Chapter Text
Kim Dokja was walking back from his biology class, feeling more down than usual.
The reason for this?
Yoo Joonghyuk wasn’t in school today.
He’d immediately noticed when he hadn't found him waiting for him outside his apartment building, leaning against the massive poster-wall as he usually was.
He’d texted him, (Yes, they have each other's numbers now) and had gotten no reply even though the message had gone through.
So, he’d had a lonely walk to school, and when he’d gone to his classroom to check if he was there, someone had immediately given a sparing glance up at him and muttered “Yoo Joonghyuk isn’t here.”
He ignored the fact that both of them had been around the other so much that people had begun recognizing them as a pair, instead making one last hopeful lap around the school.
Maybe he was just late today?
But it didn’t make sense, why hadn’t he texted him? Joonghyuk had never missed a single day of school, even for a doctor’s appointment.
Sighing, Dokja slid the door open to the classroom. He walked to his locker, fiddling with the keys before sighing again dramatically. It was only then that he noticed a shuffle behind him.
He hadn’t noticed anyone else when he’d walked in, and so when he did turn around, his eyes immediately laid on a grinning Joonghyuk, leaning sheepishly on his desk.
But before he could say anything, he smiled “Happy Birthday, Kim Dokja.”
And then his eyes found the hand-made A3 banner reading the same words behind him, and what looked like a cake and a wrapped-up present on the table.
He stared in disbelief down at a ping followed by the miniature email tab on his lock screen from the novel site he was subscribed to.
“Happy 24th Birthday, Dear Reader! We are so grateful for your continued..”
The fake age he used online stared back at him, and he struggled to not let his mouth hang open.
It was his birthday?
How had he completely forgotten?
But he was sure it wasn’t even February yet. For how long had be living in the wrong month??
All of these questions slapped him in the face, and it didn’t take long for a Joonghyuk, who knew him much too well, to bring his hand to his forehead, exasperated.
“You idiot, did you actually forget it was your birthday?”
Dokja immediately retorted, desperate to save the crumbling image of him in front of his not-so-impressed boyfriend.
“Well- Not exactly, I just got a bit mixed up with the months and...”
“Months?!! Are you serious?”
Joonghyuk at this point looked horrified, the corners of the banner behind his downturned in a droopy frown.
“Okay, okay, I’m sorry. “
“Why are you apologizing?” he huffed, his eyebrows furrowed.
Dokja didn’t respond, instead deciding reality was much too humiliating for him at the moment.
A beat of quiet passed, as Dokja checked his phone again to really make sure this wasn't some cruel joke being played on him.
It wasn't.
“Come have your cake.” Joonghyuk finally spoke, eyes boring into him.
He neared the little display of things next to Joonghyuk, able to properly see everything he had been unsuccessfully squinting at from half way across the room.
On his desk, perfectly round, white and red frosted cake sat, on a black cake board with a clear covering. Initially he would've thought that it had been ordered at one of the fancy bakeries in town, but Dokja wasn’t so sure following a closer inspection; the shaky writing of ‘Happy birthday Kim Dokja! You’re Seventeen!’ the ‘m’ downturned into a squished squiggle and the ‘j’ looped of at a slant onto the next ‘a’.
He took it as an artistic spin from the baker.
His eyes moved to the box on the table, neatly wrapped in blue wrapping paper with a huge red bow tied of at the top.
No one had ever wrapped a present for him.
And finally the banner, which Joonghyuk had clearly traced the font of, yet a hint of his handwriting still lingered in the swirl of his name and the way he wrote his exclamation points.
It was all perfect.
In every way possible.
Dokja placed a peck on each of Joonghyuk cheeks, and then settled into a hug.
“I’m glad you like it,” Joonghyuk grumbled down into the fluff of his hair, his arms comfortable snaked around his back. The furrow on his forehead softened.
“Maybe just don’t forget next time though.” he smirked.
Dokja pulled out of the hug to roll his eyes at him, and the pointedly turned to the cake.
“Did you make all of this? When did you even have the time?”
He didn’t know what to say. All this was actually for him?
“That doesn't matter. Let's eat cake. ”
****
Dokja groaned in misery into his desk, clutching his stomach with his left hand, and a plastic spoon in his left.
“Didn’t I say don’t eat too much?” Joonghyuk raised an eyebrow at him like a scolding mother, as he packed up the sole remaining slice of cake on the battle field of butchered crumbs.
“Well, yeah but it was just so good. It’s not my fault you need to be so good at everything.”
Joonghyuk didn’t bother responding to the childish comments, instead grabbing the spoon out of Dokja’s hand, chucking it in the bin and placing the big blue box on his table.
“Ok, now that cake eating is done, open your gift.”
Dokja found the strength to drag his head off the table, focus landing on the box in front of him.
“What is it?” He asked curiously, trying to figure out what Joonghyuk could have possible gotten him that needed such a big box.
“I don’t know, maybe you should open it and see.” He responded in his usual annoying tone.
Dokja hummed, first carefully lifting off the bow, and then meticulously tearing past the paper.
Inside, he found a brown carboard box, on the top of it a logo he recognized much too well.
In the box, neatly wrapped in tissue paper, was the book set of ten for the novel he had been reading for years. And not only that, they were the special editions that costed an absolute fortune, that any fan would do practically anything to get their hands on.
He hadn't known that Joonghyuk was actually listening when he went on his embarrassingly endless rants about it.
“I- No way.” He stared up at Joonghyuk.
Joonghyuk gave an embarrassed smile. “So, you like it?”
And then in an instant, he was back to being a mother hen.
“You shouldn't be staring at a screen so much anyway, it's bad for your eyes. So it’s better off that you read words on actual pages.”
Dokja couldn’t help but laugh.
****
Today had been February 15th, 2015, Kim Dokja’s birthday.
He trudged along the same path, stared at same night sky and the same silent stars, feeling utterly lost in the whirlpool of time.
Except, he couldn’t pinpoint when, there was a point in time where suddenly the stars seemed brighter, the night sky more alive, and his steps lighter.
He’d spent the day doing everything and anything, laughing and smiling so hard that his cheeks hurt.
But the best part of all of it was, that as he walked, there was a warmth next to him.
The breeze was light, and his bangs got in his eyes as he walked, his right hand buried deep in a pocket that wasn’t his own, wrapped around another.
A hand reached out to softly push the bangs out of his eyes, a shoulder nudging against his.
The shadow below him was a big, conjoined blob in the frail sun, the chilly winter air almost calming.
Everything felt so unbelievably complete, yet fragile as if it could be shattered at any moment.
Still, he didn’t stop the light smile from tugging at his lips, gripping harder onto the taught plastic bag in his left hand, containing an unnatural mass of hardback books and a half-eaten slice of cake.
Any responsibility or worry, in the moment, was whisked away in an instant, lost in the wind.
He didn’t think he’d be doing any homework today.