summary: julie's birthday live.
author's note: normal = english speaking. italics = korean speaking. underline + italics = japanese speaking. bold = mandarin speaking.
Slightly leaning forward to adjust the position of the cellphone, knees drawn up in front of her chest, Julie's lower lip was already caught between her teeth, a common habit when she was concentrated, eyes widening and brows rising as she noticed the number of views and hearts immediately increasing without pause in mere milliseconds as soon as she pressed the start live button.
Her lips curved up in a shy smile as a chuckle escaped her throat, feeling timid at the sudden attention.
She waved one of her hands gracefully, her voice coming out in a sweet tone. "Hi... Hello, everyone."
She stood silent for a few more seconds, eyes briefly reading the title "🐯🎉" before looking down at the comments that were flooding at full speed, frowning when failing miserably to read them as she gave time for more people to join.
"I still don't know how to use this." She pouted, referring to Weverse. "Is it supposed to be coming up this fast?"
Since VLive came to an end, Weverse, an app created by Hybe Labels that was once only for their artists, became the second option for almost all groups and idols in the industry — BLACKPINK being one of them.
Jisoo, Jennie, Rosé and Lisa loved the new version and quickly became pros at interacting with fans and even learned how to make paid lives, instructed by the company. Julie, however, that rarely bothered to broadcast a mere 40-minute moment of her life, seemed to have trouble understanding the functioning of Weverse.
Having the fame in the fandom to update once in a year — or two — being it on Instagram, Twitter or VLive itself, she barely entered the app and when she did, everything seemed too complicated and she would give it up again and again, always postponing the next live or interaction that BLINKs begged to happen.
But today was her birthday, and what a perfect time to start learning.
"Anyway," she sighed in frustration, mentally scolding herself for not being so active in social media as her members. "Hi."
She giggled, greeting with a small hi in all the seven languages she knew before clearing her throat.
"Today is August 20th, 11:32 p.m," she started in a whispery tone, to create suspense. "Which means that, in 28 minutes, it'll be my birthday."
Zhang smiled excitedly at her own confession, seeing the chat spam with different types of hearts and happy birthdays in a variety of languages, some she didn't have a clue of what it said or which country they spoke it.
"I mean, in some countries it is already my birthday... But, not here in San Francisco." She told, looking around the fancy hotel room. "We'll have a concert here on the 22nd, so... yeah, that's it."
She nodded with a sheepish smile, placing her chin on top of her knees, trying once again to read the comments before giving up and speaking.
"I wanted to spend my... How do I call it? Julie Day's Eve...?" She laughed with raised eyebrows. "I wanted to spend Julie Day's Eve with you, guys."
Julie squinted her brows, dropping her legs as she leaned closer to the phone, pressing her thumb on the screen to stop the chat from moving – hoping she would be able to read what people were writing, letting out a soft gasp when she succeeded.
"The girls are in their rooms, they're already sleeping." She told with a nod of affirmation. "What should I do, now? What do you want me to do?"
The singer hummed in satisfaction as the watchers started to give ideas. "Sing? I shouldn't sing here, I'm at the hotel and everyone's probably sleeping."
"We could listen to some music," she nodded, liking the idea as she smiled happily. "What do you guys want to listen to?"
Julie grabbed her phone, entering Spotify and clicking on her own playlist, hoping it would be of their liking, before placing it down on the table — a satisfied hum leaving her lips when the intro of Meddle About by Chase Atlantic started to sound.
"Chase Atlantic!" She pointed at the screen with a knowing smirk. "I went to their show in Las Vegas and some in Australia. I've been listening to them since, like... 2015 or 2016."
Her pupils moved swiftly up and down while she read the comments, looking for any question she could answer as she mumbled the lyrics and melody of the song.
"Unnie, what about your album?" She read out loud. "Oh, it's on the news, right? That I'm releasing an album soon? I can't tell any details yet, but I promise it will be very soon. Please, be patient and wait a little more."
"It's gonna be my first album and it's very special to me because I really like composing, and I know you guys wanted me to finally release the songs I've showed you before." She started, referring to the small verses and instrumentals of music she shared during some of those rare lives. "The thing is, I didn't have permission at the time, but now I promise you'll hear all... Not all, but most of those songs, officially released."
The playlist continued to go on as Julie answered to fans' questions and hummed along, until the knowing beat of the beginning of Seven started, making her lips immediately curve in a half smile, half smirk and a timid chuckle escape her throat.
She decided to ignore the comments during this specific song, leaning back on the chair and gasping when she realized she had simple five minutes left until her birthday.
"I'll be fucking you—" she stopped, widening her eyes with a shy laugh as she read clean version popping up on the screen of her phone, Jungkook's voice singing 'loving' surpassing hers.
Julie yawned as she stretched her arms, sighing loudly to control the urge to simply turn off the live without any other word and jump on that fluffy-white hotel bed and drift off to sleep, even if she didn't feel sleepy at all.
Her thoughts were interrupted when her ears heard the familiar big Latto whisper in the end of her boyfriend's heavenly adorable voice, indicating the rap part of the song was about to start.
She immediately grabbed the phone once again, her fingers gracefully yet quickly pressing the volume down button, the melody dissipating in the air along with the rapper's vocalization — a satisfied smile tugging up her lips as she waited for Jungkook's parts to come up again.
As soon as the rap ended, she turned the volume up, continuing to sing along as if nothing happened, completely brushing aside the chat going wild with the simple action.
"One minute for my birthday!" She annunciated sweetly, looking down at the timer as the numbers kept going down.
59, 58, 57, 56, 55, 54, 53, 52, 51, 50, 49, 48, 47, 46, 45, 44, 43, 42, 41, 40, 39, 38, 37, 36, 35, 34, 33, 32, 31, 30, 29, 28, 27, 26, 25, 24, 23, 22, 21, 20, 19, 18, 17, 16, 15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6...
"5, 4, 3, 2, 1!" She giggled, clapping her hands softly. "Ah, my birthday!"
Her brows furrowed in confusion when aggressive knocks on her door interrupted her soon-to-be speech, turning her head to the side to make sure no one was possibly trying to break in.
She couldn't hold the sigh of relief when Jisoo, Jennie, Rosé and Lisa barged in the room with excited squeals, running towards her with little jumps as the younger Kim held a small baby pink, heart-shaped cake in hands, her steps being slightly more careful than the other girls.
"Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you!" The four women sang in unison, closing the door behind them as they captured the youngest's taller body between theirs. "Happy birthday, dear Julie, happy birthday to you!"
They all clapped cheerily as Jennie carefully placed the tray on the table, right in front of Julie, before planting a kiss on her cheek, not forgetting to add another happy birthday before moving to stand beside her.
"Make a wish!" Roseanne suggested, smiling when Julie pouted sheepishly, but closed her eyes and pressed her palms together nonetheless — covering her face with her hands when her members cheered loudly as soon as she blew the candles.
"I thought you were sleeping!" She admitted, laughing when she spotted a horizontal card painted in white and yellow with her face and name in it on top of the cake.
"We were planning this since last month," the older Kim spoke, making them all laugh in agreement.
"Right!" Lisa nodded. "We kept insisting on staying at this hotel because we had already planned on this."
"Lisa asked the staff to bring it to your room if we fell asleep before midnight." Jennie pointed as the Thai girl whined in complaint, their laughs increasing.
Julie smiled in amusement, her cheeks painted pink. "Thank you, guys. Thank you."
They immediately cooed, wrapping their arms comfortingly around the maknae as Manoban imperceptibly ran her index finger over the icing on the cake, pulling away from the hug only to swipe it across the tip of Julie's nose, that frowned in disgust as the older girls swiftly pulled out their phones and started to take dozens of pictures.
She let out a playful groan, barely fighting the urge to roll her eyes as she waited for her unnies to be over with the little photoshoot.
They eventually stopped, standing beside the birthday girl to talk to the fans that were still there, waving their hands cutely as an unison of hi and hellos in sweet voices filled the room.
Taking advantage of their distraction, Zhang swiped her own finger over her nose, bringing the icing to her lips before humming in approval, the girls' eyes turning to her once again.
"Is it good?" Jennie asked.
"Mhmm," the youngest nodded with a hum.
Jisoo smirked, slightly touching the pinky sugar paste and imitating Julie's action, the other two girls doing the same. "Oh, it's great."
"Didn't you make this yourself, unnie?" Park questioned, looking over at the younger Kim.
"Yes."
"Really?" Julie widened her eyes in surprise — not doubting it, but finding it extremely adorable — gasping when Jennie nodded proudly. "Unnie, it's amazing! Thank you."
"It was a motivation, doing it for you." She replied shyly, giggling when the members cooed. "Anyway, we need to to go sleep now."
"True, we have rehearsal tomorrow morning." Lalisa added.
"Bye, BLINKs!" Chaeyoung waved, the girls doing the same behind her as they leaned to give Julie a last hug before leaving.
When they closed the door behind them, Julie immediately smiled, shaking her head in disbelief as she looked down at the cake, gently grabbing the card with her face, showing it to the camera.
"Is this my birthday card?" She asked, posing playfully with the small material. "I'll use it during the day so everyone will know it's my birthday, and maybe they'll give me free things."
She laughed at her own joke, grabbing her phone to play another song as the mobile buzzed nonstop with all the messages, her smile getting bigger at each one of them.
She spent another twenty minutes doing the same, singing along, answering questions and telling about her plans for the following day, feeling her eyes getting heavy as the sleepiness started to take over her body to the point she couldn't open her mouth to say something without yawning — that's when she decided to stop.
She stretched her arms once again with a deep sigh before leaning closer to the camera, smiling tiredly. "I should probably go now, I'm feeling a little sleepy."
A weak chuckle left her lips when the chat got divided between please, don't leave us and you look tired, sleep well, knowing it would probably make her confused between leaving and staying as well if she weren't so desperate to lay down already.
"I wish I could stay a little longer, but we have schedule tomorrow." She pouted playfully, hoping it would make them accept it better. "Thank you so much for all the birthday wishes. Bye, everyone! Take care, please. Sleep well. Bye, bye."