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Already, the pilot’s day starts on a bad note.
The very first thing he notices upon waking up — to the shrill sound of his alarm clock, no less — is a dull ache spreading from his back, up to his shoulders, up to his neck and settling at the back of his skull, making his head feel like it’s being caved in with a very heavy hammer.
The second thing he notices is that he left a cup of coffee on his nightstand. Something he notices when he mindlessly bats a hand around trying to grab the screaming clock that is doing nothing but worsen his headache, only to dunk his hand directly into the lone mug he seems to have forgotten to drink last night, getting his hand — and the sleeve of his white shirt — soaked in cold coffee.
The third thing he notices, once he finally manages to get up from his bed and wander into the kitchen, both to dump the mug in the sink and get some medicine for his pounding head, is the date on the calendar sitting right by the kitchen door, the number circled around with a red pen and making it stand out against the white paper.
It’s the twenty-ninth of June.
…
It appears to be his birthday today.
Wonderful.
The man drags a hand across his face, staring blankly at the wall and contemplating whether or not to just hole himself in his room with what’s left of that bottle of whiskey he has sitting on the shelf or not.
He’s never been very fond of his birthday. As a child, it was just another day for his parents — and for the adults his parents were friends with — to patronise him, or for people he barely remembered but who claimed to have known him since he was a baby to coo over him like he was a newborn fawn struggling to get up.
Every year until he was about nine-years-old, he asked for a box of colored pencils for his birthday. Every year, he was given something else. Something ‘more fitting for a young man’, as his mother told him again and again.
He stopped asking for anything after a while.
His parents used to send him letters and birthday cards the first few years after he left home to enlist in the Air Force. The letters began to dwindle after a while, but he was too busy to really be bothered by anything. Now, at nearly forty, he hasn’t received a single sign of life from either of them in years. Not even after he came back from the desert.
It still stings. That feeling of abandonment he grew used to as a child flaring back up again. It hurts. He tries to pretend it doesn’t.
Well, who the hell cares. The aviator intends on spending his thirty-eight birthday like any other regular day. Birthdays never meant much to him, anyway.
He carries on with his morning routine, putting some more coffee to brew and starting to prepare some breakfast when he hears soft, tiny footsteps approaching.
“Good morning,” the little prince chirps as he enters the kitchen and sits at the stool he claimed for himself at the small table the pilot has in his kitchen.
“Morning,” the man greets back, never taking his eyes off the day-old bread he’s taken to toasting.
Ever since the desert, the aviator has had a second little person living with him at his tiny apartment. The little prince had nowhere else to go, no way to go back to his planet, so of course the pilot offered to take him back to Paris with him.
It was possibly the best decision the man has ever made in his life.
The boy is still just as curious — and stubborn — as ever, and now that he has a whole new world to explore — this time with someone who actually answers his endless questions — he loves making the most of it.
It’s heartwarming, how much the prince fascinates himself with humanity. He has a love for Earth that the man hasn’t seen in a very long time.
But, again, he’s not a grown-up. His love for life is genuine. Naive, even.
“Why is it that today has your name written on it?”
The man hums in question, arranging two plates — one large and one small — and placing two slices of toasted bread each, then bringing them to where the boy is staring intently at the calendar.
The prince points at today’s date, and to where his name is scribbled in red pen with a badly drawn cake with candles and a little smiley face underneath it. Damn you, Léon.
He sighs.
“That is there because today is my birthday.” He explains, taking a sip of coffee. He prays to whatever god there is that the boy doesn’t press further.
The boy tilts his head.
“What is that, again?” He asks with a mouth full of bread.
The aviator sighs again. Yep. God damn it.
“A birthday is the day of the year a person has been born, hence the name, birth-day.” He explains, pushing a napkin to the boy’s hand, as he’s already getting butter all over his face. “It tends to be something that people celebrate, since it’s a marker that you’ve lived another year.”
The pilot can see the gears turning in the boy’s head.
“And today is your birthday?” He asks, eyes widening.
The pilot nods, and the prince makes a surprised noise, slamming a hand on the table in excitement.
“What! And you didn’t tell me?!” He exclaims, looking at the aviator like he just betrayed him in the most horrible way. The man snorts, hiding his amusement by taking another sip of coffee.
“Well, in my defence I completely forgot it was today,” he says as the boy glares at him, “and plus, I don’t normally celebrate my birthday like most people do.”
That makes the child pause, tilting his head at the pilot again.
“Really?” He asks. “Why not?”
The pilot shrugs, taking a bite of his breakfast.
“Is it something that makes you sad?” The boy asks after a moment, his blue eyes bordering on sad. The man shrugs again.
“Not exactly, no. It’s just that I don’t have the custom of celebrating on my birthday, is all.”
And it’s true. Léon tends to try and drag him out for a drink, and his other coworkers tend to give him their congratulations on the occasion that they see him on the day, but overall he’s not really a going out type of person. He tends to prefer spending the day by himself — preferably with a good book or a nice tune playing on the radio.
He sees no reason to celebrate. It’s just a day like any other. He just happens to be one year older.
But it seems like the prince disagrees, seeing as he pouts with a discontented expression.
“Well that won’t do.” He grumbles, slouching on the chair. The pilot rolls his eyes with a fond smile, pushing the plate of toast closer to the boy.
“Eat your food before I eat it myself.” He says, getting up to put his own dirty dishes in the sink. The boy grumbles again, but seemingly listens.
The man waits by the door as the boy finishes eating — one thing he’s learned from the past few months living with the little prince, it’s that he has a pretty bad case of separation anxiety; he gets antsy if the aviator is away from him for too long, following him around the house on his days off and curling up next to him on the sofa after he comes back from work, clinging to his arm while the pilot reads a book until the boy falls asleep —.
“What are some things people do when it’s their birth-day?” The boy asks, staring back at the calendar. The man thinks for a moment.
“Hm… other than your usual celebrating and being showered with attention and praise and such, it’s common for the birthday boy or girl to receive gifts from friends or family.” The aviator explains, having learned long ago to be as candid as possible when answering the prince, and not to treat him like a fool, like many grown-ups tend to do with children.
The boy hums, then points back to the doodles on the calendar.
“And why is there a cake drawn? Why does it have candles?” He questions.
“That’s because it is also tradition for the birthday person to receive a cake with candles — normally, the amount of candles on the cake is the number the person is turning, but in my case it would be way too many, and it would be dangerous, so don’t even think about it. After the candles are lit, people sing a song, and then the birthday person blows out the candles and makes a wish.”
The little prince listens in pure fascination, soaking up every little bit of information the pilot is giving him.
“Wow, that sounds wonderful? When did that start?” He asks, and the pilot waves a hand around.
“That, I don’t know. Sorry, kid.”
The prince slumps in his seat, but it doesn’t seem to affect him for long. He goes quiet for a moment, his eyes narrowed ever so slightly — something the pilot has learned to know means he is deep in thought. Which tends to mean he’s plotting something.
“Do we have any candles?” He eventually asks.
The aviator opens a drawer, rummaging around, until he pulls a lone, half-melted taper candle he has for when the power goes out. The prince smiles, getting up and rushing to where the man is leaning on the counter.
“That’s perfect!” He says, reaching for it, but the pilot pulls it up and away from his reach.
“What do you want it for?” He quizzes, and the boy gives him a deadpan look.
“We’re lighting it for you to make a wish, silly!” He states like it’s the most obvious thing ever. The pilot can’t help but smile, something warm spreading across his chest. “I want to light it. Please?” He asks with wide, puppy-dog eyes.
“Absolutely not. You’re still not allowed to mess with fire.” The aviator shuts him down, and the boy gives him an annoyed frown.
The pilot pulls out a lighter from his pocket, carefully lighting the candle before crouching next to the little prince, careful not to let the flame too close to his hair — even though it probably wouldn’t do anything. The boy claims to be a star, after all.
The prince stares at the open flame, mesmerised by the orange glow of the dancing fire. He stares at it long enough that the man starts to get worried that he’ll damage his vision. The boy finally looks away, clapping his hands.
“Good! Now you make your wish.” He states, sitting down on the floor.
“That’s not how it goes normally, you know.” The pilot says, barely containing a laugh.
“Well, I don’t know how the birth-day song goes, so we can just not do that and you can make your wish. That sounds more fun than a song, anyway.” The boy tells him, on the edge of getting impatient. The man fully laughs this time, sitting down in front of the boy, careful not to let any candlewax drip to the floor.
“Okay, okay, I’ll make my wish.” He relents, and the prince smiles.
The aviator closes his eyes, thinking hard. The two sit in silence on the kitchen floor, both focused on the candle the man holds in his hands. Then, after a beat, he blows out the candle.
When he opens his eyes again, he sees the prince looking confused.
“Is that it?” He asks, and the aviator nods.
“Yep. I’ve made my wish.” He replies, putting the candle away and getting up.
“Oh.” The little prince says, staring at the floor. “What did you wish for?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Why not?”
“Because it won’t come true if I do.” The pilot explains as he offers the boy a hand, pulling him up and onto his feet.
“Oh, alright! That’s okay.” he adds with a grin. “I hope your wish does come true.”
The aviator smiles at the bright-eyed boy in front of him.
Yeah, his wish did come true, that’s for sure.
“I’m sure it will, kid.” He says, ruffling the little prince’s golden hair. The boy giggles.
“Alright, shall we do something fun now?” The prince asks, walking behind the aviator as they exit the kitchen.
“What for?”
“It’s your special day, isn’t it? Your birth-day. You said people do fun stuff on their birth-days. Then we shall do something that’s fun.” He states with an air of finality — like he won’t be convinced otherwise. He then plops himself on the sofa, picking up the book they were reading the day before, Peter and Wendy.
The man shakes his head, fondness growing in his chest again.
Maybe the rest of the pilot’s day won’t be as bad as he thought it would be.