stand the test of time and stay in people’s hearts for years.
Wait… this song came out this month?
I gulped as I stared at the song sitting at number one on the chart.
This duet song was still in the karaoke TOP100 even seven years later. At one point, it had sparked a duet song craze.
To reach number one, REVE had to surpass this song.
Our song turned out great, but the real question is whether it has the longevity to compete with this.
Since our concept was quite strong, our song leaned more toward the conceptual side than easy listening. Of course, conceptual songs didn’t always lose to easy listening tracks.
As long as the song was well-produced and resonated with the audience, a conceptual track could still achieve mainstream success.
The issue was that we had no proof that our song would connect with the masses.
But there was no point in worrying now. We couldn’t change the song or the promotion schedule. All we could do was wait for the public’s judgment.
Still, I had confidence in our song. This was the masterpiece I had created after overcoming my slump. And with G1’s arrangement, this track was unstoppable.
Now, it was time to attend the styling meeting—for real this time, not just as an excuse for Dobin’s surprise party.
“At this rate, my hair is going to be completely ruined. Can’t I please just go with black this time?”
I desperately pleaded with the stylist, trying to protect my hair from yet another round of bleaching. My hair had already been falling out more than usual, and if I bleached it again, wouldn’t I go bald?
“If you go black, you’ll match Yehyun too much. You’re already similar in height, and if your hair colors are the same, it’ll look too stuffy.”
“Our heights are similar, sure, but our builds are completely different. Our vibes are the exact opposite, too.”
“You suit a variety of hair colors, but Yehyun looks best in black. If you don’t want bright colors, how about navy?”
“That still requires bleaching! Oh, my poor hair! I’m really going to go bald at this rate!”
I mean, I get that I look good in different colors, but why does Yehyun get to keep his black hair while my hair keeps changing?
Is this what it feels like to be discriminated against based on looks? Life must be hard for people who aren’t S+ tier in visuals.
In the end, I caved and agreed to dye my hair blue. The stylists insisted that, visually, it would look better than black.
“Holy crap, I get to bleach my hair? Platinum gold? White blonde? Wow, I’ve always wanted to try going blonde!”
Ryu Jaehee, who had always stuck to brown tones, seemed excited to try platinum blonde. Our dorm was about to be covered in fallen hair again.
As always, Gyeon Hajun stuck to a safe brown color. It had been so long since I’d seen him with black hair that even I could barely remember what it looked like.
And the big moment—our center, Kim Dobin…
“A phantom thief has to have silver hair!”
…was adamantly insisting on silver hair.
Why, though? If a thief had silver hair, wouldn’t they stand out immediately and get caught? They might as well match their hair color to their handcuffs.
Besides, the phantom thief illustration he had put in his PowerPoint was either black-haired or brown-haired—some kind of normal East Asian hair color. So why the sudden push for silver?
“Dobin, I don’t think silver will suit you… How about a toned-down ash gray instead?”
“No way! I want the same silver hair that Eden hyung had before!”
“If you want to copy me that badly, just go pink like I did.”
“A pink phantom thief would look ridiculous!”
“Either way, a bright color will make you stand out and get caught.”
In the end, after the stylist warned him that silver hair might look awkwardly disconnected from his face, Dobin reluctantly settled for ash gray.
“As for the outfits, the detectives will be wearing trench coats, while the phantom thief will have a suit and cape.”
I was relieved not to be the phantom thief. I had almost been forced into the role just because of my looks, but luckily, the complicated choreography had made it necessary to hand the role over to Dobin instead.
Seo Yehyun, who had nearly been stuck with the role as well, looked just as relieved as I did.
Meanwhile, Dobin’s face practically glowed with excitement, showing 100% job satisfaction.
***
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