complexing | [014] [video/action] happy, happy birthday, from all of us to you

[The video starts up and Touya looks rather intensely into the camera. For having just turned 21, he looks fairly grumpy.]

Okay, so my birthday only comes around once every four years, technically, so I figure I get a free pass at this. It isn't a joke, nobody laugh.

The person... people... [He huffs in frustration and decides to keep this simple.] The person I'm with wants to take our relationship to an intimate level and I don't know how to make it special or memorable or nice or whatever. Can anyone give me some advice or something?

[A fairly hostile video for a request but... the subject has clearly been on his mind for a few days. Long enough that he's so desperate for advice, he's gone public.]

[Action]

[Even though it's his birthday, Touya isn't making such a big deal out of it. He goes to work at Seventh Heaven, picks up some groceries (ingredients for one of his favorite meals), and walks home. Meanwhile, he's pondering the responses he's received from the network and, oddly enough, thinking about his mother. Had she ever thought that she would see her son turn 21? It wasn't much of a milestone, honestly, but Touya always tended to think about his mom on his birthday, and all of those small celebrations he'd had when he was younger. And how annoyed he was when his dad explained why Touya's birthday wasn't always on the calendar.]

[Some of these memories have Touya smiling at times when maybe it wasn't really appropriate to smile, but he isn't thinking about everyone else at the moment.]

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I think you'd have to mess things up pretty badly for that to happen.

You don't know Yuki.

'Yuki'?

Ah, Tsukishiro Yukito. He's my boyfriend. I call him Yuki... [It his own term of endearment, and he usually doesn't use it around other people. The fact that he did is probably indicative of how much of his brainspace this has occupied.]

Wait, you're Yukito's boyfriend?

[OH. Well, that makes this conversation a lot more interesting... and awkward.]

...Yes...?

[Is that a bad thing?]

I knew he had a boyfriend, I just didn't realize it was you. But I'm glad. You seem like a really nice person.

...did Yuki make it sound like I wasn't a nice person?

[And wait, Touya's been keeping his mouth shut this whole time and Yuki's been talking about him...?]

N-no, that's not it at all! You two just seem pretty different, that's all. Um, not that that's a bad thing-- sometimes I think things can work out better when you aren't exactly the same.

Yeah. [He laughs softly.] We are pretty different, I guess. But I like people who smile, and who aren't bothered that I don't smile all the time.

You two... kind of remind me of Richter and myself. It's nice to see that there are other people like us too.

'Like us'? You mean gay?

[Touya can't help but feel a little sad that this guy felt different or 'not like most people' because of who he liked. Yeah, Touya feels different too, but the people who mattered didn't care. That was the important thing.]

That too, but I meant more that our personalities are a lot alike. Richter never really smiled that much either, but he always seemed happy whenever he saw me smiling. I didn't mind that he didn't smile that much-- I knew he was happy because of the way he acted.

Ah. Yeah, that's kind of like me and Yukito. Ever since we met, he could always read me better than anyone else.

[Everybody at school thought he was cool, or standoffish, or proud, or stuck up because he never really talked to anybody. Maybe Yuki had always known that Touya was different, while everyone else chose to look the other way and try to put a tag on it.]

Is Richter here? Or back home?

He's back at home now. He was here for almost a year, though, and... I'm glad. I'm glad I got that chance to spend time with him like that, even though he ended up going home.

[This is a little hard for Touya to think about. He can't say he'd feel the same way, honestly. If Yue and Yuki left, he didn't know if he could be happy for them. He might have just been miserable.]

I'm sorry you were left behind, though.

It's okay. I mean, I'll see him again when I go back home, right? So I just have to be patient until then.

...I can see why you're friends with Yukito. [He smiles to himself.]

Wh-what?

[014] [video/action] happy, happy birthday, from all of us to you

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