Rating: adorably PG
Pairings/characters: Kiryu, Demak, & Rudger
Summary: Demak decides to celebrate Kiryu's birthday. Because he's nice like that.

Birthday

Kiryu couldn't stop staring. He had no idea what to make of this. For one, he was sure he hadn't seen so much food in one place in his entire life (although since he couldn't remember earlier than age four, maybe he had). And Demak looked so self-satisfied...and there wasn't really a reason for all this food, was there? Or the cake?

"What is all this?" he finally asked.

Demak gave him a brief look. He wasn't sure why. Demak was smart enough to know what he meant.

"We thought we should do something for your birthday," Demak said.

Across the room, Rudger cleared his throat and said, "You thought we should do something."

Kiryu took a moment to stare at both of them and then back at all the food. This was all for him?

...He couldn't ask why. He didn't need them to know how insecure he still felt, whether they already knew or not. But even with his old team, they hardly did more than share a rare bottle of sake and exchange very sparse presents for each other's birthdays. He couldn't even remember what they'd done for his birthday last year.

"How'd you know today's my birthday?" There, that was a safe question.

Rudger snorted and rolled his eyes. "What does that matter?"

"I dug up some old records," Demak said with a shrug.

Kiryu stared at him. "Do you still have them?"

Demak nodded slowly. "I can show you where they are later." He briefly looked back at the food before asking, "If you'd like to pretend this isn't for your birthday, that's fine, Kiryu-san. I enjoyed cooking either way."

Kiryu didn't answer right away. He didn't really mind that Demak had set up something so elaborate just for him-it was flattering, actually. It was like having friends again, even though he'd promised himself he wouldn't let anyone be his friend until he destroyed the one who had shattered his trust. Could he let himself accept this as an act of friendship? It couldn't be anything else, but he'd never though he'd find any sort of friendship here.

"It's been a long time since I celebrated my birthday like this," Kiryu murmured after a moment. "I can't even remember it."

"Are you going to sit down so we can eat or not?" Rudger snapped. Kiryu sneered back at him and strode over to his seat.

"It's my birthday. I can decide when I want to eat."

"Sit down," Rudger growled.

Kiryu stayed standing for another minute or so before he finally flopped into his seat, glaring at their leader. He hardly looked up as Demak sat down across from him. It wasn't because of Rudger, he was just really hungry, damn it.

"I tried not to make anything it seemed like you hated," Demak said after a moment. Kiryu glanced up, looking over the spread. Other than natto, there wasn't much he wouldn't eat...

"It's fine." He kept his smile to himself as he started piling food onto his plate. This really was...really nice of him to have done.

"...Thank you, Demak."