"Happy birthday to you, happy birthday…"

Kurama hid his grimace behind the covers of his paperback novel as the high, off-key singing intruded on his thoughts. He couldn't believe that he'd sunk this low. A legendary bandit thief known throughout the Makai for being ruthless and cunning…

…was attending a six-year-old human child's birthday party.

As a six-year-old human child.

How humiliating.

"Make a wish, sweetie."

Oh, Inari, please let his be over soon.

Kurama flicked the page in his novel. Tucked away in his corner, crammed in beside a large potted plant on the verandah, he was doing his best to stay out of sight.

He was more or less succeeding.

More or less, because he hadn't escaped the notice of one particular boy.

"Are you actually reading that?"

Kurama turned his head to look at said boy, who was pressed against his side in the tight space. The boy studied Kurama curiously through the lenses of his glasses.

He was a strange boy, which was the only reason Kurama was tolerating his presence. Unlike the other children, the boy wore a preppy little school uniform. Blue jacket and slacks adorned with a red bowtie. His short black hair fell into his big blue eyes.

Kurama himself couldn't comment on the boy's clothing as his own was similar. It wasn't his school uniform though. He'd spurned the childish outfits his mother had tried to press on him in favour of a neat button-up blue shirt and slacks with suspenders.

"I am actually reading it," Kurama said, not even trying to keep the irritation out of his voice. What was the kid going to do about it anyway? Run crying to his mother that Shuichi-kun had been mean to him?

Kurama was forced to maintain a polite mask around the adults but he felt no such obligation to the children.

The book that Kurama was currently reading was 'The Hound of the Baskervilles'. In his quest to alleviate his boredom as he endured human life, he'd started in on the classic novels of Ningenkai society. Most of the other children left him alone when he was reading and the adults seemed to think that it was cute. Reading was a safe way to spend his time without alerting anyone to the fact that he was a demon masquerading as a human boy.

This book should have been beyond his reading level, but the adults just thought he was 'gifted'. If only they knew.

"Have you read 'A Study in Scarlet' as well?"

Kurama lowered the book, startled by the question. What six-year-old would ask a question like that?

He gave the boy his full attention as he said, "Yes."

"The Sherlock Holmes books are my favourite," the boy said.

Kurama's green eyes narrowed to suspicious slits. "You've read them," he said.

The boy suddenly looked awkward. He let out a nervous laugh before saying, "Um, yeah. Sort of."

"Sort of?" Kurama pressed.

"Conan!"

The boy flinched at the sound of the shout.

"I, ah, gotta go," he said. "That's… my sister. Bye!"

Kurama watched him run toward a black-haired teenage girl, his mind racing. Was this boy 'gifted' as the adults thought Kurama was?

Or was he 'gifted' in another way? A more unusual way?

"There you are, Shu-chan. What are you doing over here?"

The current bane of Kurama's existence, his innocent, far-too-interfering human mother peered down at him through the leafy fronds of the potted plant.

"Come and have some cake, darling," she said.

"I would prefer to stay here. I don't want any cake," Kurama told her.

"Shuichi…"

She straightened and glanced back at the children milling around the large table, plates in hand and stuffing cake into their little mouths.

She could drag him to this damn juvenile party but she couldn't make him enjoy it. Kurama raised his book, hiding behind it as she gave one last try.

"Shuichi, please…"

There was no hint of frustration or anger in her voice. Instead, there was only exhaustion.

"No, Mother," Kurama said firmly. He met her eyes briefly before returning to his book. He listened to her footsteps pad across the floorboards of the verandah as she made her way back to the other children.

Six more years before he could leave this pathetic body and retake his former form. Would his patience even last that long?