Happy Birthday, Tachibana-san
It's a day late, but any day is a good day to read about Tachibana having a birthday, right? Enjoy~
Len wants me to explain that in one of her scenes, she used "nii-san," which means older brother, and is a way of addressing a male who's older than you (but that you're more familiar with). -Rin
Tachibana An handed her older brother a shopping list the second he returned home from school.
"I need all of these things by tomorrow. Will you go shopping for me?" When the elder Tachibana opened his mouth to protest (it was his birthday, after all), An looked up at him with pleading eyes, and he gave in.
"Alright." An threw her arms around him.
"Thank you, brother!" She released him and ushered him out the door with the list. When the door had closed she turned around.
"Alright, he's gone. I gave him a list of things that don't exist to shop for." The Fudomine team emerged from their hiding places around the room, armed with streamers and other party supplies.
"Mori-kun and Uchimura-kun, you two are in charge of wrapping my brother's presents. Ishida-kun and Sakurai-kun, you two are in charge of the cake. And Kamio-kun and Ibu-kun, you're in charge of decorations." Having given her orders, An went to her room to make a birthday card.
"Hmm..." Tachibana Kippei was sure he'd been with An to pick up dry cleaning just last week... But no matter. If An wanted him to help by picking up dry cleaning, then he would do it, he couldn't say no to his little sister. However...she'd forgotten where she'd dropped off the clothes to be cleaned, so he pulled up a map of their town and started making a plan for stopping by every dry-cleaner's he could, making sure there were places he could go shopping for the things on An's list in between each cleaner's. Looking at how scattered the cleaners' places were, he was glad he'd brought some weights. Something told him he was in for a lot of walking.
Uchimura and Mori sat on the couch and looked at the pile of presents on the coffee table. There was one from each member of the Fudomine team, plus one from An. Mori looked at Uchimura.
"Do you know how to do this?" Ishida shook his head.
"No, but how hard could it be?"
Tachibana sighed as he walked out of the third cleaner's in a row, and checked the map on his phone. Next was a little bit of shopping-a break from the quick pace he'd been keeping up. He was a little sad that none of his teammates had sent him a birthday message at all, but...they were probably busy. He shook his head as though clearing his thoughts and walked into the art supply store, instantly greeted by an employee cheerfully. He nodded to the employee and began looking for the things on An's list.
"Color-changing markers and striped paint..." Those were the first two of a list of around five items he'd never heard of before, but he would do his best for his little sister. Maybe striped paint was a brand name?
Sakurai and Ishida were not the most skilled cooks. At the moment they were attempting to pick egg shells out of their batter.
"I told you to let me do this part. You can't Hadoukyuu the eggs, Tetsu." Sakurai frowned at Ishida, who shrugged.
"I guess I hit them against the side of the bowl too hard. Sorry." He picked what was hopefully the last of the shell bits out of the bowl and they began mixing the batter.
"Excuse me, you wouldn't happen to know if this store carries a brand called Striped Paint, would you?" Tachibana asked the nearest employee after searching the store for almost a half-hour. The employee apologized and bowed.
"I'm sorry, but we don't have any products from a brand by that name."
"Thank you very much." Tachibana returned the bow politely and went to buy the set of markers he'd managed to find that changed color. As he walked out of the store, his phone buzzed. He pulled it out, hopeful for a birthday message from at least Kamio, his vice-captain, but it wasn't. He answered the phone.
"Hi, An. ...No, sorry, I've only been able to find one thing so far, but I'll try to be home soon, okay? Yeah. Bye."
Kamio and Ibu had been given a roll of tape, some streamers, and helium balloons. Ibu tied balloons to the furniture while Kamio stood on a chair to tape streamers to the ceiling.
"I wonder why Akira is standing on that chair instead of just hanging the streamers lower. He could fall and get hurt, and then we would have to take him to the hospital instead of having a surprise party for Tachibana-san. And that would mean An-chan sent him on those errands for no reason, and he wouldn't have a good birthday, and it would all be Akira'a fault. And-"
"Shinji, shut up. I'm not gonna fall." Kamio had stopped hanging streamers and turned to look at Ibu. Ibu shrugged and continued muttering while tying balloons to the couch, working around Mori and Uchimura.
Tachibana went up to the counter of the cleaner's (again) and waited for a clerk to come help him. It wasn't a long wait.
"Do you have anything under the name Tachibana?" He asked, hopeful, but certainly not expecting a yes at this point.
"I'm sorry, sir, but we don't have anything under that name."
"Okay, thank you."
Trying not to act as tired and, admittedly, lonely as he felt, Tachibana stepped outside and decided to buy himself a cold drink from a nearby vending machine. He then sat on a bench, telling himself he'd only sit for maybe fifteen minutes at most, and fixed his gaze on the playground the bench sat on the border of.
The cake was in the oven, and the kitchen was starting to smell like it. Ishida and Sakurai were arguing over what color to make the frosting.
"We should make it Fudomine colors!"
"But Tachibana-san's favorite color is blue! And who ever heard of a black cake?"
The debate continued until Sakurai smelled something burning. They both turned to look at the oven in horror.
"The cake!"
As Tachibana took small sips of his drink, trying to enjoy the cold beverage as long as he could, a little boy came up to him.
"Hi, I'm Haruo, and today's my birthday!"
Tachibana couldn't help smiling at Haruo's enthusiasm. "Happy birthday. I'm Kippei, and it's my birthday today, too."
"Really?"
"Yes, really. Have you gotten any presents?"
"Yeah! My friend got me this, look!" Haruo waved around a toy dinosaur excitedly.
"Oh? What kind of dinosaur is he?" Tachibana meant the species, but Haruo had different ideas.
"He's really nice, but whenever someone's mean to his friends he can be scary."
Tachibana laughed. "It sounds like he's a good friend to have." Haruo nodded very seriously, and Tachibana looked up as a woman he assumed was Haruo's mother came over, having noticed her son was talking to a stranger who no doubt looked intimidating.
"I'm sorry for my son bothering you." She apologized, taking Haruo's hand.
"Ah, I really don't mind, he was telling me about his birthday present." Tachibana smiled sheepishly.
"I see..." The woman turned to leave, pulling Haruo with her. As they returned to the playground, Haruo turned back and waved at him with the hand that held his dinosaur.
"Happy birthday, Nii-san!"
Tachibana smiled and waved back, then got up to leave, since he'd finished his drink.
"Hey, Ibu, will you come put your finger here to hold this bow while I tie it?" Mori couldn't do it all himself, and Uchimura was a bit busy, having gotten himself tangled up in some ribbon.
Ibu crossed the room and held the bow down while Mori tied it off.
"Thanks." They looked up just in time to see Kamio fall off his chair after leaning over too far, landing on the box of party hats.
"I told him he was going to fall, but he didn't listen to me. Now we'll have to take him to the hospital instead of having a surprise party, and ruin Tachibana-san's birthday, which-"
"Shinji!" Kamio was irritated. "I'm fine. Stop saying I'm going to run the party." He got up and inspected the hats that had broken his fall. It seemed he'd broken them. They were crushed. But it was just cardboard. They could always unbend it, right?
An had been hearing some rather worrying noises, so she put down her half-finished card and went to check on the boys. She ran into Kamio in the hallway.
"An-chan, can you fix these?" He held out the party hats, which looked as if they'd been sat on.
"What did you do to them?" She couldn't say she was surprised. They weren't the most organized bunch, and she hadn't supervised them.
"That's...not important. But can you fix them?"
"I can unbend them and tape the edges in place. How's the cake coming?" Kamio hesitated.
"...Fine." Obviously it wasn't fine. She'd have to go see for herself. She marched into the kitchen with Kamio following behind her. The frosting debate had resumed after the slightly-burnt cake had been removed from the oven.
"Blue!"
"Black!"
"Blue!"
"Bla-" An knocked on the countertop.
"Make it purple." She turned and went to check on the wrapping.
Resigned to his fate of being unable to find the other four obscure art supplies An had asked him to buy, Tachibana decided to go straight for the last cleaner's place on his list. *Surely* they had to have the clothes he was supposed to pick up.
He walked up to the counter and asked, for the tenth time that day, if there were any clothes there under the name Tachibana.
"Yes, I'll go get them for you." As soon as the employee had disappeared into the back room, he breathed a sigh of relief.
"Sorry for the wait, are these the clothes you're here to pick up?" The clerk held up a few hangers, which Tachibana barely glanced at before agreeing. He'd seen An wear those clothes enough to know.
"Yes, thank you." He paid the fee and left, glad he'd finally found the right cleaner's.
"I still don't see how you managed to get tangled in the entire rollof ribbon." She was untying knots (she refused to cut it and waste good ribbon) and slowly freeing Uchimura, who shrugged.
"Wrapping is hard, okay?"
Tachibana finally headed home, having found the dry cleaning, and called his sister. She didn't pick up. *She must be doing something.* Without reading into that any deeper, he put his phone up, figuring she'd either call him back or just see him when he got home.
He yawned and suppressed the desire to stretch, tired from all the walking he'd done. Maybe he could just take a nap when he got home. That seemed like it was deserved enough, doing all that work on his birthday, of all days. Especially when everyone else seemed busy.
Somehow it all came together, with just a little time to spare. They sat in the living room and waited for Tachibana to come home.
After a few minutes of conversation, Kamio turned to An.
"Hey, how did the card turn out?"
"The card! I didn't finish!" She ran back to her room to add more glitter.
"I'm home." Just barely loud enough to be heard through the house, Tachibana announced his arrival. There wasn't a response. *An must've gone out.* He sighed and locked the door, removed his shoes, and stepped up into the house before flicking on the switch for the living room lights.
"HAPPY BIRTHDAY, TACHIBANA-SAN!" His whole team shouted as he turned on the lights, and he was buried in a many-layered group hug almost instantly. They were wearing somewhat crumpled hats, and the decorations were a little crooked, and what he could see of the cake was a little messy, but they had done it for him. No one had forgotten his birthday, they *had* been busy-preparing for it! He couldn't help tearing up a little at the realization of what an amazing team he had.
"Thank you."
When the party had ended, and the team had gone home, Tachibana gave An the things he'd gotten for her.
"All I could find from the list was the color-changing markers. But I did get your dry-cleaning."
"But-how?"