wander [ hyunlix ]

33

September 14th had always been one of the strangest days in Felix's life.

Being the day before his birthday, it was a day easily overshadowed in his mind by better, more important events to follow on the 15th. But when he really thought about it, that prior day—his Birthday Eve, one could call it to be fancy—was always the day when things in his life seemed to truly change, even in the subtlest ways.

September 14th was his best friend's birthday. He'd spent a few years now annoying the living hell out of Jisung all day in honor of his closest confidant gaining one number on his age.

September 14th was the day Felix had technically gotten his first kiss. And from the birthday boy himself, nonetheless... that was one of his most embarrassing birthday stories to tell by far.

It had been around midnight. Felix and Chan had dragged Jisung around town, living it up. "The big seventeen!" they'd constantly yelled at him, gaining a groan or an embarrassed laugh in public every time.

Felix, of course, used this opportunity to his advantage. It was the one night a year he could make fun of Jisung for being older than him, and he only had about 12 hours to use his entire arsenal of boomer jokes and "you're older than the dinosaurs" comments he'd been thinking of all week in preparation.

So when the trio of best friends had retreated back to Felix's bedroom as the hours grew late, the boy naturally tried his hardest to get any final age-related insults out before midnight.

"You're..." Felix spaced out, staring up at the ceiling as if it would help him remember whatever genius phrase he'd come up with.
"Hmm. In a year or two from now I'll have to start bringing your cake to the retirement home, huh?"

"Shut up," Jisung let out a laugh against his own will. "You've got about an hour before you join me in the grave."

"I bet your skeleton is already decomposing in there."

At this one, Chan laughed, the boy knowing he was way older than the two of them, and taking a personal satisfaction at watching his best friends bicker like children.

"Seventeen is not that old," Chan quipped, as if about to say something profound and meaningful.
And then he said: "Eighteen is old. Eighteen."

"So you admit that you're old then?" Jisung responded as Felix simply groaned at the eldest's words.

"I admit that both of you are toddlers."

"Chan," came Felix's voice, the younger boy tiredly leaning his head against his shoulder, as he'd done a million times.
"I can accept Jisung being a toddler. But me? Me?"

Chan made a show of pondering this for a second.
"I suppose I'll let you be a middle schooler."

"Fuck," Felix pulled away from him instantly, the idea so horrible that he couldn't even bear to touch the one who'd said that anymore. "Take that back. That's so much worse."

A warm smile still rested upon Chan's face despite having been insulted in this way. He'd always had a soft spot for Felix—Jisung teased him relentlessly about it—and there was almost nothing the boy was capable of doing to make him upset in any way.