Flashy
Marco slumped down on to the locker room bench and mopped the sweat off his brow. The locker room was quiet and he vaguely registered seeing Kisaragi digging into a locker behind him but he didn't particularly care. He was staring down resentfully at the bouquet of flowers in his hand. Red roses flown in from Europe and nicely tied up in a big red bow, now slightly squashed after Maria had thrown them back at him. He sighed and pulled the cap off a bottle of cola with his teeth. He took her point about the roses being clichéd but too flashy? Surely not. She only deserved the best. And no one would have been impressed if he'd shown up with a bunch of pansies now, would they?
He was taking a consolatory swig from the bottle when the lockers around him began to rattle and the whole room reverberated with the sound of thunderous, angry footsteps. Marco ducked reflexively behind the bench and peered out. Kisaragi was now left in the line of fire and was just closing the door to his locker when Gaou stomped into view. He turned to look up at his gigantic team mate and came within glancing distance of a fist to the face. Marco, from his position behind the bench, inwardly winced. A second earlier and Kisaragi would have had his nose broken. Kisaragi seemed relatively unfazed by this though and was staring intently at Gaou's face.
"Are you alright Gaou-kun?" asked Kisaragi nervously. Marco looked up at Gaou. There was a strange expression on his face. His brow was furrowed, his eyes narrowed in what to be intense concentration and he was grimacing like a bear with a rotten tooth. His fist was still outstretched towards Kisaragi's face and it took Marco a good few seconds to notice that there was something scrunched up in it. Gaou thrust it again towards Kisaragi.
"For you," he grunted.
Kisaragi glanced down at the offering and stepped back in shock.
"No, no Gaou-kun, you must be mistaken, someone as weak as I am couldn't possibly accept your beautiful gift!" Marco was agape: a very, very faint flush of red had appeared on Gaou's face. Was it just possible that he was...embarassed? Gaou took another huge step foward.
"It's what you do when you like someone isn't it? Take it!" Gaou growled and then shoved whatever the gift was ito Kisaragi's hand (how he didn't manage to break Kisaragi's delicate wrist in the process forever remained a mystery to Marco) and stomped back out of the locker room, denting the door for good measure.
Marco stared at Kisaragi. He was sparkling like a department store Christmas tree, eyes wide and rapidly welling up with tears. In his hand was a bunch of wilted, utterly squashed daisies. God knows whose garden Gaou must have stolen the mangy things from, in fact Marco would have bet any amount of money that he'd picked them off the verge next to the football pitch. But Kisaragi was clutching them if they were the single most beautiful thing he'd ever seen and as he affirmed several seconds later, they were the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen.
Marco decided to bin the roses on the way out.