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If you looked at the flowers on the balcony next to Kuroo’s, you could immediately tell that the person growing them did so with love and care. Multiple pots with blooming flowers, vibrant green and pretty colours during summer. And even now during wintertime, they looked like they were being maintenanced with passion.
Sometimes, he watched his neighbour tend to his flowers from his kitchen window. There was a look of satisfaction and peace on his face whenever he was surrounded by them, he looked like he was in his natural terrain. A tall blond guy with glasses and a usually stern face. Kuroo knew that he sometimes even talked to his flowers.
From the name plate on his door, Kuroo also knew that his name was Tsukishima. But that was basically all he knew about him, his name and that he liked flowers. Maybe that he wasn’t really talkative. But maybe he was just shy. Kuroo spent too much time wondering about him.
And if there would ever be an opportunity to talk to him, to actually get to know him, Kuroo definitely would.
Whenever he saw the mail delivery truck in front of the apartment complex, he hoped that his day had finally come, that Tsukishima was expecting a parcel or something and wasn’t home, so he as the next door neighbour could accept it for him.
--
His prayers were answered on a Wednesday afternoon in early December.
The doorbell of Kuroo’s apartment rang in the evening, he walked past the mirror to check if his hair wasn’t looking too bad and glanced at the small cardboard box on the ground. A smirk found its way onto his face.
When he opened the door, the person in front of him was, as he had expected, a tall blond man, glasses and a stern face. In his hand, he held a small yellow sheet.
“Good evening, I think my parcel got delivered to you since I wasn’t home in the afternoon?” His voice sounded nicer than Kuroo had imagined. When he locked eyes with him, Tsukishima scratched the back of his head.
“Oh, yes. Wait, I’ll get it real quick,” Kuroo said and turned around to pick up the box from the ground. It was small and light, and he wondered what it contained. He wondered what other things Tsukishima liked to do besides gardening.
“Thank you, I didn’t want to cause any trouble for you.”
Kuroo’s smile widened. He ran his hand through his hair as he handed him the box. “Oh, it’s no big deal, really.”
This was his big chance, the opportunity he had waited for. The moment he had prayed for. How many times had he played out scenarios in which they had a nice conversation, in which he gave Tsukishima smooth compliments, in which he asked him out on a date? And yet, in his actual presence, he suddenly couldn’t think of what to say.
His heartrate accelerated at the thought that his big chance was as good as over and he hadn’t said more than 15 words and none of them were even close to smooth compliments.
“So, uhm,” he stammered, trying to think of something to say so that Tsukishima would at least not leave just yet.
It was terribly awkward.
Tsukishima didn’t move, he looked at Kuroo and then at his parcel. His fingers rubbed over the cardboard, and even though he looked tense and pretty much the opposite of comfortable, he kept standing in front of Kuroo’s door.
He couldn’t remember any of the smooth lines and compliments he had thought of in his head. He couldn’t think of anything at all, actually. Never had his head felt this blank.
“I like your flowers,” was what he came up with in the end.
“Thank you,” Tsukishima replied. The tension in his shoulders loosened up a bit.
“Would you maybe like to go out with me? On a date?”
Kuroo felt ridiculous immediately after he had asked – it came out even more awkwardly than it had sounded in his head, even more awkwardly than he had felt before saying it. They had been living next to each other for about a year now and had never talked before. He was being too blunt.
But he was way too nervous and he was running out of time to save his big chance, so he had simply said the first thing that he could think of, brain-to-mouth filter discarded and long forgotten.
To his surprise, Tsukishima didn’t walk away, he didn’t roll his eyes, he didn’t even laugh. He looked at him for a second as if he was trying to figure out if he was being serious and then he nodded.
“Yes, sure,” he said.
It took him a moment to process those words.
--
When Kuroo closed the door, he let out a cry of joy. Then he realised that Tsukishima could probably still hear him.
--
Kuroo looked at the flowers in the shop. His understanding of flowers was limited. He found them pretty and he could keep plants in his apartment without killing them.
The idea to get Tsukishima flowers for their date had been spontaneous. Otherwise he would have looked up some flower meanings or at least spent some time thinking about what flowers to get. But he had walked past that flower shop and he had remembered the happy face Tsukishima had on his face when he was looking after his flowers and there had been an idea, something like a plan.
He didn’t even know if he should get him flowers in a pot or in a bouquet.
--
Tsukishima was sitting at his kitchen table even though he felt like pacing up and down his living room. Kuroo would be in front of his door in a couple of minutes. He was getting nervous.
They weren’t going to do anything special, getting food at some restaurant around the corner that Kuroo apparently liked. And just because Kuroo had asked him out on a date, it didn’t even have to mean anything. Yet, his heart was beating faster than it should and he was starting to feel dizzy.
So far, he had been on two dates, but neither of them had gone all too well.
His problem was rather simple: he was either too nervous and timid, or he wasn’t. And when he wasn’t, he had a tendency to be harsh, sarcastic, maybe a bit mean. That wasn’t exactly a thing that made a good impression on a first date, he knew that much.
Tsukishima was playing with his hands when Kuroo rang his doorbell. He took a deep breath and walked towards the door with slow steps.
Kuroo was wearing a black shirt and jeans, his clothes looked neat and ironed, as if he had spent hours making sure there wasn’t a single fault in them. Meanwhile his hair looked like he had just rolled out of bed.
“Hi,” he said. He was hiding something behind his back, and when Tsukishima smiled at him nervously, Kuroo handed him a small pot.
It was a flower pot with a light blue ribbon wrapped around it. In it dark greens and delicate white petals forming chalices. Datura inoxia, from the family of nightshades. Moonflower, blooms in the evening and at night.
“How did you know these are my favourite?” he asked and looked at the white flowers.
Kuroo laughed, his face slightly flushed. “I chose them because they reminded me of you.”
He put them onto his kitchen table. “Highly Poisonous?”
“No, very pretty and looking a bit fragile. Also because they are called moonflower.”
--
“So what else do you like to do?” Kuroo was smiling at him, even though it looked more like a smirk. But from the times Tsukishima had watched him standing on his balcony in the morning with a cup of coffee in his hands and stretching his broad shoulders, he had come to the conclusion that it was simply his face.
“What else?” he asked and rubbed his thumb over the droplets of water that had condensed on the cold glass of his drink.
“What else besides gardening, I mean.”
“What makes you think I like gardening?” he asked.
He thought it was a pretty lame hobby, nothing someone would mention on a first date, nothing that could impress anyone. And he really hated to admit that he probably had a closer relationship with his plants than with most people. But his flowers didn’t judge him and his flowers listened to him. His flowers were patient with him. Just as he was with them.
“Are you serious?” Kuroo laughed. “I can see your flowers, you know? Also I see you taking care of them every day.”
“Oh,” he said and bit his lower lip.
“It’s actually pretty cute.”
So far, no one had called his hobby ‘cute’. His mother and old ladies in the neighbourhood had called it ‘nice’. Back in high school, when some of his classmates had found out about it, they had called it ‘boring’, ‘lame’ or ‘girly’.
“You think so?” he asked.
His smile was soft and radiated warmth. “You put a lot of time and dedication into your flowers and they look like they mean a lot to you. I don’t know about others, but I think that’s really cute. And cool.”
“Thank you.”
“Well, Tsukki, what other interesting hobbies do you have?” Kuroo propped his chin onto his hands and looked at him.
He had to think for a bit. Saying that he didn’t really have other hobbies besides his balcony-garden would sound like he was boring, saying he was too busy with college and work too. He never realised that he was that dull. He sighed.
“I like music. And I used to play volleyball in high school.”
“Oh, really? Me too, actually! What position?”
“Middle blocker.”
“Seriously? Same here!”
Kuroo was getting excited and Tsukishima wasn’t sure if having a conversation with him about volleyball would be the best choice. For some reason, he wanted to make a good impression on Kuroo.
“I don’t really have time for it anymore, though. But damn, I didn’t think you’d play volleyball too. Then again, you’ve got the height for it.”
“Played,” he corrected carefully.
They got quiet, Tsukishima looked at his napkin and Kuroo at him.
“How about you, what do you like?” he asked after a while.
“Well, volleyball. Sports in general. I’m kinda into photography too.”
Kuroo definitely sounded more interesting than Tsukishima felt that he was himself.
“And promise you won’t laugh, but I really like baking.”
--
Their date went better than Tsukishima would have expected it to go, even though it probably hadn’t been a good date.
But from the now three dates he had been to, it had been by far the best.
--
He spotted Tsukishima on his balcony again a couple of days after their date.
They had been texting ever since. Kuroo called it texting even though it was mostly him complaining about his studies and Tsukishima sending short replies. If it wasn’t for the fact that he never had to wait more than two minutes for a reply, he would have thought Tsukishima didn’t want to text him. But the replies came with a speed that made Kuroo feel like he was sitting in front of his phone, expecting his texts.
Kuroo had been waiting for Tsukishima to be on his balcony, he had been hoping for a good chance to talk to him again. Of course, he could have just texted him if he wanted to hang out, but something told him that this wasn’t the way to his heart.
He opened the door and got outside. “Looking after your flowers again?” he said and leaned onto the railing.
Tsukishima turned around to face him. “Hello, Kuroo,” he said.
“How are we today, Tsukki?”
“You know, the usual. Coming home from classes to water some plants and put some fertilizer into my geraniums.”
“Sounds like a really sweet afternoon. I mean you could also be coming home from classes and change between waiting for your sweet neighbour to get onto his balcony and trying to memorise like five different aetiological models of PTSD, but see, each to his own.”
The small smile that made its way onto Tsukishima’s face, the way he rolled his eyes at him while the smile got wider, it was enough to make up for all the stress the day had brought. A smile, and he felt like he thought Tsukishima must be feeling when he was in between his flowers.
“You sound like you want to complain,” Tsukishima said as continued to water his plants.
“I can always complain. I am studying, Tsukki. I don’t even know where I should start with complaining.”
“I’m all ears.”
“Seriously?”
“No, but I can’t stop you anyways.”
He laughed, watched Tsukishima’s routine motion. He always started on the left of his balcony when he watered his plants and finished on the right side, the side of Kuroo’s balcony. Some of his plants got watered every day, others were skipped every other or third day. He wondered if there was a special reason behind this routine or if he just liked doing things in a certain order.
There were in fact a lot of things he would love to know about Tsukishima.
When he noticed that Tsukishima was actually waiting for him to start talking again, he took a deep breath. “You know what I hate? Yes, right: aetiological models. You know why? Because there are too many. Also they are all kinda the same but also completely different. It’s really annoying.”
Tsukishima hummed in response.
“You know what else I hate?”
“What?”
“Autoregressive models.”
“Pardon?”
“Test theory.”
“Fascinating.”
“Trust me, if it was fascinating I wouldn’t be complaining.”
He put down his watering can and looked at Kuroo. “I see.”
“Can I at least get some sympathy?”
Tsukishima laughed and shook his head. He walked to the railing of his own balcony, leaned against it. Kuroo was slightly stunned by that, by their proximity. There was still a gap of at least an arm length between them and yet he felt like they were suddenly incredibly close. His heart was pounding in his chest.
“Ah, I remember, highly poisonous.”
“What?” His glasses had slid down on his nose, he looked at Kuroo from over the black frame. His smile was somewhat sharp and he really had something of a poisonous flower in that moment. Even though hostility was the last thing Kuroo felt coming from Tsukishima in that second.
“The moonflower. You said it was poisonous.”
--
Kuroo and Tsukishima had lived next to each other for approximately a year without actually running into each other.
Kuroo had been hoping that they would meet in the hallway someday, it had been the other scenario in his head for how they could have started to get to know each other. But after months and months of him hearing Tsukishima’s door while he still had at least an hour until he had to leave and getting home to either seeing Tsukishima on his balcony already or a dark apartment next door, he had given up on that.
He didn’t quite understand how he managed to run into Tsukishima that often after they already had started to talk frequently.
He wanted to say after he and Tsukishima became friends, maybe. Or whatever state they were in.
--
Tsukishima wasn’t in a really good mood. He walked towards the front door of the apartment complex and he wasn’t sure if he wanted to run into Kuroo right now or if his dorky smirk was the last thing he needed.
There was something - probably his confidence, his charisma - that was really soothing about Kuroo. The fact that it felt pretty close to effortless when he talked to Kuroo. His lame jokes that made him laugh. The fact that Kuroo was simply really good at conversations. He had a pace that was easy to get caught up with.
“I guess it’s my poisonous little moonflower again?”
Speaking of the devil was probably the right term for that kind of situation, but his sonorous voice alone was enough to make him feel a bit better.
“Did you just call me moonflower?”
His grin was terrible. He looked so pleased with himself, he caught up with Tsukishima and walked next to him. Their shoulders were almost touching.
“I sure did,” he said. “You’re looking more grim than usual. What happened? Is one of your flowers sick?”
“You are aware that I have a lot of other things in my head besides my flowers?”
“Don’t worry, I know, I know. So what’s troubling you?”
There were a lot of little things troubling him. Most of them insignificantly little, it was the sum of them that dragged his mood down. The weather, some assignments he had to work on, public transport and unfriendly people.
“My favourite band is going to be in town, but since I know no one who’s into them as well, I probably won’t go.”
He didn’t know why he had decided to tell Kuroo about that little thing in particular, it was not like he wanted Kuroo to go with him. Actually he somehow did, but he also felt like it wasn’t appropriate to ask him.
“Oh?” Kuroo stopped and tilted his head.
“What?”
“I’ll go with you.”
“You don’t even know what band I want to see.”
“If they are your favourite, they’re probably good. I trust your taste in music.”
“You never asked what kind of music I like. What if I’m into country music? Men in flannels singing about tractors?”
“Then I would start to really question my ability to judge character, but I’d still go with you.”
Whenever Kuroo laughed, he tossed his head back. Also his smirk looked slightly crooked. His hair was a terrible mess. It was a mystery to Tsukishima how he found all those things endearing.
“I hope thistle make you feel better.”
“Please never do that again.”
“You don’t like flower puns?”
A real mystery. For some reason he even thought they were funny.
--
Tsukishima was thankfully not into country music and guys in flannels singing about tractors. Indie rock was more what Kuroo would have expected to be the things Tsukishima listened to in his free time, and he tapped his fingers onto his laptop to the beat of the music, listening to songs of some Canadian indie band he never had heard of before.
He laughed but he thought it was strangely fitting – Tsukishima’s favourite band being called Half Moon Run.
--
“I am well prepared for tonight,” Kuroo told him as a greeting.
Tsukishima raised an eyebrow and closed his apartment door behind him.
“I was listening to Half Moon Run a lot these days.” He crossed his arms behind his head and walked towards the staircase with big and broad steps. “And I’m still not over the fact that your favourite band has the word moon in their name.”
“That is pure coincidence.”
“Tsukki, do you feel like you need to tell me something?”
He wouldn’t admit it probably, but he liked the way that Kuroo said his name. The naturalness with which he had started to shorten his name, the joking undertone he had when he called him ‘moonflower’.
“Like what?”
“I don’t know, your name is Tsukishima, your favourite flower is the moonflower, your favourite band is called Half Moon Run. Are you secretly a werewolf?”
Kuroo stood in front of him, crooked smirk on his face.
“Definitely. Did you fall onto your head today?”
He tried to look serious and he tried not to laugh. He shouldn’t laugh. He didn’t know how it must look like inside of Kuroo’s mind, how he came up with things like that.
“I was joking,” he said and put an arm around Tsukishima’s shoulder.
For a second, he thought his heart would stop beating right then, right when Kuroo’s skin touched his. It didn't stop beating, and if it did, then just for a moment. It started beating again. Faster than usual.
“I am aware,” he said. It took him a great deal of effort not to let his flustered state be reflected in his voice.
“But jokes aside, werewolf, yes or no?”
“No?”
“Other supernatural creature?”
“No.”
“What a pity.”
--
Tsukishima sure looked cute when he was singing along to his favourite songs. His expression was a completely different one, not his stern and cold default expression, not the sharp sarcastic smile that made Kuroo think of a poisonous flower. Not the serene and happy expression he had when he was looking after his flowers. And not the slightly flustered thing between a smile and a glare that he had when they were interacting in a way that Kuroo probably would describe as flirting.
--
He walked next to Tsukishima and he didn’t say a word.
Words were the last thing he was thinking of, he was thinking of the concert, of Tsukishima’s face. He was thinking about the hand dangling down next to his, as if it was inviting him to take it.
Kuroo brushed over the back of Tsukishima’s hand with his knuckles to see if he would flinch or pull away.
He didn’t.
Stretched out his pinkie, interlaced it with Tsukishima’s. A gulp, Tsukishima turning his face into the other direction, but he didn’t move away.
Maybe he would be daring and take his hand. As soon as he’d feel that Tsukishima was ready for that. As soon as he’d feel ready for that himself. They still had some way left until they would reach the apartment complex.
--
Kuroo was biting his lip as they stood in front of Tsukishima’s door. He hadn’t dared to take his hand in the end. And he was starting to regret that, he would have loved to know how Tsukishima’s palm fit into his.
“So, I guess that’s goodnight?” he said and played with the hem of his shirt.
“Goodnight,” Tsukishima said. He looked at his feet. Then he took out his keys out of the pocket of his jeans.
“I had a really good time tonight,” Kuroo said.
This was probably the kind of moment where in the movies, you would kiss your date goodnight. But Kuroo was very well aware that his life was not some romantic comedy. And he was also very well aware that after failing to take Tsukishima’s hand for the entity of their fifteen minute walk from the station to the apartment complex, he would be skipping a couple of steps if he did. He had come to the conclusion that Tsukishima should be handled with care.
“Me too,” Tsukishima said, keys already in the keyhole.
“If you ever need someone to accompany you to a concert again, don’t hesitate to ask.”
“I will,” he said, turned the keys, opened the door.
And then he turned around, it happened in the blink of an eye, too fast that Kuroo could have seen it coming.
Tsukishima placed a hand onto his shoulder and kissed his cheek. Short, his lips just softly brushing over his skin.
Kuroo was staring into the direction where Tsukishima had been standing, even after he had closed his apartment door behind him.
--
When Kuroo got home from classes the day after the concert, he found a single flower on his doorstep.
A dark pink rose, not yet in full bloom. Even though he was sure that Tsukishima didn’t have roses on his balcony, he knew that no one besides him could have put it there.
Kuroo put it into a glass because he didn’t have a vase at home, smiled at it.
He was pretty sure that if Tsukishima gave him a flower, it had something to say.
--
Sometimes Tsukishima found it hard to let people know the exact things he was feeling, the things he wanted to say.
A dark pink rose said ‘thank you’ – and maybe it would be a better thank you than when he’d say it to Kuroo himself.
--
“You never mentioned that you cook,” Kuroo said as he sat at Tsukishima’s kitchen table.
“I see cooking more as a means to fulfil a basic human need than any sort of pastime. So that is probably why.”
Kuroo laughed. There was some sort of tension in the air of his apartment, and Tsukishima could not actually pinpoint if it was because he was so tense or if it was the tension that had built up between them ever since the concert. A tension that would only need a spark to ignite, a bud that was only a few moments away from blooming. Tsukishima wondered where they were heading.
Actually, he knew, he could tell. But he couldn’t really wrap his mind around it.
He liked Kuroo. And Kuroo seemed to like him. There was so much room for things to go wrong still, so many things about them that didn’t make sense. Why Kuroo liked him in the first place probably. If he was ready for the things that were growing between them. He couldn’t even say if he would be ready to kiss Kuroo, even though the thought flashed through his mind quite frequently.
But here he was, cooking for him. After spending hours over hours with wondering what Kuroo might like and what would leave a good impression without looking like he was trying too hard. Inviting him to his place, hoping that it would be a good way to spend time with him.
“It’s still incredibly cute,” Kuroo said. He was tipping the edge of his empty glass onto the table, turned it around in his hand over and over again.
“Why is everything I do cute to you?” he asked. He stirred through the sauce on the stove.
“That’s because everything about you is cute, little moonflower.”
Sometimes it took only a couple of words from Kuroo, sometimes just a touch. But whatever it was that threw him off balance, the result was always similar: the feeling of blood rushing to his face, his heartrate accelerating. He couldn’t say if it had been the way Kuroo had called him cute or the way Kuroo had called him moonflower. The sweet affection in his voice.
--
Kuroo was probably staring, but Tsukishima didn’t seem to notice. He was too lost in his story and Kuroo was lost in Tsukishima’s gestures, his facial expressions and the sound of his voice. That little something that was shimmering in his eyes.
He was talking about his flowers, about flowers in general. About how he got into gardening. He had never heard him talk like that, that openly and that much.
“At first I was just helping my mother, pulling up weeds and watering some plants. I was still pretty young, maybe five or six. And at some point I started to plant my own flowers. I asked if I could get some seeds, and planted them. I remember how I went out into the garden every day to see if they had already started to grow. I don’t really know when I started to talk to my flowers, though.”
Tsukishima took a sip of water and chuckled nervously. He probably had gotten carried away with his story and was feeling embarrassed now, but it made Kuroo laugh a bit.
“So, what are you telling them? Don’t worry I don’t think it’s weird. My grandmother used to say that if you talk to your flowers, they’ll flourish.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed. “Nothing special to be honest. How my day went. The news. Whatever I have on my mind.”
Kuroo was feeling confident. After Tsukishima kissing him on the cheek, after the flower on his doorstep, he felt like he didn’t have to tiptoe around him that much anymore. He was still cautious, but he was also someone who liked a calculated risk.
“You told them anything about me?”
Tsukishima stared at him. “What if I did?”
“Depends on what you said.”
“I told them that I have this weird neighbour who makes bad puns and lame jokes and who has a terrible bedhead. Also that this neighbour likes to whine and complain and is in general kind of annoying.”
“I feel deeply wounded,” Kuroo said and placed his hand flat onto his heart. He let out a dramatic sigh.
“But I also told them that said neighbour is actually very kind, oddly funny and a nice person to talk to.”
He smiled. Calculated risk was something that tended to pay off for him.
“Do you want some dessert?” Tsukishima asked.
“You made dessert too?”
Tsukishima was a pretty decent cook, the evening had proven that much. It fitted pretty well into the image of Tsukishima that Kuroo had in his head. The sheer effort that he had put into everything though, that was what startled Kuroo and put a smirk onto his face.
“Yes. My favourite.”
“And which one could that be?”
“Guess.” He walked towards the fridge.
Kuroo thought about it for a couple of seconds. Tsukishima didn’t come off as someone with a sweet tooth to him. Then again, he didn’t come off as someone who talked to his flowers as well and yet he did.
“Something chocolaty?”
“Wrong.”
“Crème brûlée?”
“Still cold.”
“Tiramisu?”
“I don’t like Tiramisu, actually.”
He sighed. Kuroo made a mental note about the Tiramisu, because Tsukishima was not the only one who had thought about impressing the other with a dinner.
“Give me a hint.”
“It’s a cake.”
“Red velvet?” A wild guess, but he hoped the best. Red velvet cake was his speciality.
Tsukishima laughed. “Strawberry shortcake.”
--
At some point of the evening Tsukishima wondered if he was already a hopeless case. He enjoyed Kuroo’s presence, his jokes. The teasing.
Sometimes their feet brushed against each other under the table.
They sat together way longer than Tsukishima had expected they would. Time was flying, the hours went by like seconds.
Kuroo’s hand was on his, he didn’t remember how it had ended up there.
--
“I should probably go now, it has gotten pretty late,” Kuroo said and looked at the clock on Tsukishima’s kitchen wall. He had no idea how they had ended up sitting there until 2 am. He didn’t mind, though. Not at all.
“Oh, yeah,” Tsukishima said. He interlaced their fingers.
It felt as if Tsukishima’s hand had been made to fit right into Kuroo’s. His long fingers were cold, colder than his palm. It was a weird feeling, he felt lightheaded, he felt like he was drunk.
“We should do that again sometimes, though,” Kuroo said.
“That would be nice,” he said.
“Well then.”
If he was honest, he didn’t want to leave. He didn’t want to get up, he didn’t want to take his hand away from Tsukishima’s. They were getting somewhere and he wasn’t sure if they would be able to pick up right there again.
Maybe it was just the magic of that moment and he would destroy it. There was a weird blend of comfort and tension in between them. A natural comfort that came of their interaction. And a tension that said ‘there are still things to come’.
That tension was giving him butterflies in his stomach and a tingly feeling in his chest.
If he could get up without letting go of Tsukishima’s hand, if he could get to the door without losing that magic? He felt like maybe, he could go for another calculated risk.
With his heartbeat reaching heights that were probably unhealthy, and his palms growing sweaty, he weighed the pros and cons of every possible action he could take in this situation.
He got up without letting go of Tsukishima’s hand. The magic lasted. He bit his lip. Things were going well.
Kuroo was facing Tsukishima, still in front of the kitchen table where they had spent the last hours. There were a lot of pros and he couldn’t think of that many cons. The distance between them melted away, slowly. With each heartbeat, they got closer one fraction of a centimetre at a time.
Maybe it was his imagination, but it wasn’t only him who was moving closer.
His hands were on Tsukishima’s waist as their lips met.
There wasn’t more to their kiss than to the kiss that Tsukishima had breathed onto Kuroo’s cheek at first, their lips didn’t meet for more than a second. Kuroo was about to move away again but then there were Tsukishima’s arms around his neck, his lips on his again, this time more than just a brush of them.
His knees were weak when he pulled away at last.
“Thanks for the nice evening,” Tsukishima said. His voice was soft. His voice was hoarse.
“I’m the one who should thank you,” Kuroo said.
--
If he had to describe his state of mind, it would have been walking on air.
--
A gardenia, the petals in a velvety white. A single flower on Kuroo’s doorstep once again. When Tsukishima put it down, he felt a bit weird, as if he was doing something forbidden. He was nervous.
He wasn’t fully sure what he wanted to say with the flower. Well, he knew what a gardenia meant, he had chosen it with thought. But he wasn’t sure if Kuroo was aware that it wasn’t just a flower to him, not just a simple gift.
Additionally, he didn’t know yet what the gardenia meant for him. He was getting second thoughts. The rose had been something simpler, a thank you, it hadn’t been anything to be nervous about. But a flower that meant ‘You are lovely’ and told a message of secret love?
He wasn’t sure which part of the meaning was giving him the second thoughts.
--
Tsukishima opened his mailbox and found a small red card in it. There was a picture of some blooming red poppies on it, and the words “in a field of the prettiest flowers I’d still pick you” printed over it in comic sans.
The inside just had a heart drawn with sharpie and Kuroo’s name.
When he got onto his balcony, he found the cuplrit already leaning over the railing.
“That’s the third Valentine’s card. And I need to tell you, the others were more creative.”
Kuroo winked and blew him a kiss.
“You never said I should stop though,” he said with a smirk.
“Well,” he moved to the railing of his balcony. He was facing Kuroo, maybe if he would lean over enough he might even be able to kiss him. He was surprised by himself, he had grown strangely used to being around Kuroo. Strangely used to being this close. And even though he had been worrying if he was even ready for that level of affection, he was craving it more than he could have imagined. Maybe he wasn’t as bad at this as he had thought.
He told himself it was because they never gave it a name, because they were still dancing around actually talking about it.
It was making him insecure too, though. It was hard knowing where you were at when you didn’t know what you had.
“I still have a couple of them up my sleeve.” Kuroo stretched out his arm, brushed over the back of Tsukishima’s hand with his index finger. “Also there is still a couple of days until Valentine’s Day.”
“So there will be more cards,” he said.
“Definitely.”
And then they fell into silence, with Kuroo drawing patterns onto the back of Tsukishima’s hand, soft and simple touch, glances and smiles. It was a thing they could do for quite a while, they already had. Tsukishima liked that their silence wasn’t awkward.
“Do you want to come over?” Kuroo asked after a while.
“Right now?”
“Right now.”
He hummed.
--
Tsukishima sat on his bed, trying to figure out if Kuroo was expecting him to do something special for Valentine’s Day, if he was waiting for something.
There was also this nagging thought in the back of his head, because they weren’t actually dating, they were just hanging out a lot and they had kissed a few times.
He tried to look at it from a matter of fact point of view. Tried to sort out puzzle pieces in his head.
His glance fell onto the collection of cards Kuroo had put into his mailbox. Maybe he should send him a card as well. But he couldn’t think of anything to write. Telling Kuroo that he liked him sounded weird to him and anything along the lines of ‘I appreciate your presence’ sounded too wooden and stiff.
Maybe that was the problem in the first place, that he didn’t know what he wanted and what he felt. Or that he did and just didn’t know what to do with that knowledge.
He sighed and got up. He still had some flowers to water.
--
The final card was the hardest. So far, he had only signed them and drawn a heart into them. But the last one, it had to be special. He didn’t even know what he was doing. He never had been a fan of Valentine’s Day. And never in his life had he spent time thinking about writing a Valentine’s Day card. But there he was, sitting at his desk, chewing on the back of his pen and thinking about what he should write.
He was a hopeless romantic after all.
No matter how he looked at it, confessing his feelings through a card felt lame. But he was slightly scared of what Tsukishima would say if he’d say it face to face. Assuming he would get those words out if the first place.
--
When he opened the door of his apartment, what he saw was Tsukishima putting down a flower onto his doorstep again.
“Tsukki?”
He had stopped the second he had heard the door open, and slowly, he was straightening up, flower in hand. A red flower, a red tulip to be precise.
“Now this is awkward,” he said.
“I was just about to go over too, actually,” Kuroo said and rubbed the back of his neck.
“Oh.”
“Happy Valentine’s Day,” he said. He took a step towards Tsukishima, kissed him.
For a second, the other froze in place but then he kissed back, he let his hands slide down Kuroo’s back and parted his lips.
Kuroo pulled him in closer, carefully because of the flower. His hand wandered into Tsukishima’s hair.
Tsukishima always tasted sweet when he kissed him. He thought it was funny, because he had been wrong about Tsukishima not having a sweet tooth.
“I really like you,” he said as they parted. He looked into Tsukishima’s amber eyes and took a deep breath. “In fact, it’s more than that. I kinda love you. Not kinda.” He pressed a kiss onto the corner of Tsukishima’s mouth. “I love you.”
Tsukishima glanced at the ground and took his hands off Kuroo’s back. Maybe it had been too much after all. But then his he handed him the tulip.
“A red tulip,” he said and gulped. “Can mean something like a declaration of love.”
Inside of Kuroo, it felt like the sun was rising. A bright and warm feeling of happiness spreading in his chest. He kissed Tsukishima again.
“I love you, my beautiful moonflower,” he whispered against his lips.
“I love you too.”
--
How easy it had been for Kuroo to win his heart, how easy it had been to fall in love.
And how hard it had been to actually say it, how many second thoughts he had had.
He cursed himself for that, because the sound of Kuroo saying “I love you” was nicer than everything he had heard so far.
--
Then again, he still felt like he didn’t know anything.
He just found himself looking forward to sitting next to Kuroo, to resting his head in Kuroo’s lap and having him play with his hair.
It was something he hadn’t known about himself, how much he enjoyed little things like that, how much he liked the warmth of Kuroo’s touch. How fond he had gotten of Kuroo’s scent.
And how hard it was to go a couple of days without that.
With exams coming up, with him being busy and Kuroo being even busier. And his problem wasn’t that he couldn’t go over and study at Kuroo’s place or that Kuroo couldn’t study at his place. He actually felt like that was something the two of them would be able to do, each of them doing their own thing while being together.
It was just that he didn’t know how to ask for it.
--
Missing someone who was right next door was a terrible thing, Kuroo noticed.
Worse than crushing on someone next door you didn’t know.
Way worse.
--
“I’ve missed you, you know that,” he said and pulled Tsukishima into his lap.
“I’ve been right next door all the time.”
Kuroo cupped his cheek with his hand and kissed him. “Yeah, but it doesn’t matter if it’s only a wall or a thousand miles that’s between us.”
“You could have asked me to come over,” he said. There was something sharp in his voice.
“You could have done the same,” he said and kissed his nose. He didn’t want to argue. He had spent too many days behind his books and his notes, he had been stressed about exams and his week hadn’t been the best. He just wanted to make up for the time he hadn’t been able to spend with Tsukishima.
Tsukishima didn’t say anything, but he didn’t lean into his touch like he usually did either.
Kuroo sighed. “You’re mad at me.”
“I am not,” Tsukishima said. But the way he said it didn’t really sound convincing. Maybe it was the pout that kept flashing onto his face since Kuroo had opened the door.
“Are you sure? Because to me, it looks like you’re actually pretty pissed.”
Tsukishima shrugged as a response.
“I’m sorry that I didn’t ask you to come over. But seriously, there’s no point in you pretending that everything is fine if it isn’t. I thought we were already at a point in our relationship where we could talk about things like that.” He looked at Tsukishima, tried to catch his gaze.
But he avoided it, he looked at the wall behind them and bit his lip. “Are we? As far as I know we never specified at what point in our relationship we are. You know, I’ve been thinking a lot about this.”
Tsukishima paused for a second. He looked at the ceiling and chewed at the inner side of cheek. “And I don’t even know if we are dating or not.”
Kuroo wasn’t sure if he should find it funny, because to him it had come naturally, he had never even wondered about that. He had thought of it as some sort of unspoken agreement. It was far from funny though, because he was now wondering what else there was that he took for granted and Tsukishima was still insecure about.
“I said that I love you,” he started. “And you said you love me too. What else did you think that meant?”
“How was I supposed to know? You never told me.” He moved down from Kuroo’s lap, back onto the couch.
“Because I thought it goes without saying.”
“Well, thanks,” he said and rolled his eyes. Then he got up and left.
--
He was mad, he was so mad. But he was mad at himself, because he was being stupid, because Kuroo didn’t even do anything wrong and he was being petty. Because he was overreacting. He was being unfair.
If he could, he would rewind time, go back to that moment where he had sat on Kuroo’s lap and his mind had gone blank. He hadn’t even been mad at Kuroo in the first place, he had been mad at himself from the start.
Maybe he would rather rewind further back if he could, to one of the moments where he had sat in his room and waited for Kuroo to ask him to come over.
Because Kuroo had been right, he could have asked himself.
--
Tsukishima was still feeling like an idiot. And the fact that he stood in front of Kuroo’s door with a purple hyacinth in his hands and couldn’t bring himself to ring the doorbell for at least fifteen minutes now didn’t help at all.
At first, he had wanted to do it the usual way, putting the flower onto Kuroo’s doorstep and hoping that Kuroo would look up what it meant.
But then he realised that it probably wouldn’t count as an actual apology, and that it wouldn’t solve anything. So he had to say it oud loud, he had to look Kuroo in the eye and tell him that he was sorry, that he had been a prick.
His hand was shaking as it approached the doorbell. He took a deep breath, gulped and rang.
At first, he couldn’t hear anything and he wondered if Kuroo maybe wasn’t home. But then he heard the familiar sound of Kuroo’s steps. His chest felt tight and he was getting nauseous. His breathing was flat, his palms were sweaty.
“Oh, it’s you,” Kuroo said as he opened the door.
It was way harder than he had thought to face him and to look him in the eye. And it had been hard in his head already. “I am sorry,” he said. “I overreacted and got terribly defensive yesterday night and –“
“You’re stupid,” Kuroo said with a smile. “I’m not even mad at you.”
“You’re not?” He blinked a couple of times.
“Well, I was bit annoyed yesterday, yes. Especially when you just got up and left. But I wasn’t actually mad. Also I’m sorry as well. I just went ahead and assumed things.” He paused for a second and shook his head. “So, do you want to come inside?”
There were a lot of things running through Tsukishima’s head. Way too many to actually concentrate on them. Things like ‘I love you’ and ‘I don’t deserve you’ and ‘thank you’. And he was so overwhelmed by all of them, by the way Kuroo stood in front of him, a smile on his face and inviting him inside. By the warm feeling inside of him. If he were to give it a name, it would have been relief. Happiness. Joy. Maybe it was love. He couldn’t really tell.
And it was some sort of automatic response of his body, to take a step towards Kuroo, to take his face into his hands and to kiss him. To let his hands slide down his neck as soon as he felt Kuroo’s hands on his back pulling him in closer.
He was hungry for that kiss.
He had forgotten about the hyacinth, he had dropped it at some point. He closed his eyes and breathed a moan into Kuroo’s mouth.
“I am going to ask you formally and clearly right now,” Kuroo said as he rested his forehead against Tsukishima’s. “Because I really love you and I don’t want to have any more misunderstandings. Do you want to be with me? As in you’re mine and I’m yours?”
“I really, really want to be with you. Sorry if I am terrible at all this.”
“You aren’t. You’re wonderful at this, my little moonflower.”
--
God, he was in love. He was so terribly in love.
--
“Aren’t they playing your favourite song right now?” Tsukishima asked and nodded at the radio on the counter.
“How did you know that I love that one? I’m kind of addicted to it at the moment.” Kuroo smiled onto Tsukishima’s lips, it wasn’t that much of an actual kiss. He was grinning like an idiot, and he couldn’t stop kissing him, so he settled for a mix of both things. Tsukishima smiled back onto his lips.
He was leaning onto the kitchen counter and originally, probably at least half an hour ago, he had said he’d cook something. But he hadn’t gotten to it yet, he got distracted by Tsukishima leaning onto him, by a hand in his and the sweet scent of his boyfriend’s skin.
“I know. You’re literally listening to it all the time,” he said in between kisses. “So I guess you really like it.”
“I have such a smart and attentive boyfriend.” He played with a strand of blond hair above his ear.
“I love you.”
“I love you too.”
“Also, I just remembered that I still owe you actual proof that I am in fact a very skilled baker,” Kuroo said and tilted his head to kiss Tsukishima’s cheek, a trail of tiny kisses from there back to his lips.
“You made cheesecake once.” Tsukishima’s free hand rested on his chest, he licked over Kuroo’s bottom lip.
“That doesn’t count, I didn’t actually bake anything for that one.”
“It was a cake though. And it was pretty good.”
“I could learn how to make strawberry shortcake.”
“You could make a tiramisu.”
“You hate tiramisu.”
“I was joking. Does a tiramisu even require baking anyways?” He laughed. Ran his hand through the mess of Kuroo’s hair.
“If I made the ladyfingers myself then yes. But I wouldn’t put that much effort into a dessert you dislike.”
“Even if it’s your favourite?”
“I have another favourite sweet thing, you know?”
“You are disgustingly sappy.”
“I know. But don’t you love that?”
Tsukishima sighed. “I do.”
--
Winter turned into spring and spring turned into summer. The flowers on Tsukishima’s balcony were blooming brightly.
“Is there actually a reason behind the order in which you water your plants?”
Kuroo was kneeling in front of a pot of lavender and checked if its soil was getting dry.
“I started to do it like that at some point and got used to it. It wouldn’t actually make a difference if I started on the other side or something like that. Don’t water the lavender, it was raining a lot the last couple of days.”
“You’re the boss,” he said and got up. He slung his arms around Tsukishima from behind, he knew that it was definitely not helping him, but he was pretty sure he wouldn’t mind. He buried his nose in Tsukishima’s neck, he smelled like sun and soil, a bit like sweat and lavender. Kuroo pressed a kiss onto the soft skin.
“Kuroo, I really love you, but if you don’t let go of me, I can’t take care of the petunias and those darlings demand that someone removes their spent blooms,” he hummed.
“But this darling right here demands some affection too, though.” He pressed another kiss behind Tsukishima’s ear.
At first he sighed, the he laughed and turned around. “I think you’re the worst when it comes to the maintenance of my darlings. You need a lot of attention and care.”
“Well, sometimes I get jealous when you call your flowers sweet names.” He brushed his nose against Tsukishima’s before their lips met.
“My boyfriend feels threatened by a pot of petunias, incredible.”
He felt light and feathery, he was at home in Tsukishima’s embrace. He couldn’t think of anywhere where he would rather be than on a balcony surrounded by the flowers that were probably his biggest rivals. He had learned to love them too, he probably had loved them from the start.
And watching Tsukishima taking care of them directly from Tsukishima’s balcony was so much nicer than watching him from his window or from his own balcony. He wouldn’t have thought how much nicer it was when he could occasionally steal a kiss or two, when he could distract him from watering the morning glories by intertwining their fingers.
Actually, he would have thought, he had thought about it a lot. And he had hoped he would get to do it one day.
It was exactly where he was right now.
“To think that I even have to take some spent blooms off you,” Tsukishima said and shook his head as he picked up a withered pansy from Kuroo’s shoulder.
“As you said, high maintenance.”
Maybe one day, they would have an actual garden, a big garden where Tsukishima could have more than a couple of flowers that grew well in pots and containers. He would love to have Tsukishima pick petals from his shirt in their own garden too.
He plucked a light pink bloom from the small azalea bush, well aware that Tsukishima was probably flinching at that. Gently, he tucked it behind his ear.
“I love you, my sweet moonflower.”
--
“Happy anniversary, Kei.”
Tsukishima was startled by the kiss on the cheek, by the arms around his waist. He hadn’t heard Kuroo getting home, he hadn’t heard him approach. He had been too absorbed with trimming his roses to notice.
“Happy anniversary, Tetsurou,” he said and tilted his head to kiss Kuroo.
“I got you something,” Kuroo said and picked up a pot that he must have put down before hugging him.
Tsukishima recognised the plant immediately. Dark green leaves, soft white flowers that yet had to bloom – the sun was still up and they would open in the evening. Highly poisonous, especially the seeds. Datura inoxia, moonflower. A nice flower to have in their garden.
“Did you remember that you got those for me at our first date?”
It felt like that day was ages ago, him nervously sitting at the kitchen table in his old apartment, waiting for Kuroo to ring the doorbell. And yet, it felt like yesterday, the way Kuroo had looked at him when he had told him that he had bought him some flowers.
His glance went from the flowers to the golden ring on his finger, he smiled.
“I got them because they are your favourite, actually.”