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It is late in the evening when Phillip steps into his dorm. Classes have finished, dinner is over, and Phillip is finally free of the gaze of the other students and staff. As the door of his dorm slides shut behind him with a mechanical hiss, he lets out the breath he’s been holding in for the better part of the day and finally allows himself to relax. His disguise falls away in a puff of black smoke; another day survived.
“Hey, Freckles.”
Phillip jumps slightly. “Alex!” he says, as he tries to dissipate the wisps of smoke that have reflexively begun to swirl over his face and body again. “You’re… already back from your, um...”
Alex waves lazily from his bunk, his tablet glowing dimly on his pillow as he presses on through a digital textbook. “Yeah, they finished up with me earlier than expected.”
Phillip shifts uncomfortably. It had been one of those days. “How—how was it?”
Alex doesn’t respond at first, his unfocused gaze passing through the words on his screen for a moment. Then he shuts his eyes and shakes his head a little, and responds, “I’m fine. I’ve got a mild headache is all, but it’ll go away eventually.” He looks over at his roommate. “What about you, Freckles? How are you doing?”
Phillip decides not to press further. He trudges over to his bunk and feebly grips the ladder. “Tired,” he mumbles. “As usual.” He kicks his shoes off and puts one foot on the bottom rung.
“Well...” Alex’s voice sounds strained slightly, as if he’s unsure of what to say. “Hopefully you’re not too tired.”
Phillip pauses hauling himself up the ladder to stare down at Alex, confused. “Huh? What are you—?”
“There’s, uh, something waiting for you.” Alex interrupts. “Up there,” he adds, nodding towards Phillip’s bunk.
Phillip blinks at him; his tail twitches nervously as he continues to pull himself up. Part of him wonders if this was some trick Alex is pulling on him—like the silly prank he had pulled a couple days ago—but this time he seems too... nervous, almost. Like he’s awaiting judgement. He finally pokes his head up over the edge of the bed, and finds...
Phillip momentarily wonders if he’d underestimated just how much the day had taken out of him; if he might be seeing things. He blinks a few times just to make sure, and looks again.
There, sitting daintily in the middle of his bed, is a bright red paper plate, upon which is a single slice of fluffy white cake. Phillip blinks again.
A single red-and-white striped straw proudly sticks up from the top of the slice.
“I got the right date, didn’t I?” Alex calls out from below him. “April 4th, four-four?”
Phillip swallows as the reality of what is happening dawns on him.
He... He’d forgotten. In the midst of all the fear, and secrecy, and exhaustion, and misery that had become mere daily routine for him—Phillip almost wants to cry. He’d forgotten that today is his birthday.
“I swear if it’s May 5th and I’m a month early—”
Phillip chokes out a laugh and pushes himself up onto his bed. His eyes start stinging a little. “I... How did you...” He looks down over the edge at Alex. “You didn’t, like, mug a first-grader for this, did you?” he manages to say.
Alex snorts. “Please. I have some standards. I bribed a sixth-grader.”
Phillip wipes his eyes with his sleeve and continues staring at the cake. He plucks out the stripey straw and shoots Alex a look, twirling it quizzically.
“Look, there weren’t any unlicked candles left. I had to work with what I had.”
Phillip giggles quietly, then sets the straw aside. “You didn’t…” He sniffs. “You didn’t have to, you know.”
An exasperated sigh floats up from Alex’s bunk. “Well Phillip, not that I don’t love trying to figure out a sixth-grader's math homework, but I don’t think I’d be able to return that slice of cake at this point. So you’re kinda just stuck with it now.”
Phillip wishes his chest would un-tighten itself so he could speak properly. “I...” He leans far over the edge to properly look Alex in the eye. “Thank you,” he manages to croak out. “For—for remembering.”
Down below, Alex looks back up at him. He smiles slightly. “Sure. Any time, Freckles.” He turns back to the screen on his pillow filled with increasingly bewildering sequences of numbers and symbols. “I know I... I haven’t been the greatest friend, even if I’ve... calmed down a bit. But, you know, baby steps, right?”
As he says this, something in his peripherals catches his attention. He turns his head to see Phillip’s own head hanging upside-down alongside his tail, the end of which is shifted into a sort of shallow basket. A single, noticeably thinner fluffy white slice rests perkily within it. About half the size of the original, if he had to wager a guess. A small spark of warmth briefly ignites in Alex’s chest. Still, he scoffs loudly, rolling his eyes. “Don’t waste energy like that on me, Phillip. You need all you can get.”
“Shut up.”
Alex raises an eyebrow at him incredulously. “Excuse me?”
Phillip’s eyes narrow stubbornly in response. “I’m the birthday boy,” he asserts. “I can do what I want, including share. Take it.”
Alex snorts. “Just have your cake and eat it too already, Freckles. All of it.”
“That is not what that saying means.” Phillip grins. His tail begins to gently sway the cake back and forth in temptation. “Also, you can’t make me.”
Alex groans half-heartedly before grudgingly conceding. He's not wrong. “Fine,” he says, “I guess you’ve got me there.” He reaches over and takes the slice, watching as Phillip disappears back up out of sight. He chuckles to himself, and looks at the slice of cake in his hand; it does look good. His smile widens a little.
“Happy birthday, Freckles.”