When Henry arrived at the second destination that had been deciphered from the clue within his pillow, he wouldn’t be lying if he said that he was ultimately disappointed.

In all honesty, if his new favorite Canadian-artist-that-isn’t-Justin-Bieber-that-sings-in-Mandarin hadn’t shown up, the birthday boy would probably have never figured out the secret behind the obnoxious smiley face pillow. Whoever was in charge of his first challenge (he would later find out that the evil mastermind was none other than his beloved Kyuhyung) had gotten really into the clue making. To find the next location, Henry had to tear open the pillow, find the white feather that was written on with freaking white paint (which was more than a little difficult since the creator of the challenge hadn’t bothered to wait for the paint to dry before throwing it in with the rest of the feathers), decipher the messy Korean on it, then attempt to solve a complicated algebra equation that was somehow supposed to end up giving him the coordinates to a location that he was to type into a GPS.

So, yeah. He cheated and begged Kris to just hurry up and tell him where he was supposed to go so that he could go on his merry little way while the latter attempted to locate proper clothing that Lulu hadn’t hidden.

Perhaps it was that big commotion that made Henry expect an explosion of streamers or maybe dancing penguins once he arrived on location.

But no.

Instead, Henry walked into the music store that Kris had directed him to, and found himself instantly blinded by what he could only assume was an empty sack that used to be full of onions and dragged away to what he imagined was the back of the store.

Yup. This birthday was turning out exactly as he expected.

Now don’t get him wrong: Henry did his best to fight his captors.

But our poor Mochi hadn’t even taken the time to eat due to his excitement of what he had originally listed as a normal scavenger hunt.

Normal?

Scavenger hunt?

With his friends?

Oh, Shisus. What was he thinking?

When it seemed that his kidnappers had arrived at their intended destination, the bag was whipped off his head, taking the horrid stench of too many onions with it. The confused man squinted at the sudden burst of light, struggling to make out the faces of the crazies in charge of this mission.

“Hyung~! Happy birthday!”

Ah. Taemin and Jonghyun.

“Uh… Thanks, guys.”

Even though he was only on his second mission, Henry was beginning to get tired of the whole “Let’s surprise Henry for his birthday by abusing him and actually making him work for his present!” thing. Not only was it actually making him work, but if he knew any better, the challenges would only get stranger and stranger, and Henry wasn’t sure if anybody had gone through the trouble of making sure that whatever he had to do in the challenges wouldn’t actually kill him.

And knowing his friends, the thought probably hadn’t even floated by their minds.

“You know, we didn’t think that it would take you that long to figure out Kris’ challenge.”

Taemin nodded at his Hyung’s words, “Yeah, it seemed pretty simple to me. We’ve been awkwardly waiting by the door for hours now.”

For a moment, Henry debated whether or not he should let them know that the challenge was actually more than a little insane and he probably wouldn’t have been able to get anywhere if it wasn’t for the fact that he and Kris had decided to cheat.

But then he rationalized that that probably wasn’t the best thing to tell anybody, because if Kyuhyun found out, he was sure that he’d get hurt.

 “Y-Yeah, I got a late start. That’s all,” is what the birthday boy settled for. “So what am I doing here?”

Jonghyun chuckled, “Well, Key thought of this challenge. So it shouldn’t be too shocking that it’s going to be all about vanity.”

Henry was about to ask what exactly that meant, but Taemin beat him to it, “Vanity? As in Vanity Fair? The American magazine?” SHINee’s angel’s eyes were wide, making it clear that he was worried about something, “Hyung didn’t tell me I had to order magazines all the way from America!” As his eyes darted around the storage room of the music store in confusion, he weakly added, “Isn’t Henry from Canadia?”

The older singer looked at his fellow member with concern, “What are you talking about? Canadia’s not a country! Henry’s from Kawnahta!”

Henry stared at the two in exasperation, completely at a loss for words.

For what felt like forever to the poor lad, his two captors argued back and forth about what the real name of Henry’s country of origin was, until he finally found the voice to correct them both, “Guys. Guys. I’m from Canada.”

At his interruption, both men whipped their heads to look at him with large eyes.

An awkward silence had wormed his way into the room, as it seemed that the two younger men just wouldn’t stop staring at their Hyung, and said Hyung had no idea what to do but uncomfortably shift his gaze between the two.

In unison, both Jonghyun and Taemin unleashed heart-stopping grins, before simultaneously screaming, “Yay! Hyung, you win!”

Henry looked back and forth between the two in confusion, already opening his mouth to ask a question before he was interrupted by the youngest individual in the room whipping out a basket from God knows where and unleashing its contents onto the stunned birthday boy.

Maple leaves?

“W-What’s going on—“

Jonghyun couldn’t stop himself from bursting out into laughter, and Taemin eventually joined in as well, only succeeding in making poor Mochi even more confused.

“Hyung~! You’re going to be late! We’re trying to help.”

Oh Lord. Not this again.

“So… Does this mean we’re cheating?”

The older SHINee member merely shook his head, grin still on his face, “It’s not cheating unless the other’s find out about it.”

Taemin nodded in agreement, “We won’t tell if you don’t tell, Hyung!”

In that moment, Henry’s respect for the SHINee members skyrocketed.

“You guys are the best, you know that?” He chuckled, before dusting off some of the fake leaves that had decided to remain attached to the clothes. “But what do I do now?”

“Well,” the brunet started, “Originally we were supposed to play all of the songs that you appeared in and make you sing the other member’s parts while searching through that pile of CDs over there,” he took a moment to gesture to a mountain of music not far behind Mochi himself, “for a Perfection album that had the whole group’s signature on it.”

His fellow member nodded in agreement, before taking the wheel and finishing the explanation of the original challenge, “When you found that album, there was going to be a maple leaf, which served as your clue. You had to associate the leaf with the secret codeword, which was Canada.”

Jonghyun grinned, “See what we did there? We totally cheated.”

“I feel so rebellious!” Taemin squealed with a giggle.

Henry couldn’t help but return their smiles, “So that means that the next location is…?”

Both members threw an arm around the birthday poor, mischievous smiles still on their faces.

“Allow us to you there, your highness.”

And even though Henry was as straight as a straight person could be, he couldn’t help but unleash a high-pitched squeal.