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Goshiki Tsutomu has never actually set foot in a flower shop before.
In fact, most of the time flower shops are something he actively avoids, because while he has many talents, one of them appears to be the ability to somehow kill every plant he’s ever owned.
It’s not like it’s intentional. He really does try to remember to water them, tries to make sure they get enough sunlight and the right amount of heat. Still, despite his best efforts, he’s killed everything from his parents’ orchids when they left for a weeklong vacation to the cactus Tendō gave him as a joke.
Unfortunately, it seems that if anything, his luck with plants is only getting worse.
After his advanced drawing class, instead of heading to the cafeteria as usual, Tsutomu finds himself pausing in front of the local flower shop. They were supposed to be working on still lifes today – namely capturing all the minute details in a lovely bouquet of tulips – but, well. Tsutomu's honestly not entirely sure how it happened, but one moment he was walking past the center table to get to his desk, and the next moment he was falling forward directly onto the display.
At first he'd had the naive hope that the tulips would be salvageable, but as he'd tried to collect them all back up, he'd managed to slip a little on the water that'd spilled out of the vase, and promptly stepped on a good clump of the flowers still lying on the ground.
Which is why he's currently standing in front of the door to a flower shop with the intention of buying a new bouquet for his professor's evening classes.
(They'd made do with the badly misshapen tulips in his class, but the professor had originally been planning on having them do a series of drawings, in which they'd document the steady wilting of the pretty plants. Tsutomu feels bad about causing their premature demise.)
Tsutomu hesitates outside the flower shop for longer than he probably should, wondering whether to enter or not. After all, if he can cause such a disaster with only a vase of flowers, who knows what he could do given free rein in a whole store of them?
However, before he can reach for the door handle, it swings open towards him, very nearly hitting him in the face.
“You've been staring at the door for a long time,” someone announces, and Tsutomu finds himself momentarily blinded by a shock of bright orange.
“What?” Tsutomu answers, less than eloquently.
“I think it's been like a whole five minutes,” the shop employee says, cocking his head slightly as he looks at Tsutomu. “You seemed like you were having trouble deciding whether to come in or not.”
“I should – ” Tsutomu says a little awkwardly, starting to take a step back.
“Come in!” the shop employee chirps, and a moment later Tsutomu feels a hand wrap around his wrist, tugging him inside the shop.
Tsutomu stumbles forward and very nearly takes out a display of hydrangeas, but thankfully the shop employee tugs him in a different direction just in time, making him miss the potted plants by mere centimeters. Finally, he comes to a stop in front of a counter strewn with a frankly dangerous amount tiny succulents, a cash register jammed in the one small spot of available space.
“So, how can I help you today?” the shop employee asks, and Tsutomu –
Tsutomu just stares for a moment.
The name tag that the employee is wearing reads “Hinata” something, half of the name covered by a smudge of something that looks like it’s halfway between mud and dirt. The name tag isn't the only thing that's dirt-smudged, though, and Tsutomu finds his eyes drawn to the streak of brownish black across the shop employee's – Hinata's – left cheek, then up to the dark streak of... something clumped in Hinata's hair.
Tsutomu's never seen someone who's been able to make dirt work before, but then again, today seems to be full of surprises.
“Are you looking for flowers for your girlfriend?” Hinata asks, finally bringing Tsutomu back down to earth. “Or boyfriend? Partner? Relative? Friend?” Tsutomu blinks at him. “... cat? We actually just got in some new catnip plants – ”
“No cat!” Tsutomu finally blurts out. “I don't have a cat.”
Hinata blinks at him for a moment and then says, “Dog?”
“I'm not here to buy something for anyone,” Tsutomu sighs, trying not to think about the crushed tulips sitting awkwardly in their pretty crystal vase. “I just need some tulips.”
“Just tulips?” Hinata asks, and Tsutomu can't help but feel oddly guilty as he sees Hinata's face fall.
“Just tulips,” Tsutomu confirms.
“Do you really like tulips or something?” Hinata presses, leaning over the counter a little farther and narrowing his eyes a little, studying Tsutomu in a way that makes him want to take a step back. However, he manages to stand his ground.
“They're for class,” Tsutomu mutters, unsure where to look, whether he should actually try to look head on into Hinata's eyes or if he should find a point on the back wall to stare at.
“What class do you need tulips for?” Hinata asks, his lips turning down in a frown.
“Drawing!” Tsutomu blurts out, finally taking a small step back as Hinata leans so far over the counter than he looks like he's about to climb over it. “I need to – draw tulips.”
“Why does it have to be tulips?” Hinata says, cocking his head slightly to one side. “There are a lot of cooler flowers to draw. Tulips are boring.”
“They're not boring!” Tsutomu protests. “Tulips are – ”
“Booooring!” Hinata interrupts. “C'mon, look – ”
Before Tsutomu can protest again, he finds Hinata's hand around his wrist again, dragging him to the other end of the store. They finally come to a stop in front of a display of various types of flowers held in plastic buckets, a messily scrawled sign in front of them which encourages the customer to “mix and match!” different flowers.
“See, look at these!” Hinata announces, reaching out to pluck a spiky orange and purple flower out of one of the far buckets. For a moment, Tsutomu thinks that Hinata’s going to topple forward onto the display, but somehow he manages to keep his balance, turning back to present the flower to Tsutomu with a triumphant grin. “They’re birds of paradise flowers!”
“I like tulips,” Tsutomu says stubbornly.
Hinata’s lips turn down into something dangerously close to a pout, but he leans over to stick the flower back into its bucket. However, instead of going for the bucket of dark purple tulips this time, he reaches for a different type of flower.
“What about bleeding hearts?” Hinata demands, shoving a sprig of small pink flowers towards Tsutomu. “They’re way more interesting than tulips! Or, or – ” Hinata grabs another stem out of a nearby bucket. “ – lily of the valley!”
For a moment, Tsutomu finds himself wondering how difficult it would be to perfectly render the small white lily blossoms in charcoal, but then he catches himself, shaking his head slightly to clear it.
“I just need tulips,” Tsutomu says firmly, crossing his arms over his chest. He can’t help but feel a twinge of guilt as he sees Hinata’s face fall, though, even though it was him being bullied into a purchase.
“Alright, well, what colors?” Hinata asks, moving closer to the few buckets with tulips, off to one side of the mix and match display. “And what style? The fringed ones are less boring than the regular ones, and parrot tulips are – ”
“Normal,” Tsutomu interrupts. “I want normal tulips.”
“That’s so boriiiing,” Hinata whines, but he leans over to grab a couple of classically shaped tulips in a couple of different colors. “We have white, red, yellow, and purple right now. A bouquet of six is fifteen hundred yen, and a bouquet of thirteen is three thousand yen.”
“Three thousand yen?” Tsutomu blurts out, staring at Hinata.
“Hey, flowers aren’t cheap!” Hinata replies, puffing up his chest a little. Tsutomu can’t help but think that he looks remarkably like an angry baby bird.
“Fine,” Tsutomu huffs. “I’ll have six purple ones.”
“Just purple?” Hinata asks, sounding disappointed.
“Just purple,” Tsutomu confirms. He thinks he hears Hinata mutter, “boring,” under his breath again, but he turns back to the bucket of purple tulips, carefully selecting six blossoms.
Once he’s finished inspecting them, he heads back over to the counter, his hands too occupied by flowers to pull Tsutomu along this time. Tustomu watches as Hinata wraps the flowers up in brown paper, eyes drawn to the way Hinata bites his lower lip as he ties a messy bow with brown twine to hold the bouquet together.
“Thanks,” Tsutomu mutters when Hinata hands him the bouquet, moving over to ring up the purchase on the cash register.
“I’m not supposed to let you return flowers, but if you change your mind later, I’ll let you swap some of the purple tulips for other colors,” Hinata says, looking up at Tsutomu with wide brown eyes that almost look a little amber in the store lighting.
“I’m not going to come back to exchange flowers,” Tsutomu huffs, accepting his change from Hinata and shoving his wallet back into his bag, before turning to head back towards the door.
“But you’ll come back for other reasons?” Hinata calls after him.
Tsutomu doesn’t dignify that with a reply.
---
The tulips are really pretty.
Tsutomu hadn’t given them much thought when he’d bought them, more focused on getting any tulips to replace the ones he’d accidentally destroyed, but after spending a week of drawing them daily, he’s starting to appreciate them more. He’s not sure where his professor had bought the original ones, but they’d seemed duller than these ones somehow, their colors less vibrant.
(Then again, maybe that’s just because Tsutomu had stepped on them a few times.)
While all of the blossoms have the same general shape, upon closer inspection, each one is slightly unique, petals curled in on each other at different angles. It’s difficult to capture the way the light casts shadows over them and penetrates the thin petals. The texture of the flowers looks almost waxy sometimes, and part of Tsutomu feels the urge to reach out and touch, to see what they actually feel like.
Tsutomu sighs and puts down his pencil, staring down at the tulip he’s been trying to draw from memory for the last fifteen minutes.
When he finally looks up from his sketchbook, his eyes are automatically drawn to the series of framed charcoal portraits lining the wall of the art building common room. Most days, they serve as motivation, sketches so hyper-realistic that they almost don’t look like drawings, but right now they’re a reminder of how much work he still has to do before he’ll truly catch up to Ushijima Wakatoshi.
Maybe he should go buy another bouquet of tulips, so he can practice more in his dorm room.
Which is how, once again, Tsutomu finds himself standing in front of the local flower shop, wondering whether to go in or not. Eventually, though, he sighs and reaches out to pull the door open, deciding to take the plunge.
The store’s just as quiet as it was last time.
For a moment, Tsutomu thinks he’s the only person there, but when the bell attached to the door rings as it swings shut, a familiar shock of orange hair pops up from behind the counter. Tsutomu can’t help but think that this time Hinata looks more like an excited puppy than a baby bird, eyes wide and hopeful as they focus in on the door.
“Oh,” Hinata says, blinking at Tsutomu. “Do you want more tulips? Or are you actually gonna buy something more interesting this time?”
Tsutomu can’t help but feel a little indignant at that comment, bristling slightly.
“Tulips are interesting,” Tsutomu huffs. “Every flower is different if you look closely enough.”
“I guess,” Hinata replies, leaning forward against the counter, chin against his palm. In the process, he manages to leave a large streak of dirt across his face, and Tsutomu frowns as he notices that Hinata seems to be even more dirt-smudged than last time.
Then again, it’s not like Tsutomu can judge much. He’s pretty sure he has charcoal permanently embedded under his fingernails at this point.
“Are you sure you want tulips again?” Hinata asks, looking at Tsutomu with those big amber eyes of his. It’s almost a little creepy. “We have lots of other way cooler flowers!”
“Don’t you have better things to do than argue with me about tulips?” Tsutomu huffs, crossing his arms over his chest a little defensively.
“Not really,” Hinata replies, fiddling with one of the small succulents placed precariously on the edge of the counter. “You’re the only customer I’ve seen all day.”
“Really?” Tsutomu asks, unable to quite keep the surprise from his tone.
“Everyone buys their flowers at the grocery store now,” Hinata says, his cheeks puffing up a little indignantly, “even though their quality is terrible.”
For a moment, Tsutomu can’t help but think back to the tulips his professor had originally brought for them to draw and how dull they’d seemed in comparison to the ones he’d bought here. Still, the only reason he’d stopped at this store instead of the grocery store was because it’s on his route home from the university.
“But if you keep buying tulips all the time maybe things will start picking up again!” Hinata announces, bringing Tsutomu back from his thoughts. “You said you needed them for class or something, right?”
“Advanced drawing,” Tsutomu replies automatically.
As soon as the words come out of his mouth, he sees Hinata perk up, eyes going somehow even brighter, before asking, “Can I see?”
“See what?” Tsutomu asks.
“The drawings!” Hinata answers, pushing himself even farther over the counter. Briefly, Tsutomu wonders if his feet can even reach the floor anymore.
For a moment, Tsutomu hesitates, but Hinata looks so eager, and, truth be told, he takes pride in his drawings. He’s worked hard to develop his skills as much as he has, but now that he’s at an art school with the country’s best, he hasn’t exactly had many opportunities to show off.
So, he unzips his backpack and pulls out his sketchbook.
“Bwah!” Hinata exclaims as Tsutomu sets the sketchbook down on the counter in front of him, open to one of his more recent tulip drawings. “You drew this? It’s amazing! How do you even do that?”
For a moment, Tsutomu just stares at Hinata, his mind blank of all possible responses. After all, it’s been a long time since someone gave him such genuine, wonderstruck praise. Nowadays, most of the comments he gets on his artwork are suggestions for improvement from his professors and upperclassmen, and while he values every criticism he receives, it’s kind of nice to hear just the good parts for once.
“These are so detailed,” Hinata mumbles, so far bent over the sketchbook that Tsutomu’s half-worried that he’s going to just press his face up against it. However, a moment later, his head pops up again, and he looks at Tsutomu with wide eyes. “Are you a Shiratorizawa student?”
“I’m a first year,” Tsutomu answers, unable to help the way his chest puffs up a little with pride. Sure, his parents had fawned over him when he first got his acceptance letter, but the novelty seems to have worn off by now, and he can’t help but bask in Hinata’s praise for a moment.
“If you can make tulips look this good then imagine what it would be like if you tried drawing something cooler!” Hinata chirps, which sounds kind of like a backhanded compliment to Tsutomu, but Hinata looks so eager and bright eyed that Tsutomu can’t find it in himself to feel too offended on the tulips’ behalf. “We just got in some hibiscuses that – ”
“I just want six purple tulips again,” Tsutomu interrupts, his voice firm.
“But you’ve already drawn them like ten times,” Hinata protests, gesturing at Tsutomu’s sketchbook.
“I need to practice more,” Tsutomu says, taking his sketchbook from Hinata and putting it back into his bag.
“Fiiiiine,” Hinata whines, pushing himself away from the counter and coming around to head over to the tulip display again.
Tsutomu watches him go through the process of carefully picking out six tulips again, inspecting each one with that intent, slightly unnerving gaze of his, before wrapping them up in brown paper. When he rings up the price, Tsutomu can’t help but grimace a little, having almost forgotten how much the flowers had cost last time. At least it’s for the sake of improving his drawing skills.
“Here you go,” Hinata says, finally handing the tulips over to Tsutomu. “Have fun drawing, even if the flowers are boring.”
“Thanks,” Tsutomu snorts, before turning to head towards the door.
“Come back when you want more interesting flowers!” Hinata calls after him.
---
It takes Tsutomu three blocks before he kills the flowers.
That is, he manages to trip on the curb while crossing the street, losing his grip on the flowers and sending them flying into a disgusting looking puddle, which seems to be a mixture of water, mud, and oil. For a moment, he thinks he’ll be able to salvage them, but then a bicyclist runs them right over, splashing muddy water everywhere and crushing the flowers.
Tsutomu wonders how it’s possible for every plant he touches to die so violently. Maybe next time there will be fire involved.
After a few long moments of just staring at the crushed flowers, Tsutomu fishes them back out of the puddle, grimacing as his hand gets coated in dirty water in the process. He peels back the protective paper to inspect the blossoms, but unfortunately they seem too damaged to easily overlook while drawing them.
Tsutomu sighs, pushing himself back to his feet. He’s about to head on back to his apartment, but then he pauses. He’s still only three blocks away from the flower shop, and while he’s not entirely eager to spend even more money on flowers that will probably just meet another violent end, maybe Hinata will at least give him a discount.
With that, Tsutomu starts back in the direction of the flower shop.
As he pushes open the door to the flower shop, he sees Hinata pop up from behind the counter again, bright-eyed as ever, but the moment he lays eyes on Tsutomu, his expression morphs into one of confusion.
“Did you decide you want better flowers already?” Hinata asks, cocking his head slightly to the side.
Instead of dignifying that with an answer, Tsutomu just drops the crumpled flowers down on the counter, narrowly missing knocking at least five potted succulents off the edge. The flowers land on the surface with a wet slap, looking thoroughly pathetic in the soft light of the shop.
“I dropped them in a puddle and they got run over by a bicycle,” Tsutomu mutters, his cheeks flushing ever so slightly as he thinks about just how bizarre his story sounds.
Hinata peers at the flowers curiously, pulling back the paper a little more to inspect the damaged tulips. His forehead creases with concern the more he examines the flowers, and he worries his bottom lip with his teeth in a way that Tsutomu can’t help but find strangely distracting.
“I was wondering if you could give me a discount on some new ones,” Tsutomu finally says, feeling more than a little awkward.
“Um,” Hinata replies, his expression already turning apologetic. “I’m sorry about what happened but I can’t really give out any free flowers or discounts…”
Tsutomu sighs, looking down at the wet, mud-streaked flowers.
“But, uh, you just wanna draw the flowers, right?” Hinata continues, making Tsutomu look over at him, lips turning down in a slight frown of confusion. “I mean, we don’t get many customers so if you wanted to just, like, hang out for a while and draw, I could let you.”
“Really?” Tsutomu blurts out, unable to entirely keep the eagerness form his voice.
“I don’t have any chairs or anything – ” Hinata says, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly.
“I’ll sit on the floor,” Tsutomu announces, already heading over to the tulip display, digging his sketchbook and pencil case out of his bag.
“Okay!” he hears Hinata call after him, as he plops himself down on the stone floor of the flower shop.
Once he has his sketchbook out and a pencil in his hand, it doesn’t take Tsutomu long before he’s fully immersed in his drawing mindset. He’s always had a fairly single-minded focus when it comes to drawing, and while sometimes it leads to him missing things like the dining hall closing, it’s part of what’s made him as good of an artist as he is. He’s always had raw talent, but it’s his unwavering focus that’s gotten him this far.
As he works, he’s vaguely aware of Hinata moving around store. Occasionally he hears the loud clunk of Hinata stacking pots, or the subtler sounds of him arranging flowers or whatever it is flower shop employees do. Every once in a while, he catches the faint sound of Hinata humming something under his breath as he works, but it doesn’t distract Tsutomu from his drawing, merely becoming a part of the steady stream of background noise. In some ways, it’s almost soothing.
Tsutomu doesn’t keep track of how long he draws for. There are a good four pages filled up with tulip drawings by the time he finally puts down his pencil, though, each one drawn from a slightly different angle. He’s still trying to figure out how to get the shading right with the light coming through the semi-transparent petals, but he’s making progress, he thinks.
The middle finger of his right hand is starting to feel a little sore from holding a pencil for so long, and he can feel his wrist protesting too, so he takes a moment to stretch out his hand, wiggling his fingers and massaging his wrist.
“Bwah,” he hears Hinata say, and he flinches a little as he realizes that Hinata’s standing right behind him, looking down at the drawings. “How do you draw flowers like that? If you colored them in I bet they’d look real! I mean, they look pretty real right now, but they kind of look like ghost flowers or something, I guess – ”
“I don’t have my colored ink pens with me,” Tsutomu interrupts, starting to put his pencils back into his pencil case.
“Aww,” Hinata whines, crouching down next to Tsutomu, who’s still sitting on the ground. Hinata’s close enough now that Tsutomu can feel his body heat, with only a centimeter or two of space between them. “You should bring them next time.”
“Next time?” Tsutomu asks, his mouth turning down in a small, confused frown.
“I mean, unless you’re sick of drawing tulips already,” Hinata answers, not that it actually clarifies much.
“I probably can’t afford to spend that much more on flowers,” Tsutomu mutters, his eyes straying towards the sign advertising the bouquet costs.
“You could always just hang out in the store again,” Hinata says, picking at a spot of dirt on his apron. “It gets kind of boring being here all day without any customers.”
“Won’t your boss get mad at you for letting me draw the flowers without buying anything?” Tsutomu asks, frowning slightly. Not that he’s opposed to getting to draw flowers here for free all afternoon.
“I guess, but – ” Hinata starts, but then he cuts himself off, his eyes going wide. He jolts back up into a standing position, startling Tsutomu slightly, and goes rushing off to what must be the back room.
It takes a few moments, but eventually Hinata reemerges, lugging something bulky and rectangular with him. As he gets closer, though, and Tsutomu’s able to make out the smudged chalk stains on the black rectangle, things start to become clearer.
“You could draw the store a sign!” Hinata announces, propping up the slightly worse for wear chalkboard sign. “Maybe if we actually have a cool sign with your awesome drawings we’ll finally start getting more customers!”
Honestly, Tsutomu’s not convinced that a simple sign will make much of a difference when it comes to the amount of foot traffic this shop gets, but then again, that just makes it more of a challenge. Tsutomu’s always liked a challenge.
“Alright,” Tsutomu finally says, putting away his sketchbook and pushing himself to his feet. “I’ll come by tomorrow after class to see what I can do about your sign.”
“Really?” Hinata exclaims, and it almost looks like his eyes are sparkling, they’re so bright.
“I’ll make you the best sign in the city,” Tsutomu replies with a little more confidence than he actually has, puffing up his chest.
Hinata grins, and briefly, Tsutomu wonders what he’s gotten himself into.
---
Tsutomu finds himself putting a surprising amount of effort into drawing the sign for Hinata. He’s never been the type to do something halfway, especially when it comes to art, but even so, he spends more time on the sign than he probably should. It takes him almost the entirety of the first afternoon just to plan the layout, how to balance the text and the art.
The second day consists of him carefully drawing the shop’s name in bright white chalk. He’s never practiced calligraphy much but he’d managed to get one of the upperclassmen, Reon, to give him some tips. When he’s finally finished, the text’s not quite as neat and fluid as Reon’s bold, steady characters are, but it’s not bad.
It’s not until the third day that Tsutomu starts on the actual flowers. As much as he would have liked to just draw a million tulips on the sign, even he can admit that that probably wouldn’t have as much of an impact on passerby. So, he’d asked Hinata for a list of his favorite flowers.
Somehow, having Hinata around while he draws is less annoying than Tsutomu had expected. He’s never minded background noise much, and although Hinata occasionally checks up on Tsutomu’s work, leaning over his shoulder in a way that makes Tsutomu’s skin prickle, mostly Hinata’s focused on his own duties.
(Apparently the dirt is from all of the repotting Hinata does. He looks almost like a little kid when he does it, fingers buried in soft soil and specks of it dotting his cheeks like freckles. Mostly he repots flowers, like pansies and orchids, but once Tsutomu had watched him struggle with a small Japanese maple tree.)
Still, Hinata’s always sure to dole out a few awe-filled compliments every day as he watches Tsutomu’s progress, and it never fails to make a strange, warm feeling build in Tsutomu’s chest.
Of course, it’s not until after he’s finished the sign that Tsutomu figures out what that feeling is.
Hinata had let him continue to hang out in the flower shop even after finishing the sign, but on his first day with free reign of the shop, Tsutomu can’t figure out what to draw. At first he tries going back to the tulips, but for once he can’t seem to concentrate.
Instead, he takes to making his way around the store, waiting for something to catch his attention, but nothing quite does. In the end, he sits down near the front counter and starts doodling the succulents perched precariously on the narrow surface, trying to capture the pattern of the echevaria’s leaves and the spiny edges of the aloe vera.
However, halfway through this endeavor, he finds that he’s absentmindedly started including part of Hinata’s hand.
He freezes mid-line as the realization dawns on him, his eyes darting back up from his sketchbook to focus in on Hinata, who’s bent over the counter, arranging a bouquet that someone had preordered. For a moment, Tsutomu hesitates, but then he continues sketching the line of Hinata’s slender fingers.
It’s been a while since he drew an actual person, and he can’t help but want to try to capture some of Hinata’s magnetic energy on paper.
As Tsutomu draws, he can’t help but focus in on certain parts of Hinata. His fingers arrange the flowers with a surprising deftness that Tsutomu can’t help but admire, and he bites his lip in concentration as he works. Hinata’s lips are another point of focus: a little chapped from being bitten, but pink and soft looking.
For a moment, Tsutomu wonders what it would be like to kiss Hinata. He nearly breaks his pencil in half as soon as he registers the train of thought, though.
So. Maybe he’s a little attracted to Hinata.
Tsutomu tries to focus back in on his drawing, but it’s difficult now that he’s aware of his budding attraction. He seems hyper-aware of Hinata now, of the smudge of dirt just below his chin, and the way his eyes change color in the lighting.
Tsutomu’s not sure how long he spends drawing Hinata, surrounded by a table of tiny potted succulents. In fact, Tsutomu might have continued adding detailing to the drawing indefinitely if he wasn’t suddenly broken out of his concentration by Hinata asking, “What’cha drawing?”
Before Tsutomu can manage to snap his sketchbook shut, though, Hinata’s already leaning over the counter to inspect Tsutomu’s work. Tsutomu watches on helplessly as Hinata takes in the drawing. It’s obvious when Hinata fully registers the content of the sketch, though, because his eyes go a little wide, bright with something that Tsutomu can’t quite recognize.
“I was just – ” Tsutomu starts, but before he can finish his excuse, Hinata cuts him off, looking at him with eyes that practically seem to sparkle.
“It’s so good!” Hinata exclaims, and for a moment Tsutomu is worried he’s going to jump over the counter in his excitement. “It’s me, right? You drew me!”
“Only because – ” Tsutomu mutters, his cheeks heating, but once again Hinata interrupts him.
“Can I have it?” Hinata asks, making Tsutomu blink at him for a moment.
“Wha – no,” Tsutomu sputters, although he feels a little bad as he watches Hinata’s face fall.
“Why? It’s of me,” Hinata protests, lips turning down into a pout.
“I don’t give away drawings,” Tsutomu replies, clutching his sketchbook protectively. “I need to be able to look back at them to tell what aspects of my technique need improvement.”
For a moment, Hinata’s quiet, but then he says, “What if I traded you for it?”
“What?” Tsutomu asks, his brow furrowing in confusion.
“I’ll give you a plant if you give me that drawing!” Hinata exclaims, the bright energy coming back to his eyes. “Like – ” Hinata grabs a small aloe vera plant off the counter. “ – one of these!”
“I kill every plant I touch,” Tsutomu says flatly.
“Then I’ll give you one of the already cut flowers,” Hinata presses.
There’s a protest on the tip of Tsutomu’s tongue, but at the last moment, he pauses as a thought occurs to him. His resolve wavers and his cheeks heat as he considers it, and he finds it remarkably hard to think straight with Hinata’s bright amber eyes focused so intently on him.
Finally, he mumbles, “Do I get to pick the flower?”
“Sure!” Hinata chirps, a grin spreading across his lips. “What type?”
“I want you to give me a rose,” Tsutomu blurts out.
For a moment, Hinata just blinks at him, clearly caught off guard. As the silence stretches on, Tsutomu’s almost ready to shove his sketchbook back into his bag and hightail it out of the store in embarrassment, but then Hinata says, “Do you just want a rose, or do you want – do you want me to give you a rose?”
Tsutomu tears his eyes away from his sketchbook to meet Hinata’s eyes and is surprised to see a flush of pink spreading across Hinata’s cheeks, a bit dusting the tips of his ears. His hands are twisted up in his apron and Tsutomu can’t help but find it remarkably… cute.
“I want you to give it to me,” Tsutomu finally admits, his own cheeks heating as he says the words.
“If I gave you a date too, would you give me a second drawing?” Hinata blurts out, catching Tsutomu off guard.
“Another drawing of you?” Tsutomu asks, blinking at Hinata, who nods his head rapidly.
“We could go to a coffee shop or something,” Hinata rambles, hands still twisted nervously in his apron. “And you could draw me afterwards and stuff.”
“I think that’s a fair trade,” Tsutomu finally manages. “As long as you pay for my coffee.”
“Of course!” Hinata exclaims, a grin spreading across his face.
“Then I guess it’s settled,” Tsutomu replies, a smile tugging at his own lips. “A date for a drawing.”
“And a rose,” Hinata adds. “I’ve gotta give you a rose first.”
Tsutomu grins.
---
(Hinata gives Tsutomu the largest, reddest rose he’s ever seen. Unfortunately, it only lasts two days before his roommate’s cat knocks it off Tsutomu’s desk and into the trashcan.)