Author's Notes
Kagami Appreciation Week November 20: Happy Birthday - This one is a free day, it's Kagami's birthday so just make something about her.
This story is something of a culmination of all of the prior prompts - a little smorgasbord of every motif and theme that we've explored, at least in some small way.
Kagami is, after all, a mixture of all these things.
Also, it can be read as a sequel to the angsty Day 4: "Only A Fool Fights the Storm..." wherein Kagami, having learnt the identities of Ladybug and Chat Noir, gives up on Adrien so that he can be with the woman she believes that he loves.
Kagami does not remember what celebrations were held for her first four birthdays. There may not have been any.
She does not ask because it is not important. Birthdays as they are celebrated in modern Japan, her mother says, are heavily westernized because popular media has glamorized the trite and the commercial, ignoring the reverent and the substantial. It is the spirit of the age.
On her fifth birthday, they did nothing, but it is the first birthday that Kagami can remember outside of a vague impression left by the pictures taken just around the time she turned four. In the photographs that she stuffs down into the bottom of a cardboard box and piles under junk because she cannot simply get rid of them, she is a dull-faced and sour looking child whom she hates when she sees, but does not know why.
Instead of a personal celebration, Kagami underwent her five year Shichi-Go-San exactly five days before her actual fifth birthday.
Everything in life is a rite of passage in its own way, the past always dying away, moment by moment, and the new being born, but the five year Shichi-Go-San is an important one.
Kagami was proud on her seven year Shichi-Go-San. An new, ornate obi was affixed to her waist, and she eased her fingers along the material as if it was the first time she wanted to learn how to be gentle. Her mother told her that it was okay to be proud. It was not only okay; it was expected, required. The wrap sat too tightly on her stomach as her mother watched her undergo the ceremony.
If everything is a rite of passage, then, likewise, everything is a test to be passed or failed. How did one do either, or know if one has done either, if she has no criteria? No points to score; a judge whose card was always hidden and no referee.
There were no other birthdays as such.
It is five days before her sixteenth birthday, nine years removed from the day that she received the obi that still sits on display in her room. In the midst of a quaint little cafe that bustles with patrons, savouring the warm atmosphere, she speaks with Marinette and Adrien.
They are as frustrating as they ever are.
"I simply do not see the importance of it," she deflects while raising a glass of orange juice to her mouth. Why did she purchase it? It is tangy and naturally vibrant, much like Adrien with all his cajoling.
"It's your birthday, Kagami!" Adrien very nearly shouts, pinching his brow in a show of exaggerated disbelief because it is easy for him to play at such things. "Of course it's important."
"I will be one day older than the previous day, and one year older than the same time last year. The same is true of every day."
"But there's so much that you could do." He sounds if she is ignoring his birthday, which is actually important to him and thus is important. "It's your sixteenth birthday. You're almost an adult- just two more years and you can leave home if you want."
Adrien is excited in that boyishly charming way of his, a little yipping puppy and Amefurikozō, a little mischievous trickster who brings the rain. Fitting too, she realizes as she looks to Marinette who is as smitten and indulgent as ever. As Kagami ... was. Take Amefurikozō's umbrella, be foolish enough to try to wear it on your head, and you'd never be able to take it off again.
You'd be trapped under the little boy's umbrella forever. It couldn't be given away, even if Kagami tried.
"I've already got a cake design picked out for you, Kagami." Marinette grins, and Kagami is not sure of whom she should be jealous when she places her mug of tea to the table and sighs.
The answer is both of them, for many reasons. They have so much that she does not; are so much that she is not. Heroes, for one. It was obvious, once she saw it. The truth often is.
"I very much appreciate all of the effort that you invested, and would be pleased to share your cake, Marinette, but a party seems unnecessary. It is difficult for me to understand why you would place such importance on it. Birthday parties are woefully self-indulgent and commercialized."
Adrien could not look more scandalized if he'd just heard that his father was having and affair with Mayor Bourgeois, rearing back in his seat before taking a shaky sip from his coffee. He disliked coffee, had to drown the bitterness in sugar and cream, but drank it because he wasn't allowed.
Perhaps she had not been sensitive enough to his needs.
"Why would you say that Kagami? Birthdays in my home, at least, aren't exactly what I'd call commercialized." Marinette's hand settles on her boyfriend's thigh as she shakes her head at him. The slightest reprimand bursts him and he deflates, offering her kitten eyes because he's a horrible flirt with her as much as he was with Kagami herself.
Bitterness is beneath her, so she says nothing.
Their drinks having been finished, they continue talking while they prepare to depart.
Adrien is all grins when he flips his black scarf around his shoulders, waggling the green cat print on the tip in Marinette's direction while she buttons up her heavy coat and Kagami waits for them both in the entryway of the cafe.
Alya often said that they were sickeningly cute together. Surely the watery churn of melting ice in her gut while watching Marinette clutching at her mouth to keep the giggles from spilling out is precisely what the blogger meant.
They rise together and traverse the Parisian street-ways, braving the cold while bundled up tight. It is a damp cold, the kind that soaks into Kagami's skin while the misty remnants of rain leave every piece of clothing sticky. Trudging over the slippery-wet sidewalk and soggy, scattered leaves that ooze under their feet, they are on treacherous ground.
As they reach an intersection, the lights change, and cars begin to rumble past while they wait.
"We don't want to force you into anything." A little puff of steam rolls through Marinette's clenched hands when she speaks, huffing into them. "If you don't want a birthday party, we can just go fencing or see a movie."
Adrien takes Marinette's hands in his own, rubbing them to create friction and warm her up. His fingers are long and delicate, and his silver ring pops even in the grey sludge of an unexpectedly cold and damp fall afternoon that feels more like winter and there is no sun but him.
Small things like a birthday party matter to them, oftentimes for reasons that slip greasily through Kagami's fingers like melting fat that must be rendered away.
The traffic light has yet to change.
When she sees them together like this – the way that Marinette slides open her fingers to allow more of their skin to touch and how his massive yet model-delicate hands plump in the cold while he cradles and strokes hers – she feels that pull in her gut like the affectation of pride, stolen by her mother, that she didn't have a right to any longer. Was it really stolen, or out of spite, had she just given it up?
Puerile.
"I would be pleased to attend any party that you arrange." That icy inflection that draws them away from each other is directed at herself. At least she hopes that it is because that would make her a better person.
They are her only friends, and she has lost them to the pull of each other.
This is why her mother told her that she should not have friends. There can never be a true balance. She'd thought that they could find it again if they all had enough patience.
"Are you alright?" Marinette's hands are free and taking hers, and she is too close. Her breath fogs the air between them, but Kagami's does not because she cannot breathe.
"Of course. I am merely feeling the effects of the cold." Kagami is surprised. She did not think that she had guile enough to lie while still saying something that is completely true.
Adrien is judging her in his particular way, the one that makes him look happy. In public, that is his version of pensive. Pondering that expression is impossible for her when Marinette takes her hand and tugs her forward into the street. The light has changed.
As the other girl gushes, Kagami cannot help but smile at the rosiness of her cheeks and the way she leaps between store windows. Kagami admires her distorted, joyous expression in the glass so that Marinette cannot tell that she is watching her as she coos over Christmas displays rife with elves and Santa teddy bears, Adrien following along behind them.
The sun is at her back, but a soft and real and painfully human girl holds her hand and won't let go.
Even the thick smoggy exhaust of traffic that puffs up and hangs like ash from a forest fire or a burnt out building isn't enough to stop her from breathing easily for a few minutes.
But then it is time to part.
"So, should I have my driver pick you up for a 16:00 start to the party on Saturday?" Adrien is rubbing heat into his arms, while they are folded around Marinette. She is so small compared to him. Both of them are. Like he swallows them up.
Some of her opponents on the piste had suggested that her eyes are expressionless, careless and robotic. It is psychological warfare of a sort, but ineffective.
As she looks at the lovers, she hopes that they are right, but she cannot tell.
"No. I should be able to make use of Tatsu."
They are very poor at concealing things from her, though they believe otherwise. It is understandable that they should misapprehend her abilities. Refusing to clarify or reveal gives her power. Power lets you hurt or avoid being hurt.
It also allows you to avoid hurting others.
When they smile, eyes still fixed on each other, wary, planning, conversing in that way that the heroes of Paris do, she knows. Kagami may still be learning how to smile, but she is very familiar with forcing them.
They say goodbye, and as she walks away, she is certain that she can hear them whispering.
On Saturday, there is a party, and games that she and Adrien are far too competitive in, reminding her of lost days that she should have cherished for what they were, rather than dreaming of what they "should" have been.
Nino and Alya are there, but that is all that they are. There to give the illusion that people other than Marinette and Adrien care for her, even as she drifts away on a sea of ice.
Her cake is brought in to the off-key caterwaul of "Happy Birthday," punctuated by giggles.
And what a cake!
Kagami knows nothing of baking, and so is utterly unable to describe it, but it is chocolate – two layers of chocolate with icing that is aptly named because it is smooth and glassy and staring into it is like looking into the mirror-polished surface of a skating rink. Halved strawberries run figure-eights on its surface.
Adrien hands her a knife, shivering like a child with a sugar rush as he exhorts her to make a wish!
There is a pause to indulge them by pretending to wish for something, which is always useless.
With the regret of a child destroying something beautiful she cannot understand, she cuts into the cake, the moist fluffiness bouncing back into place as the knife comes back gooey with icing, and she serves everyone at the table.
Nino and Alya inhale theirs, gushing. Kagami takes a fork and savours it, appreciates the subtle interplay of chocolate and just a hint of mint with delicate forkful after delicate forkful, and then cleanses her palate with the strawberries that leave her refreshed.
Marinette and Adrien do not share their slice; she would have expected them to feed each other, wipe little smears of chocolate onto and then off of each other's noses or cheeks, or take advantage of any excuse available to play with their partner's rosy lips, plump and grinning.
Instead, they sit with her, close – too close and ask her about the cake, ask her about her birthday and her wishes – the things she didn't wish for because she had to keep that secret if it was to come true.
A silly Western superstition.
Secret wishes never came true. You had to make them known and rip them from the world. Things were never given to you. Even purported gifts come at a cost.
Alya and Nino conspicuously leave after offering her a new MP3 player with a mix of Nino's new songs, tailored to her tastes in Classical and select works from Osamu Kitajima.
And then, together, Marinette and Adrien present her with a small wrapped package, the paper sticking out at random points and both sides pasted down with thick rolls of tape.
Adrien preens over his wrapping job, and she thinks that it is beautiful in its lopsided inelegance.
She tears off the paper because she knows that excitement she does not feel will make both of them smile.
Inside the box, beneath the folds of soft red tissue paper, is a small something enfolded in another packet that Kagami has to unwrap, struggling with the tape that seals it. She looks at it for a moment, and then plucks it up, feeling something in her throat – the same thing that she feels when she loses; the same thing she felt when she told Adrien that she no longer loved him; but sweet and decadent as Marinette's cake.
It is a lucky charm bracelet.
She shift it into the palm of her hand, running her fingers over a trio of beads that have been yoked together on the end: red, black, and red again. They lead into a small rectangular image of a Maneki-neko – the "good luck cat" – a calico bobtail waving his happy little paw. Her fingertip taps his little claws.
After that, another round red bead, followed by a koi, and another bead.
A lotus is next, like the flowers that bloomed from the muddy pond that Kagami had seen from the window of her country estate as a child. She remembers having once escaped her attendant when she was distracted and delighted in plopping down in the dirt to stare out at the blossoms, not caring how she might have stained her clothes with dirt or, later, with blood.
Finally, another three beads, mirroring the first set and leading to the clasp.
Kagami is a simple woman in many ways, and eschews contemplation of philosophy save for that of masters like Musashi who can assist her in the intellectual pursuit of the blade. Everything but her few indulgences – Marinette and Adrien – is focused on that, but her mother ensured that she is familiar with her cultural heritage. Its symbols. Are her friends?
A lucky cat; perseverance and courage to keep pressing forward; something beautiful blooming from muddy, unclear waters; enlightenment – understanding.
She looks up at them, smiling lightly. "It seems overly indulgent that I should receive even a single such gift. I am quite wealthy, after all."
"Oh, Kagami." Marinette takes Adrien by the hand, the charm bracelets on their wrists so obvious now, and they bring each other a step closer. "A birthday isn't about gifts, cheap or expensive, or anything commercial. It's not even about a cake."
"It's not?" The charm digs into her hand as she squeezes. "That was the impression I received from my mother."
"No." Adrien's other hand is extended, palm open. "It's about celebrating you – everything that you are. Who you are. How lucky we know that we are. Showing you how much you mean to us – how grateful we are to have you as part of our lives."
There is something in her eyes and she wants it out.
She is still under Amefurikozō's umbrella. It was never hers and it can't shield her from the sun or the rain. She is burning up, face flushed, and her breath comes in gulps like she's in the midst of a fight. Is she sweating? Does she look as ugly as she fears, or as beautiful as they make her feel by looking at her that way? Amefurikozō's umbrella will only bathe her in the sun - roast her alive. At least, as ever, it is such a quick and breathless fall.
How can anyone stand in the light and heat of him?
Maybe if you don't stand alone.
"How much we care." Is the hope that Kagami thinks she hears Marinette's or just hers?
She has enough of it to not know and still act.
She takes hold of the proffered hand.
Planning for the future was easy; you visualized an outcome, plotted out the steps, exerted yourself in the present, and the future you created came. One year older; one year of training closer to Olympic gold – to upholding the family honor and to validation and to a victory she thought might be able to fill the emptiness she carried every day.
It was the emptiness that made that little girl in the photographs scowl and that she had taught herself to ignore so that it wouldn't show on her face and that was why she didn't know how to smile. A chasm she tried to fill in with ice that was always melting and evaporating as quickly as she piled it in.
For the first time, even though it is a year away, she is actually excited by the prospect of another birthday and all the fathomless possibilities of the future when you couldn't plan, plot, train, or know.
She just has to be patient and let it come, trust that it can find her, and not hesitate to take the opportunities.
It is wondrous to be told that there is a present – and that there just might be a future waiting for you – wherein people care. Especially if they care in all the ways you hope they might.
"Happy birthday, Kagami."
Soft and warm and human, a girl and a boy hold her by both hands and won't let go. Tangible. She cradles the sun and the earth – the world – in her palms, and maybe she can stow them away, keep them for herself.
As she holds on, she knows that it is very nice to have her first birthday party.
But it is even better to have her first truly happy birthday.
Author's Notes
Thank you to everyone who has left a review, favorited one of my stories, or simply taken the time to read through them. That's flattering in itself, and I very much hope that you have found something that you've enjoyed along the way.