The table was still crowded with half-empty plates and the soft smell of grilled fish. Haru had turned the lights low, and the warm gold from the paper lanterns spilled over everyone’s faces.
“C’mon, a toast!” Haru grinned, lifting his glass. “To Papa Eiji—still somehow looking thirty at thirty-five.”
Laughter, light and easy. Eiji shook his head, smiling. Ryota sat opposite him, quiet, turning the stem of his glass between his fingers.
When the laughter faded, he cleared his throat. “Hey, uh… let me say something.”
Eiji looked up, surprised. Ryota never volunteered speeches.
“I was supposed to just say happy birthday,” Ryota began, a crooked grin tugging at his mouth. “But it feels weird just stopping there. So…” He exhaled slowly, eyes flicking down to the glass. “Here’s me trying not to screw this up.”
The room went still, the faint buzz of the ceiling fan the only sound.
“You’ve put up with me since I was what—seventeen? Loud, stubborn, a mess half the time. You still are, I know.” A quick laugh, thin and nervous. “But the thing is, Eiji… you never stopped being patient. Even when I made you angry. Even when I didn’t know how to love you right.”
His voice hitched on the word love. He rubbed the heel of his hand against his eye as if it itched, but his shoulders were trembling.
“I worry, y’know?” he said, softer now. “That one day you’ll get tired. That you’ll wake up and finally see how hard I am to live with. I don’t say it, but every time you walk out the door, a part of me still panics like that dumb kid I used to be. Because… you’re the air, Eiji. I don’t know how to breathe right when you’re not there.”
Eiji’s eyes shone, his hands motionless on the table.
Ryota tried to smile again, failed. The laugh that came out broke halfway. “I don’t deserve you. But every morning I see you next to me, and I think—okay, maybe today I can learn how to deserve it a little better.”
His voice cracked. He pressed a hand to his face, breath shaking through his fingers.
Haru and Kai looked at each other—no one dared move.
Then Eiji rose, quietly. Walked around the table. Laid a hand on Ryota’s shoulder.
Ryota’s head dropped, a small, broken sound escaping him. “Sorry,” he whispered, voice muffled. “Happy birthday. I just—”
Eiji didn’t let him finish. He leaned down, pressed his forehead against Ryota’s temple. “Shh,” he murmured, voice rough with tears. “You love me more than enough. Always have.”
Ryota’s breath hitched, a small sob swallowed against Eiji’s chest.
The lantern light flickered, catching the wet gleam in both their eyes.
Haru blinked hard, biting his lip. Kai reached for his hand under the table, squeezed once.
And for a long while, no one spoke—the only sound was Ryota’s uneven breathing slowly finding rhythm again against Eiji’s shoulder, the quiet pulse of love that had always been their way of saying home.
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