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“What flowers say ‘I hate your guts you cheating piece of shit?’”
“Orange lilies and yellow roses,” Giyuu responded without looking up from the gardening catalogue. “I can paint a white rose black if that’s more your style.”
Shinobu sighed happily, leaning against the counter. “You know me so well.”
She stole a stick of Pocky from the box he had been distractedly munching on and jabbed it into her mouth, grumbling as she nibbled on its end.
He looked up from the glossy pages he’d been perusing through for just a moment to see her glaring at the nearby orchids, the familiar vein on her forehead on the verge of peeking out. He opened his mouth to speak.
“No, I don’t want to talk about it.”
He deflated a bit in his seat and turned back to the catalogue.
5, 4, 3, 2, 1—
“He slept with my roommate! My roommate! So not only do I need to break up with that scumbag within the next 24 hours, but I also need to find new living arrangements.”
She said it all at once, leaving her out of breath by the time it was over.
He raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t you hate living there? The shower and the rat you saw in the lobby?” he asked.
“Don’t get me started,” she said with a shudder before getting started anyway.
Giyuu only smiled to himself as she rambled on about everything she hated about her apartment. He was more surprised that she hadn’t moved out earlier but then again, it was closer to her university.
“You can stay with me for a while,” he offered, though he knew that his place involved a longer commute for her.
She sighed and rubbed her temples. “You know what, I think I may take you up on that offer. You barely have anything in that apartment, my things won’t get in your way. Not that you would be the type to complain even if they did.”
He shrugged and bit into another Pocky stick.
Shinobu tried stealing another one for herself but when she came up empty-handed, she grabbed the entire box, looked inside it, and shook it vigorously as though the biscuit was somehow hiding from her.
“You know, Tomioka, it isn’t very nice to take the last one without even offering it to your very sweet, very distraught friend. To think, I thought you were a gentleman.”
Giyuu broke the stick he had in half without hesitation, leaving a piece in his mouth and the other in his hand. He wordlessly offered it to her.
She scoffed but took it anyway.
“How much will I owe you for the bouquet from hell?” she asked, fishing through her purse.
He finally looked up from the catalogue. “You were serious about that?”
“Obviously,” she said as though an ‘I hate you’ bouquet was a common request at his family’s flower shop. “When have I not done things in the most dramatic way possible? Life needs a bit of flair, Tomioka!”
He shook his head in disbelief in an effort to hide his own amusement. “I’ll do it for free.”
Even Shinobu, who had come to expect everything he did without surprises, was taken aback. “You don’t need to do that simply because I’m your friend, you know.”
He nodded. “It’s different from normal.”
Shinobu grinned at that. “Aw, are you tired of making the same bouquets of roses and daisies for all the happy couples out there?”
“And tulips,” he added. “Can’t forget those.”
“Ah yes, of course, tulips. Speaking of which, when will I be getting my bouquet, hmm?”
He knew she wasn’t referring to the bouquet she was ordering but a personalized one, one that he had designed especially for her. She’d poked and prodded and begged him for one since she had first learned of his family’s shop roughly two weeks after they’d first met.
It wasn’t that he didn’t want to make her the bouquet or that he was incapable of doing so— his mother had, after all, ingrained flower meanings into his head ever since he was a child— it was just that Shinobu was so… Shinobu. Her personality was so wild, so chaotic and imbalanced that he wasn’t sure how to fit everything into one cohesive bouquet. So he’d simply shrugged and said he couldn’t do it.
“Earth to Tomioka!” Shinobu shouted, fanning her fingers in front of his face.
He snapped out of his daze and looked at her directly, shrugging as a way of answering her question.
“You can’t delay it forever!” she teased before glancing down at her watch. “Anyway, I better get to the hospital. I’ll let you know when I’m ready to move out.”
She jogged to the door, the small tin bell placed above it ringing as she swung it open. “I’ll text you later!”
She enthusiastically waved goodbye and he waved back before watching her disappear down the street.
He could still hear the rings of the bell in his mind long after it went silent. For some reason, it always seemed to sound lighter when Shinobu walked through the door.
Giyuu and Shinobu did not know each other as long as most people thought they did. They weren't childhood friends or even grade school companions. They had never taken baths together or stuck gum in each other's hair, never had playdates or sleepovers or childhood birthday parties. In fact, they spent the first 14 years of their lives not knowing the other even existed, which seemed unfathomable given how close their bond had become.
He had first learned of her existence in their first year of high school, but only because her older sister was among the most popular upperclassmen at the time. As for Shinobu, she had learned of him when, funnily enough, one of her friends started having a crush on him.
Regardless, they didn't interact until their second year in history class when she stabbed his shoulder with her mechanical pencil and asked to switch seats because his "giant head" blocked her view of the chalkboard. Neither of them really knew anyone else in class, turning what should have been a one-time interaction into a friendship, the type where she constantly teased him, only to defend him tooth and nail if someone dared to do the same.
Everyone either urged them to get together or simply assumed that they were, but nothing ever happened between them. Giyuu was more than aware that although Shinobu was smart, beautiful, and strong in every way that mattered, she was out of his league.
Of course, there was that night…but he was better off not dwelling on that.
Eventually, Shinobu began dating, bouncing from boyfriend to boyfriend in the hopes of finding her "high-school sweetheart," only for it to never work out in the end.
(At times she almost seemed relieved when they didn't, which made Giyuu wonder why she was even pursuing anyone in the first place.)
They'd graduated and Giyuu began working full-time at his family's flower shop while Shinobu dove headfirst into medical school. She kept dating, he kept working, and they kept being best friends.
And the rest was history.
Shinobu sat on a small stack of boxes amusedly watching Giyuu bring her things to his apartment while she sucked on a lollipop.
She had just come from the place she’d shared with her former roommate after leaving behind her key, the bouquet from hell, and a very lovely, very threatening note on the kitchen table. As was typical Shinobu fashion.
“Why do you have so much?” Giyuu asked, wiping the sweat from his brow. “And why are you making me carry it all?”
She released her lollipop with a dramatic pop, staring at him as though the question had offended her. “I’m a lady, Tomioka. I require suitable clothing and matching accessories for every occasion. And I’m delicate, which means I can’t possibly lift all these heavy things. Besides, you’re strong enough to do it on your own.”
He rolled his eyes but meant no actual scorn towards her. “You owe me.”
“Excuse me, you’re already being graced with my presence, what more do you need?”
He acted like he hadn’t heard her and headed inside.
After adding to the collection of her things that was steadily growing in his apartment, he scavenged his fridge for two bottles of water, one for him and one for the princess waiting downstairs.
Though when he got there, said princess already had some company— one that she seemed to already know.
A young man with bleached blond hair stood across from Shinobu, smirking as he seemed to devour her with his eyes alone. Giyuu would have assumed that he was a stranger were it not for the look of recognition on Shinobu’s face and the sharp glare she had pointed at him.
Ah. He was an ex-boyfriend. Not that Giyuu knew that from memory; there had been too many for him to keep track of and most of them lasted only a few fleeting weeks before Shinobu expelled them as quickly from her life as they’d arrived. Even the ones he had learned the names or faces of were only known to him via photos during ranting sessions with her. She had never formally introduced him to any of her boyfriends, regardless of how long they lasted.
Though based on how uncomfortable she looked while speaking to her former flame at the moment, Giyuu figured he was finally about to meet one of them.
As soon as he stepped out of the building, Shinobu’s eyes met his, initially tense and worried before they relaxed.
Before he could react, she jumped off her tower of boxes and ran to him, ensnaring his arm in an iron grip and batting her lashes up at him.
“This is him, actually!” she said to her ex enthusiastically, squeezing Giyuu’s arm.
The bleached-blond looked at Giyuu in shock, unabashedly taking in his entire appearance to silently judge. He raised both eyebrows amusedly.
“Oh? And here I thought you preferred blondes.”
Shinobu only smiled, the kind where she shut her eyes and puffed out her cheeks.
Giyuu knew that smile. She wasn’t actually happy or anywhere near a good mood. She was at the edge of her temper, doing her best to hold back from tearing into the man.
“What can I say?” she said in a faux cheerful voice. “As soon as I met him, I knew we were meant to be!”
Now it was Giyuu’s turn to be confused. Still, he did his best to play it off. If he didn’t, he would receive a nice punch in the arm for it later.
The man’s watch beeped and he glanced down at it before beginning to move. “I better take off, but I’m happy for you, Shinobu. Does this mean you’re bringing him to the wedding?”
“Of course! ” Shinobu said through her teeth. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world!”
“Then I’ll see you then.”
The man nodded at Giyuu before running off in the opposite direction.
As soon as he was out of sight, Shinobu’s shoulders slumped. “Thank you for going along with that.”
Along with what? “I didn’t say anything.”
“Yes, but when do you ever?”
Still holding his arm, she moved in front of him, looking up at him as she leaned against his chest.
“He’s an ex,” she sighed, rolling her eyes closed. “He cheated on me too, but it didn’t hurt as much as it should have. I suppose I was never very into him to begin with.”
“Should’ve sent him a ‘bouquet from hell.’”
Shinobu’s eyes open and she grinned at him— one of her genuine, teasing smiles. “Pity I didn’t think of it then.”
She finally released him and slowly returned to her tower of boxes, though she lacked the same enthusiasm as earlier.
Without turning to face him, she asked, “So will you go with me? To the wedding? It’s for a mutual friend.”
“Why me?”
She nervously fidgeted with the frayed sleeve of her cardigan. “I told him I was seeing someone and that someone happens to be you, if it wasn’t obvious. Showing up alone now would be humiliating.”
The confusion still clouded his brain. “But there are others.”
“Well yes, but he saw you, silly,” she said with a laugh that didn’t quite reach her. “And even if he hadn’t, I would have chosen you anyway.”
She turned around again with her hands on her hips and a proud expression. “So you better find something nice to wear, Tomioka, or I’ll never let you live it down! I’ll be wearing silver, so do try to find a matching tie if you choose to wear one.” She shook her head. “On second thought, I should go with you to choose one. I love you, Tomioka-san, but sometimes your colour-coordination skills can be incredibly lacking. Outside of bouquets, that is.”
He scoffed. “Let’s just get you moved in.”
He didn’t notice the way her gaze lingered on his back as he returned inside, her eyes glistening and appearing panicked before she assumed a face of indifference once more.
Her eyes always followed him, her violet irises trained on him regardless of whether he was coming or going.
And they had been subconsciously following him for years.
After a few weeks of living with Shinobu, Giyuu realized he had made a grave error.
He should have asked her to be his roommate ages ago.
Despite the fact that her things had virtually taken over his apartment and that she was always a bit of a gremlin before her coffee in the morning, he found joy in living with her— even if it did mean he had to buy more boxes of Pocky than usual to support their mutual addiction.
Any landlord would call her the perfect tenant; she cleaned, never encroached on his personal space (with the exception of pokes and flying erasers in an effort to get his attention), and always did her laundry before the basket overflowed. They took turns cooking, with Giyuu working on breakfast and her on lunch or dinner, depending on when they were both home. She had even taken to bringing her books and laptop to the flower shop with him more often, sitting with him behind the counter and snickering whenever someone ordered a dozen red roses thinking they were creative for their choice.
So yes, his apartment became filled with signs of her, but he didn’t mind it nearly as much as he thought he would. She’d brought colour to his home, the same warmth and comfort she gave him whenever they spent time together.
However, one thing in her life seemed to have changed tremendously since she became his roommate.
“You haven’t gone on a date in a while,” he said one day as he cut the thorns off a bundle of roses.
Shinobu paused her pen mid-sentence, swallowing before casting her eyes downward. “How observant of you! I suppose I haven’t.”
“Don’t stop on my account. Just let me know if you’re bringing anyone back for the night.” So he could find somewhere else to hide.
Her eyes turned to him, narrowing into a glare. “You don’t need to worry about that,” she said through clenched teeth. “I have no plans to do anything like that.”
“Why not?” he said with a shrug.
She sat in silence for a few tense seconds before clearing her throat. “There isn’t anyone I’m interested in at the moment.”
Her words shocked him more than they should have. Ever since high school, Shinobu was always able to find someone she was interested in, whether it was at school, her part-time jobs, or anywhere she happened to be. When she found her target, she narrowed in on them and almost always succeeded in procuring a date.
To hear that she wasn’t currently eyeing anyone was the shock of the century.
“Why do you seem so surprised?” she asked, likely noticing his expression. “A woman needs a break from time to time.”
But you’re not the type of person who takes breaks. You never have been.
Could it be that after all these years, he still couldn’t read her mind?
A sharp pain pricked his finger, and he belatedly realized that he should have been paying more attention to the blade and rose thorns in his hands.
“Ow,” he said dryly despite the sting at his fingertip.
Shinobu looked up again, violet eyes widening when she noticed the thin stream of blood coming out of his finger.
“You idiot!” she shouted, dropping her pen and reaching for her bag. “You better hope I packed bandages in here. Why weren’t you paying attention?”
“It’s never happened before.”
She scoffed. “Liar. It happened in high school too.”
He knew. He just didn’t want to admit that his mind was too preoccupied with thoughts of her.
Shinobu slammed a small roll of bandages on the table and grabbed his wrist, her small fingers locking around him to hold him in place.
“I don’t have rubbing alcohol, so we’ll just have to do this the old-fashioned way,” she said with the authority of any doctor.
Before he could ask just what “the old-fashioned way” entailed, Shinobu had closed her mouth over his wound and began sucking on it.
A small gasp escaped his mouth before he could stop it, the intimacy catching him extremely off-guard. He stared at her, stunned by her callousness but not surprised by it at all.
Her lips were soft as they puckered around him, her dark eyes closed in concentration as though she were completing open-heart surgery. She winced slightly, likely due to the metallic taste of his blood.
When she finally released him with a pop, Giyuu swallowed, heat rising to his cheeks. He turned his face away, using all his strength to restore his usual calm image.
He didn’t watch her as she wrapped the bandage around him, but he felt the dance of her fingertips so clearly as though he had, at some point, memorized their shapes and size, their ridges and calluses.
“There, all better.” She lightly smacked his hand, signifying the end of her work.
As she shoved the bandages back in her bag, Giyuu got an idea. He leaned over a nearby pot and plucked a tiny bellflower bud: a small show of thanks.
He placed the light indigo flower on top of her notebook and when she turned back towards it, she gasped.
“You work quickly,” she said with an amused twitch of her eyebrow, twirling the small stem between her fingertips. “Is this your way of saying ‘thank you?’”
He nodded, making her smile.
“Flattery will get you everywhere, Tomioka-san,” she said, punctuating her words with a poke to his arm. “Except the last stick of Pocky.”
Giyuu had virtually forgotten all about the wedding Shinobu would be taking him to until she’d dragged him tie-shopping the week before. She’d refused to show him her dress, leaving it entirely up to her to find a decent tie that matched its silver shade.
“I want to surprise you,” she’d said whenever he’d asked to see her outfit. “It feels as though I don’t do that enough these days.”
And surprise him she did.
On the night of the wedding, he stood in the entryway of their apartment tying his shoes, waiting for the clicking of her heels to announce her arrival. A glance down at his phone told him that they were starting to run late.
Though just before he called her name, he heard her shuffling down the hall.
Then there she was.
Shinobu stepped out in a gleaming silver dress, looking like a moonflower dripping in starlight.
The gown reached just shy of her ankles and featured off-shoulder sleeves and embroidered crystals that sparkled whenever the light hit them, making it appear as though she was clothed in the galaxy itself.
Giyuu sucked in a breath, warmth beginning to tickle his cheeks. It wasn’t as though this was the first time he was seeing her all dressed up— there had been school dances and graduation and his sister’s wedding, but…
Giyuu swallowed the lump at the back of his throat.
No, he commanded. Stop thinking about those things.
He turned around to hide his eyes, choosing to stare at the table behind him and not at her, anything but her.
“Oh? Do I look that bad?” she asked teasingly, though he could hear just the slightest bit of hesitation at the edge of her words.
“No,” he quickly replied, not wanting her to feel anything less than magnificent. “You look…”
“Yes?”
He bit the inside of his cheek. “...Beautiful…”
He almost cursed himself. Beautiful? The word felt far too cliché, too overused and not opulent enough to describe what he felt when he saw her.
What he felt…?
He shook his head in disappointment at himself.
He reached for the white box he’d left on the coffee table instead, desperate for a change in subject.
When he turned around, he had hoped that she would somehow look less magnificent than when she first entered, but if anything, she looked more radiant now. Even her makeup, which she didn’t use often, made her glow. The pink blush she had added to her cheeks was an especially nice touch, in his opinion.
He cleared his throat and handed her the box. “It’s a corsage.”
She giggled lightly. “Hasn’t anyone ever told you that it’s rude to reveal the contents of a gift before it’s opened?”
Still, she undid the light purple ribbon and delicately opened the box to reveal the corsage he had prepared for her.
Purple dahlia. Royalty, dignity, and admiration for someone you intended to have a long-lasting relationship with.
Not to mention, her signature colour.
“It’s lovely,” she said with a small smile, and he knew she meant it. Her gaze met his, her lavender eyes shining expectantly. “But aren’t you meant to put it on me?”
“Oh. Right.” He had forgotten about that.
He carefully removed the corsage from the box, untied the soft lilac ribbon, and slipped it over her delicate wrist, not noticing how his fingertips brushed against her veins.
He thought he heard her gasp ever-so-slightly and looked up, worried that he had hurt her. “Is it too tight?”
Shinobu quickly shook her head. “It’s perfect.”
He nodded and finished tying the corsage.
“Did you prepare one for yourself as well?” she asked once he stood to his full height once more.
He nodded sheepishly, suddenly feeling awkward. “Is that too much?”
“Nonsense! If we’re playing couple, then we have to look the part, don’t we?”
A couple. The idea sounded odd to him, funny even, despite that being the very thing everyone had expected them to be.
Giyuu took his boutonniere out of its box, though just before he could pin it to his jacket, Shinobu grabbed his hand.
“Now, now, don’t be too eager,” she chastised. “It’s my turn now.”
He stood completely still as she went on her tiptoes, subconsciously holding his breath as she pinned the flower to him.
She stood so close to him and for a moment, he looked down at her, their gazes locking and their breaths intermingling.
“So what does this one mean?” she asked breathlessly, lightly stroking the flower’s petals.
“Long-lasting relationships.”
“Oh? Does that mean you intend to stay by my side for a long time then, Tomioka-san?”
“If that’s what you want.”
Her eyes crinkled as she smiled. “I would like nothing more. But just so you know— this doesn’t count towards that bouquet you owe me.”
He scoffed and shook his head teasingly.
“Good,” she said with a tilt of her chin. “Now that that’s been established,” she extended her arm, “shall we?”
***
While the actual ceremony was described as an intimate affair for the couple’s closest friends and family members, the reception was the exact opposite.
Filled with chatter and extravagantly decorated with hanging drapes, large chandeliers, and eye-catching floral centrepieces, it was certainly more of a party than a mere celebration. It had caught them both off-guard, but Shinobu had been quick to lightly squeeze his arm when they’d entered, immediately sensing his slight discomfort.
“Look,” she said, pointing to the towering calla lilies that dominated each table. “Are they a good choice?”
Giyuu smiled internally, silently grateful for her attempts at distracting him from the party.
On the outside, he simply nodded. “Calla lilies. They’re popular at weddings. They symbolize ‘marital bliss.’”
Shinobu hummed in acknowledgement. “It would have been lovely if they had chosen a different colour, no? All the white seems a bit excessive. Very…bridal.”
Giyuu scoffed. “You just say that because your wedding would be all purple.”
She smiled proudly. “Why, certainly. What can I say, I’m loyal to my signature colours. Though you,” she held up her wrist, gazing fondly at her corsage, “you already know that all too well.”
“Shinobu!” someone called.
Her smile dropped and her spine tensed. She hooked her arm around Giyuu’s more tightly.
They both turned around and just as he’d suspected, there was the bleached-blond from Shinobu’s moving day. He wore a broad grin that suggested that he somehow knew something neither of them was aware of and though he had his hand on the waist of another woman, he barely seemed to pay her any mind.
“Long time no see,” the blond said with a sly wink.
Shinobu rolled her eyes. “Not long enough.”
The blond laughed the comment off.
Shinobu’s eye twitched.
The blond quickly glanced at Giyuu, then turned back to look at him more carefully. “I remember you. So you’re her latest flame, huh? Not going to lie, Shinobu, I figured you’d show up with a different guy on your arm.”
She didn’t grace him with a reply.
The blond lightly slapped Giyuu on the shoulder. “Just don’t get too attached! She’ll probably get bored and drop you soon.”
Giyuu eyed Shinobu carefully. Sure enough, there was that vein again. If he didn’t escort her away from her ex, she was likely going to be removed from the party or spend the night in a holding cell.
“Sorry, but we’re going to find our table,” Giyuu said calmly, lightly pulling on Shinobu’s arm before she could turn the hotel ballroom into a crime scene.
“What does he take me for?” she spat out once they left the bleached-blond behind. “I may not have the most stellar track record, but that’s hardly my fault. He cheated on me anyway.”
Giyuu rubbed her shoulder soothingly in an attempt to calm her down. “Bouquet of dead flowers?”
She grinned wickedly— one of his favourite looks on her. “And that’s why we get along so well.”
***
Her mood seemed to have improved after that, but it seemed as though there was still something weighing on her mind. From time to time, he’d caught her stealing glances at the bride and groom with a storm brewing behind her eyes. Other times, her gaze would be burning a hole into the floral centrepiece that towered over the table.
(And when he wasn’t looking at her, her eyes were locked on him— silently analyzing, silently wondering, pondering something that was still completely unknown to him. He never caught her in the act.)
As the night went on, she began asking for more wine from the passing waiters. While he didn’t stop her, he did grow concerned for her.
He tapped her arm after she’d ordered her fourth glass. “Do you want water–”
“I’m going away soon,” she said plainly, staring down at her empty wine glass.
His mind went blank.
What?
Where was she going? Why was she only telling him this now?
“Away?” he asked, his voice momentarily faltering.
She nodded, still refusing to face him. “I was accepted for an exchange program. I’ll be transferring to a university in the south for three months.”
Three months. Three months where he wouldn’t wake up to her footsteps pattering around the apartment or hear her humming to herself as she cooked, or the clicking of her pen as she studied. Three months where she wouldn’t lean across the counter at the flower shop or laugh with him when he received an order for another dozen red roses.
Three months without her after spending six years with her constantly at his side.
Objectively, three months wasn’t a terribly long time. It was only one semester, one season, twelve weeks. They had technology. They could call each other every day if they so wished.
Logically, he knew that. All of it.
So why did he feel an emptiness in his chest once the words had left her mouth? Why did he feel her loss before she had even left?
“My train leaves next week,” she added, her voice growing quieter with every word.
When he still didn’t say anything, she tried again.
“Just…look on the bright side! You won’t have anyone stealing your Pocky for three months! You should be grateful that you’re finally having a break from me, Tomioka-san.”
He shook his head. “I don’t want a break from you.”
Her lips parted in surprise. “Careful now. That could be misconstrued as a love confession.”
Would that be so bad?
His eyes widened and he was grateful that she was still looking into her wine glass.
Suddenly, the room felt too hot, too crowded, too loud. Was that thumping coming from the bass of the loudspeakers or from his chest? Could she hear it too?
Giyuu swallowed heavily as the thumping grew in intensity.
He thought he had gotten over this.
He thought that this was locked away in the past.
He thought that he didn’t—
His mind conjured up the taste of artificial strawberry at the end of his tongue. An emerald green bottle at the edge of his vision. A cascade of cherry blossoms against his skin.
“I think I’m ready to head home for the night,” Shinobu said with a sigh, still averting her gaze from his.
“Okay,” he said, secretly relieved. He couldn’t stand being there for another minute.
Giyuu fell to the floor in the entryway, not bothering to turn on the hallway light lest he wake Shinobu up. As soon as he had opened the door, she had walked over to the couch and collapsed into the heap of pillows, not even bothering to remove her shoes or makeup. Only the corsage sat daintily on the coffee table, its owner now fast asleep.
Sighing, Giyuu put his head in his hands, running his fingers through his hair to avoid looking at her peaceful form— as though that would stop him from facing what he knew to be true, what he had known for years but never dared to admit to anyone, not even himself.
Especially not himself.
But it was too late now— the thought had finally slipped through the gates of his carefully guarded mind. It glowed vibrantly in the centre of his head like the sun.
He was in love with her, and he had been in love with her since high school.
Even after countless years of denial, he could pinpoint the exact moment he felt his heart tremble at the sight of her, the first time he felt afraid of what someone’s mere presence could do to a person.
It hadn’t been at a dance when she’d had her hair done flawlessly, or the fireworks festival when she’d worn the violet kimono that brought out her eyes, nor had it been the sports festival when she had been forced into a cheerleading uniform, or under the pine trees and stars during a summer camping trip.
She had borrowed his blazer one chilly spring afternoon. Her dark hair had been flailing wildly in the wind, not bothering to be contained by the white ribbon she wore. The cherry blossom trees that lined their school were releasing their freshly bloomed flowers in cascading waterfalls all around them.
He had reached up— impulsively or purposely, he still didn’t know— and caught a whole blossom in his hand.
Before he could speak up to offer it to her, she turned around to tease him, a stick of strawberry Pocky hanging out of her mouth. She held out her hand, ready to accept the blossom in his hand without him even needing to say a word.
And that was it. That was all he had needed.
One simple thing and he had been a goner, much like the other boys in their grade that fell for her charm and obsessively pursued her with store-bought chocolates and supermarket flowers whose arrangements meant nothing, whose colours weren’t even her favourite.
All those years, he’d been right next to her watching her receive dozens of gifts and bouquets, giving all those boys her radiant smile.
All the while he had just sat there, swallowing his feelings, swallowing his pride, swallowing the jealousy he refused to acknowledge. He had repressed every emotion, every twist of his heart, every echoing beat at the sight of her until he had managed to convince himself that he had never wanted her that way at all.
That he had never wanted to put his arm around her and make it clear that she had chosen him, that she had bestowed upon him the honour of calling herself his.
He had never allowed it to move beyond a desire, a hopeless wish that he never dared to voice aloud. After all, how could someone as brilliant as her ever see someone as plain as him as anything more than her friend?
He hung his head low, eventually falling asleep to the thoughts of her he’d kept locked away for so long and the burning questions that constantly plagued him at the back of his mind.
Why is a woman who can have anyone sleeping in my apartment?
What do I have to offer her that she can’t find in someone else?
Why is she still by my side?
***
There was something in his lap. Heavier than a bouquet, lighter than a bag of fertilizer.
He slowly blinked open his eyes, noticing the numb pain on his bottom before taking in his surroundings. He was still in the entryway of his apartment, his blazer draped over his legs. He had fallen asleep on the floor, apparently.
And the weight in his lap was not an object. It was Shinobu’s head and she was staring right up at him, a wide smile on her drowsy face.
“You fell asleep on the floor,” she said as though it wasn’t obvious. “I almost tripped over you on my way to the bathroom.”
He groaned and rubbed at his eyes with the heel of his hand. “What time is it?”
“Probably around five.”
Too late for him to get a proper night’s sleep. Too early for him to worry about what the new day would bring.
“Why are you awake?” he asked.
Her eyes shifted slightly. “I…couldn’t sleep. Your snoring was too loud.”
“I don’t snore.” Even in his half-asleep state, he knew he didn’t. She had praised him for it after their camping trip.
“You’re right, but you talk in your sleep.”
“What did I say?”
Her grin grew wider. “Oh, nothing, just going on and on about how much you love and adore me.”
His mind jolted awake, his heart beginning to race and his shoulders growing tense. He prayed that his legs hadn’t gone through the same effect lest Shinobu notice his change in demeanour.
He couldn’t tell if this was just another tease or if he had genuinely revealed the secret he kept buried for so long in his sleep like a dumbass. He hadn’t seen her expression and didn’t want to see it now, so he couldn’t gauge if she had been fooling around or telling the truth.
No. If he had said those things aloud, she wouldn’t be draped over his lap right now. She would either be on the couch or in her room as far away from him as possible. That kind of secret was earth-shattering.
“Liar,” he finally managed to say, smothering his anxiety with what he hoped sounded like a calm voice.
Her grin grew softer and he knew she had simply been teasing. He nearly breathed a sigh of relief.
“You’re right,” she whispered, her voice sounding oddly serious in spite of her soft smile. “But I wouldn’t have minded it. Sometimes a girl enjoys hearing how much she’s loved.”
“But you can hear it from plenty of guys that aren’t me.”
It was the wrong thing to say. He wasn’t quite sure why— after all, it was no secret that Shinobu had had her fair share of devoted admirers— but he saw the way her smile faltered as soon as he said it. She was quick to bring it back up again, but it was tense, full of hesitation.
“I suppose you’re right…” she said sheepishly. “But maybe I want to hear it from you for a change.”
She lifted her head from his lap and began shifting away.
He caught her arm before she could leave him. He didn’t know why, but his instinct had screamed at him to do it, to prevent her from disappearing.
“I–” he began before her eyes locked on his.
Suddenly it was all too much for him— her silver dress that still glittered with the streetlights from outside, her messy hair, her smudged makeup, the way that all of her precious attention was focused solely on him. He felt his heart erupting, burning like a volcano.
“I…love you...Shinobu.”
It felt like a weight had left his shoulders and like a giant boulder had crashed over him all at the same time. He’d said the words and even if she took them in a platonic way, he had said them. Part of him had hoped that whatever he felt for her would somehow dissipate once he voiced those simple three words, but instead it simply burned brighter and more vibrantly, violently, squeezing his chest in a terrible vice the longer she silently stared at him. They felt so right, like they belonged there on his tongue.
Finally, she smiled.
“There. That wasn’t so hard.”
She said it softly, happily.
She leaned forward then, bringing her face mere breaths away from him. His breath stopped in his throat. He didn’t dare move.
“For what it’s worth…” she said, eyes momentarily darting downward before she pulled them back up to his gaze, “I love you too, Giyuu.”
Electricity fused between their eyes and Giyuu found himself thinking about how much he wanted to kiss her.
Her lips were so near, still a glittery pink from her lip gloss and bitten in certain areas from when she had been nervous earlier that night.
It would be terribly easy. He would rise up to meet her and nervously brush his lips against hers, hoping that she would accept him.
And she would. She would.
She would grab the fabric of his dress shirt in her small fist and press him tighter against her, would breathe his name against his lips and make his mind go crazy as her fingers explored his shoulders, his arms, his chest.
And he would allow her to explore, to do whatever she wanted with him, to lay claim to him until there was nothing left but the imprint of her fingerprints, nails, and teeth all over his body. Until she had traced her name over him countless times and made him hers in every sense of the word.
If she allowed him to, he would pull at the ribbons holding her dress closed and let the fabric pool around her body, leaving her to bathe in the moonlight. He would do that and more if she let him.
But he didn’t kiss her. He couldn’t.
“We should get off the floor,” he said.
She pulled back and the illusion shattered. “I suppose you’re right.”
She rose up from the floor and turned back to the couch to fetch her heels, leaving Giyuu alone on the ground.
***
It was nearly six in the morning and Giyuu still hadn’t been able to fall asleep.
He was overwhelmed by the thoughts of Shinobu he had kept suppressed since high school. Like the horrors of Pandora’s box, they flew throughout his mind and claimed it— every outing, every study session, every memory he had of her.
Including that memory, the one he had buried even before he realized he had fallen for her, the one he never dared to speak about even when others had asked him about it. At some point, he must have convinced himself that the whole affair had been nothing more than a dream his brain concocted, as even now, he doubted its validity.
But he knew it had happened. Not even the years had been capable of making him forget each and every detail of that night, for better and for worse:
The party is bustling and roaring and loud and Giyuu isn’t a big fan of any of it. He barely knows how he got here, much less why he’s still here.
But he catches his reason as she glides into the room, her cheeks red from the alcohol she just tried and her eyes mischievous as she locates him on the couch.
“Come on!” she orders in a fit of giggles, pulling his arm to force him to his feet. “We’re playing Spin the Bottle and I need backup!”
He sighs. “Take Mitsuri instead.”
“Can’t, she has a boyfriend, remember?”
She doesn’t let him give any more stuttered excuses. She’s already dragging him down to the floor with her.
They’re in a circle of people, some of which he vaguely knows by name and others he only just manages to recognize from the school hallways. An emerald green bottle lies in the centre of the circle, ready to pass judgement on them.
An excited boy with white hair is the first to spin the bottle. He grins when it stops in front of a girl with black hair, who blushes under his gaze.
Without hesitation, he scoots over to her, tilts her chin up with a hand capable of engulfing her entire face, and kisses her.
“With tongue!” someone shouts, but the boy is already one step ahead of them.
Giyuu shifts uncomfortably and tries getting up to leave, only for Shinobu to grab his arm. He looks at her pleadingly, but she only stares back with starry eyes.
For some reason, it makes him sit back down.
Two more pairs share frenzied kisses before it’s Shinobu’s turn. She grabs the neck of the bottle instead of its rear end, then spins it.
The seconds before it stops are agonizing and he begins wondering why she dragged him here to begin with.
But his thoughts stop when the bottle ends up pointing at him.
The group cheers, joining together in a chorus of “OOHS” as Shinobu rises to her knees.
He swallows nervously, but she only stares at him with absolute determination.
“You don’t have to–”
She grabs him before he can finish, pressing her lips to his as though she’s starved.
He thinks he hears someone encourage her to use tongue and she gladly obliges, poking him for permission until his mouth opens for her, allowing her to intertwine her tongue with his.
He instinctively squeezes her waist as his senses are consumed by her and growing intoxicated by the feel of her against him. Her scent wraps itself around him.
She tastes like whatever sweet concoction she drank before finding him and like the chapstick he saw her apply on the way over. Strawberry flavoured, he realizes.
One of her hands squeezes his shirt and the other is tangled in his hair, forcing him as closely as he can physically be.
“Alright lovebirds, let someone else have a turn!”
The shout breaks the haze that had fallen over Giyuu as Shinobu pulls away, her face warm and her eyes impossibly dark, devoid of their purple as her pupils consume them. She flutters her eyelashes at him, clears her throat, and stands.
“I’m going to get water,” she says before leaving the room.
As soon as she’s gone, Giyuu moves away from the game, though he remains on the floor.
What just happened?
It had been his first kiss and later on, he would come to learn that it had been hers as well.
He had looked for her everywhere after that but she’d vanished. He’d stayed at the party for as long as he could manage, waiting for her to show up until Mitsuri told him she’d found Shinobu passed out in a bed upstairs. He’d wound up calling Kanae to bring them home and even helped her sneak a very drunk Shinobu into her bed.
He had gone to visit her the next morning with a hangover cure prescribed by his sister and a bouquet of white tulips for Mrs. Kochou— a subtle apology for bringing her daughter both drunk and passed out the night before.
Shinobu hadn’t mentioned the kiss or anything about where she had disappeared to directly after. He had assumed the alcohol had fogged up her memory and opted to avoid mentioning either event.
Not long after, he’d been told that shortly after disappearing, Shinobu had been seen kissing someone else— an upperclassman she had supposedly had a crush on during her first year.
And that had been that.
They seemed to have entered a silent agreement to never discuss that party or the game of Spin the Bottle ever again, but Giyuu never forgot what happened that night.
Or what it felt to have Shinobu devour him, the taste of strawberry chapstick still dancing across the edge of his tongue.
Giyuu never mentioned any of his racing thoughts to Shinobu, never even hinted that any of his feelings for her had changed. In turn, Shinobu continued being her usual self, albeit a bit more reclusive at times. He figured it was because she was busy preparing for her program.
And just like that, the day of her departure arrived.
There in the bustling train station, Shinobu excitedly— or was it anxiously?— looked at her departure gate and the other sleepy travellers that would be joining her on her journey. She tapped her foot incessantly on the floor and twisted the hair elastic on her wrist into creative shapes.
“I’ve never seen you so nervous,” Giyuu said as he watched her carefully.
She turned to glare at him. “I’m not nervous. I’m offended that you would even think such a thing.”
He scoffed. Her words were one thing, but her grip on his sleeve was another.
He liked that she still needed him, still wanted him to comfort her. He was still important to her, even as she was leaving him behind.
“Train 19 is now boarding. Please make your way to Gate 2.”
Shinobu sucked in a quick breath but still stood up straight, nervous but unafraid.
He wished he shared some of her strength.
He stood up beside her, then leaned down to pick up the gift he’d brought for her.
“Oh, thank goodness. I was tired of pretending I didn’t notice you had that,” she giggled before turning to face him, giving him her full attention.
Giyuu snorted and held up the carefully wrapped bouquet between them.
“It’s not your bouquet but…I don’t want you to forget about me yet,” he said solemnly.
Shinobu rolled her eyes. “You’re acting like I’m going off to war! Don’t worry your big head, Tomioka-san, I’ll be back to annoy you before you know it.”
He hoped so.
“I won’t open it until I’m settled.” Her eyes glittered in contentment. “What will I find when I do?”
“Red dahlias. To wish you luck on your new journey.”
She smiled and pressed the bouquet to her chest. “You’re too good for me, Giyuu…”
It was a silent proclamation but he had heard it. If only she knew that he was the one that was all wrong for her.
She momentarily set the bouquet on the chair she’d sat in and before he could wonder why, she threw her arms around him. “Don’t miss me too much. And make sure there’s a new box of Pocky waiting for me when I get back.”
He shook his head incredulously but returned her hug, his arms wrapping around her much smaller form. “Strawberry flavour,” he said with a pang in his heart.
“You’ve always known me best.”
Then she took her luggage and bouquet and disappeared through the gate.
Giyuu thought that he would feel some sense of relief once she was gone. Peace that his heart would no longer be tormented by her presence, so close yet so out of reach.
It had been a terribly naïve thought.
He yearned for her more now. Having her across the country would be more torturous than having her across the hall. He would be counting the days until she returned.
He shoved his hands in his pockets and looked for the exit.
In all the years he had known her, Giyuu never lied to her. He had tried to on several occasions, but one knowing look from her would make the truth spill right out.
But today he had told a lie— a small, imperceptible one that she would never know the true implications of.
Yes, the bouquet definitely contained red dahlia flowers and yes, they symbolized exactly what he had told her.
But amongst them were bright red gardenias— silent, secret proclamations of what he wished he could tell her without all that mind-numbing fear.
I love you.
Three months went by painfully slowly.
Although Giyuu had anticipated the emptiness Shinobu’s absence would cause, nothing could prepare him for its reality. His silent moments, which had always been filled by her voice and her teasing, were just that now: silent moments. Whenever he sat alone in the flower shop, cutting away at rose thorns or crafting bouquets, he found himself constantly looking up from his desk to talk to her, only to be hit with the sudden truth that she wasn’t there.
(He had even stopped snacking on Pocky while at work. It wasn’t the same unless she was there to steal it from him.)
During those times, he would always check his phone in the hopes that she had texted him asking for a call, and during those times, he never rejected her requests.
Nothing made him happier than the light sound of her ringtone whenever she called, though he would always try to hide his smile when he answered. If he gave her the satisfaction, he knew she would never let him forget it.
While the first two months were spent comfortably exchanging calls whenever she was available (which he always was), the third and final month forced him into the most isolated silence since her departure. He understood: she was incredibly busy with final assignments and exams.
Or so he had believed until she updated her social media.
Throughout her trip, she had flooded her account with photos of new friends and delicious foods— the latter of which made him wish he was with her all the more. At times, she even tagged him in quick snapshots of bouquets.
But in the final month, her group of friends included a new face— a man, perhaps only a few years older than her and not bad-looking in the slightest, who seemed to have grown close with her.
His arm would be around her and another girl as they smiled charmingly at the camera. They would be in the middle of a conversation in the background of other photos. He would be sitting beside or directly across from her at dinners.
Logically, Giyuu knew he had no right to be upset about it. He had no claim to Shinobu, no relationship, nothing that bound her to him. She had a right to meet with whom she wished. To date whoever she wanted. To choose whoever she felt worthy of her.
But his emotions didn’t give a damn. It had been months since her last relationship, which had ended with the flower bouquet from hell and her move into his apartment, but now it was happening all over again.
It hit him harder now, just as it had in high school when he’d found out about her kissing someone else at the party, or after she told him about her first boyfriend.
Giyuu had successfully repressed all his feelings for her for years, receiving the news of her latest relationships without even batting an eye until it became second nature to him.
He had hoped that her absence would change things, that it would make the intense emotions he felt for her fade away again, that he would go back to wanting her as a friend and nothing more.
But when Giyuu saw her posing happily with that man, he couldn’t freeze the swell of anger that built up within him, the jealousy that gnawed at him and spit him out only to swallow him whole once more. He hated the feeling, hated that his heart was somehow convinced that she was obligated to be loyal to him when nothing had changed between them. He even almost hated falling for her at all.
Almost.
Even at his lowest, he couldn’t regret her. Never her.
But that fact didn’t stop his heart from pounding whenever she sent him a message, or his palms from sweating when she called, his throat from growing dry when she said his name.
Giyuu found himself ridiculous. He had known her for years, had lived with her for several months, had spent countless hours by her side, yet now he was no better than a high schooler with a meaningless crush.
He tried to avoid her, tried to distract himself from his phone and to leave her messages unopened, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it, not even when his mind was plagued by thoughts that wondered if she was with the man from her photos, wrapped in his arms on a couch in her dorm.
When she didn’t call and barely texted for three days, those thoughts shouted at him more violently, insisting that her absence was because she was too busy with the mystery man to give Giyuu any mind.
So when her ringtone filled the air of the empty flower shop the day before she would come home, he nearly jumped in his stool.
He stared at his phone, momentarily mesmerized by the photo of her smiling with a stick of strawberry Pocky in her fist, wondering if he finally cracked and was currently hallucinating her call.
He pressed the ‘answer’ button with a trembling finger.
“Hello there, stranger. We haven’t spoken in ages,” Shinobu said happily. He could picture her picking apart a pastry. “Is it the peak of wedding season already?”
“Yes,” he lied. The peak wasn’t for another two weeks.
“I see you’re as chatty as ever,” she teased, likely with an eye roll. “Speaking of weddings, can I place an order for a wedding bouquet?”
His insides froze into ice then shattered.
A wedding bouquet?
His mind filled with thoughts of the man in her photos, his arm around her waist, his face inches from hers, her cheeks blushing under his gaze, his shoulder brushing against hers at the altar, his fingers sliding a golden ring on her—
“Hello? Hello? Did I lose signal again?”
“I’m here,” Giyuu said stiffly, barely focusing on his words, which flowed from him on autopilot. “Um… what flowers did you want?”
She hummed in thought and fumbling sounds were heard. “Let’s see…daffodils, white lilies, and red roses.” She laughed and the sound brought him pain instead of joy. “All your favourites!”
He winced.
Daffodils were for goodbyes. White lilies were for funerals. Red roses were fine enough but terribly overused, to the point where Shinobu teased him about them every time an order was placed.
None of them symbolized her. None of them were appropriate for her or suited her in any way. They were all wrong, both in meaning and in colour, so much so that he couldn’t tell if she was mocking him somehow.
“A-are you sure?” he asked, his voice wavering.
“Why? Is this your way of offering that bouquet you promised me instead?”
Another laugh that drove knives further into his heart.
No, that bouquet would never, could never come now. Even if he could figure out which flowers suited her, he would never make it.
Giyuu lowered his phone for a moment, allowing his gaze to unfocus on a basket of white roses. He was half-tempted to dump a whole bottle of food colouring into their water to turn the clean white into a deep shade of blue.
Blue roses— unrequited love. Wanting someone you can’t have.
His phone began to ring again. The same chime that played every time she called refilled the air of the small shop but for the first time, he found it irritating, as though the music was mocking him.
Can I place an order for a wedding bouquet? Nonchalant and calm, as though it hadn’t ripped him from his bearings and rocked his very world.
He reluctantly answered it with tense hands. “Hello?”
“There we are! I must have lost signal, I couldn’t hear you,” she chirped. “Did you say anything important?”
“I…when do you need it for?”
“Three weeks from today, for the 5th.”
Three weeks. Three weeks until his world finished shattering.
“I hope that isn’t too soon,” she added worriedly. “I remember you explaining that bouquets should be ordered two to four weeks in advance.”
It was far too soon. Had she fallen in love so deeply that quickly? She had only been gone for three months…it all seemed far too soon.
“I can’t do it,” he said, his brows furrowing and sweat beginning to coat his forehead.
She made a surprised noise, clearly not expecting his outright refusal.
Of course, she wouldn’t. He had never been able to refuse her before.
“You would deny your greatest friend this favour? How cold of you, Tomioka!”
He bit the inside of his cheek. “I’m sorry.”
He knew his voice had finally given him away.
“Why not?” she asked, driving the knife further into his chest.
How could he explain himself? “Sorry, I know we’re best friends but I can’t make you a wedding bouquet because I can’t watch you get married to someone else?” Absolutely not.
“I…care about you too much,” he said, cutting himself off before he revealed too much.
Shinobu went quiet. The murmur of voices in the background was the only thing that assured him that she hadn’t hung up or lost connection.
“Giyuu,” she said sternly, the use of his first name delivering a harsh strike of anxiety to his chest. “I’m going to ask you something and I need an honest answer from you.”
He held his breath. Hummed in approval before he was actually ready.
“Promise you won’t think it’s stupid?”
“Nothing you say is stupid,” he replied before thinking.
She hesitated, then finally asked her question.
“Did you ever…fall for me?”
His eyes went wide.
He’s back in that spring afternoon, the strawberry Pocky bobbing in her mouth and cherry blossoms blooming all around them. She’s playing with the sleeves of his blazer that is far too big on her and laughing so happily at nothing.
He’s in love with her, no fears of the future, no wondering if she feels the same way.
He’s at peace. He’s in heaven.
Giyuu was just barely able to hear her breaths on the other end of the line, but they didn’t sound steady and calm like usual. Was she nervous?
He swallowed thickly but his throat maintained that feeling of constriction. “Why are you asking that?”
She hesitated, then spoke slowly. “I know you. When you give bouquets, you consider the meanings of every flower. You don’t make mistakes in that regard.”
Every flower in his shop glared at him.
“Giyuu…that bouquet you gave me had red gardenias. ‘Symbols of secret love between two people.’”
His lungs closed up, preventing him from drawing a single breath that didn’t make him feel like he was being suffocated by thorns.
He had added the gardenias under the assumption that she wouldn’t look into them, that she would simply see them as oddly shaped red dahlias, that she wouldn’t think anything of them.
He was an idiot. Of course, she would look into them. She knew him better than that— after all, she was right about him. He never included flowers arbitrarily in his bouquets, just as his mother had taught him.
He could deny the meaning, tell her that they didn’t mean that at all or better yet, that the flowers weren’t gardenias at all, but it wouldn’t be any use. If she knew, it was because she had done the research herself or had heard him mention it at some point.
She cleared her throat. “...So? What’s the answer?”
They both waited with bated breaths.
“Yes,” he finally whispered. “I...I did.”
She gasped and he wondered if that was what she’d wanted to hear.
“W-when did you stop?” she asked.
“I didn’t.”
They would never come back from this. Unlike the party, this wasn’t just something they could sweep under the rug or pass off as a drunken mistake. This was the clear and sober truth— no lies, no secrets, at long last.
He took a deep breath and closed his eyes in defeat. “I’m still in love with you, Shinobu.”
He waited for relief to sink in or for the weight to be lifted off his chest but nothing changed. He didn’t know her thoughts, couldn’t even begin to guess what she was thinking.
“You never told me,” she said slowly.
“I know.”
“Why not?!”
How could he begin to tell her why he hadn’t confessed? She was everything he wasn’t, had every honourable quality he lacked and was leagues above him in every possible way.
“I didn’t think I deserved to,” he settled on saying.
“You didn’t think you deserved— ” Shinobu sighed in annoyance. “You’re such a dumbass!”
Well, he knew that.
“I didn’t think you would love me back,” he said plainly.
“You…is that what I made you believe?”
Her tone was starting to grow in volume and he imagined that anyone around her was enjoying the show.
Giyuu shrugged even though she couldn’t see him. “I realized how I felt too late. You were already dating other people.”
She was quiet for a few moments before she spoke again, softer this time. “Is this why you never liked any of my boyfriends? Were you jealous?”
He sighed. “I didn’t think any of them deserved you.” Not that he could judge. “Least of all, me.”
“Oh, you dumbass.”
He scoffed. He knew that much, at least.
“Want to know a secret?” she asked, her tone sounding more pitiful than angry. “My deepest and darkest secret?”
He said nothing but knew she would take his silence as permission to continue.
“Do you remember Spin the Bottle?”
He almost choked on a breath. So it hadn’t been a dream after all.
“I do.”
She hesitated before speaking again. “I felt way too many things when we— when I kissed you. Once the game ended, I found an attractive upperclassman and asked him to kiss me. I needed to know if I would feel the same way after being kissed by someone else, or if what I felt was just a product of being kissed for the first time. Like an experiment. And when he did it…I felt nothing.”
Nothing. The word echoed in his mind. She had felt nothing.
A pang hit his heart. All those years of secrecy, of hiding how he felt out of fear, of watching her go from suitor to suitor under the belief that she could never feel anything beyond platonic affection for her…
All those years, she had felt the same way about their kiss.
But it didn’t mean that she had fallen for him as he had for her. It didn’t mean that she yearned for him and his touch, his embrace and his voice. It meant nothing, just as she had said.
Or at least, he would keep telling himself that to cope.
“You never told me…” he found himself saying.
She laughed pitifully. “Neither did you, idiot.”
He gripped his phone tighter and bowed his head in shame as he asked, “What about after?”
The endless line of admirers, the on and off relationships, the things that convinced him that she would never want him and never had in the first place.
“Here’s the secret: I never wanted any of those guys. Not really, anyhow. In the beginning, I— and don’t laugh at me, I already know that this was pretty pathetic of me, but I…didittomakeyoujealous. There, let’s move on.”
“Hm?” She had said it so quickly and quietly that he couldn’t trust his ears to have heard her correctly.
“I did it to make you jealous! You’re heartless for making me repeat that, you know.”
He couldn’t help but crack a small smile. There was Shinobu.
The true impact of her words had yet to dawn on him.
She sighed in frustration. “Not that it worked. You never acted any differently regardless of whether I was dating someone or not. Eventually, it became less about making you jealous and more about moving on.”
“Did you?”
The silence brought on by her hesitation was deafening.
“...No. I didn’t.”
The words hung heavily between them, dripping with meaning.
He had never fallen out of love with her.
She had never moved on from him.
What had they been doing all these years? Why had they spent so long chasing circles around one another, her playing games to find out if he cared and him constantly swallowing his true feelings for her and for what?
“I didn’t think you wanted me,” he said sadly, not knowing what else to say.
“Oh, Giyuu. I wanted you above everyone.”
His heart surged to the top of his chest, to the back of his throat to hold him in place. It raced anxiously, confused as to whether it was supposed to be sad or finally happy, ecstatic that the woman he had spent years admiring and supporting finally said the words he so desperately wanted to hear her say.
The words he had denied wanting to hear for so many years.
And yet: “But your wedding bouquet—”
“Isn’t for me. I recommended your flower shop to one of the girls I roomed with. She’s the one getting married.”
…..Oh.
Well, now he felt a little awkward.
“I guess we’re both idiots,” she said with a giggle, then a long sigh. “Giyuu, what have we been doing to each other?”
An idea popped into his head that he needed to act on before it went away. He had spent years waiting for this, for the idea and for her.
“Let me pick you up from the station,” he said urgently.
She paused, only to laugh incredulously. “Okay. See you then.”
It was only when Giyuu stood in the middle of a busy train station that the reality of everything hit him.
Ever since that all-too revealing phone call with Shinobu, he had been living in a daze, elevated nicely up on cloud nine with the knowledge that this brilliant woman somehow fell for him. After all, it was a dream he had given up on, one that seemed as impossible as a blue rose.
So naturally, it wasn’t until he was surrounded by the sound of rolling suitcases and train announcements that it hit him like bricks.
Shinobu was coming home. Shinobu, who told him that she wanted him. Shinobu, who definitely wasn’t getting married anytime soon. Shinobu, who said that she loved him.
And he became deathly terrified. Of her, of everything, fear building up within his chest. What if she had changed her mind? What if everything she had said had been in the spur of the moment, impulsive or spontaneous, or out of pity for him and his poor withered heart that had longed for her so long, a heart that made him no better than the line of men that had pined after her throughout the years.
His thumb scratched at the lilac paper wrapped around the bouquet while his pinky flicked a loose flap where its edges met.
He opened his phone for the seventeenth time, vainly hoping that a message from her would be brightly illuminated against his plain lock screen, but there still wasn’t anything there.
Her train was supposed to have arrived by now. Had she gotten cold feet? Was she avoiding him so she wouldn’t have to awkwardly explain that after thinking things through, she was no longer interested in him that way?
It would crush him— that much was inevitable after the surge of hope that had kept him lively since their phone call. He wouldn’t be able to face her and somehow that seemed worse than the pain of losing something he’d never had in the first place—
Something barreled into him.
He lost his balance, briefly stumbling forward before growing steady again. Alarmed, he looked down, only to find a pair of lavender sleeves wrapped around his shoulders, holding him closely and surrounding him with the scent of vanilla.
“Wrong gate, idiot,” an all-too-familiar voice teased in his ear.
His shoulders slumped down in relief as a long exhale left his lungs, dragging all his pent-up anxiety along with it.
“Oh,” he said simply, making Shinobu giggle.
“Oh dear, Tomioka-san, don’t tell me you were worried that I’d changed my mind about you.”
He looked away awkwardly and cleared his throat, fighting to ignore the growing heat in his cheeks.
Instead of teasing him again as he’d expected, Shinobu tightened her hold around him.
“I didn’t,” she stated firmly. “I meant what I said. I still want you.”
He sucked in a sharp breath and the anxiety that had just left him took it as an opportunity to settle in his chest again.
When he still didn’t say anything, she leaned her head on his shoulder.
“Giyuu?”
He hummed in response.
“I love you.”
Ah.
His heart stopped again.
“Now’s the part where you say it back,” she instructed.
Yes, that was probably a good idea.
He swallowed, then licked his lips which felt impossibly dry.
“Kochou–”
“No,” she immediately interrupted. “My first name. You said it before, you can say it again.”
This girl would be the death of him.
He almost scoffed at himself. As if she hadn’t killed him in a dozen different ways throughout the years.
He took a deep breath. “Shinobu?”
“Yes?”
“I love you.”
He felt like burying himself in a hole and never coming out.
This time, it was Shinobu who remained quiet, her head still leaning on his shoulder while he felt the rising of her chest against his back, her breaths eventually syncing up with his own.
“It’s different hearing it like this,” she finally said before peeling herself off him.
When he turned around to finally look at her, her hood was over her head and pulled down as low as she could make it.
He snorted before reaching out to take it off her, only for her to swat his hand away.
“No, let me keep some of my dignity!”
He rolled his eyes and smiled to himself. Instead of trying again, he held out the bouquet.
It got her to finally peer up from the inside of her hood, violet eyes intrigued by the gift.
“As promised,” he said, “a Shinobu Kochou bouquet.”
Her eyes widened and she slowly slid her hood off. She took the bouquet from his outstretched hand and peeled back the gift paper, carefully as though the entire thing would shatter.
Wrapped painstakingly within the lilac paper were tall stems of purple gladiolus and delphinium, lavender carnations, and small decorative daisies— her signature colour put together in the best way he could manage.
And in her hands, it was complete.
Her violet eyes sparkled as they reflected stunning purple right back at her.
“What do they all mean?” she asked, her tone oddly anxious as she gazed at him in anticipation. Or was it adoration?
He cleared his throat, his mind filling with the carefully chosen information. “Purple gladiolus for a strong character, charm, and grace. The carnations for spontaneous people.”
“You think so highly of me,” she said with a raised eyebrow and pleased grin. “What about the daisies? Don’t they mean innocence? I hardly think I have any of that.”
He smiled to himself. “They do. But they can also mean loyalty or a secret between friends.”
Her grin grew at that. “How astute of you. And this one? I don’t think I’ve seen it before.”
She pointed to the dark purple delphinium, which stood regally amongst the flowers.
He looked down for a moment, growing bashful as he recalled its meaning.
“First love…” he whispered.
Her expression lit up and her knowing grin grew softer.
“First love,” she repeated. “So it is true.”
She smelled the flowers and hummed happily, holding the bouquet close to her chest. “I love it. It was well worth the wait. You’ll have to make it again for me in the future.”
He immediately nodded. “Whenever you want.”
Whatever you want, I will give you.
A silent promise, one he could give and keep in all its entirety.
Shinobu clutched his arm with her free hand and pulled him towards her. She looked up at him with a bright smile, fluttering her eyelashes at him.
“Take me home?”
Home. To the apartment that went from being his to theirs, even before this stunning moment. To the place that bore her mark in all the months she was gone, constantly reminding him of her presence and her voice. Their home.
Giyuu leaned down to leave a soft kiss on the top of her forehead, the action making her sharply intake a breath.
Taking her suitcase in one hand and her fingers in another, he led her out of the station.
When they reached the apartment, she made him give her a piggyback ride upstairs with an expression he couldn’t manage to say no to.
And when they were finally in their living room, the bouquet on the dining room table and her suitcase forgotten in the entryway, there were no bottles or party games, no dares or hesitation when her lips finally caught his in a long-awaited and much-needed searing kiss that shook him from head-to-toe. That one was followed by another and another…
And Giyuu realized that even after all these years, she still used that same strawberry chapstick.