Birthdays are special to every person in the world. Well, everyone's birthdays will always be different from each other's; it could be really special to them, it could be plain and boring or it'll be horrifying. And for Karina, well, maybe she's had a fair share of all three that was aforementioned. 

 

She remembers her birthdays vividly. Some were nice, some were ' normal ' and some were a little bit too disappointing to her. But all were equally memorable in their own little ways.

 

For instance, she remembers her first birthday from when she first joined SM Entertainment.

 

--

 

Jimin walks through the hallways, clutching a blue notebook in her hand, excitedly skipping through the hallways, not even worrying about getting scolded by higher-ups because who the hell cares, it's her birthday!

 

She remembers excitedly telling Minjeong and Yizhuo about her plans for her 17th birthday. Though if things don't go as planned, she still thought of a ' Plan B ' anyways.

 

She hums to the tune of a certain IU song and she could see the door to the practice room.

 

However, she stops in her tracks when she sees someone hastily running out of the room, bearing a troubled expression on his face. Her smile fades and she hurries after him.

 

"Wait- Mark! "

 

The said guy turns around and what surprised Jimin was how Mark looked even more tense at the sight of her.

 

"J-Jimin! Uh, I-I gotta go-"

 

"Mark Lee, wait up a bit!"

 

Her words made him stop.

 

"What?"

 

"Care to explain what's going on with you?"

 

And for some reason, the Canadian starts fiddling with the cap in his hands.

 

"W-Well uhm… you see, there was a fight-"

 

"There was a what?"

 

"Hush, I'm not done talking yet," interrupted Mark, eyes darting around nervously. "Well, it's not exactly a 'was' because it's still going on and you would not want to go into the practice room right now."

 

"Who are fighting?"

 

"Well…"

 

"Well?"

 

Mark tenses up even more and even before he could tell her who they were, she already figured it out, what with how strangely Mark was acting. 

 

"U-Uhm… Minjeong and N-Ningning."

 

Jimin blinks before bolting towards the practice room, ignoring Mark's yells. Mark didn't even greet her a happy birthday but that's the least of her concerns. For now, she needs to focus on stopping Minjeong and Yizhuo's fight.

 

She opens the door and sees a fairly large crowd surrounding what she supposes are Minjeong and Yizhuo. She squeezes herself into the crowd, mumbling hurried 'Excuse mes'.

 

God, it's her birthday but she already feels stressed.

 

"Excuse me- Kim Minjeong and Ning Yizhuo!"

 

Her loud voice rang in the practice room, silencing the crowd's murmurs.

 

"No, this is your damned fault, Ningning!"

 

"Minjeong, I don't know if you could already tell but you are so annoying."

 

"Minjeong and Ningning, could you please stop fighting?"

 

Her two best friends stop arguing, turning to look at Jimin and Jimin's surprised to see tears forming in Yizhuo's eyes. The girl lets out a small sob, wiping away a stray tear from her cheeks and she sweeps past Jimin.

 

Jimin doesn't even know what to do, she could feel tears welling up in her eyes but she holds it in. She needs to stay strong as the older one between them. She doesn't know whether she should calm Minjeong down or chase after Yizhuo. She settles on the former instead.

 

Minjeong's sitting down on the floor, head in her arms as she sobs silently. Jimin kneels down.

 

"Minjeong-ah, look at unnie."

 

The girl doesn't move and Jimin feels her heart crack. She didn't imagine celebrating her birthday this way, where conflicts were happening.

 

She puts her notebook down on the wooden floor. Gently patting the top of Minjeong's head, she cups Minjeong's cheeks and she speaks up again.

 

"Mindoongie-ya… look at Jimin-unnie. Please. "

 

Slowly, Minjeong looks up at Jimin and the older feels her heart break at the sight of the younger's red and swollen eyes, with tears freely running down her cheeks. And it made Jimin shed a tear.

 

"What happened?" whispered Jimin. Minjeong sniffles, shaking her head.

 

"Yizhuo was being stupid and dumb and really inconsiderate and-" Minjeong hiccups.

 

"What'd she say?" asked Jimin, offering Minjeong her purple handkerchief. The younger sheepishly accepts it, blowing her nose in it.

 

"S-She said that…" Minjeong paused, looking at Jimin with the puppy eyes that she was pretty well-known for. 

 

"That?"

 

Suddenly, they hear someone blowing a party horn, startling Jimin. She looks back into Minjeong's eyes and she sees something glinting in the younger girl's dark orbs.

 

Jimin blinks.

 

Wait a second-

 

"She said that it would be really funny if we pulled a prank on you as a late April Fool's prank and as your really awesome birthday present!"

 

Cheers and the sounds of party poppers going off follow Minjeong's words. The door to the practice room bursts open, with Ningning and Mark entering the room with a huge cake in their hands. Jimin notices that Ningning's smiling widely, looking as fresh as ever before, as if she hadn't been (fake) crying a while ago.

 

"Happy birthday, Yoo Jimin!"

 

Jimin gets surprised when something mushy hits her face. 

 

"Happy late April Fool's Day, Jimin-unnie! You deserve a nice little pie plastered on your face and I hope you feel our love for you!" she heard Minjeong's voice say, with Ningning's loud laughter following afterwards.

 

Jimin chuckles, wiping away some of the pie's cream out of her face.

 

"How did you guys even know that I was already here?"

 

"Well," started Minjeong, handing Jimin a small plate with a slice of cake on it. Jimin thanks the younger quietly, biting a small piece of the cake, the sweet taste of the creamy cake filling her taste buds.

 

"For starters, we both know what time you would usually arrive here and I don't think you noticed that Na Jaemin was standing guard, head hidden underneath the hood of his hoodie. He told us that you weren't able to notice him because apparently, you were skipping excitedly to meet us."

 

Jimin feels a growing blush on her cheeks when Minjeong mentions it out loud. Well… isn't it normal for a teenager to feel excited over her birthday?

 

"Shut up…"

 

"And then he called Mark-oppa to exit the room and God knows how hard it was for us to start crying as if we've been crying since forever so we kinda panicked a little bit back there, " Ningning piped up, rolling her eyes.

 

"It was pretty alright on my side though."

 

"Whatever, actress girl. "

 

" Ning Yizhuo shut up for at least one minute challenge failed. Moving on, they tried showing Yizhuo a horror jumpscare scene or something to scare her because they thought that she'll start crying but obviously, they forgot that Ningning likes watching horror movies so that failed so bad-"

 

"Then they started threatening me that they'll throw away my spoon out of the window so that I could never find it again!" whined Ningning and Minjeong howls in laughter, with Jimin following the latter's actions, nearly spilling some orange juice down on the floor.

 

"And obviously, I started crying because my ancient spoon is worth more than you all think it is!" exclaimed Ningning. She sips some juice from her red cup. "And Minjeong-unnie… well, there's a reason why she wanted to be an actress in the first place anyway, she's so good at this sort of stuff. She immediately started crying after I did, then we ' argued ' about weird stuff that our tears of ' sadness ' turned into tears of laughter instead."

 

"Your little skit was actually pretty convincing, to be honest," commented Jimin and she sees Minjeong high-five Ningning happily.

 

"See, I planned it so well that you'd think that it was real."

 

"You're so selfish, taking credit for everyone's hard work. I contributed to the prank too, you know!" argued Ningning.

 

"Yeah, but I'm still the mastermind!"

 

"Anyways, congrats and happy birthday, Jim-unnie! Next year, you're finally turning into a hag! "

 

Minjeong laughs loudly at Ningning's words and Jimin pouts.

 

"I'll get back to you guys someday!"

 

Maybe Jimin meant those words. It would be fun to see Minjeong's and Ningning's reactions if she did the same thing to them on their birthdays. But more importantly, she's thankful. Thankful because she knows that there are people who care for her.

 

And as she blows the candles on her cream birthday cake, she silently wishes that she gets to spend her future birthdays with the people she loves the most.

 

--

 

Karina chuckles at the memory. She rounds the corner, heels loudly clacking against the marble floor as she walks. She checks the time on her wristwatch and she smiles. 

 

She remembers her 20th birthday. The first birthday that she got to spend with her . And maybe that was her favorite birthday celebration so far. Unless her birthday celebration this year would top it.

 

--

 

"Stop doing that, will you?"

 

The half-Japanese looks at the birthday girl, smirking, eyes glinting with mischief. 

 

"What, this? "

 

The loud, popping sound that follows Aeri's words makes Jimin jump. The older girl covers her ears, closing her eyes.

 

"Idiot."

 

"Yah, I was just kidding, Jimin," said Aeri, snickering. Jimin rolls her eyes, shaking her head disapprovingly. She looks at her wristwatch, frowning.

 

"Minjeong and Ningning are late. Where are they?"

 

Aeri shrugs, yawning.