Autumnal Equinox (JinJi)

Fourteen

Goodbye, Summer

Jinyoung's bedroom was mostly hooks and furniture by now. He had gone through his things, looking for anything that he might pack up and bring with him the United States. He wasn't sure when he would be coming home again, and he thought he'd save his parents the trouble of having to ship his belongings across the ocean to him.

Those boxes were pushed against one wall and labeled: books, knick-knacks, clothing, winter wardrobe, photo albums and picture frames, more books and more knick-knacks. He'd heard the phrase "packing away childhood" before, but this was putting quite a literal spin on it.

It was almost noon, but Jinyoung was still in bed. He'd awoken hours ago, but he couldn't seem to get himself out of bed. That would mean having to start the day, and today happened to be the day he was set to leave.

He was lying in bed, staring at the blank spots on his wall where there used to be posters of 80's bands and promotional posters of movies he liked. He knew that his father planned on taking his bedroom and turning into his, so Jinyoung took them down and stored them in the closet. He looked at the boxes and mentally putting the things inside them back into their original places around the room.

Time to get up, he told himself.

There was knock on his door, and his eldest sister, Miyoung, let herself in. She was dressed in a long skirt and black turtleneck, glasses nearly falling off the tip of her nose. She was carrying a plate with both hands, and on it was a slice of chocolate cake with a single burning birthday candle.

"Hey, kiddo," she said. "You should get out of bed, it's your birthday."

He laughed out of embarrassment and then sat up on the covers. Miyoung lowered herself on the foot of her bed and passed the plate to him.

"Chocolate cake for breakfast?" he asked. "A few years ago, you would have punched me in the face if I even asked for a cookie before noon."

"This is the one day a year that I have to let you off the hook," she said.

Jinyoung scoffed. "All those Ph.D's are making you soft, Noona."

"Shall we honor tradition?" Miyoung said. Jinyoung laughed again, knowing where this was leading. Miyoung started singing 'happy birthday,' but in the ugliest, most off-key rendition she could come up with, and she switched each line between Ancient Greek and Klingon. Jinyoung cringed.

"Alright, alright, enough," he said. Then, he shut his eyes, made a wish, and blew the candle out. Miyoung clapped her hands.

"You're getting so old," she said. "Twenty-three? Ew."

Jinyoung brought the plate closer to his face and bit straight into the cake. It was sweet and moist and delicious. Miyoung hit his forehead with the flat end of a fork and chastised him for eating it like that. He took the fork from her and started eating his birthday cake. That's when he noticed that Miyoung was giving him a weird look.

"What?" he asked, mouth full of chocolate cake. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

She shook her head, but he could clearly see her fighting a frown.

"Oh, come on, Noona," he said. "Let's not do this today."

"You're leaving today," she said. "My little baby brother's going off to the United States to live all alone, and he's turning twenty-three and leaving home."

Jinyoung shook his head. Miyoung Noona moved out practically as soon as she turned eighteen. Even when she graduated college, she went straight into post-grad and wasn't home much. The last time Jinyoung had really lived with her was when he was eleven, right around the time that he first became friends with Jisoo.