Disclaimer: I do not own PoT.

Pairings: None
Genre: Friendship
Warnings: Cranky Marui? Grammatical errors, typo errors etc. Also, my horrible attempts at thinking of presents.

Happy Birthday Marui!

Unexpected Gift

Marui leaned forwards, resting his forehead down on his arms, his face only inches away from the tabletop.

Being woken up at two in the morning with a bucket of cold water thrown at your face was not what Marui wished to happen on his birthday.

So here he was, sleepy and cranky, sitting in class, attempting to get a few winks of sleep before first period started. Really not the best mood for a birthday boy to be in.

Bonk.

Marui felt something light hit his head, sliding down onto his arm. Lifting his head up lazily, but not fully sitting up straight, Marui eyed the packet of gum that was now sitting on his desk.

Looking up, he saw a wide grin on a certain classmate of his – Niou.

"Happy birthday, fatty," Niou said, and faked a clap, sitting down on the seat in front of the red head's desk.

Marui rolled his eyes and sighed, dropping his head back down, taking comfort in the darkness.

"Well, well, look who's cranky today," Niou drawled. "Aren't people meant to be all cheerful and perky on their birthday? Like saying, "Thank you!" to others who give them a birthday present with a wide smile and twinkling eyes?"

In Marui's mind sight, he could picture Niou faking a wide smile and twinkling eyes, which disturbed the self-proclaimed genius, because Niou, smiling widely and twinkling eyes to boot?

It definitely wouldn't be something you'd see everyday.

Marui groaned when Niou started to whack him on the head.

"Stop that, let me sleep…" his words were muffled by the sleeves of his blazer.

"Aw, who's a sleepy head?" Niou cooed, and Marui had the urge to punch the other in the face, if he wasn't too sleepy to even try and lift a finger. "Been doing things last night?"

"My brothers woke me up at 2am just to sing me a damn birthday song," Marui grumbled, ignoring Niou's, obviously sexual taunt. "And then they played the trumpet for the next 2 hours. You should know how it's like."

Niou grimaced and rubbed his ears. "Your parents must be deaf or in coma if they allowed them to play for 2 hours straight."

"They weren't home…" Marui eventually gave up on trying to sleep, because, who could, when someone was talking to you. He unenthusiastically sat up and slouched down in his seat.

Niou picked up the packet of gum that was lying on the table and waved it in front of Marui's face.

"Where's my "thank you" for giving you a present, birthday boy?"

Marui pulled it out of Niou's fingers just to get the other boy to stop waving it like a pendulum and sighed.

"I can't eat it anyways, you do remember Yukimura's rule right? Plus, it's not even wrapped, and the price tag is still on it."

A week ago, Yukimura had actually enforced a rule onto Marui: Marui was not allowed to eat sweets or anything containing sugar, so that he could overcome his stamina issues.

Even Jackal was forced not to buy cakes or the likes for Marui anymore (The Brazilian had tried once, only to be given the tarundoru slap from Sanada, and was made to run 200 laps). After that incident, Jackal apologised to Marui and told him that he could not risk it anymore.

Marui had tried to sneak in some, but Yukimura had the nose of a dog, managing to sniff it out of Marui's locker, and punished Marui with a 100 laps, while eating the self-proclaimed genius's precious cake right in front of his face – which was in a way, pure agony for the red head.

The reason for the new rule was, in Yukimura's words, "If we were to win our third consecutive Nationals championship this year, you need to overcome your lack of stamina. Someone from Rikkai should not be depending on something like sugar. That Kikumaru Eiji from Seigaku (he said the word as if it was a deadly disease) could do it. So you, as someone from King Rikkai, can do it 100 times better!"

Yeah, so basically, Marui had no choice but to oblige.

"Just hide it from him then."

"Yukimura knows everything. Everything…"

Niou held his hands up in a surrendering position. "Okay, okay, I get the point. But honestly, where's my "thank you"?"

Marui rolled his eyes but muttered a small thank you just to shut Niou up.

The first bell rang and their classmates flowed into the classroom. The teacher hit the long ruler on the whiteboard a few times to stop the chattering and began the lesson. Marui placed his chin on his palm, elbow on table and closed his eyes.

School be damned, because, sleep was much more important at the moment.

.~.

It wasn't as if Marui expects his teammates to give him extravagant presents, like a house (okay, that's going too far) or like a laptop, but the presents that he received from them were…absolutely useless to him.

Not that the presents that Marui gives others were extremely great, just the usual knickknacks from a gift store.

But really? Akaya? A flower?

Yes, Akaya had given Marui a flower for his birthday. Oh, no, not a bouquet of flowers from the florist. But a lone, single, flower, which was obviously plucked randomly on the younger boy's way to school. If it was in good condition, it wouldn't be that bad (it would, but let's just say that it wouldn't), but it was crushed, and Marui couldn't even tell that it was a flower until Akaya had told him.

Niou teased him after Akaya left about it and Marui chucked the crushed flower at the trickster's face.

.~.

Yagyuu and Sanada were the next to pass Marui their presents.

Marui accepted the calligraphy from Sanada with a rise of an eyebrow as he tried to read the words written on it.

'Lose fats and gain stamina!' was what was written on it.

Marui almost crushed the present in his hands.

Even Sanada was telling him that he was fat.

Marui forced a smile and the vice-captain nodded his head a few times, crossing his arms across his chest.

Yagyuu presented him with a neatly wrapped box. It was light, and Marui shook it a few times, but couldn't figure out what was inside.

It was only until after the two left that Marui opened the present (mainly because Niou kept bugging him about it).

Surprise, surprise…

Yagyuu's present was a book.

A book.

Yes, a book, which you have to open and read.

Well, a book was nice and all, if it wasn't in English. Really? Was Yagyuu expecting Marui to read a whole book, written in English?

While Marui stared blankly at the book, 'Animal Farm', in his hands, Niou picked up Sanada's calligraphy and burst into fits of laughter.

Marui was probably never going to live it down now. The fact (as even Sanada was saying it, it had to be true) that he was fat.

.~.

Yanagi arrived during their first break.

Well, not exactly 'arrived', because he appeared out of thin air in front of Marui when the red head just took a step out of the classroom.

Needless to say, Marui had the shock of his lifetime.

"Happy Birthday Marui," Yanagi congratulated, and Marui nodded in thanks. "I had calculated that it would take you 34.25 seconds to leave your classroom, thus, I left my classroom 2 minutes and 40 seconds earlier to get here on time-"

"Yo, move," Niou called from behind. "You're blocking the way fatty."

Marui let out a huge sigh and sidestepped, rolling out an imaginary red carpet for the trickster to walk on as he left the classroom.

"Judging by that sigh that you made, I can say that there is a 89% chance that you're not in a good mood today Marui," Yanagi said.

"Yeah, whoopee doo," Marui sarcastically drawled and clapped his hands. "You've figured it out, all-knowing-one. Oh wait, that's Yukimura."

Yanagi didn't seem unfazed by Marui's statement and replied, "There was a 95% chance that you would respond with a sarcastic statement, I was right."

Marui groaned. "What do you want?"

"Here you go Marui." Yanagi handed him a long present.

A long and thin present, like a stick from a tree outside, except wrapped.

Marui eyed it skeptically and wondered, 'Is it a stick?'

Then, he stared at Yanagi's back as the data master left and thought, 'But it's Yanagi, he can't be giving me a stick right?'

Marui went through the list of presents that he had received already.

'Okay, is Yanagi trying to complement with Akaya's present? Because a stick and a flower both come from nature. But how did Yanagi know what Akaya was going to get me? Is it a stick in the first place?'

A sleepy and cranky Marui was definitely not a smart and logical Marui.

Of course Yanagi wouldn't give him a stick!

But…what did he get him then?

Marui twirled the present in his hands as he dragged his feet over to the vending machine, where Niou was – a real surprise indeed.

"Why do I always seem to be around you when I get presents?" Marui asked, slipping some coins into the vending machine.

"Because you love me," Niou said, taking a sip from his coffee. "What did you get?"

"Don't know," Marui replied, picking up a packet of fruit juice – 100% natural! No added sugar! He chucked the present at Niou and poked the straw into the packet, before taking a large gulp.

Niou raised an eyebrow and lifted up the present.

"Open it for me," Marui explained, and leaned against the pillar beside the trickster.

"You shouldn't ask others to open your presents for you, you know?" Niou asked, but his hands were already unwrapping the present.

"…" Marui simply shrugged.

"Okay, okay…" Niou muttered. "Yanagi got you a…pencil?"

"Pencil?" Marui asked, confused. He turned and grabbed Niou's wrist.

"Did you secretly wish for a gigantic pencil or something?" Niou asked, twirling the large pencil in his hand.

"No, of course not." Marui sighed, leaning back against the pillar, taking another sip of his juice.

"I can stab someone in the eye with this," Niou mumbled, scrutinizing the pencil.

"You can stab anyone with a normal pencil too, you know?" Marui replied, chewing on his straw.

Niou stabbed Marui in the sides with the pencil and said, "I know. But this is better."

Marui's eyebrows twitched and he pulled his gift out of Niou's grasp. "That hurt you idiot!"

"Isn't that the point?"

Marui sighed yet again and wondered whether his day could get any worse.

.~.

Jackal's present wasn't too bad.

He presented Marui with money just before the red head stepped into his class and Marui took it hesitantly.

"What's this for?"

"Your birthday present." Jackal rubbed the back of his neck. "Sorry I couldn't get you something else. I would have bought you a cake like last year but Yukimura…"

"Oh. Yeah." Marui stared at the dollar bills in his palm.

"You can use it to buy something you like?" Jackal trailed off.

"Yeah, thanks Jackal." Marui gave his doubles partner a wave and Jackal left to return to his own classroom.

Jackal's gift just wasn't anything special. Sure it was money, and Marui could use it to buy something he liked, but it wasn't any different from any other day, as Jackal always had to pay for him anyways.

.~.

Yukimura's had got to be the weirdest.

Weirder than Akaya's crushed flower, and Yanagi's gigantic pencil.

I mean, who gives someone words as their birthday present?

Because that was basically what Yukimura had done.

The blue haired boy had, when Marui and Niou were changing classes, grabbed the birthday boy and pulled him to a corner. Niou, obviously not a knight in shining armour, simply shrugged, ignored the blatant 'kidnapping', and went on his merry way.

"Ah, Marui, happy birthday." His captain clapped his hands gleefully.

"You kidnapped me just for that?" Marui grumbled, turning to leave.

Yukimura grabbed his shoulder and spun him back around and Marui was visibly annoyed.

"Don't you want your present?" the blue haired boy asked.

Marui thought back to his teammates presents and shrugged. "No, not really interested."

Yukimura smiled and tilted his head to the side. "Oh, well, too bad then. I'll still be giving you your present anyway."

"What is it?" Marui sighed, just wanting to get this over with so he could get to class – Math – and maybe fall asleep again or something.

"Things will brighten up," Yukimura said with a wink. He then started to walk away.

"Huh?" Marui was confused, and stood there rooted to the spot like an idiot.

"That's your present Marui! Oh, and there's no afternoon practice today, pass the news to Niou too," Yukimura called over his shoulder. "You might want to get going to class before you're late!"

Marui blinked and shook his head. That was when the bell rang.

"Shit," Marui cursed under his breath, before running at the speed of light to his classroom.

What did Yukimura mean by 'things would brighten up'?

Marui pondered over it as he sat in class, clearly not listening to his teacher drone on and on about formulas which he would never ever use in his future.

Oh well, he could always take Niou's notes if needed.

.~.

The final bell rang, signalling the end of school and Marui stretched his arms in the air.

No afternoon practice meant that he could go back home, climb into bed, and just sleep for the rest of the day.

That was one good thing – was Yukimura's prediction already coming true?. At least he didn't have to worry about dying from the Spartan training that the Rikkaidai regulars did daily on his birthday.

It wouldn't exactly be fascinating to die on the anniversary of your birth, would it?

On his way home from school, Marui passed by a few shops and something on display caught his eye. Standing outside the shop, Marui stared at the product – a pair of sport shoes worth $125 – and sighed.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out the few dollar bills that Jackal had given him and mentally calculated the total amount of money that he had.

Twenty dollars.

Wow. That was not even a teensy bit close to a hundred and twenty-five dollars.

Marui shoved the few dollar bills back into his pocket and sighed again. He had been eyeing that particular pair of shoes for the past few weeks, but could never get enough money to purchase them.

His parents refused to buy them for him, saying that his old ones were still perfectly fine, yeah, with holes-at-the-sole-fine.

Sadly, the red head did not have a part-time job, thus could not earn money, and could only rely on his measly pocket money, which most of it had been spent on buying other things like sweets – before Yukimura enforced the rule.

"Are you thinking of buying that?" a voice floated into his ear and Marui jumped.

Turning to his right, Marui saw a wide grin on a certain teammate of his – Niou.

"Why is it that you're always grinning when I first see you?" Marui directed his gaze back to the display window and nodded.

Niou's eyes flitted over to the product and he hummed under his breath. Then, he proceeded to chuck a neatly wrapped gift box into the red head's arms and strutted off.

Marui blinked in shock and exclaimed, "Niou?"

Niou didn't reply, and only continued to walk, giving a salute back to the red head.

'What the…?'

Marui stared blankly at the gift box in his arms.

Haven't Niou already given him a present earlier today?

So…what was this?

A trick?

Marui lifted the box as far away from his body as he could, and eyed it suspiciously, as if it was going to explode in his face within the next three seconds.

He had absolutely no idea what was in that box.

Like, he actually thought that Yanagi gave him a stick for goodness sake. How was he meant to figure out something related to the most cunning and devious person alive?

'Sleep,' Marui thought. He just needed some sleep, and maybe his brain would actually start functioning properly for once.

.~.

It wasn't until Marui took an hour nap that he decided to open a potential bomb – given to him by none other than Niou.

Sitting cross-legged on his bed, Marui stared at the brightly coloured gift wrapping and narrowed his eyes.

'Plan plan plan…'

Now that he had gotten his rest – some anyways – his brain was working well, gears were spinning nicely, and Marui was certain that he could master rocket science.

So yes, bring it on Niou, because the genius Marui is prepared for anything!

'If I hear ticking, I'll toss it out of the window and hide under my bed. Yes, safe enough. If a dagger jumps out, I'll use my genius ninja skills to dodge and kill Niou tomorrow. Good, good, smart thinking Bunta!'

Rubbing his palms together, Marui took a deep breath and started to unwrap the present.

When the wrapper fell apart, all Marui could do was mutter an intelligent, "Wha?"

A pair of shoes.

Niou, of all freaking people in the entire world – no, universe – had given him a pair of flipping shoes.

Not just any pair of shoes, but that particular pair of shoes that Marui was staring at earlier that afternoon.

The red headed genius was prepared for knifes, jack-in-the-box, a bomb, a cat which will scratch your face off – anything.

This was just something that Marui did not expect.

Ever.

Grabbing his mobile phone from the table, Marui quickly dialed in the trickster's number.

"'Sup fatty."

"What the, Niou, how the, wha..?"

"I don't come from the planet "Fat and Idiotic" so unfortunately, I don't speak the language of your people."

"Don't insult my intelligence," Marui hissed.

"So fatty can speak Japanese!"

"Shut up." Marui rolled his eyes. "What the hell?"

"Huh?"

"Your flipping present! THE FREAKING SHOES! HOW AND WHY?" Marui practically yelled into his phone.

"Dammit Marui! My ear!" Marui heard a wince from the other end.

"Sorry," Marui mumbled, "but how did you know?"

It was silent at the other end.

"Niou?"

"Do I need a reason?" Niou asked softly, and Marui was taken aback slightly at the his tone – which was not commonly associated with the trickster.

"Yes, because it's you, and you always have a reason for something."

"Can't I be nice once in a while?" the standard Niou tone returned.

"That's Yagyuu's job."

"…"

"Honestly, Niou, the shoes are not cheap."

"Sometimes I don't need a reason for doing something Marui." Niou sighed. "Just take this as one of those times. Happy Birthday, fatso."

Niou ended the call with his usual conduct.

Marui listened to the beeps for a few seconds before his hand dropped down to his side, his phone slipping out of his grasp, landing on the soft mattress.

"Things will brighten up."

Marui smiled.

Yukimura was right. Things did brighten up.

Hugging his new shoes tightly against his chest, Marui stumbled over to his school bag and took out the presents that his teammates had so kindly poured effort into giving him – with the exception of Akaya's (since he threw it at Niou's face) and Yukimura's.

(Niou's first present was also missing for unknown reasons.)

Marui's eye still twitched slightly after reading Sanada's calligraphy for the second time that day.

The red head hung the calligraphy up on his wall and nodded. He could use it for his motivation.

Marui tucked the few dollar bills given to him into his wallet and thought, 'I should treat Jackal one day…' – but really, it was with the Brazilian's money, so what treating was that going to be?

Marui had no idea what to do with Yanagi's gigantic pencil, but since it was a stationery, which was usable…Marui placed it on his table, beside all his other…stationeries.

Smiling to himself, Marui turned to the first page of 'Animal Farm' and started to read – his Japanese-English dictionary by his side.

Things don't seem so bad if you just look at them in a more positive way.

Marui wouldn't have learnt that if it wasn't for Niou.

So, who does Marui have to thank for this now?

A/N: Ahhh I'm pretty sure I just killed Niou's character. WHAT WAS THAT? The ending feels weird, is it weird? I had actually originally thought of writing a Niou/Marui fic, but it failed and became this. Rikkai friendship for the win?

Yagyuu's present 'Animal Farm' is because I have to analyse it for English...and I absolutely fail at analysing texts.

Niou's first present (the gum) going missing...well, let's just say that it had something to do with Yukimura.

Comments, constructive criticism, any feedback will be greatly appreciated. Make this girl happy please? :)
Thanks for reading!