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“Stinger? Are you awake?”
Stinger did not want to be awake, but he sighed, and opened his eyes.
“Naga? What time is it?”
“Um... it’s about to be midnight.”
Stinger sat up. He had fallen asleep at the pool table again, for the third time this week. He looked down at the project he had been working on. It was something that Tsurugi had asked him to work on. It wasn’t difficult work, but it was a lot of work, and using the pool table was easier than trying to do this on his desk, which was generally too small for his projects. And he kept waking up, head down on the pool table, his neck hurting just a little more every time.
“What are you doing up?” Stinger asked. “You should be resting in case you’re chosen to go to Cayenne with Lucky.”
“Um.” Naga flustered a little, a bit out of character for a man who supposedly had no emotions. Then again....
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Naga said quickly. “I just... I wanted to show you something.”
“Me? Shouldn’t you be showing it to Balance or Raptor or somebody?”
Naga shook his head. “Balance already knows about it.”
Stinger was confused, but he stood up, and he followed Naga into the kitchen.
“Are you hungry?” Stinger asked. A thought dawned on him. “Do you know how to cook? I can’t really cook myself, but I can help you if you’re hungry.”
“I don’t need help,” Naga said. And then just as quickly, “I mean, I can’t cook, but I don’t need any help. I didn’t ask you in here because I’m hungry. Can you look in the fridge?”
Stinger was even more confused, but nodded and walked over to the fridge.
“Open it, second shelf,” Naga said.
Stinger opened the fridge, and saw what Naga was looking at.
“It’s for you,” Naga said, his voice shaking a little.
Stinger pulled it out, slowly. “A cupcake?”
“Yeah. Kind of like the ones Spada makes.”
“Is this Spada’s cupcake?”
“No. I bought it at a bakery. Balance helped me pick it out.”
“What’s it for?”
“For you.”
“For me?”
“For your birthday.”
Stinger swallowed, hard. “My birthday?”
Naga nodded. “Raptor told me. It’s today.”
“Raptor told you?”
Naga nodded again, slowly. “And Balance said all birthdays should be celebrated no matter what.”
“Naga, with everything that’s going on right now with Lucky-”
“Even Lucky said during a fight we need a break. And we won’t be on Cayenne for at least another day. Raptor said that. So I wanted to do this.”
“Why, Naga? Why for me?”
“Balance said all birthdays should be celebrated no matter what,” Naga repeated. “And, um... also....”
“Also what?”
“Hammie said that it would be good for me if I made friends. I mean, other than Balance. I mean, not to leave Balance out or anything, but-”
“I know what you mean.”
Naga took a deep breath in. “I know you’ve been through a lot with your brother and your home planet. And maybe you have lots of friends.”
Stinger scoffed. “I don’t have any friends.”
“That’s not true. Hammie says we’re all friends.”
“Hammie doesn’t know everything.” He paused. “What are you saying, Naga? You want to be my friend?”
Naga nodded. “Having friends means having more emotions, right?”
“Right, your emotions. You’re still learning them.”
“After everything that happened… with me… Balance said I need friends and support. And he said you needed friends and support.”
“Me?”
“You have Champ and Kotaro, but… I want to be your friend, too.”
“Why?”
“Balance says I like you.”
“Balance said that?” Stinger shook his head. “Naga, you’re letting him put words into your mouth. Your opinion of me shouldn’t have anything to do with Balance.”
“He just pointed out a couple of things that I realized meant he was right. And I think you’d help me better than Hammie could.”
“You like Hammie?”
“Yes. She helps me.”
“Why do you think I could help you?”
“She said you and I have a lot in common.”
“Like what?”
Naga shrugged. “I don’t know. She said I have to get to know people and find out.” He paused. “I didn’t know what time of the day you were born so I thought I’d give this to you as early as possible so I didn’t miss it.”
Stinger finally cracked a smile. “I was born right when Antares was setting for the night. There’s plenty of time.”
“I’m sorry I woke you up.”
“It’s ok, I should be in bed anyway.” Stinger looked at the cupcake in his hand. “Thank you. It means a lot to me.”
“It does?”
“Yeah.” He smiled once more. “Do you want half?”
“No, that’s your cupcake.”
“Then it’s mine to do what I please and I want to share this with you.”
“Share?”
“It’s what friends do, right?”
Naga nodded, his face blank.
Stinger walked around and opened the cupboard, grabbing two plates. Then he opened a drawer and found a knife. He quickly cut the cupcake in half and served it on the plates, then threw the knife into the sink. He walked over to Naga and handed him one.
“Thank you very much,” Naga whispered as he took the plate.
“Let’s sit down at the pool table and eat this.”
Naga nodded and followed Stinger back to the bridge. They sat down.
Stinger took the first bite. Gods, it was chocolate. He loved chocolate. One of the things he liked about being with everyone was Spada’s cooking. Spada knew how to bake a cake. But Stinger didn’t care if it was good or not, as long as it was good. Food like this was hard to come by on his planet, and this… this felt like luxury.
“It’s good?” Naga asked.
“It is. Thank you.”
Naga nodded.
“You don’t get food like this on your home planet, either,” Stinger said, mostly thinking out loud.
“With no emotions, we don’t eat food for any other reason than to survive. The first night I was with Balance, he took me to this really fancy restaurant and I threw up afterwards because my stomach hurt. Balance said it was because I wasn’t used to food being anything but bland.” He paused in thought. “I should not have told you that. I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s ok. It’s interesting.”
“My throwing up is interesting?”
“A little bit. There are so many different cultures, different ways of living. This is just a glimpse into your life. It’s interesting that you didn’t know what good food was for a while.”
Naga shrugged a little and took a bite of the cupcake.
“It’s good, huh?” Stinger asked.
Naga nodded. “Balance says it’s good that I can appreciate good food now. And a lot of things.”
Stinger looked at Naga. “You say, ‘Balance says’ a lot, do you realize that?”
Naga nodded. “Hammie said I need think for myself… but that didn’t work out really well the last time.”
“Because she didn’t mean, ‘Join Jark Matter and try to kill Balance’.”
Naga went blank. “I didn’t mean that-”
“I’m sorry, Naga. I shouldn’t have said that.”
Naga looked down at his plate, not touching the cupcake.
They stayed silent for a moment.
“When’s your birthday?” Stinger asked, trying to break the awkward silence.
“July 4th.”
“July 4th? We passed it already. Did you celebrate?”
Naga shook his head. “That was before Akyanba.”
“What does that have to do with it?”
“Balance and I talked about birthdays afterward. We talked about a lot of things when I came back.”
“You and Balance really are best friends, aren’t you?”
“I don’t ever want to be apart from him.”
Stinger smiled. “Naga... if you want to be friends, we can get to know each other.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“What about Balance? And Champ? And Kotaro?”
“We can have as many friends as we want. It doesn’t mean anyone gets left out. It just means more friends around.”
Naga managed a little smile, and then he stood up. “Do you think maybe someday I can have friends I can smile with?”
“I know that can happen for you, Naga. Just be patient and take everything in, ok?”
“Ok.”
“Where are you going?”
“I think we need milk.”
Stinger chuckled. “We really do.”
Naga nodded and turned towards the kitchen.
“Wait, Naga.”
Naga turned back around.
“I wanted to tell you that I’m sorry.”
“Sorry? For what?”
Stinger sighed. “When you... were gone... I chose to go back in time to fight Don Armage instead of searching for you. I’m sorry I did that.”
Naga blinked.
“You get what I just said, right?”
“Yes,” Naga said. “But...”
“But what?”
“If you were able to go back to the past and defeat Don Armage, I wouldn’t have gone dark in the first place. And you’d still have your brother. So it’s ok that you did that.”
“Did Balance say that to you?”
“No. But he did say he was glad that nothing changed.”
“Why?”
“Because none of us would know each other and he really likes being a Kyuranger. Even more than stealing treasure.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
Stinger smiled. “Thank you. For everything.”
“I hope I did well. I’m not good at celebrating birthdays.”
“Well...” Stinger grinned. “There’s one thing you could have done differently.”
“What’s that?”
“Next time... buy the whole cake. Make sure it's chocolate like this one. And we’ll eat it, just the two of us.”
Naga softly smiled. “Understood.”
Stinger sighed and leaned back in the stool a little as Naga walked off towards the kitchen.
“I could do this every year,” Stinger whispered to himself.