Danny stared at her present. It wasn’t that great of a present, actually. In fact, now that she was looking at it- it kind of sucked. Why couldn’t she have picked out something better? Like a minipet that did backflips or something. This was just lame now. Was he going to think she was a bad friend? No, Danny couldn’t picture Roch ever being that mean. Still, this was her best friend. You didn’t get best friends crappy birthday presents. Especially not for their second birthday.

“Think he’ll like it?” Danny said crossly, to no one but her minipets, considering they were the only ones in the room. Otso had curled himself around the black box, apparently finding it very comfortable and nice for cuddling against. Tiff and Tony took turns sniffing it curiously. Tony decided she wanted no part of it and slunk off to the kitchen for something better to entertain her, while Tiff took to running wild circles around the stupid thing like it was the Rabo version of catnip. Then again, she did that with pretty much everything. Ignis came over to examine it, and before Danny could get there in time he’d singed a corner of the box. s**t!

Danny scooped the flaming dog up and cradled him in her arms. “Puppyyyy!” she chided, “Stupid dog look what you’ve done ugh.” Well now a corner of the box was black, but hopefully Roch just … wouldn’t notice.

Yeah ‘cause that would happen.

Sighing, she walked Ignis over the bathroom, scooted him in, and shut the door. That would at least keep him out of her affairs for now. The closet was already locked tightly to prevent any miscreant minipets from wandering into the room and burning the box entirely like Ignis had just done. There would be none of that, thank you very much!

She flopped back down onto her bed, and grabbed the roll of wrapping paper the lady at the counter had suggested for her. It was simple, just very light grey paper with a white skull pattern plastered over it like the stickers on Danny’s guitar, but she liked it well enough. She hoped Roch would too.

Of course, wrapping the present was another matter entirely. Danny hadn’t been taught by her mother and father how to wrap presents or anything, and she’d never really done it herself. Christmas had always been presents from the parents or Oersted, never presents to each other. Birthdays were out too- Oersted was always working and Danny’s parents were always out on an extravagant adventure or party for their birthday. She’d tried wrapping a present for Rosie once, but the zombie made had refused politely and made her return the present. Rosie had always been prude like that.

So here she was, left to battle the wrapping paper herself. A great fight ensued as she tried to wrap one side, only to find another sticking out. Taping it down didn’t seem to work, because she’d always pull just a LITTLE too tightly and the paper would rip. Eventually she ended up with a sort of crumpled heap, but you know what? It was jackdamn close enough. She tried and that was all that mattered, right?

It was missing something though. It didn’t feel Roch enough. She thought about putting a bow on it- but bows went last. It wasn’t a bow it was missing. It was … It was …

Well it was Roch.

Danny scrambled to her desk and clawed through it, looking for her instrument of perfection. It took a while, but in the back of one of the drawers she found a purple marker. With an artistic precision and focus that Danny normally never possessed, she began drawing jagged mohawks on all of the little skulls that plastered the wrapping paper. It wasn’t high quality- Danny wasn’t good at drawing after all- but it would do. There. Now it was special.

She peeled the cover on the shiny golden bow she’d picked out at the store (mostly for her own personal desire, but then she realized later she should probably put it on the present for Roch. That made sense after all) and stuck it on the top of the crumpled paper mess. Not going to lie- it looked hideous from an outside perspective. One might’ve even accused it of being a prank present, but no. Danny had tried really hard for this. It was a valiant effort.

She sat down by the door and tied her shoes very carefully, and then picked up the present and headed out the door. It was a mechanical path at this point, to Roch’s dorm. She was going to just knock on the door and give it to him, but when she walked in the room, she could hear the sound of the shower going on. By the cantankerous noise that was coming from the bathroom, Danny could definitely tell that was him in there. He was in a good mood too, by the sound of it. Well there wasn’t any way she was getting even CLOSE to the bathroom door, so she just left the present on his papasan bed. He’d find it.

With that, Danny shut the door quietly and left. There was NO way in hell she was sticking around for a naked Roch.