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“It’s morning!” Seungcheol yells, and Junhui bolts out of bed. It’s the tenth of June, a Monday, and he’s turned seventeen overnight, before Seventeen had even debuted. He always believed that they would have finally released something by now, especially after the company had first announced that their debut was scheduled for June. No luck.
He gets up and feels exactly like he did yesterday. He pushes Mingming to try to wake him up, but Mingming simply rolls over. Junhui climbs over him and goes to the bathroom. He splashes water on his face and looks up at the mirror. His cheeks are as sunken as ever, eye bags dark and swollen even though he had slept relatively early the night before because everyone else had decided on an early night before school. He pulls back part of his hair into a small ponytail and pins up his bangs. He looks at his appearance critically, turning his head from side to side and staring at his own face. Junhui doesn’t think he looks any different. He doesn’t feel any older. Today is just like any other day.
He shuffles into the kitchen slowly, still in his pajamas, and yawns a little. It’s nice right now, with everything clean. The calm before everyone creates a hurricane through the dorms on their way out to school. The bathroom buzzes with life as soon as he’s out of it. Samuel asks Jisoo, in English, to brush his teeth outside the bathroom because he has to pee. Doyoon yells loudly that whoever’s in the shower is taking too goddamn long.
Junhui makes breakfast for all of them, beating four eggs at a time in a huge bowl with plastic chopsticks as he hears others being pulled out of bed by those already awake. Only Wonwoo is in the living room, carefully reading over something as Junhui pours the eggs into a large frying pan.
“Not getting dressed?” Junhui asks, as he waits with the heat on medium low.
“Ah, right, after they manage to pull everyone out of bed, I guess.”
Junhui nods and scrambles the eggs with a wooden spatula. His mother’s voice in his head tells him there should be noodles, for longevity. Do they even have noodles? Is six in the morning too early for ramyun? He puts a pot of water on the stove and sets it to boil. He’ll make Mingming eat some with him even if no one else will.
He piles eggs onto a plate and squeezes ketchup generously on top. Wonwoo is surprised when he’s handed food and chopsticks.
“Oh man, real breakfast. Thanks!”
Junhui smiles and plates the rest of the eggs before making a new batch. For his own fun, he tries to flip them in the pan and laughs when the egg batter splits into two. He’ll have to work on his technique.
Suddenly, there’s a pair of arms wrapping around his shoulders and he flinches.
“If you get burned –”
“生日快乐,” he hears in his ear, and again in crappy Cantonese. Junhui elbows the person beside him in the ribs.
“God, your Cantonese is awful,” he jokes in Mandarin and Mingming pouts at him.
“I tried, didn’t I?”
“Yeah. Better than nothing I guess,” Junhui says before pushing a plate of eggs into Mingming’s hands. “Go, eat!”
Hansol overhears them and sleepily wishes him, “Happy birthday,” in English.
Junhui smiles this time, grateful. “How much ketchup?” He asks in Korean.
“That’s enough,” Hansol replies and groans when Junhui draws an additional heart using the ketchup.
“Dude, what the hell? A heart?” Hansol says because he is not used to the boys older than him generally being uncool. Junhui doesn’t act like a role model because he doesn’t know how to be one, and wouldn’t want to be one even if he did.
“Love,” Junhui says in English and it comes out accented but it’s the sentiment that counts. Hansol still laughs at him.
The eggs cook faster as he goes, the pan pre-warmed and he gets more efficient at the beating process. Seungcheol’s thanks are genuine and Mingyu looks ecstatic that someone’s feeding them. Seokmin gets angry with Chan for getting toothpaste in his hair, and Junhui soothes the both of them with food, before cleaning out Seokmin’s hair with a towel.
Junhui probably has it worse than his mother when it comes with dealing with small boys running around the house and shrieking stupidly. Only, most of the time, Junhui is one of those boys, and he likes fooling around just as much as everyone else. It’s his birthday, and he’s cooking, but he doesn’t feel like he’s seventeen. He doesn’t feel like he’s a teenager at all, and he doesn’t want to grow up.
He’s settling down to finally eat the food he’s cooked himself when he notices the clock.
“Everyone you’re going to be late for school!” He screeches and there’s a sudden bustle of movement as if they’re all participating in the 100-metre sprint at the Olympics. No less than two of them swear and Seungcheol hustles all of the ones who have class out the door like a professional coach would.
In the quiet, his water has finally boiled and he goes back into his room to get changed. Only four of them remain, all of them have private tutoring later. He’s ready; he studied for today’s Korean quiz extra hard and thinks he can probably get perfect. Maybe. If only pronunciation was easier to work on.
He slips on a grey t-shirt and boys size 12 slim super skinny jeans. He’s seventeen and he still wears kids jeans, and even kids jeans are too large around his waist, dark fabric threatening to slide right off his hips when he shoves his hands in the pockets.
The ramyun is ready by the time he is. He slaps Mingming on the head while Mingming puts on socks and gets a punch thrown at his stomach. He barely avoids it and manages not to get any soup to spill.
“泡面?” Mingming asks, horrified.
“Shut up, it’s my birthday,” Junhui says, and pats Mingming on the cheek when he slurps the noodles.
It’s his birthday. Junhui is seventeen. Nothing has changed.