Chapter Text
The universe hadn't been the kindest to you.
To give credit where it was due, you'd admit that it did give you some things to be glad about. Sprinklings of joy in the winter weather, the perfect temperature of bath water, patience to practice things you enjoyed, smelling the crisp air of the oncoming spring paired with dew on new leaves. Things to be glad about, things to look forward to. but the universe – being an entity created by humans – was itself in the sense that it was cruel and took and took and took.
You didn't know the physics of it all – you didn't know the exact equation of the gravitational pull that led you into getting the strangest dreams at night with monsters with teeth that were the size of your torso, with ragged and haunting breaths that embodied death itself walking the earth as if it was theirs to take. The same equation, however, also gave you dreams of friends that would do the exact opposite of these giants. They'd smile and laugh and even if you couldn't remember their faces or their names by the time you awoke, you remembered that you were loved. You had to remember that you were loved. You didn't have much else.
Maybe it was the same damned equation with the same uneven answer that led to you getting accepted into the university with a familiar sounding name and an even familiar looking campus with large walls covered in vines and old architecture resting creakily on the ground, shops and café's lining up to remind the students that life still waited for them inside the gates.
One of these shops just so happened to have him.
The door to the flower shop opened the same way it always did, the scent of all the arrangements embracing you in their warmth. The bell rung to indicate your entrance and like clockwork, he looked up from his phone, his back straightening as if he hadn't expected to see you here even if you were here like the same clockwork.
In the surge of the new life you had gained access to along with your single dorm and limited possibilities, you decided to commemorate the occasion by buying one stem of flowers every alternate week. You couldn't bear to splurge on those fancy bouquets with adornments made form thermocol beads dipped glitter and those fancy looking wrappings, but you could spare some money to buy the singular flower. And of course, with all things you touched and saw, you craved meaning to be attached to them. The first week you bought them was the first week you saw him as well – you bought a singular tulip to which he flashed a mildly confused expression. You had explained yourself in part-anxiety and part-excitement of what you were planning on doing. he had smiled softly and wished you good luck.
You saw him many times after that.
"can I recommend one this time?" he asked, his voice deep and snapping you out of your reminiscence as you turned to him.
You didn't know his name; more like he hadn't told you his name. he never wore his name tag because he deemed it creepy for customers and non-regulars to know his personal information, and despite the fact that you didn't fit into either category, he still hadn't given you his name, telling you that you'd have to work for it instead, an obvious tease and way to challenge you. you had taken it with grace, and due to the lack of information, you resolved to calling him "flower boy".
His hair illuminated brightly, turning into gold threads as he stood in front of the bright afternoon sun, and even if the top of his hair was covered by a cap which you assumed was the only part of his uniform that he had to present, and a thin lipped smile that appeared every time he asked you a question that he had mulled over in his head. His brown eyes appeared even lighter with the light, disguising themselves as pools of honey rather then their deep, woody colour.
You shrugged, trying to act nonchalant, leaning on the counter with your forearms. "sure." His smile widened only slightly, and your nose tingled like you were going to sneeze but the action never followed. It happened every time you were near him – one of those unexplained phenomena that you believed foolishly as a child, that people only vanished in the Bermuda triangle because the universe was hungry, or that the ghosts that you were so scared of were only wants that were never fulfilled. Your nose tingled near flower boy because it wanted you, you excused.
He cleared his throat and pushed forward a small bouquet of five branches of flowers – deep purple with five petals and tightly packed on the stem, the tip littered with buds that were clambering to grow, tied with a bow made from twine. "they're called purple lilacs." He said, his hand fiddling with themselves on the table. "I don't know their meaning, but they – well, they're... they're pretty, and they reminded me of you." he speaks fast, as if he wants you to not know what he means, but you grab hold of the meaning as you always do before he can disregard it.
You give him a soft smile. "thank you," you say, taking the stems in your hand gently, turning them over to observe as you ignore a tingling in your heart that was similar to the one on your nose but warmer and far more familiar, and its ironic because your body has never felt familiar to you but this action does. The simple fact of him saving you something as if it was nothing makes more sense to you than your whole being.
Your smile turns into a teasing one, "so you think about me, flower boy?"
He scowls, leaning on the counter just as you had, "I told you not to call me that." He says, disregarding the first part of your assumptious statement, "im not some common market-boy. I have a name."
You stifle a laugh as your smile widens in a way that feels familiar. "market-boy? What does that even mean?"
he waves a hand around, unsure of what he's talking about himself, but you catch its meaning anyway, "you know, just some... some guy,"
"aren't we all just some guys?"
"well, I for one have a name."
"which you wont tell me."
"take me out to dinner first." he said, smirking as he looks at you and even if you want to believe him in his reality, you cant bring yourself to. no matter how familiar he makes you feel to yourself, your comforts lie in your hesitance on believing them.
"you'd like that, wouldn't you?" you ask, just as teasing, just as hesitant to know the answer as he was. He pulls away from the counter, a smile still on his face as he rolls his eyes.
"whatever makes you sleep better at night." He says, crossing his arms over themselves near his chest as if that would do anything to help the way his heart was fluttering.
in his delusions, it did. Keeping his arms near his body would mean that he could catch his heart before it flew to you like it wanted to.
Jean didn't know what made him so hesitant into believing you either. Maybe it was the fact that the person his dreams were etched around was still out there somewhere, searching for answers just as he was, feeling like the half of something better just as he was. He couldn't let them down, but he also couldn't let you down.
And yes, at first he thought he was going insane. When he was a toddler and experienced unexplained dreams of those monsters with eyes that seemed to never blink and always watch him, stare at him as he glided away from them, the giants that ripped his best friend in a clean half and crumpled up the rest of his comrades into an undigested pulp on the floors of unknown land. But then he met Marco, and everything made sense. Marco jutted his arm out on the first day of middle school and introduced himself, fixing his crooked glasses on his nose, telling jean of his name and all of a sudden a piece of the puzzle made sense. Jean told Marco his own name and watched as Marco also connected the dots, filled in a part of the page that was ripped out from jean's hands. And then, soon enough, he met Sasha and Connie in high school, and he felt the page being glued back to the book, filling out the pages in ink. But half of his book was still left unsaid and unknown and he knew – he believed because he had to – that it had to be this stranger in his dreams, the other half of himself that he was sure was somewhere and he just wasn't looking hard enough.
And yet here he was. Seemingly flirting with you. jean felt almost ashamed of himself.
but he knew you. over the three months you had collected flowers, you also collected parts of him that he wished he could've kept just for himself. And selfishly, jean kept his name from you because he didn't want to know the answer. He didn't want to be let down if it wasn't you who kept dreaming about, and it made him feel disgusted in himself. But it was only natural how he was feeling. He couldn't help it. His heart had always been soft, always been somewhere separate from his body, on his sleeve where it was far easier to access.
and of course, because you were you – beautiful and human and far more real than the stranger in his dreams – you also kept your name from him.
He sighed with a smile still on his face as he pretended to ring you up. You looked at the purple lilacs in your hands with wonder and a small smile of your own. Jean tried not to stare at you too much. You eyelashes caught the light of the sun when you blinked, your lips a little chapped and beautiful and human and real, and he catches your voice when you whisper, "they're beautiful," and he agrees. You are.
He clears his throat. "it's on the house."
Your head snaps up, brows furrowed just as he looks away. "what? Why?" you ask. Jean shrugs, copying your action from when you first entered the store today, trying to act nonchalant. "'cause, uh, I mean, you- well, it came in with a big wedding order. Its not something we sell without request and there were a couple extra, and y'know. Yeah." He says, the tips of his ears growing warm and he prays that you don't see how he lies even though he knows you catch it anyway because you're you. he doesn't tell you how he kept them aside just for you even if Petra had told him that they were quiet an expensive investment.
You breathe out a small laugh. "alright. Whatever you say, flower boy." You say, and jean exhales the breath he had been holding.
jean realizes how much he enjoys going against the morals he's been raised on when he relishes on the selfish butterflies he feels when you call him that nickname. Worse than all the sins in the world, jean thinks, because he keeps thinking about how it makes him feel and how its kind of a silly nickname but its only silly because you're the only one who calls him that and he's the only one who gets to be called it. Its only silly because its makes him feel.
"again with the name," he says, his hands folding on top of his chest again, fighting the tingles in his heart and all over his lungs.
"im not going to pay for your dinner-"
"well, then, prepare to call me flower boy for the rest of your life, poppy." The endearment tumbles from his lips before he can stop it, and your grin widens in surprise as you squint at him like he's just confessed to the selfishness that he was beating himself up about. He cant help it – his nickname for you formed after the second time you came into the shop and purchased a branch of poppy and he looked at the stem and then at you and it just made sense.
A laugh bubbles up from your own lips, "poppy?" you question.
"yeah – well, you wouldn't tell me your name and keep calling me flower boy-"
"as opposed to what? Should I call you Mr. worldwide?"
"yes, actually, id like that." He says and your laughter spreads across his chest like fast-growing vines, and he has to laugh out of compulsion, he has to laugh to let out his breath as his chest constricted.
"im not calling you that," you remark. He shrugs, "suit yourself."
Jean watches as you pull away one of the stems, placing it on the counter. "here." you say, presenting it to him.
its embarrassing how quickly his cheeks turn as red as your namesake, "for me?"
You hum in confirmation, "for you. don't worry, its on the house." You say, mimicking his statement with a smile. Flower boy took your peace offering and nodded, not looking up. You glanced behind him, the clock reading 4:37 – alerting you that your shift for work was going to being soon and you'd have to leave – an action that jean observed.
"I have to-" "yeah," he says, softly and it almost sounds like a plea. You ignore the tingling in your nose again, as you smile.
Before leaving the safe comfort of the four floral walls of the shop, you turn, "bye, flower boy." You say, waving your hand lightly.
Jean has to put his hand to his chest to calm himself down.
He'd give you a daffodil next time, he thinks.