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Birthdays in the Hiori household were never about presents, cake or sweets. They were about getting a few extra likes on Facebook.
Of course, Hiori’s mother and father still celebrated his birthday every year, usually gifting him a new video game (or, at least, transferring him enough money to buy whichever game he wanted) and snapping a photo of the three of them together at the dinner table. There was never a cake, since such an unhealthy food would mess up Hiori’s dieting schedule and it was hardly a worthy treat for such a ‘special occasion’. No, there was instead a well-presented, healthy meal which Hiori said he liked the taste of in theory, served in pretty, porcelain bowls and eaten with expensive sandalwood chopsticks. Throughout the meal, his father would get up to routinely to take more photos, compiling the best ones for posting on his Facebook page. The account for his father's dojo always shared it to a wider audience… then again, his father was that page’s admin.
After the meal was over, it was as if it wasn’t Hiori’s birthday to begin with. His evening routine of going over tactics, watching matches back, and hurriedly doing his homework before settling into hours of gaming was the same as any other night.
Birthdays weren’t special. They weren’t meant to be. The only thing that was ‘special’ was the way his parents could exploit the day for social media.
In short, birthdays were disgusting, just like every other part of Hiori’s miserable life.
-—-
Rin looked up from his phone. “It’s your birthday tomorrow.”
Hiori’s face blanked for a moment next to him, then he let out a shallow sigh. “Ahh,” he mumbled. “It is…”
The two of them were wandering home to their shared house, heading down a street in residential Paris. Cold, late-autumn air chilled their cheeks and noses, a reminder that the end of the year was fast-approaching. The sun had set an hour ago even though it was only around five in the afternoon, and the street lamps burned with a warm, orange glow while dead leaves crunched below their feet with every step they took.
It had been a little over a year since they had transferred to PXG and they were currently playing their second season in the Ligue, although they didn’t have another match for almost two weeks. It had also been about six months since they had started a quiet, hidden relationship that only the two of them knew about… and Karasu, but that was only because the pesky crow was too observant for his own damned good and had figured them out a week into dating.
Hiori hummed. “How do you even know it’s my birthday tomorrow? I never told you.”
“It’s trending,” Rin said holding up his phone, “probably because it’s already the thirtieth in Japan. Also we're literally together. Why wouldn't I know it?”
Indeed, all over Twitter the hashtag ‘氷織羊誕生日’ was doing numbers. Hiori grimaced. “Great…” He then paused. “Since when do you use social media?”
“Since Nanase kept sending me baby animal videos and got annoyingly persistent when I didn’t watch them,” Rin grumbled. “I keep saying accident compilations would be more my thing but whatever.”
Hiori chuckled at that. “Well at least you put in the effort. And still, your haters have the gall to say you don’t have a heart. Shame on them if you ask me.”
“I’m not a mushy, lukewarm sap like they want me to be.”
“And I’ll always say you’re much better just the way you are. You being mushy would be… disturbing.”
Rin raised an eyebrow. “Disturbing?”
“It’s not very ‘you’, d’ya get me? I like it a lot more when you’re blunt and to the point. We can skip the pointless fanfare of lovey-dovey stuff,” Hiori then looked up at the dark sky. He let out another sigh, his breath turning to mist. “You don’t have to do anything for my birthday tomorrow. And don’t feel bad if you didn’t get me anything either.”
Rin frowned. For a moment, he said nothing. “Okay…”
“You sound hesitant.”
“If that’s what you want, we can do that.”
“Birthdays aren’t really my thing. That’s all there is to it.”
“We celebrated my birthday together,” Rin pointed out. ‘Was that not fun for you?”
“What?” Hiori stammered. “Huh? Of course it was fun! It was your birthday. I’d never miss that.”
A couple of months into their relationship, Rin had turned twenty-three. The two of them had taken the day off to go on a tour of the various glaceries of Paris, taste-testing each stop to find the place that sold the best ice creams. Hiori had even found out that he didn’t mind the taste of coffee ice cream from that trip, even though most of the time he found ice cream too sweet for his palate.
And that day had been fun. After arriving home, they had ordered delivery takeout from their favourite restaurant, unboxed some pre-ordered cupcakes with icing that spelled out ‘Happy Birthday!’, which Rin had then devoured all on his own far quicker than he would ever admit to, and they had snuggled down on the couch to do a horror movie marathon. Rin’s parents had briefly called to wish him well, and he had even received a text from Sae. It had been one of their most jam-packed days together since they had started dating, definitely a rare occasion.
But still, it hadn’t been anything too out of the ordinary for them. They did one-off things like visiting new places from time to time, be it checking out a new cafe or walking through a park to relax in the quiet, away from the bustle of the city. They held a movie night every week. They ate takeout whenever they couldn’t be bothered with cooking after a long day of training. Just because it had been Rin’s birthday hadn’t meant anything they had done had been particularly special.
“It’s just my birthday that’s not a big deal,” Hiori shook his head. “I… I think it’s best to just avoid it. I don’t think I’ve enjoyed a single one of my birthdays in years.”
Those words hung in the air for a while. The two of them turned a corner onto the street where their house was. It was silent on the road by now, the low whistle of the wind cooling the nighttime. By the time they made it through the front door, it seemed as though the topic of birthdays had been left outside. That was for the best. They could spend the next day the same way they always did, not worrying about doing anything over the top, fancy or excessive.
-—-
Rin was still being quiet over dinner. The two of them didn’t exactly talk much compared to other couples but there was an atmosphere around Rin this evening, one that was a bit more tense than usual. Hiori picked up on it in an instant, and while he tried to let it pass, it didn’t go away even when they were settling down into bed.
And so, Hiori pressed his chest to Rin’s back, wrapping an arm around Rin’s torso and pulling him close. “What’s the matter?”
Rin didn’t reply immediately. “Nothing. Go to sleep.”
“You’ve never fooled me with that talk before,” Hiori hummed. “If you don’t wanna say, that’s fine. Just know you can tell me if it’s eating at you.” He rubbed his hand comfortingly up and down Rin’s front.
Indeed, for a while no one said anything else. In fact, Hiori was half-asleep by the time a near-silent reply mumbled its way through the air.
“Why do you hate your birthday?”
It was Hiori’s turn to be quiet. His hold around his boyfriend tightened slightly. “Same reason as why I hate a lot of things,” he eventually settled on.
He had explained bits and pieces of his childhood to Rin, enough to get the overall picture across. The false love, the unbearable expectations, the constant fear of abandonment. His parents had carved a deep wound that was only now scarring over. Their influence had left marks in every facet of Hiori’s life, and while in some cases he could wipe their dirty fingerprints away to find something to love, his birthday was still something he struggled with.
“Mom and Dad never really celebrated my birthday for me,” he said, hugging Rin tighter than ever. “It was always about making themselves look better. A kind of ‘look at us and our amazing son! Aren’t we the perfect, happy family?’. For ages I went along with it to please them but it was so horrible. I hated every second of my birthdays back then.”
Rin made a low noise of acknowledgement. “You never did anything you wanted to do…”
“Never. Unless playing video games like I did every day anyway counts.”
“Was there ever anything you wanted to do?”
Hiori thought back to those childhood memories. “I wanted a party once,” he said. “My seventh birthday. I wanted to invite everyone in my class over and play games in the back yard, then eat hotdogs and fries and have a massive cake. Of course Mom and Dad said no… well, they screamed at me and sent me to my room for so much as suggesting it. In the end, we just ate dinner as a family that year.”
“Would you want a party now?” Rin asked. He loosened Hiori’s grip around his middle and turned himself around to look at his boyfriend properly. “If you were allowed complete control of your birthday, what would you want to do?”
Hiori frowned. “You seem oddly concerned about this. I didn't pin you as the type to care.”
Rin’s eyes were strangely honed in. He usually didn’t care this much about other people’s interests, not even Hiori’s. He let out a shallow sigh. “I’m just… trying to understand, I guess,” he admitted. “As a kid I had fun on my birthdays.” He paused. It was clear he was thinking back to memories of his own that were perhaps difficult to recall now. "We... we always did what I wanted."
"You and Sae?"
Rin nodded.
“Lucky,” Hiori chuckled, tiredness laced into his voice.
“Would you ever try to celebrate your birthday again?”
Hiori paused. He hadn’t really thought about it. It was a source of disdain, not fun. The mere notion that it was allowed to be something nice was still difficult to comprehend. And besides, with his personality having turned out the way it was, that childhood dream of throwing a big party and stuffing his face with junk food was long in the past. He’d never do that today.
“I don't think so,” he looked Rin in the eyes, “I’d rather just spend it here with you anyway.”
Rin frowned. “Really? There’s nothing else you’d do?”
“Can’t think of anything.”
The way Rin’s cheeks dusted with blush never got old. He flustered so easily at the mere hint of a compliment, and that was one of the most lovely things about him. He surrounded himself in a dower attitude and glowered at everyone he met, but choosing how to word things around him just right would send him into an amusing spiral of red cheeks and stammered sentences.
“So we’d just stay inside all day?” he tried to say.
Hiori snuggled close to his chest. “Yeah. And play video games. And watch movies. And order takeout. Like we always do.”
“It's not exactly special.”
“I know. I like that the most.”
“You don’t even want a gift?”
Hiori shook his head. “If it’s tearing you apart that much, gift me a new game. You’ve seen my Steam wishlist.”
“I’ll think about it,” Rin stroked the back of Hiori’s head. “And tomorrow, we’ll just stay home.”
“What about training?”
“We’ll call in sick or something.”
The tense atmosphere that had been emanating off him earlier was gone. It really did seem as though he just wanted to somehow make Hiori’s birthday more enjoyable. Of course he was struggling to understand how someone could find that day unbearable since it was a feeling he himself had never experienced. He struggled to sympathise with most things, let alone heavier topics of conversation that he himself couldn’t relate to, but perhaps the fact that the two of them did understand certain aspects of the others’ pain helped with the unfamiliarity of the specifics?
Rin’s breathing slowed. He slowly slipped away into sleep. For a little while longer, Hiori lay there in his arms, watching his peaceful, sleeping face. It was strange — Hiori had never considered the possibility of having a fun birthday before. Ever since leaving home, he had simply ignored the day as if it were any other.
But… maybe he could try to enjoy himself a bit? He and Rin had overcome parts of their pasts together before, the other always acting as a source of understanding and strength in their own quiet, passive ways. This was, perhaps, just another one of those wounds that needed healing.
Hiori could try. He could take tomorrow in his stride. As he drifted off to sleep himself, secure in his boyfriend’s embrace, a small smile settled onto his lips.
He could take back this day, or at least make the first step to making it his own again.