On the day of Lin's birthday, Yeh couldn't help watching the congratulatory video Lin's studio released, along with the behind-the-scenes clips.
People in creative fields were always fond of ceremony—noise, warmth, a sense of occasion.
Her fingers hovered briefly over Lin's chat window.
She typed Happy Birthday, then erased it.
She could already imagine how it would play out.
Lin's phone vibrating nonstop.
Messages piling up faster than they could be read.
Her single line of congratulations slipping past unnoticed—unseen, unremembered.
In some versions of the day, unanswered.
Yeh knew herself too well. Once she invested emotionally, expectation followed instinctively. And expectation was the quickest way to disrupt the steady rhythm she had worked hard to maintain.
She didn't want to lose an entire day to the quiet disappointment of a message that went nowhere.
The calm she'd recently reclaimed—focused, rational, anchored in her work—wasn't worth jeopardizing over a greeting that might dissolve into the crowd.
Feelings could remain unspoken.
Reason could not be compromised.
That was her line.
She also knew Lin's birthday would be anything but quiet.
The studio's careful planning, a packed schedule, friends surrounding her—someone would be there both on and off camera.
Judging from past vlogs, this year's celebration would only be louder, fuller, more crowded.
In that kind of noise, Yeh's Happy Birthday would make no ripple at all.
So she didn't send it.
Not out of distance, and not out of indifference—but out of a rare, deliberate clarity.
Silently, she said it to herself:
Happy birthday. May this year be kind to you.