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Birthdays weren’t all that eventful anymore.
That was fine by you; you’d made reluctant peace with the way that party games and colourful cakes and trips to chuck-e-cheese had slowly slipped out of your life from age twelve or so. Instead, you’d developed a little bit of a ritual, self-contained enough to have been carried out in college without looking like the start of a drinks-and-dancing type party.
Every year since moving out, you’d left your apartment early enough for breakfast at a cafe you liked, followed by a day out to the arcade, then ramen for dinner, and a walk back home to read the heap of new manga you’d order. The rise of monsterkind had added more options for all of those, but left your routine largely uninterrupted. Even your personal favourite monster, who had a habit of texting you throughout the day, had left it at one incredibly long good-morning message.
You grinned down at your phone as you left, scrolling through the wall of enthusiastic text and emojis Papyrus had sent. Maybe you could keep the conversation going— even though he’d agreed to respect the “Meditative Birthday Ritual,” you were tempted to keep talking all the same.
When you got to the end of the message, though, you saw something that surprised you.
An invite for “dinner at my place?” and the promise of Speciality Birthday Food worth giving up your usual fare for.
You had your medative birthday ritual to get to, and you’d even dug out your comfiest DDR-playing shoes for the occasion, but on any other day you would have been over as fast as your city’s public transport would allow. Since coming to the surface, your boyfriend had been steadily improving his cooking skills. To the point where you wouldn’t turn down an invite, ever. It was hard to make food that was both flavourful and edible for you, and he’d somehow gotten the process on lock, even with his spaghetti-centric culinary ambitions.
The invitation nestled into the back of your mind and tugged on your thoughts throughout the day. It tempted you through breakfast and your on-the-house takeout green tea. It distracted you a little from the symphony of noise and lights that was your favourite vintage arcade. You’d decided— more subconsciously than not— to attend before your first round of skee-ball was even over. When you beat your Space Invaders high score, your first thought was of how excited Papyrus would be for your success. The promise of endless pastabilities seemed to swirl up from the chaotically-patterned carpet, and by five in the afternoon, you were ready to abandon the Asteroids cabinet and find out what was waiting for you.
The walk from the arcade to his apartment was a pleasant one. The heat of midday was fading, leaving the world comfortably warm and bathed in late-afternoon sunlight. When the monsters had come topside, they’d clumped into little communities across the country, and the neighbourhood Papyrus lived in had a colourful sort of chaos to it that you’d come to adore. German bakeries squeezed side-by-side with Japanese noodle bars, which in turn rubbed elbows with delis serving monster cuisine. They’d started to cross-pollinate in a glorious way; newspapers in mandarin shared shelves in the newsagents with the latest edition of monsterkind weekly. The streets were borad and tree-lined, bathing the sandstone brick of the local buildings in scattered green.
You did a slightly embarrassing hop-skip-jump of anticipation as you climbed the stairs of his building, rushing to press his button on the scratched-up intercom. It had been about a week since you’d last seen him. Someone as cheerful and chatty as Papyrus couldn’t go long without making friends, and there were a lot of opportunities for a community-minded skeleton to lend a hand around here. Last you’d heard, he’d been helping out with the youth theatre club at the nearby community centre, and having what seemed like the time of his life doing it.
You pressed your thumb to the buzzer beside his nameplate, which said “Sans & the great Papyrus” in increasingly crowded handwriting. You were met with a crackle and momentary background noise in reply. Probably some minor dispute with his brother; he was too far away from the receiver for you to pick up what was actually being said.
“Come on up!” Papyrus said, finally close enough to be clear. The intercom buzzed, the door unlocked, and you steeled yourself for a lot of stairs.
When you reached the door of their apartment, you didn’t even have to knock. Papyrus opened the door before your knuckles had a chance to hit it.
“Human!” he crowed, sweeping you into a hug that left your feet dangling. “How was the arcade? I missed you!”
“The arcade was great!” you said, grinning into the bright fabric of his shirt. You’d never really thought before him that skeletons would have a smell, but they do— the pixie-stick tang of magic intermingling with the background of their apartment; rich seasoning and clean laundry.
Papyrus set you carefully down inside the apartment, practically bouncing in place as you shuffled off your sneakers without bothering to untie the laces.
“I have the most amazing surprise for you,” he said. “Take my hand, and close your eyes!”
You complied, covering your eyes obediently with one hand. He took the other, to lead you through to the kitchen.
When you first met, you’d been surprised by the feeling of his fingers; the hardness of bone, but warmer than your hands, like stone in the summer sun. You’d come to like it. There was a wonderful sort of security in touch like that, in the magic buzzing through his bones like electricity in a wire.
The floor beneath your socked feet went from hardwood to carpet to cool tiles, your journey interrupted only by a half-caught hello from the other skeleton monster in residence. Papyrus let go of your hand.
“Can I-” “Not yet!” The legs of a chair scraped closer to you; he’d brought you right to the table. “Have a seat.”
There was gleeful anticipation bubbling up in every word. The air around you smelled tantalisingly tomato-y, with a hint of something you couldn’t quite place. Some fancy kind of monster spice, maybe?
There was the click-fwoosh sound of a lighter.
“You can look now.” Papyrus said, and you opened your eyes to…
Pasta. Very fancy pasta by the looks of it, plated in a perfectly round nest in front of you, with an artful streak of sauce on one side of the stoneware plate, two basil leaves at the tip. In the centre of the pile, a single blue-and-white striped birthday candle burned. You could see a range of impressive ingredients— what looked to be capers, cherry tomatoes, sliced olives, and… rainbow sprinkles?
“This is my soon-to-be world-famous Birthday Spaghetti!” Papyrus announced, puffing his chest out and grabbing a nearby slotted spoon with which to gesticulate. “A completely original recipe, with hand-made fresh pasta, truffle oil, and aged parmigiano-reggiano cheese!”
“It looks delicious!” you picked up the fork that was beside the plate, and prepared to dig in. You trusted his judgement, suspicious as you were of the sprinkles.
Just as tines met strangely-soft noodle, the lights went out.
There was a brief moment where the only light was the flickering candle flame, and then the lights came back on, and the room exploded into confetti.
“SURPRISE!” a cacophony of voices yelled. Colourful confetti and glitter drifted down all around you; in the seconds of darkness streamers had appeared on the ceiling, and Papyrus had opened the kitchen cabinets to flood the room with helium balloons.
You twisted to look behind you, where several of you friends, human and monster alike, were standing bearing party poppers and presents. Sans stepped forward, placing a party hat on your head and snapping the elastic strap into place under your chin.
“Happy birthday.” he said, dropping a tiny box onto the table beside your plate. “You gonna cut the cake?”
“Cake..?”
You realised as your fork sunk deeper into the “spaghetti”. It wasn’t pasta at all, but artfully sculpted frosting, with a solid layer of cake underneath. You stared up at Papyrus in shock.
“Did you make this?”
“Yes! You have been deceived, dear human! The birthday spaghetti is not actually spaghetti! It’s a modified angel food cake with passion fruit filling, and mango buttercream frosting.” Papyrus didn’t have lips, but you could tell when he was smiling, and happiness radiated off him in waves. “I also found a collection of traditional human party games that you might enjoy! You’ve mentioned before how you miss the birthday parties of your youth, so I thought I’d try and throw one for you… but there is pasta puttanesca in the fridge, if you don’t want cake for dinner.”
Warm joy rose in your chest as the monsters around you started passing out paper plates and pouring cups of soda. This was so much, the human-style baking and research— you’d been expecting a present at most. Papyrus had clearly put a lot of work into this, and it made something light up inside you, happiness reaching to your very core. You could kiss him. And you did, kneeling on your chair to reach, right above the candle flame.
“Oh, be careful of the candle wax!” he said, as you sat back down. “Hurry, blow it out!”
“Don’t forget to make a wish!” one of the party guests— a monster child, in a trademark striped shirt— chimed in, from somewhere near the fridge.
You closed your eyes, in prime wish-making tradition.
I wish my birthday was like this every year.