Chapter Text
“Hey Katsuki! Can I please get some help over here?”
The voice echoed through the shop was slightly muffle and strain, as if the person calling out was in the process of carrying something extremely heavy. Among all the beautifully bloomed and colorful flowers, the back counter of the store was practically engulfed in paper products and stray petals, the cash register nearly buried alive with the substances. If a customer was to come inside and try to pay for something, let’s just say it would be a hassle to give them change.
Soon after the call of a name, a head of wild, spikey hair popped out from behind the counter, various colored petals, such as yellow and white, scattered off his ash blonde locks as he did so. With a grunt the flower shop employee rose, crimson orange eyes blinking in surprise as he looked around the shop in search of his coworker. His pale skin lacked contrast against the bright teal colored shirt, the shop’s logo surrounded by red and white roses stamped on the front breast pocket. Brushing the rest of the flower remains from his shirt and jeans, he started to make his way around the counter towards the front doors, the soles of his brown boots clomping as he traveled.
“What it is?” He called, voice raspy with annoyance as he maneuvered around one of their front displays overfilled with their premade bouquets of Hydrangeas, Tulips and Lilies of the Valley. He was met with his coworker struggling to lift a large box full of fertilizer bags from up off the ground.
Her jean overalls covered her collared shirt which was identical to his, safe for her colored a soft, pastel pink. The various patches sewed onto her suspended pants were splotched with many stains of dirt and flower caring supplies. Her brown hair, normally down and bobbing around her head, was secured up high into a messy bun. Various stray strands of hair wisped out and around her skull, two longer, and more prominent strands of her dark brown locks kept down to frame both sides of her face. At the sound of his voice, she turned around, wide eyes an identical color to her hair and cheeks tinted pink from her efforts.
“Ochako, the hell are you doing?” He asked, voice blank and eyebrow raised.
Uraraka Ochako balked, mouth wide open and face of disbelief before snapping out of her haze. The expression she wore was quick to morph into frustration, and she did not hesitate to sass back. “What are you doing!? Don’t just stand there, Katsuki! Please be a gentleman and help me with these.”
Bakugou Katsuki rolled his eyes at her reply, but complying none-the-less and walking towards her. With ease the ash blonde picked the box up, turning to take it towards their stock room in the back.
“They always do the shipments out back, why the fuck are they dropping it off here?” Katsuki mumbled, more to himself that anything else. It seemed that Ochako heard him however, for she kept up an even pace as they walked together.
“Well,” She started off unevenly. “Your dad told me that they tried buying from a different company, apparently it was cheaper than the locals. Seems to me like they didn’t know the proper location and just thought it was easier to drop it off here instead of going to the back.”
“New company?” Katsuki questioned. “My old man didn’t say anything about that.”
“Well, he told me.” Ochako hummed, hands interlocked behind her back. The ash blonde scoffed.
“Figures. My old hag probably thought it would be funny to surprise me.”
The brunette frowned. “Oh, come on Katsuki. You know how much work it is for them to run the shop. Sometimes they can’t keep track of everything and stuff just falls through the cracks.”
The man didn’t respond, and Ochako found it as a reason to continue.
“Plus, they are getting older now. They can’t manage it like they used to. Your dad is going to be fifty this year, isn’t he?” She asked, to which Katsuki grunted in recognition. “I mean, sooner or later they are going to ask you to take over the shop for them.”
That caused Katsuki to stop dead in his tracks, turning to stare at his coworker with a shocked expression. He surely was not expecting her to say that of all things.
Him? Owning a flower shop?
Those seemed like two things that shouldn’t go together. Yes, this place was a small family business his parents opened when they first moved here, and he grew up in the shop since he was old enough to crawl. But that did not mean he was equipped enough to handle the responsibilities that came with actually running it. Owning a business and working for one seemed like two completely different things. And he was about to voice such options, rather vulgarly, to the brunette before him. That was, until the little bell above the shop’s front door rung and disrupted the tense silence.
Both employees turned their heads towards a middle-aged man dressed in a work suit, a hat adorning his head that he gently took off to reveal dark hair tasseled with strands of grey. He smiled at them, adjusting his hold on his briefcase and walking further inside.
“Welcome to King of Blooms, sir!” Ochako pipped up, startling Katsuki and causing him to nearly drop the box of fertilizer. “How can I help you?”
She walked closer towards the customer with a bounce in her step, using the opportunity as a perfect excuse to escape the ash blonde’s bubbling rant. Once the man explained he was looking for a bouquet to give his wife for their anniversary, they were off around the closest corner. Being left alone to stand near the counter, Katsuki let out a tsk of irritation, shaking his head and continuing to move the boxes of supplies without another word.
After Ochako assisted the man with picking out the perfect anniversary flowers for his wife, the shop was quiet once again. Katsuki finished moving all the fertilizer to the stock room, to which the brunette was thankful for. As a result, she was able to start counting their inventory for the month.
So, while Ochako was in the back, the ash blonde stayed up front to manage the shop and continue making their most recent order. A local couple had hired them to make all the table centerpieces and the displays for their upcoming wedding. They choose white, yellow and lavender, which was a strange color combination. However, it is extremely unique, and they are rose colors Katsuki doesn’t work with often, so he enjoys the change of pace. He was starting to get sick of everyone wanting red and pink.
One thing that people and flowers have in common is that every single one is different. Even flowers of the same style or color, just like humans, are not identical. Two carnations may look the same at first glance, but with observation one could see the different way the petals bend, or the different amount of leaves. No two flowers are mirror images of each other, and that is something Katsuki loves.
But something he enjoys even more about them is their meanings. Similar to a flowers’ appearance, its meaning is always different. Every flower is symbolic in some way, even roses of different colors have different meanings. Such a reason for this provided the ash blonde with slight joy at seeing what colored roses the couple choose for their wedding.
White roses symbolize purity.
Yellow roses symbolize a new beginning.
Lavender roses symbolize love at first sight.
They went together well, with a deep and powerful meaning behind the color choice. Katsuki was excited to work with unique combinations, and he enjoys doing custom orders when he is given the chance to be creative and work with a long leash. So, he kept working on the order for the next few hours, the peaceful hum of the shop’s ceiling fans and birds chirping outside providing some kind of background noise.
By now it was almost four in the afternoon, and with their shop closing at five they were near the end of the day and ready to wrap up soon. Katsuki had moved from working on the displays for the wedding’s ceremony, with all the large alter bouquets finished and lined up along the back wall behind the counter. Now he was constructing the small table center pieces for the reception, adding small bows and glittered charms in colors similar to the roses on the jars as an extra touch. The ash blonde used the addition of small white Lilies of the Valley among the roses to create contrast, and he was extremely happy with how the first five of the centerpieces turned out. At the thought of forty-five more to go, Katsuki scratched the back of his head with a rough exhale.
He suddenly had a strong urge to pack up for the day.
As the flower shop employee jumped down from his stool and pulled the trash can from under the counter out, he started to toss any snipped flower petals and stems away. In the haste of all his cleaning, Katsuki failed to hear the front door of the shop open as well as the heavy combat boots clomping through their shop. It was not until the new customer was almost at the cash register that the ash blonde noticed, and he nearly jumped ten feet in the air from the sight before him.
There was no way such a ridiculous hair color was natural, bright firetruck red and spiked up in a way that required at least a whole jar of hair gel. It was tied up and out of their face with a black, skull patterned bandanna secured around their head. Traveling down to their face, Katsuki was met with a large smile of sharp, pointy teeth alongside a pair of childish ruby wine eyes that seemed very unfitting with the rest of their appearance. A small scar was located above their left eye, the same eyebrow above it double pierced with a silver bar. Their nose was pierced with a ring, and with similar snake bite piercings over their lips the ash blonde could guess their preference was silver. Various jewelry, mostly silver with red or black gems pierced their ears.
It was not until Katsuki’s eyes traveled down the rest of the customer’s body that he could confirm them as male. A simple black tank top adorned his torso, any inch of skin showing through covered in inked tattoos. The sight shocked the ash blonde, to say the least. He had never seen someone covered in so many of them before; up from the man’s under chin, down his neck, across his chest and wrapping around his arms. A tattoo of a large skull, eye sockets narrowed in anger and jaw unhinged, was placed in the center of the man’s chest, smoke and roses blooming from the mouth and over his collar bones. Many of the same swirls and flowers carried up his neck, some parts adorned by playing cards of kings and queens. Traditional Japanese tattoo work made up both of his arm sleeves; a samurai, a tiger, multiple cherry blossoms and wind on his right, and traditional koy fish and dragon with water and similar cherry blossoms on his left. Katsuki could tell there were more tattoos on his legs with the way more ink showed through the ripped holes in his black jeans.
Slowly the ash blonde looked around and saw Ochako was still counting inventory in the back. He cursed to himself, he never was the best at dealing with customers, typically her, Iida, and Deku were better at it, while he stuck to making the orders and managing supplies. Now that he thinks about it, he can’t wrap his head around why he wasn’t the one to go back in the stock room. Because as a result of this, he was stuck helping this punk that looked like he walked out of the myspace era from the 2000s, without feeling the need to rip his own hair out.
“Welcome to King of Blooms,” God it took every fiber of his being to actually seem happy. “How can I help you?”
The redhead’s smile seemed much to innocent and pleasant for someone who looked like he could rip Katsuki in half. “Hey man! I’m new in the area and thought I would check out the local shops. My buddies and I just opened up the tattoo parlor down the street.”
Don’t care. That is what Katsuki wanted to snap at the guy, but instead he forced out something more customer friendly. “Oh really, that’s cool.”
“Yeah! So, I thought it would be nice to introduce myself.” If the ash blonde’s voice displayed any kind of disinterest or bitterness, the redhead either didn’t notice or choose to ignore it. Instead he brought his hand out to shake, the happy-go-lucky smile never leaving his face. “I’m Kirishima Eijirou!”
Katsuki eyed him warily, taking the hand and shaking it firmly. He noticed from the simple shake that the man had more Japanese styled tattoos going down his hands and fingers. He couldn’t help but cringe, those probably hurt like hell when he got them done. “Bakugou Katsuki.”
“Nice to meet you, Bakugou!”
The flower shop worker couldn’t help the vein that popped in his forehead, looking at the tattoo artist with annoyance, and he did little to stop the next phrase that vomited out of his mouth. “Oi, as much as I would like to sit here and chit chat, we close in fifteen minutes. Are you gonna fucking buy something or are you just going to sit here and waste my time?”
Yikes. Okay, so that came out a lot harsher than it sounded in his head.
Where the hell was Ochako when he needed her!? She would be so much better with this kind of situation. Now mind you if she heard Katsuki say that she probably would have pulled the same move as his mother and wacked him hard in the back of the head, the fact he was a grown-ass man nearly twenty-four years old be damned.
But this Eijirou guy merely laughed it off, scratching the back of his supernatural colored red locks as he did so. His grin never wavered, and Katsuki could not wrap his head around the fact that someone this tough and badass looking could come off as so happy about everything.
“Oh yeah, sorry about that! Sure, I can get something! I was thinking of getting some pots to place outside the shop or for the inside on the windowsill, what do you recommend?”
Katsuki let out a sigh, hoping down from his stool and walking out from the counter to lead the redhead to what he had in mind. The ash blonde could tell they were roughly the same height at this point, though the spikey red locks on the tattoo artist’s head made the difference seem much larger.
They walked down the far-left aisle of the flower shop, near the front corner up against the window to some potted plants that came in a variety of purple, red and pink shades. Their petals were light and soft, small buds bundled together and creating very simplistic, yet beautiful displays. “These are Geraniums. They are good for outside, like hanging pots or baskets, but they don’t do as well indoors.”
“Really?” The redhead asked in bewilderment, looking at the different colors with great interest. “Yeah these will work well.”
Katsuki snickered, eyeing the flowers and Eijirou, then back again. “Hey, do you know what their meaning is?”
At this point the tattoo artist looked over at the ash blonde with a dumbfound expression. He seemed very unsure how to answer. “No?”
Katsuki snorted, covering his mouth with his hand.
“Stupidity.”
The blonde burst out in laughter, the sight causing the redhead’s cheeks to turn an embarrassed shade of red as he stood up straight. “What? They do not!”
“Oh, yes they do!” The flower shop worker was wiping incoming tears from his eyes. “Look it up!”
Eijirou did.
And he was very disappointed with the results.
The next time Katsuki saw Kirishima Eijirou in his shop again was roughly three weeks later, on a quiet Saturday.
Summer was around the corner, which meant high efforts and large income for the King of Blooms flower shop. The seasons were at their peak and spring provided an impressive wave of new seeds and flowers that were on their way. As a result, the shop received much more business and commissions, such as weddings, parties, anniversaries and photoshoots. The list could honestly could go on and on.
At the moment, Katsuki sat in the back-staff room of his parents’ shop and was assembling twenty-five different flower crowns with extreme care and patience. A father had hired the ash blonde specifically to make them for his daughter’s tenth birthday party. Apparently, the customer had seen the beautiful lavender, yellow and white rose displays he made for a recent wedding, which just so happened to be his brother’s, and was impressed with the quality of them. So, Katsuki has been sitting here for the past two hours of his shift making flower crowns in a variety of corals, purples, whites and pinks. He was making sure to use flowers that represented happy things and were fitting for a little girl, nothing mature or dark.
Daisies represent innocence.
Lilacs represent joy of youth.
Coral roses represent friendship.
Pink roses represent happiness.
Each of those flowers were the embodiment of children: young, happy and innocent. They went perfectly well together, it was just constructing them together in a way that was both safe and appealing that was the challenge.
He was barely keeping track of his coworker, who was upfront managing the register and assisting customers. It was not until Ochako popped her head in the back, catching Katsuki’s attention with a small smile and a wave.
“Hey, I’m heading out.” She pipped. “Izuku is here to cover my shift, so I’ll see you Tuesday.”
Katsuki raised a brow, his one eye twitching at the annoyance of Deku sharing the closing shift with him. How his parents hired him to work here still never failed to baffle him. But he swallowed it down, even now his father and mother are aware of the tense relationship the two have, so they will avoid overlapping their schedules. It was the first time in nearly three months that the ash blonde and the green-haired man had to work a shift together, and the thought of it still put a sour taste in his mouth.
“The hell, why?” Katsuki pressed, already knowing the answer but still feeling the need to fight it. “Why can’t you and Deku swap shifts today or some shit? Give him your Monday shift!”
Ochako rolled her eyes. “The only reason you are saying that is because you don’t work that day, you dork. I can’t even if I wanted to, Iida and I have plans today.”
“Really, you and four-eyes?” The ash blonde gapped.
“Yes,” The brunette smiled warmly, a small blush adorning her cheeks. “He’s taking me out to this nice restaurant a few blocks over in downtown.”
At the disbelieving look her coworker gave her, a laugh threatening to bubble from his lips. Her cheeks turned red not from thinking of her upcoming date, but from embarrassment.
“Katsuki!” She practically shrilled. “Don’t be an ass, this is important to me! Honestly he’s a nice guy and I really like him.”
The blonde’s expression didn’t chance in the slightest.
“Stop laughing!”
The brunette puffed her cheeks out, clenching her fists and stomping her foot in frustration. With a rough sigh and a “Whatever, see you in a few days.” she was gone, leaving Katsuki to continue his work on the flower crowns with a soft chuckle.
He didn’t go out to see Izuku, and Izuku did not come in to see him. It was fine, the ash blonde honestly could not give two shits about what the bastard was up to. All he knew was that he was to finish these flower crowns before closing, and with it already being two o’clock he was running on only three hours left. The freckled boy was to stay up front and help customers, and Katsuki was relieved that it was so busy in the shop he had not come back to check on him.
And at that point, the ash blonde felt as if he had jinxed himself. A bullet straight to the brain.
For at that exact moment, Midoriya Izuku popped his head into the staff room with a shy smile, green doe eyes and freckles scrunching up from the effort.
“H-Hey Kacchan—”
“What?” The ash blonde snapped, looking up from the current coral and pink rose crown he was making with a scowl.
“Um, there is someone up front that would like to see you.” He said nervously with a scratch of the back of his head. “I’m helping a customer right now so can you come out? He kinda won’t leave.”
“What?”
“Yeah. So, I know you are busy, but would you mind?”
Katsuki growled, throwing his head back in annoyance and putting down his current work. Standing up from the couch, the ash blonde walked past the green-haired man, through the store room and into the space behind the counter. Looking up, his breath caught in his throat at the sight of a familiar mouth of sharp teeth and wide ruby eyes.
“Hey! Bakugou, right!?”
Shit.
“Kirishima,” Katsuki grumbled, walking up to the register and approaching the tattoo artist with a look of dislike. “What do you want?”
He hated this guy and his stupid tattoos, bright red hair and flashy smile. He hated his stupid bandanna and his caramel skin and overly ripped muscles. He hated how someone that looked so rough-and-tough could be so friendly.
He hated that this guy was totally his type.
He hated how he found him drop dead gorgeous.
He hated that he found him so attractive.
He hated him.
But Eijirou merely smiled, elbows on the counter and chin in his palms as he watched the blonde take a seat at the stool beyond the register. “I’m here to try buying flowers for those pots out front again. Though this time I rather not know what their meaning is if it’s something bad.”
“Whatever.” Katsuki rolled his eyes, shaking his head and allowing a smirk to cross his lips. He slowly jumped down from his seat, shoving his hands in his jean pockets and walking around the counter to meet the redhead. “I’ll try not to be an ass this time. What you looking to get?”
Eijirou seemed happy with that reply, pulling at the knot of his bandanna in the back of his head before speaking. “Not really sure what kind of flowers, but probably something red.”
“Like your shitty hair?”
“My hair is not shitty.” The redhead pouted. “But yes, something similar to this color! The parlor is called Red Ink, so red flowers out front seem very fitting.”
“Ah,” Katsuki hummed, walking around their flower displays until he found the one in mind. He knows during his last attempt at flower recommendations that he was bitchy, uncalled for and rude. He was absolutely terrible at customer service, if you had not been able to tell. But now he had to try and redeem himself. Finally reaching the counter of flower pots and holders up front, directly in front of the shop’s windows and soaking in the sun, was a large collection of beautiful red flowers.
“These are Carnations,” The ash blonde explained quietly, fingers gently brushing against a flower among the bunch. “They come in a variety of colors, but the red is my personal favorite.”
Katsuki looked up from his observation to see the tattoo artist staring at him with great interest, eyeing him with awe and admiration. It was unlike anything the flower shop worker had seen before, and it caught him so off guard he barely heard Eijirou when he asked “Why?”
The blonde swallowed thickly, looking back down at the flowers. “There meaning.”
Despite the redhead’s hesitance to fall for a trap again, his curiosity won over. “Which is?”
They locked eyes, for the first time during their conversation. Katsuki saw the pure intensity swirling among the redhead’s ruby wine orbs, and it caused his knees to go week.
“Pride.”
Eijirou smiled, throwing a sudden hand on Katsuki’s shoulder and causing him to jump. “Well, that seems very fitting for you, Bakugou! Thanks for the help, I think I’ll pick out some of these and I’ll come to the register when I’m ready.”
The ash blonde blinked up dumbly at him, nodding his head as the redhead’s touch left his shoulder and he went to observe the flowers. Katsuki couldn’t really think much with what had just happened. The tingling and warm feeling of where Eijirou’s hand was on him still remained, and the ash blonde would be lying if he said it was unpleasant.
Almost on autopilot, Katsuki found himself back at the register and sitting on the stool in silence. He fiddled with his thumbs and counted the seconds passing on the clock, suddenly unsure what exactly to do with himself. It was not until a mother came up to the counter with a pot of flowers in her grasp at one side, and the hand of her young son in the other. She smiled kindly, setting the pot of lavender flowers down and pulling her wallet out from her purse to pay. Katsuki’s guess was that this was the customer Izuku was helping when he was called up front.
“Find everything okay?” The ash blonde forced out, straightening up in his seat.
Before the woman could respond, however, Eijirou was back. Sharp teeth, piercings and tattoos all on a proud display as he carried multiple red carnation pots in his grasp. Katsuki was stunned he was capable of carrying so much stuff without dropping anything.
“I got them!” The redhead exclaimed as he placed the flowers down on the counter next to the woman’s own lavender ones, breathing with slight heaviness and smiling at the ash blonde as if he had just won the lottery. The flower shop worker eyed the tattoo artist, impressed. However, he also did not miss the way the woman looked at the redhead with slight dislike and pulled her child closer to her side.
Katsuki was about to open his mouth and spew out “That’s great” or “Congratulations”, but the child beat him to it. The young boy had slipped from his mother’s hand, walking up towards Eijirou with wide brown eyes of curiosity. The child couldn’t be any older than five, tiny and innocent as his little finger came up and poked at an inked cherry blossom adorning the redhead’s left forearm.
“Flower,” Was all the boy said happily as a result of being met with Eijirou’s warm smile. “A flower!”
“Yeah, pretty cool, aren’t they?” The tattoo artist exclaimed, grinning widely and turning his arm to show more of the inked skin to the child. The young boy instantly leaned forward, his small hands holding onto Eijirou’s wrist and turning the limb at his own pace.
“Pretty…” Was all the young boy could say.
“Aiko!” The mother suddenly pipped up, face morphed into one of shock and disappointment as she pulled her son gently away by the collar. The boy stumbled back into his mother’s legs, once again a few good feet away from Eijirou. And from the looks of it, the woman wanted it to stay that way. “I told you we stay away from people like that.”
The redhead frowned at the look the mother gave him, pure hatred gracing her features and causing the tattoo artist to instantly step back. Her sharp eyed racked up and down the man’s features, to his bright red hair, pierced face and inked skin. She clearly disliked all of it, and did not want her son anywhere near him.
“Disgusting.”
The word came out with so much venom it caused Eijirou to flinch away, folding his hands and looking down at his awkwardly shuffling feet. The silence that settled over the shop was deadly, and Katsuki was baffled as the woman turned away from the hurt redhead back towards the counter. She proceeded to open her wallet and pull out the money to pay for the flowers as if nothing had happened.
The scene before him left anger boiling in his gut, red hot iron forming and causing his hand hidden behind the register to clench into a fist. Katsuki was not one to stand for people who had the audacity to look at others as inferior based on their looks or choices. Eijirou isn’t hurting anyone with his tattoos and piercings, it’s his body. He can do what he wants with it, and he sure as hell doesn’t deserve to get treated poorly because of it.
The woman put her money down on the counter, but instantly Katsuki placed his hand over it, sliding back in front of her in silence. Her brows drew down in confusion, looking up at the ash blonde. “I would like to pay for this, so—”
“No,” He cut her off. “You aren’t.”
“Excuse me?”
“We don’t tolerate discrimination here, lady.” Katsuki snapped, eyes narrowed and shoving the money back into her hands. “Sorry, but I ain’t selling you shit. Take your money and beat it.”
The woman seemed absolutely stunned at his words, shocked someone would call her out on such actions and let alone refuse her service. Katsuki gently pulled the pot of lavender flowers she wanted to purchase off the counter and onto one of the back-wall shelves. With a challenging glare from the ash blonde, the woman huffed out an angered noise, grabbed her son’s hand and left the store with stomping heels and frustrated insults.
Eijirou watched her go with awe, turning to look back at Katsuki once the woman and little boy were out the door. “Why did you do that?”
“You heard what I said to her.” Katsuki grunted, running the prices up on the register for the carnations Eijirou wanted to purchase. “I don’t tolerate discrimination, she shouldn’t give a rat’s ass if you have tattoos. It’s not hurting anyone.”
At those words the redhead smiled, genuine and happy. “Really? Thanks, man.”
Katsuki merely hummed, telling him the price of the flowers to which Eijirou handed him the money. They completed the purchase with the tattoo artist receiving proper change prior to the redhead making his leave.
But the flower shop employee could still tell something was off. Eijirou’s smile at first seemed real, but as their exchange went on it fell back down to something that looked fake and strained. Katsuki’s guess was that woman’s actions and words against him were still heavy on his mind. However, it was something about the redhead’s interaction with the child that seemed like the center of his disappointment. Despite Eijirou’s rough and tough appearance, his happy and friendly demeanor around the little boy gives Katsuki the impression that he’s good with kids, and that he enjoys their company. So, probably for the first time ever, Eijirou received negative attention regarding his appearance in front of a kid. A parent bluntly told their child, directly in front of him, that they should stay clear of people like him.
People that were different.
It must put a sour taste in Eijirou’s mouth, Katsuki knows that he would feel that way if he was in the redhead’s shoes. The recap of what had just happened before him caused the ash blonde to call out towards the other before he could stop himself.
“Oi! Shitty hair!”
The tattoo artist turned to face him, eyes wide in surprise and arms full of potted flowers. “Yeah?”
“Before you leave,” Katsuki had no idea where he was going with this to be honest. He just wants to help Eijirou take his mind off of the insults he just received. He doesn’t even know if the other will agree and help him, but it was worth a shot. Just to cheer him up, that’s all. “You wanna help me with something in the back for a little bit?”
Katsuki was extremely surprised when the redhead said yes with no hesitation.
Turns out, even after making flower crowns for fifteen years, it was very difficult to teach someone that has never done it before.
The ash blonde was in no way shape or form a patient teacher, but Eijirou was a patient student, so in a way they even each other out. Both men sat thigh-to-thigh on the small blue plush couch in the back-staff room, twisting together colorful and feminine flowers into crown-like shapes that little girls would soon be wearing on their heads. Katsuki was of course the faster of the two and was on his forth one while the tattoo artist was still struggling with his first.
“You have to pull it underneath the next one you add, or else it will fall off.” Katsuki grumbled at him for what felt like the hundredth time, pulling Eijirou’s current half-constructed flower crown from his hands. Demonstrating how to add a new flower properly, the ash blonde handed it back to the redhead. “See?”
“Yeah,” Eijirou chuckled. “I told you I would be bad at this.”
Katsuki grunted. “It just takes fucking practice.”
“But I still don’t know how you are so fast at this!”
“Been doing it my whole life.” The flower shop worker said, keeping his eyes down as he worked on weaving in a daisy between two coral roses. “Most of my childhood was spent in this shop with my parents, so I would hope to be good and fast at it.”
“Really?” The redhead asked. “That’s pretty cool. My dad was a tattoo artist, had his own shop out in Tokyo and everything. My mom wasn’t exactly a fan of tattoos herself, but she still supported my dad and became his secretary for his parlor. Guess I was born and raised around tattoos my whole life, so in a way we have that in common.”
“Tattoos and flowers are two different fucking things.” Katsuki snorted with a small smile, finishing adding a final rose to the current crown he was working on.
“True, true.” Eijirou replied back, looking up to see the completed flower crown in Katsuki’s hand. “The hell, man!? How are you already done!?”
“Did you not just hear what I said about growing up here?”
But the redhead merely smiled leaning back against the couch with a laugh. He nodded to show that yes, he did hear, he just was still impressed by the level of skills Katsuki had. Slowly moving forward again on the couch, Eijirou grabbed one of the finished flower crowns, this one consisting of all four of the flowers: daises, pink roses, lilacs and coral roses. It was the only one of the mere ten they had finished with all the different flower types, so the tattoo artist’s guess was that this one was for the birthday girl.
He didn’t know why, after observing the flower crown and aweing at its craftsmanship, that he would think putting it atop of Katsuki’s head would be a good idea. The crown of flowers sat gently over the flower shop worker’s ash blonde locks, stray spikes sticking up and around the headpiece in a scattered disarray. Katsuki’s cheeks broke out into an intense red shade, eyes wide and lips slightly parted at the action. Crimson orange eyes rolled up to look at the flowers in his hair, before his eyes traveled back down to look at the tattoo artist.
Eijirou smiled again, nice and warm. “You don’t look so scary anymore.”
“W-What!?” Katsuki sputtered through his blushing, snatching up a different flower crown from the table and throwing it over the other’s head. It was now Eijirou’s turn to become a shade of dark, blooming pink; the coral roses and daises a harsh contrast to his firetruck red hair. “There, now you don’t look so scary.”
Both were laughing now, fiddling with the flower crowns on top of their heads and looking at each other. It was a nice, pleasant and relaxing. They forgot about anything going on around them; such as Izuku greeting a new customer up front, or the sounds of busy city traffic outside, or the shuffling of their feet as they got closer to each other.
By now they were practically nose-to-nose, Eijirou looking down at the ash blonde with admirable eyes. Their breathing was heavy, both men stiff as boards and unsure what to do. It was somewhat of an awkward silence, and the redhead was deathly quiet when he broke it.
“I really want to kiss you,” He breath out. “Like really, really bad. Is that weird?”
Katsuki couldn’t help but chuckle. “Not unless you don’t act on it, dumbass.”
Their lips crashed seconds after, arms wrapping around each other with little hesitation. In an instant, butterflies erupted in Katsuki’s belly. The feeling of Eijirou’s muscled arms wrapping around his waist and pulling him close made him feel safe. It was extremely welcoming, effortless to kiss him and surprisingly unaffected by the redhead’s lip piercings. The ash blonde found himself bringing his hands up and tangling them in the tattoo artist’s hair, pulling on the red locks with a silent demand to deepen the kiss.
And Eijirou did, practically throwing the flower shop worker backwards and onto the couch, flat on his back with a heaving breath. Katsuki looked up to see the redhead hovering over him, sexy and intimidating and covered in so much badass ink and metal it made him do a full body shiver.
As the redhead swooped down again to meet the ash blonde in another kiss, it was clear to them both that a full on make out session was underway. And Katsuki was okay with that, for he reciprocated the second round of kissing immediately. At this point, he wanted nothing more than the carmalized skin, bright red hair, bulging muscles, lust-filled eyes, heavily inked-skin and sharp-pointed teeth that was Kirishima Eijirou.
Making more flower crowns would have to wait.