seven 

2013 - twenty-seven

for old time’s sake 

* * * * * 

She’s finally back in Seoul from Los Angeles after finishing the promotions of her movie, Make Your Move. 

So much time had passed since she was back at home, but it wasn’t until she’d actually stepped through the front door of her small little apartment did she realize just how much she missed it. 

She dropped her bags on the floor and looked around, smiling at the thought of getting to cook real Korean food in her own kitchen, of snuggling up on the worn leather couch to watch some late night shows, of cleaning the whole house. Because yes, she even missed trivial things like washing the dishes, scrubbing the countertops, mopping the floors, and sorting the mail. 

Chuckling a little to herself at the large pile of letters that were stacked on the dining table (most likely put there by her manager), she flipped through it, noticing that some of them dated to last year even. She’s flipping through all of the envelopes when a postcard from Hawaii dated November of last year caught her eye, causing her fingers to pause in midair. There wasn’t a return address, and that was enough to make her heart beat rapidly in anticipation as she turned the page around to read the message. 

Happy 26th. 

- Jae 

And even though it was so short and simple, she couldn’t help the small smile that made its way to her face. Because she’d thought he’d forgotten about her birthday last year. But he didn’t actually forget. He just didn’t know where she was. So he hadn’t been able to get it to her in time. But getting it now was just the same. He remembered and that’s all that mattered. 

Grabbing a magnet off of the refrigerator, she stuck the postcard up, the bright colors of Hawaii’s beaches and palm trees standing out in her white kitchen. She doesn’t really go out of her way to look at it every morning as she’s passing the kitchen to leave the house, but somehow, she always caught sight of the vibrant colors, and for some reason, that managed to brighten her day a little. 

A few weeks after she’s back, it’s her birthday again. But unlike all of the other years, she just treated it as any other day. Because she realized that twenty-seven (or twenty-eight in Korean years) isn’t really an age that she’d like to celebrate. Not necessarily because she’s getting older. But because she just didn’t really see a point in it anymore. 

Instead, she just spent the day with a few close friends from SM (both Yunho and Changmin were in Japan, so the best they could do was video call her to wish her a happy birthday). And at night, after she’d finished practice for the day, she’d returned to her empty apartment de