February 19, 2020
San Francisco, California
"HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BITCH!"
I pull my phone away from my ear and cry out when Ara screams into the receiver.
"Jesus Christ, Ara! You nearly blew my eardrum!"
"Happy birthday!" she says again, much quieter this time.
"Thank you," I say sweetly, rubbing my ear.
"Are you excited for your surprise party on Saturday?" she teases.
I roll my eyes. "If you guys give me a surprise party I will never forgive you."
"I already told you. It's just a small get together. No need to worry about anything."
"A small get together you and Rose have been planning for a month? Seems a little suspicious if you ask me."
"We just have something big planned of you," Ara says innocently. "We want the party to live up to the present."
I'm not the biggest fan of surprises. I like being surprised, but when I'm left wondering if I'm going to be embarrassed in front of everyone I know, I can't help but begin to hate them.
"It's gonna be fun, I promise. Let yourself be excited. Don't overthink it."
"I'm overthinking," I confess.
"Don't!"
"When's the party again?"
"Saturday. Go get your hair color touched up and come home to fun. You're lucky I even told you about it, Rose wanted it to be a full surprise, but I knew you'd rather die."
"Well, thanks for that at least," I mumble.
"You're gonna like it. I promise."
"Okay," I say. "I'm trusting you."
—
February 22, 2020
San Francisco, California
"SURPRISE!"
I jump at the sudden shouts the assault my ears when I finally enter my house with freshly dyed purple hair. Baby Violet starts crying at all the noise and cheers from the gathering in my living room.
"Oh my god," I whisper, looking around the room. "I know you guys did not do this."
"Hell yeah we did," Ara says, sharing a high five with Rose.
Plastered all over the mid-size room are photos of Kim Seokjin's face. And I mean all over.
There's a massive tapestry of him hanging behind the TV, a photo wall made entirely of photo cards, picket fans and posters and photographs hang everywhere, some even covering the ceiling. The soft cream paint is hardly even visible. It looks like Twitter in December 2018 threw up in my house.
"Happy birthday!" Rose shouts as she hugs me. She wears casual clothes, but I don't fail to notice that she and everyone there has Jin or RJ on them somewhere.
Especially my grandmother who rests in her new wheelchair wearing my RJ pajama pants, a shirt with Seokjin's face, sunglasses with red hearts over the lenses (just like Jin always wore during Wings tour), and an RJ headband. She waves her ARMY Bomb and shoots finger hearts at me.
"What's with such a big party?" I ask around Rose's shoulders. All around me are my friends' family members. They smile widely at me, wearing their own Seokjin merchandise with indescribable joy and excitement written on their faces. My heart grows warm at the sight of all these people around me. Their families are my family, too; my fathers and mothers in place of my parents, my siblings to make up for the ones I never had.
"What are all of you doing here?" I ask in wonder. I can't seem to stop asking questions.
"Well," Rose begins, "as you know, every comeback we ask the family to order albums that are available for fan signs and we have them all enter raffles for fan signs as well."
"We all wanted to give you the albums in person to add to your collection!" Ara exclaims. "It's a huge album and it's so close to your birthday, we couldn't do nothing."
"Everyone wanted to be with you," Rose continues. "We wanted to make it big in case the pandemic hits really hard here. Plus, everyone loves you and we wanted to celebrate you. You've had a pretty rough year, Opie. We wanted to send it off with a kick in the ass!"
"Rose," her mother calls out in a warning voice.
"Sorry," she mutters. She smiles at me and squeezes me again. "We have snacks in the kitchen, just have fun, okay?"
I nod and everyone disperses but not before giving me hugs and kisses on my cheeks. Rose's mother is the last to come hug me. She holds me tightly in her arms with tears in her eyes, pressing a gentle kiss to my forehead.
"I'm so proud of you, Ophelia," she says through tears. She cups my cheek in her hand sweetly. The motherly gesture brings my own tears to my eyes.
"You've grown so much," she continues. "You're so independent and goal driven...it's been such a blessing to be able to see you grow from when you were in third grade all the way up to now. I'm so proud of the way you've tackled all your challenges in life."
She swipes away the tear that finally escaped and fell onto my cheek. She smiles at me, but I can't bring my lips to turn up as hers do.
"I love you," I tell her, squeezing her so tight I feel I could break her bones.
"I love you, too, Ophelia. I'm so so proud of you."
What I wouldn't give to hear those words from the mouth of my father.
—
"Stop cleaning and sit down," Rose instructs late into the night.
She shoves me onto the couch once everyone leaves. On the coffee table, a stack of nearly twenty large, white albums rest nearly to the top of her chin. I stare at them, the mountain intimidating me beyond belief.
"Rose, I need to help Ara and David clean," I insist.
"No, what you need to do is open those albums," she says with her arms crossed.
"You're gonna open them all. Every single one. Tonight."
My grandmother has already gone to bed, Rose's parents took Violet for the night, David and Ara clean my house (alone), and Rose gas cornered me on the couch to open up every album.
"Every comeback, everyone we know buys albums in hopes that you get into a fansign," she says. "Every comeback, everyone we know enters raffles so that one of them might be drawn and you can finally meet him. Now, I want you to open up every single one until you find that magical piece of paper."
So I do as she says. She helps the other two clean up while I lift the front of every copy of Map of the Soul: Seven.
And every one I open contains the usual photo card, poster, post card, and pictures. Not a single raffle ticket, not a single fan sign voucher. By the time I'm halfway through, I'm already out of hope and just opening them out of obligation.
"Rose, can I finish tomorrow?" I ask when they all collapse around me on the chairs and couch.
"Nope," she says simply. "All twenty-seven of 'em."
I sigh and press on.
Finally, I hold the last one on my lap, blinking away the hurt and disappointed tears as the other twenty-six regular albums are stacked back up on the coffee table. I'll resell them once I gather my copies and photo cards from the lot; everyone who bought them for me will get their money back if they want it. But I hold the last one in my lap for what feels like hours and I can't bring myself to lift away the cover. It's the heaviest album I've ever felt. The last one.
"Ophelia?"
Ara's soft voice tickles my eardrum and I look up at her, the tears really welling up now as I dread the contents of this final book.
"The worst that can happen is it's empty," she says. "We can't win every time, but we can't keep losing, either. We'll get you to Seoul whatever way we can. We'll get you into that man's arms no matter what we have to do."
I look back down, a few droplets of water falling onto it as I work up the courage to lift the cover and...
Normal.
Beneath the cover, a Hoseok photo card stares at me, smiling very cutely. I shuffle the contents around, finding the same post card, the coloring page, the sticker sheet, photos, and the poster. I sigh heavily.
"Can we at least look at the pictures?" Rose asks.
"I don't really want to Rose," I say weakly. Another year of disappointment.
"Please, Opie?"
I sigh again and lift the pictures to peel back the sticker holding them together. I can hardly bear to look at their handsome faces. I wonder how many of them have met their own soulmates, how many of them are happy while my soulmate and I are alone. I'm distracted when a small sheet of paper slides out from between the still folded photographs.
Under the poster stupid ;)
My head jerks up instantly to see the three of them looking away from me. David covers his face, but I notice him peeking through his fingers at me.
"Since when did you all decide to become actors?" I say breathlessly.
My shaky hand lifts up the poster and nearly squeezes the folded sheet into nothing. I set the poster aside and lift up the few pieces of paper taped to the inside o the album.
Congratulations! You and one guest have been selected to attend the Map of the Soul: Seven fansign on February 25, 2020!
"Oh my god."
In my hand I hold three plane tickets to Seoul, South Korea departing tomorrow.
"Are you serious?" I whisper, staring at Rose. The tears have fallen. Nearly all the papers are wet now. I didn't even feel myself start crying, but I can't seem to stop. I can hardly even breathe right now.
"All three of us," Rose tells me. "David is gonna stay here with Nanna and Violet. My parents offered to help in any way they can."
"Is that why she was acting all mushy with me?" I ask. "They all knew?"
Ara nods. "Everybody knew. You think we'd make you sit here and open up twenty-seven albums for nothing? Now way."
"My mom won the plus-one raffle," Rose says. "So seat one is for you, obviously, and Ara and I will play rock, paper, scissors for seat two."
I stare at the two of them. I have no idea what to say. I still can't stop crying.
"Anyway, you'd better get to packing," Ara says simply, propping her arms behind her head. "We leave tomorrow and we're gonna be there for a week, so...dress to impress."
—
i promised you all that everything had it's place. are you ready for this?
thank you guys. i love you all. thank you so much.
if you're bored during updates, i have two other books on my page and three reading lists if you need some filler during holiday breaks and things :) i love you guys. i can't express my love enough.
i can see the ending approaching, but don't worry, nothing's over yet lol.
merry christmas to my reader's who celebrate. happy holidays, my babes.
cay
1873 words