It was his birthday.

That was Koushirou's first thought as he opened his eyes and met the sunlight shining delicately on his futon. It was warm despite the snow falling consistently outside, and he closed his eyes just one more time to savor the comforts of sleep and the euphoria of silly dreams.

Then, he stirred, sensing. And he opened his eyes once more.

There were Taichi's, reveling in the same brown he admired so much, and there was his face – calm, with a light smile. His eyes were half-lidded, and the smile was thin as a wafer, sweet and vanilla. His hair was a mess, but that was the way he liked it; therefore, that was the way Koushirou liked it.

And all he was doing was gazing at him. So of course, how to respond but to gaze back?

Eyes met eyes, blink-for-blink. Koushirou felt his cheeks warm as he gave a sideways glance, but when he returned, Taichi's eyes had refused to waver.

Then – with only the tiniest of hesitations – he leaned over and kissed him.

Koushirou responded with the naturally closed eyes and hastily returned the kiss; it was all he could do in the moments he sort of half-expected but had not wanted to believe so easily. And there was Taichi with that same smile again, admiring him as he opened his eyes.

"I've been wanting to do that all night," Taichi said.

"Why didn't you?" Koushirou inquired.

"You were sleeping," was the simple response.

And with that, the smile widened, and Taichi gave another kiss to Koushirou (he was a little more ready this time) and presented him with a flash of teeth before he got up from the futon and headed over to his closet.

Koushirou could only smile warmly to himself.

Happy birthday to me...