Chapter Text
After a forest fire, the first plants to grow back are weeds.
Katsuki supposes there’s something to be said about all Sanae’s plant metaphors and weird old lady bullshit about regrowth and forgiveness and love, especially when he wakes up next to Eijirou on a rainy spring morning and realizes he was a forest fire all along.
Eijirou’s hair is bright despite the grey light filtering through the window, red and blazing and shitty, and Katsuki is ashes.
He’s waffled back and forth for five years on whether or not the stupid mark mattered to him, on whether or not he hated or appreciated the decision Eijirou made all those years ago, on whether or not it was his fault or the universe’s or someone else’s – but when he takes in the form of the sleeping man next to him, he can’t help but tell himself the truth: That crazy old woman was right all along.
Katsuki looks at Eijirou’s chest rise and fall, watches the way his eyelids flutter as he dreams about probably working out or something. He follows the winding lines of tattoos down his neck, his shoulders, all the way to his knuckles. He takes in every detail and allows himself to fill in the vague silhouetted image he’s always had of his mysterious soulmate.
He’d done everything in the world he could think of to avoid exactly this situation, but he can’t for the life of him remember why.
Eijirou stirs next to him, but doesn’t wake up.
Katsuki slips out of bed as quietly as possible.
He’s in the middle of making breakfast when Eijirou comes stumbling out of the bedroom, yawning.
“Good morning,” Katsuki murmurs, half-afraid Eijirou is going to leave and never come back.
“Yeah,” Eijirou says, sliding his arms around Katsuki’s waist and nuzzling his face into blonde hair. “It is.”
This is it, Katsuki thinks. This is the thing he’s been waiting for and not waiting for and yearning for and avoiding for his entire life. He’s never going to get everything. He’s never going to get the moment all children dream of from the day they’re born – the day they wake up to a mark that says “0,” a mark that turns white.
He’s never going to get that magical moment.
But here, in this kitchen, with shitty red hair tickling the side of his neck and strong arms wrapped around his waist while he definitely burns the bacon –
He’s got enough.
-x-
“Your katsudon is getting better,” she says, sliding her empty bowl to the side.
“No, it isn’t,” Katsuki scoffs. “You can’t improve on perfection.”
“Cocky.” Sanae rolls her eyes, smiling. She leans back in her chair and crosses her legs. “You know what my favorite thing about spring is?”
Katsuki shakes his head.
“The wildflowers. Dandelions, fleabane, henbits.”
“Those are weeds.”
“To you, maybe,” she chuckles, eyes shining. “They’re flowers all the same.”
“They’ll ruin a garden.”
“They are a garden, Katsuki.” She leans forward and straightens her pant leg, before setting her chin on her hand and tilting her head to look at him. “And do you know why?”
“You’re about to give me another one of your weird life lessons, aren’t you?”
“How else am I going to make sure you never forget me?” A rhetorical question, obviously. Katsuki couldn’t forget her even if he wanted to. “Wildflowers – weeds, to those of us who remain negative,” a wink, “are strong in ways your typical garden flowers could never be. They grow in all the places no one expects anything to flourish. They’re the most beautiful kind of flower because they’re resilient. They bloom with or without help.”
Katsuki hums. “Still weeds.”
Sanae laughs, a tinkling sound that makes Katsuki’s mouth tick up no matter what mood he’s in.
“The most wonderful things are those that can survive where nothing else does.” She looks at Katsuki pointedly. “Root yourself, wherever you are, and you will thrive.”
-x-
By the time he gets to the headstone, the rain has stopped.
“Tell me,” he says aloud, to no one in particular, “do they have katsudon in hell?”
Sanae doesn’t answer. Katsuki sits down on the bench close to her plot, and closes his eyes. His ass is wet, because the bench is still wet from the rain, but it doesn’t really bother him.
“How’d you know?” He asks, opening one eye to stare at the headstone. “How were you always right?”
Silence.
“It’s not fair, you know. That you had to be so fuckin’ old and important to me. Couldn’t be my age, could you?” He huffs a laugh. “I bet you sucked when you were my age, though. Your mark would’ve been at, what, 17,000 days? The first one, at least.” He rubs a hand down his face.
“I know you’re not here,” he murmurs. “I know you’re gone.”
The wind blows through the trees, and it smells like wet grass and dirt.
“I wanted to tell you that I finally got something right.” He picks at his cuticle, stretches his legs out in front of him. “I wanted to tell you that I found him.”
Sanae stays quiet. She grants Katsuki the gift of her silence, which is honestly long overdue.
He sits for a little while longer, until it starts raining again. As he gets up from the bench, a flash of yellow catches his eye.
He leans down to pluck a dandelion out of the ground and walks over to her headstone.
“A weed,” he says. He places it below her date of birth. “Happy spring.”