#earlofice

   First, she baked a three tier cake immaculately decorated with little isomalt snowflakes all over. Next she baked a dozen snowflake-shaped cookies all decorated with white and light-blue icing. Finally, she spent the past three weeks knitting a scarf for those cold days. Since this was such a special occasion, Natsuki had followed instructions--recipes for the sweets and a guide for the scarf--to ensure her gifts would turn out good enough for the man whose special day it was.

   Now all she needed was the man of the hour. Natsuki had sent Camus a message to meet her at her room as it would be difficult to transport all of her gifts in one go to his residence. Thus, she waited for him, dressed up to the nines in a yellow gown--only the best for her beloved--standing by the door.

   Once there was a knock, Natsuki opened it with a big smile on her face. She greeted the man with an embrace and a kiss on the cheek before pulling him into the room to present him with the gifts she had laid out on the table. With an excitable squeal, she clapped.

It was only when he was sure that they were completely alone that he revealed the two packages he had inside a bag. Almost too hesitantly did he hand the gifts to Camus as he sat next to him on the couch. 

“I decided to get you somethin’ personalized this time.” His voice is quieter, more calm than normal as he watches Camus open the first gift, which is a locket. The color, combined with the snowflake at the center, just screamed ‘Camus’ to him the first time he saw it. Inside the locket is a photograph of Alexander.

Ranmaru found himself glancing off to the side as he explained. “I kinda thought you’d want to have him with you always somehow, y’know? ‘Cause you stay at the apartment with us most of the time nowadays, so you can’t see him as often.” 

His eyes move to look back at what the taller is doing as he hears the sound of more wrapping paper being ripped open, revealing the second gift, and the one the rocker was most worried about. It’s a framed photograph of the two of them as children.

“I-I know we don’t talk about back then that much, but I just happened to find that picture. I think it’s the only one we took together at the time. So I guess it’s kinda... special.” Of course he was lying about ‘just happening’ to find it. He had been looking all over for it for a few weeks now. He had even gone back to his hometown to try to find it at his mother and sister’s house.

“Anyway... happy birthday, Camus. There’s actually another part of your gift I planned, but I couldn’t get a reservation for today. So this weekend... we’re going to have dinner at that one fancy restaurant you like going to.”

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