[text | action for housemates]

[exeggutorhead]

[Action]

[Another year in Johto a month ago...and now, another birthday. Which is a strange thing to think about. Up until a few years ago, he hadn't even known the date of his own birth, hadn't even thought to wonder what it was. Back in Amestris, a homunculus' birth isn't something that anybody really wants to remember or celebrate, after all. But here? People have found it out, wheedled it out of him...people have remembered it, asked after it, thought that the fact that Envy was born was something important.]

[And for two years now, he's awkwardly accepted the couple of gifts and the well wishes he's gotten, but it had still felt strange to even acknowledge. But now, the third year he's known about the day...it feels a little more natural. He actually remembers what day it is without being reminded, and if any of his patched together little family brings it up, or does something for the occasion?]

[Well, maybe this year he'll react a little less like a cat who's just encountered a vacuum cleaner for the first time.]

[Text]

Hey, I've got a question for anyone who feels like answering. When you do things for somebody's birthday, what is it that you're celebrating about them? Is it that they managed to survive an extra year or that they were born in the first place or just because parties are fun or what?

What is it about a birthday that makes it something important?

Comments

text+vague action??

[armoredsoul]

[Alphonse hadn't known the significance of the day--he's only had about one year of living in the house altogether, and the first chunk of that had involved Envy and Al acting like territorial cats at one another. Trading birthdays had not been high on the list of priorities.]

[But he is observant, and when he hears the well-wishes from around corners he feels...weirdly bad about not having anything ready for his half-brother. Which is why later in the day, Envy will find a cupcake on a paper plate just outside his bedroom, with a glass bowl turned upside down over it as protection from the Pokemon. It's had the frosting all scraped off, but at least it's Funfetti flavor, right?]

[A little while after that, he responds to the post.]

I guess it can be all of those things, or other things, too. Being glad they're in your life and having an excuse to spoil them, or letting them know you're important to them.

[exeggutorhead]

[Well that's...certainly a thing.]

[There is literally only one person in the house who would have a) made a cupcake to give to him secretly, b) thought ahead enough to cover it with a bowl, and c) gone to the trouble of actually frosting it and then scraping the frosting off. ALPHONSE.]

[Honestly he's not sure what the hell to think about any of this. The passive aggressive missing frosting actually makes it less frustrating to think about, because at least it wasn't a completely nice little gift. He wouldn't have had the slightest idea what to do with that kind of gesture. But he does eat the cupcake, after carefully determining that the frosting wasn't licked off. Mmm, funfetti.]

[Of course then that message abruptly makes things weird again.]

I guess so.

if you're looking for excuses to spoil or celebrate someone, their particular day is as good as any. why, even if they don't know it's you making the gesture, they'll know that someone thought they were just the most important person around

[HE KNOWS IT WAS YOU, ALPHONSE. YOU ARE LITERALLY THE ONLY PERSON. WRATH WOULD HAVE JUST EATEN IT.]

[armoredsoul]

[Excuse you, Al wouldn't lick it off, that's gross! Jeez!!]

I don't know what you're talking about.

[exeggutorhead]

oh, it was just a hypothetical statement

you know what kind of present would hypothetically be easy to just leave lying around where the person could find it?

a cupcake

[armoredsoul]

Yeah, it probably would. Kind of a lazy gift, though, isn't it? I mean you can get like twelve at the store for what, P200 or something?

[exeggutorhead]

so what you're telling me

is that if someone were to give the gift of one cupcake then they'd have 11 cupcakes squirreled away in their room right now

[armoredsoul]

theoretically