For the sake of this story lets pretend that we don't know when Natsume's birthday is. :) Thank you~

The sun was sitting high in the sky, heralding a new day. I could hear the birds chirping and had gotten a surprisingly decent night of sleep. My days had become relatively ayakashi free. Only a few smaller spirits had visited me in the past few days to reclaim their names. I was certainly thankful for that but I had to admit that it was a bit lonely. I was used to ayakashi popping up at all hours of the day (or night). Who wouldn't be after having to deal with it for the entirety of their life? I had always wished that they would leave me alone or that I would be spared from the curse of seeing them. Yet now, with the sudden lack of them, I found myself re-evaluating that wish. Pushing those thoughts to the back of my mind for the time being, I focused on my walk to school. Nyanko Sensei had joined me that morning; he was walking along the high fence on someone's property. I was only partially paying attention to his excited exclamations of a new manjuu store opening in town.

"Oi, Natsume! You listening to me?"

"Hai Sensei. We'll get some manjuu after school."

"You better not forget!" He jumped off the fence.

"Where are you going?"

"The Yatsuhara ayakashi are holding a party this morning. There's free sake." With those parting words Nyanko Sensei took off into the bushes. I sighed. "He'll probably never change."

"Who'll never change?" I nearly jumped out of my skin as someone approached me from behind.

I spun around with my heart in my throat. It was just Tanuma. "Tanuma." I let out a sigh and released the death grip I had on my shirt.

He must have noticed my startled expression. "Sorry, didn't mean to scare you." He looked slightly surprised yet somewhat amused.

"No, it's fine."

The rest of our walk to school continued in companionable silence, with the occasional moment of light conversation. Somewhere along the way Nishimura and Kitamoto had caught up with us. Nishimura had announced his presence by tackling me from behind while Kitamoto took a more relaxed approach and simply fell into step beside Tanuma. With the addition of the two boys the liveliness of our group went up tremendously. How Nishimura had so much energy in the morning I'll never know. He made enough noise that he could drive away a sharp-clawed, red-eyed, fire-breathing dragon let alone scare off all the ayakashi that we crossed paths with on the way to school. After passing through the school gates and ascending one of the numerous stairwells, the four of us leisurely made our way to our respective classrooms where we parted ways; Tanuma and Kitamoto to their classroom, Nishimura and I to ours.

Upon sliding the door open, the energy contained within the classroom pretty much knocked the both of us down. I was surprised that there was someone with more energy than Nishimura that morning. I was beginning to think that some kind of energy inducing ayakashi went to visit my classmates during their sleep. Oh how I wish he would visit me. Wait, scratch that. Knowing my luck he'd probably ask for his name back. My eyes scanned the room and soon found the source of the energy. It belonged to a brown haired boy sitting at his desk which was surrounded by a group of students from our class. He looked as though he would burst into fire at any given moment he was that excited.

The guy's energy, which I strongly wished was contagious, left me puzzled. What could possibly get someone that excited? Sensei would probably only get like that over food or sake. Whilst for Nishimura on the other hand, it would have to concern either girls or arcade games. I don't recall there being any news about the arcade receiving new games nor talk about a new student. Although he doesn't really strike me as the type who would jump for joy over food. Perhaps a family member made a miraculous recovery?
"Haaaa" someone sighed exasperatedly. "Jeez, some people get really worked up over their birthdays."
Nishimura jumped. "Sasada! Don't scare me like that!"
"Jeez, and you call yourself a man? Good morning, Natsume."
I just laughed lightly. "Morning."
Nishimura had recovered and was silently cursing Sasada. "You said it was his birthday?" Sasada nodded. Nishimura sent me a mischievous smile and took off towards the birthday boy.
I noticed Sasada shaking her head out the corner of my eye. The warm atmosphere chased out my previously gloomy thoughts. I manoeuvred myself through the throng of students and collapsed into my desk. It was going to be a long day.

While I slept class had moved on and soon Sasada was nudging me awake for lunch. After I grabbed my bento I followed Nishimura up to the roof. The door opened to reveal Tanuma, Kitamoto and Taki already sitting down eating. Nishimura ran over to them with his usual amount of energy while I followed at a more relaxed pace. Once we had all settled down Nishimura set to work talking about everyone's birthdays. I was really hoping that no one would ask me when mine was. It wasn't that I didn't want to tell them but more to the fact that I, myself, didn't know when it was. I had been moving around since I was really young, staying with a family for no more than a month at most. I had already been a burden on them so I figured that I shouldn't trouble them over something so unimportant. Eventually I forgot what day my birthday fell on, having locked the memory away with the memories of my father.

Of course, knowing my luck so well, I just knew that my hope would be in vain. "When's your birthday, Natsume?"

"My birthday? I don't know." The four of them pinned me with shocked stares. "What?"

"How can you not know when your birthday is?" The tone Nishimura used made it seem like it was the end of the world.

"I don't remember ever celebrating it." I suppose that wasn't entirely true. Back when I was still living with my father we probably celebrated it, but it's too hard to remember those days, there are too many emotions that I'm not quite ready to confront. Seeing the astounded stares that my friends were giving me I shrugged and continued. "I've moved from family to family since Ii was a little kid. The families had their own problems to worry about than to focus on something so unimportant as my birthday."

"But it's your birthday..." Nishimura trailed off again, completely mortified.

It seemed that my friends didn't know what to make of my statements as the rest of the lunch break continued in silence. They had mixed expressions of bewilderment and astonishment written across their faces. It wasn't until just before the bell rang that Nishimura pinned everyone with a smile that clearly said he was scheming something.