On A Cloud

birthday boy

At the age of nineteen, there really isn't much that one can ask for on their birthday, so Jungkook hands it to his friends to decide his fate. He's greeted in the locker room by ten overly hyped guys in nothing but boxer briefs and towels, lifting him up and setting him down on one of the benches to begin whatever weird ritual they had planned. Soccer practice starts in twenty minutes - whatever they intended to do, he hopes they get it over with before the coach gets riled up with impatience.

"Happy birthday, Kookie!" Bambam slaps him hard on the back, taking a seat next to him. He already smells like sweat and gatorade.

The rest follow his action, taking turns sweetly wishing him a happy birthday before contradicting their gestures with a sharp slap on his back, chuckling as he coughs a little. He thanks them anyway, rubbing the stinging skin of his back.

"We should do something this year," Jaehyun says, and the other boys nod in agreement. Jungkook thinks they weirdly resemble a cult without any particular leader. Just a group of high school boys in mutual agreement over everything.

"Let's take our boy to the strip club," Mingyu suggests with a laugh, wrapping an arm around his neck.

"Let's not," Jungkook interjects, flicking Mingyu's hand away. "You tried taking me last year, remember what happened?"

The boys nearly shudder in unison at the memory of Jungkook's disastrous eighteenth birthday. Seokmin had too many beers, tried to grope the poor girl just doing her job, and then ran from the police. Except he had run the complete opposite way from the exit, too drunk to see where he was going, and ended up flipping himself over the counter of the bar, shattering several expensive champagne bottles. As tight as the boys were, they weren't about to suffer the brunt of Seokmin's stupidity, so they immediately got up and discreetly snuck out before the cops could identify the drunk teenager and link him to the birthday boy. No matter how many time's he's tried to apologize for the incident, Jungkook still refuses to step foot into a club with them. On top of that, he felt uncomfortable and quite frankly, a little embarrassed about paying strange women (though it wasn't his money, it was Bambam's) to hover around him. He found himself more focused on the catchy tunes coming from the DJ rather than the half naked girls dancing offbeat to them.

"Fine, what about skateboarding? We can go to the park after practice," Bambam proposes, and for the first time Jungkook witnesses one of them groan in disagreement.

"That's so lame, dude," Mingyu rolls his eyes.

"You think of a better idea then. What are we gonna do? Take him to a kid's birthday party and hire a clown? We have Seokmin for that." The other guys laugh hysterically at that last comment, one of them playfully hitting a frowning Seokmin in the arm.

"I'm down for anything. Except for any place that has alcohol." Jungkook tries not to make it obvious that he's eyeing Seokmin.

"Great, it's settled then. We go skateboarding and then we can go chill at a steak house or something," Bambam plans, and the rest nod again.

Before anyone can protest, the door slams open with a loud bang, revealing a bulky, broad-shouldered and redfaced man. Jungkook looks down at his watch - they're five minutes late. "Well, fuck," he mutters under his breath. There's no chance of hoping that coach Lee will go easy on him just because it's his birthday. The last time Bambam tried to use that excuse, his 'present' was six laps around the entire school.

But their punishment today isn't any lighter as they're forced to jog up and down three flights of stairs for seven rounds. The stairwell starts to humidify with the nearly unbearable stench of sweat. At one point, a student from the yearbook committee who stayed back late to finish up work unknowingly tries to take the stairs, only to be suffocated by the smell that hit her senses the moment she opens the door and meets the eyes of about twenty sweating, panting boys hopping up and down the stairs. Jungkook arrives just in time to see the horrified expression on her face as she nearly tears up and makes a bee line back up the stairs and towards the door.