Chapter 55: Sweet Birthday (2)
On a Wednesday morning of February 14th, Kang Ra-Eun hurried to get ready to exercise at dawn because she had a shoot in the morning. She usually did weight training at the fitness center on weekday mornings, but decided to just go for a light jog like she did on weekends.
Even if it was February 14th, her birthday, she expected the day to be like any other. However, she was sorely mistaken. As Ra-Eun was about to pass Starlight Road, Seo Yi-Jun, who was waiting for her outside, raised his hand and called out to her.
“Noona!”
Ra-Eun said with an exasperated face, “Why are you out here?”
Yi-Jun only jogged with her on weekends, never on weekdays. Not just that, they had not made any plans. She could not understand why he was here at all.
“I texted you last night, didn’t I? I asked what you were gonna be doing in the morning, and you said you were gonna be jogging.”
Ra-Eun did indeed answer as such, but she had never told him to come with her since it was a weekday. Also, they had never promised to always exercise together, but here Yi-Jun was as if it was natural.
Yi-Jun sometimes one-sidedly joined her workouts, but there was a separate reason this time.
“I have a gift for you,” Yi-Jun said.
“A gift? Why so out of the blue?”
“It’s your birthday, so it’s not really out of the blue.”
Yi-Jun was not wrong. He opened his backpack after asking Ra-Eun to wait just a second.
“These are the chocolates that my sis and her friends asked me to give you.”
“Oh, so this is it.”
Seo Yi-Seo had contacted her in the middle of a drama shoot yesterday afternoon that she was making chocolates with Na Gyu-Rin and Choi Ro-Mi, and that she would give Ra-Eun some as a gift. She had thought that she would get them later, but she never expected her friends to get Yi-Jun to deliver them to her.
“And... this is from me,” Yi-Jun stated.
He handed her the box of chocolates, and...
“What’s this?” Ra-Eun asked.
“Open it.”
She tore open the wrapping paper, which revealed a yellow baseball cap.
“You wear hats often, don’t you? That’s why I made one for you,” Yi-Jun remarked.
“You made it?”
“Yes. It’s a handmade product that was made specially for you, noona.”
As expected of an aspiring fashion designer, the design fit Ra-Eun’s tastes perfectly. There was a hipster sticker stuck on it, and it gave off a youthful feeling of a teenager seeking freedom.
Ra-Eun put it on.
“Does it look good on me?” she asked.
“Yes, extremely!”
It looked much better on Ra-Eun than Yi-Jun had expected. Although, anything that Ra-Eun wore looked great on her since she was naturally beautiful. Ra-Eun liked the design, but there was one thing that bothered her.
“But isn’t it way too big for my head?”
The baseball cap couldn’t help but feel too big for her since her head was so small. However, Yi-Jun was not that negligent.
“There are clips at the back that you can use to adjust the size.”
Ra-Eun adjusted the baseball cap size like Yi-Jun had mentioned. Only after adjusting it to the smallest size did the cap fit her head just right. Yi-Jun sighed in relief.
“Your head is a lot smaller than I thought, noona.”
His size calculations had been incorrect because of Ra-Eun’s long hair.
“It fits in the end, so it’s all good. Thanks, I’ll wear it well.”
Now that Yi-Jun had delivered the chocolates and his gift, he was about to head home.
Grasp.
However, Ra-Eun suddenly grabbed him by his sleeve.
“N-Noona...?”
Yi-Jun’s mind surged with anticipation that Ra-Eun might confess to him. However...
“Where do you think you’re going? Since you’re here, you might as well jog with me.”
“...”
Only aerobic exercise was on her mind.
***
Ra-Eun’s phone chimed like crazy on her way to the studio. Shin Yu-Bin asked her as she looked at Ra-Eun’s busy phone through the rearview mirror, “Who keeps contacting you?”
It was rare to see Ra-Eun fiddling with her phone that much. She did not play phone games, nor was she the type to call or text others often. Hence, she could not help but be curious about it.
“It’s just my friends texting and calling me to wish me a happy birthday,” Ra-Eun remarked.
Yu-Bin was also aware that it was Ra-Eun’s birthday today. In fact, most people in her agency probably knew. Yu-Bin asked Ra-Eun while looking at her through the rearview mirror again, “Your high school friends?”
“Yes.”
Not only Yi-Seo, Gyu-Rin and Ro-Mi, but she also received congratulations from her male friends Park Se-Woon, Choi Sang-Woon and such. Ra-Eun did not like people contacting her to wish her a happy birthday that much, so her response was lukewarm even after getting tons of happy birthday texts.
Yu-Bin could not understand Ra-Eun’s lack of reaction.
“You’re not happy about your birthday?” she asked.
“I guess... I’m happy.”
To be honest, she did not feel all that happy since today was not her original birthday. It was simply the former Kang Ra-Eun’s birthday, so she did not get the feeling that it was even her birthday today.
Yu-Bin smiled lightly as she looked at Ra-Eun.
“Take a look at the back seat,” Yu-Bin stated.
“The back?”
“Yup.”
Ra-Eun’s eyes widened as she turned to look at the back row seats. Something that she had never imagined to be there was openly laid out.
“What’s with these flowers?” Ra-Eun asked.
It was a basket filled with real flowers. Ra-Eun had thought that the car had smelled differently than usual, and those flowers were probably the reason why.
“Take a look inside the basket.”
There was a card stuck inside with the name of the sender on it.
Ji Han-Seok. He had sent a basket of flowers to her as a gift.
“He was going to send them to your house, but he asked me to give them to you instead since he doesn’t know your address.”
“Oh... really?”
Ra-Eun read what Han-Seok had hand-written himself on the card. At the very end, he had written...
[To Ra-Eun, who’s more beautiful than flowers, happy birthday.]
The urge to tear up the card swept over her mind, but she did her best to suppress it.
‘I absolutely hate cheesy lines like this.’
***
Ra-Eun’s birthday celebration event continued even at the Reaper?studio set, after the shoot had finished.
“Happy birthday to you~ Happy birthday to you~”
“Happy birthday to dear Ra-Eun~”
“Happy birthday to you~!”
Pop! Pop—!
Party poppers cracked from all around her. Je-Woon appeared from the crowd of staff members while holding a cake.
“The staff and I prepared this for you. Happy birthday once again, Ra-Eun,” Je-Woon said.
“Thank you, sunbae.”
She often saw on TV, staff members holding surprise events on the set for celebrities with upcoming birthdays. However, she had never expected herself to be the protagonist of such surprise events. There were even several staff members holding cameras to film her reaction. She had no choice but to smile and act like she was happy despite the shoot being over.
‘I’d rather they just wish me a happy birthday and move on.’
That was what Ra-Eun wanted, but no one on set understood her feelings.
***
Her birthday celebration continued even on her way home after the shoot. Chief Jung, who had visited the set after a while, and Yu-Bin filled Ra-Eun’s arms with gifts that they had prepared for her. Chief Jung continued to congratulate her even after they had reached her home.
“Happy birthday, Ra-Eun. You said you were gonna go out to eat with your family today, right?”
“Yes.”
“This is an XIPS gift card. I charged it up by a lot, so go eat as much as you want today.”
Ra-Eun rather liked practical gifts like this. After thanking Chief Jung and Yu-Bin for wishing her a happy birthday yet again, she entered her home with the flower basket that she had gotten from Han-Seok and the huge number of gifts.
Her father, who was in the living room, asked her in surprise, “Jesus! What’s all that, Ra-Eun?”
“I got gifts from a bunch of people wishing me a happy birthday. After getting one after another, it multiplied to this many.”
They decided to put them all in Ra-Eun’s room for the time being. Meanwhile, Kang Ra-Hyuk returned home after finishing his business.
“I parked outside with the ignition on, so come out once you’re all ready.”
Ra-Eun went out the door with her father after removing her make-up and changing into comfortable clothes. Ra-Hyuk decided to drive in their father’s stead this time. He asked Ra-Eun as he set the GPS coordinates, “Is there anything you want to eat?”
“Meat,” Ra-Eun answered.
“Meat, huh...? How about we go to XIPS, then?”
“Sure.”
It was perfect since she had the gift card that she had received from Chief Jung. It had 500,000 won charged into it, so it was more than enough money to fill the bellies of a three-person family. Although Ra-Hyuk said that it was his treat...
‘It’s better to just use the gift card.’
The gift card could only be used there, so Ra-Eun was planning on paying instead.
Ra-Hyuk asked his little sister sitting alone at the back, “I’m guessing you weren’t able to get many happy birthday wishes because of today’s shoot, right?”
Ra-Hyuk had expected that Ra-Eun wasn’t able to spend her birthday with her friends properly because of work. However, their father opened his mouth before Ra-Eun even had a chance to respond.
“No, Ra-Eun probably had her birthday celebrated even more than our little dine-in.”
“Huh? What do you mean?” Ra-Hyuk asked.
“Go take a look inside Ra-Eun’s room later. There are so many birthday gifts that they almost couldn’t all fit in her room.”
“...???”
Ra-Hyuk still did not know how much of a social butterfly his little sister was.
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