A/N: A day late, but hopefully still enjoyable.

Bubble Songs

After floating in the ocean for a half-hour more, everyone had gone out for dinner at the Usami restaurant. Afterwards came cake. There were cheers, balloons, singing, party poppers, confetti– all of which caused Yuki to sit lower in his seat with his face as red as his hair. Haru continually brought both index fingers to his own cheeks and flashed him a large smile, encouraging, "Smile, Yuki, smile! If you're happy, I'm happy!"

The rest of the night flew by in a blur. They returned home two hours past midnight. Yuki plodded back into the house with slumped shoulders, practically every drop of energy drained from him. His grandmother followed behind him, smiling pleasantly, though there was exhaustion in her eyes. Haru brought up the rear of their line, marching joyfully without a single hint of fatigue.

When they both reached Yuki's room, Haru rushed to the pencil box on the desk and went through it looking for the black marker from before. It took him only a second of looking before he whisked back around and thrust his hand into Yuki's pocket.

Yuki was thrown off-guard, to say the least.

"Haru–"

"Yuki, you need to write my birthday on the calendar!" He pointed at the fish-printed calendar tacked to the wall. His eyes were wide and serious, his mouth was drawn into an anxious pout. "Don't forget, Yuki. My birthday!"

"Alright, alright," Yuki grumbled, uncapping the marker. There he went again, overly energetic, overly peppy, overly everything. It was exhausting in the morning, but almost worst when Yuki was dead-tired. Still, he knew Haru never meant any harm.

Yuki flipped the page from March to April and scrawled "Haru's Birthday" onto the square with the number 1. Beside him, he could feel Haru's excitement. Despite that, Yuki turned to him with a yawn. "Now go to bed, Haru. We'll do something else for your birthday tomorrow."

"Yuki, it's past midnight; it is my birthday."

"You know what I mean."

When the lights were out and Yuki was safely under his blanket, he floated through a blue dream of waves and endless sky.

Yuki spends all of Haru's birthday rushing around with his grandmother. He buys a generous amount of balloons and streamers because Haru likes the rainbow colors. He even goes ahead and buys a two layer cake dressed with buttercream. He specially requests it to look like the sea– white frosting swirled to look like sea foam, Swedish fish glazed onto the side, ripples of blue icing to represent the sea and sky.

He had woken up at 6:00 sharp just to get everything prepared. Six o'clock meant only four hours of sleep, which was brutal.

By nightfall, Yuki found himself falling asleep while wrapping Haru's present, only to be awoken by the gentle sensation of his grandmother shaking his shoulder.

"Yuki, Yuki," she whispered in that all-too-sweet tone of hers. "We'll be going in a little while."

"'Going'?" he mumbles groggily. His brain puts the pieces together for him. They had decided to go fishing and sightseeing on Ayumi's boat. Then they'd gather in Natsuki's shop for yet another round of celebrations. Yuki was happy enough that this time, the spotlight would be on someone that fully appreciated it.

He scooted out from his desk, taking hold of the tiny gift. It was a lame present, he knew, but he decided it might be something Haru would enjoy. Taking it, he left his room, then his house, and stopped in the garden near the flowers. Tulips were currently in season, and they were currently Haru's favorite plant to water. He doted over them as if they were children.

Yuki approached the flowers and gingerly petted one of their petals. Some had already fully blossomed. As he searched through them, an idea entered his head.

Setting the gift box down on the grass, he plucked a few tulips from their stems. His hands worked clumsily and jerkily, but he concentrated on arranging them in the best way he could. One tulip, another, and another– he assembled them all until a voice and a familiar pitter-patter of footsteps startled him.

"Yuki! Kate says we're leaving no–"

Haru blinked at the sight of Yuki gripping a garland of tulips. All at once, somehow, Haru's gaze seemed weighty. He lifted the garland toward Haru, his hand moved mechanically without his approval. "H-Here."

Haru took the flower crown and held it up to the sky to admire it. A bright smile danced well across his eyes and his lips. "Kate's tulips!"

"It's a crown," Yuki said, feeling a tad more confident. As he took a step, his foot nudged against the present box. Haru noticed it immediately, and with widened eyes, bent over and picked it up. "Is this for me, Yuki? Can I open it?!" Without waiting for an answer, Haru excitedly peeled through the wrapping paper to reveal a bright red bottle with a label that read, "Bubbles."

He poked around in the bottle before finding the red bubble wand. "Yuki, it's all sticky."

"It's soap, soap is sticky."

Haru brought the wand up to his lips and blew a large, wobbly rainbow-y bubble. His eyes lit up as he turned to look to Yuki for approval. "Pretty!"

Yuki took the bottle and blew a measly bubble that swirled around before colliding with Haru's. Yuki offered over the bottle with a nervous smile. "So you like it, right?"

"I love it! It's red like Yuki's hair!"

"It was the last red one left, too. Are you sure you like it?"

Haru bobbed his head up and down quickly. "Mhh-hmm!"

Yuki allowed a smile to creep back onto his face. "We'll blow some bubbles over the ocean when we get there."

"O-kay!"

Haru blew one last stream of variously-sized bubbles as they disappeared.