Word Count: 874

Paris was in the midst of a dilemma.

He’d undergone many such mental and emotional struggles over the last half a year – school, his parents, friend drama, becoming a senshi, nearly dying, striving to find his place among it all – and none of them had been especially easy. Being seventeen was somehow infinitely more problematic and frustrating than being sixteen had been, and he’d thought his sixteenth year had been the worst yet. Clearly, he’d been wrong, as things had only gotten worse since February.

Well, they’d gotten better not long after, he’d admit, once May came with sunshine and flowers and bright, charming smiles.

Unfortunately, his most difficult struggle was only just beginning.

He was plagued by a single question, one he’d been mulling over in his mind for the last few days as the date drew closer to the 12th of August: What, exactly, was one supposed to get their boyfriend of nearly two months for his birthday?

Furthermore, what was one supposed to get a boyfriend who already had everything he could ever possibly want or need?

Chris, he decided as he walked aimlessly through the mall, had to be the worst boyfriend ever. At least as far as shopping for him was concerned.

It didn’t help that Paris had never bought a present for anyone before. He’d never had much of a reason to, seeing as he had few friends, and the ones he did have hadn’t ever shared their dates of birth with him. Knowing things like that hadn’t ever seemed all that important. None of them had ever made a big deal out if it and he couldn’t really blame them. He’d never made a big deal out of his birthday either. Aside from a few key years, none of them had ever seemed especially worth noting. He didn’t drive, so his sixteenth had passed without much comment, and with no sign of a shiny new car parked in front of his dad’s house. After that, he only had eighteen and twenty-one left, but he’d never really cared about being legal, and he’d been drinking since before high school.

Taking that into account, eighteen and twenty-one didn’t seem all that special anymore.

He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d been to a birthday party. Probably when he’d been little, before his mother had left, when she’d made him go to the parties of all the neighborhood kids, which hadn’t really been anything more than cookouts in their small back yards. The mothers had sat outside, gossiping and complaining about work, the fathers had sat inside, drinking beer and watching sports on the television, and the kids had fanned out along the street, jumping rope or shooting hoops or sneaking off with the older kids to smoke a joint or taste some booze stolen from an unlocked liquor cabinet or provided by college-aged kids too cocky to worry about getting caught. If there’d been presents, it had always been something purchased by Paris’s mother, meaningless things no one would really remember years later, and inevitably thrown away or, if it was lucky, passed down as the kids grew older and developed newer interests.

He couldn’t get Chris something meaningless -- though, to be safe, he didn’t think he should get him something all that meaningful either. Something simple would be nice, but he didn’t want it to be so simple that it seemed as if he hadn’t put any effort into it. Clothes were definitely out. That was something parents bought for their kids because they didn’t think they had enough – and Chris had plenty – or what forty-somethings got one another when they’d been stuck in a marriage for so long they didn’t have anything left to give. He’d considered framing a picture of the two of them, one of the many he’d taken during their days and nights out together, but he thought that was much too sentimental and much too serious for the sort of relationship they had.

Which left him with… nothing, really. Something baseball related, maybe, but he didn’t know enough about baseball to be able to make a wise purchase, and simply getting Chris some memorabilia of his favorite team was just too easy and hardly thoughtful. Whether or not he wanted it to be meaningful, when he finally gave it to him he at least wanted Chris to look at him with that expression that made Paris think Chris thought he was the most amazing person in the world.

He liked that look. A lot. Being the most amazing person in someone’s world was not only addictive, but it turned out it was also a very, very difficult job.

Paris stopped quite suddenly at the thought, as a sort of vision of he and Chris together began to take shape in his brain.

Perhaps he shouldn’t be focusing so much on what he thought Chris would like, but what he knew himself to be good at.

Yeah… Yeah… that might work… it wouldn’t be something that Chris could keep and treasure, but it would definitely be something for him to remember him by…

Unexpected, surely, but hopefully not unwanted…

In the end, it wasn’t so much of a challenge after all.