A/N: Sorry for the slow update! School pretty much dominates my life. Hopefully the next update won't take as long.

Chapter 2: Birthday Surprises

Tomorrow was an important day for Gil: it was his master's eleventh birthday. He felt privileged to be able to share this special day with his master, so he had spent the past few weeks trying to think of what to do to show his devotion to him. In the end, he couldn't come up with anything better than baking him a cake, but he figured that his master would appreciate it since he had a massive sweet tooth. Just as he was putting on the finishing touches, the kitchen door suddenly burst open and smashed against the wall behind it.

"Gah!" Gil cried, jerking the piping bag upwards and ruining the last letter of the message.

"Giiiil!" Oz sang, bouncing over to him. "What'cha doing?"

"Young Master, you ruined it!" Gil whined, tears already starting to form in the corners of his eyes.

"Ruined what? Is that a cake?" Oz excitedly pushed Gil aside to get a better look.

"W-wait, it's supposed to be a – !"

"'Happy Birthday, Young Master,'" he read aloud. "Hey, you got my name wrong!"

"You made me mess up the last letter!" Gil huffed, crossing his arms over his chest.

"That can be fixed," Oz said, and before Gil could stop him, he stuck his finger on the top of the cake, scraped off the excess frosting, and promptly shoved it into his mouth.

"Y-Young Master!" Gil exclaimed, aghast. "That's gross!"

"What?" Oz replied, innocently sucking on his finger. "I fixed it for you! Besides, it's my cake anyways, so I can do what I want with it!"

"But it was supposed to be a surprise for tomorrow," Gil protested weakly, already realizing and accepting that he wouldn't win this argument.

"Well, it was a surprise," Oz pointed out, swiping another bite of frosting, "and today is almost tomorrow, so what difference does it make?"

Gil sighed in resignation and began picking up the dirty dishes.

"Wait, where are you going with that frosting?!" Oz demanded suddenly. Gil blinked.

"It's leftover, so I was just going to dump it."

"How could you?" Oz snatched the bowl from his hands. "What a waste!" He grabbed a nearby spoon, hoisted himself up onto the countertop, and proceeded to spoon large quantities of the frosting into his mouth. Gil balked at the sight.

"You can't eat all that!" he cried, trying to grab the bowl back. "You'll get sick!"

"It's fine, it's fine," Oz assured him, hurriedly scraping the bowl clean before Gil managed to take it away from him. "I never get sick from eating yummy foods!"

Later that night, Gil would have the satisfaction of knowing that, for once, he had been quite correct and Oz quite mistaken, but as he patted a retching, sweaty-faced Oz on the back, he found that he didn't have the heart to say anything.