That's My Spotlight | ✔

xv. birthday

TURNING EIGHTEEN IS an important milestone.

Turning eighteen meant that an individual was legally an adult. Sure, depending on laws and households, someone who just turned eighteen isn't completely free, but generally, it marked new beginnings. That meant being able to open to purchase a car, buying a new place, or even get married.

But none of those things were on Alexander Choi's mind at the moment.

It was mid-January, the fourteenth to be exact. Instead of envisioning a whole series of life commitments, Alexander found himself staring at his empty-ish plate of kimchi and white rice. On his eighteenth birthday, his head surely wasn't stuck in the clouds. Instead, he was thinking about the present and everything that was happening in the moment.

Because his birthday was on a chilly Sunday, he was extremely lucky that he wasn't ill from the cold. Being ill meant being bedridden. And frankly, being sick in bed all day surely sounded like it sucked. But fortunately, he was just fine.

His father took a day off of work to prepare a delicious dinner just for Alexander — spicy, yet sour kimchi and boiled, white rice. He also prepared a few side dishes, like hand-crafted dumplings, miyeok-guk (a seaweed soup), and salad. To top it all off, he managed to make it to the store to purchase creme vanilla cake.

It was all nice, considering that it wasn't so alone and empty in the house. A few extended family members of the Choi family were invited, such as Alexander's aunts, uncles, and cousins. Not only that, but Alexander invited a few people he was cool with from school, including Jayden. As they all ate their food in the presence of the dining room, Alexander couldn't help but feel a different feeling. The house wasn't so empty, chatter stirred amongst everyone, and overall, the mood was more uplifting than what Alexander was accustomed to.

And frankly, he liked it. If only dinner could be like this every day.

As he set down his fork, Alexander took his phone out of the pocket of his black dress pants. It matched with his patterned black and white dress shirt, not a splotch of food crumbs in sight. His father made him dress up for the special occasion, considering that he'd only turn eighteen once. It'd be better to dress well than to dress like he did every other day — in an oversized hoodie and jeans. Alexander didn't mind dressing well, however. Whenever he did, it always meant something important — something valued. Today was his special day. After all that he's been through, it was worth celebrating.

As he scrolled through dozens of Instagram birthday wishes on stories and direct messages, he couldn't help but notice the views on his own personal story he posted earlier that day. He posted the food his father cooked, alongside him and Jayden taking silly selfies. Very un-eighteen-year-old-like, but neither of them cared. It was all fun and games, and it was most definitely worth being captured to remember in the future.

As Alexander scrolled through his views, he recognized multiple of the accounts, which followed him. But only one account stuck out to him. The username itself included an overwhelmingly familiar name, so did the account name. The profile picture, however, had a mirror selfie of a black girl with natural curls and sunglasses. Even with the glasses, he knew damn well who it was.

It was none other than Inez Archer.

Alexander felt his eyebrows furrow as he observed her profile with closer inspection. He knew for a fact that Inez didn't follow him on Instagram, so that could only mean one thing: was she stalking his story? What caused her to tap on his story in the first place? The colorful ring that appears around someone's profile picture when someone posts couldn't have been that tempting.

All those questions flooded his head, but he had no answers whatsoever.

And Jason, his father, couldn't help but make matters worse.