from here i can see the stars.
characters: gou, seijuurou, others.
notes: for nymre, who inspired this beauty.
…
Seijuurou is finishing up the rest of his shopping errands when he sees it. He doesn't know what it is about the floral arrangement that grabs his attention, just that he slows down and his sister's happy-go-lucky skipping at his side is halted. Her arm is still anchored against his elbow and it doesn't even cross his mind that she may have wanted to keep moving with him.
"Onii-chan," she mumbles, and he jolts suddenly, a step forward with wide, flickering eyes, "why are you looking at flowers? Does onii-chan have a girl he likes?"
And maybe, at first, he hadn't known why he was so drawn to the open window of the florist's shop, but it is becoming clear, rendering him so completely transparent. He looks down at his sister, draws in a deep breath.
"Oi, Kimiru," he says with an embarrassingly serious face, tightens his fists at his sides, "get me those flowers. And if you're good, maybe I will let you meet the girl they are for." He laughs, a low rumble in the back of his throat, when her face brightens at his words, and he allows her to guide him forward.
…
"What?"
Seijuurou blinks at the cluster of flowers in his fist and Kimiru sighs, falls into step beside her older brother. He feels so clueless, but he keeps a cautious grip on the stems, waits for his sister to explain—again—why she chose these flowers instead of the resplendent ones in the window, the ones he really wanted.
"I told you, onii-chan!" Her cheeks pink with an impatient flush, and she lifts her free hand to touch the soft, red petals. "They're star flowers. The tag says that red star flowers are a profession of love and patience, isn't that such a sweet declaration?"
It's hard for him to ignore the way she gushes over the flowers, and it gives him pause. If there is any meaning he should find in flowers for his crush, it is a celestial one, it is a promise of love and eternal patience all wrapped up into a bouquet, it is I will love you and wait for you forever which is so over-the-top that it is perfect for Sei. He knows he would have preferred the more extravagant centerpiece in the window, but it is this arrangement that will steal Gou's heart, he's certain of it.
"I—I hope she enjoys it," he whispers under his breath, his cheeks flushed at the thought of her reaction.
Kimiru tucks strands of her orange hair behind her ear, tilts her head up until her hair barely scrapes her shoulders. Her smile is so bright and genuine that it catches Seijuurou off guard, causes something within him to surge with a light happiness.
"She has to," she says confidently, and hooks her arms in his grip again.
…
Seijuurou drops his sister off at their home, and the true nervousness begins to set in. And he shouldn't be nervous, because it is a small bouquet and it's just Gou, nothing new to expect. But something skips the beats in his heart and knots the line of his throat and renders him useless as he walks the path to Samezuka Academy one more time.
In all honesty, if he cannot give her these flowers before he retreats for university, then maybe he is not worthy of her, maybe he does not deserve to have her at all.
His resolve is just about obliterated when he sees her, though.
Gou passes him in a cluster of students, the unmistakable sway of her hair, the burgundy ends curled up and caught in the wind. She is walking in the opposite direction as he is, and her thoughts are focused around the bubbles of gum she is popping, so much so that even the sight of Seijuurou stopped in his tracks doesn't catch her attention.
There is a lull in her step, completely carefree, and he feels his throat dry up and fill with sand, uselessly. His grip around the bouquet softens, and he hesitates to call after her.
"…G-Gou-kun! Wait up!"
She turns around, eyes wide until they land on him. There is a pink-bubblegum starburst against her lips, and she licks the gum from the bow shape of her mouth. "Ah," he approaches her just as she lifts her hand behind her head, "Captain Mikoshiba, hi!"
It disarms him, how much she can reduce him to a quivering, blushing first-year mess, even though he has graduated and will soon leave for university.
"I-I just wanted to give you these," he pushes the flower bouquet into her hands, looks away from the shocked look in her red eyes and the petals that fly freely, "because, they're—"
"Gou!" Her tiny fists close around the stems of the flowers and she looks over her shoulder, squints at the sight of Chigusa waving her hands frantically. "We're going to leave soon, let's get going!"
She meets his gaze for just a few seconds, her cheeks dusted a pale pink, and Seijuurou fumbles over how to close out their conversation when she says, "Thanks for the flowers, Mikoshiba-kun!"
He watches her turn and run back to the crowd of her friends, shuffle herself back amongst them with his flowers held at her side, out of the way. And though he cannot hear anything she says, he watches the way she touches the tip of her nose to the flowers, murmurs shyly to her friend before disappearing from view.
The only thing he regrets is not being able to tell her what the flowers meant for her (and what she meant to him) after all.
…
It feels nice to be back in town again.
Seijuurou finds himself wandering more often than not. He garners a reputation around his university campus for being a nightwalker, but now that he is home, there is always some place to return to when his feet are worn. Sleep is another thing that changes him while he is away, because it does not come easy to him, and even laps in the pool cannot soothe him to bed.
So it is no surprise that he is away in the early morning, leaning out of the sill and waiting for the sun to rise. "I'm going out," he says in a low voice, though he suspects neither Momotarou or Kimiru are around to hear him, and slips out of his house and into the twilight.
He doesn't have a destination. He simply lets his mind roll over everything that has happened in the past few months, walking idly. It is not ill timing that he will be visiting Samezuka Academy again, considering it is the morning of prefecturals, and he can't help the excitement that brims in his mind at the thought of seeing everyone else again.
Rin tells him about the club, in intermittent texts that seem to do nothing but completely indulge the former captain. It is all in short bursts of information—Rin tells him about the incoming first-years and about his own brother, Momotarou, joining the swim team and about his new style of choosing relay participants—and Seijuurou is enthusiastic about it all.
But there are so many things that Rin does not tell him, like whether or not he has finally absolved this anger tainting his stroke, how he feels about Nitori's hard work or Uozumi deciding to compete in the backstroke this year. And in the very back of his mind, he wonders about Gou, wonders if she has gotten any closer to Rin, wonders if she has changed at all.
And then, he hears it, faintly.
"I'm going to be late," a shaky voice mumbles nearby, and it crashes Seijuurou back to Earth, has him looking around until he turns the corner and sees her standing underneath a flickering streetlight.
Gou is standing there with her hands wound around the straps of her bag, her eyes trained on the ground. He's never seen her like this before, with her hair loose around her shoulders, and it makes him all the more nervous. She looks distressed and frightened all at once, and it is such an intimate, rare moment that he doesn't move for what feels like an eternity.
"M-Mikoshiba-kun?! I thought you would be at university, still—"
Shit. He squares his shoulders, grateful that the sun hasn't begun to illuminate the blush on his face, and walks over to her slowly, a smile starting to peel its way across his features.
"I'm visiting," he laughs nervously, rubs the back of his neck with his eyes averted from hers, "just for a little while. W-What are you doing out so early, Gou-kun?"
She doesn't flinch at the name—Sei never really understood why she disliked it so much, not when it brought him so much latent happiness simply to speak it—and instead, she walks closer to him, so close that he can smell the shampoo from the top of her head.
"I went looking for a flower shop," she mumbles again, and he can see the shine of her eyes, and he wonders whether they are tears of sleep or of distress, "the one I usually go to is closed down now, and I think I'm lost now, I still don't have any flowers and I have to meet—"
"Wait," he interrupts with his hand out, and it nearly falls against her shoulder but he curls his fingertips at the last minute, lets his fist slide back to his side, "I know a flower shop around here. I can show you, if you want, because I—ah—have bought flowers there before."
Flowers for you. But it doesn't connect, doesn't register. Gou still smiles, squints the tears in the corners of her eyes away, and nods her head resolutely.
…
Sei does not speak on the walk there. The destination is not far away, but he feels pressed for conversation, all of his bubbly grandiosity melting away in a puddle at the feet of this teenaged girl. She doesn't speak either, though; Gou simply remains half of a step behind him, lingering in order to follow him.
He does not speak when they arrive, simply holds the door open for her and waits outside, watches the glow of the sun top the horizon, feels the last trickles of wind die out before the sun rises completely. Late nights have become familiar to him, and he lives in the moments before the night dies, before the sun is borne into the sky and everything shines.
He does not speak on the walk back. And maybe, he thinks, he should just enjoy her company because they will never truly speak, they will never share a moment like this ever again, and he shouldn't dispel it with words, with feelings.
But she speaks.
…
"Thank you," is the first thing she says, but she's crying, and fuck, when did she start crying, because he hadn't done anything, hadn't said anything, and the panic burst out of him in rivulets. Gou is standing there, clutching a bouquet against her chest and crying, her head tilted into the tips of the flowers, her shoulders shaking.
He stops, turns around and gently lays his hands on her shoulders, bends down to try to make eye contact with her. "Please," he says, hands shaking with nervousness, "please don't cry, Gou."
It takes a few seconds, but she lifts her free hand and wipes her face messily before she glances up at him. "I never got to say thank you for—for helping Rin and for letting him be swim captain and for—for the flowers, from then and from now, and—"
Seijuurou doesn't know what is happening until it is happened, until he feels the distinct softness against his cheeks, the touch of her hand to one side of his face and her lips to the other side, and it shocks him into silence.
"I bought the same kind," her fists squeeze the paper of the bouquet, just a little, "the same kinds of flowers. Star flowers, for my father."
Gou tilts the top of the bouquet towards him, and he recognizes the bright yellow centers, like the sun, and the unmistakable shape of the petals that grow from it. And it is like the morning, the purple and white star flowers, with the infinitesimally tiny suns in the center, it is like the twilight between midnight and sunrise.
Sei is unsure which of them moves first, unsure of which of them begins to walk first, but all he knows is that Gou has kissed his cheek, and now, she holds his hand, and he thinks he can see the stars in the sunlight.