Chapter 203

Mahiru was pouting even more than before as she turned away in a huff and closed her eyes, so Amane gently brought his lips to the ripe, delicious-looking peach of a cheek that presented itself before him. Maybe because he had done it many times before, Mahiru seemed to know he was there by his warmth and the feeling of his lips, and her eyes snapped open, and she stiffened up. “Come on, keep your eyes closed for real this time.” He laughed and heard a low groan escape from her slender throat. Amane, content with having added one more little surprise he hadn’t been planning, headed into the kitchen. Amane had prepared dinner and done all of the cleanup himself afterward, even though Mahiru wanted to help, all to keep her from getting anywhere near the refrigerator. He took what he had prepared that morning—the culmination of several weeks of hard work—out of its box, plate and all, supporting the serving dish firmly with both hands. Slowly and carefully, he carried it to the low table. He saw Mahiru had turned toward him. She must have realized from the sound and his presence that Amane had come back to the room. Amane smiled. He was looking forward to her reaction when she opened her eyes. “Keep them closed, okay?” He wasn’t finished getting everything ready yet, so he whispered to her as he carefully pushed the candles he’d been keeping hidden, which were thinner and more colorful than everyday candles, down into the white cream frosting. One candle, two candles… Without saying a word, he planted them firmly in the cake, until their pastel colors covered it entirely—enough to make him feel that perhaps seventeen candles were a bit much. Though he felt a little regret over his failure to predict how colorful the cake would become, he decided he couldn’t change it and lit the tip of each candle with a lighter. The difficult thing was that it took a bit of time to light that many candles, but Amane got all of them flickering safely and used the remote to turn off the lights in the room. Their surroundings were suddenly much dimmer, but it wasn’t as if complete darkness had fallen. The soft glow of Mahiru’s seventeen candles illuminated the decorated room, covering everything in a faint veil of light. “Mahiru, you can open your eyes.” When he whispered gently to Mahiru, who had carefully followed his instructions, she slowly, timidly opened her eyes, and— “…Ah!” A trembling, quiet noise that wasn’t quite a sigh or a gasp of surprise spilled from her lips. Mahiru’s face, visible in the faint candlelight, was somewhat befuddled and utterly disarming. He could see the ripples on the surface of her eyes growing larger as they shimmered and reflected the flickering flames of the candles. After clearing his throat once, Amane slowly parted his lips. Honestly, he felt awkward, but his desire to convey this—to give this feeling to Mahiru—was stronger, and it won out. Amane knew singing was not his forte, but with every ounce of feeling he could muster, he sang a short birthday song for Mahiru, the same song his parents had sung for him when he was a child. “Happy seventeenth birthday, Mahiru.” Amane had been waiting to say that since seeing her for the first time that day. After finally speaking those happy words for the one he loved the most in the whole world, he looked at Mahiru, who now sat there frozen. Amane understood she was probably struck by the shock of something she hadn’t expected, so he gave her a little smile. He imagined she was probably frantically trying to process everything all at once. “I was a little worried this might be too childish, but…” He had decorated the room lavishly, prepared a birthday seat for her, made a whole cake, stuck candles in it, and even sang a song. All these ways of celebrating were from his childhood. Even though Mahiru was a high school student, he’d thought they would be a hit and had gotten everything ready for this moment. “We are still children, so I decided something like this would be okay. I have memories of being super happy when people did this kind of thing for me a long time ago. Those memories from my childhood have always stuck with me.” Some of his memories from when he was young were hazy, but even so, he remembered. His parents had decorated a whole room according to his tastes and let him sit among all his favorite stuffed animals and toys. They’d stuck candles in his favorite cake and let him blow them out. Amane had received plenty of birthday wishes and lots of affection. Even now, Amane kept those memories of when he was younger deep in his heart, and they gave him confidence that he was loved. “Maybe I’m being too forward, but I wanted to share something that made me happy, and so that’s why I did all this, because it’s what I dreamed of when I was a kid.” There were some variations, but when it came to birthdays, this was what many children got and what they wanted. Amane knew it wasn’t good to think of himself as the standard in too many respects, but still, when he was a child, there was no other day that raised his spirits like his birthday did. “I thought that maybe this was what you had longed for, too, Mahiru.” Though he felt bad for making assumptions about her feelings, seeing Mahiru’s reaction confirmed he had not been wrong. “So I wanted to give you this experience, too. Though that might have been my ego talking.” Ordinarily, putting seventeen candles into a fifteen-centimeter cake might have been overdoing it, but considering the fact that Mahiru never had this kind of birthday, it was definitely the right choice. The flames on the candles flickered and danced in the gentle breeze of the heater, and at the same time, shimmers collected in Mahiru’s eyes, then fell. Amane realized her stiffness had dissolved as her face began to crumple and tears began to fall, sending him into a panic. “Y-you didn’t like it?” “Of course not! I just…it’s… I’m so…happy, and you did so much for me, and…is it really…okay? I…” Mahiru had gotten everything she had never experienced before all at once. In between sobs, she conveyed her feelings with whatever she could choke out. Amane crouched by Mahiru’s side as she desperately tried to string words together. Her usual refined demeanor was crumbling before his eyes, and he felt like he might start crying, too, as he gently took her trembling hand in his. “As long as I made you happy, I’m glad. I thought really hard about what I could do, about how I could make you happy. I thought a lot about what to do for your birthday and consulted our friends about a lot, which really helped.” This was not like the first time he had celebrated Mahiru’s birthday. Both Itsuki and Chitose had known that the person he was celebrating this time was Mahiru, and they had lent him a helping hand. Even his parents had consulted with him for Mahiru’s sake, and he had also gotten help from other friends, like Yuuta and Ayaka, his senior coworkers, and even his boss. “This wasn’t all just my doing. So many people pitched in to make this happen. Everyone wanted you to be happy on your birthday.” “…Okay.” “Go on, blow out the candles before they completely melt. That’s what you do on your birthday, you know.” After he wiped Mahiru’s tearstained face with a handkerchief, Amane gave her an impish smile, and she managed a little laugh. She must have decided for herself that she couldn’t just keep crying—although her eyes were as wet as ever, they had regained an intense sparkle, and she broke into a broad, bashful smile. Mahiru slid right off the sofa and kneeled on the floor, where she blew softly on the dancing light of the candles, which were still burning gently but brightly in the dark. Of course, the flames were quite strong, and they only flickered, resisting Mahiru’s gentle puff. After several tries, Mahiru gave Amane a bewildered look. Her look of confusion as she tried to blow out candles for the first time ever was the most adorable thing he had ever seen. Mahiru obviously did not know what to do, and she was racking her brain trying to figure it out. “As you can tell, you have to be more forceful to blow out seventeen of them,” he said to her delicately, rubbing her back in encouragement. He was only going to observe as she attempted to blow out the candles. That was because the experience of blowing out candles on a birthday cake was a ritual the guest of honor got to perform.