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Ken was ninety-nine point ninety-nine percent confident he had just ruined his life. Sweat was running down his neck and his arms were starting to hurt from the vice grip he had the bouquet in. He was gross. He was gross, and he had just confessed his feelings to Kazutoshi. Ken hadn’t even been able to recite the long speech he had meticulously prepared the night before. It had just been Ken shoving the bouquet in Kazutoshi’s face with far more force than intended with his eyes glued to his shoes, because terrified didn’t begin to cover how he was feeling as the most asinine words possible came out of Ken’s mouth: “I like you! A lot! Romantically!”
There was no point in trying to figure out how long the silence between them lasted, as Ken’s panic-stricken head ground time to a crawl. Ken couldn’t even work up the courage to look Kazutoshi in the eyes. It had all been spent in the preceding shitshow. He couldn’t hear any of the calming noise of nature from the park they were in, just the high-speed thumping of his heart. Ken was an idiot, an absolute buffoon for trying this. The only thing he could take solace in was the fact that Kazutoshi at least wouldn’t hate him—no, he would probably just feel uncomfortable being around someone who was in love with him to a horrific extent and wouldn’t want to even be near Ken anymore! Fuck.
He felt a slight pressure on the bouquet, like someone was trying to take it. Slowly, Ken looked up from the ground and found himself eye-to-eye with Kazutoshi. The shorter man’s face was so red it was almost the same vibrant color as his eyes. His hands were the ones so close to Ken’s on the base of the bouquet. Ken let go of the flowers, leaving them to the other, and swung his hands down to his sides. His entire body felt tight as the pair just stood there staring at each other. What was Ken supposed to say in this scenario? He didn’t know what to do in the average social interaction, so what the hell was he supposed to do after messing up confessing his feelings to the person who matters the most to him?
“I, uh,” Kazutoshi started before taking a deep breath and averting his eyes as he pulled the flowers closer to his chest. Ken somehow managed to tense up even further. “Same.”
What? The millions of thoughts in Ken’s head crashed to a halt with no survivors. He could feel the resulting flames on his face. Did Ken mishear him? “Same” as in Kazutoshi… also liked him? Like that? “You…?” Ken trailed off.
“Fuck, Ken, don’t make me say it again,” Kazutoshi said, lowering his head slightly.
“S-sorry! I, um, don’t want to have misheard you since that would be,” Ken swallowed, “bad.”
“Well, you didn’t,” Kazutoshi huffed before continuing with a much quieter voice. If Ken wasn’t straining his ears in order to hear every last syllable, it would’ve been difficult to understand. “I like you too.”
“Really…?”
The shorter man looked back up and met Ken’s gaze with his eyebrows furrowed. “Do you really think I’d lie about something like this!” Any anger in his voice was offset by how carefully he was holding onto the flowers.
Ken shook his head. “N-no, obviously! it’s just… kind of hard to believe.”
“What the fuck.”
“It’s just that I’m kind of lame, you know, and you’re… you know…” Ken looked away towards a nearby tree. It was pine. How fitting.
“I’m afraid I don’t know, Ken.”
He was loath to think about how flushed his face must have been. At least he and Kazutoshi were matching in that regard. “Really cool, and smart, and funny, a-and—”
“God, you’re such a dumbass sometimes. I’m not saying it a fourth time, so shut up about it after this. I…” Kazutoshi took another deep breath. “Like you too. A lot. And anything that would make you lame probably applies to me as well. Except for the Gundam shit, that’s a you thing.”
Some of the tension finally left Ken’s body as he returned his gaze to Kazutoshi. “I don’t need to take that from a guy with your taste in films.” Tokyo Gore Police had been an interesting watch, to say the least. It had been nice to see Kazutoshi enjoy himself so much, though.
Kazutoshi rolled his eyes. “I take back trying to be nice, you are the lamest man on the planet. People use photos of you as a sleep aid.”
“So you fall asleep thinking of me?”
“Literally shut up. I will leave,” Kazutoshi blustered. Ken knew that he wouldn’t.
They fell into a short, but not uncomfortable silence. Kazutoshi’s face was still flushed and held a somewhat bashful expression despite his barbs. Ken didn’t think he had seen him look like that before. He wanted to memorize it while he could.
“Do,” Kazutoshi started, voice soft, “Do you mind if we find somewhere to sit? I feel kinda…”
“O-of course! I’m sorry, I think there are some benches nearby?” Ken quickly said, flicking his eyes between the many empty picnic tables nearby and Kazutoshi. Did he look any worse for wear? Obviously Kazutoshi would want to sit down, he was probably dealing with a lot of emotional processing. That would definitely raise one's heartrate. Why didn’t Ken have the foresight to do this sitting down? Was he an idiot? He had been pacing in an attempt to let some nervous energy out when Kazutoshi had arrived, and one thing led to another. It was a bit of a blur, if he was being honest.
Would it be okay if he grabbed Kazutoshi’s hand to lead them to the table? Ken wanted to, he wanted to incredibly badly, but decided to err on the side of caution, especially if Kazutoshi wasn’t feeling the best. He instead simply pointed the other man in the correct direction and walked beside him. It was nice enough just being that close.
Kazutoshi paused for a second before taking a seat on the picnic table’s bench. Ken realized it was probably because public seating is generally considered to be unsanitary. If Ken had been thinking, he’d have brought a towel or something. He’s the one who chose the park, after all, due to its usual lack of people and nice weather, so he should have been more considerate. But what’s done is done, Ken thought to himself as he slid in next to Kazutoshi, who was still cradling the bouquet. Their shoulders were almost touching.
“So… what are we then?” Kazutoshi said, still in that soft, vulnerable tone that Ken could never quite get used to.
“What, um, are you comfortable with?”
“I don’t know. I’m still a bit shocked.” There was a tiny, hollow laugh in Kazutoshi’s voice, like he was waiting for the other shoe to drop.
“I want to date you,” Ken said firmly, “I really want to be with you.” The phrase “really” was a bit of an understatement, but the still somewhat fragile air between them definitely couldn’t take Ken admitting his well-worn fantasies of them spending their retirement together.
The noise that came out of Kazutoshi’s mouth as he sputtered was not a part of any identifiable human language.
“I-if you also want to!” Ken waved his hands. Had even that been too far? Even if Kazutoshi liked him back (which still felt unbelievable), Ken couldn’t just assume he wanted the exact same thing. “I’d like to, um, go on dates and hold your hand. And stuff. If you want!”
Ken must have finally done something right, because Kazutoshi breathed out a genuine laugh as he turned to look at Ken with a small smile, “And stuff?”
“You know exactly what I mean!” It would definitely be too much to say that he wanted to kiss him senseless, no matter how strong that want was.
“Pfft, whatever,” Kazutoshi scooted over slightly to where their shoulders were definitely touching. There was no way that Ken should’ve been able to feel anything through the multiple layers Kazutoshi always wore, but it felt warm nonetheless. “I… think I would be okay with that. Dating. Maybe hand-holding. Not ‘stuff,’ you can wait for that.”
“I’ll wait as long as I need to. If that ends up being forever, that’s fine. Just sitting next to you like this is more than enough for me.”
There was a brief silence between them as Ken watched the flush on Kazutoshi’s cheeks spread to the rest of his face as the smaller man took several deep breaths. “How the fuck can you just say shit like that without keeling over?”
“Because it’s true…?” Ken offered.
“You’re gonna kill me before we can even do anything at this rate. Jesus,” he huffed, turning back to look at the bouquet.
“S-sorry, I’ll… calm down? If I’m making you uncomfortable.”
“This entire fucking conversation makes me uncomfortable. But it’s okay, you’re fine. I’m,” Kazutoshi sighed, “Just not used to it, I guess.”
Ken felt his mouth squish itself into a hard line as a piece of his heart chipped off. Not used to what? Being loved? Ken didn’t know how to reassure him, or even what it really was he needed to be reassured about at this moment. No matter how much Ken loved Kazutoshi, that wouldn’t magically fix his own view of himself.
“So, if we are dating, what then?” Kazutoshi said, looking Ken in the eye.
Several seconds passed. Then a few more.
“I, uh, hadn’t really thought that far ahead, if I’m being honest,” Ken admitted. While he had put a fair amount of effort into ironing out the details of the confession (that had partially gone down the drain due to his lack of articulation), the plan ended with the confession. When he had tried to think of what could happen afterwards, the pit in his stomach grew, so he was in completely uncharted territory.
“Ken!” Kazutoshi laughed.
“It’s just!” Ken paused as he tried to get his thoughts in order, “I didn’t really think it would go this way. I wanted to make the actual confession nice—and comfortable in case you didn’t feel the same—so I kind of… neglected the other option.” His original speech had included an entire section on how it was okay if Kazutoshi didn’t feel the same and how Ken, above all, appreciated him as a friend.
“You really can be a stupid motherfucker sometimes.”
“H-huh?”
“In what world would I reject you? In what fucking world would anyone reject you? If someone did that they would literally be the dumbest person on the planet. Like, dumber than Rui. You’re hot, and rich, and smart, and way too fucking nice. You’re the entire package and then some,” Kazutoshi said like it was obvious.
Ken’s entire head felt like it was on fire. “You can’t get onto me for saying sappy things and then say that!”
“Why not? It’s true,” Kazutoshi shot back, a cute, snarky grin on his face.
Ken held back the urge to spend the next thirty minutes complimenting his boyfriend (Ken couldn’t help the way his cheeks flushed at the thought) in order to fluster the smile off of his face. He had more than enough material, after all. It would be easy. But Ken decided that he had more than enough time to slowly convince the love of his life that he was the most perfect man on the planet, so he changed the topic slightly instead. “But, anyways, we don’t have to do anything differently if you don’t want to.”
“Then what’s the point of saying we’re dating if everything is the exact same?”
“Well, we would slowly do things differently! Probably. I don’t know. Miki said—”
“What the fuck does Isono have to do with this! Does she know that—”
“No, she doesn’t know that I’m doing this!” Ken said hurriedly. As much as Ken wanted to tell everyone how much he loved Kazutoshi, even the idea of that much attention on the two of them was too much. If he had talked with Miki about this, she would’ve asked how it went, and Ken didn’t particularly want to have either potential conversation with her. “She, she just figured out that I like you because she’s actually pretty smart about interpersonal relationships and gave me some advice. Which I did not ask her for! And as far as I know she knows nothing about me c-confessing.”
“Are you sure…?” Some of the prior fragility returned to Kazutoshi’s voice.
“I’m sure.”
Kazutoshi breathed. “Okay then. Don’t tell her, or—or fucking Mao or your mom about this. It stays just between us.” The paper wrapping around the bouquet crinkled as he held it tighter. “I… I know that they wouldn’t be assholes about it, so don’t say that. I’m just not ready.”
“I would never think of telling anyone without you saying it’s ok. I promise. I won’t say a word. Not until you’re ready. Until we’re both ready.”
“Thanks.” Kazutoshi took one hand off of the bouquet in order to brush a stray strand of hair behind his ear. Ken wished he could have gotten it for him. “What did Isono tell you?”
“She, uh, said that we could put hearts next to each other’s contact names…?”
Kazutoshi laughed and Ken wished he had recorded it. “What the hell, that’s so lame!”
Ken sputtered for a defense and came up empty. It was, in fact, very lame.
“What the fuck, sure. Why not? What color heart do you want?”
“I, um, what are my options?”
Kazutoshi gingerly set the flowers down on the picnic table, then took his phone out of his pocket and pulled up Ken's contact, which was currently just his full name. “Let me see.” He pressed the “edit” button and swiped to the emoji keyboard. “Basically the whole rainbow with an extra blue.”
“We could each have one of the blues, maybe?”
“Cool, you’re taking the lighter one, then.” He added the darker heart to the contact name and saved it.
“That works for me,” Ken said, taking his own phone out and doing the same, except with the slightly more cyan emoji. That was honestly preferable, since it matched Kazutoshi’s hair color a little better.
Kazutoshi put his phone away and grabbed the flowers again, examining them. Ken really hoped that he liked them. “So, what’re the meanings?” Kazutoshi said nonchalantly.
“Huh?”
“No way you didn’t spend like, five hours planning out what each flower means. You’re too much of a dork.”
“Well!” Ken once again failed to come up with a rebuttal. It had taken him more than five hours. He had just gone down some very interesting rabbit holes! “I couldn’t just give you a normal bouquet!”
“Why not? That would’ve been fine. Just like, red roses or some shit.”
“That wouldn’t have been good enough! I wanted it to be special. Red roses felt too simple, I guess,” Ken said. Kazutoshi deserved something well thought out, not the first thing that came to mind.
“Tryhard,” Kazutoshi laughed like he wasn’t worth the effort as he touched some of the blue roses. “I assume these don’t mean the same thing as the red ones?”
“Not exactly, but the black and white ones are similar in that they both refer to romantic love, albeit a bit more intensely. The blue ones were partially because I knew you like blue and I wanted to have some more blue flowers in the bouquet, but it also has the meaning of ‘achieving the impossible,’ since they aren’t naturally occurring and have to be dyed, though there are some more purple-colored ones referred to as ‘blue roses’ that were achieved through genetic engineering.”
“That’s stupid. If they’re purple, then they’re purple roses. Is it just so they can say they did it?”
“Probably, but the pigment bred into those roses, delphinidin, does actually present as an actual blue color in some of the flowers it naturally occurs in.”
“And what’s this thing?” Kazutoshi said, poking at one of the other blooms.
“Those are white egret flowers! They’re named that way because they’re reminiscent of—”
“Did you just pick them ‘cause they look like a bird?”
“N-no! They also have the meaning of ‘I’ll be thinking of you in my dreams,’ which is romantic, right? The fact that they also look like herons is just a bonus,” They also meant delicateness, but Ken decided to keep that one to himself in order to prevent a misunderstanding. Kazutoshi was probably the strongest person Ken knew. If he were forced to apply that adjective to Kazutoshi, it would probably be because there was maybe some delicateness in the way that his long eyelashes occasionally fluttered or the soft, thin line of his lips, but “beautiful” would get the point across easier.
“It is kinda cool, don’t think I’ve ever seen a plant look like an animal before.”
“There are actually a lot of plants that resemble other things!” Ken had maybe spent more time than he should have researching this. “There is actually an entire genus of orchids that look like monkey faces.”
“What? No way. Show me,” Kazutoshi said.
Ken unlocked his phone and pulled up the one of his many, many browser tabs with the flowers on them before presenting it to Kazutoshi.
“Holy shit, you weren’t kidding. Those are freaky as hell.” Kazutoshi seemed a little shocked looking at the blood red blooms. “You should’ve gotten me some of those.”
“I thought about it for a second,” Ken said, putting his phone away, “But they don’t seem to have much meaning in either hanakotoba or western floriography, and since I would’ve had to have gotten them shipped from overseas, they didn’t work out timeline-wise. Or aesthetic-wise, really.”
“Get me some of those next time. Fuck, those are crazy.”
Next time? Ken sat up a little straighter. What was the earliest date it would be appropriate to get Kazutoshi flowers? “Definitely!”
“Um, also, do you mind if I tell you the rest of the meanings?” Ken asked. He didn’t want to bore Kazutoshi so badly that he would decide that he actually didn’t want to date him.
“No, go ahead. I’m curious,” Kazutoshi said. “These are forget-me-nots, right? My aunt likes them.” He gently took one of the light blue blossoms between his fingers and felt it before letting it go.
“Yes! Alongside the obvious meaning that comes from their name, they also represent true love. Both the blue and white anemones signify sincerity. Oh, also, the number of roses denotes something as well! I don’t think the other flowers have any specific meanings regarding the amount of them, but three roses means ‘I love you.’” Ken did not mention that the total amount of roses, nine, had the meaning of “I want to be with you forever.” That sounded a little too much like a proposal.
Kazutoshi’s expression was slightly obscured as he was looking at the bouquet, but Ken could still see that his ears were red. “Gh,” Kazutoshi huffed, “You’re such a sap.”
Ken felt a smile spread across his face “Your sap, now.”
“Yeah, guess you are,” Kazutoshi said so fondly Ken felt like he was about to explode. Ken’s hand moved to grab Kazutoshi’s free one without thinking. As soon as they touched, Kazutoshi’s whole body stiffened.
Ken jerked his hand back up as quickly as he could. “S-sorry!” he said. Why did he do that? Was he stupid? “I should’ve—”
“No, you’re fine!” Kazutoshi said quickly, turning to face Ken as he set the flowers on the picnic table. “It’s okay, I just… I don’t know, got startled, I guess. It’s okay, though.”
He reached up and took Ken’s hand himself, interlocking their fingers. It was slightly cool to the touch. Did he have poor circulation? That wouldn’t be particularly shocking. What was surprising was how tiny Kazutoshi’s hand felt in Ken’s. He practically dwarfed the smaller man. The soft cuff of Kazutoshi’s hoodie tickled Ken’s wrist as they rested on the table.
There was a short silence between them. Ken’s heart was in his ears, and if he listened closely, he could hear Kazutoshi’s practiced breathing. They eventually drifted off into casual, comfortable chatting until other people started to arrive at the area of the park they were in. Ken couldn’t help his annoyance, even if it was a public place.
Kazutoshi promptly let go of Ken’s hand and grabbed the flowers. “We should probably get going.”
“Do you want to get food somewhere?” Ken asked.
“Nah, just kinda wanna go home,” Kazutoshi said as he stretched, joints popping, “Plus, I still have some leftovers from when I hung out with Mai. Not gonna let those go to waste.”
“Obviously,” Ken smiled and stood up too. “Would you, um, mind if I walked you home?”
“Nooo, I would hate it if my boyfriend did that,” he said sarcastically, a large smirk on his face.
Ken rolled his eyes. “C’mon, let’s get going then.”
Kazutoshi’s apartment wasn’t very far from the park, since Ken hadn’t wanted him to wear himself out getting there. They walked side-by-side the whole way, hands brushing every few steps. Ken somehow managed to hold back the urge to grab the other’s hand. Now that he had learned what it was like to hold Kazutoshi’s hand, he never wanted to let go. There was no way that Kazutoshi would be okay with doing that in public, though.
As they reached Kazutoshi’s front door, the smaller man unlocked it and then turned to Ken. “Don’t expect a goodnight kiss or anything.”
“I-I’m not!” Ken felt his face heat up for what must have been the hundredth time that day. Kazutoshi snorted slightly and Ken smiled back. “Like I said, I’ll wait forever. Sleep well.”
Kazutoshi flushed as well, fidgeting with one of his long side bangs. “I’ll try. You too. Make it home safe, okay?”
“Of course,” Ken said, feeling like the luckiest man in the world as his boyfriend opened the door to his apartment with the flowers Ken had given him cradled in one of his arms and headed inside.
As soon as Ken was a respectable distance from Kazutoshi’s home, the excitement within him bubbled over as he may-or-may-not have pumped his fist in the air and yelled “Fuck yes!” before walking the rest of the way home.