I ran, unable to keep up with Hiei's god-surpassing speed. What was happening? I was desperate to know if Botan was hurt in anyway. "Hiei!" I called. "What is it?!"
He stopped for only a moment and gave me a strange look as if to torment me with the fact that I knew not of which he spoke. "Hurry up. Run faster, or did you living as a human make you run like one?" He darted off, stopping for a second or two so I could see where he was.
I ran on and stopped at the point where Hiei stood, leaning casually against the tree. "Go in," he said in his monotone.
I looked at the house. It was Yusuke's house. The lights were off. I wasn't surprised. Yusuke would probably be asleep at this time. "Elaborate," I said to Hiei.
"Go in," he repeated. "What do you need? Open the door!"
I did as he said. For a moment I was blinded as the lights turned on. My eyes grew accustomed to the light and I saw the friends that I made standing there. "What is this?" I asked, turning to Hiei who wore a smirk upon his face. He raised a hand and gestured at me. I was pushed further into the house. He had used his telepathic powers.
"Happy birthday!" they said in unison.
"My birthday?" I murmured. "How did you know about this?" Since I had lived for over a decade, I did little to celebrate my birthday. The most I did was a moment or so of quite reflection to think over the past. I had even asked my mother to do nothing for my birthday except for a dinner alone with her to tell each other of our thoughts and things like that. Since my mother was ill, I dared not worry her with it.
"How wouldn't we know about it?" Yusuke said. "All we had to do was log on the high school's Website, enter the school codes and we could get into the teacher's database to get it."
"I highly doubt that."
"All we did was ask Lord Koenma," Botan said. "Since you're a demon who has permission to live in Ningenkai, we keep accounts on you. We could even tell everyone of what you did as a baby or if you killed anyone, where anyone else knew or not." She smiled at me. "Happy birthday."
I smiled back at her, feeling slightly light-headed from hearing that she cared enough to go through Koenma to find out when my birthday was.
"So, fox boy, how old are ya?" Kuwabara asked. "Four hundred?"
"Not quite. In human years, I'm now 16. As Youko, I'm three hundred and two…at least."
"That's great. Can we eat the cake now?"
"You made me a cake?"
"I did," Yukina said in her shy voice. She blushed. "I learned how to make human foods. I hope that the cake isn't too sweet."
"I'm sure it'll be perfect."
"We have to have you open presents!" Botan said. She pushed me towards the table set in the living room with packages. "Open them. We want to know what Yusuke got you."
I opened them. Botan had given me a package of Makai flower seeds.
"I didn't know what to get. I don't even know if these plants will live here. They need blood instead of water," she said nervously.
"Hiei can provide the blood, I'm positive of it."
"Hn." Hiei sat on the couch and watched as Kuwabara tried to boast to Yukina.
Yusuke had gotten me a comb. He shrugged. "Your hair goes everywhere. Since you don't slick it down like I do, I figured you could do something with it."
I thanked him, not knowing whether he was insulting me or not. Yukina had gotten me a green sweater that seemed to match the color of my eyes. She blushed when I opened it. Kuwabara gave me porcelain figurine of a cat. That wasn't surprising. Hiei gave me a stuffed Ningenkai fox. He had killed it, cleaned the insides and stuffed it. He went to such pains to work on it.
"Thank you, Hiei."
"Yeah, yeah," he muttered and waved it off.
The party went well. Kuwabara became ill from eating so much cake. Yukina constantly moved around, refilling everyone's cups of soda. Hiei was acting normal, wanting nothing to do with anyone or anything.
"Hiei, you have to eat cake! It's good! Yukina made it, try it for her sake," Botan urged. She sat beside him handing him a Styrofoam plate with a slice of Yukina's chocolate cake. I felt a twinge of jealousy, but it was quickly forgotten as everyone laughed at Hiei's stubborn refusal of the human sweet.
"It's not that bad, is it?" Yukina said in a worried tone.
"It's great, babe," Kuwabara said, reaching out to hug her.
Hiei scowled. "Fine. I'll eat it." He took the plate and took a bite of it. He choked. "What the hell is this?!"
"It's chocolate cake. You don't like it?" Yusuke asked, amazed.
"It's. . .interesting." Without a word, Hiei ate the rest and seemed to be in a reasonably good mood the rest of the night.
Dawn was coming up. It was a lucky thing that it was the weekend to have thrown a midnight party.
"I gotta sleep. I don't run on cake all day," Kuwabara said. He hugged Yukina. "It was great, though, babe. See you later today!"
"Good by, Kazume."
"Kurama, I got something to say to you," Hiei said to me, gripping my arm.
I stopped and looked at Botan. She wanted to say something to me and I was eager to know what. "What is it?"
"Away from everyone else." He dragged me outside and a foot or so away from the house and behind a tree.
"What must you say that is so important for you not to say it in front of everyone?" I asked.
"I didn't want to embarrass anyone. I don't want this passed around the town."