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-1
The first birthday Misato is able to remember celebrating is his sixth. He remembers his dad brought home a big cake and his mom decorated the whole house in streamers and balloons. He remembers being so excited. He had invited anyone in his class he had ever talked to because his parents said he could.
He spent his time waiting for people to show up watching gymnastics videos on youtube on his mom's ipad. He was so engrossed in the videos, it took an hour to realize that no one had shown up at all. When he looked up from a video he had already watched before and found the house still empty, he wondered how long he had been waiting. A check to the clock on the ipad told him that no one was coming.
To say he was disappointed would be an understatement. The kind of grief a six year old endures when no one shows up to his birthday party is a particularly devastating kind. Misato had never been one to cry unnecessarily, but when his parents had checked on him in the living room to see if he was still engrossed in videos, they found him very close to it.
"Oh Ryoya, baby," his mother had swept in and pulled him into her warm and comforting embrace, "It's okay honey, it's going to be okay."
That was all it took for the dam to break. He pressed his tiny face into her shoulder and sobbed. Big crocodile tears of tiny sadness. It felt like the end of the world.
His dad rushed over to them, sliding down onto the floor next to the couch with them, and joined the embrace.
"It's going to be okay," his mother repeated, gently stroking his back as he cried, "let it out. You're going to be okay."
"Why didn't they want to come?" he asked in a small voice once he had managed to calm down. They seemed like his friends at school, why was this any different.
"I don't know sweetheart," his mother's face was full of pity, "but I do know they're missing out. They don't know how special you are, but that's their problem, not yours."
Misato didn't really believe that, he'd seen the kids at school being mean to others for no reason. He knew they could turn on anyway on the drop of a dime. He just never thought it would happen to him.
"Why don't we get out of here," his dad spoke up, "Let's go do something fun. Do you want ice cream, Ryoya? We can go get ice cream and then go find something fun to do. I could go for some mango sorbet. How does that sound?"
Misato rubbed his fists into his eyes and nodded. It ended up being one of his favorite birthdays.
-2
Misato celebrated his eighth birthday in the hospital. It was a month after the accident.
They had been going on a road trip. They were supposed to spend the weekend in tokyo watching a rhythmic gymnastics tournament. Misato had begged on his hands and knees, fought tooth and nail to be able to go see it. His favorite gymnast, Shida Shusaku was competing with his team. He so desperately wanted to go. His parents finally caved, unable to say no to his enthusiasm.
A drunk driver had passed out at the wheel and the car swerved into theirs. It was brutal and terrifying. His mom had died on impact. His dad was still in an unstable condition in the hospital with no guarantee for recovery. Misato got out of it with only a broken arm and a lifetime of trauma. He didn't think he would ever be able to forget the image of his mother's lifeless body in front of him while he waited for the police to come save them.
The nurses brought a cupcake with a candle into his hospital room and sang happy birthday to him. The too white walls of the hospital made the too sweet buttercream icing that much worse.
His aunt visited later in the day, bringing him a present. It was a new gymnastics costume. He wouldn't be able to continue practicing for a while anyway until his arm healed. He wasn't sure he wanted to keep practicing in the first place.
His aunt sat with him in the hospital the whole night. His mother's sister. He didn't know how she was keeping it together so well but he figured it was because he was there with her. Adults always tried to be stronger around children.
The nail in the coffin came the next morning with the news that Shida Shusaku had injured his knee during competition and was forced to retire at the prime of his career.
His father died a week later.
-3
Misato's ninth birthday was the first he ever spent without his parents. His aunt did her best to cheer him up and make the day fun, but smack in the middle of the anniversary of his parents' deaths, Misato just wanted to spend the day sulking in his new room at his aunt's house or overworking himself in the gym.
Aunt Hirose was wonderful by all accounts, and he would be forever grateful to her for taking him in and putting up with his immeasurable grief when she was going through her own. She really was the best person to take him in, but sometimes she could be a bit overbearing. He knew she was trying her best, he did, but her incessant pestering the past week about what he wanted to do for his birthday was becoming borderline obnoxious. He was still reeling from the anniversary of his mother's death, and he knew his father's was coming up too. He just wanted to be left alone.
He finally agreed to go out with her just to get her to leave him alone, but he made clear his reluctance and annoyance.
"Trust me," she said, "I know exactly what you need today."
She brought him to the ice cream shop that was close to his childhood home and they got four cups of ice cream. Instead of letting him eat it immediately, she put them all in a portable cooler in the car she'd borrowed from her neighbor. She then drove them silently out of Iwanuma City and into the countryside of Miyagi.
"Where are we going?" Misato asked, curious out winning over prolonged annoyance.
"I know some people that want to wish you happy birthday," was her only response and Misato resigned himself to staring out the window silently while they drove.
He knew with a startling clarity exactly what they were doing the moment Hirose turned into the cemetery. He had refused to go visit his parents graves after the funeral. He didn't want to face them. He didn't know if he could. His nine year old body held so much grief and so much sadness. It wasn't fair to make him suffer more than he had to.
"Trust me," his aunt said before he could start panicking and so he kept his mouth shut and followed her into the rows and rows of graves.
When they reached his parents' headstone, she pulled the ice cream out of the cooler. It was half melted and kind of gross, but Misato dug in with more enthusiasm than he had in a while. She set two of the cups of his parents' favorite mango sorbet in front of the grave and they sat and ate ice cream while Misato told his parents all about the past year with all its ups and downs. He let himself cry too.
His aunt was right. It was exactly what he needed.
-4
When Misato turned thirteen, he was in middle school. He was a regular fixture on the rhythmic gymnastics team and he thanked the stars every day that his aunt refused to let him quit after the accident.
He had friends now. He wasn't insanely close to his team but they always made sure to include him in things. He had Mashiro even though the smaller boy had a malicious streak. He was the closest friend he'd ever had.
He didn't like to tell people when his birthday is but sometimes people found out anyway. On his thirteenth birthday, his coach walked into practice after double checking the roster where it listed student birthdays and very loudly wished him well.
His teammates, though surprised, were happy to clap him on the back and give him birthday punches and sing loudly and off-key as they did warm up stretches. He could accept that happily as what it was and was grateful they didn't insist on more. Mashiro was a different story.
"Why don't you want to do something?" he whined when they left practice. They lived in similarly directions and so it had become routine to walk home together at least part of the way.
"I told you, I have plans."
"Why wasn't I invited? I thought we were friends Misa-pon!"
"We are friends."
"Then why can't I come?" Misato was probably the only person on the planet who was immune to Mashiro's pout.
"It's a tradition I have with my aunt. It's special and private," he was normally pretty patient with Mashiro's excitability and persistence but this was a special circumstance. He was reaching the end of his rope today and he wanted to be left alone.
Mashiro, ever insistent on not picking up on when to leave people alone, pressed on, "What kind of tradition? Is it fun? Are you sure I can't join? What makes it so private?"
Misato felt something snap inside him. He balled his hands into fists and turned sharply on Mashiro.
"I'm visiting my parents graves because they died five years ago around this time and we go every year and it's private because they're my parents so no you can't come so can you please leave me alone now?"
Mashiro look rightfully stunned and a little ashamed. Misato didn't wait for a response. He stormed ahead and walked the rest of the way home alone. He told his parents about it at the grave and Aunt Hirose reminded him that he should probably apologize for yelling the next day. He made a point of it when Mashiro looked at him from across the gym with sad eyes and a fearful twist to his mouth.
They never talked about his birthday again.
-5
It was both surreal and bittersweet to be training under Shida Shusaku in high school. On the one hand, he was training under his childhood idol. He couldn't be more excited about it. At the same time though, even the thought of his coach was still a sore spot. He had never really forgiven himself for the accident and it felt cruel that he got to see Shida in the flesh everyday when his parents never got to. He warmed up to the man eventually, and after a forced conversation about why Misato couldn't really look him in the eye, they came to understand each other a lot better.
High school was.. good. He was getting good grades and his class was nice. He was happy with where he was in gymnastics. He had never been closer with a team in his life. He had six close friends now instead of just one. He felt more confident and happy than he had in his whole life.
He was nervous, though, to spend his birthday in the dorms. His aunt had promised to come pick him up in the evening so they could still go to the cemetery. It was a tradition he refused to break and he likely never would. He wasn't sure how to explain his sudden disappearance to his friends and he knew they tended to be overexcitable and loud. Watari's birthday was a true exercise in patience and how much noise his eardrums could handle. He didn't want that. He just wanted a quiet birthday where he could visit his parents and sit alone. Even after eight years, his birthday was still a sad day to him. It was the day he let himself do most of his mourning, he didn't like that interrupted.
On the morning of his sixteenth birthday, he woke up to Futaba staring at him from across the room. He blinked, unsure of what to make of the thoughtful expression on his face.
"What the hell are you staring at?" he said, voice still rough with sleep.
Futaba startled at being caught and scrambled backwards in his own bed. Misato sat up to stare back at him curiously. Futaba had been the most surprising part of coming to Shosukan High. The other first year was full of so many layers of complexity that never failed to have Misato on his toes.
"Nothing," Futaba's answer came out too quick and Misato huffed under his breath, "It's just that.. well today's your birthday right?"
Oh.
Misato nodded warily, resigning himself to whatever fate would befall him now that his teammates had found out.
"Mashiro told me not to mention it to you," Futaba said, because of course he had told Futaba, the bastard. Their last fight over going to different high schools still left a bitter taste in his mouth when he thought about it. They'd since made up but Mashiro was still trying to pretend they weren't friends anymore. Leave it to him to find a way to still look out for Misato despite the distance.
"I know that," Futaba continued, "I wasn't gonna bring it up at all, but I just- I'm really curious. I get it if you don't want to tell me, it's fine. I really don't want to pressure you or anything. I just figured there'd be no harm in asking and-"
"Futaba it's fine," Misato cut him off, he could feel a hint of a smile behind his tired face, "It's just a bad day for me. I don't really like to celebrate and do stuff. I have a tradition with my aunt and other than that I just want to be alone."
"Okay," Futaba looked thoughtful again and Misato squirmed under his scrutinizing gaze, "Is there anything we can do to make it less of a bad day?"
Misato felt his eyes blow wide at the question, caught off guard by the genuineness of it and by how little Futaba had prodded even with his curious nature. He didn't know how to answer. No one had ever asked to help, they'd simply avoided the topic or judged him for not having a bigger birthday or were overzealous in their pity. He was already bad at accepting help, and being faced with such an open offer was a little overwhelming.
Blinking back tears, he looked down at his hands in his lap, "My birthday is right in the middle of both the anniversaries of my parents' deaths. As a kid I just mentally combined all three days and... My aunt and I are going to visit their graves today, and that's the only thing that I want to do. I just want to feel close to them again."
He heard shuffling on the other side of the room and then suddenly Futaba was right there, standing at the edge of his bed. He reached up to gently place a hand on top of Misato's and smiled at him.
"I'll make sure everyone leaves you alone today then," he said and Misato felt his heart grow warm, "I do have one request. You can say no, but I have to ask anyway."
"What?"
"Can we celebrate your birthday tomorrow?"
1
Misato stood impatiently out on the front porch of the house as he watched the sunset. It was the same bright orange color as the day they made it through regionals. It reminded him of mango sorbet and happy memories.
The front door opened behind him and Futaba came spilling out onto the porch, all glowing excitement and his seemingly endless wonder. A grinned brightly at Misato and motioned him inside.
"Thank you for letting us do this," he murmured before leading Misato back into the house and toward the kitchen where the others were undoubtedly waiting with barely contained excitement.
He rounded the corner after Futaba and came face to face with his teammates and friends. Even Kurikoma had somehow snuck in when he wasn't looking and was sitting with her ever stoic eyes staring back at him.
With a shout, they all herded him into the room and proudly showed off their bright streamers and balloons. Onagawa proudly showed off a custom balloon he'd apparently been hiding for a while that had a massive image of Misato's face on it with the words "Birthday Ace" written in a horrible yellow front across it. Watari had made a cake from scratch and gruffly informed him that he'd even called Shida to call his aunt to ask what his favorite flavor was.
They all pushed him down into a chair, lit the candles and shoved the cake in front of his face. Their loud and obnoxious singing was by far the best part. The four upperclassmen spent the entire song trying to outdo each other and subsequently getting louder and louder while Futaba watched on in equal parts amusement and horror. Misato was pretty sure Kurikoma was recording the whole thing but he couldn't be sure because he was so distracted by their antics and how wide he was smiling.
He blew out his candles to another loud cheer and then they all gorged themselves on cake even if it wasn't the best thing to have in the middle of the season.
Misato had never smiled so much in his life, he had never felt so taken care of and loved.
He had enough time to pause and think this is what a birthday is supposed to feel like before letting himself get pulled into his friends' bottomless enthusiasm.