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“What’s this?”
A pair of empty eyes stare back at you, even though you know his head is tilted downwards, staring into the thing you’re holding up. He’s still only halfway through the door and a gust of wind comes in and blows your hair partly into your face. Irritatedly, you huff and blow it out of your sight. “What does it look like? It’s a cake, dummy.”
“I can see that,” he nods, and gently closes the door behind him. He turns back to you when he hears the soft ‘click’ the lock mechanism makes. Ever the thorough man, you think with fondness. He raises a stitched hand and pulls his mask up just enough for you to see his face clearly. “But what for?”
Your arms are starting to tire and thus, you nudge the cake in his direction again to make a point. “For your birthday, silly. What else? Come on. My arms are getting tired. Make a wish!”
He looks unsure still, chewing on his inner cheek. It shouldn’t be such a big deal to blow out a few candles, but being ambushed like this with a cake has him feeling unlike himself.
No one has ever made him a cake before.
He’s pretty certain, in fact, that no one remembered his birthday. And though, as a young child, he had felt envious of his peers who got birthday parties and gifts at times, he had come to not pay this day any attention himself. Over the years, he’d even managed to forget about it entirely. Birthdays, was his conclusion, were pointless. He was a day older every day. What difference did this day make?
But, despite that thought running through the mill, he sees the sparkle in your eye and the candles burning on top of the cake that, given how messily it was made, was definitely handmade by you; and there’s a spark of something running through his system that makes him bite his lip and try his best to keep his eyes dry.
“Fine,” he says eventually, though in reality it took much less time than he thought, “but can’t we skip the wishing? That stuff is bullshit.”
He regrets what he said right away when he sees your face fall—but it was only there for a brief moment, so fast that he even questioned if it happened at all, and you hold the cake closer to him again, as if to remind him it was waiting. “No, we will not. You are going to have a most ordinary birthday party today. Now, come on, humour me and make a wish!”
He wondered why you were so adamant on the wishing when you yourself had mentioned before you didn't believe in any of this stuff, but playing along couldn’t hurt, right?
You positively beamed when he finally conceded. He closed his eyes, made his wish and blew out the two candles you’d stuck into the icing. Together, it read “twenty-nine”, and for a moment he felt strangely out of body—had he been around that long? Age was a strange concept, and not one he usually put much thought into.
“Finally!” you cheered when he was done and quickly ran to leave the cake on the counter. Your footsteps made little sliding noises on the floor with your slippers clacking against your heels. Flicking your fingers a few times, you tried to get the feeling back into your digits.
Just as fast as you’d left to put the cake down, you were back again too. Kashima was still standing where you left him, looking unsure of what to do next.
You’d figured he hadn’t celebrated his birthday in a long time. If only you’d met him sooner; maybe both of you wouldn’t have needed to feel lonely. Maybe you could have healed from the scars society other people left on you together. Birthdays would have been more meaningful spending it with those who mattered. You’d made sure he knew he mattered.
With a warm smile, you made sure to take his mask off and hang it on the coat rack for now. Then, as if you were freed from your shackles, you jumped and hooked your arms and legs around him like a baby koala clinging to a tree. The cyborg yelped and stumbled, just barely managing to recover in time to hold you steady with a strong arm around your waist, his free hand balancing himself on the wall.
“What’s that for?!” he shrieks.
You giggle gleefully, nuzzling your face in his neck. “Happy birthday!” you say, holding him just a fraction tighter. You lean back and loosen your grip on him just enough to grab his cheeks with both hands.
He looked like he would be bursting any second now, his brows furrowed and cheeks coloured red.
“I’ve been waiting all day for this, you know.” He doesn’t know why that did something to him, but he can feel a flutter course through his system and it made him shiver. “I love you, I love you, I love you,” you chant, leaving a kiss on his features one by one after every exclamation.
You were always affectionate, but Kashima is still not used to it. He was never one for physical affection; or affection at all, if he was honest with himself — it had taken him a long time to even admit his feelings for you out loud. Yet, here you were, no sign of hesitation. It was genuine, full of warmth, just like how he always viewed you; the same reason as why he had you saved as a sunflower in his phone.
“Stop,” he uttered between your featherlight kisses, though he didn't truly mean it. Really, he was embarrassed, feeling the tips of his ears burn a shade of tomato at your unabashed display of affection. “You’re being too much.”
Carefully, he moves to set you down. The height difference and his unnatural strength always made him worry if he was being unintentionally rough with you; you, on the other hand, usually chastised him for being too gentle. As he changed out of his shoes, into his slippers, he mumbled: “You didn’t have to… I mean, I don’t really celebrate my birthday, so…”
You make a strangled noise coming from your throat—one from frustration—and drag him towards the dining room by his hand. No matter how much you try to show him an ordinary life, when it came to accepting his role as the main character in his own life, he was frustratingly stubborn and slow to learn. Things had gotten much better over time, but you were still reminded now and then what a cruel life he’d lived.
All the more reason to celebrate him.
“And that’s going to change, starting today,” you declare.
He no longer needed food to survive, but that didn’t mean he didn’t enjoy it regardless. “You may have won last year, but this time I was prepared,” you tell him proudly when you’ve sat him down at the dinner table later, a bowl of freshly made noodle soup and several side dishes neatly laid out.
It’s true that you’d tried to pry his birthday out of him the year prior; before you were officially an item, which had cost you a lot of effort in itself—but you wouldn’t be you if you weren’t even more bull-headed than he was.
You sat down across from him, clearly more giddy than he was about it all, but he wouldn’t complain. He enjoyed your cooking and if he was going to be honest with himself, he felt moved by the fact you put in effort to do something for him, even if he had forgotten about it himself. It was worth celebrating if it meant he could see the sparkle in your eyes. Though he was only half-heartedly playing along at first… maybe this wasn’t so bad, after all.
The two of you dug in—well, Kashima dug in, that was, for as usual, you were busy chatting away. “I was going to make a reservation at some restaurant, Shin told me it’s really good… But I thought you might be uncomfortable taking off your mask to eat, and well, I thought you liked my home cooking so—”
Despite your rambling, he listened attentively. He always did. Over time, you found Kashima was surprisingly considerate. He was looking down at his plate as he ate, but you could tell from his expression he was hanging onto your every word. It was only when you fell silent he looked up. “Is something wrong?”
Sighing softly, you rest your chin on your hands and tilt your head. “Nope.”
And though he looks at you with uncertainty, he doesn’t push it. The only thing he’s comforted by, is seeing the soft expression you're wearing as you watch him. He takes note of how little you’ve touched your own food, sighs and taps your bowl.
He doesn’t need to say anything. The two of you have grown attuned to one another in the time he’s been here; something that, when he thinks about it too deeply, makes him feel strange and complete. A feeling he may have never felt before, and he comes to understand then that there’s been a lot of those.
Just as he’d meant, you perk up and begin eating. In between bites, you tell him a little bit about your birthdays as you grew up yourself—they were nothing special, either, but he still felt that old envy tug at him because at least you were remembered.
It’s all fine, because you remember him now.
“Oh,” you say when he’s halfway and you’ve been chatting away again, even without his input, “I forgot to mention! You should finish up quickly, because we have somewhere to be.”
“We do?”
“Mhm! Anyway I’m off to get changed, be ready in fifteen.”
Either you don’t take note of his confusion or you simply ignore it, but you get up and leave the room regardless, and he can only stare at the soft green wall in bewilderment as he hears you stumble around the bedroom.
Kashima is painfully aware that he can never keep up with you, and he never will; he will always be several steps behind, and that’s fine to him, so long as you keep looking back to see if he’s still there.
As long as you won’t forget him.
It’s almost dark by the time you have reached your destination. You dragged him out in a casual outfit bringing little to nothing with you. Nothing to help him with clues there, as—surprisingly—you wouldn’t let up for once.
You were, in most cases, awful at keeping surprises and secrets. As an observant man who paid close attention to those he considered important, he had quickly seen through your patterns and learned to read your expressions like a book.
Even that was unsuccessful tonight, and after asking for the tenth time where you were going, he’d finally given up.
Staring at the building in front of him, he tries to suppress the excitement he feels coursing through him. If he were a dog, he’d be wagging his tail by now—and by the look of it, you know it, too.
“Karaoke?”
“I heard from my sources that you like going to karaoke, so I booked us a room to sing to our heart’s content.”
The cyborg scrapes his throat and straightens himself up, doing his best to look nonchalant. “Yeah, sure…”
He doesn’t get the time to say anything else, because you’re skipping up the steps, disappearing through the door. “…I like karaoke…?”
Now who on earth have you been talking to?
Despite his efforts to come off as nonchalant as possible, one of the first things that happened when you two were getting comfortable in your reserved room, in true you fashion, was bickering.
Apparently, your music tastes during karaoke just didn’t quite align.
It’s not like you weren’t aware of his choice of music; you’d caught him many times in his workshop, singing along to music you’d expect your grandfather to listen to, and every road trip turned into a back and forth because you hogged the aux and Kashima couldn’t stand the metal he thought was just noise.
It took him longer than he’d like to admit before he figured you were riling him up on purpose. Under the dim, tacky disco light, he saw your face contort into several awkward expressions before you finally cracked, the mischief spilling out. “I thought you didn’t want to sing?”
He grumbled and turned his attention to the wall. It was probably once white, but the paint had turned yellow with time and cracked in several spots. “I don’t. I just don't want to hear you sing noise…”
“Fiiiiiine, I’ll pick something soft but only if you sing a duet with me!”
“No…”
But he looks up, his own mistake, because you know he’s weak. If there was anything about him, it was that he loved to make those he dedicated his time to happy, and you knew that very well.
Too well.
Though he knows you're deliberately looking as sadly as possible, it works. “Just one song, then...”
You decide on “Just Like Heaven” by The Cure, and for once he has nothing to remark on your music taste.
One song turns into ten, and without realising he’s let his guard down, you find him singing passionately to his heart’s content. Laughing when he misses a beat, he doesn’t even notice. You sing an array of different songs, from older city pop to globally popular rock songs.
It’s not often that you see Kashima this carefree, as uptight and shy as he can be, and even when he’s loose for his terms, there’s still that opera kid aura around him. He looks terribly misplaced in this rundown karaoke building, in his perfectly neat suit and tie, singing with his pinkie up. But you’re glad to see him make an attempt at relaxing; that was one half of your goal for today.
It’s your turn next, but you convince him to sing a duet to “The Time of My Life”. Your mother was to blame for this, given how often she had rewatched the move when you were little.
Halfway through the song, the music cuts out. Awkwardly, Kashima lowers his mic, but the lack of background music doesn’t stop you. Unlike your partner, you feel no shame, going out of your way to sing his parts as out of tune as you could possibly get.
And he watches, part of him feeling embarrassed (surely other guests have heard it by now) and the other part pure adoration.
It was just a silly thing, making reservations for karaoke with the two of you.
But this was perhaps his first birthday party, and you’d cared enough to even remember.
Strangely, he feels a rather out of body experience at that fact. He'd never been interested in any of this stuff, let alone a serious relationship with a woman as chaotic as you. His polar opposite.
Deep in thought, he’s slow to react when you climb on a chair, laughing like there’s not a care in the world. “What are you doing? Get down, dear. You’re going to fall.”
Well, at least you kept him on his toes.
It’s almost the end of the nineteenth when you’re on the way back home, slowly trudging up the slope with an arm hooked through his. You’ve used up most of your energy already, and so the pace back home is terribly slow, but Kashima doesn’t mind.
“You know, the cats got you some birthday gifts,” you inform him suddenly after a couple minutes of silence. “You should open them when we get back.”
“…The cats? Really now.”
“What? You question me? I gave them a budget, you know.”
He snorts, a sound you still haven’t gotten used to and maybe never will. You hope you won’t, because if you get used to it, it will become normal; and if it becomes normal, you’re more likely to take it for granted. There is nothing about this man you’d want to take for granted.
That’s what you think, anyway.
It’s peaceful at night like this, especially in the summer, with the neighbourhood rather quiet and empty.
“You didn’t have to throw me a birthday party, you know. It’s just another day.”
Frowning, you turn and step in front of him, walking along backwards. His first instinct is to reach out, thinking you’ll end up hurt that way (and he’s probably right about that, for he knows you too well).
“It's not just another day. Without that day, I would’ve never known you. So shut it and let me celebrate you.”
It’s a good thing he wears his mask in public, so you can’t see how he rapidly blinks the watery eyes away. What good could there possibly come from knowing him?
“Oh, by the way, the kids have planned a surprise birthday party for you tomorrow,” you change the topic abruptly, oblivious to his shift in demeanour. “But you didn’t hear that from me, so act surprised, ok?”
Perhaps birthdays weren’t so bad after all.
Written by a human in Ellipsus.