Jongin,

Happy Birthday.

I can’t believe it’s January again. I’ve been thinking ever since summer what I should tell you since I feel like I already said everything in the e-mails I’ve been sending you. Unfortunately, I don’t have coupons this time to cover how bad I am at wishing things. I don’t even have a basket full of things I know you’d like to get, like that new game you’ve been longingly staring at from outside the game store or a new sweater after your favorite one disappeared during dance practice.

I actually met the bully while I was out in the city yesterday and he asked me about you. I had no idea what to tell him, so I just said you’re fine, busy with whatever you’re doing these days. And I wondered, as we were walking and changing the subject to the new song the boy band, which had united us, released that weekend, if you were looking in that moment at the grey skies too. It reminded me about that time we had that weekend trip and none bothered to check the weather. You believed I had, while I was certain you would have every detail planned to perfection by the time we hit the road. We were caught in a snowstorm and if you hadn’t borrowed me your clothes, I might have caught an ugly cold or died from hypothermia. Our parents were so furious we had gone out on our own, especially since we were still underage, that they grounded us for half a year. Fortunately, your folks aren’t as insane as mine, so your sentence was reduced to only two weeks.

I thought you might have lifted your eyes too at the clouds and remember it, as if it had happened only days before, trembling and struggling to keep warm while we were snuggling under my blanket.

This also reminds me that I recently passed by your favorite chicken place. They have the same menu as ever and I wondered if you had been visiting it lately. The first time you dragged me there, I was fifteen, you sixteen, and we just skipped school. Mom forgot to pack my lunch bag. She was working then in that office building next to our math teacher’s house, do you remember? And that bastard always made sure he caught her as she came or left work to talk about my grades – God, I still hate him. She barely had any free time left for us, so when I discovered I also had no lunch money to fill the void in my stomach – my textbook pages wouldn’t have been that nutritious – you took my hand and we dashed all the way to the smal