Chapter Text
The man burst into the flower shop on Sunday morning, all subtlety foregone as he breezed past the ringing doorbell and into the shop. Nothing shy about it at all. Kunimi felt the burst of warm air, more a presence than a temperature, as it rushed past the door and inside; he winced at the summer-hot heat.
The stranger stomped up to the front desk, his gaze sharp in a way that demanded attention be given or else. Kunimi couldn’t help but look.
He was pretty, was the first thing that ran through Kunimi’s mind. Chocolate brown eyes, a smattering of freckles like stars around his cheeks, a mop of bedhead hair too perfect to not to be meticulously styled. He was pretty, Kunimi thought, then immediately recoiled from the thought. Why did this flippant stranger get to be pretty?
The stranger was smiling—a perfectly charming smile, objectively speaking, with just the right amount of gigawatt energy behind it, the right amount of head tilt, to come across as genuinely curious instead of demanding.
“How do you tell someone you fucking hate their guts in flower language?”
His voice was silver-sweet, lilting in an almost melodic way. He even had the audacity to look Kunimi dead in the eyes as he spoke—they were about the same height, but somehow it almost felt like the other was looking down on him. Kunimi felt himself straightening his back, reigning in his slouch, as if that would make up for whatever iota of a height difference there existed between the two of them, as if it mattered that some stranger had two centimeters on him.
He was just so pretty. Kunimi narrowed his eyes, and then the words sank in.
“You—” Kunimi blinked once, twice. Stared back at the stranger, wondering if he heard him right. The stranger gave no response, just kept smiling at him. Kunimi cleared his throat. “This store is called Love in Bloom.”
The stranger’s smile dipped, turned almost vicious for an instant. Then Kunimi blinked, and the moment was gone. The stranger gave a shrug.
“I need a hate bouquet, right?” he said. “Like. The inverse of a love bouquet. If you can make a love bouquet here, then you can definitely make a hate bouquet.”
Somehow, he made it sound like this was a good thing. Like this hate bouquet—who had ever heard of such a thing?—was the most important thing in the world, and Kunimi was the only person in the world who could make it happen. He hated that it made some feeling in him blossom, something strange, half-pride, half-preening. What was he supposed to do about that?
“Um,” Kunimi said, and wished that Kindaichi hadn’t ditched him for this, wished that Yahaba hadn’t signed him up for this shift. It’ll be a slow day, he’d been assured by the other man. No weddings, no parties, no funerals—nothing’s lined up until next week.
Bullshit, Kunimi thought. There was a customer right here, and demanding a hate bouquet of all things. Did he even know how to make one of those? Probably not.
Love bouquets were easy—red rose, pink carnation, top it off with some asters or something if you’re feeling fancy. Hate bouquets? Kunimi scrunched his nose. Much tougher. Most flowers meant objectively nice things—love, everlasting affections, and so on. He really didn’t know where to start with a hate bouquet.
Plus, Kunimi was tired. Kunimi had a paper to write and a problem set to finish before the beginning of the next week, and all he wanted to do was take a nap.
Unfortunately, customer service demanded that he stay alert and awake to tend to the counter. Kunimi was probably only half of those things at any given moment, but he swallowed a yawn and fixed a stare at the stranger.
“You do realize,” he said, “that in paying for this… hate bouquet, you’ll be spending time, effort, and resources that you could’ve spent elsewhere?”
A peculiar intensity flickered in the stranger’s eyes at that. He leaned in toward where Kunimi stood behind the counter; Kunimi leaned back, lips pressed tight.
“This is an extremely serious affair,” the stranger said. “Ushiwaka-chan needs to know exactly how much I despise him, and how better than to attack back with the very blooms he loves so much?”
Kunimi couldn’t tell if it was sincerity or sarcasm coloring the stranger’s words. It was all very dramatic, anyway. “Right,” he said instead of commenting further. If this stranger wanted to waste his time on buying something for someone he hated, that was his life choice. More money for Kunimi.
More work, too. Kunimi sighed. He turned, reaching for the manual sitting on the shelf behind the counter. An assortment of other items lay beside it—keys to the back, Kindaichi’s water bottle he’d left behind, Kyoutani’s sweatshirt that Yahaba stole the other week, wore to work, and then forgot all about until Watari found it draped over a shelf of bluebells—Kunimi paid them no mind, instead grabbing the flower manual and flipping it open. He had an idea for what to make of this ridiculous bouquet request, but he’d need confirmation from the manual to make sure he got it right.
Not that the stranger would know any better. Or maybe he’d look it up later, then come back to the store the next week complaining about how they got his order wrong—or worse, went complaining on Yelp.
Kunimi eyed him over the folded, scribbled-over pages of the manual. Did this stranger seem like the type to come after a local flower shop out of spite? He was inclined to say that nothing was out of the question for someone who was trying to make a hate bouquet of all things. He had a fearsome glint in his eyes, like he was telling the world, I’m going to beat you, and anyone in my way had better let me through.
Kunimi was tired. He’d let the other man through if it meant he could sleep once he was gone.
The manual was heavy weight in his hands. A veritable brick of a book, bought by a manager years before them, filled with knowledge and continually added to through the generations. Or so Yahaba said, anyway.
Kunimi went back to his skimming.
“Hate bouquet, huh?” he said.
The stranger gave him a brilliant grin. It was a touch ferocious for a flower shop. Kunimi felt the strangest urge to step back, to cower behind the counter until Watari came back to relieve him of the next shift of the day. He blinked back the feeling, and tried to focus back on the haphazardly-taped images of flowers in front of him.
He flipped a page, then another. There was something there, the vaguest shape of a bouquet slowly forming in his mind. He skimmed a bit more, eyes barely running over text, variations of hue and formation moving about in his mind.
He could work with this.
With a half-formed idea in his mind, Kunimi stepped around the counter and into the floor of the shop. The stranger glanced at him; Kunimi kept walking. He turned once to check if the other was following, then continued on.
They wandered past the first couple of aisles. Kunimi brushed past roses and tulips—they wouldn’t need those, today—and turned the corner to where they kept the lilies.
There weren’t a lot of them; they’d exhausted most of the fresh blooms for the week, so their stock was limited. But he knew to expect the eyeful of orange greeting him at the end of the aisle, because just earlier that week, he’d helped Kindaichi and Watari pull in an unexpected haul of tiger lilies.
(“Help is a bit strong of word for watching us while we do all the work,” Kindaichi had quipped afterward, red-faced from hauling cooler after cooler of blooms.
Kunimi had stared back, impassive. “I’ll leave all the heavy lifting to you and Watari, thanks.”
Watari had snorted. “Very considerate of you, Kunimi.”)
It had been an unexpected delivery, but a welcome one nonetheless. A batch of lilies and geraniums, straight from the university greenhouse. The agriculture students were nice like that; every season, they’d donate several blooms to the shop for selling. Supporting local businesses, or something.
It was a good thing they’d gotten that haul in, anyway. Kunimi skimmed through the flowers until he found what he was looking for.
Then it was off to the next aisle, the next cooler, the next blossom. Not twenty minutes later, he held a bouquet in his hands—it was pretty enough, with enough vitriol hidden in the blooms that anyone who understood a lick of flower language would recoil.
Kunimi would be lying if he said he wasn’t a little proud at the bouquet. It was a sunburst of orange, speckled with enough purple aconite to make the rest of the blooms pop that much more. He was no color theorist, but hey, a nice bouquet was still a nice bouquet, even if it was a hate bouquet, of all things.
They headed back to the counter. The strange made a noise—of approval? Surprise?
“Wow, you work fast.”
Kunimi hummed, stepping behind the counter. The stranger glanced down at the bouquet of truly vicious flowers he held in his hands, then back up at Kunimi.
“Not that I don’t trust you,” he said, “but do you mind telling me exactly what I’m telling Ushiwaka with these?”
This was a question he’d been expecting. Some people were fine with taking a flower shop’s words at face value and just buying the prettiest blooms, with no thought to their underlying meaning—but considering that that this customer was already making a special request for a hate bouquet, Kunimi figured that he’d want to hear about what message he was sending, too.
Still, just because he’d been expecting the question didn’t mean Kunimi wanted to answer it. Nevertheless, customer service called, and as the humble flower shop attendant, he had no choice but to comply with the inquiry.
“Orange lilies,” he said, pointing, “for hatred and pride. Orange tiger lilies, for confidence and wealth. The butterfly weed means leave me, and the aconite has connotations of death and misanthropy.”
The stranger whistled.
“That is one mean bouquet.” He grinned. “I’ll take it!”
Kunimi stifled another yawn, half-heartedly typing in digits at the cash register to ring the flowers up. While he was typing, the stranger spoke again.
“Well, now I know what all these flowers are called, but what about you? What’s your name?”
He was leaning against the counter—actually leaning, like he was some king and the whole store was his to do with as he pleased. His eyes were big and brown, almost warm in the fluorescent store lights.
Kunimi snorted.
“Is that your idea of a good pick-up line?”
That got a reaction out of the stranger. He squawked—actually squawked, and wow that was dramatic—and stumbled back as if struck, flapping his hands through the air like some kind of more clumsy swan.
“Rude!” The stranger slapped a hand to his chest like he’d been shot through the heart. “I was just trying to be polite, you know! How could I forget to ask for the name of the cashier who so graciously put together a hate bouquet for me?”
His tone was getting hysterical, but somehow, Kunimi knew it was just for show. Maybe it was the subtle smile playing on his lips, like this was a game Kunimi had yet to learn how to play. Maybe it was the slight tilt to his head, like he was saying, Come on, what are you going to do?
Kunimi was tired. He was sleep deprived. He had problem sets and papers left to do before class next week, and he wanted to go back to the nap he was taking before this stranger so kindly interrupted his afternoon.
And yet there was something about the stranger that was just so easy for him to fall into. He wanted to push him. See if he pushed back.
Kunimi yawned. The stranger stared.
“That’s what I get paid to do,” Kunimi said. “Put together hate bouquets for clients who don’t ask for people’s names before asking them to put hate bouquets together for them. Very rude of you, to not ask.”
He paused, then added on, “It’s not like I have a nametag.”
The stranger blinked. Then, he glanced down, no doubt taking in the Hi, my name is: Kunimi Akira! pinned to Kunimi’s work apron. Then, he looked back up.
“Well,” the stranger said, “it’s still polite to ask. Social conventions, and all that.”
No, Kunimi was not shooting a pointed look at the hate bouquet he was ringing up for the stranger. Most definitely not. Who would think twice about ordering a hate bouquet?
“Somehow, I doubt you’re someone who cares all that much for social conventions.”
The stranger laughed. “Fair enough!” He glanced at Kunimi, eyes narrowed playfully. “But what about you? You didn’t ask for a name either. Accusing other people when you yourself are far from the image of courtesy, are we now? What’s your excuse?”
Kunimi rolled his eyes. There was a strange warmth pulling at his chest, but he ignored it. It was probably just the summer heat.
“Fine,” he said, relenting. Customer service, and all that. “What’s your name?”
“Oikawa,” the stranger answered easily. “Oikawa Tooru.” He gave Kunimi a winning smile. “What’s yours?”
Kunimi blinked once, slow and languid.
“Kunimi,” he said at last, and the stranger—Oikawa—laughed.
“It’s nice to hear it from the source!” Oikawa said. His grin was so bright, Kunimi could barely find it in him to be annoyed. “Well, you’ve been a real help to me, Kunimi-chan. Ushiwaka won’t know what hit him!”
Kunimi snorted. “Yeah, have fun with your hate bouquet.”
“Hey, don’t complain!” Oikawa shot back. “You’re making money off of this, aren’t you?”
Kunimi shrugged. They made a quick exchange—crumpled bills and a handful of coins for a bouquet of flowers.
Oikawa waved, then left the same way he came in—loudly, like it was a declaration to the world.
Kunimi yawned again and went back to his nap.
∘◦ ❈ ◦∘
“So, did you do it?”
Oikawa moaned. Face pressed flat into a throw pillow, the world was darkness and muffled sound. His own cries sounded faraway to his ears.
“Don’t talk to me, Makki. I’m mortified.”
“Come on,” Hanamaki’s voice came, teasing, needling past even Oikawa’s pillow-shaped barrier to the world. “Tell us how it went! We want to know all the details.”
He could just see the smirk Makki was sporting. Could feel it, too, with the finger poking incessantly at the small of his back.
Oikawa buried his face deeper into the pillow. The poking did not cease.
“Will you stop that?” Weren’t they adults, here?
Hanamaki was unsympathetic. Probably grinning. Definitely grinning.
“Nope.”
He even popped the ‘p’ at the end of the word. God, they really were all children, weren’t they?
Left with no choice, Oikawa sat up. He was tempted to just leave the pillow on his face—just because he was sitting up didn’t mean he had to face the world just yet—but ultimately decided against it.
The world came back into sight: Hanamaki’s devious grin meeting him from behind, Matsukawa to the side scrolling through his phone, and Iwaizumi some ways off in the distance, rifling through a textbook and grumbling into his half-empty chip bag.
Oikawa gave a long-suffering sigh.
“If you really must know,” he said, “yes, I did give Ushiwaka the bouquet. Because I, unlike some people—” a pointed glare, not at anyone in particular but coincidentally tossed in the same direction as a certain pink-haired head, “actually hold up my end of Truth or Dare.”
Hanamaki had the decency to look a bit sheepish at that. Good, Oikawa thought. Let him be ashamed. The look on Makki’s face quickly faded, however, and was replaced with a more typical smirk as the other man said, “So how’d it go, then?”
“Terrible, really,” Oikawa said. “I hate him. So much. Really, I go out of my way to get the man the most vicious, hateful bouquet I can possibly acquire on a twenty-four hour notice, and he has the audacity to nod politely and just take it! He even thanked me for it! Said his dorm room needed some freshening up, or something.” He crossed his arms and scoffed. “Can you believe it?”
“Well, it’s Ushiwaka,” Iwaizumi said with a shrug. “What were you expecting?”
Oikawa paused. That was… a good question. He didn’t let it pause him for too long, though, and quickly returned to his pouting. It didn’t matter that Ushiwaka wasn’t the type to be fazed by anything—it was still an injustice! Oikawa had spent all that time and effort on getting him a bouquet that said I hate your fucking guts, and he didn’t even appreciate it!
The light from Matsukawa’s phone screen bathed his face with a sheen of white; he scrolled through his feed, a lazy grin on his lips.
“Oh, look,” he said, “Ushijima just posted.” His voice was dry, but the upturn of his lips betrayed his amusement. “A flower’s true beauty comes from within, but a seedling may never bear its finest fruit from barren soil. The tiger lilies are beautiful, @theoikawatooru.”
Oikawa scowled.
“See?” he said. “That’s what I’m talking about. I hate him.” He shot Hanamaki a heated glare. “This is all you and your stupid dare’s fault, Makki. I wasted so much yen on that prick!”
Oikawa sighed, running a hand through his hair.
“Oh, well,” he said after a moment of silence for the loss of his hard-earned money. “You know one good thing that’s come out of this?”
Hanamaki tilted his head. Matsukawa stopped scrolling and shot Oikawa a curious glance. From the corner, where he was holed up with a textbook in hand, Iwaizumi grunted.
Oikawa grinned.
“The cashier was cute.”
That glint was back in Hanamaki’s eyes. Iwaizumi’s eyes were on him now, too—Oikawa pretended not to notice.
“Ooh, does our little Tooru have his eyes on someone?” Hanamaki swooned, grinning like an idiot. His eyes sparkled with amusement as he spoke, elbowing at Oikawa’s side. “Ah, they grow up so fast!”
“I’m literally six months older than you.”
“Oh, and he can count, too!” Hanamaki turned to Matsukawa and engulfed him in a hug. “I’m so proud! Issei, quick, take a picture, we have to commemorate this moment!”
“Makki, no—”
“Makki yes!”
Five minutes of wrestling and Oikawa’s vain attempts to get Matsukawa’s phone away from him as the other snapped pictures and snickered, they were all lying flat on the backs, heaving and laughing. Even Iwaizumi, busy studying for his kinesiology test on Wednesday, had broken into a begrudging smile.
Their laughter died down. Oikawa’s sides ached; he gasped for breath. Strangely, in the silence, his thoughts began to wander toward the boy from the flower shop, and what he might look like, laughing.
Hanamaki’s voice broke him out of his thoughts.
“You think you’ll be going back soon?”
There was a teasing lilt to his voice; Hanamaki leaned forward as he spoke, lips pressed together in a catlike grin as he waited for Oikawa to answer.
It was easy to ignore Makki, the same as it was easy to ignore the way the laugh on his lips slipped into a smaller, softer smile, when his thoughts were half-full of a boy with sleepy eyes and dark hair.
“Yeah,” said Oikawa. “I think I will.”
(Two hours later, when Hanamaki and Matsukawa had retreated back into their room, leaving Oikawa alone with Iwaizumi, his best friend finally spoke up.
The textbook slammed shut. Oikawa looked up. Iwaizumi was looking back at him with something almost like worry in his eyes.
“Shittykawa,” he started, then stopped. Pursed his lips, the way he did when he was looking for the right way to say what he meant, instead of just barging forward like usual.
Not a good sign, part of Oikawa whispered to himself. He ignored it, ignored the unease roiling in his gut. He’d gotten good at ignoring what he didn’t want to acknowledge.
Finally, Iwaizumi spoke.
“What if you get your heart broken like last time?”
Oikawa laughed, easy and light.
“Don’t worry, Iwa-chan,” he said, “I know how to handle myself.”
Iwaizumi said nothing in response to that. He didn’t need to. Oikawa knew what that look in his eyes was saying—he heard it loud and clear, no words necessary.
Be careful, Tooru.
Oikawa pressed his lips together, looking away.
He didn’t make any promises. Neither of them expected him to.
But he nodded anyway.
Okay, Hajime. I’ll try.)
∘◦ ❈ ◦∘
“So how was your date?”
Kindaichi shoved at him. “Shut up, it wasn’t a date.”
There was no weight behind the shove or the remark, but the red spreading rapidly across Kindaichi’s cheeks was evidence enough. Kunimi smirked.
“Right, right,” he said. “Did you like the flowers? I helped Kageyama pick them out myself.”
Kindaichi flushed even darker.
“He was going to get you a bunch of roses,” Kunimi continued, “but I told him to get you something better.”
Kindaichi coughed. “Where did you even find so many blue flowers that mean love?”
“I have my sources.” And really, he was inclined to say that the two hours spent at the market with Kageyama searching for every flower in blue and white they could find was worth it, for the flustered look on Kindaichi’s face. The photos he’d gotten back had been priceless.
“I didn’t even know mums bloomed this early.” Kindaichi sounded awestruck, like he was recalling the—frankly, entirely too high-effort—bouquet Kunimi and Kageyama had spent an afternoon arranging. Kunimi bit back a smile. Was it too much to be proud of a bouquet, if it made Kindaichi go red as a rosebud?
“We got lucky,” Kunimi said truthfully. “The Kitas had an early crop they wanted to get off of their hands.”
“And the hydrangeas? Really?”
Kunimi elbowed Kindaichi. It was a weak thing; he didn’t want to put too much energy into it. “Well, you know that old story about the emperor who gave a maiden he loved hydrangeas as an apology for neglecting her. I figured the King of the Court ought to apologize before you start again.”
Kindaichi coughed. The flush was still hot on his cheeks, but there was gratitude in the look he threw Kunimi.
“You really don’t mess around with your arrangements, huh.”
Kunimi gave a lazy motion in the direction of the flower manual on the shelf behind the counter. “All that reading’s gotta be good for something.”
Their conversation was interrupted by the merry jingling of the doorbell. Kunimi groaned and laid his head back down on the counter. Sweet darkness engulfed him; he sighed into his arms’ embrace.
“Kindaichi, you take this one. Payback for you ditching me last week.”
“What, no! We agreed to that!”
“Did we, now?”
“Yes! And besides, it’s your man!”
Kunimi glanced up. His vision reoriented, blurry shapes of the world coming back into focus.
“Who?”
Beside him, Kindaichi’s voice came as a stage whisper.
“That guy you were talking about! The one who wanted the hate bouquet? Pretty boy.”
Kunimi dropped his face back into the comfortable warmth of his arms.
“Okay, and?”
Kindaichi tapped him on the shoulder. “You’re the one who sold him a hate bouquet. He’s your problem now. You take the counter.”
Kunimi looked up again. Kindaichi, spineless traitor that he was, was already heading to the backroom, muttering out some excuse about reorganizing their stock. Kunimi sighed, stretching out his limbs. He stood up, brushed himself off, and steeled himself for yet another day of customer service at the flower shop.
“Hi, welcome to Love in Bloom, how can I help you,” he said, blinking away the urge to go back to his nap. A yawn fought at the corner of his lips. He let it win.
Whatever. Screw professionalism, he thought as he looked up to see a pair of all-too-familiar brown eyes. The promise of a paycheck may have been keeping him on his feet, but that didn’t mean he had to shove away all vestiges of the nap that had been stolen from his clutches.
“Oh, but you’ve already helped me, Kunimi-chan!” said Oikawa Tooru. He leaned in, eyes laughing. “So I figured you would be the perfect person to help me some more!”
Kunimi yawned again. “Aren’t you a college student?”
Oikawa blinked. “Yes?”
Kunimi sighed.
“Aren’t you broke like the rest of us?”
Oikawa laughed.
“Yep!” he said. “But flowers I need, so flowers I shall have. Besides, if I didn’t buy flowers here, who else would?”
Kunimi... really couldn’t argue that. Flowers were a dying market, in a world of supermarkets and Amazon Prime delivery. It might’ve just been Oikawa and Kageyama Tobio left, buying flowers from the local flower shop.
Still, though. He couldn’t just let this man bask in his victory. Whatever petty, prideful thing blooming inside him refused.
So he shrugged. “We have plenty of customers. Didn’t need one more.”
Oikawa gasped, grasping one hand to his chest dramatically. “Kunimi-chan!” He pouted—actually pouted, what were they, grade schoolers?—and continued. “Why would you say such a thing?”
Kunimi blinked at him, dragging the moment out for drama’s sake.
“Your fault for asking for it,” he settled on with a shrug. “What can I get you?”
“Wha—you can’t just leave off like that!”
Kunimi grinned, smugness seeping into his skin like sunshine. “Drop the -chan and maybe we can talk about it.”
Oikawa rolled his eyes. He propped his elbows on the counter between them, stuck his tongue out and struck a playful peace sign.
“Sorry,” he parroted, eyes laughing, “you’re just asking for it.”
Kunimi swatted at him. “Get your elbows off that, it’s disrespectful to the table.”
“It’s a counter, excuse you,” the offender in question replied. He shook his head, miming disappointment. “Sheesh, can’t even recognize the decor of your own store. What is this flower shop coming to?”
“Debt,” Kunimi deadpanned. Oikawa stumbled back, a laugh wrenched loose from his lips. At least his elbows weren’t on the table anymore.
“Wow,” said Oikawa. “Okay.”
“Kindaichi does the heavy lifting,” Kunimi said, “and I do the financials.” He shrugs. “I don’t break my back. We’re just broke.”
Cue another fit of undignified giggles from the pretty boy. It wasn’t even good wordplay from Kunimi, but watching Oikawa snort, he couldn’t help the small smile that broke out on his lips.
When the snickers finally died out, Kunimi put on his business face.
“No, really, though,” he said. “What do you want.”
Oikawa gave him a grin, wild and bright.
“A friend’s birthday is coming up,” he explained, hands moving in too-large gesticulations. “You got anything for that?”
Kunimi tore his eyes from Oikawa’s hands, which moved in mesmerizing circles as he spoke, and glanced at the chalkboard catalog of weekly specials to his right. “Yeah,” he said, “um. Give me a second.”
He reached behind the chalkboard and felt for the other catalog, the handwritten one Watari had presented him and Kindaichi last year when they were all confused first-time employees. Co-authored by Yahaba and Watari when they were first-years and well-worn with love and much usage, it was a godsend, their very own flower Bible, a cheat sheet with meanings, color combinations, and holidays already written in. He flipped to the tab for Birthdays, then scrolled down to the heading for Friends.
“What are you going for, and what colors do you want,” Kunimi recited tonelessly. Oikawa ignored the question and went straight for the book in his hands. He leaned in, eyes shining like twin stars.
“Is that a flower encyclopedia?” he asked. “An almanac for you flower shop workers?”
Kunimi huffed. “I do this for the hourly pay, do you really expect me to have every flower meaning in the book memorized?”
Oikawa tapped his chin as if in thought. It was weirdly endearing.
“Well, you did seem to be pretty knowledgeable last time.” He glanced at the catalog in Kunimi’s hands. “Why this catalog and not the other one? I thought that was a manual with flower arrangements, too.”
Kunimi grunted.
“That one’s confusing. I only pull it out when the flowers aren’t in this book.”
A smile was playing on Oikawa’s lips, sunlight dancing in his eyes.
“Like a hate bouquet?”
Kunimi looked up.
“Like a hate bouquet,” he agreed. The ghost of a smile flickered on his face.
He walked around the counter and into the aisle. “Come on. What colors did you say you were looking for, again?”
Oikawa bounded after him.
“Well, blue’s his color, really, and—”
Oh great, Kunimi thought. Another one.
(Several trips around the store later, Oikawa was walking out of the store with a bouquet in hand, and Kunimi was glad he’d restocked so many of their blue flowers post-Kageyama’s bouquet.
He ignored the fluttery feeling blooming in his stomach as he saw Oikawa go, his chimes of a laugh still floating in the air between them. It wasn’t anything, he thought to himself. Just the summer heat and the sleep-deprivation.)
∘◦ ❈ ◦∘
It was movie night, and Oikawa was coughing again.
He’d been feeling a bit sick all week, coughing and sneezing despite the summer heat. Hanamaki and Matsukawa hadn’t stopped teasing him about it, and Iwaizumi wouldn’t stop bringing him okayu.
“Iwa-chan,” he whined as Iwaizumi brought him yet another bowl of the stuff. Where was it coming from? It was like he had a never-ending supply of rice porridge. “Stop giving me that! What are you, my mom?”
“Shut up, Shittykawa, you’re the one with a cold,” Iwaizumi replied, shoving the bowl of okayu into Oikawa’s hands. “Now eat up or I’ll spoon-feed you.”
Oikawa made a show of rolling his eyes and taking the offered bowl and spoon into his hands. He ate slowly; he wasn’t very hungry, but unfortunately, he was well-aware that Iwaizumi’s threat of spoon-feeding was anything but empty. Oh well, at least it was free food.
“Iwa-chan’s so considerate,” he said through half a mouthful of porridge, “making me food when I’m sick!”
“Don’t talk with your mouth full, it’s gross.”
“You’re gross!”
Matsukawa coughed. “If you two are done, Takahiro and I are trying to watch the movie?”
Oikawa glanced at the screen. Brightly colored cartoons met his eyes. He squinted.
“Inside Out again? Why do you always have to pick movies that make me cry, Mattsun?”
Matsukawa shrugged, tossing a kernel of popcorn into his mouth. “It’s a gift.”
“A gift you use for evil,” Oikawa pouted. He would’ve crossed his arms, but he was busy spooning okayu into his mouth to avoid Iwaizumi’s angry eye. “Besides, I’m the one who’s sick. Shouldn’t I get to pick?”
“Just because you’re sick doesn’t mean we can simply bend the rules, Tooru-kun,” Hanamaki cut in, shaking his head sagely. “It’s Issei’s turn to pick after me, and I went last week. These are the laws of the land.”
“Laws, my ass—”
“Your flat ass?”
Oikawa made an affronted noise. “Isn’t that joke getting a bit old?”
The bickering continued for a while, before giving way to a comfortable silence. On the screen, the characters moved through cartoon representations of the mind. Oikawa closed his eyes and leaned against Iwaizumi’s shoulder, content to just lay there for a while. Unfortunately, his resting was interrupted by a hand swatting at him.
“Get your ass off of me, you’re heavy.”
“Oh, so now my ass is heavy? I thought it was flat, you have to choose one story to stick to, Iwa-chan~”
Iwaizumi rolled his eyes but didn’t move to push Oikawa off. “Just eat your damn porridge and watch the movie.”
“Okay, Iwa-chan~”
The movie played on. Oikawa tried to focus on the screen, but there was something in his throat, dry and itchy. He spooned more okayu into his mouth, hoping that swallowing the warm porridge might make it go away. But it didn’t help—it still felt like there was something in his throat, clawing and aching and—
Oikawa coughed. He swallowed some okayu. Maybe Iwa-chan had a point, giving him all his porridge.
He coughed again. The okayu ran back up the length of his throat—oh, that was disgusting—but strangely, it almost felt like there was something else coming up, too.
He kept coughing. He doubled over, coughs tearing themselves out of his throat—he felt Hanamaki and Matsukawa glance at him in alarm, Iwaizumi tense up beside him. He wanted to say something, like hey, I’m okay, go back to watching the movie but—he couldn’t. The coughs just kept coming.
Beside him, Iwaizumi muttered, “Shit.” Oikawa glanced back at him, eyes wide.
I’m fine, Iwa-chan, stop worrying so much, he wanted to say. But the words didn’t come—only coughs did.
“Come on,” Iwaizumi said. What was he—? “We’re going to the bathroom.”
There was a flurry of movement, and suddenly they were both standing. Iwaizumi half-led, half-carried Oikawa as they made their way to the apartment’s bathroom. Iwaizumi flicked the light switch on, then lowered Oikawa to the floor.
The wall pressed against his back, Oikawa tried to remember how to breathe again. The coughs subsided—he gulped air in greedily, hands clutching at his throat. Iwaizumi was a presence beside him, solid and steady and warm. Oikawa leaned against him, glad for the support.
“I’m going to go get you some water,” Iwaizumi said after a moment. He glanced down at Oikawa. “Don’t die while I’m gone.”
“Aw, Iwa-chan really does care!”
His voice was weaker than it should’ve been, and judging by the look on Iwaizumi’s face, they both knew it. Iwaizumi didn’t say anything though, just shook his head and shot a quick dumbass in Oikawa’s direction as he headed back into the apartment.
Oikawa leaned back against the wall, letting out a long, slow breath. That itch in the back of his throat was back, the cough building against the walls of his throat again.
He wondered when it had gotten so bad.
(“D’you think it’s pneumonia or something?”
“Dumbass, it’s not winter,” Iwaizumi snapped. It was a halfhearted barb; his eyes were trained on the sink in front of Oikawa, at the damning evidence still draining into the faucet.
Blood and flower petals, pale and pink.
Iwaizumi let out a long breath.
“Oikawa—”
“Iwa-chan,” Oikawa murmured. His lips tasted of blood and roses. “It’s fine.”
Iwaizumi stared at him, unblinking. “Like hell—”
“It’ll pass,” Oikawa continued. He didn’t know if he was trying to reassure Iwaizumi, or himself. “It always does.”
“Tooru—”
“Hajime,” Oikawa said, looking to Iwaizumi with imploring eyes, “drop it. Please.”
Iwaizumi looked unconvinced. It was all in the stiffness of his shoulders, the bite to his lower lip he got when he was anxious or upset, the one he could never seem to get rid of.
“Tooru,” he said, quietly. “I’m worried.”
“I know,” Oikawa offered up. “It’ll be okay.”
The I hope went unspoken. Iwaizumi sighed, and dropped down next to Oikawa. He handed him the glass of water; Oikawa sipped at it gratefully.
They sat like that for a while; Oikawa leaning against Iwaizumi, Iwaizumi leaning back.
The flowers in Oikawa’s chest sprouted and wilted in rapid succession.)