56th of Summer, 489
Rathe grabbed his second star fruit cake from the glass plate on the table and ducked as his mom swatted at him.
“Rathe! Leave some for your guests!” Her swat turned into a hug as she reached down and scooped him up. Her teeth were so shiny when she smiled at the boy, he wondered how she got all those stars to fit behind her lips.“I know it’s your birthday and you’re excited, but there will be plenty of cake for you later, I promise.”
He was too busy licking the sticky fruit off his fingers to really pay attention to what she was saying. The cake was so good, but it was too small. He ate the whole thing while she was talking.
“Rathe, are you listening to me?”
Rathe squirmed in her embrace. Her blonde hair smelled like the rose water she used in her baths. He thought he probably smelled like it too, since she used it to wash his hair. Rathe was starting to think it was kind of a girly smell. Now that he was four, he might not want her to use it on him anymore, but those were a lot of words for a boy who just turned four. Thinking them was enough. Instead of saying them, he reached up to touch one of the tiny blue jaso flowers she’d woven into a the crown on her head. He nearly knocked it off with his sticky fingers, but instead of yelling at him, she laughed and put him down to readjust it on her head.
“Maybe you should go wash your hands before you touch anyone else. Do you need me to help you?”
“Mom! I’m four. I can wash my own hands.”
Another one of her twinkly laughs came out of her mouth. “You’re right. What was I thinking? You’re a man now. Of course you can wash your own hands.”
Finally, she was starting to get it. The small boy puffed up his chest and pushed his way through the crowded room, weaving a path through the sea of yellow, orange, and purple fabric toward the washroom. It wasn’t easy to make it the whole way across the floor with the constant flow of hands lowering from nowhere to touch his hair as he passed. Everyone wanted to rub his head or something, just because it was his birthday. He couldn’t even see their faces, only as far as their hips, and sometimes a waist. At four, he still wasn't very tall yet, but he hoped someday that would change.
The next hand that came down to touch him, he darted out of the way of, almost knocking down Aunt Shara as he zigzagged into her side. She grunted and her thin eyebrow shot straight up, but he was out of her way before she could grab him too.