He finds Taehyung leaning against the stop sign at the end of his street, decked out in a new fall jacket and a ridiculous pose. “Happy birth,” his friend says in a low voice, moving to another weird stance. “You are now legal to drink in the European country of Cyprus!”

                  Jimin stares. “… Thanks, again. You already texted me last night though.”

                  “Yes, but did I tell you this?!” Taehyung does a crane pose while a gust of wind blows through them. “I have a surprise planned for mineth besth friend at school.”

                  “Wait, really?”  He smiles at the idea; Jimin doesn’t get gifts from him often, and even though he doesn’t mind not getting anything on birthdays, the fact that Taehyung has something this year is marvel in itself.  “Isn’t the point of a surprise supposed to be… well, a surprise?”

                  “That’s where you’re mistaken, Park Jimin! The element of surprise is important yes,” Taehyung replies, his imaginary beard. “But knowing of it and having anticipation build is something else entirely, y’know!”

                  Jimin turns his grin into a scowl. “… You’re a .”

                  “I’m the to your balls, son!” the guy laughs, “come on, let’s go to school. No chance of being late on your birthday.”

                  Side by side, they make the short trip towards campus. The wind doesn’t let up in the October weather, to the point where a leaf smacks Jimin right in the face; Taehyung doubles over laughing.

                  He peels the wet leaf off his eyes and scrutinizes it. “Huh.” He holds it up next to his friend’s head. “It’s the same color as your hair.”

--

                  Sanghyuk sits on the edge of his desk, languidly chewing on an apple. “Hey, are any of you staying in at lunch today?”

                  “I am,” says Junghwa, while flipping though her notes. Their teacher declared a silent study period, but it wasn’t even ten minutes before Sanghyuk had to go and say something. Now the whole class is chattering amongst themselves. “Probably for a little while though, there’s a student council meeting at twelve.”

                  Chanmi looks over at her. “I’m staying over too. Also, when did you join the council, Junghwa?”

                  “I sent in an application during Extracurricular Week, actually!” The girl is practically beaming. “We didn’t have much to do until we started planning for Fall Fest, so I’m busy, busy.”

                  Sanghyuk scoffs. “Ew.”

                  “Ew yourself!”

                  “C’mon, the council is probably the most stuck-up club in the entire school,” he says. “Back me up on this one, Jimin.”

                  Jimin is halfway through putting led into his pencil when he looks up, startled. “Huh?”

                  “Hey, leave him alone,” Chanmi chides. “Jimin, are you staying in at lunch too?”

                  A look of confusion is brought upon his face. “… What for?”

                  “There he goes again,” Sanghyuk starts laughing. “Are you actually absent-minded or are you playing dumb?” He stops giggling when Chanmi gives him a subtle glare.

                  “I got you Jiminnie, unlike that dork over there.” Junghwa gives Sanghyuk the finger, which he gladly returns. “A lot of us are staying in at lunch today to prepare for the Fall Fest. You know the event that the entire school holds on Halloween day?”

                  “Each second year and third year class has to open up a service of some sort because the general public—our parents, family members, and maybe people in the neighborhood—come into our school for the event,” Chanmi explains. “We get the building and all the rooms decorated for Halloween, and well… it’s just a heck of a time.”

                  “You know what else a heck of a time is?” Junghwa grins. “After Fall Fest is over, the school throws a ‘Fall Ball’ at the end of the day to compensate for our hard work. It’s just a Halloween dance, but I think that’s super cool.”

                 Pieces of last week’s events slowly come back to him. “I think I remember…” Jimin mutters, “Our class is opening a dessert shop, right?”

                  She nods, while Sanghyuk rolls his eyes. “It’s so lame,” he groans loudly. “Why do we have to make food when the seniors get to do cool stuff? I heard one class is opening up a haunted house!”

                  “That’s just how it goes!” Junghwa retorts. “We’ll get to do cool stuff next year, too. At least we’re not freshmen anymore. They don’t get to do anything at all.”

                  “Ladies,” Chanmi says, not even bothering to look at them. “You’re both pretty. Jimin?”

                  Jimin looks up from his desk. “Y-Yeah, I’ll stick around to help.”

                  “Cool.”

                  Sanghyuk whispers under his breath, “hell yeah I’m pretty,” and Junghwa throws her entire pencil case at him.

                  Near the end of the period, the TV in their classroom buzzes and the words ‘please stand by for school-wide broadcast’ appear on the screen. Within moments, the class quiets down for the show.

                  Usually, they would expect the blare of their national anthem followed by one of their fellow students to appear and read the morning announcements. Sometimes there would be videos advertising events in the area, as well. That was their morning drill.

                  Today, there was just a simple blue background onscreen and clashing vividly against it is the orange mop of Taehyung’s hair.

                  Jimin freezes in place when he sees his best friend on TV. The broadcast is aired to all the TVs in school, and the fact that everyone in the building is staring at some kid they may or may not know is making him anxious. What the heck is he doing there?

                  Taehyung sits there for a couple seconds, and then he looks behind the camera. “Are we ready? Yeah? Okay.” He clears his throat. “… Happy birthday to you!”

                  Jimin slams his head onto his desk so hard, he feels like he’s going to pass out but that’s just the thing he was aiming for. For the next ungodly minute, all he hears is that orange idiot singing while everyone around him goes, “what on earth? Who is that guy?”

                  “I don’t know him,” he groans, “I don’t know him; I don’t know who that moron is—!”

                  When Taehyung finishes singing, he screams at the top of his lungs, “I LOVE YOU!” and the screen goes black. The class is completely silent for a moment, right up until someone says “I don’t know who that guy is, but how did he know it was my birthday today?”

                  Everyone else then cheerfully wishes their fellow classmate a happy birthday, while Jimin just sits there stunned. He almost stands up to clarify the misunderstanding. He almost shouts, ‘no, he’s my best friend’ for the world to hear.

                  Chanmi turns around in her seat amidst the ruckus. “Hey,” she says softly. “It’s your birthday too, right?”

                  He nods, heart hammering in his chest.

                  She smiles. “Happy birthday, Jimin.”

                  Lunchtime rolls around and Jimin finds himself back in homeroom, reeling with bliss. The feeling lasts until his phone buzzes with a text from Taehyung that reads, ‘hey bday boy where do u wanna eat???’ followed by his subtle suggestion of a burger emoji. He proceeds to tell his friend that he’s staying in to help his class out for Fall Fest preparations.

                  ‘k im coming in’ is his response, and Jimin frowns.

                  He hastily types up, ‘no dont u dumb im still mad @u for publicizing my birthday’.

                  Taehyung replies, ‘i didnt even say ur name pls love me TT’. He sends him a poop emoji.

                  Once he puts his phone down, Jimin returns to cutting out an army of paper shapes that were supposed to make for ‘ghosts’. While he’s zoned out on snipping, Chanmi approaches and promptly startles him out of focus. “H-Hey,” he greets.

                  “Hey yourself,” she says. In her arms is a handful of cooking magazines and she starts looking through them for dessert recipes. “Having fun?”

                  Jimin looks towards the class, watching as his peers bounce around with party streamers and impromptu pop music while they decorate the room. The lights are being covered with orange filters and rubber spiders have been taped to the wall, all adding to the festive effect. Everyone seems to be having a gall of a time, and it’s almost contagious.

                  “Sure,” he sighs, cutting out one more curve.

                  One of their classmates approaches them. “Jimin! Have you done that advertising for our shop yet?”

                  He blanks out a bit before coming to. “… Y-Yes! I asked someone from Yearbook to help us out. I think he’ll be up here later.”

                  “Alright, keep cutting out those clouds.”

                  “… They’re ghosts…”

                  Chanmi laughs. “Busybodies… so um, are you free on Saturday?”

                  “Yeah…” He chokes. “Wait, what?!”

                  “Let’s go see a movie together!” She scrolls through her phone and shows him the theatrical poster for ‘Hotel Transylvania 2’. “It’s coming out this week, so we should see it then.”

                  He can hardly believe his ears. “… U-Uh, o-o-okay. Sure.” The suggestion was too sudden, he can’t even think straight. Did she just ask him out on a date? He can’t comprehend the very idea.

                  “Cool.” She slaps him across the arm; it’s a bit of a rough gesture but Jimin still heats up. “I’ll message you?”

                  Before he has the chance to utter a sound of approval, their classroom door swings open and a male voice bellows, “delivery for student Park Jimin!” It’s none other than Yoongi, who dawdles into the room with a box in his arms. “Courtesy of the Yearbook committee!”

                  Jimin excuses himself and scampers towards him with a look of concern. “What’s with him…?”

                  “Who?” Yoongi looks around.

                  “Tae!” Jimin exasperates, “what’s wrong with him? Why are you carrying Taehyung on your back?”

                  “Oh yeah.” He shifts the orange idiot who’s draped across his backside like a stiff corpse. “I picked him up on the way here. He’s upset because you didn’t seem to like the birthday surprise he planned for you.”

                  Taehyung finally lifts his head for once, displaying a prominent frown on his face. “I even had to beg the broadcasting students to let me on air! You know Hoseok is in broadcasting too, right? I made him beg with me! I worked hard…”

                  “I gotta admit,” Yoongi says, “It was pretty ing hilarious. Give your friend more credit, Jimin.”

                  “Yeah!”

                  “Don’t encourage him!” Jimin squeaks, looking down. He’s aware of the fact that most of his classmates are staring in their general direction now. “I-It’s not like I hated it, I just don’t like when he does things on a public scale like that. It’s secondhand-embarrassment.”

                  “So that means…” Taehyung jumps off of Yoongi to wring his arms around Jimin’s body. “YOU LOVE IT!”

                  Jimin outright ignores him. “What are you doing here, hyung? Th-This isn’t your territory…”

                  “I’m a senior, I’m allowed to go wherever the I want,” Yoongi replies, handing him the box. “But I do have to get back to help out my class with Fall Fest too.”

                  “Ooh, what are you guys doing?” Taehyung asks.

                  “Haunted house.”

                  “Nice.”

                  Jimin looks at the box just given to him. “What’s this, hyung?”

                  “It’s the flyers you asked me to make this morning.” He laughs, “You didn’t forget, did you?”

                  “O-Oh, right! Thank you.”

                  “No problem.” Yoongi reaches over to tousle his hair. “And uh, happy birthday.”

                  Jimin doesn’t move until his head is left alone. “… Thank you,” he says again, not knowing where to look but at his shoes.

                  Taehyung looks upon them quite fondly. “Since when were you two so chummy?”

                  “Why?” Yoongi smirks, a glint of arrogance in his eyes. “You jealous?”

                  “I’m allowed to be in the same room as this kid while he’s ting,” Taehyung says seriously. “And you’re asking me if I’m jealous?”

                  Jimin walks away.

no one reminded me I was supposed to update today... orz
this is the first chapter I started from scratch since the revamp! c:
originally I had Jimin walk into photography club to see Yoongi but
this is more convenient haha
btw the legal drinking age in Cyprus is 17