Chapter Text
(2015)
Hachi celebrates her 21st birthday, the first one with Nana at her side, just as she’d celebrated Nana’s 20th and 21st birthday at Nana’s side (the first one a meeting of fate, the second a tragedy).
On her 35th birthday, we can only hope that her birthday wish for all the years in between as been granted and she celebrates her 35th with Nana at her side.
(2016)
Hachi was born Komatsu Nana, the middle daughter of three, on November 30, 1980. Her 7th birthday was celebrated with her family in her hometown, smiling and laughing. Her 21st birthday was celebrated among her friends in Tokyo, smiling and laughing.
Today, her 36th birthday is hopefully being celebrated with her own family and old friends, smiling and laughing.
(2018)
The Komatsu family always spoiled their daughters on their birthday and took even more care to make Nana feel special because they knew that middle children often felt out-shined by their older and younger siblings. Of course they never really needed to worry - Nana looked up to Nao like she hung the moon and stars, and Nana cooed and coddled after Nami all the way up until Nami entered high school.
Nana got everything she wished for her birthdays - gifts of whatever she had asked for and cake and family to share it all with. Even as their sweet Nana entered high school and made friends with Saotome Junko and celebrated her birthday singing karaoke with her, their daughter always made time to celebrate her birthday with her family as well and always kissed her mother and father’s cheek with frosting on her lips and thanked them for giving birth to her and also for beautiful dress, necklace, phone they’d given her. They laughed and said, “This girl,” while clasping her face in their hands.
They knew on her nineteenth birthday, spent locked in her room as she studied furiously to take entrance exams to go to Tokyo, that their time with their middle daughter was short. She had always been too much to be contained in the town they’d raised her in.
It was no surprise when, just over a year later, Nana had run away to Tokyo with only a letter to say goodbye. It was, perhaps, more surprising when only a few short months later their daughter gave them the news that she was expecting a child.
On her twenty-first birthday Hachi spent it in Room 707, surrounded by friends new and old even if a few were missing (she didn’t know if she missed Takumi or Nobu more), but she still remembered to call her parents and thank them. It was one of the best birthday’s she’d ever had, with Nana singing her ‘Happy Birthday’ for the first time.
Hachi spent her 22nd birthday weeping. Postpartum depression and grief, the doctors said. She was stressed, they said. She shouldn’t push herself too hard.
Her 23rd birthday, Hachi smiled thinly as her family and remaining friends gathered to sing her happy birthday.
But her 24th birthday, Hachi laughed and clapped her hands. She fed her son and daughter bites of cake from her own slice and wiped their faces as they made messes. There were people missing from the table, faces Hachi wished were there to sing her happy birthday, but she was thankful for the faces that were there. She remembered to thank her parents this year, this time with the understanding of what it meant to be a parent and to give birth to a child.
For many birthdays after that, Hachi spent them with her family - with Satsuki and Ren and sometimes Takumi, if he wasn’t too busy, if he was in the country. She wished on every birthday candle a wish that doesn’t come true until many years later, but it was worth the wait so Hachi doesn’t mind.
Hachi always gets her wish.