let’s celebrate your birthday on sunday, rowon messages earlier in the week. i would like to have you for the entire day. make time for me? he wonders, albeit briefly, if he’ll be doing too much – but the thought is fleeting. he wants to do this for minjun, if not as a gift, then as a thank you.
come sunday morning, rowon brings the birthday boy to an indoor botanical garden, reminiscent of a brighter spring. the ( inedible ) flowers are in full bloom, their colours vibrant against a green backdrop. and despite the signage telling him not to touch, rowon discreetly steals a blue star flower for minjun. they represent strength and resilience – things he hopes minjun can find this new year.
in the afternoon, rowon leads him across the busier roads of seoul, through the various street food vendors, then down along the han river. there’s an outdoor swimming pool tucked away in one of the neighbouring parks, but since summer has come and gone, they’ve transformed the pool into an ice skating rink. now whether or not it’s minjun’s first time, it doesn’t matter; rowon still offers him his hand. ( totally not a clever ruse to keep his own hands warm, thank you. )
for dinner, he takes minjun to a cozy hole-in-the-wall restaurant specializing in hearty soups that are popular during the autumn months. pork bone, oxtail, army stew – he has him trying them all so they can recreate them later on in the comforts of the dorm kitchen. their evening ends with the host bringing out a small pistachio cake topped with a single candle. luckily for minjun, rowon spares him the embarrassment of a birthday song in lieu of a few dozen photos.
at last, the night closes in a familiar place – high above the ground, right beneath the stars – on a rooftop they’ve made into their second home this winter. it’s here that rowon presents a final gift that he has kept in his inner coat pocket all this time. “thought i should get you something a little more useful than another hoodie,” he muses, eyes twinkling with amusement as he offers the velvet box. “happy early birthday.” inside is a sleek wristwatch with a thin dark blue bezel, accompanied with a note that reads,
every hour, every minute, down to the very last second.
yours,rw
and isn’t it just so pretty to think, all along there was
some invisible string
tying you to me?
it wouldn’t be a surprise the way minjun anticipates sunday, since the message arrived on his phone. the more he read it, the more time slowed its pace, and the more he messed up his steps in practice and lost precious seconds while doing laps in the university’s heated pool.
but when sunday finally comes he is surprisingly on time and obedient as they meet outside the company and start their journey. it’s all a mystery and minjun doesn’t want to ask much, so he just follows rowon, taking the subway and buses on this short trip he can proudly say is planned only for him - for them.
he quietly takes his phone out and takes a picture of rowon when he’s not looking when they’re passing by the lilies, the botanical garden makes him remember a conversation about edible flowers and how much fun they had over it. for many times, minjun wanted to reach out his hand and grab rowon’s but so far he’s settling for walking beside him, their shoulders lightly touching.
the hours run too fast maybe because minjun is enjoying his day so much and it’s only in the afternoon when his eyes are so fond of the pool now ice skating rink when he finally takes rowon’s hand and they both start sliding around, that he feels like turning to him with the brightest of the smiles, “promise me we will return here on summer, so we can swim together?”. yes, time’s certainly moving too fast, but as long as he’s there with him, minjun doesn’t feel like ending that day too soon.
which is good because apparently, rowon knows everything that’s about to happen. that’s the only explanation because how would he explain their next stop being a restaurant? it’s cold but minjun doesn’t even feel it, not when too many hot dishes are being served, and even if he does think of ways to make everything spicier, because in his head he’s already thinking about cooking rowon’s favorites later on, everything is forgotten when the cake is gifted to him. minjun feels his eyes kind of water but he closes them fast, his hands gripped together as he makes a wish before blowing up the candle. “thanks hyung…” he quietly says, reaching out for rowon’s hands under the table.
“one last stop”, he hears rowon say and he forces himself not to pout, not to think too much about how he doesn’t want the day to end, how much he’s thankful that there’s someone out there that thinks of him that much to go through so much just to give him the best birthday ever. minjun follows rowon to the place he knows by heart, their safe zone and it’s only when it’s the two of them in the silence of the rooftop, that minjun realizes how lucky he is.
he takes the box with a surprised “oh” and as he opens it, he’s too tempted to say rowon didn’t have to do that but it’d sound disrespectful and so unlike minjun. so he smiles at what rowon said first “hoodies are very useful you know, but i’ll keep stealing yours for all that matters” minjun’s reply comes with a soft chuckle but then his attention is fully on the watch and he looks back and forth “hyung..this is…beautiful”.
minjun is still admiring the watch, he nearly misses the note but when he reads it, his reaction is genuine - his heart isn’t skipping beats, it’s beating out of its normal rate, and it’s making minjun stare at the last word before rowon’s signature and think of so many things. it makes him want to ask and do things but he bites his lip as an initial response, eyes searching for rowon’s, just as his hand finds his - fingers intertwined because he needs that for a second (or maybe three thousand).
they stay like that for he doesn’t know how long but then minjun moves and maybe because it’s almost his birthday, he feels braver to do it. the kiss is on the corner of rowon’s lips and he feels his tingling with the touch, as fleet as it is - and maybe not to sound too much, and because it’s impolite not to thank for everything, minjun just whispers “always, wonnie hyung”
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