Birthday

"You f*cking scared me for this?!" Helia was taken aback by her friend's outburst. Vesper rarely cursed. Like, really rarely. Vesper cursing was like the sun rising from the west.

"Do you think I'm going to die?" The birthday girl panicked as she walked back and forth in the room once again. "I can't die on my birthday. Oh God, what am I going to tell mum and dad."

"Helia, I can't believe you. I've known you for like ten years now. I didn't know you were this dumb." Vesper sighed deeply before removing his plover patterned white jacket and placing it on the bed.

"W-what are you doing?" Helia began to scramble into the corner of the room, trying to merge into the walls but was unsuccessful as Vesper had his eyes on her like a hungry lion.

"Plug or pad?" He asked with concern and disappointment in his eyes. He had also removed the shirt buttons at the calves and rolled them up to his elbows.

For a fourteen-year-old boy, he had muscles on his forearms just like a college student. And since he turned fourteen, his growth in height increased. Standing in front of the girl, he was intimidating.

"Is this the kind of play that you are into?" The girl asked with fear and shock.

"No!..." Vesper didn't want to say the word. He only made up his mind after taking a deep breath. "Tam... tampon or pad?" He turned deep red from saying those words.

Helia couldn't hear what the boy muttered under his breath. "I'm sorry?"

The boy didn't dare to say it again. "...Never mind. I'll just go buy both." Vesper stopped cornering the girl and opened the little bag he carried every day to take out his wallet.

"Buy what?"

"You are on your period, Helia. It's so obvious. Why am I even telling you this?" He replied without looking at her. Even a boy knew what was going on.

"But I'm not bleeding from my belly button." Helia pulled up her flat stomach to back up her words.

This time, it was Vesper's turn to be shocked. What did he hear just now? He turned his neck one hundred degrees to look at his best friend.

"See. Girls say that they get cramps on their period. That's because the blood comes out from the belly button. Of course, it hurts. But my stomach doesn't hurt and my shirt doesn't have a blood spot." Vesper had to blink and confirm that his friend was joking. She wasn't.

"Weren't you listening to the school nurse when she explained this kind of thing?!"

"How can I?! The way she talks lures me to sleep." The girl pouted as she defended herself.

"You know what, I'm done. While I'm gone, you make sure you do research about periods. I am not explaining it." The boy said those words and exited the room. He needed to run to the closest pharmacy and buy... those things before the party started. That's why he removed his jacket and rolled up his sleeves.

"Did Helia wake up?" Mare asked once she saw the figure of the boy downstairs.

"Uhmm, she was in the shower." Vesper choked out whatever came to his mind. Thank god Helia had a bathroom connected to her room.

Since his friend asked him if he was alone in the first place, he assumed she didn't want her parents to know. The boy thought of telling the mother, but she was already busy cooking, so he decided not to add more work for her.

"Hmm." The mother didn't say anything about that, but when she saw the boy's clothes, she frowned. "Did something happen upstairs?"

"Nothing. I was thinking I could go for a run. I forgot something at home."

"Then you can use my phone to call your parents. I'm sure they are still in the house." Mare pointed at her phone on the counter. Both Helia and Vesper weren't allowed to have a phone until they turned sixteen.

"No, thank you. I haven't been moving, so you know, I gotta, get in shape."

"Okay. Be careful."

"Alright, bye." Vesper walked out of the house casually, wore his shoes and sprinted from there.

Before he found a pharmacy, he met a small store and decided to get the things he needed there. Vesper was the only customer there, luckily, with a young man at the counter chewing gum as he listened to music through his headphones. The boy bet the cashier didn't even realise Vesper's presence.

Vesper went to the medical kit corner and saw a whole row of various types of pads and tampons in the small convenience store with only ten rows.

He examined each of the types and compared them to one another as he stole glances at the cashier like he was planning to shoplift.

Was he supposed to buy for teens or for light? Should he get her large or small? How the heck was he supposed to choose between heavy or for the night?

In the end, Vesper bought every type available with all his money and went to the cashier. The cashier didn't look at him or say anything when he looked at the things on the counter, but once his eyes saw that the arm over the counter was a man's, he finally raised his head and met with Vesper's face.

"How much is it?" Vesper asked awkwardly.

The cashier pointed at the customer display with visible confusion and a startled look.

"Can I get a bag too? The one that's not transparent?"

"Su-sure, bro. It's on the house." The cashier took a blue bag from under the counter and gave it to the young boy. In his twenty-six years of life, he's never met a man buying period things. Did the boy f*ck up? The boy must have the guts to do this.

The cashier respected the boy as he vibed to an anime song. Maybe he should be nicer to his younger sister when she's on her period.

"Thanks, man." Vesper ran back to the Knights and saw his parents exiting their car at the house.

"Where did you come from? I thought you left." Aura tilted her head in confusion as she held the chicken in the pod. Yes, she achieved to save the chicken from fully turning black.

"I went back to the house cause, I forgot to lock the window?" Vesper came up with a random excuse, but his father caught the sight of the blue bag.

"What's in there?"

"Present. For Helia."

"You forgot to bring that?" Aura asked with disbelief. His son was careful, and he didn't miss things like that.

"Yes, ma'am. Anyway, let me just tell Helia that I'm back." The son escaped from the spot and went straight to Helia's room. He made sure he knocked before he entered the room. "You showered. Nice."

Helia had her hair wrapped in a towel, wearing a grey bathrobe. Her face was flushed, and her laptop on the bed was open, meaning she did the research.

"Thank you. Ill treat you to lunch in school for an entire week next week." She thanked him when she received the bag and left for the bathroom.

Vesper couldn't help but ask, "Do you know how to put it?"

"Yep." She replied and closed the door.

Vesper left the room when he realised the girl might be awkward and decided to finally fulfill the promise he made to his aunt before he went out.

"You look like you are from a marathon." Neo was putting up colourful balloons near the curtain when Vesper showed up.

"But fresh enough, right?" Vesper smelled himself.

"Barely but today is not about looking fresh or anything so you can stay like that. Could you pass me the pink balloon?" The boy passed the balloon. When Vesper looked around, he saw that the balloons were either blue or pink.

"Am I the only one who feels like we are preparing for a gender reveal?"

"You are not. I too, feel the same way." Mare answered Vesper's question and placed the plates on the table. "Neo, I really think you bought the wrong balloons."

"But blue and pink can mean many things." Neo shrugged and continued to put up the blue balloon.

"I don't think so." The red-haired boy checked the balloon carefully. A bunch of babies were printed on the surface.

"It's a boy!!" A voice exclaimed from the kitchen.

"Hey, Cillian. What do you mean it's a boy?" Neo asked from the ladder.

"Hey. I just read what was written on the balloon." Cillian popped himself and showed the blue balloon to the two.

"Uh-oh." Vesper muttered. Helia chose the moment to come down the stairs.

"What do you mean uh-oh. Did you mess up something?" Helia showed up wearing a gold baggy sweater over the black turtle neck along with high waist black jeans. Her medium length hair, which many of her friends called it the Jesus' hair, was in a messy bun on top of her head.

"Oh my. You look gorgeous! Happy birthday, sweetie!" Aura was closest to the girl, so she hugged her first, followed by Mare, Neo, Cillian, and lastly, Vesper.

"Thank you, every one." Helia didn't look like a girl who was panicking thirty minutes ago about having her first period. "Is anyone going to answer my question?"

"Uh huh. That is one funny thing you say." Neo hid the fact that he messed up with the balloons. He planned to hide the prints from his daughter's eyes.

"It's not funny, though. Did you guys break something? I didn't hear the noise." Helia looked around but didn't find any broken glass.

"Don't worry, honey. It was nothing." Mare came to support her husband. "Everything is ready, so how about we start?"

"Sure."

Neo closed all the curtains, and Vesper went to get the cake as the others settled down on the sofas.

"Happy birthday to you." Vesper brought out the cake with fifteen candles as he sang and walked toward his best friend.

"Happy birthday to you." The others sang along with the boy. "Happy birthday to dear Helia. Happy birthday to you!"

The birthday girl closed her eyes, made a wish and blew all the candles in one breath. Her family and friends cheered and once again hugged her.

"Thank you."

"How old are you now?" Vesper asked with a playful smile.

Helia replied in a thick British accent that her grandma had. "FoIVe." She put up five fingers and did a hair flip that made everyone laugh. "Mum, can I eat the cake now?"

"We are going to eat lunch then desert." Mare tried to take away the cake from her daughter, but Helia guarded it like a goalkeeper.

"But what if I don't have any more space left after eating lunch?" She used her puppy dog eyes to look at her mother.

"Fine. But a bite and, that's it. After eating lunch, you can eat how much of the cake you want. Mare couldn't say no to her daughter. Especially today was her birthday. How could she refuse?