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When Teru wakes up early in the morning on April 13th, the apartment is silent and dark.
Like it always is.
He should be used to it. It shouldn’t bother him anymore. Most days he can pretend it doesn’t, that everything’s fine, that he’s fine, and most days he can even convince himself that it’s true.
But today’s his birthday, and the loneliness of facing another day alone weighs him down into his mattress with leaden limbs and a growing pressure behind his eyelids.
It’s mornings like this that he lets himself dwell, just for a few minutes, on what he used to have. To waking up on his birthday to smiling faces and whispered congratulations, to an extra special breakfast and the promise of yakiniku after school, to a day of happiness instead of isolation.
He almost skips school. He knows no one will even remember it’s his birthday anyway, and why should they? He’s fifteen now, way too old to care so much about something so stupid. It shouldn’t bother him. He’s Hanazawa Teruki. He’s a straight-A student with awesome fashion sense and enough maturity to hold a part-time job on the side. How many of his peers could claim the same? Almost none of them, that’s who.
He forces himself out of bed and doesn’t bother making breakfast at all. He’ll pick up a sweet bun of some sort at a convenience store instead, maybe a coffee with extra cream. Some cake on the way home. He’d normally make it himself, but, well.
He doesn’t really have the energy to bother today.
–-
The apartment is as cold and empty as Teru’d left it, and for once he doesn’t care enough to put away his schoolbag. He leaves it on the ground, his uniform in a heap next to it instead of carefully hung in the closet, and sets the slice of cake he’d picked up at a bakery on the table.
He checks his phone for what has to be the hundredth time so far. Nothing. Of course. He shouldn’t feel so hurt by this – what did he expect, really? It’s not like his parents had remembered the year before, either.
Sorry we forgot! Happy belated birthday!
Not even a phone call. Just a six-word text two days late.
Teru almost turns off his phone entirely. He’s just riling himself up with all this pointless anticipation. Instead he compromises, setting it on the table within easy reaching distance while he queues up an old home video on his laptop.
The cake is stunning. White cream with meticulously crafted yellow and pink flowers, perfectly baked and spongy. It tastes like ash.
When his ringtone suddenly breaks the silence, Teru knocks what’s left of the cake to the ground in his haste to grab the phone. He fumbles, almost swipes in the wrong direction and breathlessly says, “Hello?” without even checking the caller ID.
“Oh, hey, Teru! It’s Reigen,” the caller says cheerily, and for the first time in his life Teru can’t stand the sound of his voice. Why him? Why did it have to be him? He knows he’s being unreasonable, unfair. He really looks up to Reigen, and normally getting calls from him is the highlight of his day.
But Reigen’s not the one Teru was hoping would be on the other end of the line.
“…able to help me out with an exorcism job today? Shouldn’t take long, but Mob was busy and couldn’t make it… Hello? Teru? Are you there?”
“I’ll be over in fifteen minutes,” Teru says, and he hangs up before Reigen can respond. It’s a little petty, but whatever. It’s his birthday, he can be petty for once if he wants to be.
-–
The office is dark when Teru walks up, and he regrets hanging up on Reigen now. He was probably supposed to meet Reigen at another location, and now he’s letting him down. All that pettiness Teru was holding onto washes away with a wave of regret. What if Reigen doesn’t call him again after this because he thinks Teru’s unreliable? Teru was acting like a kid. He’s fifteen, he should be able to control himself better. He’s still reprimanding himself as he tests the office door.
It’s unlocked.
Reigen never leaves the office unlocked when he’s out, but the lights were off. The world narrows down around him, and he pushes open the door, dread and apprehension lodging in his throat as he peers into the office ready to employ defensive measures at any moment –
“Surprise!” an assortment of voices yell, and power is already sparking at Teru’s fingertips by the time what he’s seeing registers.
Shigeo and Ritsu are standing behind Reigen’s desk where they’d been hiding. They’re both smiling with so much enthusiasm, Shigeo’s lack of reservation so refreshing and bright. Shou is lounging on the couch, grinning widely and holding what looks like an explosion of wrapping paper. Tome lets loose a party popper, sending a spray of rainbow confetti.
“Happy birthday!” she yells with a dramatic spin, snapping something off the couch and dumping it onto Teru’s head. He reaches up in a daze, touching the smooth plastic of a party hat.
Reigen and Serizawa are here too. They’re standing off to the side, both smiling at him with matching proud expressions.
“Happy birthday, Teru,” Reigen says. He holds up a box impeccably wrapped in bright paper. “I got you a present.” Teru can see tiny white scuff marks on the paper where the tape had been removed more than once, indicating a less-than-perfect start to the wrapping process. It’s just a little bit wrinkled where the paper has been refolded.
It must have taken ages to get right.
“We all did!” Shou chips in, launching himself over the back of the couch with a much more… creatively wrapped box. Teru just stares dumbly at it until Shou practically forces it into his hands. “Come on, dude, take it. It’s for you. You’d better like it.”
Outwardly, Teru recovers quickly, even as he reels internally. “You guys didn’t have to go to all this trouble,” he says, and he means it. The more he looks around, the more he realizes just how much work went into all of this. The entire office is done up with streamers, a lopsided banner hanging over the window that declares Happy Birthday Teru in painstakingly handwritten letters. There’s a homemade cake on the coffee table, unevenly cut strawberries set in a mostly-circular pattern in the frosting. It’s listing slightly to one side. It looks like the best cake Teru’s ever seen.
This was all for him. They spent all this time for him.
Teru’s phone is a deadweight in his pocket. He’s spent all day with his hand hovering near it, just in case one of his parents actually bothered to call. He’s been waiting for so long for any sign of love from them without anything, not even a text.
He slips a hand into his pocket and holds in the power button to shut it down.
-–
It’s dark outside by the time everyone goes home. Shigeo and Ritsu are the first to go, followed closely by Shou and Tome when Reigen not-so-subtly reminds her of the curfew her parents set. Serizawa’d left to get a pack of trash bags, Reigen’s meager stock having been almost immediately depleted.
“Did you have a good time?” Reigen asks as he wipes a glob of frosting off the table. Teru waves a finger and confetti flies up from the ground, spiraling neatly into the trashcan. His spare hand absently fingers the soft material of the bright green sweatshirt Reigen had gotten him. It has a big decal of a dog across the front, and if Teru’s being honest it’s not quite his style.
It’s too warm out to be wearing it, but he doesn’t really care. He doesn’t ever want to take it off.
“Yeah,” Teru says. It’s quiet now that almost everyone’s gone, and he chews the inside of his mouth nervously. “You really didn’t need to do all of this. I didn’t mean to put you all out like this.”
Reigen stares at him, almost incredulously. It melts away almost immediately into one of understanding, and he offers an only partially convincing smile. “You were alone, though, right?”
Teru freezes, and he searches Reigen’s expression for any sign of pity. He can feel the defensiveness already rising up, emotions still raw from the earlier hours of the day. “I’m used to it. It doesn’t bother me,” he says.
Reigen isn’t smiling, but he’s not pitying, either. He reaches over and pulls Teru into a loose hug, giving Teru plenty of time to back away first. Teru doesn’t resist.
“You deserve so much better,” Reigen murmurs into Teru’s hair. He tightens his hold, and after a few seconds Teru reaches up and hugs him back, fingers curling into the fabric of Reigen’s shirt.
Teru knows he’ll never stop wishing it was his parents here with him, telling him that he mattered. But he’s got Reigen, and Shigeo, and all the others, and for now that’s enough.