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When it comes to birthdays, Shouyou likes it when his is celebrated.
He likes it patched up with a pop of confetti as a surprise, gifts cloaked in ribbons, and cakes embroidering his name on top. He likes showers of attention, of praises, all from a circle of people he holds close and dear to his heart. For him, this is how a special day should be spent, to love and be loved, what makes a birthday complete and perfect .
Shouyou never thought there’d be someone who’d think the otherwise.
Until his string of fate meets with Kageyama’s in a tight knob.
Expected, perhaps, as Kageyama is quite an opposite of him- tall, grumpy, and frowny- so it really isn’t surprising to know that he feels a different way about birthdays than Shouyou does.
He knows about the general discomfort Kageyama has with crowds, about his malaise when he’s thrown into a spotlight without any warning- although, Shouyou doesn’t quite get it. After all, Kageyama seemed completely fine with being in the center of attention when they stood on the volleyball court together; there were cameras, reporters and scouts judging his every move from all angles. It doesn’t make sense.
But, then again, it is Kageyama. He’s the type of person who would say that it’s different and not the same thing in the slightest.
Throughout the surprise party their club had for him that one time, the boy looked awkward and out of place. It had been something that didn’t go unnoticed by the club, and when they asked Kageyama how he’d like his birthday spent afterwards, all the boy said was greetings and gifts were fine. So, they settled with that since then, not wanting to risk putting him in an uncomfortable position again.
And that same night, when they lay beneath the moonlit evening, cocooned in the warmth of their blankets, Kageyama had filled him in then on how much his birthday means to him. “It’s just my birthday, dumbass,” he recalls the boy huffing, lips all puffed out, “it’s nothing special.”
But, it is. It is special. And, Shouyou wants nothing more than to show Kageyama how special he is to him.
Kageyama may not quite like his birthdays, but that doesn’t stop Shouyou from constantly trying to go out of his way to make sure he feels special or enjoys the day.
But, Shouyou wants to do so much more for him than just greetings and small gifts. He wants to give Kageyama more than a greeting and few gifts, wants to show him the worth of his presence equates to all the celebrations. He wants to let him know about his place, how it’s more than a dot in the universe, about the stars in his eyes as he looks up to him.
And, he’s sad, so to say, because Shouyou hasn’t gotten the chance to show him any shred of this during their three years together in high school no matter how hard he tried, then another four painful years when they were separated in their own universities where his attempts were much more futile like bricks.
Now though, now that they’ve moved in together, the opportunity is finally there for him to reach, clear and open, and he’s determined than ever to make Kageyama’s birthday the best one he’s had.
Then, that’s when he gets an idea knocking into his head- before a voice knocks it down right after, and rams through his glass of focus in its stead.
“Is that my scarf you’re wearing?”
Shouyou peeks up from his phone, looks over the arm of the couch.
Kageyama stands by the door, two thick coats worn on him, with a pair of big boots and a beanie poorly shoved over his head. He carries a small box home as well, likely to be filled with tons of sweets his colleagues from the bakery have coerced him to bring, something that makes Shouyou smiles at the thought. He hums, mindlessly, returning to his phone and burrows his nose further into the fabric wrapped around his neck. “Borrowing,” he corrects the other, then straightens up in his seat.
“Which means, yes, you are wearing it.”
“Borrowing,” Shouyou corrects him again, “how’s work?”
At this, Kageyama sighs, all slow and languid. Shouyou knows what that means; he’s learned to distinguish the dragged-out willow kind from the puff of air Kageyama breathes out in a rush. He’s tired . So, Shouyou scoots to make some space and fixes himself by the stump of the couch as Kageyama busies chucking the heavy boots off by the door.
It takes two seconds, then a five, or six, until Kageyama finally comes to the couch, then a nada when he drapes himself right over Shouyou.
Shouyou whines in protest and tries to wiggle his way out, but Kageyama is so much bigger, heavier, and unfairly too pleasantly warm against his body that he ends up melting into him instead. He settles to pout in his misery, and he guess Kageyama felt it too when a nose, warm lips, and a breathy laughter presses against the skin beneath his ear. He smiles, but only because it feels ticklish.
A deafening silence takes over as the fireplace sizzles with crackles and sparks.
It’s quiet, but it’s the peaceful kind, tides of air grains lulling Shouyou’s mind to relax like an ocean effect. Deftly, Shouyou brings up a hand to smooth it over the dip in Kageyama’s back, and hopes the few strokes of his fingers could bring even a smallest piece of comfort.
After a solid minute, Shouyou finally finds the voice to ask. “Something happened?”
“Mmn.” Kageyama muffles into the scarf. “Lots of customers came in today. Had to bake ten cakes.”
Shouyou coos in amazement, “ten?”
Kageyama shrugs. “Christmas season,” he simply says, “not looking forward to the next few days.”
“But, that’s a good thing, isn’t it?” Shouyou marvels. “You told me before that the bakery didn’t use to be popular.”
“Yeah.”
“So…”
“So?”
“They like you.”
The weight grows suddenly, pressing and digging into his own small figure. A little cramped, slightly uncomfortable perhaps, but not enough to make Shouyou want to push him off. If anything, it makes him want to pull Kageyama in even more, makes him want to stay in this spot for as long as he can, to drain away all the abrupt cold, and ooze the warmness, the coziness he can manage into its place.
“You don’t know that,” is what Kageyama finally says after, like he’s accepted his fate.
“No, you don’t know that.” Shouyou snaps. With a squeeze on the waist, Shouyou brings up his other hand, places it over the blade of Kageyama’s shoulder and kneads comfort into it. “They like you.” He says with absolute certainty.
Like magic, Kageyama’s stiff shoulders relax under his hold. “Yeah. Okay.”
Shouyou nearly snorts. “Is that what you’re worried about?”
He waits for his answer, counting in dots.
But, Kageyama doesn’t give that to him, not a query nor a protest, for he’s already fallen asleep on top of him, fatigue written into his limbs and muscles as he exhales his first snore. When Shouyou looks down, Kageyama’s face is still very much buried into his scarf-cloaked neck, fingers loosely tugging at his sleeves and ensnares his heart by the ropes of fondness. As much as he can beneath Kageyama’s heavy weight, he scoots up, enough for him to reach over and paste a chaste kiss on Kageyama’s temple.
Kageyama doesn’t seem to realize it, but there’s a whole tons of people out there who likes him more than he thinks; his co-workers at the bakery, and even Shouyou’s students, the volleyball club, has taken a big liking to him.
‘All the more to show him that he’s special, then.’ Shouyou thinks before he lets the hands of sleep take him into its arms, too.
As few days pass by, and the clock ticks closer to Kageyama’s birthday, the more worked up and anxious Shouyou gets.
He’s already laid out a plan for the celebration. The surprise party would be held in the heart of their home, he’s decided, and it won’t take place in a restaurant where all eyes could feast on them like the last party. Although, Shouyou hopes that Kageyama would be fine with a small crowd coming over; he’s invited a few friends, the ones living in Tokyo as well and whose company he knows Kageyama won’t mind.
Yet, he can’t help but worry for Kageyama’s reaction. There’s no way of knowing how would he react, because Kageyama is... well, Kageyama , and he’s an enigma, a jargon in flesh and blood, and a cloud enshrouded in many mysteries. They may have known each other for a while, but the man continually proves to be a never-ending puzzle that every time Shouyou thinks he’s got him all figured out, another piece would come out from nowhere and Shouyou has no choice but to resolve it.
Sometimes, it’s easy. Sometimes, it’s not. Nonetheless, he thinks Kageyama will come to enjoy the party, after all, there’s also one guest he’ll be inviting to come over. She’s someone special; someone who works in a flower shop, and likes to greet him with all open arms then spoils them both (especially Shouyou) endlessly with head pats.
“Shouyou, how nice of you to stop by again!” By the cart of flowers, Kageyama’s mother rises from her seat on the ground. She dusts off the dirt from her apron, tools set aside with the peel of her gloves as she steps over to give Shouyou a welcoming hug.
“Hi, Kageyama-san.” Shouyou cheerfully greets back, and grins two whole beams bright as Kageyama-san tousles his hair with a hand.
“Did you need something?” Kageyama-san smiles, before it turns cheeky with a dimple poking into one side of her face. “You’re not here to pluck off another flower of mine, are you? Was the one last week not enough?”
“No! Um...” Shouyou splutters, and starts shaking his head furiously, face all red. “I came here to invite you actually, Kageyama-san!”
“Ah, an invitation?”
“Yeah!" He nods, "I’m gathering a small party for Tobio’s birthday.”
A look of surprise takes Kageyama-san by its hold. It smooths down eventually, into one of regard. “Ah, right. His birthday is in two days, isn’t it?”
Shouyou nods again, albeit a little bit too vigorously.
“That’s really nice of you, Shouyou. I’m happy that you’re holding one for him.” Kageyama-san says, pressing a smile. She turns back to the cart, pulling on the gloves again before she brings out a flower from the basket to clip off the stems. "So, where? What time will it be?"
Shouyou only frowns at this sight.
Something... doesn't seem right with this atmosphere. Because Kageyama-san looks sad, so on the contrary to what she says despite the small smile on her face.
“Kageyama-san?” He starts, nervous.
She doesn’t respond for a bit. When Shouyou tries at her again, she sighs, but not out of annoyance, no. He waits as she struggles through her reluctance to tell him what’s on her mind. “I’m sure that you know I seldom ever go back to Miyagi,” she turns her head to look at him, eyes unreadable. “But I had to- to stay here, I mean. For money, make sure he eats well. So, I’m not always there for his birthday to celebrate it with him, and I don’t spend a lot of time with him during Christmas either, so… thank you. Thank you for throwing him one.”
Then it clicks him. The discomfort Kageyama has with birthday parties- it makes sense, now. He gets it, he thinks, he’s been away from Kageyama as well, had been too far away to spend his birthday together with him in person or celebrate Christmas together as they’ve had before, and well- it sucks. He can’t imagine the pain Kageyama-san must have gone through.
Shouyou’s heart aches, suddenly.
They hold an eye contact for a whole tick before Kageyama-san disperses it with a try of an apology.
"Ah, I'm sorry for springing that onto you all of the sudden. Are you-"
“Then, aren’t you glad we moved into Tokyo?" Shouyou interrupts her with his own attempt to hearten. "You can spend more time with him now. You should come over- for the party, I mean! I think he’ll be more than happy to see his mom there for his birthday as well. And I know he also cares for you just as much as you do for him.”
At this point, Kageyama-san stops cutting off her flowers, focus wholly enraptured by the young man's words. He bounces over, leans close into Kageyama-san’s space from the side. Shouyou starts to think that he must have said something wrong, so he tries to find something in his words to amend it, when he peers up into the lady's face and sees a smile- a genuine smile- on her face, the dash of sadness in her blue eyes fading away into a pinch relief.
“I wasn’t about to say no, you know.” Kageyama-san puts her clippers down, laughing heartily. “But if you need to hear it, then, yes . Yes, of course, I’ll come.”
Shouyou’s face lightens up. He straightens himself immediately, more than delight with the response he's received. “Great! Do you need our apartment address?”
“No. I’ll have Tobio message me the address,” answers Kageyama-san as she shakes her head. “That boy never tells me anything. I didn’t even know you two moved into Tokyo until two months ago.”
"Well, that's Tobio." Shouyou jokes, and Kageyama-san only laughs in return. “Okay! I'll see you there then, Kageyama-san!”
He's ready to leave, wind chimes tinkling at the door as he opens it when Kageyama's mother calls for him.
“Shouyou.”
He pauses, waits for her response as he looks back at her. She looks at him with quite the same crinkle of endearment that she has for Kageyama, too.
Kageyama-san sighs, contentedly. “I’m glad Tobio has you now.”
“I’m glad I have him too.”
Tomorrow. Kageyama’s birthday is tomorrow.
It’s morning when Shouyou stands in the kitchen. Kageyama is out working his shift in the bakery at the moment, so Shouyou has all time to himself, all of which he completely devotes to baking his very own cake for the party. Well, his very own first cake as well as his first time baking.
It won’t be hard. It can’t be that hard at all, right? Kageyama had taught him how to cook before, so, it can’t be any different, plus, the internet exists, and-
Oh god, okay, so maybe it does turn out to be a little harder and disastrous than he thought, and cooking turns out to be not the same as baking because he can’t recognize most of these tools for baking that he pulled from under the cabinets.
But, he tries anyway, tries to follow the recipe he’s searched up on a site too. So, what if he may have cracked a few eggs with bits of shells falling into the bowl, and so what if he spilled a little bit of food coloring into the mix more than he’d like to admit, but he makes it up by trying to add several spoons of vanilla ice cream for the flavor. Surely, nothing would go wrong with adding more of it, Shouyou reasons, vanilla tastes good after all.
After five hours filled with casualties and shrieks, Shouyou is finally done, and he’s left to stare at the cake he’s made that could very well be mistaken for ancient ruins.
It’s not the outside that counts though, he reassures himself, what matters more is the taste.
He grabs a spoon, digs a small crater into the cake and shoves it into his mouth- he barely chews on the piece when he spits it out. He’s wrong, oh, he is so wrong, wrong, wrong, he rushes to sink and furiously tries to rinse his mouth. It tastes absolutely, terrifyingly awful.
How the hell is Kageyama able to bake ten cakes in a day without messing even one up?
“Shouyou?”
Shouyou freezes in his tracks. That voice.
“Tobio!” He yelps, quickly rushing over to hide his cake- if it can even be called a cake- on the counter behind his back just as Kageyama steps into the kitchen. “Oh, wow, uh- you’re back early!”
“Yeah, and… what are you doing?” Kageyama slowly asks. “And what is this mess?”
“O-oh! This!” Shouyou laughs nervously, “I was just- I was trying to cook dinner! By myself!”
“With... baking soda?”
“Yeah!”
Kageyama raises an eyebrow, and looks over at the table. He picks the small bottle up, face wildly confused as he reads the label. “... And food coloring?”
“Well- yeah, obviously, because I’m making… food… which has... baking soda… and food coloring.”
Kageyama only shoots him an unconvinced look, no doubt suspicious of his off putting behavior. Shouyou drums his fingers against the counter-top as he awkwardly wait for Kageyama to leave, but then, when Kageyama steps to the side, craning his head over to see what Shouyou has behind on the counter, he jolts and rips it away before he gets the chance, his back fully turned to him.
“Is that…” From the peripherals, he sees Kageyama’s shoulders start to shake. “Is- is that thing supposed to be a cake?”
Shouyou groans. Great, he’s seen it.
“Shut up! Don’t laugh!” He yells, looking over his shoulder to shoot a glare, but Kageyama betrays him as he snorts into a fit of laughter. “This thing is a cake I’m trying to bake for your surprise party tomorrow, stupid ! And-”
Kageyama stops. He stares, stunned. “Surprise party?”
Shouyou squeaks and covers his mouth. “... Did I say party?”
A few beats of hush stretch into the air between them. Kageyama sighs- the brief and rushed kind- then crosses the room to where Shouyou is. There’s a pitiful glance that Kageyama spares between the cake and him. Shouyou starts to feel his shoulders sag in disappointment. He knows exactly what Kageyama is thinking.
He looks down just as Kageyama locks him in, right against the counter.
“Hey,” Kageyama leans in, pressing his lips against his forehead. “You know, you don’t have to do this, right?”
“I was just trying to…” Shouyou starts, weakly. “It’s your birthday…”
“Shouyou,” Kageyama tries. But when Shouyou doesn’t look at him, he grabs his attention with a hook of a thumb on his chin, tilting his head up so eyes of blue crashing waves meet together with the ones of brown shoreline. There’s something endearing in the way Kageyama has said his name, the way he holds him now. “I want to ask you something.”
“What?” Shouyou asks, hopelessly. He wants to look away, but the fingers on his face won’t let him.
“Why do you always try so hard for my birthday?”
“Because,” Shouyou falters. He doesn’t know what to answer. “Because, because it’s special.”
Kageyama blinks. “It’s just my birthday.”
Shouyou groans and thumps his head, hard, against Kageyama’s chest. “You totally don’t get it. You idiot. You complete idiot.”
Kageyama huffs at the insult, but doesn’t say anything otherwise. He bends over instead, rests his chin on top of Shouyou’s head and pokes his nose into wild tufts of his orange hair. Shouyou wants to bask wholeheartedly in this embrace, but he needs to get his message across first.
It takes a while to formulate the words right from the bat, and especially so, when it isn’t his strong forte, but he has to if he wants Kageyama to understand.
“It’s not… just a birthday.” He starts. He pauses, heaves in a few deep breaths, as Kageyama patiently waits for him to take his time. Shouyou feels his heart swell at just this small gesture.
“It’s... the day you were born. And your birthdays are like reminders for me that you exist, that you’re still here. It’s a reminder that my special person, which is you, have come into this world on this day.” Shouyou mutters, reaching a hand over to fiddle with the hair on his back. “So, I guess... I just want you to know that I’m grateful for you.”
By the end of his speech, Shouyou feels red all over, curling into the ends of his toes and his hair.
That's probably the cheesiest, the sappiest thing he’s ever had said, and it sounds a whole lot more like a love confession, and he fears that Kageyama would now take it the wrong way. There’s coils churning into his stomach before he'd even realize it, then his mind pictures for him a look of disgust on the other's face, a strong thread of connection broken into two, a whole world turning dark- but his thoughts end there and then, because there’s suddenly two hands- rough, calloused and careful - gripping onto the sides of his head, and he barely manages a gasp just as Kageyama kisses him on the lips.
It’s not like this is their first kiss. But, it’s not like they are dating either. Though, ever since Shouyou becomes aware of his feelings for him, it’s like the switch has been flipped on in his head, so the kiss at this moment right here, right now, feels completely different than all those times before. He feels everything ; the dryness and cracks on Kageyama’s lips from the winter cold, the softness bleeding into their kiss, and the hearts swelling up into hidden tears behind his eyes. It feels like their first kiss all over again.
The kiss doesn’t last long sadly, but it breaks with a newfound ease between them.
Shouyou cranes his head up, feels the burn creeping into his neck as he stares into Kageyama’s eyes- the same softness of something swimming in them again and taking him captive by the strings of his soul. Gently, Kageyama wipes a thumb across his cheeks.
“I appreciate that you’re always trying to make my birthday special for me.” Kageyama thanks him. “But.. spending time with you. That’s already good enough for me. I don’t need anything else for my birthday.”
"Really?"
"Really."
Shouyou blinks. He doesn’t say anything this time either, and returns the same favor like Kageyama did when he pulls him back down for another kiss. He feels Kageyama smile into the kiss.
They pull away shortly after, only to get pulled back in, so they kiss, and kiss, then kiss for another few times until they feel content.
“So, what kind of cake were you trying to make?” asks Kageyama. He moves away, releasing Shouyou from the confines of being cornered against the counter.
“Chocolate,” Shouyou happily chirps, “and vanilla!”
“Okay. Sounds good.” Kageyama nods. “Let’s clean up first, then watch as I make my own surprise birthday cake better than you did.”
Shouyou rolls his eyes and huffs. “Jerk.”
"Dumbass."
"Butthole."
"No. Don't use that word."
"Okay," Shouyou relents, "butthole."
He ducks in time just as Kageyama swipes at him.
The party turns out to be more than a great success.
There had been lots of food, lots of gifts, lots of laughter. Furthermore, there had been no sign of discomfort coming from Kageyama’s side as their guests come over to greet him, and the way he holds himself is much smoother, more refined than the old days when his awkwardness takes a big aspect. And when Shouyou sees the shine in Kageyama's eyes as soon as he sees his mother arrive at the door, and the dimples in his cheeks as he smiles when the cake comes and they all sing for him, Shouyou figures it’s all worth it in the end. Tobio had been worth all the feelings, penny and overspent thoughts Shouyou has poured into, for this moment.
And by the end of the day, he figures that what they look for in their birthdays aren’t so different at all; to love and be loved.