Wish (JJ Project)

Fate

Seasons changed, and before they knew it, September had already arrived and fall greeted the city again. The road was filled with dried leaves falling from the trees, and the torrid air that flown with the wind had been humidified. The greyish sky prevented the sun to shine brightly that the edges of the shadows that followed their steps to Jaebum's apartment had softened and blurred so much it almost fading. They walked leisurely side by side as both their ears were plugged by an earphone each, connected to Jaebum's phone, saying nothing except sometimes humming along to the song played at the moment.

It wasn't a rare occurrence, not at all. Jinyoung had frequented Jaebum's apartment so often this past year, from doing his assignments to just lazing around. Jaebum felt like he had become Jinyoung's personal cook with how many meals he had prepared for him. Jinyoung would played songs from the playlist in his phone through the speaker Jaebum had in his living room while he cooked, and sang along. The kind of music they liked was a little different. Jinyoung once joked that he liked 'soft songs' while Jaebum preferred 'sticky songs'. There were a lot of songs he came to like after being played on repeat by Jinyoung though, and before long he was humming the song along with Jinyoung's singing and his own playlist getting mixed with the other's taste. Beside those there were also different kinds of ASMR sounds Jaebum kept in his phone. Jinyoung recommended it to him, saying it helped him sleep. Jinyoung helped him to search for some good ones, and by far the one that worked the best was the sound of rain dripping to the ground. Although it didn't stop the nightmare, it still helped him to calm down and fall asleep. He also managed to cope up with his fear, able to convince himself that everything was just a dream.

His bookshelf was no longer contain only his books anymore with Jinyoung's own jumbled in between and the books they found together in their visits to the bookstore. They shared the same taste of books, leading to Jinyoung bringing some of his books he thought Jaebum would like. They usually just lied on an L shaped sofa in Jaebum's living room in silence but the constant sound of pages being turned, immersed in two different worlds the books they read brought them into. They would exchange those books with each others after they finished them and later discussed their opinion of the books.

Some nights they would also watch dramas together. Jaebum didn't really into dramas before, but Jinyoung would watch the dramas aired on TV that he liked, and they eventually caught his interest and before he knew it, his eyes was already fixed on the screen and reacted to every scenes along with Jinyoung. Jaebum would sometimes cry on sad scenes, and by the end of the episode he would turn his head to find Jinyoung with swollen eyes, red nose, and dampened cheeks. They then would laugh at each other's ridiculous face while snuffling since their noses were clogged up.

Those were mostly the things they did when they hung out together at Jaebum's. However, today was going to be different.

As soon as they arrived, Jinyoung opened his jacket and left it draped on the arm of the sofa before throwing himself on it. Jaebum went straight from the front door to the kitchen, opened his refrigerator, and after looking to make sure Jinyoung's attention wasn't at him, took out a medium sized carrot cake. It wasn't extravagant, only covered by white cream with no decoration. He put it on the floor, hidden from Jinyoung's sight, and searched for the small candles and lighter he bought before his class in his bag. He organized the candles on the cake and light it up before bringing it to the living room.

Jinyoung didn't recognize his presence until he sang happy birthday when he was near enough. He could see Jinyoung's eyes widened, his mouth gaped as he saw the cake. Those eyes kept following the cake as Jaebum put it down on the table, as if he was hypnotized.

"Did you make it yourself?" he asked. Jaebum chuckled, hiding his embarrassment as he sat on the other side of the sofa.

"Is it that obvious? It's my first time baking a cake. I guess it is too plain, huh?"