Chapter Text
Shirabu Kenjirou was not really a sentimental person, even Taichi could attest to that. Not that he had any problems with people keeping things as a remembrance or something; it’s just that he did not see the point in holding onto things that were of no use anymore. Not that he ruled every memorabilia as useless; there were still some things that proved to be useful such as mugs and shirts. Heck, he sometimes even finds himself keeping postcards as decorations. At least they still had some use, right?
But out of all the gifts and souvenirs he could get and choose to keep, flowers were one of the things he’d rather throw out.
Not that he was against the idea of giving flowers, or anything. He just really didn’t get what the point of giving flowers was. They’ll just die out anyway, right? Sure, they make pretty decors. But so do postcards, and those don’t rot away and die.
Well, that’s what he usually thought.
So why the fuck was he attempting to press flowers at two in the morning?
He wasn’t even supposed to be doing this. He was supposed to be doing a menial task of sorting through his old lecture notes and maybe finding ones he could give to Goshiki (since the poor kid really needed some help, god save his soul). But sooner or later, he suddenly finds himself browsing through old journals of his, looking for some space to cram the crinkly yellow bloom by his feet in an attempt to straighten out the creases and wrinkles in the overly bright petals and no – he was not attempting to preserve it, really, he wasn’t. He didn’t even know he could preserve flowers that way – and no, Taichi, that is not a site teaching one how to preserve flowers flashed on the laptop screen.
God, he just wanted to finish arranging his mess, but what did he get? A nosy roommate who’s peering over his shoulder, eyes darting from the screen to his attempted work, trying to spew out some directions and advice.
Shirabu felt his grip on the flower’s flimsy stem tighten, and he could hear Taichi’s disapproving tone from behind him but he has long ignored it in favor of actually attempting to accurately press the flower in his hand onto the blank pages of an old journal. Who knows how long he’s been at it (– and no, Taichi, it hasn’t been two hours, no one’s keeping time), but apparently, the mussed up state of the bloom and the journal’s pages are evidence enough to prove that Shirabu, in fact, has tried several times to press the flower perfectly.
Finally, after probably hours of attempting perfection, the small brunette shut the journal, deeming his work to be decent enough, obviously ignoring the fact that he actually just gave up since the state of the flower was beyond saving by then. He looks up from his work and finds that Kawanishi had already retired, probably having gotten bored of watching him agonize over a simple task of flower pressing.
He then shifts his gaze to the clock on his bedside table, trying to decipher the time. And upon seeing the time, he lets out a small string of curses, wondering what had overtaken him to spend so much time just to press one small flower(– and no, Taichi, it’s not because it was from Semi-san, now shut up and go back to sleep). Those were just flowers, for fuck’s sake! And they weren’t even pretty anymore. So why did he even spend hours trying to perfect the art of pressing flowers? They couldn’t be reused let alone be used for décor at all. In annoyance, he flings the journal a few feet away and attempts to resume his earlier task of sorting through his things, but even then, he couldn’t concentrate as his eyelids were growing heavy.
Seeing that it was already late, Shirabu decided to just let it go and finally go to bed. Shutting his laptop, the brunette slowly dragged his feet to bed. He glares at the journal, now by the foot of his bed, kicking it before he finally plops down on his bed. Glancing once more at the clock on his bedside table, he groans, realizing that he barely has four hours left of sleep before the day starts.
Tomorrow was going to be a shitty day, Shirabu just knew it.
(And he was definitely going to blame Semi for it)