Chapter 26: Nate's Birthday
It was a warm, summer day in springdale, Damona was using her human disguise to join Zoey and Lina for lunch at a cafe in downtown springdale. Nate had recommended that she get more friends besides Insomni, the half demon found the human girls… tolerable. Though, their need to make every conversation somehow relate to the supernatural was somewhat annoying.
They were going on about something relating to the local school at night, or something. To be honest Damona wasn't really paying attention, Instead rather she was focusing on her fudge sundae. She let a grin slip onto her face as she scooped up another spoonful of the creamy desert. It was like eating liquid joy!
"Hey, Damona, whatcha' get Nate for his birthday?" Zoey asked, bringing the half demon out of her thoughts.
She stared at the human for a solid twenty seconds before saying, "Nate's what?"
"His birthday, you know, the anniversary of when someone was born in which we give them presents to mark the occasion?" Zoey said twiddling her thumbs, "of which it is currently Nate's."
"THAT'S TODAY?!" the oni princess said in a panic.
Lina let out a small laugh, "you didn't know?"
"No, he hasn't even mentioned a birthday!" Damona said, "why did neither of you tell me?"
"You're his fiance, you should have known," Zoey said, donning a smirk akin to the yuki-onna's signature one, she rolled her eyes in response. The black haired girl stood up and said, "hate to cut this short, but I gotta get going. Clover need's feeding, and I need to get Nate's gift from my closet before my sister finds it. Seeya!"
The bespeckled girl left some money on the table to pay for her part of the tab, than began walking away. Damoan sighed and banged her head on the table, "I've only known Nate for a few weeks, I don't know enough about him to get a meaningful gift!"
"Wish I could help," Lina replied with a quiet frown, "but I've only known Nate since last school year, and we only started talking often when I found out about you."
"Great, just great, the useful one left," the half demon sighed.
"If you really want any help, I'd ask some of his closer friends, Bear, Eddie, Katie, I've seen him hang out with Sarah on occasion, honestly any of them are better choices than me," Lina listed off.
Damona growled at the mention of the first girl, while she tolerated Katie when Nate was around, she by no means liked her, it was like salt in a wound when the princess found out she had tried to persuade Nate to let her be sealed back in the Crank-a-kai. She didn't know what it was, but something about that girl made Damona want to burn the city to the ground.
Those violent thoughts aside, she had to admit Lina had a point. The humans she had listed off had known Nate much longer than she had, one of them was bound to be some kind of help.
Damona paid her part of the tab and bid Lina adue, before returning to her yokai form and flying off. Given her location the closest one of her fiance's associates was Edward, to be honest he was the one of them she could stand the most. Though his odd "Cyber-hipster" lifestyle confused the half demon, she recognised him as a fellow aristocrat. The human boy seemed to have money and influence to spare, she could tell that just by the size of his house.
The Half-demon floated to the ground in front of the Archer Residence's gate. She placed her yokai leaf on her head re-disguising herself as a human, she figured that enough people knew of her existence already.
She pressed a green button on a screen near the door and was greeted with a voice via intercom, "Yes?"
Damona pressed another button near a microphone before speaking into it, "Hello, I'm here to see Edward."
"Are you a friend of his?" the voice asked.
"More like a friend of a friend, I simply need to ask him something," the yokai girl answered.
The voice was quiet for a few seconds before saying, "make it quick."
The gate opened allowing her to the front door, she entered the upper class home and admired the modern decor. Soon after, Eddie came down the stairs greeting her.
"Heyya, thanks for stopping by, just one question, who are you?" the boy asked.
"Edward, right?" Damona asked to which he nodded.
"You can just call me Eddie, everyone does," He said in a casual tone, "and you?"
"Damona," the half demon bowed in respect, "I came to ask you something, you know Nathan Adams?"
"You a friend of his?" Eddie asked.
"More like we're an item," Damona replied, "ya see we've been… dating a few weeks now and Nate completely forgot to tell me his birthday was soon and I have no idea what to get him."
"Wait, you're Nate's girlfriend? Ha, didn't expect him to be the first of us to get one," Eddie chuckled, "I mean, he's a nice guy, but he's not that interesting."
Meanwhile, Nate could swear someone had just called him average.
"Regardless, I'll help ya out, Nate's my best bud," Eddie began walking up to his room, gesturing for the disguised yokai to follow.
The two entered his room, which was very similar to Nate's. The human went to his closet taking out a box that featured a man in dark purple and black armor. Damona had to admit that design wise the illustrated man would seem very intimidating in person.
"As long as I've known Nate, he's been a huge fan of the Space wars movies, especially the villain, Emperor Krill," Eddie explained showing off the box, "so I pulled some strings to get him the limited edition Krill action figure."
"A toy?" the oni-princess thought to herself, "well… I suppose he'd like something like that."
"Yeah, so you can't exactly go wrong with Space wars stuff," Eddie chuckled, "unfortunately, thats about as much I can help you with for now, I am way too busy today, gotta do some coding, get this thing wrapped, honestly, I'm just hoping I have enough time to even make it to Nate's party tonight."
"I understand, thank you for the advice," Damona bowed before leaving the residence, "well that was little help, I don't even know what space wars is… ugh, let's try the next guy."
In more ways than one, Barnaby "Bear" Bernstein reminded Damona of her cousin, Gargaros. Both were large, strong, simple minded people who often needed to be told things that were obvious. Because of this, she had a hard time thinking of the boy as anything other than a mindless lacky, so now she'd have to actively try to respect him long enough to get some advice.
She found the vietnamese boy at the edge of the river where Faux Kappa lived, fishing in the shallow water…she hoped he wasn't using something important as bait again.
"Hey, are you bear?" Damona called to him. The boy seemed to have not heard her as he was lost in concentration. She called again, "hello?... HELLO?!"
The last call finally got a reaction from him as he jumped in surprise dropping his fishing rod, "Ah! Awe man!"
He turned to Damona, who simply said, "they call you Bear right?"
"Who's asking?" the boy raised a brow.
"I'm Damona," the half demon answered, "Nate's girlfriend."
Bear took a few seconds to process that last part, "Nate has a girlfriend?"
"Regardless, He didn't tell me anything about his birthday, so now I've got no idea what to get him," Damona said, eager to get to the point, "I've seen him talk to you so I figured it wouldn't be too big a waste of time to ask."
The human before her put his hand to his chin, "birthday ideas, hmm…"
He continued to silently think to himself, Damona stared at him, eyes only half open. He was beginning to test her patience. He continued to think to himself.
"I've got nothing," Bear finally said, shrugging.
"SERIOUSLY?!" Damona said angrily, "if you can't think of anything how did you even get him a gift?"
"I'm given him my old soccer ball," the boy said, not entirely sure why she was getting mad.
"Ugh, Thanks for nothing," she sighed walking away, "ugh, that only leaves Katie."
Thankfully, the girl she dreaded was already aware of her true form, so she didn't need to keep up the human ficade. Katie was currently in the mall in downtown springdale… Damona knew this because Whisper wouldn't stop texting on the Kainet.
"Let's see here…" Katie said looking among the shelves of one of the stores. Her eyes fell on a strange coin, decorated with five golden stars, "I wonder what this thing is?"
"Sure is purtty," Komasan admired the little coin.
"Oh, why this little trinket, I'm sure it's nothing that special," Whisper tried sounding smart again, "afterall, it's in a human store for less than a few dollars, it can't be anythin-" "That's a crank-a-kai coin."
All three of them jumped in surprise to Damona seemingly appearing from nowhere.
"What?" Katie asked recovering from the shock.
"It's a five star crank-a-kai coin, they work for that prize ball machine in the woods that spits out yokai," the oni-hybrid said, "but that's besides the point, I need your help."
"You… need my help?" Katie raised a brow, she never thought she hear that from Damona of all people, "with what?"
Damona had an embarrassed look, "I need a birthday gift for Nate."
Katie looked at her for a couple seconds, "Cutting it a little close, aren't we?"
"I DIDN'T KNOW IT WAS TODAY!" the princess yelled in rage. She took a deep breath, and more calmly said, "Look, I don't like you, but I've exhausted all other options, can you help?"
"First of all, feelings mutual," the human girl replied bluntly, "and to be honest, I'm kinda busy at the moment."
"Busy? With wha-" Damona started before she began to connect the dots, "Oh my Shuka, you forgot it was his birthday too, didn't you?!"
Katie blushed, confirming her suspicions, "It slipped my mind, I've been busy with yokai stuff all week"!
"Oh, you act all high and mighty about My morality, but you're just as self centered!" Damona said in an accusing tone.
"Um, Ladies?" Whisper said, trying to stop an all out fued, "Why don't we calm down and discuss this rationally?"
"Ugh, the djinn's right," Damona sighed, "look, Nate saved me from a fate worse than death, I just want to make him feel appreciated."
The girl looked at the yokai in disbelief, she'd only known her for a few weeks, but that was genuinely the nicest thing she'd heard her say.
"Well…" Katie pause, "The best gifts are ones that mean something, like they're giving a part of you…"
"Giving a part of you," Damona thought, looking down at her kimono, she'd had it practically her entire life, it was the blanket she was held in as a baby, her hood when she was a small child, and now it was practically part of her… that gave her an idea.
"Surprisingly helpful," she bowed before floating away.
"You're welcome," Katie grumbled before her eyes once again fell on the coin, "so it works for the crank-a-kai?"
Damona immediately took out her YokaI-pad and logged onto the Kainet. There, she looked through a list of yokai tailors in the general area, stopping on a yokai named 'Dazzabel.' A smirk formed on her.
Later that day, After Nate's birthday party had concluded, the boy entered his room, setting down the gifts he'd received from his friends on his bed, next to a lounging Jibanyan.
"Oh hey, Birthday boy," The nekomata greeted him, taking a golden wrapped chocolate bar from his belt, "been savin this for ya!"
"A deluxe Chocobar?" Nate smiled as he took the candy, "surprised you didn't eat it!"
"I don't eat Every Chocobar put in front of me!" Jibanyan replied, disproving his point by eating another bar he had pulled from his belt. Nate simply chuckled.
"Oh, honey!" He heard Damona call from the other end of the room. She had both hands behind her back for a few seconds, before taking out a black box with a purple bow, "happy birthday."
"Aw, thanks Damona!" her fiance said, taking the box.
Upon opening it, he discovered it's contents were a Black sweatshirt with the exact design of Damona's kimono. The human took it from the box and tried it on, fealing it's silky material perfectly fit his body.
"Nice huh, now we match!" the oni princess smiled.
"I love it," Nate said, zipping it up. At that moment, he noticed something, her left sleeve was smaller than the other, "wait, what happened to your kimono?"
"Oh, that?" Damona said holding up her hand, "it's how I made the sweatshirt, I cut a piece off and the yokai tailor, Dazzabel. With her power she could make an entire outfit out of that one scrap! Do you like it?"
Nate looked at her for a second, before grabbing her in a hug, "it's amazing!"
Damona hugged back, a small smile formed as she embraced him. Unfortunately, this quiet moment was interrupted by Nate's mother knocking on the door, "Nate, your grandma's gift just came in the mail!"
The young couple broke their embrace and Nate opened the door. His mother handed him a box covered in japanese decorated wrapping paper. Her tour it off and opened the box, a shocked expression forming on his face.
Confused to see her fiance's reaction, Damona floated up to see the gift for herself. Inside of the box was a blue wrist-watch with a golden gear around it's red dia, its face however caught their attention. A pair of clock hands over a cyan, green, pink and purple background.
The two looked to each other with the same thought, "A Yokai Watch?!"