Judal did not miraculously forgive Hakuryuu the moment he apologized. Sure, having a prince on one knee before you was something straight out of a Disney movie, magic garden and all, but that didn't change the fact that what he had said hurt. In his own weird way Hakuryuu had seemed almost concerned, maybe even trying to be helpful, but he'd just come off like an asshole.
Standing in the courtyard quickly became awkward, especially when Hakuryuu showed no signs of wanting to get off one knee and stand up like a normal person. Judal mumbled some vague excuse and made his escape through the building's side door, back up the four flights of stairs to his apartment. He toed his shoes off at the door and vindictively kicked them so they were perfectly placed to be stumbled over by the next person to come inside.
Hours later, Hakuryuu made his return to the apartment through the window, completely oblivious to his host's tiny act of vengeance. Being denied his moment of spiteful satisfaction only soured Judal's mood further, so he turned on his heel and retreated to his bedroom. He was pretty sure Hakuryuu tried to say something to him, but he just tossed a clipped "goodnight" over his shoulder as he went.
He almost turned around when Hakuryuu responded with a thoroughly dejected; "Goodnight, Judal"
Sleep helped the anger wear off, which left behind a residue of hurt Judal tried to ignore. By the time he was out the door and on his way to classes, it was very obvious that the hurt had absolutely zero intention of being ignored. In fact, it was distractingly apparent throughout his whole day, constantly dragging Hakuryuu's words back up to the surface of his mind.
"You pay to live there?"
"How you've tolerated it this long is beyond me."
Rich, privileged, royal bastard. He probably never had to work a day in his life! Well, to be fair, Judal had found him missing an arm and heavily wounded, so he'd probably been to war or something. But that didn't mean anything! Actually, it probably meant a lot. Judal scowled in a way that made the students near him lean away from him. Why did logic have to keep getting in the way of his internal venting?
Really, Judal didn't want to be angry at Hakuryuu. Up until the day before they'd been on remarkably good terms considering the circumstances of their first meeting, he would even go so far as to call them friends. People always said that when you were in the wrong, you had to swallow your pride and apologize for what you had done. They never really mentioned how to deal with whatever came after that, though.
Judal didn't forgive very many people for things they did, even if they apologized for it. He didn't care about anyone enough to really put in the energy to sort out his feelings and forgive them for things they did. Most people had a single strike, and apology or not if they hurt him, he just stopped associating with them. Hakuryuu was different though. He lived with him for one thing, but for another, he genuinely liked the prince.
Whether he meant to or not Judal found himself making excuses to avoid instigating conversations with Hakuryuu. By the time he realized what he was doing he probably already seemed like he was a lot angrier than he was, but he couldn't decide how to stop. Shuffling through his emotions and trying to put them in their proper places was a lot more difficult than he had anticipated.
He kept finding activities to occupy himself with and errands to run that kept him out of the house so by the time he and Hakuryuu were actually in the same room, there wasn't much time for them to talk before he had to go to sleep.
( Granted this had not stopped him from staying up the entire night with the faerie before, but he tried to convince himself he was being responsible by not doing that again. )
There had been a steady accumulation of plant life around his apartment since Hakuryuu had rejuvenated the courtyard. Random containers kept popping up on windowsills and countertops, full of sprigs of this and that which Hakuryuu seemed intent on tending to. For the most part, Judal just gave them a curious look and then shrugged them off. They added a little fresh, lively flair to his cramped apartment, so it wasn't like he minded them being there.
Within a day or two the acquisition of new plants became commonplace, so Judal barely noticed when new ones showed up. He was making dinner when he remembered a bunch of basil he had snagged the week prior for some dish or other that hadn't happened, and promptly went looking for it. It should have been in the fridge, probably shoved to the back where he'd completely forgotten its existence, but he couldn't seem to find it anywhere.
Judal stared at the fridge in bewilderment for a moment. He was sure he didn't remember throwing it out, and he definitely hadn't used it. He swept his eyes over the kitchen, like that might answer the odd question of where the hell his basil had up and run off to.
Believe it or not, it did. Judal's eyes landed on a mug perched on the otherwise empty kitchen bar, overflowing with green shoots. He had heard of some people putting cut herbs in cold water to freshen them up a bit, but after picking the mug up he found it full of dirt. The basil, upon closer inspection, was very much alive and securely rooted in its new mug home, like it had been growing there for months.
Assuming Hakuryuu had felt somehow obliged to bring his herbs back to life, Judal plucked a few leaves and tossed them into the sauce he was making without much thought.
The next morning, Judal walked into the living room and found a tall glass sitting on top of a stack of books he'd left out for Hakuryuu. It was now apparently the home of some lovely white flowers, which grew in little clusters of blossoms with exactly six triangular petals each. They were pretty, but he wasn't really sure what they were doing there of all places. Seemed precarious, to him.
Judal moved them to the windowsill and went on with his morning, completely missing Hakuryuu looking at him from behind a book he was absolutely not reading. The fae's expression fell when Judal left without mentioning the flowers at all.
When he got home the apartment was empty, but the window was open, white flowers gone. In place of a faerie prince there was another glass on the coffee table, this time containing long stems drooping with collections of little blue blossoms. Judal was no flower expert, but even he could recognize bluebells when he saw them. He couldn't remember them being in the courtyard though. A new addition?
He spared a moment to admire them, touching the soft petals with his fingertips and smiling as the flowers tickled his skin. If his backpack hadn't been digging a dent into his shoulder, he probably would have sat there admiring them a little longer. However homework beckoned him with its unfairly complex hands made out of mostly shit he didn't actually care about.
The bluebells had moved to the kitchen counter by the time he emerged hours later to make dinner. Mentally exhausted, the flowers were a nice distraction while he worked on compiling a somewhat coherent meal. At one point, he reached out to touch them again, but caught sight of Hakuryuu's eyes on him from the couch.
The prince looked away, but not before Judal had begun retracting his hand. Bluebells were probably delicate, or they weren't actually bluebells, or maybe Hakuryuu just didn't want him touching his flowers. He didn't know. ( Or maybe Hakuryuu was just looking at him, his common sense said in an exasperated voice. )
At this point Judal's lack of communication had less to do with any residual anger he may have and a lot more to do with not actually being sure how to pick conversation back up again. Every time Judal talked himself into it, Hakuryuu would either be out in the courtyard, reading a book, or tending to the Silver Lady with an unreadable expression. Apparently his expressiveness only extended so far as when he was actually interacting with someone, because now he was as impassive as a wall of ice.
When he looked for the cup of bluebells the next morning, Judal found a vase overflowing with vibrantly colored flowers instead. Now, he didn't remember ever owning a vase, especially not a pretty one made of crystal, but there it was smack in the middle of his counter. It was impossible to miss; there had been absolutely no attempt to put it or its contents any form of out of the way.
Previously he had assumed that the flowers were all more pet projects Hakuryuu was working on to keep himself entertained during the day, but this was different. There were sunnier, more convenient places for a bouquet than right there on the counter. It was hard to find any kind of explanation for why the flowers had to be right where Judal usually made his morning tea other than that they were meant for him.
This put the other small bouquets in perspective. In retrospect, they had all probably been for him.
Judal's immediate instinct was to hide his face before the telltale flush of embarrassment reached his cheeks, and the closest thing in which to hide it was the flowers. So there he was standing in his kitchen, when he was supposed to be caffeinating himself before class, face first in soft petals. They smelled marvelous, though.
It took a moment or two to collect himself before he pulled his face out of the bouquet and actually looked at it. The arrangement was beautiful, boasting two separate kinds of blossoms all in varying shades of deep crimson and soft rosy pink. Alive, too, not cut and dumped in water like most apology bouquets. ( Judal didn't think Hakuryuu could stomach the sight of a cut flower, let alone actually putting one on display. )
Though, speaking of apology bouquets, Judal couldn't help thinking that the prince's choice of flowers was kind of eclectic. All of them had been beautiful, but none of them screamed with desperation like the kind sold on the street corners to husbands to take home and grovel with. They had all been very specific.
On his way to class Judal remembered something about there being an unspoken language to flowers. He spent the entire bus ride staring out the window wondering what Hakuryuu was trying to say.
When he got home, there was a pot of hyacinths right inside the door, just out of reach of being tripped over by an unsuspecting college student. Judal blinked down at the bright purple flowers for a few seconds before a laugh bubbled its way from between his lips. Apparently, Hakuryuu had given up on vague attempts at subtlety.
This time, when he picked the potted flowers up, he buried his face among the blossoms intentionally. He breathed in deeply, closing his eyes and savoring the soft scent that tickled his nose. It was just strong enough to remind him of fresh, open fields full of endless amounts of flowers, swaying lightly in the breeze. He released a sigh of contentment and opened his eyes again.
After glancing around, Judal found that he was alone in his apartment for the moment. One of his two windows was open again, which meant that Hakuryuu had once more taken the quickest route down to the courtyard, perhaps to give him more space. The bouquet from that morning was still sitting on the kitchen counter, looking slightly withered from lack of attention. Judal relocated both the potted hyacinth and the flowers from that morning to the coffee table, arranging them neatly side by side.
It felt somewhat off balance though, and after quickly scouring his apartment he returned with a tangle of vines growing out of a bowl covered in bunches of little yellow berries. He wasn't actually sure what the plant in the bowl was, or if he should be moving it. It was pretty to look at, though, and it offset the purple and reds nicely when he nestled it between the two flowers.
Judal stood up straight to admire his handiwork, hands on hips. He couldn't help a private snigger of amusement. Look at him, with an actual centerpiece on his coffee table. Almost like a civilized person! Except that he was pretty sure most centerpieces couldn't kill people, and if Hakuryuu wanted to, every single plant could.
He tilted his head, admiring the arrangement. It felt good to think of them as his flowers. Hakuryuu had taken the time and effort to grow those flowers for no other reason than to present them to him. The courtyard had been meant for him too, but that was something he had to share. He didn't need to share the flowers with anyone, they could just be his.
When was the last time someone had given him a personalized gift? Meant just for him? Not ever, that came to mind.
Had the prince been in the room, any allusions he had about Judal still being angry with him would have been quickly dashed. Judal was pretty sure he would be gushing about how much he liked the flowers, and everything else that came to mind after that. He considered waiting for him on the couch, but in the interest of not immediately talking his ear off like an overly excited child after almost a week of silence, decided against it.
Judal was still smiling when he rummaged through his drawers for a pair of sweatpants and a comfortable shirt to change into. The prospect of talking to Hakuryuu again made him almost giddy, even though he was the one who had instigated their silence to begin with. They could actually eat dinner together, instead of him just awkwardly cooking for two and leaving Hakuryuu's portion on a plate!
It felt a little absurd to be so excited over something that simplistic, enough that Judal laughed to himself as he pushed open the door to the bathroom. Inside, it smelled fresher than he remembered, and he stopped where he stood once the lights were on.
The bath had already been drawn almost to its fullest, steam rising from the water and filling the small room with a pleasant smelling haze. How the steam managed to escape was a mystery, because the surface of the water was blanketed in a sheet of delicate rose petals. He could only tell there was water beneath them because every now and then the surface would sway as another petal drifted down into it.
Judal blinked, looked up at the ceiling, and gasped.
He hadn't noticed, too preoccupied with the petal filled tub, that there were thorn covered vines growing up along each corner of the room. They converged inward on the ceiling, stems curving into an elaborate mosaic of thorns, the center flourishing into enormous roses. Each rose was nestled close together so they fit just so above the bathtub. Now and then, a shiver would pass through the lacework of vines and shake the roses just enough that a few more petals would dislodge themselves.
Judal stood there in the doorway to the bathroom gaping at the ceiling. He officially couldn't be angry at Hakuryuu anymore. How can you be angry at a man who literally grows you a bath full of rose petals as an apology?
After a few moments standing there in awe, he gathered himself enough to step inside. He leaned over the tub and breathed in, letting the steam fill his lungs with the scent of soaked rose petals. It muddied his thoughts just enough that his shoulders began to relax, and the outside world faded around the edges. Actually getting into the bath seemed almost criminal, but he couldn't just let the water get cold, could he?
When he slipped into the water it was just the right kind of hot, enough to sear his skin and make goosebumps spread from his toes up to his neck. Judal shivered, sliding down into the waiting bath and groaning as the hot water swallowed him. Petals got tangled into his long hair almost immediately, so that by the time he was comfortable it was hard to tell where his hair ended and the water began.
It was an incredibly decadent feeling, the hot water, the kiss of the petals on his bare skin, the smell of roses thick in the air. He had never felt so luxurious before. The longer he laid there, the more he melted into a content lull and allowed the outside world to fade from his mind completely. With his eyes closed, he was no longer in a tiny bathroom with cracked tile walls, he was far, far away.
And when he opened his eyes, the mural of roses was right above him, painting strokes of color over the dull ceiling and raining soft kisses down on him. A petal drifted down, down, down, until it landed on his nose. Judal smiled and sunk lower in the water.
He didn't leave the bath for a long time; not until his skin had starting getting wrinkled and the water was beginning to chill. Rose petals stuck to his skin when he stepped out of the water, and he had a funny feeling he'd be picking them out of his hair for the rest of the night. Rather than drain the tub, he let the water stand, unsure what to do with the excess petals.
Judal gave the arrangement of roses on the ceiling one last look before leaving the bathroom. They shook again, sending a soft rain of red and gold down onto the cool water.
Hakuryuu was sitting on the couch when he emerged from the bathroom after nearly two hours soaking in the rose bath. He didn't make any indication of noticing Judal's presence, but his back straightened a fraction when he heard his footsteps. Judal smiled to himself, took a few more steps around the couch, and plopped down next to the fae.
A moment of silence ticked by in which Hakuryuu pretended to still be interested in the rug.
"…You liked the flowers, then?" he asked, finally, turning his head just enough he could look at Judal.
"I did." Judal agreed, smile tugging at his mouth. "What happened to the other ones?"
"I assumed you didn't approve of them when you didn't say anything, so I returned them to the earth."
"I liked them."
"Oh, I see."
"I like all the stuff you've grown."
"Even what I grew in the yard?"
Judal laughed, ducking his head for a moment before looking Hakuryuu in the eye. The prince was smiling at him again, and it was a lovely sight after almost a week without it.
"Especially all the stuff you grew in the yard." he confirmed.
The air between them cleared as quickly as it had been fogged. Once they started smiling, neither of them seemed to want to stop. They shared a sheepish laugh, as if only just realizing how ridiculous they'd been over the past few days, and how much easier it was to be talking again.
"Where I come from," Hakuryuu said, once they had quieted down again. "A man like you would be awarded far more than just this, Judal."
Judal drew his legs up onto the couch, holding his crossed ankles. His knee rested over Hakuryuu's thigh, but the prince made no sign of wanting to move it. Instead, he watched as Judal tilted his head, eyes lazily tracing over his bemused smile.
"And what kind of man am I?" Judal asked.
"A kind man. An honest one, too. Mortal stories, they always paint my kind as these little beings full of goodness and virtue, but really those are just the things we desperately crave. We lack them, in many respects, and those who can display even a fraction of that kind of good nature are held in high regard."
Hakuryuu's eyes never wavered when he spoke. It was impossible to break his gaze, his contrasting irises each sparkling with some emotion Judal couldn't think to name. He chuckled, if only as an excuse to break his gaze.
The intensity of it became overwhelming sometimes, especially when he had been without it so long.
"Wow. I mean, I've been called a lot of things but… I don't think I'm all that kind. Honest, yeah, but mostly cause who's got the energy to lie?"
Judal gave the prince one of his lopsided grins.
"I don't know if I'm all that good natured, Hakuryuu. Think I've just got a bad habit of rescuing princes in distress."
"And in Sidhe, that would be worth more than you know."
His grin took on a mischievous curve at the corners that made Hakuryuu arch one fine brow.
"Think it could get me a castle?"
"Oh, at least ten."
Judal's laugh came out at full volume this time, bouncing merrily around the apartment. His shoulders shook as he dissolved into giggles, tilting over enough that his side knocked into Hakuryuu's. He was a little surprised when the fae didn't pull away; instead he leaned into him so he could feel his weight against his shoulder.
The laughter petered out after a little while and Judal let his head fall against Hakuryuu's, temple to temple.
"I don't need any castles, I like it here. It doesn't look like much, and it's barely big enough for one of us, you're right about that… But I like it anyway."
Hakuryuu sighed through his nose, his eyes drifting half shut as he leaned into Judal again. Their weight against each other was warm and solid. Real, and impossible to ignore.
"After that night," he said. "I thought more about what I'd said, and I realized I was wrong. Even if I think you deserve better, I don't dislike it here."
"Yeah?"
"Of course not. You are here."
The idea for this chapter was inspired by my darling friend oiyukis, who has consistently put up with my rambling about this fic during its creation. So this chapter is for her~
In order, the flowers Hakuryuu gifted to Judal and what they mean;
Star of Bethlehem: This flower stands for reconciliation and a desire to reconcile, which I think speaks for itself.
Bluebell: This flower symbolizes humility. Hakuryuu is basically humbling himself.
Geranium: Meaning stupidity or folly. He's calling himself an idiot.
Gladioli: Give me a break and I'm really sincere. Hakuryuu just really wants to go back to talking to Judal at this point, he's not sure what else he can do to apologize. ( Gladioli is also the flower of gladiators. )
Hyacinth: I am sorry, Please forgive me, Sorrow. One more try at an apology.
Roses: I mean, I think roses kind of speak for themselves. The inclusion of these flowers was mainly for the aesthetic of a rose bath, and the slight romantic tilt of the implication.
