"Keeping you as a trainee is useless because you are basically our ace and have the skills to even debut as a soloist, so I wanted you to join the girls of ResQ."
*To read this book you don't need to read the previous two as you will be able to unde...
"Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday dear Mika! Happy birthday to you!" we all sang before she blew the candles.
"Thank you, guys. Seriously," she said. "I wish we can celebrate many more birthdays together."
"Where are we going for dinner to celebrate it?" Woojin asked sitting on the couch.
Leah and Lin had offered themselves to cut the cake and hand everyone their slice, so everyone else sat down and waited.
"The same one as always," Mika answered. "You know I love that one."
"Their chicken is absolutely incredible," Woojin said. "I really want chicken now."
"Who are you trying to fool? You always want chicken!" I told him.
Without them noticing, I then went to my room to pick up Mika's gift, which I had left below my bed so she wouldn't find it. I had to admit it had been awfully expensive but, thanks to the royalties from the songs I had created, I was able to pay for it and not become more than broke.
When I went back to the living room, they all had their slice of cake already and were all eating happily, so I had to interrupt the ongoing conversations to hand Mika her gift.
"Sorry, Mika," I said catching her attention. "I know we said to not give out any gifts for our birthdays, but I really wanted to give you something since it's the first birthday I am sharing with you."
I then handed her the Dior bag and she was startled just by seeing the brand.
"I didn't know which one you liked exactly, so I just went with the one I liked the most," I told her. "I hope you like it too."
When she finally opened it and saw the necklace, her jaw dropped to the floor as so did the rest of the girls'.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
"What the fuck, Alix?!" she exclaimed. "This necklace is ₩2,540,000!"
"Don't care about the price. I bought it for you because you said you loved it. I have a lot of money saved, so you don't need to care about that," I told her. "Do you like it?"
Instead of answering, she just stood up and hugged me tightly, which I quickly responded to. She had even shed some tears as I felt them dropping onto my shoulder. I was really glad she liked it.
"You are still an idiot," she told me once she pulled away. "I don't care how much money you have saved, that was really expensive and you could have used it for other much more important things."
"You may not care but I do!" Hyunjin exclaimed. "Seriously, Alix, how much money do you have to be able to buy that so carelessly?"
"Well, not caring about your health has some upsides," I said. "I have all of the money that my parents sent me for nine years during training, the money SM gave me for food while training, the money from the royalties from both the ResQ songs and the ITZY songs and the money I earned through the promotions with ResQ."
"So that means...?" Jeongin said.
"That means I have a little under nine figures in my bank account (A/N: REMEMBER IT'S IN WON)," I confessed.
That left all of them even more shocked but I just laughed. I had been training for a very long time and, during all of it, my parents had been sending me money. They both worked at very important positions within their companies and knew how little the company gave us each month, so they always made sure to send me money. I would practically never end up spending it since I barely ever went out and I wore my clothes until they were almost torn, so that meant I saved pretty much all of it.
"Be thankful I love you, Mika," Chan joked. "That bank account is terribly tempting."
"Be thankful I have a good sense of humour," she told him with a murderous look.
"Sorry, ma'am," Chan said lowering his head like a puppy.
Woojin then pulled my arm so I sat down next to him on the free spot on the sofa and threw his arm around my shoulders, making me laugh.
"I was her friend first, so back off!" he joked.
"That's not fair!" the rest of them exclaimed.
"See my face?" he asked them. "This is the face of not caring."
ººº
That night, at about seven, we arrived at the restaurant where we would be having dinner. It wasn't posh nor expensive, but everyone seemed to like it a lot and they had private rooms, so we wouldn't need to worry about being spotted.
We were a lot of people but, since we had the room all for ourselves and it was one of those places where you had to sit on a kind of chair on the floor, we had enough room for all of us and just sat around the table randomly.
Of course, the couples ended up sitting either next to each other, such as in the case of Mika and Chan, or in front of each other, such as in the case of Soojin and Hyunjin or even Felix and Changbin.
I was sitting down between Jeongin and Felix with Seungmin in front of Jeongin and Jisung in front of me. That hadn't been intentional in our behalf but rather in the other's behalf as Soojin literally forced Jisung to sit there when she saw where I would be sitting down.
"Hello again!" he said chuckling.
"I want to trade seats!" Lin exclaimed.
"Why now?" Seungmin asked her.
"I'm literally surrounded by official and platonic couples. Help me!" she exclaimed.
"It's not as if it were much better over here!" Jeongin said back before turning towards me. "You won't act all lovey-dovey with no one, right?"
I then looked at Jisung, who nearly choked with the water he was just drinking when Jeongin said that.
"Don't worry, I've got you," I said before sending Jisung a wink.
"Okay, let's order, shall we?" Mika said. "I'm really hungry!"
