Archive of Our Own

The sad truth about it all, Megumi decides, is that maybe he just really sucks.

Then again, maybe this is unfair– after all, his life isn’t a waste. He’s not unsuccessful, not anymore. He has his own apartment. He has relationships, and some of them are even familial. He’s mostly survived university and gotten into veterinary school, which was already hard enough without half the people in his life breathing down his neck. He’s not actively dying, which is always an improvement. His last hookup was thirty-six days ago, and as far as hook-ups go, it was pretty good. He is, actually, on his way right now to make up for his failures by buying his wonderful, endlessly lovely sister flowers. How many brothers do you know buy flowers for their siblings after a three-day-long, excruciatingly drawn-out fallout? None? Exactly.

Megumi is twenty-three and he’s a competent man. He’s able to make it down the sidewalk in a straight line and across two different train lines without getting run over. He smiles at old ladies on the corner and helps people carry their bags. Doing good things comes easy, if not naturally. He’s not incapable of love, or anything, he’s just not sure it’s–

Well. He does want it, but maybe after he makes it through his midterms, and then his finals, and then next semester, and then graduates. Until then, bar-hopping and too-thin condoms it is.

And he knows– he knows, okay– he knows that isn’t good for him, and he doesn’t need it, and he knows exactly why. It’s not good for people to get wrapped up in that fluffy sentimental stuff that usually comes alongside spending the night, or whatever it is Gojo had parroted before going off on his most recent romantic adventure. It’s wasteful, and it wastes time, and it almost never ended well when someone’s really serious about being committed and the other person decides they actually don’t give a fuck at all, and in situations like that, he has a track record of being the worse half.

Anyhow, now he’s somewhere in Setagaya city, trudging down a sidewalk and wishing he could just be at his apartment without having to do all this extra work, because apparently this part of town is known for being foliage-lined and his phone had told him it was a good place to start. The map and his memory must have deceived him in equal measure, because he can’t find any boutiques. His phone stopped working the moment he’d stepped off the train, so he’s out of luck with trying to look it up. He’s got a splitting headache, too, the result of seven hours of cramming before his 3 P.M. exam, only to find out that it had gotten rescheduled for two weeks from today, and maybe it’s because the midterm was a philosophy one that he’s ruminating so hard that he forgets to look where he’s going, that he stumbles into the sign.

It’s a nice sign. One of the ones you see lining a street stuffed with shops that are filled to the brim with shiny trinkets and ornamental antiques no one ever really buys, polished silver dishes and spiritually rotting wooden desks. The sign belongs to one of these stores, but it’s for a miniature cafe that’s closed, and the yellow and blue scribble of what may have once been a vanilla bean cupcake is smudged with the evening and the sunset.

Looking back on it, it’s actually not about the sign at all. It’s about the hollering kid who runs behind him from absolutely nowhere and shoulder-checks him so hard he nearly falls over the wedge of wood. It’s to be expected, of course– it’s not as if he’s in some remote part of the suburbs where the only passers-by are the commuters shuffling from one apartment to the subway station, or from the subway station to the hole-in-the-wall bars that begin at the intersection– but it still pisses him off all the same, because people are very rude. If he had the common decency to not be an asshole in public, you’d think everyone could do the same.

That common decency is waning, though, and Megumi is annoyed, and he’s imagining how bad it would have been if he’d had a hot drink in his hand or one of his more important papers, so he weighs the pros and cons of being perceived as a dick for two seconds before deciding screw it, who gives a shit, yet just as he lifts his head to mouth someone off, the kid is turning the corner, he’s stuck staring at the opposite side of the street, and that’s when he sees it.

It’s just out of the way, across the intersection and a stone’s throw past the crosswalk. The sign, splashed across the top of the top of the bottom of the second story of the building, is a pink, unreadable blotch, the bushels of petals and wooden stems jutting out the exact same way the vending machine on the corner blinks with light, red and white and a better sign than he could have thought. If he inhales just a touch too deeply, the dizzying scent of sugar and cut grass fills his sinuses, air swirling in his lungs.

Maybe it was the shop from his maps, or maybe it wasn’t, but when he blinks it’s still there, and it’s a lot closer to five than he thought, and Tsumiki is just a whisk away in Funabashi and he was going to eat dinner with her tonight so there’s no point in showing up empty-handed, and before Megumi can convince himself otherwise, he’s across the street before he knows how, darting down the alley-ish road.

The shop exterior is exactly what you'd expect. White tiles instead of sidewalk, blue flowers warming in the sun, foliage and succulents stacked on displays outside. There’s a lot of glass in the front, wooden stands and shelves showing off bigger flowers, and even though the little time card on the front with the hours printed in green says the place closes at five thirty, inside the shop is mostly dark as if it were closed, and Megumi feels himself deflate. That’s the bad thing about hope, he figures. It smells like whatever the fuck’s just out of your reach, and it looks even prettier sitting just inside the window.

He still tries the door, anyway, because he figures it can’t hurt and he’s also enough of an asshole to do it. To his complete and unending surprise, however, it opens, swinging wide so fast he has to stick his arm in the way of the bar so it doesn’t crash into anything important, and as he carefully slips in, a little bell above his head jingles in greeting.

Megumi blinks, letting his eyes adjust. The inside of the shop is just as overflowing with flowers as the outside, shadowy and thick with fragrance. It’s nearly oppressive, pushing at the throb at his temples, but he ignores it in favor of looking around. Directly in front of him is a table piled high with orchids, prices ranging from a thousand to five thousand yen. A row of flower coolers lines the wall to his right, black cases lit with blue-white light. Just to his left, a glass case is inset into the wall, chock-full of polished marble vases and crystal cups. Next to that, shelves dripping with everything you would need to take care of plants– fertilizer, pots, shovels. Behind that– and he has to step around the corner to see, because there’s a strange, human-shaped noise coming from this side of the store– is a counter, scissors and cut ribbon strewn across the top, and behind the table, a head of strawberry-pink hair and wired headphones and cutting, and the quiet, off-key hum of what sounds an awful lot like Planetarium, and Jesus Christ, that is the hottest guy Megumi has ever seen in his life.

I want THAT one, his brain swoons, and maybe those words would have left his mouth had he not turned it into a cough at the last second, pressing his fist to his lips and clearing his throat into the ball of his hand. It could go either way for what makes the guy start, but the next thing Megumi knows is that those tiny wired earbuds are being yanked out, and a pair of bright yellow scissors are being thrown down, and Jesus Christ again, he’s wearing a hoodie with no sleeves and that is the most bicep he’s ever seen on one person oh god there’s no WAY that’s appropriate–

“I’m so sorry about that,” a voice is saying, and it takes a solid second for Megumi to connect that rich voice with the most sunny face he’s been faced with, ever, and two red-brown eyes crinkle in a tanned face as the guy gives him a sheepish smile. “I think I forgot to flip the sign to closed– or lock the door–”

That’s right. There had been a Closed! sign at the front next to the hours card, and, like an idiot, Megumi went on and fucking ignored it. “I’m sorry,” he says quickly, force-starting his brain just in time to be normal and functional and not say some weird shit all at once. “I’ll go–”

Something clatters. “Wait–!”

Megumi blinks, some part of him hoping that with the next flutter of his lashes, all of this will actually just disappear and he'll wake up on Tsumiki’s couch with Mochi watching from Toji’s armchair. “Sorry?”

“Don’t go,” the guy blusters, waving his hands wildly, and it’s cute, how expressive he is, how his brows twist up as if he genuinely wants Megumi to never leave this place again, how frantically he digs around his counter for whatever paper Megumi will have the unfortunate fate of being memorialized on before his flower shop existence is thrown into the trash with the next forgotten bouquets. “I can get you whatever you– did you have a pickup, or something? Can I get your name?”

Well, this is already over, he supposes. “Fushiguro,” Megumi offers, and the guy looks up with a puzzled expression before grabbing the nearest blue sticky-note and scrawling his name on it.

“Got it,” he replies, nodding with satisfaction at what must surely be chicken scratch, and because Megumi, too, is a curious little rat, he decides to fuck it for what must be the ten thousandth time today and trudges over to the counter. “Okay. Pickup?”

“I actually don’t,” he replies, trying not to bump into anything, and winces when his foot stubs against a crate. “I don’t have anything ordered, or whatever. I just wanted to buy some flowers.”

From this close Megumi can see he has a nametag, one of those stupid white squares with Hi! My Name Is printer-stamped across the top, and under that faded black sharpie scrawls itself into Yuuji with a double hold on the u sound. It fits, looking him down from top to bottom, because it’s a loopy, silly thing that’s better off as a nickname for a real name that doesn’t exist, a childhood friend that moved away and still sends you letters anyhow, a squiggle at the bottom of a page. Yuuji.

“Oh,” Yuuji replies, and, after what feels like forever, purses his lips. “Oh-kay. I see.”

“Yes,” Megumi nods, because what the hell is he supposed to say to that? “If that’s not possible–”

“No, it is!” With the flash of his arm, Yuuji clears his desk, more than one stray pen clattering to the floor. “I’ll make you the perfect arrangement in no time.”

“It really doesn’t have to be a big thing,” Megumi tries, but Yuuji is already stepping out from behind the counter with a bright grin on his face and a wink thrown his way, and fuck trying, he just failed spectacularily. That look just short-circuited his brain. And his mouth. And his left ear, because it’s closer.

Yuuji ducks behind the middle aisle, a cheery whistle plinking in the air as he rustles through buckets. “So,” he starts, and Megumi realizes right then that he is going to have to engage in small talk, and the only thing that makes that even slightly acceptable is the fact that Yuuji’s voice is pretty nice, and his hands are fascinating to watch as they sort through stems, and he sounds, just for a second, as if he wants to talk to him, too. “Anything you’re looking for? Special occasions, reasons, preparations?”

Fuck. “Well,” Megumi coughs, rubbing at the back of his neck, because everything’s become ten times more embarrassing and awful now that he has to say it out loud. “I’m… I’m making up with someone, I guess? I got in a fight.”

Yuuji’s eyebrows jump up his forehead. “You?” he asks, near incredulous, and Megumi doesn’t know whether to be pissed or not, because, Nanako, once again, I am not, never have been, and never will be that skinny! “Wow, I– well, that sounds like it sucks, man. What happened?”

Megumi waves the question off. “It’s complicated.”

“That’s unfortunate!” Yuuji says brightly, and yeah, it kinda is. “Lovers quarrel?”

“Don’t you think that’s too many questions?”

“Benefits of working in retail!” Holding up five or so stems, Yuuji gestures to the tips full of flaky white petals. “Roses are always good, even if they’re a little basic,” he explains. “Does whoever’s receiving these have any pets?”

Megumi shrugs. “Just two dogs.”

Nodding thoughtfully, Yuuji steps to one side and rustles around in another bucket before plucking up a handful of tapering, pale dots. “Snapdragons should be fine, then.”

That’s right. Some plants will immediately obliterate the GI tract of certain domestic mammals. “Are you trying to poison my animals?”

“That’s exactly what I’m trying not to do, dude! Here, let me get–”

Megumi recognizes these, at least. “Are those zinnias?” he asks, and nearly has his heart smacked out of his chest when Yuuji’s face brightens with a laugh.

“Hey, you do know your flowers!” he beams, cheeks dimpling with how hard he smiles, and fuck, everything about this is going to screw him. “Do you get them a lot?”

No, Megumi doesn’t say. “Depends,” he lies, only to keep the grin on Yuuji’s face suspended there just a second longer. “I’m usually the one buying.”

More pursed lips. “Really?” Yuuji asks, and there goes the smile. “No offense, but you don’t seem like the type.”

“To buy flowers?”

“To like them.” Yuuji, now finished sorting through a selection of greens, tilts his head to the side, and Megumi barely manages to ignore that last part to connect two to two and get four and scoot out of the way before Yuuji is stepping back to the counter with his arms full, and all he can stare at, really, is the brown roots of his hair under the pink overdo, and how spiky he looks, like one of those really cute hedgehogs–

“Your total is two thousand,” Yuuji says, words cutting clear through his thoughts, and this is probably the point at which he’s supposed to be paying, so he fumbles for his wallet and takes out the first thing he can, which is a bill for five thousand yen.

“Oh,” says Yuuji, eyebrows furrowed. “That’s, um–”

“I don’t have anything else,” Megumi cuts in. “So you can keep the change.”

“That’s–” Yuuji fidgets, thumbs pulling at the twine bow of the bouquet. He laughs, just a little nervous. “Change?”

Megumi nods. Yuuji, oddly, doesn’t say anything to that, just does some more blinking as he bites into his lip, and seems to be thinking about the possibility of kicking Megumi out with no flowers and no money for just a second too long before that light laugh comes back, he picks up the bill, and rings it into the register.

“Thanks,” he says, and it’s even more honest than his smile, a closed-mouth sort of thing that aches. “I think I’ll put it towards the lights.”

Oh, Megumi realizes, and it’s not even the slight warmth of the shop or the fact that the lights are still off or the stacks of what looks like bills piled to the bulletin board in the far back, it’s the hum of the coolers from somewhere behind him, the freshness of the blooms on the table between them, and the quiet way Yuuji sets the pile of change to one side, the clink of one coin on top of another.

“Yeah,” he forces out, feeling somewhat raw, and he’s just about to pick up the bouquet when it gets snatched up before he has the chance, and the next thing he knows the flowers are a lot closer to him that he expected, and Yuuji is holding them out to him as if he’s a schoolboy offering his crush a gift. “Thanks.”

“I would put them in water as soon as you can,” Yuuji tells him. “But you look smart enough to know what to do without me telling you that, right?”

Does he know anything at all? Numbly, Megumi nods, reaching for the bouquet, and he prays to a god he’s not so sure he believes in that he doesn’t do something idiotic like brush Yuuji’s hand, but of course their fingers meet underneath all the parchment and string, and it’s a stupid, stupid scene from one of those old movies he was always bullied into watching and if Yuuji notices the way his heart goes BAH-BOOM in his chest or the way he feels like he’s burning, or the way his face must be blooming red with heat, he doesn’t say anything, just gives him a smile that borders on shy with how honest it is, and that just about does it with how much capital-I Interaction Megumi can handle today, so he nods as quickly as he can while muttering a very wobbly thank you, and then he turns tail and flees into the big blue sky.

The next time he sees Yuuji, it is entirely Nobara’s fault.

One of the greatest mistakes he’d ever made was to let her, at the ripe old age of six, into his house. It wasn’t even him, really– Gojo had been there when he’d opened the door because he had been tricked into believing that he was going to get a puppy, yet to his complete and unending horror, the only box that he’d been met with was Nobara and her newest Nintendo, red and blue and ready to hit him over the head.

In seventeen years, the formidable Kugisaki has not changed one inch, and when she sees the flowers Megumi brings, she’s obsessed. Throughout all of dinner, she croons over the milky petals and pokes at the delicate blooms until he has the willpower to smack her hand away, and of course the resulting bickering has Tsumiki all bothered, and of course the blame falls on him, again, and nearly two weeks later he’s trudging back to the flower shop, wishing– not for the first time– that he’d never opened that goddamn door.

“But I can’t go back,” he’d complained, and Nobara had rolled her eyes so hard he felt it in his head. “It’s too soon–”

“You act as if there’s some hot god serving you corsages, Megumi!” she’d snapped. “Just get the damn flowers for Tsumiki-chan before I do!”

Now, Megumi is getting the flowers. When he pulls the door open, the jingle of the bells above him dances on the cusp of familiar sweetness, and he exhales with a little more relief than he intended. He blinks, letting his eyes get used to the cool and dim of the shop, because he’d managed to get out a little earlier today and it was so much brighter outside this early in the evening.

“Hey, Fushiguro!” Yuuji calls out, pink hair sticking up in tufts as he waves, and Megumi snaps back to reality hard enough to jolt, to see the depressed-looking man at the counter and his brilliant blue arrangement, to see the smile on his face as he looks at Yuuji like they’re close enough to warrant it, or something. “I’ll be right with you, okay?”

That numbness settles in again. Megumi dips his head in understanding, sort-of-not-really watching as the person at the counter pays, takes his arrangement with a smile, says goodbye. He moves out of the way to let him pass, nodding some more as bang-man gives him a small smile, and the jingle of the bells and the back of a striped shirt is the last thing he really sees of him as he turns the corner. A friend of Yuuji’s, probably, because Yuuji seemed like the type of person to collect darkened, gritty things to him the same way a moth clings to a flame, even surrounded by all the flowers. What’s not to love? Megumi thinks. Why would he be jealous of someone he doesn’t even know and a person he’s never met?

“Hey,” someone says, and the world jumps back into place with a hand just barely brushing the crook of his elbow, and fuck, Yuuji is touching him and it burns it’s warm it’s– “You good, Fushiguro?”

Jesus. Christ. “Yeah, sorry,” he mutters, instead of fuck me I don’t know you why are you so close right now, and he takes half a step away even though Yuuji jerks his hand back all the same. “I was–”

“Thinking?” Yuuji offers him a noise of agreement, retreating and waving him forward at the same time. “Don’t worry. I zone out plenty, too.”

“I wasn’t–” Megumi shakes his head. “Sorry. Can I just get some flowers?”

“Oh, sure!” Like a mask, Yuuji’s endless enthusiasm is back, and yeah, it’s fake, but it feels so nice to be looked at like that, like his opinions mean something particularly special despite the fact that they’re mostly garbage. “The same ones you got last time, or something new?”

“Uh.” Biting at the inside of his cheek, Megumi frowns. “The ones from before are fine, thank you.”

Yuuji, thoughtfully, nods. Then he marches off, hidden behind buckets and stands of flowers, the only indication of where he is in space the thin hum of the song that must be squealing through his earbuds. When he’s done with his selections, he slips behind the counter to set up the arrangement, quickly snipping off the ends of stems and laying them out in a surprisingly accurate recreation of the bouquet he’d gotten prior.

Megumi watches. He’d been so busy being agitated last time that he didn’t really have time to admire the intricacies of Yuuji’s work, but there’s a certain delicateness that he manages to express so well despite his everything, the gentle firmness of his pinching and pulling a stunning contrast when laid side-by-side against the bright yellow of his hoodie or the rosy splash of his hair. He’s got such sharp features, too, points and starkly curved lines of his jaw and his collarbones under his skin, the tendons in his hands pulling along with muscle. It’s a bit like taking an anatomy class over again, he figures, or that one somewhat-unnecessary lab where his class had dissected a cadaver. The art of the body, he’d titled his notes. October sixteenth, two thousand and eighteen.

“So,” Yuuji says, and he has the common decency not to act startled. “Another fight, huh?”

“I wish it was that easy,” Megumi sighs, slumping, and he wonders what Yuuji's reaction would be if he ever explained the horrid dynamics of his fucked-up family. “But yeah, I guess.”

Yuuji laughs, because of course he does. “You must love this person a lot.” He teases, and Megumi tries very hard not to roll his eyes as hard as humanly possible. “Flowers are a generous man’s thing.”

Is that bait? “What, does that make you the giver?”

“Oh, I wish,” Yuuji snaps off a section of white string, winding it around a handful of stems. “I’m just some guy.”

Not true, at all, and there’s something Megumi has been wondering. “You sure look it,” he huffs, and he does roll his eyes when Yuuji, childishly, sticks a tongue at him. “What’re you doing in a flower shop instead of– fuck, I dunno– the gym?”

“You’re acting like you’ve seen my muscles,” Yuuji snickers, and Megumi clamps his mouth shut hard enough so that no traitorous thoughts like yes I have and I will gladly look at the rest could ever dream of slipping out. “I’m doing someone a favor.”

“You’re doing someone a favor by working here?”

“I’m doing them a favor by owning it.” Yuuji waves a hand around to gesture, hip bumping into the counter. “This place used to be my brother's. His girlfriend’s, too.”

Oh. Megumi wrinkles his nose. “They’re holding you in full-time hostage?”

“They’re doing botanical research around the world,” he corrects, a twinkle in his eyes. “Though the last time I checked their social media, the only floral-related thing I could find was the decal on the side of my sister-in-law’s new motorbike.” A laugh. “I don’t mind, though! It’s nice they’re having fun, and I like having something of my own. I’m really fortunate to have this place.”

Megumi literally cannot imagine how bad his reaction would be if Gojo and Toji dumped their separate but equally traumatizing lives on him and then went joyriding around the globe. He thinks it would come close to a nuclear meltdown the size of Fukushima, though. “I see,” he tries, because he’s not about to bring down Yuuji’s cheery mood. “You’re better than me, I guess.”

“I seriously doubt that!” Yuuji, now done with his wrapping, punches some numbers into the register, squints at the total, and then squints up at him. “Hey,” he says slowly, “this is a little random, but where are you from?”

Personal question. “Ginza,” Megumi replies without hesitation, and Yuuji’s eyebrows jump in the same way they do when they incorrectly realize he’s loaded. “I go to school in Chiba, though. And I have family all over Tokyo.”

“I see.” Yuuji nods, sort of blankly, and then gives him a fifty percent discount. “Cool! A thousand yen, please!”

Megumi, unblinking, smacks two five thousand bills down on the counter. Yuuji jumps, blinks at him as if he’s confused, looks down at the money, and then scowls. It’s really funny.

“Hey,” he starts, crossing his arms. “I only need one of those, y’know.”

“No,” Megumi replies.

Yuuji scowls harder. “I don’t take tips for a reason,” he says.

“Well, it’s not a tip, it’s change.”

“How is it change if it’s an entire unnecessary bill–”

“It’s change because I don’t need it–”

“You can’t overpay me! That’s bad service!”

“Not accepting my tender is bad service!” Megumi scoops up the flowers, stepping backwards as quickly as he can before Yuuji has the bright idea to snatch them back. “Just– take it,” he pleads, hoping he doesn’t sound too desperate, because he knows, personally, how irritating it is to be given handouts– but this isn’t a handout, it’s just what Yuuji’s time and effort and beautiful flowers are worth. “You can– put it towards the lights, or something. Like you said. Put it on your light bill.”

Yuuji is still scowling, but his cheeks are slightly pink. “I never said that,” he grumbles, but he does reach for the money. “And I already paid for the lights with the last bouquet you overpaid me for–”

Megumi points at the cooling cases, back bumping into the door. “Then get yourself some flowers and say it was me,” he demands, and Yuuji splutters out something incoherent that must be equal parts frustrated and adorable, and he runs away again before he can make out anything remotely nice enough to fall in love with.

Megumi wishes that the whole thing with Yuuji and his stupid flowers ended there. It does not. As a matter of fact, he quickly and permanently becomes a part of his life, which is not Megumi’s fault at all.

He ends up having to go to the flower shop twice before October is over, and every week in November. This isn’t his fault, either– Tsumiki loves the flowers, and he likes keeping his sister happy, so he was already doomed in that regard. Toji, that bastard, comes over for lunch once, apparently sick enough of robbing people of their funds to antagonize his children for a day, and when Megumi blinks his newest bouquet is gone, and he has to get a new one. Yuuji, feeding into his own delusions, refers to him as his favorite, most-knowledgeable customer.

“Quit calling me that,” he grumbles, hoping that he can attribute the pink of his cheeks to the beginnings of winter whipping in with the wind and not the way Yuuji giggles at him, waving goodbye to a mother and daughter who caught wind of his veterinary history, and were more than happy to ask him what sorts of flowers not to buy next time. “I only knew any of that because of my toxicology class two years ago–”

“Oh, please.” Yuuji waves him off as easily as he would a fly, which is pretty close to how he feels whenever he’s in this tiny, wonderful store. “I saw the twinkle in your eyes when you were explaining to Hanako-san why lilies are the biggest no-no’s in the world, Fushiguro! Don’t try and be dispassionate about it now that I know who you are!”

Stubbornly, Megumi stares at a spot on the wall behind Yuuji’s head. “Just give me my flowers, Itadori,” he grumbles, forking over the bill, and Yuuji laughs and laughs and rings him up.

The thing about all of it, he surmises, is that he was never really going to escape. Even if he wanted to– and he wants to, of course, because he wouldn't have kept coming back if the otherwise was the case, because there are a million-and-one boutiques from here to Kyoto he could have made his next target if he felt like it, and he doubts Tsumiki would have known the difference. He was never going to avoid Yuuji, because Yuuji is one of those good people who loves life and everything it has to offer whether that’s the shit on the bottom of his heel or every single color in the sky, and he’s the type of person to make a good thing out of a bad situation and thank the universe for dogpiling on him in the first place.

Megumi knows all about that, of course, because they talk. It was an accident, because he’d made the mistake of searching him up on Instagram while Nobara was in his vicinity and she’d snatched his phone up and followed him without a second thought, mostly because Yuuji was objectively hot and she didn’t have to stalk him from her own account, or her alt account. To his complete shock and utter horror, Yuuji had followed him right back during work hours, going straight to liking every single one of his posts (there are three of them, each one a single slide of some photo of a dog or a face or a family) and he was too flustered by that to remember to delete his entire life.

A conversation after that was inevitable– Yuuji had posted a sunset on his story, and Megumi had been thinking about how much the clouds looked like the pink tufts of his hair, so, like an idiot, he’d liked the story. Then Yuuji had replied, and it was rude to leave him on seen, so he reacted to the message hoping that was enough, but this was Itadori Yuuji and he was excellent at taking things from you without you realizing you’re making the mistake of giving something up, and so he’d kept talking, and he had no choice to keep responding, and it was over from there.

Yuuji had said he’s just some guy selling flowers, but he really isn’t, and the implication that he is anything less than the sun is absurd. Megumi learns about his life in bits and pieces, discarded scraps of personal information he drops every once in a while like stray petals falling from ripening flowers. He was born in Sendai, where he lived with his grandfather until he passed away just before he got into high school. At the time, he wasn’t aware he had extended family, and he worried through a month of mourning and bills until his long-lost uncle showed up. He took care of him long enough for Yuuji to get into university and on the track team and collect enough scholarships to live off for the next four years, and then promptly disappeared.

“It sounds bad, I know,” he laughs, rubbing at the end of a stem of a lone lily of the valley, “but he sends me money every once in a while, and he was at my graduation, so! I can’t blame him for not wanting to raise a child.”

Megumi had tried very hard not to scowl. “I can,” he’d glowered. “Easily.”

Yuuji had smacked him in the arm. “Well, I won’t let you!” he told him, and then showed him pictures of a childhood in the country reeds.

Yuuji was a good athlete. Good enough to make a career out of it, good enough to plan on it. Good enough to get noticed, at the time, by local media outlets, who publicised him enough he became relatively known. Known enough, in fact, to spark the attention of his half-brother, a particular flower-shop-owning Kamo Choso his grandfather refused to raise because the guy was the end result of Yuuji’s mother’s first marriage, but old enough to have aged out of the foster care system to start.

Megumi had said, more or less, that that was a pretty shitty thing to do. Yuuji, to his surprise, had nodded.

“I agree,” he murmured, gratefully murmuring his thanks as Megumi slides a cup of coffee across the counter at him, because this is a thing he’s started to do now that it’s cold, to stop at the cafe on the corner and pick up drinks for both of them, because the only decent piece of advice Toji had ever told him was that there was no point in eating if his sister was going to starve. “But it is what it is, y’know? My grandfather had his own prejudices, and there’s no point in resenting him for them now that he’s gone. My job is just to– to make up for his mistakes, I guess, and hope I don’t do any damage to my own family one day.”

You’re too kind for that, Megumi does not say. Instead, he asks: “You want kids?”

Yuuji’s eyes flicker. Up, then away. “Don’t you?” he murmurs, and it’s December and Megumi hasn’t slept with anyone in just under two months, and he’s spent over a hundred thousand yen on Yuuji and his flowers, and instead of saying something ridiculous along the lines of if it was you, he shrugs stiffly, shuts his mouth, and stuffs another wad of cash into the kintsugi vase Yuuji had turned into a tip jar.

From his brother, Yuuji had gotten into arrangements. He’d begun working at the shop as a bit of a joke during junior year– between practices, competitions, and university work, he didn’t think it would ever be a serious thing, but he liked it enough to keep at it, and he kept at it long enough to be good at it. Even with his newest hobby and the occasional million-yen order for a wedding or a birthday, he’d gotten offers from the national team, and his future was pretty much solid. He was so sure everything was going to work out, that he would go on to do something great and fantastic, that he would be an inspiration and an idol and a face of a nation and and and–

“And then one morning I woke up,” he says, the faintest hint of mischief in his eyes, “and a little voice in my head said ‘you’re going to be unhappy, Yuuji,’” and two hours later I was sitting in my coach’s office signing out of my contract– and believe me, Fushiguro, I’ve never seen someone look that distraught, ever.”

It’s been three months since they met, and it’s New Year’s day now, and Megumi had gotten up bright and early to get his usual two coffees and weekly flowers, hopping on the earliest train he could find to travel twenty kilometers to Setagaya, and his apartment perpetually smells like plants now, of green leaves and blue blooms, and every morning on the way out he breathes in just a little deeper than he did the last and thanks whatever god that may live that his home smells like Itadori Yuuji’s flower shop.

And yes, he would like to inhale the scent of Yuuji, too. Of strawberries and salt, probably, because Yuuji had gone on a rant about how much better 3-in-1 was and Megumi had pretty easily buried his infatuation under a face of disgust. To hold one or both of those skilled hands and wind their fingers together, down the road or up the sheets, to have that face smile from beside him instead of behind a register. To not just have Yuuji as a friend– a good friend, because that is what they are; come February, they are good friends, and Megumi isn’t denying that– but a boyfriend, a partner, a pretty thing in his own house. To like somebody, honestly, someone he knows could probably like him back, if he had the guts to ask. For more than that, maybe, if he’s feeling a little hopeful.

There’s a saying out there, something along the lines of teenagers know what children don’t and what adults forget. Megumi thinks it’s desire; to itch for something, to think of an object and everything you would do to have it, to keep it special. Yuuji isn’t a possession, not by any means– he’d seen a blotch on his neck at least once and he’s pretty sure there had been mentions of a girlfriend here and there–

Megumi wants him so bad, and it doesn’t have shit to do with flowers anymore. It’s the most pathetic he’s felt in a long, long time, and every time Yuuji’s touch lingers too long or he smiles just a tad bit too gently or says I’ll be seeing you around, Fushiguro, in that dangerously tender voice, he thinks he very well may just come out and say it right to his face.

“And you’re yapping to me about this and not your hunky nameless flower boy?” Nobara growls, teeth grinding in his ear over the phone. “Fushiguro Megumi, you squared-up blockhead! Confess your feelings to this guy before I stalk you hard enough, find this man, and tell him you have a thing for me instead!”

“Shut the hell up, Nobara,” he mutters, feeling his eye twitch, mostly because she does follow Yuuji already, and it’s by the universe’s good grace she hasn’t figured this shit out. “I’m already picking up your flowers for you, goddamn–”

“They’re for Maki-san, douche–”

“Then why don’t you come get them yourself, you ungrateful little–”

“Tell him!” Nobara yells, and Megumi jabs the end call button so hard his phone cracks, then shoves his phone into his pocket and pulls open the shop door.

To his surprise, it’s crowded. It’s Valentine’s Day, so obviously there’s a reason behind it, but seeing so many people– men, women, everyone– in his shop, poking at flowers they definitely shouldn’t be touching, messing with the orchids, fingers pressed to the cooling cases and smudging the glass, the reek of their perfume and cologne and the grating chatter like cotton in his ears–

Yuuji’s eyes. That’s the first thing he notices, red-brown and shock-wide behind the counter, even though the rest of his face is smiling. He looks like he’s just surviving being swamped, entertaining one woman with small talk while wrapping up poinsettias for a man drumming his fingers against the counter. It’s overstimulating, every part of it, and half of Megumi wants to turn around and walk right out. His better half, fortunately, does not, because the second Yuuji mouths Megumi? eyebrows jumping up his forehead with equal parts surprise and relief, he’s gone.

He makes his way through the people instead, slipping between bodies to make his way to the counter, and he finally reaches the open side between the line and the back. He’s not cutting, or anything, of course. He’s not even here for himself.

“Thank god you’re here, Fushiguro,” Yuuji blusters, yanking his attention away from the next customer for two seconds to give him the warmest of smiles and a clap on the shoulder that holds itself in place for just a moment longer than it should, and oh, that’s right, he’s here for Yuuji. “Sorry I couldn’t respond to your call–”

“It’s fine.” Warily, Megumi surveys the shop. “Do you need any help?”

“No, I– here you go, ma’am, there’s your total–” Yuuji shakes his head, lips drawn tight. “It’s always like this around this time of the year, don’t worry. I’m fine.”

Someone smacks some cash down on the counter. Megumi glares at the teenaged, pimply boy, who shrinks back as if he isn’t aware of what he did wrong. “Okay. Do you want me to get you something to eat?”

“Fushiguro, I promise it’s all good.” Swiftly, Yuuji finishes tying up another bouquet, and if the swiftness and perfection at which he does it means anything, he’s totally been taking his time with his own. “And don’t worry, I saw your text– yeah, tap right there, please– you had a pickup, right?”

Ding! Megumi nods. “Kugisaki,” he offers, and then remembers that that’s not very helpful. “Kugisaki Nobara, probably. It’s a Valentine’s Day arrangement.”

Yuuji, to his surprise, doesn’t say anything. He just works quietly for a second, clearing two more customers out of the way with the same blank face he gets when he’s working, although his eyebrows are a little furrowed.

Megumi frowns. “Yuuji, I can–”

“Yeah,” Yuuji says, too-quickly and too sudden, and when he waves him in the direction of the coolers, he doesn’t even look up. “Pink bunch in the back. If you get it and bring it here I can ring it up.”

Megumi stares. “Okay,” he replies, and sort of hazily goes and gets the flowers.

He stands in line, this time, because he’s not a prick. He’s not sure how long he waits for, but the shop slowly begins to settle, and by the time he gets back to the counter, the store is mostly empty, save for a few lingering couples and once very distressed looking soon-to-be-bachelor.

Megumi drops his flowers on the tile. Yuuji, who must have been zoning out, jumps.

“These ones,” Megumi tells him. “How much are they?”

Yuuji blinks. He does this funny thing, when he’s nervous or anxious or startled, a twitch of his nose and a jerk of his head. “However much it says on the price tag,” he answers lightly, and Megumi’s jaw would have broken if it hit the floor, so his eyebrows just jump instead.

“Okay,” he says, instead of something reasonable like what’s wrong? “How much is that?”

Again, the twitch. Yuuji, silently, reaches for the tag, but just before he can grab it, Megumi sticks his hand in the way, takes his fingers, and– in a move that would have had Gojo blushing for shame, meets his eyes and shakes his head.

“It’s nine thousand,” he confirms, instead of what happened? “I already checked. Are you upset with me?”

Yuuji blinks at him. It’s kind of cute, because his lips are parted just a little and he looks as if he’s been blown out of the water, and maybe this has something to do with the fact that they’re sort of holding hands, a fact Megumi is pointedly choosing to ignore.

“Oh,” he mumbles, eventually, gaze sticking on the point at which they’re connected for just a second– and then the roses– before he blinks back up at his face. “Oh. No. I– it’s been a long day. Sorry. You, uh–”

Megumi, then, gets one of those terrible ideas. The kind of idea he’d frequently had, a long time ago, when Toji was gone for too long or Tsumiki was staring at their report cards too hard. An idea, sort of, like the one he’d had when he’d watched the first set of flowers begin to wilt on the kitchen counter or when he’d turned the corner. A bad idea, a semi-sickening notion. A feeling, he decides, that he never wants to feel again.

“Yuuji,” he tells him, instead of I would literally sell my soul than send shit to Kugisaki Nobara unless it was a pipe bomb, “when I get you flowers, believe me when I say that you’ll have no idea about it.”

Close enough. Yuuji, for just a second, gapes, and then promptly blushes from the roots of his hair to the bottom of his chin. “You can’t say that!” he hisses, voice a squeak, and he shoves him away by the shoulder as he begins to punch unintelligible numbers into the register. “You really shouldn't be saying things like that, Fushiguro–”

“Why?” he asks, feeling rather satisfied with how this all turned out, even though he’s pretty sure he’s red, too. “What, ‘cause you’ll believe me?”

“Because I already do,” Yuuji admits, not quite meeting his gaze as he rings up a hundred percent discount and practically shoves the flowers in his face, hands not quite pulling away when he reaches for the flowers and holding his gaze for a second too long before Megumi suddenly and inexplicably feels the urge to clear his throat and yank his gaze away, and isn’t that something?

Nothing much changes. Yuuji still texts, and they still call occasionally, and they talk as much as usual. Megumi brings him coffee, Yuuji gives him flowers, and it’s like that for a decently long time, long enough that it becomes routine.

Admittedly, though, he does start opening up in their conversations, and even though he thinks about cutting things off more than once, he never does, and he’s content with that fact, It’s not as if he was dry before, but now that he knows that Yuuji is a real, tangible thing, a face that exists in more than just conversations sandwiched between four walls of shop and his face and Instagram, it’s easier to talk about himself.

What is there to know, though? He is Fushiguro Megumi, a boy born on the cusp of winter. He’s about to graduate college, and has a job lined up for him the moment his hat is in the air. He likes to cook but not too much, he likes to clean and read; his favorite colors are blue and gray, he loves his sister even though he swears he’ll never say that again, and that’s pretty much all you need to care about.

“I think you think about yourself through the eyes of what you’re capable of just a little bit too much,” Yuuji says, voice gentle through the phone, and that is the closest his life has come to turning around. “I would think you were a wonderful person even if I didn’t know you at all.”

Megumi breathes. In, and then out. “I think you think too much about me, Yuuji,” he replies, blinking at the ceiling with the sort of lightheadedness that comes with falling and the flowers on his desk rustle with his next laugh.

He tells Nobara, eventually, because she finds out about their semi-sort-of-not-relationship and flips out, Maki cackling like the demon she is over her video call as he desperately tries to explain himself and save himself from her wrath at the same time, neither of which really work. He begs them both to keep it a sort-of-secret, but the next day he wakes up to a very scarily short text from that man, (a florist, Megumi? Really?) and he goes right back to the flower shop.

“There, there,” Yuuji snickers, leaning down to pat his hair where he hides behind the counter. “I’m sure your family is a bunch of really wonderful people that are simply excited about the circumstance! If one of the most prickly people I knew suddenly got a new best friend, I would be really happy for them!”

“Quit talking,” Megumi growls, partially because he’s not wrong, but mostly because Yuuji is still a person he could see himself being in love with and best friend doesn’t come close to cutting it.

Nothing much changes, except for the way he finds himself staring at Yuuji, and the way he finds Yuuji staring at him, too. Things are tense, but in an uncomfortable-comfortable way that makes the strange bubble in his chest swell, burning without hurt. Megumi is still selfish, of course, and he still wants, but he thinks it’s mellowed out.

And then, of course, Yuuji drops a bomb on him in the shape of his birthday.

“Yeah, it’s this weekend,” he says, slurping down ramen as if Megumi hadn’t actually just almost missed his birthday and he didn’t say anything about it until now, in the middle of a crowded restaurant, where he knows fully well no one can deal another person bodily harm. “I usually work, but I close an hour or two early so I can go home and call my brother. Sometimes I get a cake, too–”

Silence. Megumi stares. Yuuji, realizing how big he must have messed up, looks up from his bowl of soup. “Uh, Fushigu–”

“Take the whole day off,” he tells him.

“I’m not doing that!”

“Do it!”

“I need the money–”

“Do it, or else I’ll cut you a check to keep that shop open from ten to ten until your next birthday!”

“Wh– no?! Fushiguro! You definitely can’t do that, man!”

Megumi leans forward. Yuuji shrinks back in his seat. “Fine, fine,” he says quickly, waving his hands. “I’ll close at four thirty, okay?”

Megumi doesn’t like this. Yuuji’s pleading face, however, is good enough. “Four,” he concedes, and Yuuji, even with a grin on his face, kicks him under the table.

Yuuji’s birthday falls on a Sunday, so Megumi blacks out the preceding Friday on his calendar and goes for the jump. He honestly doesn’t think he’s ever left class that fast, and he’s back at his apartment and stuffing snacks into a backpack before he’s jogging down the stairs and to the train station.

The fondness he’s fostered for Yuuji teeters on the edge of scary. He is choosing to ignore that.

Has been choosing to ignore that, until he sort of comes to on the middle of the platform, sort of looks around and thinks what the hell am I doing here, what the fuck, because he’s never actually felt this way and these things take their sweet time when gearing up to bite him in the ass.

There are two memories that hit him now, just as the train roars into the station. The first had been a semi-snowy day in December, somewhere around his twenty-fourth birthday. Maybe it was just a bad day, or maybe Gojo had put him in a bad mood, but Nobara had told him to do something nice for himself, and to go get some flowers. It was unfortunate, more than anything– he’d snapped at her and told her to stop egging him on, to stop pushing him into a place he didn’t belong, to stop trying to get him to go after Yuuji, a person who was so comfortable in his own life that there was no need for someone like him to be a part of it, and later that night he’d stared up at his ceiling and thought to himself that a normal person wouldn’t say something like that. It’s true, of course– normal people don’t think about other people the way he does; they don’t fret over the future and the potentiality of losing connections and so decide to never make them at all. That’s just not a normal thing to do.

It still takes him the rest of the month to collect the courage to go back, but by then, it’s New Year’s eve, and when he slinks in Yuuji waves at him from his usual place like he’s been waiting for him the entire time, and by the time he steps up to the counter, he doesn’t even remember what he was worried about.

The second incident is smack-dab in the middle of February, right after Valentine’s Day. He’d been scared, or something, of the look in Yuuji’s eyes when he’d said whatever it was that had shifted the world under his feet.

Because I already do, he’d told him. And I care, too.

And Megumi couldn’t, because these things come in waves and he’s not used to being at the peak of anything. He hadn’t spoken to Yuuji for a week after that, would have made it even longer if he didn’t begin to feel bad. He went to class, he bought Tsumiki a wilting bouquet at the nearest convenience store, and he’d thought very logically about the kind of person he would look like if he ran out on Yuuji, a wonderful person and a good friend and someone who deserved nice things, and then he’d categorized the faint sickness bubbling in his stomach when he’d thought of someone else giving Yuuji those nice things somewhere near jealousy, and that had been that.

There’s not really much else to this, he realizes, the train rumbling under his feet. Megumi had thought that if he were to fall in love, it would be a little like Gojo’s overdramatized stories of teenage romance, and a little near the concerningly smutty novels he’d found in Maki’s room one time. It would be nice, maybe, a little grand in some places, romantic dates leading to a grand confessional somewhere years down the line. Good sex in the beginning, good food, someone who would be compelled enough by his prickly personality to keep chasing after him. Maybe they would fight, and maybe they would break up at least once, but underneath all of that the feelings would be the same, and he would eventually admit that he cared more than he should.

With Yuuji, there’s none of that. He saw him in a flower shop, decided entertaining it wouldn’t be so bad, and was somewhat surprised that Yuuji had done the same. There were none of those stupid tropes he’d seen in everyone else’s relationships– no miscommunication, no loss, no unnecessary angst, no mishaps. He’d just seen Yuuji, talked to him for longer than five minutes, and decided he would be a good person to care for. To think about when and not just if, to wonder about how and not why. To insert Yuuji’s slice of the world into his own, and to have dropped his guard without too much trouble. It probably doesn’t need to be more complicated than that.

It’s the same ride it always is, but this time he has two tickets in his hand instead of one, smooth paper worn under his fingers from where he rubs at it, which he finds himself doing far more than he probably should. It’s sort of expected, because he’s always been a bigger worrier than Tsumiki even though no one really knows that, because he likes having nice things and keeping them that way. Maybe this doesn’t apply to the tickets, but it extends to Yuuji, because Yuuji was one of the better things he’d had in a long time, and he wants him to stay that way.

Yuuji is not, as he said he would be, waiting outside for him. In a huff, Megumi storms in, windchime jangling aggressively with the force of which he pulls open the door. If it could slam, he definitely would have done that.

“Fuck!” Yuuji yelps from the counter, and Megumi has to stifle his laugh as he begins to panic, because what was he expecting. “Oh, shit– Fushiguro, is it four already–”

“It’s three forty-five,” he says. “And you’re closed now that I’m here.”

“It is so not,” Yuuji replies. “I need to– I gotta clean–”

“Then clean.” Megumi sniffs, and Yuuji rolls his eyes. “I’ve got all day.”

With one hand, Yuuji gives him a thumbs down. With the other, he flips him off. Megumi takes that as an opportunity to roll his eyes, and watches as Yuuji bustles around very aggressively for ten minutes re-watering all his plants and pulling down shades and sweeping bills into drawers. Megumi watches, and he thinks it’s sort of funny that despite his insistence on staying open, Yuuji is a vibrating shell of excitement, barely able to contain himself.

“Okay, okay,” he blusters, brushing his hair back from his eyes as he skitters over to the door. “Come on– let’s go, let’s–”

It’s a two and a half hour train ride to Mt. Takao. They go from standing in a packed car to sitting mostly with the evening sun falling on their shoulders, Yuuji jostling into him no matter what, looking around eagerly. He doesn’t push, though, doesn’t ask for the most part, and when Megumi fishes in his backpack and hands him a water bottle after their debate about the benefits of natural medicines fades to a lull, his eyes widen with surprise that betrays him.

“Don’t tell me we’re going hiking,” he murmurs, peering at his shoes. “Oh, your feet are gonna get so blistered if we are– are we going hiking, Fushiguro? Are you gonna be walking in those things?”

Megumi shrugs, “Maybe,” he nods, purposely giving him nothing, and Yuuji rocks back and forth and looks like he wants to strangle him, but he doesn’t. Later conversations, and things of the like.

They get off at Takaosanguchi station, and from there it’s a warm walk in the spring air to a cable car, which Yuuji gasps at and clutches his arm for, because apparently he’s never done this sort of thing before. His face is so endearing that when he lets go, Megumi takes his phone out and snaps a photo, just for his own sake. Hopefully, Nobara doesn’t go through his camera roll any time soon, because the candid softness of the curve of Yuuji’s back and the grin he tosses over would probably send her into a coma.

They walk. They talk. Both, in their own strange ways, are equally gratifying. Yuuji points out shrubs and trees and minuscule blooms Megumi would have never thought of catching, let alone memorizing. It’s not as if he’s ignorant, or as if he doesn’t know his stuff– he knows what poison ivy looks like, because Gojo had become intimately acquainted with it one summer camping in the woods. He knows what wild poppies look like, because those are Tsumiki’s favorite flowers. He knows what those tiny white dots are, because they grow everywhere there’s air to breathe. He knows how Yuuji breathes, carves the sound into the inside of his skull, the deep inhale of life and longing and all the good things that come with feeling for someone.

“–ven with all that, I think I love irises the most,” Yuuji sighs, wistfully looking at a clump of blue-white flowers they’re not allowed to pick. “Oh– actually, do you have a favorite flower, Fushiguro? You never told me if you did.”

Megumi does not. “Tiger lilies are nice,” he replies immediately, because last night he was thinking of arranging a little bouquet for Yuuji for his actual birthday, and if he had the opportunity to turn him into a flower and give Yuuji back to himself, he would do it like that. “But I don’t really have too much of a preference–”

“Oh, come on!” Yuuji shoves him a little, and god, he doesn’t have to fake his stumble at all. “It’s a fall flower, genius– you know it doesn’t even bloom at this time of year–”

“Sure it does,” he cuts in, and before Yuuji’s hand can return to its owner, he takes it for himself, looping their fingers together. “Haven’t you seen yourself recently?”

Yuuji blanks for a second, and then the emptiness on his face collapses into a breathless little giggle that obliterates any sort of resolve he could have had, and he’s half-crashing, half-leaning into him, and Megumi figures that maybe falling in love is a little bit like falling off the trail just before the peak, tripping into the sun with the brambles snagging at your jeans, and the sky staining your teeth pink with how hard you’re smiling.

Just past the peak of the mountain, there’s a depression. Within this depression is a meadow, and in that meadow is a million blooming flowers. Megumi had been worried, while planning this trip, that March in Japan was too early for wildflower bloom. Fortunately, there are two rounds of growth– one in the early spring, and one in the late summer, and so he pulls Yuuji into what might be the most colorful section of space he’s ever seen in his entire life, warm orange grasses dotted with cyan and violet and orange and scarlet flowers, green shrubs bordering on the fringe, the hum of busy insects in the air over the rolling hills.

“Oh, my god,” whispers Yuuji, irises blown wide as he stands, frozen, at Megumi’s side. “Ohhh my god–”

“Thank god,” Megumi mutters, relieved that the season had come through. “I didn’t think there would be anything here at this time of year–”

“You,” Yuuji says, you, you, you, and he clasps both of his hands and turns to him and the light sparkling in his eyes is a dangerous thing, “–you, Fushiguro Megumi– you could genuinely bring me to an empty field and I could kiss the ground under your feet, what the fuck I think I love you–”

“There are almost as many bacteria in one cubic centimeter of dirt than in your dog’s oral cavity,” Megumi rattles, brain clicking like a sticky record on the word kiss and the word fuck and the words I think I love you, over and over again around the loop of the track. “You won’t be kissing anything with that mouth–”

Yuuji’s lips smack into his cheek, and whatever words he could are blissfully wiped from his brain snatched away along with the wind as Yuuji tugs him into the field by the hand, dancing in the dirt as nature itself moves out of the way for him to spin.

It’s sort of a blessing, really, that he got into such a big fight with Tsumiki back in October. Now, as Yuuji leaps from rock to interesting rock and ribbed stem to fluttering flower, Megumi thinks that everything that has never worked out for him was sort of a good thing, because all of those moments led to this one, and the one after that, and maybe the day after this. He’s never been good at looking into the future, never really kept up with it after so many failed years using what he thought was good judgement kept him in shadow after shadow. The hope wells up in him now, though, as he watches Yuuji trace a calloused finger along a delicate, tapering petal, and he wonders if he would be alright if he touched him that gently. With so much kindness and care, so much trust– to run your thumb over a jagged thorn without looking as you chatter away to the world about how much you love this one, even with all its mistakes; to say I hope it does well, even though that one is nothing but poison, Yuuji, stop touching the damn thing; to marvel at the most simple of things and the most complex, to understand the intricacies of every flower and not resent them for simply existing.

Maybe this is unfair, though. He doesn’t have a hard life now, and he’s never been short for unconditionality. Toji’s stubbornness to keep him in his life, Tsumiki’s determination to keep him alive, Gojo’s attempts to keep his head above water until he got to shore, Nobara’s spark on driftwood keeping him warm. Everyone else, in their own way, from the twins at the clinic and Maki for looping her arm over his shoulder, to all the people who pushed him ahead without realizing or really being responsible. It’s one of those things you don’t realize even happened until it’s over, though, when you stand just under the peak of meaningfulness and realize you’re in love, and it hits you if it wasn’t for the struggle on the other side you wouldn't have got here in the first place, and you wouldn't be as grateful as you are now.

“I only had one girlfriend in high school,” Yuuji confesses, the two of them laid flat on their backs on the side of the hill they chose to watch the sunset on, but the sun has been long gone and now they’re just waiting for the stars to begin to shine. “Yu-chan. It wasn’t anything serious, if I’m honest– we were kids then, and we’ve both grown up now, and we’ve both moved on. She texted me a while back, though, said she was gonna be getting married soon. Invited me to the wedding, too. I’ll probably end up doing her flowers while I’m at it. I’ll probably give her a discount.”

Megumi turns this over in his mind. “Did you love her?” he asks, the coolness of the twilight wind tickling his shins, and he’s not a bitter person right now, not tonight.

Yuuji’s head lolls in his direction. “I guess,” he replies, words layered with mirth. “As best fifteen-year-old me could love anyone, I think. I wasn’t good at feeling back then. I had a lot going on, y’know? I don’t think I was capable of anything more than embarrassment and barely-contained teenage lust.”

With how he is now, Megumi can’t begin to imagine it. “I get that,” he says, dragging his gaze away. “I never really settled down, either. I never thought about it.”

“Eh…” Yuuji rubs at his chin. “You’ll probably hate me for this, but I did. I slept around a lot in college in an attempt to connect, or whatever, but you better believe I sure as hell was compensating for something.”

Megumi snorts. “And you wanted to talk about being jealous,” he teases, nudging him, and when Yuuji rolls his eyes and pokes him back, he doesn’t even flinch. “Compensating for what? You don’t look like the type.”

“Quit it,” Yuuji grumbles sheepishly, cheeks red in the low light, and he rolls over onto his side. “It just took me forever, y’know? To accept that I could have nice things in general from anyone, god forbid people who cared about me, and– and that’s why I hated when you gave me all that money! You gave me so much money, Megumi!”

God, he’s still mad about it. “Which I stopped doing,” Megumi huffs, and he does not regret that nearly as much as he should. “You told me to lay off and I did–”

“And then you proceeded to feed me for five months straight!”

“We went out for ramen three times–”

“And every time you came to see me you got me candy or chocolate or cookies or protein bars or–”

“Sweet things are cheap–”

“And you’re expensive!”

Megumi pushes him away. Yuuji laughs, scoots over, and then flops onto his stomach with his arms pillowed onto his head, still giggling. It’s cute. It kind of hurts.

Maybe that’s what makes him shut up.

Yuuji doesn’t say anything, either. Just hums a little and pulls at blades of grass without breaking any of them. It’s quiet long enough for the silence to settle, and maybe it would have been comfortable, but Megumi has words swirling around in his head he thinks wouldn’t be the worst if he got out, so he opens his mouth.

“I’ve been thinking,” he mutters, biting at his cheek, “and I’m not so sure that I’m going about this right.”

“Oh?” Yuuji blinks at him, blinking the peaceful daze from his eyes. “Elaborate?”

Megumi isn’t sure he wants to do that. He opens his mouth anyway. “I like you,” he admits, and even though Yuuji flushes, he rolls his eyes as if to say no fucking shit, dude, who wouldn’t like me? “A lot. That’s not a mistake.”

“Well, I like you too,” Yuuji offers, nudging his shoulder with a gentle elbow and keeping it there after a few seconds, and yeah, he’s going to die about this later. “What’s the but in that sentence for?”

“It…” Megumi trails off, not sure how to explain it. “It’s like buying flowers. I guess. I never really thought about having something just for myself.”

Yuuji thinks about that. “I don’t either,” he says, eventually. “I’m much happier making things for other people than asking for anything for myself. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten flowers before.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

"Huh."

"You sound surprised."

“It is surprising.”

“Is it?” Yuuji lifts one shoulder. “I’ve had every opportunity to do it for myself, so don’t feel bad about it.”

“Who says I feel bad?”

“You do. I can see it in your eyes.”

What can he reply to that with, he wonders? What doesn’t Yuuji already know? Megumi is twenty-four and so is he, and anything worth remembering would have probably slipped out into the receiver of his cellphone. It’s sort of impossible to express these things, being the way he is, and it takes a much longer speck of time than six months for him to admit it, much less say it. It would have been easier to do anything else at all.

But. Even knowing how flawed he is, it’s kind of a shame. He probably should have tried a little harder from the start.

Beneath them, the field sways. Back and forth, back and forth, over and over, their movements as dizzying as the ocean, as vast as the sky. Megumi points at it, and Yuuji, confused, looks over his shoulder, down at the world.

“That,” he decides, instantly and immediately, now and forever, and he circles his finger once around, just to make it real. “That’s for you. All of it.”

Yuuji does a double take, face wiped clean with surprise. “What?”

“I don’t think I’ve gotten flowers before,” Megumi echoes, and maybe that’s when it clicks, because the way Yuuji looks at him is nothing like he’s ever seen before, like he’s somehow responsible for every stem blooming under the surface of the sky. “You can’t say that anymore now that I've brought you here, can you?”

“That’s–” Yuuji stumbles over his words, pushing himself up on his hands, “I– Fushiguro, t-that’s–”

“Pretty rude to reject a guy’s proposal?” he snarks, sitting up, the bubble in his chest about to pop, heart pounding so hard with okay this is it everything begins now I guess that his head hurts. “I know. You’re welcome. How about you say something like gee, thanks, Megumi, hey, maybe next time you come by I’ll let you pay full price instead of robbing me–”

Yuuji kisses him so hard he sees stars, bursts of dandelions and daffodils and gerbera daisies. He’s pretty sure he keeps his eyes open for the first part, too, until he’d knocked back into the dirt with the force of their lips colliding, Yuuji’s hand coming up to catch the back of his head, to cradle it. He was right about the gentleness, the slip and drag of nails dragging on his scalp and nape, and he can’t help the noise that’s punched from his throat, the way he has to scramble for purchase on his sanity and his dignity and the five centimeters of height and dominance he’s supposed to have by wrenching his fingers in Yuuji’s hoodie, and it helps that it pulls him closer, closer, makes him warmer–

“Fuck,” he gasps, pulling away from him so hard the world goes brilliant black, and it’s all Megumi can do to choke some air down, to breathe, to keep holding onto Yuuji, to Yuuji, to Itadori Yuuji. “Oh, fuck, Fushiguro–”

“What?” he manages, because his mouth is still burning and it’s so wonderful and he never wants it to stop, and he is desperately trying very hard not to ask for Yuuji to say his name like that again and again and again and this is real, he can’t undo that, and also he’s about to be so very annoyed if Yuuji doesn’t start kissing him again immediately. “What, what–”

“I forgot to lock up,” Yuuji mumbles, panic seeping into his voice. “Hey, I think I forgot to lock the front door–”

“Jesus Christ,” Megumi groans, letting his hands fall away, and yeah, this is probably going to be his life for the foreseeable future, better start accepting it now. “Fuck, Yuuji, I thought you were dying–”

“I am going to!” Yuuji scrambles off him, grabbing their stuff. “Get up, man, get up–”

“Don’t call me man, Yuuji,” he growls, shoving himself upright. “You just had your tongue in my mouth–”

“And I’m sure I’ll be able to do that again after making sure no one stole all my orchids!”

“No one wants to steal your flowers.”

“You totally would!”

“I literally paid you extra for them–”

Yuuji makes a motion to reach for him. “And if someone’s in the middle of breaking in, Megumi, I need you to be there–”

Irritated, Megumi takes his hand. “You told me the very first day we met that I don’t look like I fight,” he bites, and maybe it’s sort of awful, remembering that now, but he was doomed the moment he met Yuuji, really. “Assuming that is true– which it is not, by the way– what am I going to do against an armed robber, Yuuji?”

Yuuji flashes him a finger gun. Just one, because they’re holding hands now, and even if he did let go, he probably knows better than to not come back. “I think you’ll be pretty good at keeping the rest of my flowers out of the way,” he beams, smile just as radiant as the day he met him, and perhaps Megumi would have replied to that if Yuuji hadn’t begun to drag him through the sleeping flowers, and if the fireflies, springing to life between the wild roses and pansies, hadn’t come alive with every step, phosphor-lit chests like so many ends of plush oxalis and bright, endless aconite, and instead of saying anything ridiculous and pointless in return, Megumi keeps his grumbling to himself, thinks that he is sort of very lucky that things turned out this way, and decides, after a moment, that there probably wouldn’t be too much harm in going down the next alleyway he finds himself stumbling into without a map.