Work Text:
Megumi didn't expect much to come of it when he first started putting his sketches online.
tenshadows_tattoo uploaded a new photo:
Blue Periwinkle.
Meaning: "early friendship; new beginnings; I want to get to know you."
A few years ago, when Nobara informed him his strictly-business Instagram was strictly boring, Megumi began looking for ways to inject a little more effort and character into his online presence. Sharing a picture of his dogs lounging around the parlour on the occasion he brought them in, for example. Setting up a proper photography setup to professionally capture his finished tattoos. Later — not long after they relocated their shopfront to a trendier side of the city with more visibility — ink and watercolour art began to fill the gaps in his sporadic posting schedule, like green shoots in concrete cracks. He started sketching flowers.
tenshadows_tattoo uploaded a new photo:
Honeysuckle.
Meaning: "generous and devoted affection; bonds of love."
Somehow he stumbled upon the magic formula. Between the cute dog photos, the daily floral art, and the showcasing of his latest and greatest work, his Instagram exploded. Things have calmed down since then, and in all honesty, he's relieved. Being thrust into the limelight out of nowhere caused more stress and pressure than he cares to admit. But eventually the flood of attention settled down into a steady stream of interest instead of drying up, and these days he can count on being fully booked out at least a couple months in advance.
He's found himself a niche in the market. Sure, he does other designs, too — but word of mouth insists that if your tattoo concept involves flowers, you go to Fushiguro Megumi.
The parlour is busy this morning, and Megumi is glad for it. This is how he's been fending off the anxious jitters so far; by leaving no space for them to take root and grow in the first place. It was a good strategy for most of the morning. Now, though, he's glancing at the clock out of the corner of his eye while he works on a crescent of daisies behind a woman's ear, motor pen buzzing under his fingers, fluttery nerves and excitement thrumming in his veins. The finishing touches don't take long. He packs up his workstation, takes the payment, sends the cheerful woman on her way, and can't help but be glad to see her go.
It's not as if he's always itching to be out of here. Megumi loves his job to the moon and back. He just has plans, today. Big, important plans, and now he's free to put them into action.
Megumi crosses to the cafe across the street. He orders a savoury pastry, a Portuguese tart, and two coffees, one black and one iced. His hand unconsciously finds his pocket, compulsively checking that a small velvet box is still tucked away safe and sound there. Then he heads back across the road — not to his own tattoo parlour, but to the florist right next door.
The moment Megumi steps over the threshold, he feels calmer. Something about the cool, sweet scent of petals in full bloom settles his soul; he takes a deep breath, and takes in the delightful array of floral arrangements bursting from buckets and tables and shelves on the walls. This place never fails to bring a smile to his face. That's partly because of the person who inhabits it; the proprietor of Itadori, a vibrant and welcoming flower shop named after the grandfather who founded it.
Megumi thinks it's fitting that Yuuji's last name is the name of a flowering plant.
Yuuji is currently behind the front counter, caught up in discussion with a group of college students that involves excited exclamations and much gushing over glossy catalogues. Megumi isn't bothered by the lack of a greeting. Wordlessly, he places the iced coffee and the brown paper bag holding the egg tart on the edge of the front counter. Then he steps away before he can disturb the conversation too much, taking a seat on his usual stool by the window display and settling his large drawing pad down on the easel provided.
Yuuji has already prepared the flowers Megumi will draw today. A vibrant posy bound with twine has been set down on a plinth before his stool, in a tiny glass vase filled with water. They're small flowers, with short stems and a blossom barely bigger than his two thumbnails put side by side. For such little things, they're a riot of colour, white and bright yellow and violet bleeding a gradient into each other from the centre. Megumi spends a few minutes — none of them wasted — simply admiring the flowers where they sit in the bright midday sun. Then he sets out his art supplies on a tray table beside him and gets to work.
At first, the drawings were nothing more than an excuse to visit the florist next door as often as his schedule would allow: people want tattoos of flowers I've never heard of all the time, I need the practice. At the time, Megumi thought it was a lie. All he ever wanted was a reason to keep seeing Yuuji, the handsome and kind-hearted neighbour who caught his eye the same day their parlour’s new location officially opened. Slowly, the sketches he kept on uploading made him renowned in his field for botanical art; it caught Megumi by surprise, because when the two of them took every chance to spend time together, business was the last thing on his mind.
Yuuji picked out a new variety of flowers for Megumi to try his hand at sketching every day. They fell in love like that, painting their world in shades of watercolour blush, trading love letters in the language of flowers.
With soft pencil strokes, Megumi tests the composition and plays with shape; his pen nib scratches on paper as he inks black lineart over the sketch after that. Sheer quantity of repetition has made him less of a perfectionist about these pieces than he used to be, and faster at it too. His outstretched arm warms under the sun as he fills the page with colour, and at some point, the college students take their leave. It's just Yuuji and Megumi after that, working in parallel on opposite sides of the sunny shop.
"These are nice," Megumi comments, hovering indecisively over two different shades of purple watercolour pencil. He tilts his head, studying the posy in the sunlight. "What did you pick out for me this time?"
"Viola tricolour," Yuuji replies, copying notes from his consultation into a planner. "Otherwise known as heart's ease."
Megumi decides to go with the deeper, cooler hue. He looks past the flowers to Yuuji in the background behind them. "And the meaning?"
Yuuji sets his own pen down and rests his chin on his hand, smiling doe-eyed at Megumi from across the room. "You occupy my thoughts."
For the most part they keep quiet to let each other work and sip their drinks. Tourists and folks from out of town tend to stare at Megumi through the shopfront window, their attention caught by the dichotomy of a man who looks like nothing but trouble surrounded by flowers and sketching in peace. Some locals slow as they walk by for a different reason. They've long since grown accustomed to Megumi's regular presence at Itadori , and a few of them are always curious to see what he's drawing this time.
Megumi ends up finishing his art before Yuuji finishes his admin. The posy on the page is homely and charming, drenched in colour defined by clean inked lines. He snaps a picture, twisting sideways to keep his shadow out of the shot.
tenshadows_tattoo uploaded a new photo:
Viola Tricolour.
Meaning: "you occupy my thoughts."
Megumi tucks his phone away and drains the dregs of his coffee. Then he swaps his sketchpad for a leather-bound visual diary from his satchel and sets it down on the easel, flipping to the page of his favourite work in progress.
The piece he lands on is part of an ongoing series of studies on the itadori plant. It takes a lot of work to develop an intuition for the way a species looks best on skin. He’s been trying to get the aesthetic and the character right. Balancing the ratio of leaves to flowers to stems, experimenting with stylisation, testing degrees of density and sparseness. Searching for the most artistic portrayal of its features. Trying to capture in them the spirit of the man he loves.
This final work of art is a nearly-finished watercolour of Yuuji from the waist up. The itadori plant is in the process of growing around him and upon him. In the heart of the thicket, its broad round leaves taper to a point, and clusters of creamy white flowers on raceme stalks cascade down the line of every stem. Flexible tendrils of new growth snake up his bare chest. Some wrap around his sides or lift away to reach out for the support of his arms. More mature stems stand free in the air, loosely spiraling around him. Wide, flat leaves peak over his shoulders from behind.
The plant isn’t constricting. It’s an embrace, gentle and natural and welcome, almost part of him. Yuuji’s watercolour expression is serene as he reaches out to brush his fingers against a stalk of flowers near his turned head. Megumi outlines the details there, holding his breath as careful brush strokes add new depth and richness to the many patient layers of colour that have already dried.
Yuuji’s posture straightens subconsciously as he realises he has become Megumi’s subject. Megumi glances between the paper in front of him and the real Yuuji beyond it, drawing from life, anxious for the piece to be as close to perfect as he can manage. He’s nervous all over again, full of jitters and excitement.
“You know,” Yuuji says at last, folding his planner shut, “you’re very distracting when you stare at me like that.”
He’s finally finished his admin. Megumi sets down his inking pen and shakes out his wrists. “I need to look at you to draw you.”
“I’m not just talking about your focused artist expression,” Yuuji laughs, flipping the front door sign to on break, back soon. “You’re happy today. Did you get some good news?”
That’s Megumi’s cue to flip the visual diary shut. It’s too soon to spoil the surprise. “Maybe I’m just happy to see you,” he murmurs, turning his head as Yuuji wanders behind him.
Yuuji puts his arms around Megumi’s shoulders from behind and leans down to kiss his hair. “Hi,” he says warmly.
Megumi smiles and leans back against him. “Hi.”
Yuuji rests his chin on top of Megumi’s head and pouts at the closed visual diary on the easel. “What, you still won’t show me what you’re working on?”
“Not yet,” Megumi tells him, the same answer as always. Soon, he thinks to himself.
“You don’t have to be embarrassed about a work in progress not being up to your usual standards,” Yuuji insists. “I love everything you draw. I’m impressed by the doodles you do on the back of restaurant receipts.”
“Flattery won’t make me change my mind.” Megumi leans forward and slides the book back into his satchel; Yuuji’s arms let him go. He swaps it for the sketchpad again and fans through the pages until he finds this morning’s posy. “You can see this one, though.”
Yuuji’s eyes light up in delight as the watercolour flowers are revealed. “It’s beautiful,” he gushes. “The petals look so soft — you got their texture just right. These colours are gorgeous.”
Megumi carefully separates the paper from the rest of the pad. It comes away with a clean, straight break. He turns around in his seat and hands it to Yuuji with two hands. “It’s for you.”
An old courtship dance. Yuuji accepts the watercolour art with a playful glimmer in his eyes, and for a moment more he admires it where he stands, taking in the details up close. Then he pivots on his foot and walks back the way he came, behind the front counter. White squares splashed with colour are fixed on the wall in multitudes, making Yuuji look smaller as he turns his gaze upward. Every flower sketch Megumi has ever drawn for him here is tacked to the plaster.
"You're running out of room," Megumi comments, eyeing the wall full of art. "You might have to start taking down your least favourites."
"I don't… have… a least… favourite," Yuuji grunts, dragging a ladder from its usual place beneath the highest flower shelves across the floor to behind his counter. Megumi wanders over to hold it steady for him, bringing the visual diary he won’t show to Yuuji and leaving it on the bench; Yuuji climbs up high enough to blu-tack Megumi’s art to the corner of the ceiling. The tip of his tongue pokes out in concentration while he secures it in place.
"There, see?" Yuuji looks down at him triumphantly. "Problem solved."
A corner of the paper comes unstuck and flops down from the roof. Yuuji swears under his breath, and sets about adding a few more wads of blu-tack to the back of the sheet. Megumi laughs quietly as he watches Yuuji fiddle and fuss.
In the middle of fixing the artwork to the ceiling, Yuuji casually says, "I've been thinking about getting a tattoo."
What a coincidence. Megumi’s eyebrows raise in surprise. "Since when?"
"Well, I never really saw the appeal until I met you.” Satisfied that the watercolour piece is secured properly, Yuuji steps down the ladder. "But by the time I settled on a design, you were already busy, and I didn't want to add another name to your waiting list while the length of it and the pressure of all the demand was stressing you out. I figured it would probably be best to hold off for a while. Consider it properly, make sure I really want it."
“Do you?” Megumi asks curiously. He didn’t expect him to have been seriously contemplating a tattoo for that long.
Yuuji stops, lingering in the cramped space between the ladder and the counter. His expression is fond, his eyes soft and certain. “Yeah,” he says quietly. “I do.”
He squeezes Megumi’s hand for a moment, then leaves to put the blu-tack back in its drawer, keeping his store tidy out of habit.
"I was thinking, like — black bands on both my arms to begin with. Around here somewhere,” Yuuji continues. He taps on his bicep with two fingers. "Starting simple."
After a moment's consideration, Megumi sketches a quick version of Yuuji and draws the tattoo over it, positioning the design where he indicated. Yuuji takes the chance to drag the ladder away; when he comes back, Megumi hands the picture back to him. "Something like this?"
Yuuji stares at it for a while, growing accustomed to the sight of his likeness with inked skin. He glances at Megumi self-consciously, searching for a sign that he likes the concept. "What do you think? Does it clash with my friendly local florist look?"
"I think it really suits you," Megumi murmurs, leaning in, and Yuuji meets him halfway for a kiss. Its warmth settles the restless nerves Megumi has been feeling, calms the flighty beating of his heart, steadies him.
“Your lunch hour is almost up.” Yuuji sighs, stepping back with some reluctance. "Want some flowers to take back with you?"
Megumi isn’t on a lunch break. He closed his shop for the day, but Yuuji doesn’t know that. He rests his elbows on the counter. "Actually, this time I'd like to build a bouquet."
"Oh? A spot of colour to liven up the parlour?" Yuuji’s amber eyes sparkle with excitement and the freedom to create.
Megumi shakes his head, smiling. "It's for a special occasion."
“Well,” Yuuji begins playfully. “If you’re making a bouquet for someone special, red roses are essential.” He prepares the bench where he builds his bouquets and collects some of his best and largest specimens, deftly trimming away the thorns and the excess leaves. Even Megumi knows the meaning of this one; red roses say I love you.
“Then maybe, for visual contrast… white chrysanthemum?” Yuuji muses. Truth and sincerity. The thin, curling chrysanthemum petals bring out the best in the broad and velvety roses; their creamy white colour makes the deep red look all the more striking by comparison. Satisfied with the base of his bouquet, he begins searching the store for smaller flowers to compliment them both.
"Baby’s breath makes a good filler," Yuuji comments, fitting branching stems sprinkled with pale tiny baby's breath flowers amongst the larger blooms to space them properly. Innocence, or everlasting love, Megumi thinks, and settles on the latter — Yuuji seems to be going for a theme.
“I like globe amaranth, too,” Yuuji adds, tucking in purple and white sprigs like tufts of dry lavender. Unfading love.
He darts off again to pick out something else and spins around with a goofy grin, holding the stem of an unusual pale green bloom. "How about a few green carnations?"
Homosexual love. Megumi snorts. "Sure."
Yuuji flits from corner to corner, wrapped up in his passion. It’s obvious who he holds in his heart while he makes the bouquet, with blossoms under his fingers and a dictionary of their meanings in his mind. Poetry from petals, meant just for Megumi, and a thousand ways Yuuji could think to say I'm not going anywhere.
“Ranunculus,” Yuuji decides. You are radiant with charms. He lifts a few of the smaller dense pink and purple blooms from their tin bucket to add to the bouquet, taking more baby’s breath from the bench and slotting it in where it looks best.
He turns to face Megumi, beaming. He is as sunny as the sunflowers near the front door and as lovely as the lily of the valley he keeps on the countertop. "Any special requests?"
Megumi’s affection melts into something deeper and more sincere. "Just one."
It doesn’t take him long to locate his choice; this particular flower is unmistakable. It’s pure white with a simple yet distinctive shape of five petals forming points, like a star. He hears the disarming intake of breath behind him as he comes to a stop in front of Yuuji’s stephanotis.
In the language of flowers, it has two meanings. The first is desire to travel, which Megumi suspects was only formally established as a thin veneer of plausible deniability. Or, perhaps, it might have something to do with honeymoons. Because the second interpretation — the one that Megumi chooses, the way that Megumi means to be understood —
Happiness in marriage.
They've talked about it. They've daydreamed about it and planned around it and complained about having to wait and exchanged ring sizes. It was just a matter of practicality, that's all; working towards the right time, the right place and stage of their lives, because it's been a long while since the two of them were ever in doubt. But now he and Yuuji are well and truly settled. The stability they've been holding out for is here all around them, in brick and mortar and beating hearts. The only thing left to do is ask.
Megumi turns around. Yuuji’s eyes are already shining with unshed tears. His bottom lip wobbles, and Megumi doesn’t know how he’s going to make it through his own speech without crying himself.
"Yes," Yuuji blubbers, taking a step forward. "Megumi, yes, I do, I will, I love you —"
"I haven't even asked the question yet," Megumi laughs. "Let me say it, I’ve been planning this for so long."
He picks up the visual diary he left in arm’s reach on Yuuji’s counter. The leather warms under his fingers, smooth and heirloom soft. All the months of toil it contains have, at last, amounted to this moment. He hopes Yuuji will get to see himself through the eyes of someone who adores him; he wants to capture just how much their life together means to him, through every day-to-day moment of it he treasures and notices. With a deep breath, Megumi finally hands the visual diary over to Yuuji.
“I’ve been thinking about getting a tattoo,” he begins, suddenly so nervous now that he’s speaking. “If you’re okay with it.”
The tattoo concept evolved through a series of constant iterations. Tweaked, refined, completely redesigned, he recorded its journey alongside its inspiration; a love letter written in the language of his art, the same way Yuuji speaks to him through floriography.
Slowly, Yuuji absorbs the journal's contents. Interspersed among countless plant studies are countless drawings of him. Some of them he posed for, but most of them are candid. It’s Yuuji with his coffee in the mornings, Yuuji cooking dinner in the evenings. Yuuji exploring the photo studio of Megumi’s tattoo parlour. Playing with their dogs. Tending to his flowers. Sleeping softly in the bed he shares with Megumi, haloed by a perfect patch of sunlight.
“I want your permission because it’s about you,” Megumi tells him. “Because I love you, and it’s about that too. Because it’ll be with me always, for better or worse. For richer, for poorer, in sickness and health —”
Yuuji laughs through a wet sniffle. He turns another page. The itadori plant keeps reappearing in the art like a leitmotif, pieces of it trailing over some furniture or curling around him in a comforting touch. Over and over again, Megumi strives to bring something to life in its stems and its leaves and its flowers.
“—To love, and to cherish,” Megumi continues through the lump in his throat. “All the days of my life.”
He pulls the ring box out of his pocket and his heart nearly stops when he almost drops it next, fumbling to open it with trembling fingers. Yuuji hardly notices. Engrossed in the illustrations, he can’t tear his eyes from the pages.
Taking the opportunity while Yuuji is distracted, Megumi sinks down on one knee.
When he reaches the end of the diary, Yuuji is suddenly breathless. On the left page is Megumi’s final tattoo design. A flowering itadori vine winds from his shoulder down to his wrist, covering his arm in a delicate sleeve. Leaves lay upon him like the touch of hands he knows so well. Clusters of flowers dust kisses along his skin. Megumi holds his breath as Yuuji stares at it, because that’s the crux of the whole body of work. That’s Yuuji, entwined and forever part of him, indelible on Megumi’s skin.
On the opposite page is the very last artwork of Yuuji himself, serene and surrounded by the itadori plant. He’s reaching out to brush a stalk of flowers with his left hand, and clearly visible on his fourth finger is a ring.
At long last, Yuuji looks up. Then he looks down, to where Megumi kneels in front of him.
“Itadori Yuuji,” Megumi barely manages to say. His heart is pounding. He feels like he’s going to faint. When he makes eye contact with Yuuji, and sees the tearful joy there, he can’t keep the smile off his face.
“Will you marry me?”
“Yes!” Yuuji cries, and he doesn’t waste a second in giving his answer. The incredible exhilaration of hearing it, the relief and elation that this moment is finally happening; everything swells in Megumi's chest as he takes Yuuji’s hand, still kneeling, and carefully slides the ring to its rightful place. It’s a perfect fit — he knew it would be — and it looks perfect on Yuuji's finger, and it’s only when the vision of it blurs in front of him that Megumi realises he’s crying too.
“I love you so much.” He wipes his eyes. He doesn’t think he’s ever been this happy. “So much.”
Yuuji pulls Megumi to his feet to hold him close and hug him tight. “I love you too,” he replies, muffled in the crook of Megumi’s neck.
“Would you be okay with me getting the sleeve done?”
“Megumi, I’d be honoured . It’s beautiful. That whole book, I — I don’t have the words, I don’t even know where to start.”
He’s just as lovely right now as he was each time Megumi admired him and drew him for that project. Megumi can’t help but give in and kiss him. Yuuji responds eagerly, deepening the kiss the way they’ve learned to with each other, the way they’ve done a thousand times before. It’s only when Megumi remembers that his proposal plans are still half finished that he breaks away.
“Here I am, asking you to marry me, and I didn’t even finish the engagement bouquet,” he laughs, shaking his head at himself. He fits the stephanotis into the rest of the arrangement, secures all the stems together with twine, and wraps the offering in cellophane paper with a ribbon. It’s not as neat as his fiancé could have managed, but Megumi has picked up the basics over the years.
His fiancé. His fiancé. That’s the best word in the world.
“I can’t believe you beat me to it,” Yuuji sniffles, accepting the flowers. “I had this whole plan to propose and surprise you.”
“Really?” Megumi steps closer, unwilling to be apart from him for long.
Yuuji nods. “When you did my tattoos, I was going to ask for one extra.” He takes Megumi’s hand and guides it so that Megumi’s fingers press down on his new ring. “Right here.”
Megumi sucks in a deep breath, and he feels the pressure of an emotional sob building in the back of his throat. He thinks of the infinite gentle, loving certainty in Yuuji’s eyes when he had asked him if he really wanted the tattoos. When Yuuji had responded with I do. It overwhelms him, and he doesn’t stand a chance of keeping his composure. His cheeks turn wet while he openly weeps, messily promising, “I can do that.”
Their foreheads touch over the flowers they hold between them. Their fingers tangle together around the stems of the stephanotis; the air sweetens with the scent of roses. He’s never cried from happiness like this before. Holding onto Yuuji, standing in a building whose namesake they’ll both get to share, everything feels like it’s falling into place. And underneath the tears he sheds, he’s bursting with excitement to say his vows, ink his skin and change his name to match. He never cared to be known as a Zenin, and soon he won’t be going by Fushiguro either.
He can’t wait to be Itadori Megumi. He likes the sound of that.