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It's three pm.
Itsuki is in the kitchen, and he's chopping up chilis to add to the mapo tofu he was making for his birthday. Rokuta and Kei wanted to make his birthday dinner for him but, well, if he let them use his kitchen then the chance of their apartment burning down will be high. Itsuki really doesn't want to spend his birthday trying to fight a fire.
"Kei-chan! I think you'll have to put the streamer there!" Rokuta's clear voice can be heard from the kitchen. Well, to be clear, there's not a lot that can't be heard from the kitchen seeing as how small it is.
"Like this?" Kei replies and there's the sound of tape being cut as they continue to decorate the apartment. A task they decided to undertake since they were banned from the kitchen for today.
"Perfect!" Rokuta says. Itsuki can imagine the happy face he's making, and can hear the snap of a photo.
Rokuta and Kei stay up all night so they can be the first to greet him exactly at midnight. Itsuki think they're wasting energy since who else will greet Itsuki a happy birthday today? The Alter Trigger scientists? Zero, who barely remembers them now?
Still, they stay up. Rokuta is all yawns, practically being dragged and carried by Kei (a funny picture in of itself when Kei is all bones and Rokuta is now all muscle) when they burst into his tiny room bringing streamers and a small cake.
"There's a bigger cake later!" Rokuta says before his face turns into an expression which tells Itsuki that the bigger cake later was supposed to be a secret. "Oops--forget about that."
"Any birthday wishes?" Kei smoothly covers for Rokuta's mistake.
The tiny cake is bright white with splotches of teal green. There's a singular candle burning brightly in the middle of it. It's simplistic, a minimal design that Itsuki can't help but like.
"Well." Itsuki begins but doesn't continue. His face must be contorted into something unpleasant since Rokuta barks out a laugh.
"Well?" Kei prompts him further, patient as always.
Itsuki thinks some more and more, finds he doesn't have anything else to wish for. Finds something resembling contentment and happiness inside his chest that he can't help his next few words. "Is it really okay to be this happy, I wonder."
The room goes still. Kei looks at him with an undecipherable look. Itsuki regrets his words immediately because he doesn't want Kei to go back to like he's waking eggshells around them for not being there when he couldn't be there.
"Take it easy, Itsuki-nii!" Rokuta practically tackles him into a hug as he says this. "For a smart guy, you sure seem to ask dumb questions, huh?"
"Rokuta," Itsuki warns with no real heat behind his voice. He readjusts himself so he can carry Rokuta properly.
But of course, like always, Rokuta is right.
The mapo tofu is bright red.
Itsuki's mouth waters as he continues stirring the pan. He got too carried away and added way too much chilis to the dish that he doesn't think Rokuta and Kei can eat it well. And he's proven right when he brings it to the dinner table later during their small party.
"Oh." There's not much that terrifies Miyama Kei, but it's the first time Itsuki's seen him look this nervous since their very first meeting. "What a... Red dish."
"L-looks good Itsuki-nii!" Rokuta lies through his mouth. He's already reaching towards his water even though he hasn't even tried the dish yet.
"I can make another dish, so people can enjoy tonight--" Itsuki's already in the process of standing up when both Rokuta and Kei's hands reach out to stop him.
"No." Kei says, decisively nodding which Rokuta mirrors. "We'll eat it. It's your birthday after all."
"Yeah! What Kei-nii said." Rokuta says, nodding happily even though the grip on his glass of water says otherwise. "It really does look good, Itsuki-nii!"
Itsuki considers this for a moment. It doesn't seem right that they'll willingly torture themselves for one night when it won't cost him anything to make a different simple dish so they can eat comfortably. But, well, the both of them look so determined to eat the mapo tofu that no one is forcing them to eat.
"If you say so." Itsuki concedes, sitting back down to eat.
(Itsuki eats majority of the mapo tofu.
Kei taps out after one bite, his face still red from the spiciness. Rokuta manages to finish majority of his dish before exclaiming that he couldn't feel his tongue anymore and then joining Kei at trying to cool down their mouths with an insane amount of water.
Itsuki looks at Kei and Rokuta, still desperately trying to alleviate the burning on their tongues by drinking a lot of water, and wishes that his stupid eyes can work on committing to his mind forever memories like this.
"Ah!" Rokuta suddenly exclaims, his tongue still out. "Awmos' forgo'!"
He quickly gets out of the room and brings in a modestly sized cake. It's still white and minimally decorated, but this time there's three blobs of frosting on top that look suspiciously like the three of them. The Itsuki blob is in the middle with a party hat on. The cake looks like it was from an expensive store, but the way it was haphazardly decorated, their bandaged fingers, and the heavy milk cartons Itsuki found deep in their trash the during trash collection day says otherwise. Itsuki feels like he might cry.
"Told you there's a bigger cake--Are you crying Itsuki-nii!?" Rokuta puts the cake on the table before going over to where Itsuki was.
"No." Itsuki replies but discretely wipes his eyes. "There was something in my eye."
"Oh! That's what it was!" Rokuta grins at him and he looks so different from what he was back then, back when things were difficult, back when his smiles used to be forced. "You worry me a lot Itsuki-nii!"
"I do, huh?" Itsuki says, his eyes still on the cake.
"You do." This time, it's Kei who replies. Itsuki looks at him, surprised. "You do a lot for us, Itsuki. Sometimes at your own personal cost."
"Well." Itsuki doesn't know exactly what to say. "Pot meets kettle."
"Meets pan?" Rokuta says before laughing boisterously at his own joke.
All thing's considered. It was a good birthday.)