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DOCUMENT # 0301

DETAILS ON THE PHENOMENA OF FLOWERS ON SKIN

In the event that a person falls in love with someone, flowers begin to be inked onto their skin regardless of their age. Every single thing about the flowers symbolize something about how love is fostering.

(It is still in research why this does not widely apply to types of love that are not romantic. There have been instances, however, of when a person is aromantic or any variations relating to aforementioned identity where a person does not foster conventional romantic relationships with others that there can be found flowers inked on skin based on the intensity of their affection towards peers or people around them that they care about.)

Some Definitions:

• Host - Defined as the person inked with flowers
• Beloved - Defined as the person that is the reason as to the appearance of flowers on the host

Type of Flower

The meaning of the flower growing on the Host’s skin often depends on what kind of love they foster for their Beloved. Oftentimes, they also find that this is the flower they associate with that person. 

Growth of the Flowers

Some Hosts have flowers wrapped around their wrist/s while others have flowers covering the vastness of their backs. The growth/extent of the flowers represents the growth of the Host’s love. If it grows, it means the Host’s affection is growing and the faster they fall into it, the faster the flowers grow. There hasn’t been a case where it covers someone’s entire body, but it can come close to it. The more stable the love is, the more stable the growth of the flowers, as well. At some point, it will halt growth. There is an extent as to how much a flower grows, depending on the Host’s nature. It will eventually stop from growing in spite of the relationship being stable and ongoing—gradually, the flowers’ intensity of hue will remain to be the constantly changing variable. 

*A person’s flower may grow very vastly but they will never shrink, a reminder of romances that have passed

**On the halt of growth: It may also stop when someone either begins falling out of love or deliberately tries to get over the other person. The conditions of growth are circumstantial and still being studied.

Intensity of Hue (of the flowers)

The more intense and/or the closer it is to its realistic representation portrays the adoration and intensity of the love the person harbors for their Beloved. 

*One’s flower may stop growing, but it may remain unfaded, meaning that the person still adores and loves them intensely (depending on the color of the flowers).

**On Fading: It has to stop growing long before it starts fading, and it mostly signifies that someone is most likely falling out of love and are more able to move forward with their lives without being entangled in that love

On Growth and Intensity

*Intensity of colors are also more unstable than growth because while growth is something that takes time (when it stops growing, it takes a long time for it to start growing again (if ever these circumstances do arise)); with the intensity of hue, it takes very little to go back to square one, with it intensifying once again on certain thoughts/actions which very visibly remind someone of a love they haven’t actually been able to let go of yet

**The hues intensify before they begin growing again

On the Places Where the Flowers Grow

Usually, the place is dependent on the host where the flowers grow. If someone is the type to not be public about their affection, the flowers would grow where they could cover them whereas people with more outgoing personalities have theirs grow on more visible parts of their body where they could showcase them.

Kei first sees him on a summer day just right after his family moves to the neighborhood.

And he wouldn’t say the boy was beautiful, because for one, Kei had stumbled onto the ground the day before and he wouldn’t be getting new glasses until later that afternoon and while he can still see enough to not trip over himself again (it’s more of a firm belief than a fact), he thinks it’s quite too far-fetched to assess someone’s face without clearly seeing them, and secondly, the boy was quite high up a tree for Kei to even see him enough clearly (he already had a hard time surveying people who were standing on the ground as is).

But the boy had a huge smile on his face and he was laughing as he sat on a branch while all the other kids remained under the tree, complaining that it was unfair only the boy could climb the tree. Quite strange, Kei thought.

It takes a long time for him to tear away his gaze, and even then, it’s only because the other boy catches him looking (at least, Kei thinks he's been caught, but his eyes couldn't be too sure) and gives what could possibly be the most cheerful smile Kei has ever seen in his life. At that moment, he thinks, beautiful.

Akiteru calls him almost right after he looks away and when he glances back, the boy is back to laughing with his friends even as he remained sat on the branch by himself.

(He does stumble over air again just as he strides towards his brother and Aki laughs softly onto his hand before ruffling his hair and saying, I told you to hold my hand! It’s alright to act like a kid, Kei. You’re a kid after all. Kei had huffed indignantly because he didn’t feel the need to depend on anyone or take anyone’s hand because I could do it all by myself. He does his best to live like that for a very long time.)

For every single achievement Kei has achieved by himself, his classmates and all the adults look at him in awe. He doesn’t puff his chest out, doesn’t brag about it—instead, he works harder because it only takes so much time until the place you’re standing on isn’t high enough anymore. And for every mountain trekked, there are even more, even higher mountains to climb.

Akiteru’s up in the running for being scouted into the best high schools for playing the violin, isn’t he? And Kei’s exceling in both his academics and his piano competitions! You sure have great sons.

They’re geniuses, aren’t they? Your sons?

(Kei believes, knows it’s not about being a genius. For others, maybe, but not for Kei: he fought tooth and nail to be where he’s at and neither talent nor luck has gotten him there, it was all him and all the late nights reading until his head hurt or playing until his fingers trembled over exhaustion;

nor for his brother: Kei had seen him slave away over the music and still give him the brightest smiles even when he’s working himself to the ground and knows it’s not genius, it’s hard-earned work. And his chest always swells with pride over having a brother like Akiteru.)

Kuroo Tetsurou, Kei learns, is the name of the boy sat on a tree branch that summer day when Kei’s family had just moved to the neighborhood.

He has a bird’s nest for hair but it somehow fits him alright, he’s got eyes and an upwards quirk of the mouth that reeks of playfulness and Kei couldn’t quite figure out when he was serious or playing around. He’s also two years older and they go to the same school, he’s very popular and was friends with everybody, and even when he didn’t have the greatest grades or was the most athletic, everyone adored him, even the teachers.

He was rarely alone and he exuded brightness the same way Akiteru did and Kei finds himself watching the older boy more than he would admit.

He learns that Kuroo Tetsurou often gives smirks, rather than smiles (but when he does smile, oh, does he almost bring the world to its knees every single time). When he laughs, he laughs loudly, laughter that makes the people around him laugh, a laugh that makes everything seem brighter and Kei is more enthralled than he would ever let on.

The day he first talks to Kuroo Tetsurou is right by the tree where he’d first seen the older boy, he only realized that day that they took the same route home when the older boy calls after him as he was walking home.

“Tsukki! Tsukki!” Kei thinks, you know my name? Why are you calling me? Did you notice me watching you?

Instead, he turns and says, “…it’s Tsukishima.”

the older boy gives the same familiar upwards quirk of his mouth—an amused smirk, before chuckling.

“Hey, didn’t I first see you here? When I was sitting by the branch, you’d been watching me.”

“…yeah, I was.”

“Hmmm, why?” Kei lets the silence consume them for a while, decides to be honest.

“Because your laughter sounded nice.”

The older boy looks at him for a very long time before his mouth slowly morphs into a big smile, the same smile he’d given Kei the first time they’d seen each other, and Kei almost feels himself lose sight of the world, his head going light as he took one step back, trying to ground himself. Beautiful.

Kuroo Tetsurou introduces himself that day (and Kei doesn’t tell him he’d known the other’s name long before he’d even told him), firmly telling them they’re friends now before walking him home (they find out they live only two houses away from each other). Kei never got to ask how the older boy ever found out what his name was.

(He doesn’t notice but by the next morning, one small sunflower has already painted itself by the right side of his ribs.)

Being around Kuroo was easy, because while he was playful, he never forced Kei to do anything he’d feel uncomfortable with (most times). It was also easy in the way how Kuroo seemed to be able to make Kei fit seamlessly into his life like he’d been with him since they were toddlers.

Being around Kuroo also meant he was subjected to more scrutiny than he’d like because where Kuroo went, there went the people. The lunch table where they ate was always fully occupied and he was always surrounded by people even inside a classroom whenever Kei would walk past his class.

But then again, being around Kuroo was too easy and he’s known this for a long time by observing him. It really was just that easy to fall into his life and adore him the same way everyone else does.

Kuroo takes the time to lead Kei away from the crowd when he knows it’s too much, walks with him home in the silence and sometimes even stays with him in the library even when the older boy had no interest in studying.

(Kei often wonders what it was with Kuroo that made the older boy want to stay with someone such as him, quiet, aloof. But then Kuroo gives him this smile that makes his chest warm and he feels light and he wants to laugh, thinks how anyone’s smile could make me this happy is a wonder, but I don’t mind, thinks it doesn’t feel so bad wanting to be in this person’s life for as long as he’s allowed to.)

Kei finds himself counting time with the years he’d spent with Kuroo.

It was a month with Kuroo that he’d first learned how to climb a tree and not really because he wanted to. But Kuroo had grabbed his hand with that annoying smile of his and he was already halfway through climbing before he could even refuse (Kuroo shows him a bigger world he’d seen for himself up on that tree and it was so, so beautiful.

It was two months after that he’d first felt acquainted enough to let the older boy listen to him playing (Kuroo watched him attentively that day and it took him three times of calling the older boy’s name before Kuroo actually started looking at him, instead of past him and he would’ve questioned it, except Kuroo smiled and all thoughts flew out of Kei’s head.

It was after a year that he’d gotten his first headphones (which he’d used until four years later when Kuroo had gifted him with new ones for Christmas.

It was four whole years after, almost five, when he finds out Akiteru wasn’t playing the solo, nor was he even playing in the first place in the elite high school ensemble he’d always bragged about at home. And he thinks, for the first time, that maybe, even when you work hard for something, even when you love something so much, no matter what, talent always trumps over. There are many mountains to climb but there is only so much of you to give and soon enough, you’re left stumbling after everyone who’s better than you and sometimes, the climb isn’t worth it anymore.

It was four whole years after, that he walks out of the music hall before disappearing from the music competitions altogether.

(Kuroo doesn’t look at him differently when he stops bringing over his grip exerciser to school or when he stops humming his favorite songs under his breath altogether; even when he asks why Kei hasn’t been inviting him to his concours, only for Kei to tell him he had quit the competitions. He only tilts his head and smiles softly, hugging him. You’ll find your way eventually, Kei. And it doesn’t have to be in places where people always expect you to be in. And Kei thinks he’ll be alright.)

It takes a few weeks, almost a month after, that Kuroo takes Kei’s hands onto his and leads him back to the same tree from back into that summer day where Kuroo looked quite ethereal and above anybody else.

Kei’s familiar enough with the ridges and the openings of that tree to not need anyone to help him up but he takes Kuroo’s hand anyway when he offers it, so that he could climb easier up onto the branch.

They watch in silence as the sun sets, painting the world orange, and then Kuroo smiles and laughs, tells him the world is so, so beautiful and Kei doesn’t respond but they both bask in the comfortable silence.

Kuroo spends the rest of the walk home marveling over what they’d seen as if they didn’t spend so much of their time waiting for sunsets for the last few years and looking over the world from the top of their own worlds (the rooftops, the roof of their houses, by the trees, everywhere) and Kei doesn’t say it but he doesn’t quite remember how the world looked like as much as he remembered just how beautiful Kuroo looked against the setting sun, him painted orange with a smile that rivaled the skies and the sun and the moon and the stars.

(He’s thirteen when he notices the sunflowers, four years after it started growing—only because it started covering the wide expanse of his back, it grew fast, its colors bright—passionate and aggressive and it reminded him so much of Kuroo.

He’d learned about this in school, how your body will be covered in flowers to remind you of all the people you’ve loved; how the brighter it is, the more it means how much you adore them; the faster it grows, the more it means how much you love them; the type of flower it is, how you love them: sunflowers for adoration, loyalty, and devotion.

Sometimes, he likes fooling himself into asking the silence when he’d started loving the older boy on nights the only thing he sees on his bedroom ceiling is a familiar smile that has him gasping for air even when he’s not out at sea. And then he laughs to himself because he knows when, he knows when.

Kei didn’t need flowers painted onto his skin to know he loved Kuroo Tetsurou.)

Kuroo’s first flowers were white daisies¹ drawn on his right hip a year after Kei had quit piano, a small little thing the size of Kuroo’s thumb and he brandished it like a trophy, showed everyone how proud of it he was, and it didn’t grow until weeks later when Akaashi Keiji tossed a ball onto Kuroo’s hands and won his school the inter-high competition for volleyball.

It was only after that did Kei notice the delicate smile on Kuroo’s face whenever his eyes landed on the gentle boy who lived right across the street. He watched the flowers grow until it was the size of his hands, Kuroo’s bashful smile contrary to the big ones he gave Kei and the younger boy wonders what it would take to have Kuroo look at him the same way he looked at Akaashi.

The flowers stop growing on Kuroo’s third year, the length of the flowers as long as half his arms when Akaashi Keiji goes to a summer camp and goes back with a huge smile on his face, yellow daffodils² weaved onto the whole side of his right arm (Bokuto Koutarou, Keiji says his name was). Kei’s flowers remain bright, Kuroo’s fades onto his skin eventually but until then, he hadn’t been able to look at Keiji for months after.

(On especially bad days, when Kuroo’s eyes are rimmed red and he preferred tucking himself in the darkness of his bedroom alone, Kei would lead him back to the tree and they’d watch the day end and wait for another to begin until it finally stopped hurting.

Sometimes, Kei wonders if it would’ve been different if only Kuroo confessed to the boy. Maybe then, it would’ve been Kei’s flowers that would’ve faded, not Kuroo’s. He thinks maybe it would’ve been worth it, if it meant Kuroo never losing his smile.)

Honeysuckle³ blooms on Kuroo’s calves, wrapping itself up to his knee when he comes back from university over the holidays on his first year back and he has a smile that never quite falters, his back straightened like nothing could bring him down and the name of the boy is Terushima Yuuji.

He talks of tales of him the same way he talked about how pretty the world was against the setting sun and talks about how nice it could be if Terushima could go with him next time to watch the sunset because there’s nothing like the sunset on this old tree and Kei has nothing to say so he doesn’t bother replying (he feels a clog on his throat but he ignores that).

For the first time since they’d met, Kei does his absolute best so that he doesn’t have to look at Kuroo’s smile as he talked about the love of his life. It hurt knowing he was right there but someone else was reflected in those soft, soft eyes that belongs to the person Kei has long been in love with.

(And Kei knows, believe him, that he was greedy. His love marred with the desire to monopolize someone that isn’t his. If he truly loved Kuroo, then he’d swallow his tears and be happy for the older boy because there is nothing, nothing more beautiful than achieving a love as beautiful as there is between Kuroo and his lover.

So he does just that, it takes a bit of an effort and a few months. But he does that.

He never tells anyone how many times he’s had to curl up in the restroom of the school, unable to keep down anything in his stomach—thinking this type of punishment could make up for just how greedy he has become—does this just until he could feel it in his bones that he was still alive (some days, he just really, really needed a reminder); how many times he’s had to curl into himself in the dark corner of his bedroom, desperately trying to shrink into himself until he could forget the marks on his skin, born of a love that will never be reciprocated, of flowers that remain bright even when all Kei feels is dullness. Sometimes, Kei’s convinced the flowers are more alive than he is.)

Kei finds that the piano is beautiful, like Kuroo’s smile, and finds the distraction pleasant when he throws himself back onto the music as if he never left. He has too much time on his hands with Kuroo spending every single one of his spare time with Terushima and Kei refuses to feel like he’s being left in the dust and thinks to himself that everyone has always just been waiting for him to come back to playing anyway. It’s only right to come back.

And playing the piano didn’t taste as bitter as the thought of Kuroo leaving him behind so he plays the first notes to the music he knows so well and never stops again.

(Because Kei finds little interest in most things but when he does, oh, does he pour all of himself into it. He gives and gives and gives even if he’s left gasping, forgetting how to breathe, burnt. Because it’s the only way he knows how to love. Nobody ever taught him any other way how to.)

The flowers gradually stop growing on the expanse of his skin and there are days when it relieves him and days when it suffocates him.

On the days that it relieves him, he plays away on the piano and blares out a tune that has his older brother listening in with a wide smile on his face.

On the days it suffocates him, he finds it difficult to come near the piano, feels his hands tremble even despite not having played anything, feels his fingers curl onto his phone, wanting to reach out for someone who’s in love with someone else and maybe ask if, perhaps, he has a chance to be loved back, to be held the same way the sunflowers wrapped itself around his torso, feels the flowers on his skin burn like a reminder that he should learn to let go.

(And while it stopped growing, it never started fading onto his skin and Kei still so, so adored him and it burned. Kei never quite liked the cold, but he didn’t like burning either.

How could the world punish Kei over loving someone when all he’s ever known was to love this one person his whole life?)

Vienna wasn’t in the blueprint. He was supposed to go follow after Aki and Kuroo who had been a three-hour train ride away. But now he was halfway across the world (with a recommendation from someone who’d been observing him since he’d first played the piano in a concour), trying to learn how to fall out of love with someone as he slowly fit himself back in a life of music.

Vienna is good, not so big that Kei finds himself overwhelmed, he lived in a quiet part of town and spent more hours of the day playing the piano and reading music than anything else. Vienna is good but it isn’t home and a month later, he almost books a flight back because the people are different and it’s a whole new language and culture and Aki and Kuroo has always had his back and the world was much too big for a small boy like him.

Akiteru ends up flying to Vienna for a few days to help him and his brother smelt of home. Kei’s throat itches to ask how everyone is, how Kuroo is, but he doesn’t. When Aki flies back home, his older brother spends the next fourteen days waking up early to talk to him on the phone so Kei could fall asleep to the silence and comfort of companion.

Kei learns, as Akiteru predicted. Kei learns to love himself only the way he knows how. He starts to converse with music and gestures for months before his German begins smoothening out and then he’s out with friends on pubs and road trips he could never quite decline. Kei makes a home out of his apartment where he meets a Yamaguchi Tadashi and a Yachi Hitoka whose smiles remind him of home five or so thousand miles way.

Even then, he avoids mirrors when he can, only looks at ones that frame his face. And even when the hints of flowers show on the back of his neck or when he stretches his arms and the faint color of a faded orange shows itself right on his lower hip at the hike of his shirt, no one asks (because the one time someone did, Kei ended up forgetting how to pick himself up from his bed for three or so days).

(On the third year, the orange has faded into yellow and Kei finds the courage to look at it some days, only some days. And he marvels because he still thinks it’s beautiful. If he feels the flowers returning to its bright orange hue some nights when his fingers are curled onto his phone, a set of numbers repeatedly going on in his head before he sets it down and returns to the piano, he pretends to ignore it.

On the fourth year, there are more concerts than he could breathe or think for and his face is plastered all over Vienna and his cheeks has never hurt this much from smiling but this doesn’t feel so bad and somehow, somehow, he manages to find himself feeling like he’s on top of the world and Kei has finally, finally found a place for himself. And so he puffs his chest out, laughs wholeheartedly, before giving himself up to the music again and again and again.

On the fifth year, he decides to go back home.)

Chapter Text

Kuroo Tetsurou is as beautiful as the day Kei had met him. He looked uncomfortable as he stood with his fitted suit, unsure of how to act but still managed to look quite perfect (Kei only really noticed his awkwardness because he’d grown up watching with the man) under the bright yellow lights of the auditorium (he almost looked like he was glowing—like that time from when Kei had been marveling up at him as the older sat on a tree. It almost felt the same, Kuroo was the same, Kei thinks. But Kei is not, somehow).

He’s got a bouquet in his hand—red roses (and Kei reckons the older boy didn’t know what that meant so he ignores the implication because it’s impossible) for the performance he’d just given over one of the galas that welcomed his comeback all the way from Vienna after all these years.

Kuroo hugs him before he could even say hello, tightly like they hadn’t seen each other for years (and they haven’t) and Kei pats him on the back before pulling away. Kuroo watches him for a long time, like he doesn’t quite recognize him, like he’s trying to relearn him. Kei offers a soft smile and the other man jumps, if only slightly, perhaps unused to his openness of expression.

(Akiteru and everyone else arrives and he turns away from Kuroo and if he felt the man observing him as he hugged and greeted old peers, Kei pretended not to notice.)

He doesn’t quite remember how Kuroo managed to convince him to sleep in his apartment overnight over the course of the few days he’d arrived home but here he was, lying down on Kuroo’s sofa as he prepared them dinner.

When he turns on the tv, it’s a channel featuring a music orchestra in Vienna and perhaps it’s because he was still too jetlagged to scrutinize why Kuroo’s television had a channel related to Vienna and orchestras but he lets the music lull him to sleep, at least until he jolts out of his accidental nap when he feels a presence right in front of him, only to see Kuroo kneeling down on the floor right by his head, gently peering at him with a soft smile before telling him dinner’s ready.

(Kei’s still quite not sure if that was real.)     

Kei only asks about Terushima Yuuji when he spots the faded honeysuckle on Kuroo’s calves and the hint of bright green stems climbing downwards from the nape of his neck.

“You’ve got a new lover?”

Kuroo freezes, like he almost forgot there were new, brighter flowers on his body before smiling.

“Not quite yet.” Kei’s inclined to ask but Kuroo didn’t seem like he wanted to divulge anything more than necessary about this new person, which was quite strange, since Kuroo has always been proud of his flowers. But then Kei thinks it’s probably not his place to say when they haven’t been as close for the last five or so years.

“What about Terushima?”

Kuroo’s eyes don’t flash in pain the same way it did with Akaashi when they were kids and Kei tilts his head, curious.

“We just fell out of it, really. Something we could see coming long before it even ended. Some relationships just end that way, I suppose? We were heading into different directions and it wasn’t ideal to just stay with him knowing someone else could love him better, he didn’t deserved love half-assed. I didn’t wanna hurt him any more than necessary.”

“And the new person you love? When did they come along?” Kuroo tilts his head, bites his lower lip, uncertain—almost as if he didn’t know how to answer.

“…I realized I loved him a few months after the separation.”

Terushima Yuuji and him broke up only after two years of being together, which meant it’d been around the same time Kei moved to Vienna.

“You…you’ve been in love with the same person for the last five years?”

And Kuroo laughs, abashed, ears red with eyes trained permanently on the ground. When he looks up to smile at Kei, he had the gentlest smile Kei had ever seen and he briefly wonders what kind of person this someone is—for Kuroo to give such a gentle smile and almost, almost swears he could feel the same pain he’d felt all those years ago with Keiji and Yuuji. And he doesn’t like it, so he looks away and pretends the itch on his skin isn’t the familiar feeling of the colors coming back in full swing over the sunflowers painted on his skin.

(But he knows this feeling all too well. Hey Kuroo, can’t it be me?)

It takes Kei four long years to forget him, and forty days to fall back into him.

Because being around Kuroo was easy, because while he was playful, he still prioritized Kei’s comfort at all times; loud but not too loud, lively but not too overbearing, aggressive but not too imposing. After all these years, Kuroo still seemed to be able make Kei fit seamlessly into his life like he hadn’t been away for the last five years.

Because fitting into Kuroo’s life was just that natural (because he always had too big a heart and so much more space for people to let inside) and Kei’s known this for a long time by observing him, by loving him and it really was just that easy to fall into his life and adore him the same way everyone else does, the same way Kei always has.

Because Kuroo still takes the time to lead Kei away from the crowd when he knows it’s become too much, sends him home in the silence and sometimes even stays with him late hours in the practice room listening to Kei practice the same piece over and over again even if it means missing the sunset (because there will be a lot of sunsets but I won’t be able to watch you play this piece forever with just me, and i revel under your imperfection, Kei, i like watching you gradually perfect these pieces knowing how hard you worked for it).

(Kuroo says this in a voice that scares Kei, in a voice that he tries very hard to ignore. Because it’s impossible, impossible, impossible, impossible. But what if it isn’t?

One day, Kei wakes up to a small sunflower the size of his pinky on his right wrist, apart from all the ones on the other parts of his body and when he looks at the mirror, all of them are of the same bright orange hue, the same way it’d been right when he’d just fallen in love with Kuroo Tetsurou.

And he thinks, not for the first time, just how cruel the world truly is.)

It had been a genuinely careless mistake—changing clothes while someone else was in the room, he’d forgotten that while people in Vienna normally ignored the marks, it was completely different when he was back home, especially around Kuroo. He’d forgotten he was with Kuroo.

“There are sunflowers inked all over your skin,” Kuroo sputters out.

Hues of vibrant yellows and greens litter his back and the nape of his neck, curling together like its own little garden of sunflowers, it wasn’t as bright as it was when he was much younger but it definitely wasn’t as dull as it was in Vienna and Kei knows exactly why. Kuroo is yet to see the extent of these flowers, his thighs and his right wrist remain covered for a reason. Kei didn’t make it a habit to brag to the world just how much he loved Kuroo Tetsurou.

When Kei looks up into Kuroo’s eyes, he almost thinks he sees fear flash into the older boy’s eyes but it’s gone before he could even think twice about it. Instead, Kuroo looks at him with eyes full of curiosity and a subtle hint of disbelief that has Kei almost chuckling.

Instead, he manages a weak smile, uncertain how to respond.

“Did you think I was incapable of loving someone?”

“No, no, it’s just,” Kuroo swallows and he looks pale under the moonlight streaming from the window of Kei’s room, “nothing, really. I was just surprised.”

Kei lets it go.

Some nights, when Kei is playing the piano and Kuroo is constantly turning his attention back and forth from the window and to him playing, there would come a time when Kuroo inevitably ends up dozing away while watching the stars. Kuroo Tetsurou is a heavy sleeper.

Some nights, Kei detaches himself from the piano and forgets the musical pieces in his head, drowns himself in the length of Kuroo’s eyelashes up close and the soft noise of his breathing while Kei sat on the floor gazing up at the older boy, who looked like one of those gods as he bathed in moonlight. For every single time he’d gazed at Kuroo, he thinks the boy still rivaled the skies and the sun and the moon and the stars.

One night, Kuroo laughs softly while asleep, gives that same gentle smile he’d made when he’d talked about his new lover before mumbling words Kei almost missed. “Tsukki,” he’d said, smiling. And Kei feels his chest go heavy, “I love you.”

Kei has never ran home so fast in his life.

(When Kuroo phones him the morning after, asking (whining) why he’d left him all alone in the music room, it takes Kei a few agonizing seconds (which felt too long) before murmuring, “I’m going back to sleep” and hanging up. He stared at the ceiling for the rest of the day until his brother dragged him out for dinner.)

Kei thinks he’s good at this, the pretending thing, because he’s actually convinced himself he only heard wrong that night when Kuroo Tetsurou potentially mumbled his name in his sleep and possibly said he’d loved him. Yeah, delusion. Maybe he really was just going mad.

Yes, going mad was better than having him feel like he should be wrenching out his heart from his chest and permanently tearing it apart. Fuck.

So Kei goes to practices like usual and lets Kuroo tag along and he swears he’s not more aware, or that with every little movement Kuroo makes, Kei feels like jumping out of his skin, resulting in him constantly forgetting which part of the music he was playing which in turn has Kuroo paying more attention to him which is the one thing Kei doesn’t want. God, he’s just tired.

And then one afternoon, Kei sees it, oh, does he fucking see it. Because Kuroo is dumb and believes weather forecasts are inferior to his intuition, so he heads towards Kei’s apartment without an umbrella or anything to keep him dry and by the time he’s by Kei’s front door, he’s soaked to the bone, his clothes clinging onto him like second skin and him looking on the verge of freezing over. So understandably, Kei, who is just as dumb, if not more, has the older boy changing clothes and. And.

Kei sees it, flashes back to the same exact moment he’d first seen those flowers on Kuroo—right in the palm of his hands before giving them to Kei with a bright, gentle smile. A bouquet of red roses ¹.

Similar bright, red roses littered Kuroo’s back, crawling along and melting in on themselves like they belonged together perfectly.

Kuroo’s been in love with him all along.

(“Red roses,” Kei murmurs in disbelief and Kuroo freezes.

When it comes to Tsukishima Kei, it is always, always fight response when it comes to others hurting the people he cares for. Always confronting and snarking and responding with vicious apathy so that people know not to cross him. Kei knows how to fight wars and win them, knows just the right ways to convert himself into a shield so that the people he loves don’t get hurt.

But Kei is also still the same Kei he used to be, still the very same Kei who finds a home in his brother’s familiar scent and the homemade strawberry shortcake his mother makes whenever he comes to visit, still the very same Kei who chooses the silence of his room over gala parties offered to him any day, still the very same Kei that has loved only one person for the last decade or so and never learned how not to, and this very same Kei, when it comes to things that could hurt (or may potentially hurt) him, he only knows how to hide, to flee.

Because a shield knows how to protect others but not himself. They were never built to be protected in the first place.

So he does it the only way he knows how, he retreats.

He strides towards his bedroom in five full steps and closes the door, ignores the way the flowers on his skin tingle or how Kuroo calls out to him hurriedly—Kei—frantically—Kei—desperately—Kei, please—Kei involuntarily tunes him out, the thrumming of his pulse echoing against his ears effectively shutting out all possible thoughts and all other voices that could be there.

Instead, he curls up in one corner of his room, the very same way he used to when he was still in high school and terribly, terribly in love with someone who lived all the way in Tokyo, in love with somebody else. He curls up on himself and tries to make himself so, so small so that maybe the world could ignore him, on the fact that he exists—maybe then, he could mute the pain in his head or in his heart or on his shoulders—he’s not exactly sure where the pain is, but he just wants it to stop. Please.

He thinks he murmurs a “please go away,” somewhere along the line. Maybe, he can’t be too sure. Because the space between them is too small for Kei to remember how to breathe.

He falls asleep like that. And it feels like he’s seventeen all over again.

(Kuroo’s voice eventually turns quiet, until it’s nothing but a whisper to the wind with no one to hear but Kuroo himself—like a wish to a god or a goddess or an ode given to the wind or the sun or the moon or—just mere words he wishes for only one person to hear—not a wish, not an ode, not a poem, just a declaration that he’s found his way home—Kei, it’s you. I love you.))

Kei has to call Akiteru so he could make Kuroo go away and Kuroo doesn’t make so much of a fuss and easily leaves but his older brother looks at him for a long, long time before hugging him and bidding him goodnight.

Here is the truth: Kuroo Tetsurou became everything when he shouldn’t have, he is painted all over Kei’s skin, had a hold of him, his whole being, long before Kuroo even began to love him.

Kei learned how to climb trees and appreciate sunsets because Kuroo Tetsurou found them worthwhile, he’d quit the competitions and survived through it because Kuroo Tetsurou hugged him and held his hand and told him it was okay, he’d gone back to music because Kuroo Tetsurou had a life outside of Kei and Kei didn’t and he found that he needed to learn how to breathe without the older boy, whether he liked it or not.

Kuroo Tetsurou became everything when he shouldn’t have.

And he never knew knowing Kuroo might love him was scarier than the thought that he didn’t. Because Kei, Kei could still bear the thought of having to love Kuroo Tetsurou for the rest of his life without getting anything in return, what Kei wouldn’t be able to handle was to let himself receive this supposed love and have it wrenched out of his hands sometime, someday.

Kei has slowly, slowly managed to find a place for himself, a world where he can breathe by himself and play music and appreciate sunsets and climb trees without having himself be reminded of how things hurt.

Kuroo should no longer be everything because he never should have been in the first place.

(Because loving someone was good, but not at the expense of you losing yourself.)

It takes three days until he sees Kuroo again. Kuroo’s eyes are soft, a bit imploring but not too intrusive, but Kei still quickly looks away. The older keeps his distance because he knows Kei needs to breathe. And then Kei speaks.

“The sunflowers were you,” he sucks in a breath, his eyes trained on the floor. “I only noticed them when I was thirteen, when it was already running across my back and threatening to consume me whole and I lived life having known nothing but to love you and now,”

“I don’t think—I can’t, I won’t.” he exhales, his voice trembling and Kei loathes how vulnerable he sounds, looks, feels. When he looks back into Kuroo’s eyes (and that gentle, gentle gaze), the sob he’d been forcing down his throat stumbles forward and he’s crying before he could stop himself.

“It always felt like I was one step behind you, always waiting for you to turn back, always waiting. I didn’t—don’t want to wait anymore…” Kei’s voice turned smaller the longer he talked, along with the thoughts in his head, until the only thing he could do was cry into his hands.

Kuroo holds onto Kei’s wrists softly and when Kei moves to look into his eyes, the older boy gazes at him like he’s the only thing he could see and it was tinged with so much desperation, Kei thinks he feels it in his bones. And he almost, almost wanted to just come closer and be held by him because this, is what he has always been waiting for. And if he were the same boy he was all those years ago then he’d already be in Kuroo’s arms. Except he’s not.

And it hurt to pull away but he does. Because he’s surer of himself than he’s ever been his entire life, and he didn’t have to stay in places where people always expect him to be and he’s found his way and he’s not betting everything on Kuroo Tetsurou again because he could only take so much until he’d let the older boy hurt him again and still find a way to forgive him (and still keep loving him).

So when he pulls away and turns his back, he doesn’t turn around—refuses to look into Kuroo’s eyes, refuses to let himself turn back and walk back home, into warmth his body recognizes so well, a warmth only the older boy could give.

(Kei doesn’t see but Kuroo Tetsurou’s eyes flash in grief, hands hanging from reaching out towards the boy he loved walking away. It takes five single seconds before his gaze turns determined, firm. Because if there’s anything Kuroo has learned, it’s when it comes to Tsukishima Kei that giving up is never an option.)

It takes the both of them only another week until they’re talking again. Kei knocks on his door one morning, eats breakfast with him, Kuroo accompanies him to practice, and the older boy feels a lot like the world is coming together again.

The same place, the same people, the same routine.

“I love you, Kei,” Kuroo speaks into the silence while Kei’s browsing the shelves looking for a piece he was going to practice. Kei tenses, forgets what the title of the piece was. Hadn’t they talked about this already?

“I can wait for you,” he says, and Kei feels a smile on the other’s voice even without turning. “However long it takes. You don’t have to answer me, you don’t even have to love me back. I’m okay with just being with you like this. I’m okay with just being able to love you.”

He wants to say, it’s not that I don’t want to. It’s just that I’m afraid of love, of myself. Not of you, not of loving you. God, never of you. You’re one of the best things that has ever happened to me and I'm incapable of ever finding the will to let go of that.

Instead, he says, “Okay.” Okay, I'm sorry this is the only thing I can give right now. Okay, wait for me, I’m on my way. Okay, don’t worry, we’re still us. You’ve still got me. Okay, it’s okay, you’re not losing me. Okay, I love you too. More than you’ll ever know.

And for now, this is okay, this is alright.

He watches Kuroo laugh with his friends, mirth in his eyes, the sound of his happiness echoing in his ears the same way they did back when they were kids.

Kuroo turns to him a moment after, eyes gentle and fond, Kei almost gets whiplash from how fast he turns his head away.

The gentle sound of Kuroo’s laughter fade into the background as Kei’s own heartbeats echo against his ears. He could almost physically feel the flowers on his back grow even bolder, like he was some canvas not yet fully painted on.

When Kuroo approaches him with gentle eyes and some decent distance, he notices how red roses slowly snake itself around his upper arms from the sleeves of his shirt (it hadn’t been there before). It has Kei swallowing because it was such a deep red and he knew just who exactly the flowers were for, he knew just who exactly Kuroo was in love with. It almost felt like the roses were taunting him from trying to prove just how real everything is. But how long will this last?

Kuroo clasps his hands behind his back, rocks back and forth on his feet like some nervous kid, unsure of how to act. Kei almost laughs because if anything, Kuroo has never been shy nor nervous around him and it felt different, as if Kei was a stranger in his own skin (because Kuroo had always meant comfort and now he was acting different). It doesn’t settle well with him but he doesn’t say that out loud.

Kuroo doesn’t intrude on his silence, he still walks Kei home and still listens to him late into the night but respects his solitude. Easy, because Kuroo always found a way to seamlessly fit himself into Kei’s life no matter the circumstance.

He reads Kei like a book, making noise when Kei wants there to be a break from the silence and quiets down when he knows the younger boy needs it. It’s almost scary how attuned he was to Kei and how he went about in his world. Some nights, he lets himself wonder if Kuroo had somehow, over the years they’d known each other, also observed Kei by the sidelines and he hadn’t just noticed.

The idea of Kuroo loving him sends warmth down his spine that keeps him awake at night and still optimistic by morning.

One morning, he notices that glancing at the sunflowers littering his body doesn’t hurt nearly as much as it used to.

Kei goes back to Vienna for a month and Kuroo misses him terribly.

Kei kisses him one morning after he’d slept over at Kuroo’s the night before, spontaneously, like he hadn’t even thought about it while Kuroo was preparing breakfast for the both of them.

His hair was unkempt, shirt a crumpled mess and he had that small frown on his face he always had when he woke up and still wanted more sleep, with glasses perched on his nose and lips upturned into a small pout. But he saunters straight towards Kuroo that morning, resting his forehead on the older boy’s shoulder. Kuroo laughs, of course, because Kei could be affectionate some mornings and this was just one of them. He tells the younger boy to sit by the table because breakfast is almost ready. And Kei follows because that’s what a sleepy Kei does, but then he also mumbles something unintelligible, it has Kuroo turning his head to ask what it was he said (he’d said look at me), but he’s met with a pair of lips pressing against his.

Kuroo forgets how to fucking breathe while Kei nonchalantly pulls away only a moment after to sit by the dining table.

When they go back to their hometown and sit below the tree they used to perch on to watch the sunset (because they’re much too big and Kei argued that the branch could break from both of their weights, Kuroo settles on convincing Kei another day), it becomes the very first time Kuroo Tetsurou looks at him instead of marveling at the sunset (which, if Kei were going to be honest about was kind of a pain in the ass because he can’t look at Kuroo without being caught in his eyes.

But the point is, Kuroo still glows, the same way he used to all those days Kei spent watching him. He’s got the sun on his side and he looked perfect with his smile that Kei almost can’t believe he can touch him.

Did you always look at me like this, Kei? He asks, teasingly. Kei could only look away).

It also becomes the very first time that Kei attempts to actually look at the sunset and not at Kuroo and he thinks Kuroo’s descriptions couldn’t quite come up to par to what he was actually seeing but he thinks, he thinks, there’s still something—someone that’s much more beautiful.

And so he turns, only to see Kuroo already looking at him. He blanches a bit, at a loss of what to do but Kuroo gives him a small smile and pulls him close, the world falls away and he lets himself be swept along.

“I can’t promise that I won’t hurt you,” Kuroo says, sometime after, in the silence, earnestly while squeezing his hands before bringing them up towards his lips. The moon is up and the sun has set and everything seems to be in the right place. "I’m yet to learn how to love perfectly—or even properly for that matter,” he kisses Kei’s knuckles one by one, slowly, before moving Kei’s hands to cup his own cheeks and looks into Kei’s eyes. “I can’t promise anything and I don’t know how long forever lasts, but for right now, I’m pretty in love with you and I want to spend however long forever might be for us with you, if that’s okay.”

Kei nods, after a long while, because he doesn’t trust his voice and he doesn’t quite know what to say, he looks up through his lashes and he feels the trace of tears make itself visible around the rim of his eyes even as he gives Kuroo a small smile. He doesn’t understand what made him so emotional but everything is weird when it comes to loving Kuroo. The older boy laughs—soft and delighted, the kind that makes Kei’s chest feel light, the kind that makes everything feel alright.

He gathers Kei onto his lap, wiping away tears he hasn’t quite shed and wrapping his arms around the younger boy. Kei would naturally avoid things like these except that he finds his body curling in instead—as if finally settling, finally coming home—and he hides his face in the crook of Kuroo’s neck.

“I love you,” I love you, I love you. Kuroo murmurs this repeatedly into his ears and he thinks he says it back once, perhaps a bit imperceptibly—but he does, just before he’s lulled to sleep by the lullaby of the older boy’s voice.

(Kei is beautiful, with golden eyes and long limbs, sunflowers littered across his skin and Kuroo is terribly, terribly in love with him.)