Today, January 12, 2017, marks Zayn Malik's 24th birthday. It's a largely unimportant year, often overshadowed by the milestone that is turning 25, but continuing to exist on this thankless planet remains an accomplishment worthy of annual celebration and congratulations. So it is that former One Direction bandmate Liam Payne reached out to Zayn in the most public of ways, to wish him a happy birthday.

Liam -- who must no longer possess the latest version of what is probably Zayn's ever-changing phone number -- tweeted the "sHe" singer a mere 17 hours into his actual birthday.

"Happy birthday bro! Hope all is well and you have a good day celebrating it," Liam wrote, before tacking on several party-themed emojis.

Zayn has yet to respond to Liam's thoughtful outreach, but he did post some fan art on Twitter while also commenting on the unending passage of time.

"Getting all old and shit," he wrote, eloquently. "Thank you for your love and thoughts today x."

Zayn -- who is more of a One Direction stan than one may think, considering his inflammatory remarks post-quitting -- previously revealed he had a tough time keeping in touch with the rest of the group once he left.

"The truth of it is," he began, in a January 2016 interview with Billboard, "you can think one thing about a situation and the total opposite can happen. I had every intention of remaining friends with everybody, but I guess certain phone numbers have changed and I haven’t received calls from a lot of people. I’ve reached out to a few of them and not got a reply. Certain people have pride issues, but it’s stuff you overcome in time.”

To be fair, Liam has always remained diplomatic regarding Zayn's not-so-surprising exit, stating in the past, "One Direction was never Zayn’s sort of music, so he kind of always wanted to find something else. If your heart’s not into something, you can’t just carry on doing it because of fame and stuff. You have to go and do what you want to do.”

If nothing else, at least 2017 has given us proof that all relationships truly can mend with time.

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