Well, that makes one of them that's confident in Kaito never getting fed up with Shinji! But the gradual process of squeezing an answer to 'when the heck's your birthday, dude?' resulting not in ire, but an actual date, did help ease off some of his own recurring worries about being perceived as a pest.

"It did take a few tries, he was pretty evasive about it at first." So it's not like the half-answer was unique to Kyoko. "I can't say for sure, but he might not be used to it really being a big deal."

Just, you know, based on some things he's picked up about Kai here and there.

"I definitely wouldn't have been able to pull off a homemade cake on my own, and I'm sure having extra company around will be nice for tonight. Really, though..." going back to an earlier thought, "I'd bet both of us would enjoy it a lot if you wanted to drop by for dinner more often."