The moon shone brightly as it cast a faint glow on the leaves of the trees. The stars glittered against the dark blue sky. Crickets chirped their lonely songs from every bush and every tree branch. A rusty swing squealed softly as a breeze passed by the empty park.

It was indeed a perfect Saturday night for a date.

For another guy, that is.

Karamatsu frowned as he shoved his half-empty can of beer aside, slumped, and folded his arms across the table for the nth time since he got to Chibita's oden stand. He eyed Chibita, who hasn't uttered more than 4 words in exchange to his 2 short sentences; not that he was used to being ignored by people whenever he tried to initiate a conversation, but it was unusual for him to see Chibita be this quiet and reserved. He lowered his sunglasses and examined the park clock; it's been an hour and a half since he got here. He closed his eyes and sighed and decided that it was high time somebody had to break the ice between them.

"So, I've been rejected by potential Karamatsu Girls yet again," he stated in a low voice as he propped himself up from his slump and shifted his glasses to the top of his head.

"Mhmm," Chibita nodded, staring at his lap and traced the stitching on the hem of his apron with a finger. Karamatsu hoped for Chibita to look up and make eye contact with him, or at least acknowledge the fact that he still exists in front of the oden stand's owner.

Karamatsu finally gained the strength to sample his serving of oden that he'd been fidgeting with and inspected its flavor between chews. "Hmm...still warm. Not bad. Still kinda salty though."

"…that's because I've been adding my tears." Chibita sighed and averted Karamatsu's gaze.

Karamatsu found it devastating to picture Chibita crying and kneeling over his wilted flower. He felt a sinking feeling at the pit of the stomach as he mustered to imagine how Chibita's face would crinkle, how his eyes would flood with tears, how his voice must've faltered. Then it dawned to him.

He was caged. How would he proceed to cheer up his friend? Should he put on his usual cool guy persona and dish out one of his "inspirational" lines about life? Should he just coax him to share his experiences? Or just flat-out ask him about his late girlfriend? How about-

He immediately decided to try out his first option and relocated his sunglasses from his head to his collar. "You know, there's this saying in English…'It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all'," he stated coolly. Karamatsu expected Chibita to snap at him with a sarcastic remark. Or get reprimanded for "being painful and embarrassing". Or at the very least scoff at him. But the little oden stand owner managed to respond with a tired grunt.

The fluttering wings of an owl echoed in their ears as it gave out a single, mournful hoot.

"Chibita? We can talk about it if you want," Karamatsu suggested with a hint of concern in his voice. "A problem shared is a problem halved, you know."

Chibita half-heartedly looked up at Karamatsu briefly and quickly returned to sulking. "Not really."

Karamatsu wasn't quite sure if he should be glad Chibita finally spoke to him, or sympathetic that his friend was still heartbroken over his loss, and decided to give him a little more time to sort out his clashing thoughts.

The rumbling of a distant, passing train momentarily broke the silence before Karamatsu decided to speak up again.

"Hey, Chibita…"

"What?"

"Mind if I ask you a question?"

"Shoot."

"Please teach me your secret," Karamatsu asked in a barely audible voice.

"Teach you my-?" Chibita paused to scratch his bald head in confusion and irritation. "I've shown you my oden secrets before, the hell do you mean?!"

Karamatsu shot up from his seat and dramatically slammed his hands on the table, which rattled the oden stand. "Teach me how to act around girls!" he exclaimed.

Chibita fell off his seat and doubled over in laughter. "Damn if I know, idjit!" he exclaimed as he got up and patted the dust off his clothing.

"…what?" Karamatsu looked at him with a perplexed, pained sort of expression on his face

"Seriously, I don't know. She's been my first date in ages!" Chibita stated between soaping and rinsing his hands from the small sink he pulled out from the side of his cart. No matter how hard he tried, he can't just wash away the memories. How they ate out, went to the movies, and rode his scooter over to the beach. There and then, she faded into him and into the gentle sea breeze, but not before proclaiming her love for him.

"Then…how did you get her to-" Karamatsu paused upon seeing Chibita raising an eyebrow and scowling at him, which reminded him that Chibita didn't want to talk about his experience. Karamatsu looked away in embarrassment and returned to his slump.

"Really, if anything…don't pour alcohol on a flower, dammit!" Chibita stood up to give him a well-deserved scolding.

"Ah." Karamatsu pondered as he recalled pouring some sort of alcohol on his flower. Was is Hennessey? Heineken even? Hell, he didn't really pay much attention to what he was pouring on it since he was busy chatting up and picturing a cute girl clinging to his arm. He chuckled upon realizing how foolish he was. Of course flowers require water, not alcohol! It is simple biology, after all.

Chibita surprisingly managed a weak smile for the first time in days. That fool often gets into terrible situations and yet he pulls through and forgives other people's misgivings easily. Even when his brothers left him for dead, he still went out of his damn way to absolve them with no strings attached. He would hate to admit it, but he has often been jealous of Karamatsu's perseverance.

An idea strikes Chibita like lightning: he's helped Karamatsu before, or at least tried to get his brothers to care about him in the past, so how much more tedious would it be to help him get a date? After all, there's still plenty of fish in the sea they call Tokyo. He did say something about sharing problems earlier on, didn't he? Might as well give this idjit a chance.

As if powered by both pity and sympathy, Chibita soon found himself seated beside the lonely man. "If you need help approaching girls, we can at least start working on your lousy pick-up lines," Chibita suggested as he gestured an open palm at him. Normally, Karamatsu would be hurt upon having his self-proclaimed "cool" pick-up lines be called anything but that, and retaliate by putting on his smug persona. Now, he needed all the help that offered his way.

"You'd help me?" Karamatsu uttered in a small, desperate tone as he reached for Chibita's outstretched hand. He was as teary-eyed (and runny-nosed) as the time he cried in front of Chibita at the sushi bar.

"Keh, sure I would. We're both in a crappy situation, so I figured why the hell not?" Chibita patted Karamatsu's hand to comfort him and handed him a tissue. Karamatsu grinned as he looked at Chibita with twinkling optimism in his eyes.

For a while, the crickets' lonely songs weren't as lonely as they sounded before.

Chibita examined Karamatsu's teary-eyed face. Was he blushing? Or was he simply shitfaced? Why was he still holding his-

Chibita's face also grew red when he realized he was still holding Karamatsu's hand and quickly pulled his hands away along with his gaze.

"So, what the hell ever happened to your flower fairy?" Chibita diverted from both the topic and making eye contact with Karamatsu. He figured that Karamatsu was still married to his nagging flower fairy, and secretly hoped he would forget about holding hands with him and leave the oden stand soon enough.

"Let's just say mom had her own way with dealing with my…ex."Karamatsu's voice trailed off as he looked down at his plate of half-eaten oden. He took another sip of his beer as he tried to push away the images: his ex vanishing into thin air as his hazmat-suit-clad mother crashed his wedding with wielding a pair of garden shears and a flamethrower, copious amounts of dead vegetation and ashes where the monstrous flower once stood, and how he sat through emptily to his brothers telling him about how their mother disposed huge trash bags at a dumpster.

Karamatsu sighed.

At least there'll be no one pushing him around for a pint of ice cream when he gets home tonight.

A/N: And that's that for the first chapter! Sorry if any of the characters seem OOC or if the execution was sloppy, so some constructive criticism would be useful!br /
Fun fact: It's been quite a while since I wrote any type of story since my college thesis, which has taken quite a toll on my story-writing habit.

Also fun fact: The bit about Karamatsu's ex was inspired by this ask from the askmamamatsuno blog: post/137623326884/what-happened-after-the-flower-fairy-thing