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Shouta is not big on birthdays. He's not good at remembering them, he's even worse at shopping for gifts and the entire rigmarole around birthdays is annoying to him at best.
He knows his own birthday, of course he does, but every year he gets surprised by it coming around again anew, because he simply couldn't care less.
It's a day like any other in his book.
Hizashi is an entirely different matter; he loves birthdays. His own and everyone else’s, too, and he is very good at remembering them and then planning accordingly.
He always has a sweet and fitting present for Shouta at the ready, always has something low-key planned that perfectly suits Shouta's introvert tendencies and he doesn't make a big deal out of it because he knows Shouta wouldn't want that.
Hizashi's own birthday is an entirely different matter, though, because Hizashi likes it big and loud and crowded, so several weeks of planning ahead of time are a must and on the day itself, Hizashi is so busy that he hardly has time to enjoy his own celebration but despite Shouta's lack of understanding that is exactly how Hizashi likes it.
And all of that is to say that Shouta refuses to take the entire blame for the absolute clusterfuck of a situation he finds himself confronted with on a bright and early Monday morning.
"Aizawa, a word please," Nedzu's almost pleasant voice rings out in the hallway and despite the cadence, Shouta immediately tenses.
He does not enjoy speaking to Nedzu; he always gets the impression that he knows more than he lets on and Shouta hates that feeling more than anything but he dutifully turns around and nods at the principal.
"I trust you had a good weekend?" Nedzu asks and immediately, Shouta's eyes narrow.
"Yes?" he hesitantly gives back because already, he has the impression that he's missing something big here.
"And what did you do?" Nedzu inquires further and now Shouta openly frowns at him.
"Why?" he cautiously asks, unwilling to reveal things to Nedzu he clearly already knows, or at the very least suspects and he doesn't like the look on Nedzu's face at all.
Even though facial expressions are difficult to interpret when it comes to Nedzu.
"I just thought you would have made it a very special weekend," Nedzu pleasantly says and clasps his hands in front of his chest.
Shouta waits him out, prompts him to speak again like that and thankfully Nedzu does.
"What with your son's birthday and all."
And there it is, Shouta thinks with mounting despair and Nedzu gives him a look.
"Which you knew. Because it was in his file."
Right. The file. The file CPS handed to them after they applied to foster Hitoshi. The file that is thicker than Shouta wants to think about. The file he started to read and then had to stop shortly after because reading about all of the accusations and the sometimes only thinly veiled abuse Hitoshi had to go through had made him sick to his stomach.
That file.
"Uh-hu," he weakly gives back and Nedzu tilts his head.
"Oh deary me," he mutters and then simply walks away, as if dropping that bomb on Shouta didn't mean anything to him when it completely and absolutely ruined Shouta's entire day.
And ruined it is, that's for certain. Especially when Shouta takes the time he still has before the first period to check Hitoshi's file and there it is, black on white. His birthday is July 1st. Last Wednesday.
They completely missed Hitoshi's birthday and doesn't that make Shouta feel like absolute fucking shit.
Despite the thickness of it, Shouta keeps a copy of Hitoshi's CPS file in his desk as well and he gets it out, to check just how much further he would have had to read to stumble upon the date in there as well and he flips through way too many pages until he comes across his birth certificate.
And then, because what the actual fucking fuck is happening here, he looks for Hitoshi's government ID as well and after that a day has never ever felt this fucking long before.
~*~*~
By the time Shouta comes home, he feels as if he's vibrating with—something. Anger maybe. Nerves definitely. The uncanny feeling that something is most definitely wrong here and the desperate need to clear this all up added together with the despondent feeling that he's probably not going to like whatever excuse Hitoshi will give, if he's even able to give any.
Much to his relief he finds Hitoshi and Hizashi camped out in the living-room; Hizashi on his laptop and Hitoshi pouring over his homework, which means Shouta doesn't have to go through the arduous process of gathering them both together.
He simply sits down on the table, practically obscuring Hitoshi's homework, who looks up at him with a deep frown.
"Excuse me, I was doing that," Hitoshi says and Hizashi looks over at Shouta as well.
"You'll have time for that later," Shouta says, and Hizashi already clocks in on the fact that clearly something is up, because he closes his laptop.
"Shou?"
"After you tell us why you didn't mention that your birthday was on the first of July," Shouta goes on as if he didn't hear Hizashi, who sucks in a surprised breath, but Shouta isn't paying attention to him.
His gaze is locked on to Hitoshi, who cringes as if he knows exactly where this is going.
"Or that it was on March 23rd. Or that it's going to be on August 7th."
"What?" Hizashi mutters, clearly confused and Shouta feels much the same.
Because all of these three dates are on Hitoshi's official documents and Shouta has no clue what is going on here.
"Ah," Hitoshi breathes out as if he was just waiting for that to happen and Shouta fixes him with a look.
"Care to explain?"
"Don't know what to say," Hitoshi says with a shrug and Hizashi turns towards him.
"How can you not—Hitoshi! When's your birthday?"
"I don't know," Hitoshi admits and now that is something Shouta doesn't believe.
"How can you not know your birthday?" he incredulously asks and for a moment, anger flashes through Hitoshi's eyes, before he very deliberately schools his face back into apathy.
"Because I don't know, okay? It's not as if my birth parents handed me a file with all the important documents before dropping me off at CPS. They dropped me like unwanted garbage in the middle of the night and excuse me for not remembering my birth date but I was fucking five!"
So much for apathy, Shouta thinks, but he very deliberately doesn't react otherwise, because Hitoshi's outburst is understandable and certainly not something he's going to get punished for.
"They didn't give you anything?" Hizashi asks for clarification and Hitoshi shrugs.
"Were too desperate to get rid of me, I guess," he mutters and Shouta leans forward to take Hitoshi's hands in his.
"Why three different dates?" he wants to know and Hitoshi takes a deep breath, his gaze focused on Shouta's hands.
"I remembered that I had birthdays, of course, but I couldn't remember the date, just that it was warm. So when CPS had to get a new birth certificate for me, they simply put a random birthday down. And then the one on my ID—" Hitoshi's shoulders rise to his ears, though he doesn't take his hands back. "I think I was in the hospital when they issued it and clearly no one bothered to look at my already falsified birthday, so they just put something down."
"And the one on the school file?" Shouta gently asks since clearly Hizashi is already too emotional to do it, because he's silently crying at Hitoshi's side.
"I put that one down," Hitoshi admits. "I knew both my ID and my birth certificate date were wrong, so I figured if I'm already putting down something that's not true, why not choose one myself?"
"And why didn't you tell us about it?" Hizashi wants to know, his voice coming out shaky and hurt and he's still crying and Hitoshi ducks into himself as if he has to protect all of his squishy bits.
"Honestly?" he asks, as if he can't believe that anyone would want him to be honest, and Shouta nods very enthusiastically.
"I didn't think it mattered, because it never has and I also simply—forgot."
He says it as if this isn't the single most heartbreaking thing Shouta has ever heard and Hizashi doesn't hesitate to pull him into a hug.
"Oh, baby," he almost wails out and Shouta watches how Hitoshi goes stiff in Hizashi's arm for one heartbreaking second before he absolutely melts into it.
Hitoshi hasn't been with them long, but for that time they have made sure to always hug him at least once a day, but maybe they need to step it up. Maybe once a day is not enough to make up for a lifetime of neglect.
When Hitoshi finally disentangles himself from Hizashi, he's bright red in the face but he also seems pleased as punch. At least for a second, before his face falls again.
"Those birthdays with my birth parents—those are the only ones I really remember having. Birthday celebrations certainly weren't a thing in any of the foster homes I've been and especially not for me. So I just—I don't know, I tried to forget all about it, you know."
"You must know that a birthday with us would have been a big thing," Shouta gently says, because there's just no way that Hitoshi could even think for a single second that they wouldn't care or wouldn't do anything for him and going by the chagrined look on his face, Shouta hit the mark.
"Did you think you would be asking for too much?" Hizashi asks, clearly accurately pinpointing the issue because Hitoshi ducks his head again.
"'They just took me in, so I can't be asking for things, or demanding they do something for me'?" Shouta guesses and he gets the tiniest nod in response for it.
"I mean, I wouldn't even have—but just telling you would have meant—"
Well, at least he clearly understands that they would have wanted to do something for him, which is progress as far is Shouta is concerned.
"It would have meant we do something for your birthday," Hizashi finishes his thought out loud and Hitoshi nods, clearly miserable.
"I didn't want to impose, so—and it's not even that important. Like I said, I forget about it most of the time, and that's fine, and with the three dates there's hardly a real date to celebrate anyway and—"
"Hitoshi," Shouta interrupts him. "We want to do something for you on your birthday. It's important to us, because you're family and family deserves to have their birthdays celebrated. And if you're worried about the three dates, we can either celebrate on all three days or you just pick out the one you like the most. It doesn't have to be that difficult."
"That sounds very difficult," Hitoshi wetly says, his eyes shining suspiciously and Shouta reaches out to pull him in, letting Hitoshi hide his face away in his shoulder.
"It's not. It's not at all difficult," he says, damn well knowing that they are not only talking about the birthdays.
Hitoshi has referred to himself as difficult often enough for them to know that he truly believes himself to be that.
"We would love to do something for you, to celebrate your birth," Hizashi chimes in and Shouta feels Hitoshi's shaky breath more than he hears it.
"No one has ever—"
"We do," Shouta cuts him off, because he doesn't want him thinking about that. And because it bears repeating.
They do. They would celebrate a day a month for the rest of Hitoshi's life if it would make him happy and Shouta just hopes that one of these days he understands that.
"We really do, kiddo."
"Is there a date you like better than the others? One you would like to stick with, to celebrate?"
"As in going forward?" Hitoshi unsurely asks and Shouta and Hizashi share a glance.
"Definitely going forward, because you're staying here," Hizashi gives back, reiterates that point for the hundredth time, "but also belatedly. If you want to chose the March one, we can still celebrate it, same as with the July one. A belated birthday celebration has never hurt anyone."
Hitoshi stays quiet for a long while, and neither Shouta nor Hizashi rush him. They know it must be overwhelming for him to have all of these things offered to him and to have to make a decision when before he wasn't even asked and they are willing to give him as much time as he needs.
Shouta is in fact just about to remark that he doesn't have to decide anything today when Hitoshi picks himself out of Shouta's shoulder.
"The July one," he mutters, fiddling with the hem of his shirt. "It's the one I picked for myself, because of UA and so many good things happened there so—it has to be the one in July."
"Okay, then that's decided," Hizashi excitedly says and claps his hands together before he wilts under Shouta's glare.
"Now, last decision to be made today," Shouta promises Hitoshi as he catches his gaze. "Do you want to have a belated party or do you want to wait until next year?"
"And just know that we're happy to do either!" Hizashi chimes in, giving Hitoshi an encouraging nod.
This time, he comes to a decision much faster.
"Belated," he mumbles and then a flash of pure panic crosses his face. "But don't ask me how today. I can't—no more decisions today, please. I need some time."
"Completely understandable," Shouta agrees, because it is, and there will be time during the rest of the week to haunt him for what he'd like to do for his birthday party.
Shouta is just happy that they mostly cleared this up and going by the beaming smile on Hizashi's face and the tentative one on Hitoshi's he'd say his family is feeling the same.
And for now, that's really all that matters.