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“Yo, Satoru, come on, let’s go!” Suguru calls out to him but Satoru waves him off, concentrating on the bush in front of him. “I’m going to leave you behind if you don’t get your ass going!”
“Yeah, yeah,” Satoru distractedly gives back, damn well knowing that Suguru will do no such thing.
He squatted down when he saw a little pink bud peek out from the green leaves and it didn’t take long to find a fully bloomed flower. Satoru is certain he knows this flower but the knowledge escapes him for the moment and it bugs him.
“What, you wanna stay behind with all that carnage around you?” Suguru asks, his voice getting louder by the second so clearly he must be coming back for Satoru.
Satoru allows himself a quick grin, because he just knew that Suguru wouldn’t leave without him.
“You know this flower?” Satoru asks and points at the bush and he decidedly doesn’t shudder when Suguru leans over his shoulder to get a better look at it.
“Nope. Is this one of your weird obsession things?” he wants to know and Satoru taps his chin in thought.
It might be, actually. He gets obsessed with the strangest things, reading everything he can get his hands on in the span of a day and then he moves on. He did have a flower phase a few weeks back, so maybe this is where he recognises this one from?
Satoru tilts his head left and right in thought and flinches when Suguru flicks his temple.
“Careful,” he quietly says and it’s only then that Satoru realizes that Suguru is still leaning over him and he nearly smacked their heads together.
He very much tries not to think about how close Suguru is, and when a spark of recognition finally goes off in his head it’s really not that hard.
“Oh, I remember now!” he exclaims and doesn’t hesitate to pick one of the fully bloomed flowers. “It’s a hibiscus!”
“And what does that mean?” Suguru asks, rolling his eyes at Satoru’s excitement over a flower and all kinds of information flood back into Satoru’s brain, though he gets stuck on a very specific thing.
He read something about flower language at one point, and a pink hibiscus represents friendship if he remembers correctly. And isn’t that very fitting, Satoru wistfully thinks before he takes the flower and turns towards Suguru.
“Come here,” he demands, not even waiting for Suguru’s answer before he leans in close to tuck the flower behind Suguru’s ear.
It has an innocent meaning and it’s not as if Suguru is going to know what it means anyway, so Satoru almost doesn’t feel bad about it at all, even though it also can stand for all different kinds of love.
“What are you doing?” Suguru asks belatedly, his hand rising to gently touch the flower now adorning his hair and Satoru tries to not let it get to his head when he doesn’t immediately pull it out.
“Making your ugly mug prettier,” Satoru rushes out before he springs up and out of reach of Suguru’s shove, laughing loudly because Suguru’s reaction was so very predictable.
“Should have kept the flower for yourself then,” Suguru shoots back but Satoru notes that he still doesn’t take the flower out of his hair.
“Nah, pink doesn’t suit me.” Satoru shrugs and wonders if he’ll be brave enough to tuck a red flower behind Suguru’s ear should they ever come across that.
Probably not, if he’s being honest because what if Suguru does somehow know about flower language?
“You’re a menace,” Suguru sighs out and pushes slightly against Satoru’s shoulder. “Let’s go home, yeah? I’m beat.”
“Yeah,” Satoru easily agrees as he looks around them. There are no curses left because Suguru absorbed them all, but there’s damage all around and even some fluids covering the ground; Satoru decides not to think too much on it. Someone else will handle the clean-up anyway.
“You hurt?” Suguru asks as they make their way back to Jujutsu High and Satoru snorts.
“Hilarious,” he drily gives back because it’s not as if anything can really touch him with his Limitless active at all times.
Well, except Suguru.
“Are you?” he then asks because he remembers how Suguru was thrown into a tree earlier but Suguru snorts out the same unamused huff Satoru had earlier.
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
His voice suggests he’s annoyed with Satoru but they’ve known each other for long enough now that Satoru can spot how pleased Suguru is by Satoru’s question. It’s in the way the corner of his eyes soften, Satoru thinks, though he can’t pinpoint it exactly.
“What are you looking at?” Suguru asks after a moment and Satoru does not flinch at his question.
“You, pretty boy,” he says with a shit-eating grin and laughs out loud when Suguru reaches out to knock his knuckles against his head.
“Shut up,” Suguru grumbles, though there is no real heat behind it and still, he doesn’t take the flower out.
Satoru tries to not read too much into that and fails spectacularly.
~*~*~
The next time they are out on a mission they come across more hibiscus because of course they do. It wouldn’t be Satoru’s luck if they didn’t.
The flowers are yellow and red this time and Satoru imagines tucking the red one behind Suguru’s ear. Just the thought makes him flustered but somehow it doesn’t feel right.
He knows he’s kind of obvious about his feelings—Shoko has told him multiple times just how fucking obvious he is—and picking the red one would feel cheap. He knows he’s in love with Suguru. Suguru probably knows it too and is just too polite to mention it, just so he can spare Satoru’s feelings. Shoko definitely knows he’s in love with Suguru and the look she gave him when Suguru came back with the pink flower still safely in his hair—she’ll probably kill him if he puts the red one there and doesn’t even tell Suguru.
That leaves the yellow flower though and Satoru remembers its meaning just as well as the one for the red one; red means love and passion obviously, but the yellow one is associated with happiness, sunshine and good luck.
And all of that is not wrong, Satoru realises. He is happy when he sees Suguru and it does feel like his day lights up when Suguru is there and every day he gets to spend besides Suguru is a lucky one.
Satoru fights the blush that wants to creep up on his cheeks just from thinking all of that but he still determinedly leans down to pick a yellow hibiscus.
“Hey, Suguru,” he calls out and jogs up to him, catching him just as unaware with the flower as the first time.
It’s tucked into his hair before Suguru can even fully turn around.
“Whatever it is, it’s not going to hold with my hair like this,” Suguru sighs out and Satoru blinks when he realises that Suguru has his hair down at the moment.
“Oh, right,” he mutters out, because he does remember the moment his hair tie broke during the fight.
“Right,” Suguru repeats and he sounds about as unhappy as he looks.
He hates having his hair open like that when they are out, and especially during fights. Not that he’d ever verbally say that but Satoru knows him well enough to know that.
“Wait,” Satoru rushes out and starts patting his pants down.
He’s pretty sure he shoved a spare hair tie into his pocket before they left for the mission—or maybe he didn’t take the last one out?—so there should definitely be one there.
“What are you doing?” Suguru warily asks as he eyes the crazy dance Satoru makes.
“Just—I know it should be—aha,” he triumphantly yells and presents the hair tie to Suguru. “There you go.”
Suguru blinks at him.
“You carry a hair tie with you,” he states, his voice horribly flat and Satoru frowns.
“Yes?”
“You don’t need one.” Still, that same flat tone.
“But you do?” Satoru gives back and pushes the hair tie into Suguru’s hand. “I know how you hate not having your hair tied back, so here.”
“You carry a spare hair tie for me around,” Suguru whispers, his fingers slowly curling around the object in question.
“Should I not?” Satoru asks even as he feels himself go hot.
Maybe this is not something a friend would do, he desperately thinks. Maybe he overstepped somehow.
“No, this is—fine,” Suguru says, and it sounds like it’s not fine at all. Still, he finally moves to put his hair back into its usual tight bun and in the process the flower falls down to the ground.
“Hey, careful,” Satoru complaints, as if there are not ten more blooming flowers right next to them and he bends down to pick it up. “You done yet, so I can put it back?” he wants to know but he freezes when he spots Suguru’s face.
He can’t quite pin the emotion on there, but he knows that it’s not a happy one.
“Is that—” Suguru starts to say but then cuts himself off.
“A hibiscus?” Satoru carefully ventures. “Just like the last one, yes.”
“Right,” Suguru mutters, his eyes on the flowers next to the path they are on. “Why yellow?” he then asks, his shoulders suddenly straightened up and Suguru only ever looks like that right before a fight.
“You—don’t like that colour?” Satoru carefully asks because something here is wrong and he doesn’t think his usual cheer is going to help. Suguru seems ready to snap at him as it is, and contrary to popular believe Satoru doesn’t like being snapped at.
Especially not by Suguru.
“No, it’s—fine,” Suguru sighs out and angles his head in a way that allows Satoru to put the flower into his hair again.
It sits much more secure now that his hair is tied up again and Satoru smiles when he thinks about how Suguru will probably walk around with it until it’s time for bed.
“There you go,” Satoru says once he’s done and he can’t actually stand the soft smile on Suguru’s face.
“Thank you.”
“Whatever,” Satoru waves him off, hoping that it doesn’t show just how flustered he is.
There’s a glint in Suguru’s eyes that tells him his hope is misplaced, though.
“You ready to go home yet?” he asks to distract both of them and Suguru smirks at him.
“You keep stalling us, so you tell me,” he gives back and just like that, things are back to normal.
“I want cake,” Satoru decides on a whim, because this mission—and the situation just now—left him starving.
“You always want cake,” Suguru gives back and Satoru can’t even say anything to that because it’s true.
“You up for it?”
“I mean, I guess,” Suguru says and briefly sticks his tongue out at Satoru.
Satoru remembers that he swallowed more curses than he usually does during a mission, so the taste must be especially bad and some cake would probably help with that.
“Let’s go then!”
Satoru starts to walk, trusting that Suguru will follow right behind him, but he doesn’t hear the tell-tale sound of his steps next to him.
“Suguru?” he asks and just as he’s turning to look for him, something is being put in his hair.
“It’s only fair,” Suguru whispers, much too close to Satoru’s ear and Satoru jerks back as if he had been burned.
“What are you doing?” he wheezes out, his heart beating almost out of his chest.
“Returning the favour,” Suguru simply says with a shrug and Satoru nearly ruins his eyes, trying to spot what Suguru put into his hair.
“Stop that, you’ll give yourself a headache,” Suguru chides him. “It’s a hibiscus. It’s not fair that I’m always the only one running around with a flower in my hair, after all.”
“Oh,” Satoru breathes out. He hesitates for a moment before he asks “What colour?”
“Red,” Suguru easily replies as if it doesn’t make Satoru’s knees go weak. “Why? Does it mean something special?”
There’s a certain glint in his eyes, one that tells Satoru that Suguru is hurt and it only serves to confuse him.
“I—why are you upset?”
“I don’t know, why am I?” Suguru snaps back. His gaze shifts to the flower in Satoru’s hair and there’s something wistful on his face. “It’s not as if it means anything, right?” he then whispers, barely audible and Satoru goes cold with sudden understanding.
Suguru knows exactly what it means. He probably read up on flower language right after the pink flower and he damn well knows exactly what the red one means.
He clearly doesn’t know what yellow means though.
“Yellow means happiness,” Satoru blurts out and a distant part of himself wonders if he’s going to confess right here, in the middle of a street, both of them wearing flowers. The answer is a resounding yes when Suguru’s eyes go wide. “It means you’re my happiness. It also means sunshine, and it’s fitting with how your mere presence lights up my day. And every day I get to see you is a lucky day, so good luck also fits.”
Suguru blinks at him a few times before he hides his face behind his hands.
“When did you get so goddamn cheesy?” he wants to know, and it would sting, if Satoru didn’t spot his red ears.
“Since when do you get flustered so easily?” Satoru shoots back and Suguru glares at him from between his fingers.
“Why didn’t you pick the red one?” he asks instead of answering Satoru’s question and Satoru laughs.
“Because according to Shoko that one is way too obvious.”
“To her, maybe,” Suguru grumbles under his breath but Satoru hears it, because he always listens to Suguru and he doesn’t hesitate to lean down and pick a red flower.
“Come here, then,” he easily says, suddenly not at all nervous anymore, not with his own red flower already securely in his hair.
Suguru pouts at him for a moment but then offers him the side that is as of yet without a flower. Not that it stays that for long and Satoru has to admit that the red one suits him way better.
“You should have chosen that one from the start, yellow is way too obscure,” Suguru complaints even as he carefully touches the tips of his fingers to the flower.
“I’m not as brave as you,” Satoru immediately says and touches his own flower. “Never have been.”
“No, you’re just reckless,” Suguru agrees without hesitation and Satoru gasps.
“And you’re rude,” he shoots back, falling into step next to Suguru when he starts walking.
Their banter is the same as always, comfortable and familiar, but the way their fingers tangle together, that is new and exciting.
Satoru can’t wait for that to become comfortable and familiar as well and he threads their fingers together more firmly at that thought. He spots a small smile on Suguru’s face at that and Satoru can’t help his own smile.
Though Suguru’s certainly is prettier, especially with the two flowers adorning his head and Satoru thinks everything is just as it’s supposed to be.