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The gardens just outside the Zenin estate felt distant from everything and everyone else, so that’s where you went.
Inside, not too far away, the clan elders were discussing something that was likely important, but it was tedious and droned on for far too long. Like you, Naoya could hardly keep his eyes open for the duration of it. It was easier for him to slip outside and escape it, and at most, get a summarisation of it later.
He found you standing near the edge of a stone path with your hands tucked behind your back, your gaze fixed on a bed of flowers. You had a thoughtful look on your face, your brows furrowed, and your lips pursed.
Naoya always did think that you looked very pretty.
“What are you doing all the way out here?” he asked you, startling you out of your focus.
You turned around, straightening up your back.
When you saw it was just Naoya, you shrugged. Your relationship with him was complicated; he treated you more fairly than he would most, however, you were unsure as to why.
“The same as you, I would imagine,” you replied casually. “I know that those talks bore you, too.”
His lips curled, and he snorted. “Sure,” he replied, watching your eyes drift back to the flowers. He could not resist poking some more fun at you, though. When he liked someone, he would tease them only gently in comparison to someone he flat out disliked, so therefore, he kept himself ‘kind’ for you, being mindful not to go overboard.
“You’re spacing out so much, huh?” he called you out, forcing you to listen. “What? Can’t even keep up with a simple conversation?”
You flashed him a tight smile of slight annoyance, but then you hesitated, glancing briefly back at the flowers.
“I was thinking, silly,” you replied, amending your composure. “I’m getting married soon, so I was looking for… inspiration over what flowers I want at my wedding.”
Naoya stiffened. For some reason, the word made him flinch, but he managed to mask it well.
“Your wedding?” he repeated. “Poor guy.”
A sharp breath of air left your nose. “Poor me, more like,” you replied with a sad smile on your face. “I have one thing I’m allowed to choose for the venue, and it’s flowers. So if I can at least have something on that day that feels like mine, then I’ll take it.”
Naoya opened his mouth to say something, but gulped down whatever his initial thoughts were. He was having a hard time imagining you as married to someone else. He always secretly hoped that when you were both of age, the clan heads would push you both together, but that never ended up being the case. Your family kept you away from the Zenin clan, perhaps rightfully so, and arranged for you to marry someone else entirely. The detail of control did not skip past him either. As cruel as he was, he would have given you more of a choice for something that was your day, too. He found himself resenting the other guy.
“Nobody’s going to remember the flowers,” he muttered.
You shrugged. “I will, though.”
Your calm response to the whole matter annoyed him.
“Did you know what people used to communicate with flowers?” you blurted out next.
He blinked at the abrupt change of topic. “What?”
“Like,” you started, beginning to fidget with your sleeves, your trembling habit revealing that you were actually quite nervous to disclose what was on your mind. “I read about it sort of recently, that they used to… overseas, during the Victorian era, communicate through certain types of flowers. Each one had a meaning, so you could say things without ever needing to use words.”
He huffed. “Sounds dumb.”
You smiled faintly. “Maybe to you,” you replied, glancing back at the flower bed once more and then settling your eyes back on him. “It’s just… I don’t want this, so I want it to be known, even if subtly. Even if nobody else knows the meaning of what I’m leaving behind.”
You hesitated, and then, a second later, you followed up with a question that sounded vulnerable when it left your lips.
“You think that’s stupid, don’t you?”
Naoya blinked; he’d never heard you use that tone or voice before.
“I guess, yeah?” he supposed. “But it’s your day, so whatever, right? You deserve to have something to yourself, no matter how small.”
You looked at him with a surprised glint in your eyes since you were fully expecting him to be mean to you at such an admission, though you would be lying if this was the first time he had ever been kind to you. He didn’t have any trouble in doing so when it was just the two of you alone.
“You’re kinder than you pretend,” you replied with no follow-up.
Naoya could only scoff faintly, folding his arms. “Don’t start with saying weird shit like that,” he replied, but his voice was softer that time, too, with no bite behind his words.
“I mean it,” you replied, taking a small step back, suddenly looking thoughtful, tucking your lips behind your sleeve, masking a creeping blush that had bloomed on your cheeks.
“For you, I would have chosen primroses,” you hastily revealed, rushing by him back inside the hall, leaving him both annoyed and stunned and maybe something else.
“Primroses?” Naoya repeated to himself out loud long after you were gone.
The word stayed with him as he eventually followed you back into the hall, throughout the meeting, and far into the late evening when everyone else had set off to sleep. He tried his luck with his mother, who insisted on hovering around nearby, hoping to shed the mystery, even if it were a long shot.
“Hey,” he called out, pulling her out from whatever she was doing.
She looked up at him, bowing, and maintaining a neutral tone. “Yes, Naoya?”
“Do you know anything about the language of flowers or some bullshit like that?” he asked gruffly.
Her lips curled ever so slightly, but she didn’t tease him, choosing to nod softly instead.
“What do primroses represent?” he proceeded to ask.
“I believe it means something along the lines of… young love, or…” she trailed off, trying to remember the meaning properly. “If more precisely, ‘I can’t live without you’, but it is more of a confession.”
Naoya blinked; he was fully prepared for something insulting, or teasing or anything else, but he ended up freezing on the spot, gulping down something thick that settled heavily into his stomach. Somehow, his heart hurt.
He turned away for the briefest second, but then, after a moment—
“That’s stupid,” he said, looking down at the floor, hiding the blush that crept up his cheeks.
Then, after another pause.
“So stupid,” he repeated, feeling something ache from within, unsure why breathing suddenly felt sharp, or why tears were beginning to prick at the corners of his eyes.