When such things seemed to come with large distance between them, they became rather easily forgotten. Three years in standard time really never seemed like that sort of a length of time to Tomoko - time was such a relative thing to her kind. Not immortal, but they did live much slower lives than those around them. Too many of them died very young as well.

It was all relative.

Tomoko had easily forgotten the excitement of having a birthday after such a length of time. Instead, she'd found herself puzzled when she found the carefully addressed purple envelope in her mail, turning it over in her hands to feel the thickness of the letter. It felt like something was in it. Cardboard? She hit her open palm with it a few times, ears perked up, before she headed up to her room from the mailboxes.

Desades danced around her feet when she stepped into the room, and she had to carefully step around him to keep from tripping, sitting down at the large table in the middle of her bedroom to open the purple envelope - Tomoko really hoped it wasn't junk mail. It was a very pretty looking junk mail and it would be such a shame. Never the less, she slid her finger through the slit of it, carefully ripping the whole thing into an awful mess (much to her chagrin. If it was junk mail she wanted to keep that pretty envelope) to get to the contents.

There were actually several things in the envelope, and Tomoko quickly realized what she was looking at.

The first of which made her cringe just slightly as she unfolded it to see the very stiff and unyielding handwriting of her father:

あなたの進歩が本当であれば、あなたの兄弟に渡します。

Tomoko's nose crinkled a little bit, turning the paper over a few times, and even feeling to see if there was an illusion over it. Nothing. She frowned. "Nice to see I'm still the least favorite, chichiue..." she grumbled, then immediately felt bad. Maybe they'd just been too busy at home to give Ai and Yu good focus and they needed the helping hand. But she couldn't help but feel like her father just wanted the twins to bloom early.

The second thing she pulled out of the envelope sent star shaped confetti exploding everywhere and Tomoko gasped, swatting Desades on the nose when the bakekitsune moved to try and eat some of it. He gave her a really sad look, but still stole a piece of it to chew on when Tomoko looked away to look at the confetti-exploding item. It was a card that was hand-made - she could tell that the twins had drawn the pictures on the front of it, and she smiled just a bit. It was covered in glue and more glitter than was ever nessecary (but always loved, she'd admit), and it smelled like spookies.

She could just see the twins making it on the floor of the kitchen while her mother baked.

On the inside, their less practiced handwriting filled the pages - as did their bad spelling attempts at writing in Halloween Common. Tomoko smiled as she read both of their messages that were barely crammed into the card.

"Big Sis! HAPY BIRTDAE! Yor geting bigur! Com hom son so we can see yor tals! PLES!!!

- Ai"

"知子! HAPPEE BURTHDA! I hop yo get all sorts ov prety stuf and a prety star showur or somthing! Come hom soon! We mis yo.

- Yu

PS 父上 Keps taking abot yo."

She ignored the mention of her father, but couldn't help but smile at their excitement - her birthday. That was what this envelope was all about. She'd forgotten. It had been so long since she'd last had one she hadn't even realized that it was coming up again. She propped the handmade card up on her little table affectionately, and Desades kept sniffing at it curiously, licking it until Tomoko shooed him away.

The third item in the envelope was the most curious, Tomoko carefully unfolding the several page letter that had her mother's very neat handwriting in it. Yet at the same time, it was warm and familiar to her, unlike her father's.

"星の常-"

Her mother had started out with her formal name, and Tomoko sat up just a little bit straighter to read as the letter continued on.

"彼の無知な手紙をあなたの父はご容赦ください。あなたがなくなってきたので、あなたは彼が学校であなたの咲く進捗状況がいかに興奮見ることができなかった。あなたの手紙はますますまれ成長と彼が見て、あなたから聞くことを単にせっかちです。"

She found that very hard to believe, but hearing her mother say it made such words seem like a very possible thing, to be honest. Not that it didn't make her father's one sentance note sting any less.

"私はアミティビルアカデミーにあなたを送っので、あなたが作った進歩の誇り - 私は雰囲気が我々が自宅でここにあなたのために行っている可能性が何よりも良いがあったことを感じ、私はあなたの父にそれを示唆して後悔していないとき私は、あなたが戦っていた理由の家はあったかもしれないことに気づいた。"

Tomoko began to smile more and more as she continued to read the letter from her mother, leaning back against the bed and relaxing at how soothing she was.

"あなたがもっと美しく、私が今まであなたが望んだかもしれないよりも咲いており、世界を経験してうまくいけば、あなたがあなたの人生を続行する必要があります視点を与えている。あなたが卒業した後、あなたが家に来るためにあなたの父が押されているが、我々は完全にそれは、あなたの生活の中でより多くの成功をもたらす場合は、行った後の一族から離れてあなたの人生を続行するにはあなたの意思決定をサポートします両方。"

If it was possible to glow through the walls with excitement, she would have. While she understood that home was important, she had been understanding more and more that 'going' home was..well... impossible at this point. She never would have been happy at all to stay there. Not when Remi was a dear friend and home said she should have hated him.

She couldn't do that.

"家族は、あなたの最後のサイクルとあなたの誕生日のために祝福を送ります。私はあなたがより多くを持っていることを望みます - そして、この最後の一つがあったように、彼らはすべてのように生産的な、あなたのために良いです。、私の子供の成長を続けている。

あなたが私を必要とする場合に知っている、私はあなたに来る。すぐにご覧ください。

- 母"

She cringed at the last line. If she ever needed anything? Tomoko shifted awkwardly and touched the crack down her face. She had yet to have told her family about the incident with her ball of stars. She knew her father would not be of help in matter of balls of stars, but...

Mother....

Tomoko carefully pulled out some of her stationary and began to write.