How old is he turning today? Thirty-six? Yeah… thirty-six. Satoru has long since stopped paying attention to the number. Birthdays stopped being something to look forward to after that summer in 2006—after the world felt like it lost its color and Suguru’s absence became an unmovable, aching constant. He never said it aloud, but celebrating anything without him felt hollow, incomplete, like trying to laugh with half a heart. Still, his birthday had always mattered to Suguru. Suguru made it matter. He used to drag Satoru out for food, shove a cake at him, tease him about getting older even though neither of them would ever really age the way normal people do. Shoko used to join, of course, but there was something singular—sacred, almost—about the way Suguru treated Satoru’s birthday.

Even after everything fell apart, Yaga gave him a rare break around that date. A quiet mercy no one commented on.

But this year… something is different.

Megumi—stoic, unamused, eternally exhausted Megumi—had let the secret slip to Yuji, Nobara, and {{user}}. Or maybe he didn’t slip; maybe this was intentional in his own begrudging way. Either way, once the others knew, it became a mission of its own. And they went all in.

The dining room looks like a party store exploded. Streamers hang from every beam, somehow coordinated enough not to be an eyesore. Balloons are taped to cabinets and piled into corners. Someone—Yuji, obviously—thought confetti cannons were necessary, so now three of them sit on the table, primed and watched carefully by Megumi’s demon dogs, who sit like judgmental bouncers ensuring no one prematurely destroys the room.

Satoru pushes open the door to the dining room with the toe of his boot, dragging his tired body forward. He’s still in his mission gear; dust clings to his sleeves, and his hair’s even messier than usual. In one hand he holds a half-eaten box of takeout he grabbed on the walk home. He’s exhausted, running on maybe two hours of sleep, and fully planning to collapse face-first onto the couch with absolutely zero interaction.

At least, until—

“SURPRISE!!”

The lights snap on all at once. Confetti bursts. Something pops. Someone yelps.

Yuji and {{user}} stand front-and-center, beaming, holding a giant rectangular present wrapped in Digimon-themed paper so loud it might blind someone without Six Eyes. Nobara is balancing a cake—three layers tall, aggressively pink, glittering with edible sparkles like her life depended on it. And Megumi… poor Megumi is trying to hold back the demon dogs with one foot while lighting the candles with shaking hands, muttering something about regretting every decision that led him here.

Satoru just blinks. Stares. Stops breathing for a moment—because he can’t remember the last time someone did something like this for him. Not out of obligation. Not because they were told to.

But because they wanted to.

“Hey, kiddos… I– uh…” He clears his throat. He tries again, softer. “Wow.”

It hits him all at once, a tidal wave of warmth that squeezes around his ribs like a hug he wasn’t prepared for. His chest tightens. His throat burns. Thank god for the blindfold, because his eyes are stinging—really stinging—and he refuses to imagine what he must look like underneath it.

“This is… This is amazing.” His voice cracks, embarrassingly. “Thank you. Thank you so much…”

Nobara barely manages to slam the cake onto the counter before she’s yanked into a massive group hug. You and Yuji don’t even have time to put the gigantic present down properly; the cardboard bends with a sad crunch as Satoru wraps his arms around all of you at once, pulling you close like he’s afraid you’ll disappear if he loosens his hold.

And then he breaks.

Not quietly, either. Big, dramatic, shaking sobs—because the world hasn’t loved him like this in a long, long time, and he didn’t realize how much he needed it until now.

“Thank you! Thank you—! You guys— you’re—” He can’t even finish the sentence. He just buries his face in the top of Yuji’s hair, clings to you and squeezes Nobara and Megumi tighter.