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Ennoshita is lounging around on the sofa in the waiting area, flipping through a magazine Kiyoko knows doesn't interest him, and she's trying her best to ignore the fact that he will start shooting jabs at her from behind that wall of glossy paper any second now, concentrating on finishing the last work so she can close up shop.
From inside here, Kiyoko can't see the sky, but it had to be an endlessly beautiful play of soft colours, pink and gold and maybe a last, tiny bit of blue which turns the light into this wonderful shade filling the streets.
Across of it, bathed in this particularly lovely light, a tiny woman started gently picking up the scattered pots of vibrant flowers in front of her shop, ready to close up Black Star Flowers!! .
Kiyoko revels at how carefully, with how much affection Yachi treats her flowers, at how the sun makes her hair and skin glow and how she always, always seems to smile a stray kind of smile, as if she doesn't know what exactly she is smiling about, but does it anyway, because it is so foreign to her not to enjoy being alive -
Ennoshita clears his throat and Kiyoko knows she's doomed.
“You're a little pathetic, you know,” he dead-pans without looking up. Kiyoko considers throwing her rubber gloves at him, but it wouldn't be worth it.
“You're not even reading your magazine,” she snaps back at him, tossing the gloves into the trash bin and taking one last admiring look around – the shop is all clean equipment, sparkling floors and the new designs she put up are really making a difference. God, she loves her job. Flipping open the appointment book she tries to ignore Ennoshita and she tries to ignore the girl from the flower shop next door, but trying to find some paperwork after she had finished it all already is a little futile. She remembers all those appointments, the people and their designs, the art they had fallen in love with so much, they wanted to carry it with them forever.
“You're not reading either. Instead you're still swooning about the flower girl. You think it's quiet when really it's so damn loud just watching you makes me unable to concentrate on reading even if I wanted to.”
He flips another page to make a point and Kiyoko narrows her eyes at him even when she can feel her own face heating up.
“I'm not swooning.”
“You're swooning so hard I bet you fantasized about adopting cats and hand holding and gross forehead kisses, please don't even pretend. You're so gay for this girl I don't know how you still function.”
Spluttering, Kiyoko tries to find any retort to that, but her brain is a jumbled mess of denial and red warning signs flashing because she might have fantasized about two out of three and that is not a good sign. (Also adopting a cat doesn't seem like a bad idea either, now that she's – definitely not thinking about this, no, not at all. )
“Please do us all a favour and just ask her out for coffee.”
“I – I can't just do that!”
Ennoshita's gaze snaps up, staring her down with that particular gaze usually reserved for Tanaka's and Noya's antics. The one that says 'I am about ten seconds and another word leaving your mouth away from trying to commit homicide with a tattoo magazine.'
“You're not being serious. Kiyoko, please. Tell me you're not being serious. I thought you had some brains.”
Well, she does have brains. Duh. But how could she not be serious?! Someone like her could not simply go and ask out Yachi. The owner of the flower shop is so far out of her reach – a woman who was blessed by the sun itself, all golden hair and bright smiles and kindness, hard working and beautiful and loved by anyone coming by her shop. The kind of girl who looks so right surrounded by flowers.
And Kiyoko? She frowns down at the colourful ink swirling over her arms, vanishing under her clothes only to keep expanding over her back and neck in patterns and pictures, all bleeding together to tell a story on the canvas of her skin, a story of years of struggle, leaving behind a past which has left her more a child of shadows than of the sun, even though smiling is easy nowadays and holding her head high does not feel as much of a lie anymore.
She's good. She's good with a pen and paper and she's good with needles and skin and clients and running this shop and living the life she built up here. She's good at being okay for the most part, but she could never, ever walk up to Yachi and simply ask her out.
Ennoshita gets up, magazine rolled up to whack it across her head, but before he can hit or she can dodge, there's a weird sound from outside and they both freeze.
---
It figures, honestly, that the first time Yachi gets to have direct contact with her hopeless long-time crush is right when she's kneeling in the middle of soil and shards and poor scattered flowers, stains all over her apron and dress and her knees and palms burning after she stumbled. She's tearing up already and all she wants is to try and at least smile at Kiyoko.
“A-are you alright?”, the other woman asks, and honestly, this is so unfair. Her hair is up in a messy ponytail, stray strands of it hanging in her face, and from this close Yachi can finally, finally see the details of the tattoos she had always wondered about and they are even more beautiful than she thought, so beautiful they suit Kiyoko perfectly.
“Ces! Of yourse!”, Yachi squeaks, and then the realisation of what she just said comes crashing down on her. No. No. Why does she have to be such a giant doofus?! Now Kiyoko will never, ever speak to her again!
She's desperately scrambling to come up with something sophisticated and cool and totally not idiotic to say, but then she sees the blood and all thoughts come to a halt.
“Oh no,” she whispers and bursts into tears, unable to do anything about it. This is so ridiculous but she's so so so bad with blood and why did she have to slice her hand open and oh God she will die.
“Oh, hey, hey, shhh, it's okay.” Kiyoko's voice is softer and warmer than Yachi would have expected and she does not seem to care about her jeans getting dirty when she kneels down next to her and reaches for her bleeding hand. Yachi tries not to stare at it, so she focuses on the flower blooming over Kiyoko's right elbow instead, heart racing and vision swimming slightly. Blood and her does not mingle well. She feels sick and like she might pass out and she doesn't want to because Kiyoko's gentle touch feels so incredibly nice, stronger even than the pain from her fall.
“I'm s-sorry,” Yachi chokes out, unable to face her again in fear she might spy more blood and pass out for real.
“There's nothing to be sorry for. Does it hurt bad? It looks superficial, but maybe you should have a doctor check it out just in case. Wait, just a second.”
Kiyoko lets go of her hand, standing up on her knees to reach into her jean's pocket and pulling out a beautiful tissue with flowers printed over it.
“Oh – no, no, you don't have to waste such a beautiful -”
But she already started wrapping it around Yachi's hand tightly, tying it together neatly. Yachi has her gaze transfixed on her right arm again, the play of dark ink there alone endlessly fascinating, and she keeps discovering more and more details.
“Your tattoos are beautiful,” she blurts before she can think about it, her voice so dreamy she might as well throw dark red rose petals at Kiyoko's face, it would be just as subtle about her crush. “I love the flower so much. It's incredible.”
“Th-thank you,” Kiyoko muttered so quietly, she barely caught it. Surprised by how suddenly shy the other woman seems, Yachi can not help but smile along. Maybe she is not the only one here who can feel her heartbeat in her throat?
“I – I designed it myself,” Kiyoko adds, even more quietly.
“That is so - !” Amazing, not surprising, incredible, fantastic, beautiful?! So many words! “But, but it's no wonder, I mean! You run your shop, right?! People would not speak so highly of it if you weren't that amazing!”
Kiyoko opens her mouth, but simply closes it again, and her cheeks are definitely pink now. Yachi can feel her own face heat up, as if blushes are something highly infectious all of a sudden.
“I – I love being inspired by flowers,” Kiyoko tells her, hastily, as if she's afraid Yachi might not want to listen to her, instead of eagerly soaking up every word she says. “Their grace and sheer variety -”
“Yes, yes I know! It is incredible, right? All those shapes and colours … all those meanings for each of them! Did you know you could even warn someone about danger with the right flower?! It's so cool! I just love flowers! I wanted to have my own shop ever since my grandma took me to her garden and told me about them when I was small ...”
“That's wonderful,” Kiyoko says with the most beautiful smile, the widest Yachi had ever seen on her face and it's directed at her. Her heart stumbles over itself trying to race, the affection in Kiyoko's eyes so completely unexpected and making her feel so, so warm. She's still holding her hand in both of hers, wrapped up in her tissue.
“I used to spend hours in the gardens, sketching flowers,” Kiyoko tells her, gaze to the sky. “It always calmed me down.”
“Uhm! Uhm! If you – want, that is! You could always c-come by … and sketch … my flowers? I mean, y-you don't have to, but … they're always there, y'know?”
I'm always there too . Thank God her brain to mouth filter does work occasionally.
Kiyoko stares at her and there is something in her eyes Yachi can't identify or put a name to, but it makes an unknown slumbering army of butterflies suddenly take up arms and rise for battle. Dear Lord.
“I'd love that. But, but – would it really be okay?”
“O-of course! I, I could make cookies! If you want. And, you can come. Draw. Maybe?”
Oh nooooo. Why is she so awkward? And who offers cookies so fast? Does she think they will make Kiyoko stick around? How idiotic. What if Kiyoko thinks they're poisoned?
“Oh. Then, should I bring hot chocolate?”
Oh. Oh .
“Y-yeah! That sounds really nice! And, uh – if you came after I close shop – you wouldn't have to deal with, uhm, any costumers. You could sketch in peace?”
“So it's a date?”, Kiyoko asks and starts spluttering about at the same time that Yachi does. “I – I mean!”
“Yeah, a date, I'd love -” Oh, wait, had Kiyoko been about to take that back. Oh. Oh! Why does she keep messing up?! “Or, or not a date?”
“Itcouldbeone. Ifyouwantedto?”
Kiyoko whispers those sentences so fast they sound more like two words, and Yachi's heart beats a tact for the majestic rise of her butterfly army.
“Yeah! I'd, uh, I'd really! Want to! Date you! Have a date with you! Uhm. Gosh, I'm such a dork.”
Yachi covers her face with her free hand, trying to hide her burning blush and horrible awkwardness, even when an entire wall would not be enough to keep it hidden.
“Don't worry, it's cute.”
Shot through the heart. A clean one.
“So, uh – I'll bring hot chocolate and my sketchbook tomorrow?”
“Y-yes! That sounds amazing!”
“I'm looking forward to it, Yachi-san.”
“M-me too!”
It's only hours later, when her hand is bandaged and Suga told her that there is nothing to worry about, standing in the middle of her kitchen with flour on her face and dough on her hands that Yachi realises that Kiyoko knew her name .
And that she has an actual date with her. Tomorrow. Yachi buries her face in her hands and squeals, and then she spends some time working dough out of her eyebrows.