Work Text:
Jeongin wakes up to white sunlight streaming through the slit in the curtains and no one beside him. He squints and rolls beneath the covers until he's on his stomach and stretches his arms out in front of him, pushing against the headboard so he can release the tension in his spine. The silence rings in his ears once he settles, and he wraps his arms around Hyunjin's pillow so he can pull it close to his chest. With his nose buried in it, he can smell the faint notes of Hyunjin's scent, muted but still comforting. He closes his eyes.
Today is his birthday. He has been dreading this day since the last one, and the one before that, birthdays as far back as he can remember. There was a time, when Jeongin's age was in the single digits, that he found himself excited for the eighth of the upcoming February. It had been one of his classmate's birthdays, and he watched them blow out the candles on the Mickey Mouse themed cake their parents had brought to school for the class to share. They seemed so happy, showered in congratulations and little gifts from the teacher, hugs from their friends, a special treat at snack time. Jeongin imagined himself wearing the cheap little gold foil crown, cheeks tinged in pink.
And he got it, sat at the head of the round craft table in his first-grade classroom beneath a gold crown too big for his little head and the admiration of people he didn't think knew him enough to like him. He couldn't keep himself from crying as they sang to him, and when he blew out the multicolored candles on his cake, handmade by his teacher, he wished that he could feel happy like this everyday, tomorrow and the next day. A birthday every day.
He got off of the school bus that afternoon and went home to a quiet apartment. With his little crown still atop his head and the handful of won pinned to his shirt, he couldn't wait to show his parents and count it out, make plans for what he was going to buy with his birthday money. But no one was there. They never were.
His mother came home in the evening and bid him hello, made him a dinner of boxed macaroni and cheese, and went to sleep. There was no happy birthday, no congratulations, no thank you for being born. Jeongin sat at the dinner table until he fell asleep there, his crown still nestled in his jet black hair.
Every year followed the same tune, until Jeongin stopped telling people when his birthday was. He aged in private. Sometimes he bought himself a treat from the street vendors outside of his apartment building.
He's been living in this house with Chan and Chan's friends since he was sixteen, and he's only mentioned even having a birth date once or twice, in passing conversations that he hoped nobody would remember. When Jeongin was seventeen, Chan had asked him when he'd be eighteen, and Jeongin offered a passive February. When he'd started dating Hyunjin, they'd laid on their bedroom floor and asked each other a thousand pointless questions in interest of getting to know each other better. Hyunjin asked, half asleep with his head on Jeongin's chest, when his birthday was, and Jeongin answered without thought.
There is a knock on the bedroom door. Jeongin lifts his head from Hyunjin's pillow and mumbles for them to come inside. When the door creaks open, Hyunjin pops his head in, a sweet smile on his full lips that makes Jeongin smile, too, despite how morning-grumpy he usually is. He rests his head back on the pillow.
"Good morning, baby," Hyunjin crosses the room until he's crawling onto the bed so he can drape himself over Jeongin, curling around him. He starts pressing kisses to the side of Jeongin's head, trailing them along his jaw and his neck. Jeongin squirms, squeezing his eyes shut and laughing at the way the touch tickles his skin. "Did you sleep well?"
Jeongin nods, turning his head so he can look at his boyfriend. Hyunjin gazes at him fondly, lifting his hand to brush Jeongin's dark hair out of his eyes. "Yeah. What... you're up early," Jeongin muses; Hyunjin's rarely the first of the two of them to wake up unless he has work, and he obviously doesn't if he's still here.
"Am I?" Hyunjin presses a featherlight kiss to Jeongin's nose. "Felix and Minho-hyung made breakfast. Hungry?"
Jeongin blinks at Hyunjin but nods again, nudging at Hyunjin to push him off. The older boy rolls off of him and busies himself by tapping around on his phone while Jeongin pulls on a shirt and some sweatpants. When he's dressed, Hyunjin leaves his phone on the bed and takes Jeongin's hand, leading him out of their bedroom and through the quiet house, toward the kitchen.
Jeongin opens his mouth to ask where everyone is, to mention that he doesn't smell breakfast, but Hyunjin stops them in the archway of the kitchen and Jeongin's voice dies in his throat.
Everyone is there, gathered around the island in the middle of the kitchen that's overrun with take out boxes and paper dishware and, most notably, a big, vibrant cake covered in so much frosting that it makes Jeongin's teeth hurt just looking at it. There are nineteen flickering candles in it, and before he can gather himself long enough to read what the cake says, his pack members are singing happy birthday in the midst of a chorus of a spoon banging a pan and noisemakers buzzing and hands slapping the countertop.
There are balloons and streamers around the ceiling and colorful gift bags on the dining table, but everything's a blur of color as Jeongin's eyes fill with tears, the youngest member of the pack trying to hide himself behind Hyunjin so they can't see it. Hyunjin laughs and wraps an arm around him, reeling him close and kissing his head as Jeongin covers his face with his hands. His chest feels so tight, heart too big for his ribcage.
"Get the camera, he's crying!" Seungmin laughs brightly, rounding the island with everyone else so they can pile Jeongin in hugs and affectionate prodding. Being at the center of their love like this, all seven of them wrapped around him and cooing over him like he's their baby, is a warmth similar to the sun. Like lying in a field of grass in the spring, sunlight enveloping your skin. Jeongin can barely breathe.
"I told you he would cry," Changbin teases, pulling back enough to observe Jeongin and wipe at his tears with the sleeve of his shirt pulled over his hand.
"He's gonna make me cry," Jisung says as though he isn't already, sniffling as a new tear rolls down his cheek. "Please tell me you're crying because you're happy."
Jeongin takes in a deep breath of air, exhaling it in a sob and trying to show them that he's smiling, nodding quickly and clinging onto the back of Hyunjin's sweatshirt, always looking to him for a sense of grounding. Hyunjin's smiling at him so affectionately, his own eyes so wet. "I am, I'm happy! I'm... oh my god, I—"
"Blow out your candles, quick!" Chan urges him, ushering him over to the island. Jeongin can barely calm down long enough to come up with a coherent wish, but he squeezes his eyes closed and blows out every candle, surrounded by clapping and cheering as though he's a child and it's his very first birthday. In the midst of all of the head pats and back rubs, someone puts something papery on his head. It's a little big, and Jeongin has to reach up and hold it still to keep it from slipping off. It's got flourishing edges at the top, like a crown.
"I can't believe you never told us your birthday," Felix pouts, wrapping his arms around Jeongin's waist and resting his head on his shoulder. Jeongin wraps his free hand around him and rubs his arm in apology. "It’s been, like, three years! How could you?"
"Sneaky little shit," Minho grins, swiping his finger through the cerulean frosting and earning himself a smack in the arm from Seungmin. "Are you secretly, like, forty years old and didn't want us to know? Like that Orphan movie?"
Jeongin laughs and shakes his head, sitting down on the barstool that Hyunjin pulls out for him. Sitting there with his hands folded awkwardly in his lap while they all watch him dotingly, he realizes that he doesn't really know why he never told them. Birthdays have always looked so special when he viewed them from the outside, but the want grew stale so long ago that he couldn't remember what it was about them that made them special at all. It was just a day on the calendar marking that you're a year closer to being old as shit, and no one cares. Jeongin stopped caring. Stopped wanting birthdays altogether.
"I just... I guess I didn't think..." Jeongin feels so pathetic, eyes filling with another round of tears. "I didn't think it was important. Or that you'd care. I don't know."
They all seem appalled by that, Changbin whacking him playfully, and then everyone else starts whacking him, too, Jeongin erupting into laughter as he tries to shield himself.
"Of course we care, Jeongin. We're your family," Chan says, squeezing Jeongin's knee and making him squirm because he's ticklish there, just like everywhere else. Chan's voice softens. "Of course we care."
Jeongin's lips quiver with a sullen smile, and he's hiding his face in his hand again. Everyone coos at the fact that he's crying again, and Hyunjin hugs him tightly from behind, nosing at his cheek. "We love you so much."
Although their onslaught of affection and attention kind of makes Jeongin want to die, there's nowhere else he would rather be than right here, under his cheap little gold foil crown, cheeks tinged in pink.