Chapter Text
Izuku woke up on the morning of his seventeenth name day with the summer sun streaming through his stained glass windows. Another year, another rose—more longing for a person he had never laid eyes on. He sighed, stretching off the dregs of sleep and kicking off his bed linens. The room was steadily growing warmer as the sun continued to rise, and Izuku decided he ought to get up and dress himself before he baked alive in his bedchamber.
He dressed casually in a light tunic and breeches. He had no desire to wear the double-breasted vest Toshinori gifted him. Though it was beautiful and finely made, it would have him drenched in sweat before midday.
It was marginally cooler in the hall where he broke his fast. Toshinori was already at the long table, a hard boiled egg in front of him. He smiled warmly at Izuku.
“Happy name day, young Midoriya. I see you dressed up for the occasion.”
Izuku grinned sheepishly, playing with the silken sleeves of his tunic as he took his seat. It wasn’t like anyone was coming to celebrate the young king of a disgraced family. He’d long since grown used to the quiet emptiness of his ancestral home. A kitchen girl he grew up playing with passed by and quietly put a plate in front of him—a boiled egg and a crust of bread. She was kind and funny, but she never talked to him while Toshinori was present.
“It’s too hot for all that. Thank you, though. The vest is lovely.” Izuku took a large bite of his bread, crumbs and manners be damned.
“Perhaps, you can wear it when you meet your suitor.”
Izuku choked, coughing flecks of spittle and bread flying across the table. His mother would be ashamed, gods rest her soul.
“Suitor? Since when? Why?” He practically wailed, thunderstruck as he was. His voice echoed through the high-ceilinged room. He gulped down some water to quiet his frantic cough.
“You knew this was going to happen. Don’t work yourself up over it,” Toshinori said, clearly attempting to be both kind and forceful at the same time.
In truth, Izuku hadn’t expected it to happen—at least not so soon. Who would want to connect themselves to him through something as permanent as marriage? What was being offered in return without his knowledge?
“Who?” Izuku asked, though no answer would satisfy him, and he knew very few high lords and ladies by name, and he balked at the very suggestion of being offered to someone from another kingdom.
He didn’t want to marry a foreigner. The person he wanted was here… somewhere. He didn’t have a face or a name to ascribe to his admirer. Only roses. For every name day and holiday since he was thirteen, he had received a perfect orange rose. He’d never seen anything so beautiful. The roses never failed to make him feel doted upon.
It was their secret, and Izuku cherished it more than anything else in the world. He didn’t want to give that up for some stranger, for an alliance through a loveless marriage.
“The prince of Ruza. He’s a second son, so he has no claim to his own throne.”
“Ruza?” Izuku squawked, bewildered. “That’s on the other side of the continent!”
“It is! I’m glad you’re paying attention in your geography lessons. Aizawa will be pleased.” Toshinori’s eyes glittered with something akin to sadistic mirth. Izuku was incensed.
“They don’t even speak our language!”
“The prince knows a bit… I think. He seemed to understand me, at least.” Toshinori remained calm and shockingly cavalier as he ruined Izuku’s life.
“You can’t just—“
“Izuku.” Toshinori cut him off, and he so seldom used Izuku’s given name that it stunned him into immediate silence. “This is part of being a good ruler. The Ruzan prince made an extremely generous offer that will greatly benefit your people. It’d be foolish to refuse him.”
It wasn’t often that Izuku turned to pettiness and grandiose superiority, but if there were ever a time to hide behind his title, it was now.
“I’m a king. If I want to refuse him, I can,” he said obstinately. Toshinori’s easy smile melted away. His voice went down an octave, scolding and serious.
“You could, but I’d be remiss in my duties to you and your kingdom if I didn’t remind you that your father often made selfish decisions like that.”
Toshinori’s words stung. He had him backed into a corner, and he knew it. Izuku felt on the verge of frustrated tears, his appetite entirely gone. Toshinori didn’t understand. Izuku already had someone he wanted to give himself to. He just didn’t know who that someone was.
Izuku knew that now, he probably never would. This was shaping up to be the worst name day thus far. He excused himself without finishing his meal, but not without biting out a confirmation.
“Fine,” he spat, unable to look in Toshinori’s disappointed eyes.
The Midoriya name was once proud and storied. At least that’s what his tutor said. It was an old name, one that could be traced back to the first kings of the realm. Before his father’s reign, they were highly regarded as kind, benevolent rulers, beloved by their subjects. Izuku was the last living Midoriya, and he felt the weight of his name with every step he took, heavy on his shoulders, after his parents’ untimely deaths.
His father was a tyrant, and though the castle still stood, the kitchens full of food and servants, the clothes on his back the finest of dyed silk, the kingdom was all but a ruin. His people were starving, dying, and living in squalor and there was only so much Izuku could do for them at thirteen with a daunting mountain of debts from his father’s gratuitous spending and poor choices.
Izuku knew it wasn’t his fault—that his father’s paranoia and thirst for power were what ultimately ended their lives, but he couldn’t always absolve himself of the guilt. Hisashi drove himself mad thinking Izuku, the heir to his throne, was plotting against him—never mind the fact that Izuku was thirteen and more concerned with hiding the grass stains on the knees of his best breeches, or chasing the stray cats that tended to wander into the courtyard.
One night, during a particularly intense dinner, his father lunged at him with a carving knife. It happened so quickly, Izuku couldn’t think to move. His mother did, and it cost her life to save his own. When his father didn’t relent, attempting to hurt Izuku again, Ser Naomasa, one of Izuku’s guards, though he was supposed to be loyal to his king, ran Hisashi through with his sword. It was undeniably the worst night of Izuku’s life, and the months following weren’t much better.
Izuku went straight to his room to mourn. He felt inordinately dramatic stomping up the winding stairwell and slamming his door, only to acknowledge that it was far too hot to do anything in his room with the door closed. After a full minute of petty sulking, he opened it. Still, he got to his knees and fished out the ornate lockbox he had made for his most prized possessions.
He stayed there, bent over the box for some time before opening it.
It wasn’t often that he opened it, so there was a wash of fragrant air in doing so. It calmed Izuku, but only slightly. He had never been able to throw them away, even as the stems dried to sharp twigs and the petals turned to flaky, withered potpourri. After a time, he learned to press them, so some retained their original shape, even if they were no longer the brilliant orange they were on the day he received them.
The box was filled to the brim, and for some time he had been thinking of making a bigger box to house them. With a start, he realized that if he were to be courted and married off, he may never receive another spectacular rose again. That’s when the tears came, slowly at first, and then all at once he was holding back sobs.
His admirer had been sending roses over the course of four years, and had yet to reveal themself. He had no way of knowing how to find this person, to ask them what the roses meant, or what Izuku meant to them. He liked to think that he was important to his secret admirer. He liked to think he was special to this person that went out of their way to make him happy. He had hoped that if he just waited long enough, his secret suitor would reveal themself.
Izuku touched the contents of the box lovingly, the petals rough and wrinkled, and decided he would do whatever was possible to end this marriage alliance before it was too late.
Izuku stubbornly stayed in his room for the rest of the day, no matter how hot it became. Unfortunately, his baser needs betrayed him, and he made himself presentable for dinner, his stomach groaning and gurgling all the while. He was sure that Toshinori had arranged an elaborate meal for his name day, even though there were few people in the castle to share it with. He didn’t want to sit down for a four-course dinner, but he was glad that the leftovers would go to the staff, and that gave him the courage to sit at the table with his head held high.
“How long before the prince arrives?”
“No more than a fortnight, now.”
Izuku blinked, stunned by this information. The journey from Ruza to Amaranth was a long one—far longer than just a fortnight. His anger flared with renewed vigor. Toshinori must have known about this for some time. Why hadn’t he said anything?
“How long have you been planning this?”
“The better part of a year,” Toshinori said, stone-faced, but Izuku could see a trace of guilt in his eyes. Was it guilt for doing this to him, or for keeping him out of the loop? Izuku couldn’t help the betrayal he felt. It festered, bubbling in his chest until his throat burned and his eyes stung with the beginnings of tears. Toshinori merely stared back, his disposition unwavering in the face of Izuku’s discomfort. He was only able to look away when the first course was served.
From then on, he ate in stubborn silence. Toshinori ignored his passive aggressive inaction by making inane conversation with Master Aizawa, his tutor. Neither of them brought up the prince again, and neither of them attempted to bring him into the conversation. Another course came and went, and so on, until they were all too full to continue. Izuku felt sick, but not from consuming too much food. In truth, he hardly ate, too busy running circles in his mind, making plans to sabotage his impending engagement. Izuku couldn’t say he was well-versed in the art of destruction, but for his roses, he would learn.
He could only hope that his rose would be sat upon his dressing table when he returned to his bedchamber, as it had been on every past nameday. He tried to hope, but it was difficult—completely overshadowed by the sinking feeling in his gut.
His rose never came, and Izuku knew that somehow, his admirer must already know. Izuku fell asleep that night with his box of roses clutched to his chest, terrified that the relationship he’d built on secrets, hope, and flowers had ended before it ever truly began.