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Obito wakes beside Deidara. He runs a hand through his hair and cannot stop himself from smiling. After all these years, he finally gets what he has always wanted.
Deidara furrows his eyebrows and his face scrunches up in the most adorable way. He burrows deeper into Tobi’s embrace and continues to sleep.
Obito lets him rest for a little while longer until the birds have stopped singing their morning song and the sunlight is flooding in through the windows.
“Senpai,” Tobi mutters.
Deidara groans.
“It’s time to wake up now, senpai,” Tobi continues.
Deidara doesn’t move.
Tobi grabs Deidara’s shoulders and shakes. Deidara grunts and slaps a hand against Tobi’s mask, then he hisses when it just hurts his hand. “Shut up, Tobi,” Deidara mutters. “Let me sleep.”
“Senpai, you rarely sleep in so late,” Tobi says. “This is very unlike you. Are you okay?”
“I said, shut up, hm,” Deidara mutters. He burrows himself back into Tobi’s embrace. Tobi thinks he knows why Deidara wants to continue sleeping.
“We have a busy day planned ahead of us, senpai,” Tobi says. “I want to give you a proper good first date.”
“Tired,” Deidara murmurs, but his voice is so soft that Tobi can barely make out what he said.
“You’ll be less tired if you stand up, senpai.”
Deidara takes a deep breath and goes back to sleep.
Tobi leaves him be, running his hand through his hair. Deidara hums in his sleep and Obito feels guilty for even wanting to wake up him, but when one o’clock comes and goes, Tobi shakes Deidara again.
“Wake up, Deidara,” Obito murmurs, pressing the bottom half of his mask against Deidara’s forehead. “It’s almost two.”
Deidara whines but he wakes up, reluctantly rolling out of Tobi’s embrace and going to the toilet. Obito stands and takes out the new set of clothes. He places it on the bed and when Deidara walks out, he pauses.
“What’s that?” he asks.
Tobi clears his throat. “I was reading up on Iwagakure’s traditions,” he says.
“What traditions?” Deidara asks as he picks up the kimono. He spreads it out and Tobi cannot read the expression on his face.
“Birthday traditions and such,” Tobi replies.
“Hm,” Deidara hums. “Why’d you do that, yeah?”
“I want this to be the best date,” Tobi says, “and what better way to do that than make it the best birthday?”
“You want to challenge my fifth birthday, hm?”
Tobi is quiet. “What did you do for your fifth birthday?” he decides to ask.
Deidara laughs. “It was years ago, I don’t remember,” he says. He puts the kimono on, twirling around. “This is pretty good. Where’d you get it?” he asks.
Tobi doesn’t answer him. Instead, he heads to the bathroom and ignores Deidara’s annoyed calls. When he finishes up, Deidara is waiting outside for him.
“Are you going to answer me or not, yeah?”
“It’s a secret, senpai,” Tobi says, his grin evident in his voice. “Come on, I have a few things I want to do with you!”
Deidara rolls his eyes but he lets himself get dragged out of the room. They head down to the dining area and Obito heads to the fridge, taking out a chocolate cake that he had Zetsu get him last night.
He places it down in front of Deidara, along with a knife, two forks, and two plates.
“What’s this?”
“A birthday cake,” Tobi says. “I read that you guys mostly eat chocolate cake, right?”
“Well…” Deidara trails off. He takes the knife from Tobi and cuts out a slice for the two of them.
“Do you not need candles or to sing a song?” Tobi asks.
“No,” Deidara says. He gives Tobi a weird look. “We don’t do that.”
“Oh,” Tobi says. He takes the plate and watches Deidara eat. When Deidara has his head down, he hurries to move his mask away and shovel the cake into his mouth.
Deidara makes a disgusted noise when he realizes what Tobi has done but he doesn’t say anything else other than that. He finishes his slice and says, “Chocolate cake is for children, you know, hm.”
“Huh?”
“We only eat chocolate cake if we’re celebrating children’s birthdays,” Deidara explains. “We stop when the kid turns ten.”
“Oh.” Tobi looks at the cake and then he buries his head in his hands.
“It’s alright,” Deidara says. “I haven’t had chocolate cake in a while, yeah. It was nice.”
“Do you even eat cake for your birthday?” Tobi asks.
“Sometimes,” Deidara says. “It depends, really. I personally haven’t eaten cake in a while, yeah.”
“Did you even celebrate your birthdays ever since…?”
“No, you’re right,” he says. “I haven’t really done that. But normally, people don’t have cake after they turn ten, hm. People usually choose to have a normal meal with their friends and family instead.”
“We can do that,” Obito says hurriedly.
“We don’t have to,” Deidara replies.
Tobi huffs but he decides to move on. “Let’s go outside now, senpai,” he says. “We should go to this town.” He takes out a map and shows it to Deidara. Deidara squints at the location and snorts.
“Alright.”
Tobi puts the cake back in the fridge and the dirty dishes in the sink. They head out of the hideout and Deidara makes a clay bird large enough to carry the both of them. They take off to the next destination.
When they arrive, two priestesses hurry to greet them.
“Welcome, welcome,” they say. “Are you celebrating a birthday?” one of them asks.
“Yes,” Tobi says. He gestures to Deidara. “It’s his birthday today.”
“Ah!” the priestesses say. “Happy birthday!”
They lead him to the shrine, and one hands him a wooden board, while the other hands him a pen.
“You can hang it along the wall there when you are done,” says one of the priestesses, gesturing to the wall of wishes.
Deidara nods and takes the items. Tobi stands next to him. “What are you going to wish for, senpai?” he asks.
“None of your business, hm,” Deidara says.
“Oh,” Tobi whines, “that’s very mean. I was just curious.”
Deidara touches the side of his face briefly and returns to tapping the pen against the board. “Stop being a big baby,” he says. “If you know the wish, it won’t come true, yeah.”
“Is that true?” he wonders.
“Yes, it’s true in Iwagakure.”
“Ah.” Tobi takes a step back. “Sorry, I didn’t know.”
Deidara scoffs and shakes his head. He takes his time writing his wish, so Tobi wanders around the area. He stands underneath the torii gate, staring up at its nameplate.
He turns when he feels a tap on his shoulder. “I finished,” Deidara says.
“That’s great,” Tobi replies. “Do you want to pay respects?”
“Sure,” Deidara says.
“Okay,” Tobi says. They walk through the gate and up the stone steps. They wash their hands and follow the queue. After they finish praying, they turn to leave, and the two priestesses greet them again at the entrance.
“Hello,” one of them says, bowing slightly. “Have you had the time to browse our shops?”
“Oh, no,” Tobi says. “What are you selling?”
“Some good luck charms if you’d like,” replies the other. She holds out a tray covered in colorful omamori and ofuda. “We have birthday charms, too!”
“They look nice, don’t you think, senpai?”
Deidara glances at them and shrugs. Obito presses his lips into a thin line.
“I guess I’ll get this one, the birthday one,” Tobi says, pointing at the orange-colored omamori.
“Good choice, sir,” the priestess says. She gets him a new one and he pays her. “Thank you very much.”
As they leave, Tobi puts the omamori in Deidara’s hand. “I suppose it can protect you,” Tobi says.
“From what?”
“I don’t know,” Tobi shrugs. “It’s good to have one, right?”
Deidara scoffs. “Sure,” he says. “What are we doing next?”
“There’s a pond here somewhere,” Tobi says. “We can make wishes the Iwagakure way.”
Deidara glances at him and stifles a laugh. “Alright, we can skip some stones, hm.”
“Perfect,” Tobi says, “it seems I got this one right.”
They reach the pond and Tobi tells Deidara to wait. He picks up suitable pebbles and hands them all to Deidara. “You have to make some, too,” Deidara says, giving some back to Tobi. “Or else it won’t work.”
“Does it work like that?”
“Yes, it’s part of the tradition,” Deidara replies. “Everyone has to do it, hm.”
“Okay,” Tobi says. He closes his eyes, makes a wish, and putts the stone across the water. It skips once, twice, three times, and then it loses speed and sinks. “Aw,” he says. “I’m not that good.”
Deidara sticks out his tongue at him. He bends his knee, swings his arm sideways and back, and gracefully throws the stone. It skids across the water as though it were ice and the water splashes with every bounce. The stone almost makes it across the pond but stops just short and sinks.
“Wow!” Tobi exclaims, “you’re great at this, senpai!”
“Heh,” Deidara chuckles. “I’ve been doing this since I was a kid, hm.”
“That’s very impressive,” he says. “Do you have competitions?”
“Sort of,” Deidara says. “We hold a competition if someone wants to on their birthday, hm.”
“Oh.”
“The loser gets beaten up.”
“Even if they’re the boyfriend of the birthday boy?”
Deidara blushes, but he nods anyway. “Especially if they are the boyfriend of the birthday boy, hm.”
Tobi takes a step back. “Maybe we don’t need to follow the traditions so closely,” Tobi says. “We can make new traditions, right?”
Deidara grins.
“Right?” Tobi asks again.
Deidara starts to head toward him. Tobi yelps and breaks into a full sprint. He doesn’t need to turn around to know that Deidara is running after him. He slows down when he reaches the edge of the pond and onto the grassy fields and lets Deidara brawl hm over. They tumble in the grass but Deidara doesn’t hit him. He only pins him down and grins.
“I win,” Deidara says.
“Yes, yes,” Tobi replies. He sighs and lies back against the ground, staring up at the darkening sky. “Sorry, senpai,” he says after Deidara has a few moments to catch his breath.
“Why?”
“I messed up a lot of your traditions,” he says. “I should have done my research better.”
“You only had half a day to do it,” Deidara says. “I’m impressed that you even know these things, hm. We keep our secrets pretty tight.”
“The shrine was my idea.”
“I know,” Deidara says. “It’s weird. The whole thing like something someone from Konoha would do, hm.”
“Haha,” Tobi forces a laugh. He clears his throat. “I feel like you’re tricking me about some things, though.”
“Why would I do that?”
“So you can hit me for no reason!”
“I don’t need to come up with an excuse to hit you, yeah.”
Tobi pauses and then he sighs. “You’re right,” he says.
“Besides,” Deidara says, “it’s cute that you want to do stuff from my old village. No one’s tried to do that for me before.”
“Someone else tried to woo you?”
“Jealous?”
Tobi huffs.
Deidara rests his head on Tobi’s chest, fingers tapping a nonsense rhythm. “I like just being with you, Tobi,” he eventually says. “You didn’t need to do so much but I appreciate that you did.”
Obito takes a moment to process, and then the only thing he can say is a soft, “Oh.”
Deidara puffs out a soft laugh. The two of them just lie there, for a while, and then Obito mutters, “Happy birthday, senpai.”
“Thanks, Tobi,” Deidara murmurs back.