Today was Mukai's birthday!

"Happy birthday, happy birthday, happy birthday!" sand Mukai as she ran around the table. That way everyone could hear her. All of her friends were there! Mama, well Mama wasn't really a friend. She was a Mama…but her other friends were there! Sho and Shigeko and Caterpillars and Shimazaki and Seri and Mine and Fuckuda! Everyone was here and it was all for her birthday! She had just woken up and then they had all been in her kitchen.

This was the best day ever!

"To me." Said Mine. Mukai stopped running and slapped them on the leg. That was mean!

"You're mean!" said Mukai. There. Now Mine knew that they couldn't have her birthday. This was her birthday and nobody else's. Nobody was taking her presents, her cake, or her pancakes! Everything was hers! She pulled her arm back to slap Mine again but they grabbed her….why did they have to be so mean!?

"And hitting me isn't?" asked Mine. Mukai tried to pull her hand away but she couldn't…wait! She felt the colors around her move. That meant that Ryou was coming….and he came! He was right next to her now. He reached over and saved them from Mine! He was their best friend but he'd chosen her over them. Now her hand was free…and now Mine would pay!

"Hey, hey, hey. No hitting Toshi, Mukai, come on. You know that's a fight you can't win." Said Ryou. He still wasn't letting go of her…but she needed her arm back! Mine needed to pay. Mine needed to know that they couldn't have her birthday!

"Let go! Mine's trying to steal my birthday!" said Mukai

"Shimazaki, leave her alone." Said Shibata. He turned around from the stove. Mama reached over and turned him around. She kept her arm around him like she was trying to hug him but she couldn't remember how it worked.

"I've got this, you two just get back to making pancakes." Said Ryou. Mukai reached up and hugged Ryou….but Mama wasn't watching!

"Mama! Look here!" said Mukai. Mama leaned over and kissed Shibata on the arm before she turned around. She had been doing that a lot lately. They were special friends now, Mama had said, which was like best friends. There were lots of different kinds of friends. Right now Mama needed to see how hugging friends worked. If Mama forgot how to give then who was going to hug her goodnight so she would have sweet dreams?! Only Mama knew how to do that!

She hugged Ryou.

"I'm hugging Ryou!" said Mukai. Ryou hugged her back. He was good at giving hugs but Mama was the best.

"Aww, I love you too." Said Ryou as he hugged her back. Shibata gave him a look before he flung pancake water at him. First it started off as water and then you put the other stuff in but it was still wet which meant that it was still a water. It was better for flinging like that. Normally Shibata never did stuff like that….but this was good! Now he was fun, too! Now everyone could be fun together, as fun as Sho and Ryou were!

But not Seri, he was scared all the time.

"Hey!" said Seri as the pancake stuff went flying to towards him. Shigeko put up a barrier to save him. She was sort of fun but not fun enough to have a food fight with. That was because she was friends with Seri. When you were friends with someone then you had to be like them.

"You're ok, I've got you." Said Shigeko. She patted Seri on the hand. Ryou's colors looked right at her, well he was always looking at her but sometimes his colors got really bright when they got close to her, and before turning away and looking right at Mine.

"Ryou. Come on." Said Mine. They sounded mad there…but they always sounded mad. Ryou said that it was because they always wanted to go night-night. Sometimes when you hadn't slept for a really long time you got all mad and stuff. Mine needed a nap, but not now! Now they were hugging!

"What?" asked Ryou

"We're hugging some more! Look, Mama!" shouted Mukai before she hugged Ryou again.

"That's good Mukai, hug people, don't hit them. Don't fight unless you have to fight." Said Mama. She looked right at Shibata when she said that. Shibata looked away and went back to work. Mukai knew that look, it was the one Mama gave when you did a no-no. She was always saying that. Fighting was fun. Mama didn't know about fun, but that was ok. Mukai could teach her.

"Fighting is fun, Mama! See?" asked Mukai. She hit Ryou right over his head. He grabbed his head and fell right onto the floor. It was so funny! There wasn't anything in the whole world funnier than people falling down.

"Ryou fall down! They all fall down!" said Mukai. She clapped and pointed so that everyone could see…but nobody was laughing! Not even Sho and Sho normally knew what was funny and what wasn't.

"He didn't actually fall, he's just pretending. He's good at that." Said Sho. His face was sad and his colors were sad…why was he so sad! It was her birthday and on birthdays you had to be happy! She could remember…she could sort of remember being in a big room with cake and….and someone was there…a lot of people. Sort of like this but Mama was holding her and the people were different and all the walls were white….

That must have been another house. The walls were green here.

"It's fun to play pretend." Said Mukai. Maybe Sho would want to play pretend with her later. She would even let Fuckuda play if he really wanted to. He was kind of fun, he had a cat, and cats were very good at playing pretend. If he wanted to play too then he could since it was his house after all. It was mean to make people feel left out. That was why when they had movie nights she had to tell Ryou what was happening since his eyes were always closed and also he didn't have any eyes to see with.

"Yes it is but I'll have all of you know that Mukai just now, honest to God, knocked me flat on ass. Didn't you, didn't you?" said Ryou

"How could a three year old girl possibly knock you onto your back?" asked Caterpillars. He was sitting all off in the corner with Hatori. He was scared, she could tell by his colors. He always got like that when there were lots of people around. Mukai didn't understand why. These were their friends and there was nothing scary at all about your friends. They were the people that loved you the very most in the whole world, like Shigeko had said, and she knew a lot of things about friendship since she was the one who had the most best friends out of everyone else.

"How in the hell do you steal a birthday?" asked Mine. Caterpillar's colors got even more scared than they had ben before. She knew why. Mine could be kind of scary sometimes when you weren't used to them and Caterpillars wasn't used to them at all. He never had breakfast or any other times with everyone at once. He only knew how to be friends with Hatori and sometimes Seri and Fuckuda. That wasn't good at all. He needed to be friends with everyone!

Everyone but Mine. They stole birthdays!

"It's my birthday! Not for you, for me!" shouted Mukai just so that she made sure that they could hear. She didn't hit them again, of course, since that was a no-no and if she did enough of those then Mama might have said that she couldn't have any pancakes. There was a whole mountain of them growing by the oven, now, and they were all for her…well her and everyone else…but mostly for her. When it was your birthday then you got the most pancakes out of everyone in the whole world.

"You're right, it is your birthday…hang on, I just had an idea!" said Ryou before he was gone. He did that sometimes…but he didn't get to go! Not on her birthday! She didn't know where he went but he had to come back!

"Come back, Ryou, come back!" shouted Mukai

"He does whatever he wants." Said Sho. He crossed his arms and sat back really hard in his chair. Fuckuda reached over and tried to give him a one armed hug but Sho pushed him away. His colors were scared, too, even though Sho wasn't a scary person at all. Sho was one of the most fun people in the world. Fuckuda didn't have to be scared…but maybe he was just scared because Caterpillars was scared. Maybe they should have been scared together. They could have even been scared with the ham-hams. They got scared a lot too…she wanted ham-hams….she went under the table. There might have been ham-hams there.

No ham-hams, just feet.

"Like someone I know." Said Mine, their feet kicking with every word like they were trying to kick the words out of the air. She could see everyone's feet but Mine's were the closest. They had avocados on their socks. Those weren't good to eat because it was hard to bite through the skins. Shigeko had watermelons on her socks, those were much better to eat, but also they had seeds. Not good at all.

"You said that it was my body and I could do whatever I wanted with it." Said Shigeko. Mukai crawled over and tried to cover up the seeds on the watermelons Shigeko had on her socks…but there were too many of them to cover! She took Shigeko's foot and put it under Seri's. His socks had Yoshi on them, Yoshi's ate watermelon seeds. She remembered from the game. The Yoshi ate the watermelon and then spit the seeds out to fight the enemies. There weren't any enemy socks around, not really, only Mine's.

But it didn't work, anyway, since Seri took his foot away.

"I know what I said." Said Mine. They moved their feet again…why did they have such terrible socks. Mukai made sure to crawl even farther away, right to Sho's feet. He didn't have socks on at all, just his skin, and the stuff on his skin. The bottoms of his feet were red and the skin felt weird. She poked it. He didn't kick her. She poked it again. He didn't move.

She had to poke him really hard for him to feel it.

"Stop it." Said Sho as he pulled his feet away and tucked them under the table. She poked his leg, that part wasn't hiding. It was all red and fuzzy, like Caterpillar's, but not as much. Caterpillars was sitting with his feet tucked under his chair just like Sho's were. She crawled over and poked his legs. He had the fuzziest legs ever! Even more than Mama's. His socks were boring, though, just black.

"You've done something?" asked Caterpillars. He scratched his leg with his foot. She didn't want to get kicked again, his feet with bigger than Mine's. She crawled over to Hatori. He had on nice socks and his legs were fuzzy too. He didn't have on long pants even though Mama had said that you weren't allowed to wear shorts when it was cold outside. She had been very clear. Hatori was the one who she needed to be mad at, not Mukai. He was the one who didn't know how to listen. Not like her, she was a good listener.

"Shut up and mind your own business, Dad. Go back to playing with Hatori or whatever." Said Sho. Mukai listened because she was a good listener. Sho was mad and Caterpillars was mad. They were always mad at each other. She didn't know why. Sho was fun and Caterpillars was fun so why weren't they fun together.

"Do not speak to me like-" said Caterpillars

"Sho, calm down." Said Fuckuda. His foot touched Sho's, but his socks were boring, plain white, so his feet didn't count.

"Dad, be nice!" said Shigeko

"You don't get to speak to my like-" said Caterpillars

"Fuck! I'm dead!" said Hatori. His feet kicked the ground when he said that. There was a hole in his socks, they had Mario on them, and the hole was right over part of a Mario. Poor Mario. She didn't understand why he didn't fix them, for Mario's sake. She didn't understand a lot of things, like why he had said that he was dead. She knew what dead was, she had seen it in movies. Dead was when you went to sleep but didn't wake back up. Hatori was moving and talking, so he was awake, and not dead….especially not fuck dead.

What did fuck dead mean?

"Fuck, I'm dead!" shouted Mukai. All the feet around her moved. Now she could see heads, everyone was staring at her, and she didn't even know why. She waved. Everyone was talking at once now, she couldn't even tell where one person's words started and the other's stopped. She heard people saying that she had said something wrong…a lot of people….but she didn't get it.

Hatori had said it first.

"Come on out of there, come on. You're not dead." Said Ryou. She saw his arms first and then the rest of him. He picked her up even though she was big now and she didn't need to be carried anymore. She wasn't two anymore, she was three, and she could walk just fine on her own!

"I can walk! I can walk all by myself!" shouted Mukai as she tried to get away. Ryou was strong, though, and really big. She couldn't get away no matter how much she tried!

"I know you can walk but can you sit? That's the question, now isn't it?" asked Ryou as he sat her down in a chair. She didn't want to sit in a…oh! A cake! A big stack of pancakes with frosting and sprinkles and even a candle on top! It was there and it was hers and-

-and it was gone!

Shibata pushed it away and put….hey! That wasn't enough pancakes! The stack was supposed to be big, like Sho's had been before! This stack was small and didn't have any frosting on it or any sprinkles or-or-or anything! How was she supposed to eat THIS?!She pushed it away as hard as she could…but Shibata caught it!

Ryou helped her, though, because he was her friend and that was what friends did.

"Come on, it's her birthday. You only turn three once." Said Ryou as he put the real pancakes cake in front of her. Shibata tried to push it away again but Ryou blocked him with his colors. Shibata's arm got bigger and the sleeve of his sweater started to rip.

"You know that Tsuchiya doesn't want her eating that much sugar at once." Said Shibata

"What's wrong with a little sugar? She's a kid, and besides if her teeth start to rot out or her pancreas gives up then that's what we have that cock suck over there for." Said Ryou as he pointed towards Fukuda

"That's Fuckuda, not a co-" said Mukai

"Will you watch your mouth, Ryou? We're going to end up with another Sho at this rate and the last thing we need is another Sho." said Mine

"What the fuck does that mean!?" shouted Sho. He slammed his hands on the table. He tried to stand up but Fuckuda wouldn't let him.

"They mean that you're annoying and tiresome." Said Caterpillars. Hatori shook his head a bunch of times. That meant that he didn't agree. Mukai didn't agree either. She didn't know what tiresome meant but she knew that Sho wasn't it. Also she knew what annoying meant and right now the most annoying person in the whole world was Shibata…which was weird because he used to be nicest person in the whole world.

"He already knows that you think he's-" said Hatori

"Sho, don't pick fights with your-" said Fukuda

"How about you just lay off-" said Shimazaki

"Stop fighting! I don't like fighting and-and-and Dad, just talk to Hatori and Sho don't talk to Dad and-and-and I think that Mukai should be allowed to have half of that cake now but not more than that because when she has too much sugar she gets sugar sick and…and I think that we should sing happy birthday now before we start fighting! I mean….any more than we've been fighting already…ok?" asked Mob

"Ok! Come on, happy birthday now! Right now!" said Mukai as she slammed her hands down on the table like Sho had done. She needed everyone to listen…why wouldn't they listen?!

"Mob, are you sure that she can't have the whole-" said Ryou

"Tsuchiya wouldn't like that." Said Shigeko

"She's right, I wouldn't. I don't even like her having half of that." Said Mama

"Well who did you think that it was for?" asked Ryou

"You, obviously." Said Mama

"Oh come on that's…actually, yeah, let me have some of that." Said Ryou

"Ok…you have some too. We have cake now?" asked Mukai

"If nobody has anything else to add." Said Caterpillars

"If you changed the calendar….I mean…that's how you'd steal someone's birthday…if you were trying to steal birthdays…I'm sorry." said Seri. His voice got quieter and quieter while his colors got even brighter and brighter. Shigeko patted him on the hand again. Ryou's colors got bright again. Caterpillar's colors got bright too. Sho's got really dark and Fuckuda held onto him so he didn't get up. Everyone was getting mad and-and she just wanted to have a happy birthday!

"We sing! We eat! We open presents! Right now! Over there!" shouted Mukai. Now it was time to have her birthday. She knew that everyone would just keep on fighting and fighting and fighting until she made them stop. She didn't know why they fought. She didn't know why they had to be like that…but that was ok, these were her friends, and this was her birthday. As long as she got cake, presents, and everyone sang to her then it would be a good birthday.

She had to have a good birthday, she was three now, and three was much bigger than two.