Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chan wakes up at 8. Groggy, because this week all he's done is play games until 3 AM, and his body is still not adapting. He checks his phone. And won't you look at that? 5 notifications from his friends. Boom. Chan officially has good friends.

Seungkwan sent a long paragraph of wishes right after midnight. He's just nice like that. Chan really likes him. As a friend of course.

Seokmin apologized at 00:18 because he fell asleep, and bombed the chat with hearts and pictures of cute otters and cakes. A "Happy Birthday" in Caps Lock, and a bunch of confetti emojis.

Vernon's congratulatory message was sent at 3 AM. Why? Chan doesn't know. His paragraph isn't as long as Seungkwan's, but it's just as sweet. Vernon also sent a picture of a cat holding a red balloon, with the text "Merry Birth" in neon green beside it. Chan is… neutral on cats, but it is kinda funny, so he sends a few crying emojis as response.

Mingyu sent his at 5 AM, probably when he just woke up. Said he's gonna send a cake tomorrow, not today, because someone (read: Wonwoo, his brother) destroyed his kitchen. (Chan sends "lolll fighting!!!")

Wonwoo sent his right after Mingyu. He wrote a nice paragraph of congratulations and wishes, and apologized for the, word for word, "lack of Mingyu's famed baked goods on (his) special day of birth." Pretentious. But it's funny. A+

.

With that out of the way, Chan opens the door and... no sound. Soonyoung is asleep, then. He peeps into said older brother's room. Yep. Still asleep. What a pose though. Soonyoung is bending in ways Chan didn't know is possible for humanity, tangled in his blanket, loud snores from his mouth.

Dad is awake though, he can smell the coffee. And probably kimchi? Chan climbs down the stairs and sees his Dad sitting on the dinner table, eating guess what? Kimchi fried rice. Bullseye.

Chan takes a bowl, scoops the rice. “Morning, Dad. where's Appa?”

Dad stops scrolling on his phone and smiles at him. “Good morning, Chan. He's jogging outside with his daughter.”

“Are you saying my baby sister Kkuma isn't your daughter?” Chan asks mock-incredulously. His Dad chuckles.

Chan stares at him, and catches himself right after. He sits on the other side of the table.
Why was I staring at him? Was I expecting something? Maybe I thought Dad would say “Happy Birthday my dearest darlingest boy in the world! Chan, you're 16 now!”

Hmm...

Maybe he should just... let his Dad be.

Why?

He doesn't know.

What he does know is that he's starving. So he munches on the fried rice. Tasty.

The front door creaks open. Appa steps inside, all sweaty. In his arms is the All Mighty Princess, Kkuma. Chan is also neutral about dogs, but he'd prefer them over cats. “Good morning, Appa, Kkuma,”

Appa enters the kitchen, stops for a second, and stares at Chan. Déjà vu?

“Oh my god! It's the birthday boy!”

Appa looks properly shocked. It's as if he saw Chan and Seungkwan kissing (not that he'd ever kiss Seungkwan or something). Chan bursts out laughing, while Dad chuckles and covers his mouth. “Happy Birthday, Chan. Did you forget, Cheol-ah? Looks like I beat you to it.”

Appa is scandalized. Full on panicked. He even put down Princess Kkuma. “No, I didn't! I mean, I did? Kind of? Shua, you definitely forgot too, right? Why did you say it just now? I mean, I remembered last night before bed, but i forgot this morning... Sorry, Happy Birthday, Chan.”

Chan guffaws over his kimchi fried rice.

.

Wow, it is currently 10 AM.

And his Soonyoung-hyung has not awoken from slumber. (Why is his inner monologue fancy like this all of a sudden?)

Chan is currently watching watercolor painting videos. Not because he wants to paint, but because they're calming.

Exactly two seconds have passed and– CLANG!

Well. That definitely means he's awake, now.

Chan looked over to the kitchen. Using his critical thinking, he deduced that while trying to scoop the fried rice from the pan, Soonyoung had accidentally flung it, which leads him to this current pose; right hand holding a scoop and arched towards his body, left hand raised up high and holding an empty plate, left knee squishing the pan to the counter, and right leg trying to balance his body weight. Wow.

“Should I help?”

“Please.”

.

Crisis has been averted. They have avoided the wrath of the infamous Dad, Joshua Hong. And now Soonyoung has scooted right next to Chan to watch that watercolor painting video from earlier.

“It's so interesting. Like one moment it's just a blob, and then it becomes a flower?”

“Right?”

They're both mesmerized.

“Oh, yeah. Happy Birthday, Chan.” Soonyoung gives him a big, noisy smooch on the cheek.

Chan chuckles and wipes it with his hand (he also rubbed the soiled hands on his hyung's pyjama pants), “Yeah, thanks, hyung.”

.

It's 3 PM. The sun is starting to go down a bit. He hears a knock.

Appa comes into Chan's room.

Appa smiles. “Hey, buddy.”

“Hey... What's up, Appa?”

“You're older now. You're gonna enter high school.”

Well yeah, he knows that much. Chan nods.

“So, your Dad and I have decided to admit you to a cram school. When, um, you're in high school”

”Uh-huh…” Chan is fine with that.

“So. What I'm saying is… um… when you're in high school, you have to be more serious. I've always been… looking away, but you need to be more committed.”

“Yeah. Okay, Appa.”

“Good,” Appa chuckles, and kisses Chan's forehead. He exits the room.

Really? On his birthday?
Wow.

Maybe it's written in the
stars or something, hyung

Idkk
Anywya
No Happy Birthday to your
favorite childhood friend??

Duhh

Yea i didn't hear that
Cmonn where is itttt

Aww thankss

It's 7 PM.

Nothing has happened.

Chan didn't really expect anything big to happen.
He did say he'd want to be inside this birthday. He's been lethargic ever since the virus thing. He doesn't go out as much anymore.

Granted, it might also be because his parents had to go to the funeral of an acquaintance (yeah, Chan was also shocked. A funeral? Out of nowhere? On his birthday? Some things are never predictable), so they didn't have the time to go to a restaurant like usual.

But he expected at least something. Anything.

Dad said they'd go to a hotel this weekend to make up for it.

The place is nice, yeah. Chan's been there before. But he's never been a sleep-outside-his-home type of guy, his one true love is his bed in his room.

It's okay though.

Hm.

Maybe he should ask his friends to go eat pizza with him tomorrow, Appa would definitely give him the funds to do so.

There's a knock on his door. “You can come in!” Chan exclaims from the bed. Comfy.

“Chan?” It's Dad.

Dad lays down on the bed, like usual, and Chan snuggles up to him. He starts talking about the weird politics of school admittance and all that stuff which Chan does find interesting, but he'd probably forget about it by tomorrow.

“Channie, you have to focus. In highschool.”

Oh my god. He's kidding, right?

“Your grades really matter for the university you're going to enter. That's why you're going to go to cram school, so you can choose where you want to go.”

As sweet as the thought is, Chan doesn't even know what he wants to be, where he wants to go, what he's gonna do, and everything else in between.

Dad ended up talking more about that stuff. He understands, really. He's going to be an adult. Adulting is hard. But really? On his birthday?

“Dinner is almost ready. Come down when you want, okay? Happy Birthday, darling.” Dad kisses his forehead, right where Appa kissed it earlier, and booped his nose. He leaves.

Chan is... sad.

He didn't expect anything grand for today. But he thought maybe they'd give him a little present or something. Yeah, he wasn't like forgotten or something, everyone was nice and wished him for the best. But… still…

He was about to cry when Soonyoung blasts open the door. He shouts “Cuddle session!” and dives into Chan's bed and pillows. But Soonyoung noticed something immediately.

“Channie, what is it? Are you sad?”

Oh, he is sad. He's so very sad. Chan wants to cry.

“It's okay, you can cry, Channie.”

And so he cries.

“If it makes you feel better, I'll buy you everything you want tomorrow!”

Well, that just means he won't need to ask funds from Appa after all. That's good.

But Chan is sad now. He's still sad. He's thankful, but he can't feel anything else.

.

Chan lays again in bed on 11:42 PM.
This birthday felt... empty.