An Anthology of KiyoKei

Happy Birthday, Kiyotaka

Theme: What will Kei gift Kiyotaka on his birthday? (from Kei Camp Quest)

Timeline: Kiyo's Birthday during the 2nd Year, sometime after the 2nd Island Exam

Summary: It's the first birthday Kiyotaka and Kei are celebrating after they've become a couple. Kei, in particular, has a lot of plans for Kiyotaka.

Time of Writing: Y2V3

Today was my birthday.

Unlike last year, where only Kei greeted me, quite a few people greeted me such as Sudō, Yōsuke, Ike, Satō, Matsushita, Ichinose, and Sakayanagi. Ryūen, having the same birthday as me, also treated me to a drink.

The only odd thing was, despite being my girlfriend, Kei didn't seem to acknowledge my birthday this year. In the few times we talked over the course of the day, she hadn't mentioned it even once.

It was unusual of her, who is someone who pays a lot of attention to me, to not greet me. Although the possibility of her forgetting was there, I was completely sure she was up to something.

Now, I was returning from a birthday celebration with the Ayanokōji Group at Pallet. It was quite fun, even with just the five of us. 

Keisei, Akito, Haruka, and Airi had pooled together their points and bought me a delicious chocolate cake. While we were eating it, we just had our usual small talk. Afterwards though, Akito had asked Keisei to help him find some reference books for the upcoming finals. Airi and Haruka, on the other hand, had gone off to find 'women's products', as Haruka had put it.

It seemed like I was set up. The way we parted was way too unnatural, after all. In addition, Airi, who seemed to be kept out of the loop, was being led away by Haruka in a rather forceful manner. Considering who Haruka would trust, it seemed like Yōsuke was involved somehow.

Having nothing else to do, I had opted to just go back to the dorm and relax.

But when I opened the door to my room, a giant gift box was waiting inside my room.

When I saw this, I immediately connected the dots.

Although I could have just left the room after seeing it, the person inside would probably either wait for me to open it or get mad, so I opted to stay inside the room. Besides, I couldn't say I wasn't curious on how the box got inside the room, considering it was wider than the door.

That said, I decided to tease the person hiding inside by pretending not to notice it for a bit. I went inside the bathroom and took my time changing into more casual clothes to make them a little more tense.

Finally, after having raised their anxiety enough, I slowly opened the giant gift box.

Sensing the cue, a girl popped out of the gift box. She was dressed in nice clothes and had a ribbon tied on top of her head.

"Kiyotaka, happy birthday. Your birthday gift is wa..ta..shi!"

As expected, it was Kei. It seemed she had asked for help from Yosuke to give herself time to prepare the 'surprise'.

"...Kei, what are you doing?" I calmly asked her without a change in my facial expression. 

"Mou, Kiyotaka. You really ruin the fun of everything. Your girlfriend just told you that she's your gift, but you're not even reacting at all."

While saying that, Kei was pouting. To be quite honest, it was cute to see her act like that but I didn't let it show on my face.

"It was obvious that you were planning something. If you really wanted to draw my attention away, you should have done it another way. You were too obvious."