A Birthday That Couldn't Even Break Even
The sky was gloomier than usual. Just as a mischievous spring rain threatened to fall outside, the inside of Yeoncheong's curtained apartment was just as dark.
What woke her from her continued swim through dreamland was a single phone call. Instinctively she reached out her hand, assuming it was her alarm, and only realized it was a call when it refused to shut off.
"Helllooo..."
[...Were you sleeping?]
A man's voice drifted through the receiver. Only one man in the whole world had Yeoncheong's number these days.
Her sleep-thick, drowsy voice prompted a question from the other end, but hearing it, she too wondered if she was still dreaming and asked right back.
"Fa...ther?"
[That's right. I figured it would be about time to get ready for school, so I called.]
Yeoncheong bolted upright in shock. She had, as it happened, completely ignored his question, but her father didn't call her out on it.
Ready for school? Surely it's still...
Insisting her alarm hadn't rung even once yet, she went to check the clock — and her reaction came through loud and clear to the person on the other end of the line.
CRASH!
[Wh... what was that? Did something happen?]
"N-no, nothing! I-it's not that — why are you calling this early in the morning?"
In her scramble out of bed, she'd stepped on her blanket and tumbled clean to the floor.
Gritting her teeth through the pain, she was tidying up her bedding and pulling her uniform out of the closet when her hands suddenly stopped.
[...Because it's your birthday. You and I were never ones to make a fuss over this sort of thing, but... since I can't be there with you, I wanted to at least say congratulations in person.]
"Ah... yes."
Last year it had ended with a single text message. This time, an actual phone call — timed precisely to when she'd wake up.
It was embarrassing enough to die of, but at least the emotions they'd poured out at each other over the holidays hadn't been for nothing.
[Yeoncheong. Happy birthday.]
After a brief pause, a trembling, awkward voice filtered through the receiver.
[Ahem... Ahem. I sent a little money too. Have a good day, today.]
"You too, Father."
Perhaps embarrassed as well, her father hurried the call to an end once he'd said everything he had to say.
Ah. I have to get to school.
Only then did Yeoncheong, frozen in place for a good while, come back to her senses and begin getting ready. Being late was already unavoidable. Even though it would be her first tardiness in ages, she dreaded Teacher Jisu's scolding — and yet, somehow, her mood wasn't bad at all.
One week after White Day. It was a few days after she'd finally finished the last of the real cleaning, reorganizing the clubroom bookshelves.
March 21st.
Today was Yeoncheong's birthday.
It was her first tardiness since becoming a third-year, but to Teacher Jisu, who had watched over Yeoncheong for a full year, it was one of so many she'd lost count. She showered her with a baptism of lectures, insisting this absolutely could not be the start of a habit of showing up late.
Back at her seat, the moment break time arrived, two friends from her class showered her with congratulations.
"Chukka-chukka."
"Happy birthday, Yeoncheong."
"...Thanks."
Receiving this kind of celebration was such a rare occurrence that it felt almost foreign, and she found herself scratching her head for no particular reason.
"You've been coming in early for a while now. What's got you late today, of all days?"
"Right. Seoha and Suyeon kept waiting at your desk the whole time."
"Why were those two?"
When Yeoncheong answered like she genuinely had no idea, Hasol fluttered her lips, asking if she seriously couldn't tell.
"Obviously they waited so they could be the first to say happy birthday."
"That's not exactly the kind of thing worth waiting around for."
When someone was this hopelessly oblivious, hinting around the edges was a waste of breath. She knew it wasn't on purpose, but frustrating was frustrating. Nayun thumped her own chest with a groan.
"No, wait — hah, right. She said her family never really made a big deal of birthdays in the first place."
"Well, it's the birthday of someone they like. Of course they'd want to congratulate them first."
"Ahh~"
With Hasol's supplementary explanation, Yeoncheong nodded along as if she vaguely got it now. It was break time, after all — and to think they'd waited for her like that. Just as she found herself staring at the door the two would come barging through—
Siyeon and Seobin blocked her field of vision.
"It's your birthday, right? Congrats."
"Happy birthday, Yeoncheong."
Only four people were supposed to know her birthday. How on earth had these two found out?
Perhaps that thought showed plainly on her face, because Siyeon glanced toward Class 2 on the other side of the wall.
"Baek Suyeon told us."
Seobin added from beside her that she'd heard from Suyeon while they were reorganizing the bookshelves the other day.
It wasn't as if she'd been hiding it, so it didn't really matter — though she did wonder what gain there was in broadcasting someone else's birthday.
And then—
"Happy birthday!"
A beat later than Yeoncheong had expected, Suyeon and Seoha came crashing in.
Their raucous entrance sent murmurs of Birthday? Whose birthday? rippling through every corner of the classroom — and the calm but crystal-clear voice that followed let everyone know exactly who the birthday girl was.
"Yeoncheong, happy birthday."
And then Suyeon, birthday wishes still on her lips, hurled her whole body through the air.
She was literally flying; dodging risked getting her hurt. In the end, Yeoncheong caught her friend with everything she had, and her face crumpled.
"Hrk, what the—"
"Happy birthday!"
A bright, bubbly greeting, in stark contrast to her suffering. Yeoncheong glanced around and mumbled under her breath.
"What exactly is the reason for announcing my birthday far and wide on your way here?"
"Secret~"
Was there some special reason it had to stay a secret? When the friend clinging to her like a cicada said it with an impish grin, the words died in her throat.
But there was one friend who understood Suyeon's heart a hundred percent.
"She's doing it because she's thinking of you, Yeoncheong."
"Thinking of me?"
"Wait, Seoha! Don't tell her!"
The two of them liked the same person. Sensing that their thoughts might run along the same lines, Suyeon flailed about trying to seal everyone's lips — but her full-body leap toward the person she liked worked against her instead.
Yeoncheong, the friend still wrapped in her arms, naturally pinned her friend's limbs in place and jerked her chin, telling her to keep talking.
And so Seoha shared her deduction.
"There were girls badmouthing you, remember? Suyeon probably wanted to show you that there are just as many people who see you in a good light. That's what I would have done, anyway."
She'd likely thought the exact same thing, but it was something only Suyeon — outgoing, with friends in every direction — could have pulled off.
"Noooo... she was not supposed to say that out loud..."
It seemed the guess had landed dead center. Suyeon, who had been resisting furiously, went quiet before anyone noticed, turning her flushed face this way and that to avoid eye contact.
"...Thank you."
Yeoncheong gave the head tucked against her chest a gentle pat, and Seoha could only watch the two friends cuddle, a wistful look on her face.
The short break came to an end, and the five of them — Yeoncheong included — didn't gather again until lunchtime.
The other four friends' birthdays always landed around exam season or close to vacation, so this was practically the first time Yeoncheong had spent a birthday at school like this.
As the others chattered about where to go and what to do afterward, Yeoncheong was lost in thought, studying their faces.
Hasol in July, Nayun in August, Suyeon in September... and Seoha in December.
Even sitting at the tail end of March, her own birthday was the earliest of them all. Which meant, strictly speaking, that she was the oldest of the five.
And that meant...?
"Heh... heh heh..."
When she smirked, having realized she'd just found new material to tease her friends with, the four of them exchanged glances.
"Guys, what's up with her all of a sudden?"
"Did we flick her forehead too hard earlier?"
"Might be from doing it too many times, too."
"Now that I think about it, flicking her once for every year of her age was maybe a bit much..."
Come to think of it, Yeoncheong's forehead was bright red. She'd never once had it happen before — it was the mark of the ambush they'd sprung on her that morning, crying birthday forehead flicks! out of nowhere.
It had healed better than a birthday beating would have, at least... but Seoha and Hasol, friends with deceptively heavy hands, had given her the full count for her age. Everyone worried the Daengcheongi might have gotten even more daengcheong.
"Call me unnie. Come on, just say it once."
Worse still, that was the answer that had come back.
From Yeoncheong's perspective it may have been a joke, but to the friends on the receiving end, it sounded genuinely alarming.
"She... she really does seem like she's hurt her head, doesn't she?"
"Hey, shouldn't we be taking her to the infirmary?"
"Is the infirmary enough? Shouldn't we send her home early and get her to a hospital?"
"A few more knocks on the head might fix her."
Stung by Seoha's shocking solution to the problem, Yeoncheong flinched and threw both hands up to shield her forehead.
"I-I'm anti-violenccccce..."
Having proven her sanity with a voice that crawled out of the grave, she stubbornly pressed on with her joke.
"See... since my birthday comes first, strictly speaking I'm the eldest here. Right?"
"Right."
"Which means I'm your unnie — that's what I'm saying. Just for today, try calling me that."
As a setup for comedy, the explanation had already failed spectacularly, but she couldn't bring herself to pass up such a golden excuse. Even her friends right in front of her were staring blankly at one another, wondering what on earth she was going on about. At that reaction, a faint smile crept across her face.
Every once in a while, you deserve a day like this.
Even Yeoncheong, the designated sandbag of the group, deserved to let off some steam by doing the teasing now and then—
"Unniieee?"
Starting with Nayun, who drew out the end of the word with impish playfulness.
"Unnie~"
Hasol, cooing it in a voice sweet as syrup.
"Unnie."
Seoha, in a flat, low tone stripped of any rise and fall, giving the strange illusion it was rising up from the very tips of her feet.
"Un— hck... niiieee..."
Even Suyeon, barely managing the word as she fought down the laughter leaking out of her.
Four different shades of voice pronouncing the same two syllables. Yeoncheong, who had wanted nothing more than to watch them get flustered and fumble, found her mouth hanging open instead.
"Uh. Eh. Wh...?"
Their reactions were so far beyond anything she'd imagined that her joints creaked and the tips of her ears went red.
Why aren't they embarrassed? Why are they fine? Just as that thought was taking shape, Seoha read the question written all over her expression and supplied the answer.
"We're not you. Why would saying that word embarrass us?"
After all, Yeoncheong herself had struggled so hard just to call Senior Seoyun "unnie" — surely the reverse would be exactly the same for the others.
It was a daengcheong of a thought.
"It isn't, is it... unnie?"
"Hiiick...!"
As Seoha leaned in close and breathed those words, a chill shot straight up Yeoncheong's spine.
Being called unnie by a friend the same age as her stirred up something both wicked and ticklish all at once.
"Cancel it. Cancel! You don't have to. It was a joke."
Shrinking back without even meaning to, Yeoncheong admitted her mistake and corrected herself at top speed — but—
"I don't want to, un. Nie."
The initiative had passed out of her hands a long time ago. The sight of her shuddering and panicking only conjured mischief where none had existed before.
"Unnie, what should we do for fun today?"
"Unnie, lift your head for us, won't you?"
With two of them whispering unnie into each of her ears, Yeoncheong could only curse her own brief flash of cleverness.
Every regular class of the day had come to an end. Barely finishing homeroom, Nayun shouldered her bag and asked:
"Unnie, where shall we go?"
"Ah... please. I said I was really, really sorry."
The others had snapped back to normal quickly enough, but like the Haneul-i business before it, Nayun's teasing had serious staying power. The nickname she could just about stomach, but hearing polite speech from a same-aged friend she usually traded casual banter with was a feeling beyond words.
She'd said "just for today," but would they keep it up outside school too? That was the thing she feared most.
"Nayun, stop teasing her. Yeoncheong's face is going red again."
"Why? She's the one who asked for it."
Behind Hasol, trying to rein her in, and Nayun, angling for a little more fun, Suyeon and Seoha waved from outside the classroom.
"Guys, you've got your umbrellas, right? It's raining — let's hurry!"
"It's raining?"
"Yeah. Look outside."
The sky was dark, sure, but she'd checked not five minutes ago and there'd been no sign of rain. It seemed like nonsense — until:
Tap. Ta-tap. Tap.
As the rain knocked gently against the window, Yeoncheong stared blankly out at the world beyond.