It had been a long, arduous day of signing things for the Maou. Yuuri sometimes suspected a vast conspiracy against the crown, keeping him deeply involved with endless paperwork regarding the tiniest things. As he couldn't think of anyone who'd conspire so wickedly, he supposed the theory didn't hold water. But the cramp in his hand demanded some sort of justice.

He hadn't been back to earth in a while. Maybe he'd sneak back tonight. Gunther could hold the fort for a while, while he had some of his mother's curry and played some real baseball. He was still on summer vacation at home. Thank heaven for the passage of time in Shin Makoku.

Yuuri yawned as he wended his way down from the office to the dining room. They were all there, waiting for him, and he felt a slight twinge of guilt for taking his time. He wished they weren't all such sticklers for etiquette. It would be so much simpler if they'd just start a meal without him. He took his seat with a self-conscious cough. Wolfram, Conrad, Gwendal, Gunter, Greta—and, interestingly, Celi. He hadn't known she was back.

"How was your day, Your Majesty?" Gunter beamed over his fork, tossing his hair elegantly in the candlelight. Yuuri couldn't help but wonder how a person could really manage to be posed every minute of every day. …Probably the same thing that got a person hired off the street to model.

"Um, alright, I suppose. A lot of paperwork." Yuuri shrugged and reached for his fork when he felt a very familiar palm on the back of his head.

"Shouldn't you be greeting your own fiancé when you first join a party!" Wolfram sent Yuuri a poisonous glare. Quite literally. Yuuri couldn't help finding something a little bit toxic in that shade of green. Dangerous, though even he didn't deny Wolfram's beauty. From a purely aesthetic standpoint, of course.

"Um, yes, probably. Ouch." He sent a baleful glance Wolfram's way and stabbed at a carrot floating in whatever Doria had made for today. As usual, it was delicious. Enough to smooth his slightly ruffled feathers, compounded with increased tolerance for Wolfram in general. "So… Celi-sama, have you made some progress in the search for free love?" A change of subject would be nice.

"Hmm, I thought I had, but my prospective suitor objected to being known as Mr. Bunbun. Men can be so close minded. But I knew it was time to wend my way home for my little Wolfram's birthday!"

"Mother!" Wolfram stood bolt upright, slamming both palms into the table for a theatrical smack, his pale cheeks slowly turning the approximate shade of a ripening cherry. Gwendal coughed in a circumspect manner, and Wolfram fumed for a moment before sinking back into his chair to Celi's singularly infuriating smile.

Yuuri couldn't really begin to fathom that one. Of all the things to tick Wolfram off… And why had no one told him? At the very least, he'd have expected his doting fiancé to demand attention or Josak to tease him. He hesitated to ask a moment too long, and Greta beat him to it.

She stood up on her chair, beaming. "Wolfram! How old are you going to be? Are you older than Yuuri? Can I make the cake? Can it have strawberries? Are you allergic to strawberries or is that Gwendal?"

He never could resist her. Greta beat out even Yuuri's power to shatter Wolfram's defenses. "Um… Eighty-three. But there's no need to pay it any attention." He sent his sulkiest pout at his mother and a glare at the rest of the table, a glare of such potency it rendered Yuuri entirely cowed and left him no choice but to chat with Conrad about baseball stats, which he'd begun carrying over from earth to promote national interest.

Yuuri left the table after the meal deep in consideration. Whatever Wolfram's strange antipathy to his own birthday, it seemed rude not to get him anything. But that left the question of what to buy for someone whose mother practically exuded jewels from her pores. True, Yuuri was the ruler of an entire nation, but he'd never dared tap into the treasury for personal gratification when Covenant Castle was already the very lap of luxury. He wouldn't know what to get, or, really, what Wolfram would want.

He supposed he could ask Conrad, though it would surely earn him a teasing smile at the very least. He was just being polite! Maybe the time apart and the belief he'd never see Wolfram again had softened Yuuri a little toward his fiancé. But he was simply being considerate of a friend, and everyone should be able to see that.

Something cute from earth might just do it, a stuffed animal or a game… Or maybe a camera. Wolfram was such an awful artist. Maybe he should make film his medium. Yuuri snickered at that as he changed into his nightshirt and lifted a sleepy Greta into bed.

No Wolfram. He hadn't been sleeping with Yuuri since the Maou's return. It was nice to know that any knee buried in his solar plexus was Greta, but… No. No buts. It was very pleasant to have his bed to himself. Yuuri fell into bed and closed his eyes, determined to sink into a dreamless, fiancé-free sleep.

Conrad's pitch thwacked solidly into Yuuri's glove. "You're getting better!"

"How gracious, Your Majesty." Conrad then had to duck a bit as Yuuri's playfully baleful return pitch thudded into his glove with a particularly solid force.

"Don't call me that." Yuuri stuck out his tongue, catching Conrad's toss with ease. He glanced over his shoulder before throwing again. "Conrad… what was that scene at dinner about last night?"

"Hmm? Oh." Conrad nodded sagely. "That's right, celebrating birthdays is a custom on earth." He considered for a moment. "I've told you how, on the sixteenth birthday, a Mazoku chooses the path his or her life will take from there on in." Yuuri nodded. "Preceding that age, birthday celebrations are common, but after the sixteenth year, childhood is over. It is considered petulant and embarrassing to call attention to any birthday after that. However, Wolfram is perpetually plagued by our mother's attempts to keep him her baby forever. When he turned seventeen, she threw him an elaborate celebration. You can imagine how well he took to that humiliation. He's been very sensitive ever since. And mother doesn't help when she brings it up every year. I think it amuses her."

"Oh." That sounded exactly like Wolfram, to be smarting from an expression of his mother's affection decades later. Yuuri supposed that made him a bit of a hypocrite. Recalling some of his own mother's attentions made him squirm enough to almost miss catching Conrad's next throw. "So I shouldn't pay any attention to it, then?"

"Well, many couples make birthdays into a unique lovers' holiday. I'm sure Wolfram wouldn't mind if you presented him with some token or other." Conrad smirked and Yuuri whipped the ball at him again with a scowl. A few minutes of baseball practice went on in silence. Conrad looked a bit confused. Yuuri usually wasn't so sensitive.

A wagon clattered into the courtyard, loaded with nondescript barrels. Yuuri turned and approached with interest. He was trying to get more of a grasp on the everyday workings of the castle, in the hope that it would make his daily heaps of paperwork a little simpler.

"Yuuri!" The voice came from above, on one of the balconies. He knew who it was before he looked up. Yuuri smiled a bit stiffly and waved at Wolfram. "Wait, I'm coming down!" He had on his little beret, and Yuuri was afraid he wanted to try his hand at painting again. Yuuri considered trying to escape, but that would just make him the more irate. He didn't need Wolfram chasing him down with a battle axe. Again.

To pass the time until his fiancé made the trip through half the castle necessary to reach the courtyard, Yuuri turned back to the wagonload of barrels. "Hey, what's the delivery?" he asked cheerily of the driver, a short, skinny human boy. The boy turned, cloak sweeping aside, and time slowed hideously as Yuuri spotted the blackened-steel dagger, twisted blade glistening with fresh poison, speeding right for his chest.