Work Text:
Birthdays in general are lame...
•••
Eva Tsunaka saw no point in parties. It didn't matter what sort of party it was. None of them had any sort of meaning, at least none to her. That was exactly what she told Cassidy Amber.
"Like... No parties?" Cassidy replied. "Not even ones for you?"
She shook her head.
"Oh." She was silent for a moment before asking, "So no birthday party?"
That was where this conversation started. Cassidy had asked if Eva wanted to come hang out with her, and when Eva had arrived at her dorm, she found Cassidy on her phone. Out of curiosity, she asked what she was doing. Cassidy happily told her that she was looking for things to do for Eva's birthday. She mentioned hosting a party, so Eva had to shut it down.
After all, who would even come to a birthday party for her? At best, there would be four people there, including her. And most of them would probably only be there because of some other reason. Like, Cassidy would only be there because she felt like she had to as her girlfriend.
Eva looked away from her. Maybe she should stop thinking like that about her girlfriend—but her point still stood in that she was not going to embarrass herself by having no one come to her birthday party. There was a reason why she hadn't told anyone her birthday, and she had to be pushed by Cassidy to share when her birthday was.
"So," Cassidy began slowly, "do you wanna do anything on your birthday?"
Well, it wasn't as if there was anything interesting that could be happening, so she said, "No."
Cassidy still looked skeptical, but she still said, "Okay, then..."
Eva stopped herself from rolling her eyes. There was nothing to be suspicious about. She just didn't want to waste her time with a birthday party that no one would show up to. Maybe Cassidy wouldn't get it because she had so many friends—yes, maybe she should stop thinking like this about her girlfriend. Whatever. The point was, Eva was not going to have a birthday party, and Cassidy would just have to accept that.
. . .
Eva didn't like phone calls. She didn't like being forced to look at someone else's face, and it felt more awkward than it was to text. So, when she saw that someone was calling her, she frowned. Then she saw that it was Cassidy calling. Her smile instantly vanished as she answered.
"Hi, Eva!" she said with a big shopping. She seemed to be in a street that Eva didn't recognize.
"Where are you?" she asked, narrowing her eyes.
"Oh, I'm shopping! Took the train and got here." She extended her arm to show the street more. "Hey, you don't leave Eden's Garden a lot, right? We should come here together soon!"
"What can you do there?"
"The usual stuff, like walking, shopping—like what I'm doing—getting snacks that they won't give us at Eden's Garden..."
Other than getting snacks, it didn't sound that interesting, but Eva still said, "Soon then."
"Oh, Eva, I actually have to ask you something. What's your favourite flower?" She changed the camera view to show the flower shop she was in front of. Her reflection was slightly visible in the glass. There were some flowers on the other side of the glass.
Eva had never been to this shop, and she didn't recognize the flowers displayed, so if this was supposed to help her, it didn't. She didn't have a favourite flower anyway, so she simply said the first flower that came to her mind. "I guess I like rosemaries..."
"Rosemaries, got it! Bye, Eva—and happy early birthday!" Cassidy hung up.
It was when Eva was staring at her phone after being hung up on that she realized that there was a chance that the rosemary flowers were going to be for her. She was starting to talk herself out of thinking that before she remembered that she was Cassidy's girlfriend, and girlfriends typically got flowers. Cassidy was also her girlfriend, though. But if Cassidy wanted flowers, she wouldn't have asked her what her favourite flowers were.
She was thinking too hard about this. Cassidy was either buying flowers for her, or she was not. It didn't matter which one it was. Eva didn't care.
. . .
It turned out the flowers were for Eva. Cassidy had a big, proud smile when she showed up in front of Eva's dorm's front door and presented the rosemary.
As Eva looked over the flowers, Cassidy proudly said, "These are Tuscan blue rosemaries."
She looked up. "These are purple?"
She shrugged. "I don't know, but that's what the people at the flower shop said."
That didn't make much sense to her, but she didn't care that much about flower origins. She was aware that she was smiling, so she also said, "Thank you."
"You're very much welcome." She winked, then said, "I gotta go now—"
"Right now?" Eva said.
"Yeah, I have some last-minute things I need to do today."
"Like what, school?"
"No, I don't procrastinate anymore," she said, like she hadn't complained a week ago that she hadn't started her 3,000-word paper that was due the next day.
Eva's first instinct was to tell her to stay, but she was already gifted flowers. That should be enough for her.
"Okay," she said. "Bye..."
"Bye, and happy early birthday!"
Eva closed the front door before Cassidy had left. She didn't care that she was by herself right now, since even her roommate, Diana Venicia, was out with her friends right now. Not at all. All she did care about was what she was going to do with her flowers. Did she have a flower vase?
. . .
Eva's birthday was today. She had managed to find a vase where she could put her rosemary, and when Cassidy came by to wish her a happy birthday, she was pleased to see it in her bedroom.
"I saw your post today," Eva said. "You cancelled your livestream today."
It took her a second to understand what she was talking about. "Oh, yeah, I totally forgot to announce that I was cancelling it until today. Maybe some people are mad, but my girlfriend's birthday's more important than a livestream, right?"
The corners of Eva's lips twitched up. "I thought I said that I didn't want to do anything on my birthday."
"Well, yeah, but we can just hang out, right?"
That was more than okay with her. They could simply play video games, watch a show, and maybe even take the train and go wherever Cassidy had gone the other day. Simple, yet fun.
Except Cassidy wasn't paying attention to her. She kept having to repeat herself so she would hear her, but it wouldn't be long before she got distracted again. It didn't feel like she wanted to be here.
Immediately, she started thinking that she was initially right about Cassidy not actually liking her. If she had to pretend that she was interested in something as simple as her birthday, then she obviously didn't care about her. She was just using her to partake in some joke. She shouldn't have convinced herself otherwise.
"Just go," she spat out.
Cassidy had been once again distracted and didn't hear her when she asked if she wanted to go on a walk together. She snapped out of her thoughts when she asked, "Huh?"
"If you don't want to be here," she repeated, "just go."
"But I do—"
"No, you don't! You're too busy thinking about something else!"
"I'm—"
"You don't want to be here. Just go and do whatever you actually want to."
There was hurt in Cassidy's eyes, but Eva kept her expression cold. She was the one who didn't care about her, not the other way around.
Eventually, she said, "Okay, I can go... Happy birthday, Eva."
Eva watched Cassidy leave her dorm. When the door closed, she sighed. This was the norm for her, being alone on her birthday. She shouldn't be surprised that even her girlfriend didn't want to be around her on a day like this. But she didn't care about that. She had a ton of things that she could do by herself and have fun.
Like watching a new anime. She could even stay awake all night. That could be fun—and most importantly, she didn't need anyone else to do this.
Okay, Eva was going to pull an all-nighter and binge-watch a new anime. She was going to have a lot of fun, and she was going to choose to be alone. She didn't need the company of anyone or anything else.
Except it was nice to watch the anime with the rosemaries nearby.
. . .
Eva had fallen asleep somewhere in her binge-watching. Her laptop had turned itself off, and she couldn't remember if she had actually finished the anime. She had a headache, and parts of her body felt sore. She felt tired, but she didn't know how long she had slept.
Eva rubbed her eyes as her hand fumbled for her phone. It took her a moment to realize that there were multiple texts from Cassidy. A lot of them were apologies. The most recent one was asking if it was possible for her to watch Cassidy's livestream today. She knew that there was no scheduled livestream today, and she wanted to still be mad, but when she saw that, according to the texts, the livestream would start momentarily, she turned on her laptop and went to Cassidy's account.
Eva thought about leaving, but then the livestream started. Cassidy was dressed only slightly more professionally than she normally was. She held up a microphone as she smiled at the camera.
"What's up, comrades?" she exclaimed. "Yeah, I know that I was supposed to do a livestream yesterday, but I cancelled it because, as some of you know, I got a girlfriend, and it was her birthday yesterday, so even though I like livestreaming, she means more to me. So, yesterday, I spent time with her instead. And today, I guess I still am prioritizing her because today, we'll be participating in a game show. And it's not just any game show—this game show features everything my girlfriend likes! I would've invited her, but she also doesn't like being recorded. She does like watching things she likes, though, so this is a birthday present just for her! I already wished her a happy birthday on her actual birthday, but again, happy birthday, Eva!"
Cassidy began introducing the participants in the game show. It took Eva a moment to realize that her vision was getting blurry because she was crying. It was so, so stupid. So what if Cassidy knew a few things that she liked? It shouldn't be a big deal.
But still, it took Eva a while to stop crying and have more fun watching the livestream. By that point, she was now smiling.
. . .
The livestream lasted for a few hours. Eva had watched the entire thing. Half an hour after the livestream was over, Cassidy had arrived in front of Eva's dorm. She had a cake box in her hands.
"Hi, Eva," she said a little hesitantly. "Did you watch the livestream today?"
Eva nodded. Since she had watched the livestream from the moment that she had woken up, she still wasn't the most cleaned up. She almost wanted to close the door to prevent her from seeing her like this.
Cassidy stood up straighter. "I'm so sorry about yesterday. I just had some last-minute stuff I needed to do for the livestream, but I thought I could easily do them later. I didn't... I didn't think I'd be so distracted, but I guess I was, and I'm so sorry—"
"It was a fun livestream," Eva said.
Her eyes brightened. "Really?"
"It was." She knew what she should say, and she knew that if she didn't say it now, then she wouldn't say it later, so she made herself say, "Sorry for how I treated you yesterday."
"It's fine. I should've been paying more attention to you anyway, and it's my fault for leaving stuff unfinished." She held up the cake box. "So d'you wanna have some cake now?"
Eva let her inside. Before she went to the bathroom to clean herself up, she checked to see what flavour it was. When she saw that it was her favourite flavour, she smiled.
Maybe birthdays weren't so bad.