Birthday (1)

I smiled while waking up today.

I woke up earlier than usual as Luke was still asleep in his bed.

It was December 20th today.

I discovered my birthday in this life when I looked through the photo album.

Unexpectedly, the photo album provided by the school to my parents had some of my information in it such as the birthday of Luke and I.

I was able to skim through the photo album during my stay at my parent's house the last time I visited them in the fall.

Luke's birthday was November 18th.

Since his birthday already passed before I became aware of it, I couldn't give him a present.

But that didn't mean that I couldn't pester Luke about my birthday.

For the first time, I climbed onto Luke's bed as I shook Luke aggressively to wake him up.

Luke instantly woke up as he got up to sit down on the bed.

"What's wrong Rika?" He tiredly asked me.

"It's my birthday today," I gave Luke a hint.

Luke didn't seem to understand my hint as he still looked greatly confused.

"I'm turning twelve today," I said to Luke more explicitly.

"I know," Luke stated with no expression.

He knew? I was the only one who didn't know about my birthday this entire time?

"My birthday present," I finally asked Luke after no other methods worked.

"I read in a book that on someone's birthday, they have a party, receive gifts and get a cake with candles on it that represent their age," I explained.

"In the first district, we only formally celebrate birthdays once someone turns sixteen." Luke seemed to wonder why I missed this part in the book I read.

No wonder I have never celebrated my birthday here! This meant that I would have to spend four more years of not celebrating my birthday to reach that age.

"Why sixteen?" I curiously asked.

"Because sixteen is the age that where we come to have fully mature bodies for the maximum capacity for mana we can store," Luke explained.

Of course everything revolved around mana.

But of course I would not wait that long to finally celebrate my first birthday at the age of twelve.

"My birthday present?" I asked Luke again while I took in his explanations.

I sulked as Luke dragged his hand through his hair with a bit of dilemma.

He reluctantly took out his marble and a gift box wrapped in pretty gold paper with a shiny white ribbon on the top appeared out of thin air.

Luke actually prepared a present for me?

All I had to do was ask all this time for a present?

I was shocked as I thought we would go shopping in the first district for my present.

Thankfully, today was a saturday. This meant that we had no classes today.

I carefully opened the gift as I was afraid to damage the shiny wrapping paper that glowed faintly in the dark.

I couldn't believe what I just saw.

I rubbed my eyes and pinched myself to see if it was real.

Luke really knew my tastes well. He knew that I would hate any present like clothes, jewelry or other accessories.

The gift gleamed from the incoming orange and red lights from the rising of the sun.

This was a video game counsel from the third district.

I touched its metallic parts in joy as I treated it as the most precious thing in the world.

A actual game! I didn't think that these even existed in Luke's mind.

I started to tear up as I couldn't believe that Luke would even give me this.

I hugged Luke tightly to thank him.

I would never be bored in Luke's mansion anymore!

I quickly turned the video game counsel on to realize that it was empty.

I searched for the pre-installed games in the inventory to find that there was none.

"What is this?" I asked Luke when I couldn't find anything that resembled a game in the end.

"It's a memorila," Luke showed me the buttons on the counsel.

"A memorila?" I asked him.

Maybe there was still much to figure out about what the first district people used.

"It's a device that lets you see your past memories like a film, although with this model, you can only use it five times." Luke explained.

I figured out from Luke's long explanations that the buttons were actually there to control where you wanted to see your past memories.

Of course Luke would not give me a video game counsel.

I guess I was being too hopeful from its familiar shape.

"Why give me this?" I asked Luke.

Although my memory was lacking compared to the other elites in the first district, it actually wasn't that bad as I could recall everything ever since kindergarten pretty clearly.

"I thought you would want to go through your early childhood memories," Luke sincerely answered.

"You seem to have fuzzy memories before kindergarten," Luke pointed out.

I thought that Luke didn't notice this entire time! It turns out he knew everything going on, although he probably didn't know the reason for that was my reincarnation into this body.

"Thank you," I whispered sincerely.

I knew this must have been very expensive. Even though Luke's family was wealthy with money, it was still nice of him to give me something like this.