Alois was normally a loud, boisterous presence, so to see him knock awkwardly on the door of the Golden Deer classroom with a bowed head was more than unusual—it was downright concerning.

Hilda, startled, looked up from where she had been braiding Marianne's hair while Lorenz accidently yanked on Lysithea's half-plaited hair. He stood up hastily to properly greet the knight lurking in the doorway.

"Lorenz, honestly," Lysithea snapped before widening her eyes at the sight of Hilda recovering from her surprise and hastily restarting her braid. "Get back here, Lorenz! Propriety can wait, Hilda and Marianne are going to win!"

Lorenz looked positively conflicted at being asked to choose between decorum and competition but was thankfully spared from making such a choice when Alois waved him off as he ducked inside the classroom.

Byleth had been sitting at his desk, pretending to grade papers whilst actually watching the hair braiding competition but was now watching the large knight with something to worry, though the only visible sign of this was the tiniest furrow in his brow.

"Heya, kiddo…" Alois started uncomfortably, causing Byleth to show even more visible concern. His father called him kiddo, sometimes. But Alois never had, it was always Professor or Byleth or even just Jeralt's kid. It was incredibly strange and discomfiting to hear the familiar name come from anyone besides Jeralt.

"Kiddo?" Claude asked, finally looking up from where he had been absently pondering a book on strategy, torn between incredulity and delighted amusement.

"Um…?" Byleth responded after shooting Claude a Look which he simply grinned at.

Alois tried again, voice still unbearably, uncharacteristically awkward. "Could I talk to you, Byleth? Alone?"

Byleth nodded his consent as minor protest broke out from Claude who was now leaning back in his chair, arms behind his head as he looked interestedly between the two. "No way, Teach, I gotta know where this is going."

The braiding competition had been hastily rescheduled and Hilda dutifully snagged Claude as they shuffled their way out of the classroom over the laughing protests of their House Leader.

With his motley group of lingering students out of the way (kind of, Byleth thought with a groan. Knowing his kids, most of them were almost certainly eavesdropping right outside while Marianne watched on in quiet distress), he waved Alois over.

Alois clambered awkwardly into the first row of student benches, looking comically oversized in his full suit of metal armor.

Byleth stared for a few seconds in hesitant, agonizing silence, unsure if he should prompt Alois or let him sort out whatever had compelled him to ask for a private audience so abruptly. In the end, the decision was made for him as Alois began talking.

"So, you know how I'm basically your older brother?" Alois asked loudly and sure enough Byleth heard the tell-tale spluttering from one of his students right outside his door and the loud shushing that immediately followed it. He briefly asked the resident possible-Goddess in his head for patience, but she just snorted in laughter at him, her fondness for his students' antics shining clearly through. He tried to silently radiate his betrayal, but judging from her subsequent eye-roll, Sothis wasn't buying it.

Byleth realized that Alois was actually awaiting response, so he hesitantly responded with his most noncommittal noise possible. Knowing abstractly that Alois thinks of Jeralt as his father as well and emotionally coming even close to considering Alois his older brother were so radically different to process that Byleth hadn't even really tried. He had never brought it up with his father and instead tried not to think about it too much. He had incorrectly assumed Alois would do the same.

"I was thinking we could go halfsies on a gift?" Alois continued. Byleth blinked again, completely at a loss. It was nowhere near his father's birthday, which Jeralt had never been especially keen on celebrating anyway, and Byleth had no idea what would prompt this. "I think, considering, it would be pretty damn meaningful if it came from both of us, eh, kiddo?" Alois continued, oblivious to Byleth's growing confusion.

Alois abruptly stood up, not giving Byleth a chance to respond even if he wanted to, and lumbered over to give his hair a fond ruffle before turning to leave, throwing out a final "Think about it, yeah? I'll start brainstorming gift ideas!"

As Alois swung the large wooden doors open, sure enough his meddlesome students came tumbling in, Claude managing a fairly dexterous roll while Lysithea delicately stepped over a giggling Hilda. None of them looked even remotely guilty except for Marianne, and Byleth decided to pointedly go back to actually grading papers and ignoring his students curious gazes. Not getting any answers would serve them right, even if, like most cases, Byleth's mysteriousness was more an accidental by-product of his confusion than anything.

The very next day Leonie plopped on his desk after the rest of the class had left, disrupting his work with a level of confidence Byleth wishes he found irritating instead of endearing.

"Yes?" Byleth asked, attempting to give her the Raised Teacher Eyebrow. It never seemed to work on anyone in his house except Marianne and Ignatz but it was worth a shot. Sure enough Leonie simply smirked a little at him and waited until he set his quill down with a sigh and gave her his full attention.

"So, would it super weird you out if I also got Captain Jeralt a Day of Paternal Appreciation gift?" Leonie asked in that startling candid way of hers.

"A… day of what gift?" Byleth asked, completely out of his depth. While he knew that he and his father had never been big on any holiday celebrations, it was still startling just how much Byleth seemed to be missing in expected cultural knowledge.

"Ha ha," Leonie responded dryly, "We've gotten better at figuring out when you're messing with us, you know."

Byleth continued to look at her with slightly more emotion than his usual completely blank stare. Leonie's brows furrowed and she leaned back with an incredulous laugh.

"…You really don't know? Seriously?"

Byleth nodded.

Leonie let out a low whistle. "How are you a teacher? I mean, don't get me wrong, you're very skilled and we all respect you but Goddess above, Professor."

Byleth just shrugged helplessly. She wasn't wrong, he had really been under-qualified. He knew how to be a mercenary and he was learning how to be a teacher. Jeralt hadn't deemed a lot of things important and Byleth never felt the urge to question what he was or wasn't teaching him, so here they were.

"I mean, it's totally like the Captain to not deem a holiday that would celebrate him important, very noble and all that, but that means he has a serious backlog of gifts we need to make up for…" Leonie seemed to be muttering more to herself before she looked back at Byleth.

"Basically, the Day of Paternal Appreciation a day to celebrate your… well, father. Or, y'know, father figure." At this Leonie shifted a bit uncomfortably before rallying. "It's in two days which isn't a ton of time, but I bet you could figure something out."

"Alois wanted to go, uh, 'halfsies' on a gift." Leonie's lips quirked at Byleth's no-doubt accurate recounting of what Alois had said before she tilted her head confusedly.

"Alois? The knight? What on earth does he have to do with the Day of Paternal Appreciation and Captain Jeralt?"

Byleth shook his head slightly. "He's also… quite fond of my father, I guess. Looks up to him."

"Okay. Weird." She said before seemingly catching herself. Byleth pressed his lips together to hide his amusement. "Good luck. Captain Jeralt…. He deserves a really good gift okay? I've got an idea, but I'm not telling. You need to figure this out on your own. So don't screw it up!" With a comforting—for Leonie, that is—punch to Byleth's arm, she left the classroom.

The thing is- Byleth knows his father. He knows these kinds of things typically mean nothing to him. Jeralt kept next to nothing in terms of sentimental items and not just because their chosen career didn't permit it. He had always been a man who valued the practical and the useful but there was nothing in that vein that Byleth could get him that Jeralt didn't already have made to his preferred specifications.

But he also could see Jeralt's poorly concealed happiness at the few times Byleth had managed to do something along the parameters of what one might call normally affectionate. He knew his lack of emotiveness didn't make his father love him any less but Byleth also knew it worried him, even now that Byleth was essentially an adult. Leonie wasn't wrong—his father did deserve a good gift. The problem wasn't that Byleth intentionally quashed his outwardly emotional impulses, it was that he very rarely got them. He felt plenty, but that never seemed to want to translate outwardly. Still, for his father, he would try.

Byleth was starting from nothing in this whole Day of Paternal Appreciation and so he decided to do what he did whenever he found himself wildly out of his depth and unable to pretend otherwise: he'd ask around with as much dignity as being totally clueless afforded him.

As with most things he didn't understand, he decided he would start with Sothis.