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Jon loved flowers. After all, it was pretty hard to hate something that was growing on you.
Everyone had flowers growing from them. It didn’t matter if you were an old woman or a young child; if you were over the age of 3, you had flowers sprouting from your hair. And of course, Jon was no different. With pretty blue forget-me-not’s sprouting between his light brown hair, he fit in pretty well with the rest of the world, considering his flowers were the most common.
While most people saw this as boring, Jon was relieved. After all, if you fell in love with someone, your flowers would grow on their head. And as it turned out, his roommate Eduardo had Jon’s pretty blue flowers sprouting from his head.
Yep, Jon was in love with one of his best friends; in fact, he had been since high school. Eduardo hadn’t seem to caught on that they were because of Jon either. Even though he had ranted on for weeks and weeks about it back when they were 16, the Spanish man had seemingly forgot that he even had flowers on his head aside from his natural green ones. And so Jon’s little crush had slipped under the radar, and had for about a decade now.
Hell, it’d even slipped past when Eduardo started growing begonia’s on his head. Or when they began to wilt and disappear the next year. Even Jon began to forget that Eduardo had two types of flowers peering through his wavy brown hair.
But now, Jon was stuck in a problem. Not one that he had caused, but one that he might have some responsibility towards.
It started on some random morning. Jon awoke as usual, though he did notice a slight throbbing in his head as he got up. Wrapping one of his many fluffy dressing gowns around himself, he took a quick look in his mirror before grabbing a shirt for him to get dressed in.
His head turned back to the mirror. Something was wrong. Something… felt wrong.
He rubbed his eyes, looking closer. His face seemed normal; there were bags under his eyes, but that was usual for him in the mornings. Jon’s eyes went up to his hair. His flowers stuck out from under his messy bed-head. Blue and green flowers dotted his hair, making it seem like one giant flower-
Wait.
Green? Jon moved his hair slightly to get a better look. Sure enough, a green flower was sprouting from his hair, hidden amongst the blue and brown.
Jon screamed, falling onto his backside and scrambling away from the mirror. He had never gotten a flower to grow on him (he thought he had once, but it was just a flower Todd had tucked behind his ear), let alone one the colour of Eduardo’s. He couldn’t be too sure that it was his friend’s one though; after all, he did know several other people with green flowers, specifically his neighbour Edd.
But then again, Edd had green roses. Eduardo had carnations. And Jon was pretty sure the flower in his hair was a carnation.
Someone opened the bedroom door. Jon turned to see one of his other roommates standing there, a concerned look on his face.
“Are you okay?” Mark was already dressed, with a book under his hand and his glasses on.
“Y-Yeah,” Jon got up, brushing invisible dust from his dressing gown. “Just scared myself.”
Unfortunately for Jon, Mark was much more observant that Eduardo, and his eyes darted to Jon’s hair. “Is that a carnation?”
“Uh…” Jon twiddled his fingers. There was no point in hiding it from Mark. “...Maybe?”
Mark closed the door, moving to sit on Jon’s bed. He gestured for the younger boy to do so as well, which Jon did. As soon as Jon sat down, Mark’s hands began to run through Jon’s hair, until their found the green flower.
“This is a carnation,” Mark frowned. “That’s really odd…”
“Why?” Jon knew the answer, but still wasn’t sure. His concerns were confirmed when Mark spoke again.
“They’re not very common flowers,” Mark pulled his hands away from Jon’s hair. “The only person I can think of with this flower is Eduardo.”
Jon’s eyes darted to the floor. “So?”
Mark sighed. “Jonathan, that means Eduardo likes you.”
Eduardo likes you.
Eduardo likes you.
Eduardo likes you.
That last sentence rang through Jon’s ears. It couldn’t be possible, right? Eduardo was as straight as a pole. He’d seen how his friend would flirt with the girls they passed on the street, and how hard he’d tried to score a date with Laurel before they started dating. There had to be another explanation for this.
“What if it’s just a friendship thing?” Jon looked at Mark. “Y’know, like a platonic flower?”
Mark shook his head, the iris flowers in his hair moving alongside the motion. “Not possible. You don’t get that kind of thing if it’s platonic. Not even sexual. You only gain flowers if it’s a romantic crush. If we could get platonic flowers, you’d be sharing yours with everyone you met,” Mark chuckled. “But back to the point. This means that Eduardo’s in love with you. I’d recommend trying to hide it for now; I don’t think he’d be too happy to see you with his flowers.”
Jon’s hands balled into his lap as Mark moved his hair over the green flower. A smile began to grow on his face, alongside the redness coming into his cheeks.
He couldn’t believe it. His crush of almost 10 years was in love with him. In love with someone who was so plain that pretty much everyone forgot his name within 5 minutes of meeting him. Someone who was way, way above his league had somehow gained a crush on him.
While Jon had no idea how it happened, it wasn’t like he was going to complain.
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“Another one? Seriously Jon, you should probably tell him by now.”
Jon huffed out a sigh, staring into his mirror as Todd plucked at his roommate’s flowers. Over the course of the month, more and more carnations had popped up on Jon’s head; in fact, they were coming close to outmatching Jon’s own natural ones. To his relief, Eduardo had been out of the house often as well, meaning that Jon didn’t really have to try and hide them as much anymore. Plus, it meant that he didn’t need to pick out some of the obvious ones, which hurt like a bitch.
Which was good, considering it was almost impossible to hide them without plucking now.
“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Jon fiddled with a piece of his hair. “I’ll tell him tomorrow.”
“You said that last week!” Jon turned to see Todd, his eyes wide behind his glasses. “If this goes on any longer, he’ll confront you about it. And do you really want Eduardo to come bursting through your door?”
“Well, yes, but-”
“That’s not my damn point Jon,” Todd’s hands went to fiddle with one of his red cockscomb flowers, a habit of his. “When he comes back from wherever he’s gone, you need to tell him. Or I’ll… well I don’t know what I’ll do but it won’t be good.”
“Fiiiine,” Jon sighed. “I’ll tell him tonight. But how? He’s not exactly the best person at emotions.”
“Just walk in, tell him you wanna talk, and tell him about them,” Todd gave Jon a comforting smile. “What’s the worse he could do?”
There were exactly 7,341 bad things that Eduardo could do to Jon, but he chose to ignore that fact.
So for the rest of the afternoon, Jon rehearsed over and over what he was going to say to Eduardo. And as it turned out, it was much harder than Jon was expecting. He had no idea how he was going to talk to his roommate about it; every speech he had prepared seemed not only forced, but incredibly stupid and awkward. There was only one way this had a chance of working.
He was going to have to go in completely unprepared.
An alarm beeped from Jon’s phone. He reached to grab it, turning it off. It was time for him to see Eduardo.
Jon tiptoed out of his room, going across the hallway to Eduardo’s one. He held up a fist to knock, but hesitated. He looked around, making sure nobody else was around to see him. He knocked three times on the door, and waited.
“Door’s unlocked.”
He breathed a sigh of relief.
Jon opened the door, shutting it behind him. As usual, the room was a complete mess; the bed was unmade & sheets of discarded paper littered the floor, but it was nothing compared to where Eduardo was sitting. Under his desk was a complete trash pile of crumpled paper, broken pencils and even a few discarded paintbrushes. Eduardo didn’t seem to care though. All of his focus was on something he was working on; he didn’t even look up to greet Jon.
Which Jon didn’t mind. It was probably better that he wasn’t looking up.
“Can I talk to you about something?” Jon quickly got to the desk, standing right next to his friend.
“What is it now?” Eduardo still didn’t look up from his art. Okay, this was beginning to annoy Jon now.
“It’s about my flowers.”
Eduardo groaned. “Can’t you speak to Mark abo-”
“Eduardo, I think you like me.”
That got him to look up. “What!?”
Jon fiddled with one of the green flowers in his hair. “I started growing ‘em at the start of the month. And you’re the only person I’ve ever seen with green… uh…”
“Carnations.” Eduardo’s voice was wavy, something that never happened. If Jon wasn’t already distracted, he would have asked Eduardo if he was alright.
“Yeah, those!” Jon nodded. “So you have to be the one giving me these, right? I mean, I don’t mind if you are. I’ve been doing it for ages too, so-”
“Wait, what the fuck?”
Jon’s eyes widened. Oh god. He’d said too much. Way too much.
He instantly turned to leave the room, getting out of there before Eduardo could call out to him. He ran into his room, slamming the door behind him and slamming face-first into one of his pillows.
He sobbed. He sobbed his heart out into that worn out, dusty blue pillow. He was an idiot, an even bigger one than Matt was. How could he let himself be carried away like that? All he had to do was talk about the flowers, and even then he managed to fuck that up.
He was just waiting for those pretty green flowers to start wilting soon.
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Jon must’ve fallen asleep after that, because he awoke at 11 that night, stomach growling and the moon shining through his window.
He groaned, sitting up in bed and rubbing at his eyes. He tried to motivate himself to get up and shut the curtains, but he just stayed put. All Jon could think about was what had happened earlier. How he had both embarrassed himself and probably turned Eduardo off from even being his friend for much longer. He sighed, running a hand over where one of the green flowers had been earlier, expecting a crusty mess of death.
The petals were fresh.
Jon frowned & turned to his mirror. That couldn’t be right. If Eduardo didn’t like him anymore, the carnations would have wilted and be crumbly messes right now. And yet, here it was, still fresh and brighter than ever. The only reason it could be like this still was that Eduardo still liked him.
Before Jon could question it further, he heard the sound of his door opening. He turned to where it was, and his eyes widened.
“Oh shit,” Eduardo was standing there, hand still on the doorknob. “What the fuck are you doing up?”
“I, uh, fell asleep early,” Jon went to tell Eduardo to leave when something crossed his mind. “Wait, why did you come in if you thought I was asleep?”
Eduardo shut the door behind him, a little louder than Jon would would have liked. “We need to talk.”
Oh no.
And here it was. Jon should have known he was coming to talk about earlier that day. His eyes went to the ground almost immediately, tears already starting to brew in his eyes. He waited for Eduardo to yell at him.
“Why the fuck didn’t you tell me these were yours?”
Jon’s head jerked up. In Eduardo’s hand was a blue forget-me-not (That must’ve been a pain to pull out; Jon avoided wincing at it).
“I- What?”
“Do you know how long I spent wondering who the fuck liked me? Half of my fucking high school years was wondering who the hell had a crush on me!” Eduardo’s face was going pink, but Jon couldn’t tell if it was from embarrassment or anger. “And it was you all along! Why the hell didn’t you tell me?”
“Oh… Well, honestly I thought you were straight,” Jon grinned sheepishly. “And I was gonna tell you eventually! But then you started dating Laurel and so I was gonna wait until you guys broke up but then you were really upset after that so I waited longer and-”
Jon was cut off by Eduardo pulling him into a kiss.
The faint smell of paint and alcohol filled his lungs as he quickly put his arms around Eduardo’s neck, deepening the kiss. He felt Eduardo running his fingers through his hair, sending shivers down the boy’s spine.
To Jon, it felt like it lasted longer than it did. Before long, Eduardo pulled them apart, a smirk on his face.
“You know, for someone who doesn’t shut up, you’re fucking terrible at talking to me.”
“Oh, shut it ‘Duardy!” Jon pulled him back in, giggling to himself.
He could feel more flowers sprouting already.