summary: How to woo a guy on his birthday, a guide by Murasaki.
a/n: its only one day after, so happy birthday nice, you loser
Nice is not the type of person to worry, but when he hasn't seen or heard from Murasaki the entire day, a feeling of dread can't help but plague his mind. He's gone on his special day, no less.
His anxious thoughts aren't alleviated when he asks the others for his whereabouts, the responses being curt ('I don't know. Have you asked - ?'), while others look away from Nice, their bleak expression a good enough answer as it is.
Birthday was merciful enough to give a (not very helpful, but appreciated) hint as to where the lavender haired man could be.
"Have you checked everywhere?"
"Yes," the brunet stresses, irritated by the evasiveness that is Birthday's replies. "I have checked everywhere. There is only so many places he could go. Did he leave the planet or something?" He groans in frustration and musses his already unruly hair.
Birthday chuckles at his friend's expense, removing the offending hand off Nice's head. "Why do you want to see him so badly anyway?"
Nice blushes in spite of himself. "Err, well, I kinda maybe wanted to spend time with him…" Glancing at Birthday's amused expression, he blurts out an accusation of his own. "What about you huh? Where is Ratio at?"
The blond's face saddens a little, but is quickly removed in place of careful thoughtfulness. "He's busy. Didn't want to bother him, so I'm here. Anyway, what's wrong with hanging with us here? You can spend time with both him and us."
Nice falters. "I wanted to be with him…alone…" he trails, avoiding the mirthful twinkle that he knows is in Birthday's eyes; not even the shades can obscure his amusement.
"Tryna make a move, eh? On your birthday too? Damn, Nice, you go man," the blond snickers, failing to hide the giggles behind the safety of his hand.
Nice's flush increases tenfold. "I-It's not like t-that! I just wanted to - ugh!" He groans and the hair tousling starts again, seeing that an excuse will not help his predicament.
"Maybe he left some hints around or something. I mean, it is your birthday, so he's probably doing something special," Birthday says, deciding to unleash his holy mercy on the suffering brunet.
Nice scoffs at the blond's hypothesis. "This is Murasaki we're talking about. Why would he go through all that trouble?" The idea of the stern man doing something as ridiculous as doing something akin to a treasure hunt was unfathomable to Nice. Though, such a nice gesture leaves Nice's heart thumping away, more than he would like to admit.
Birthday smiles. "Because you guys are dating…?"
Nice bristles at the blunt statement. "We are not dating," he splutters, scratching away at the bandage on his left cheek, a nervous habit that he's picked up (around Murasaki specifically, Birthday likes to remind him). The increasing rosy hue on his face is not helping his case, either.
"Whatever you say man. I saw him this morning while I was coming here. Told me to tell you to go uhh, hold up," he thrusts his hand into his jacket pocket and fishes out a slip of paper, handing it to Nice, "here."
Nice takes the paper and takes in the hasty scribbled, yet elegant, writing that Murasaki alone is capable of. His eyes widen at the prescribed address, however. 'This is the address of a…flower shop. Why would he want me to go there…?'
Birthday, now curious by Nice's reaction to what is written on the slip, coughs to get the man's attention. "Sooo…what's on it?"
Nice startles from the sound. "Um, just says to go somewhere." He pockets the slip. "Did he say anything else?"
Birthday taps his chin. "Hmm, not really - oh yeah! He says to meet, uh, someone called Momoka? He says to ask for a delivery under his name and that's pretty much it."
Nice nods and turns to the door of the cafe. He looks back when Birthday calls out to him.
"Oh yeah, Nice, you're turning 18, right?"
Nice hesitantly nods in affirmation. "What about it?"
Birthday's smirk widens. "It means you're legal now."
A brown eyebrow raises in confusion. "Legal? For what?"
Birthday laughs at his befuddlement, then waves a hand dismissively at him. "Nuthin'. Now shoo, you have something to do."
Nice leaves the cafe, more confused than ever by Birthday's words; the man is a walking enigma. 'No point of thinking about it now. I have to find Murasaki,' he muses and with that, searches for a certain flower shop.
Nice can't help but wonder what Murasaki was thinking when he did this. He's currently inside the flower shop which is a small, but homely, store. Flowers and greenery of all sorts and varieties litter the walls in abundance and on the ground in little shapely pots; natural, and the occasional artificial, scents whisking through the air. It's a very colorful place, run by an ironically stern looking woman who rules over her precious shop with an iron fist. A woman who goes by the name of Momoka, Nice presumes from the neat letters on her nametag.
Nice also can't help but feel a bit uneasy around the woman. She seems so serious, the type of person who says nothing but whose actions say it all (he also feels threatened by her gardening scissors because those look like they could snap his neck if he did something slightly wrong).
She looks up from her snipping, only to look right into Nice's eyes, her own magenta ones stoic and lurking with a chaotic calm.
"May I help you?" she asks, redirecting her attention back to trimming the leaves around red roses (Nice gulps; he shouldn't be nearly shitting himself because a tiny woman wearing a sky blue apron should not look threatening).
"Uh, yeah. I'm here for the delivery under Murasaki," he says quickly, daring not to look into the woman's eyes again.
She smiles and Nice can feel himself moving a bit backwards because that also looks scary as hell.
"Of course. I'll be right back," is the last thing she says before submerging herself into the flowery mosses at the back of her shop (which is probably where she keeps her torture dungeon, Nice adds on).
She reappears holding a cluster of small flowers with tiny lavender petals and short stems wrapped in purple paper. Momoka readjusts the pink ribbon and hands it to Nice.
"They're called Lobularia maritima. I don't know as to why your lover would choose something like this however; not very popular amongst the young ones," she says, ignoring the blush on Nice's face.
"H-He's not my lover…" Nice trails off, burrowing his reddening face into the lavender petals. "Well, not yet, anyway," he mumbles.
The woman laughs, startling Nice whose face remains in the small flowers. "Well, I bid you good luck on your journey. Come again soon," and with that walks back to her roses, trimming away once again, leaving Nice to his own disarray of thoughts.
He pulls the flowers away, the sweet honey scent a bit too overwhelming for his taste. 'Hmm, honey.' His eyes widen dramatically from sudden enlightenment. 'Honey!'
He puts on his headphones and activates his minimum, hastily apologizing for the disorder of scattered petals and thorns left in his wake.
Nice is panting heavily when he finally reaches the busy center of Yokohama Mall (running through bustling people with barely enough space to pass was something he did not want to experience again).
He stands from his kneeling position and walks to a table occupied by two, slamming his hands on the table, effectively startling Honey's attention from Mighty Script and Three from whatever manga he was so intensely immersed in.
The blonde girl glares at him from the sudden intrusion. "What do you want?"
Nice takes out the flowers and shoves it in Honey's direction. "What do you know about this?"
"Well, I know that if you don't move that from my face right now, I'll beat you black and blue, that's for damn sure," she threatens pushing the aforementioned bouquet from her face.
"Er, sorry," Nice apologizes, taking the flowers away and scratches his bandage, his mouth set in a sheepish smile. "But seriously, did Murasaki tell you anything about these?" he inquires again.
"How can you be so sure that I know about it?" Honey counters.
"Uh, well, the flowers smell like honey, and your name is Honey so…" Nice mutters, the humiliation of his statement smacking him like a brick.
"That's the most stupid thing I've ever heard," she states bluntly, unimpressed.
Nice still stands in front of them stubbornly. Seeing that he's not leaving anytime soon, Honey smirks. "Even though that deduction was dumb, I must give you credit for finding out with such scarce clues. Good job, you broke detective," Nice lets out an offended hey! at that, "alright Three, show him."
Three gives out a grunt and turns a page in his manga. He shows the contents to Nice, who reads the message eagerly. The page is scattered with mismatched and bright letters, in varying fonts and colors, the magazine cutouts dispersing across the two pages in a temerarious manner. 'Visit Art and ask for sweets,' it says.
Nice's confusion has doubled; first Birthday's weird words, the flowers, and now this? What is Murasaki up to?
Three pulls the manga away and starts to read from where he left off.
"Happy birthday and all, but if you don't mind, we're busy," Honey says and Nice leaves for the police department, not intending to aggravate the blonde further.
Art has been busy the entire week; impossible cases and complaints have been flooding his office and free time with no mercy. He would ask Nice for help, but he doesn't wish to bother the man on his special day either. Decisions, decisions.
He's not very surprised when the brunet walks in, considering a certain lavender haired man's earlier appearance…
"…Speak of the devil," Art murmurs as Nice walks up to him.
"Good afternoon, Nice. What brings you here?" the inspector inquires.
"Hey, Art. Sorry to bother you, but has Murasaki come here earlier?"
Art smiles innocently, "Hmm, perhaps. Who needs to know?"
Nice chuckles at his friend's attempt at evasiveness. "I do. Why else would I come all the way here?"
"True," is all he says as he turns to leave for his office. He pretends to ignore Nice's hey, wait! and takes out a red covered box, throwing it to Nice who catches it with ease. "Happy birthday, Nice," he says, smiling ominously and leaves Nice to his own devices.
"Thanks…" he says, staring at the little box that's veiled with a red wrapper and a sole gold ribbon. 'For Nice,' it reads on the little tag on the corner. He turns the tag over. 'Make sure to visit the doctor, no one wants to be stuck with cavities.'
'Doctor, huh?' Nice grins, an almost skip to his stroll out of the police department and to his next destination.
Nice walks into the hospital sluggishly, his soles aching from all the running. 'He could've at least made the places closer,' Nice thinks, set on finding a certain blunet.
Nice sneaks past the receptionist and looks randomly into rooms (all done within a minute courtesy of the Sonic Minimum) and finds the doctor preoccupied with an elderly patient. From the looks of it, it seems that he'll be with them for a while, so Nice sits on the bench adjacent to the doorway (who has trouble falling asleep ten minutes later because the patient is coughing out their lung or something, jeez, are they alright?).
He's roused from the deep depths of unconsciousness when someone shakes his shoulder, albeit stiffly. Nice's eyes slowly open, trying to bring feeling back to his lethargic eyelids. He shoots up from his seat, accidentally bumping his head with the person in front of him.
Ratio lightly curses from the sudden movement, rubbing his chin from the impact. He opens his mouth and closes it, deciding that his chastising would go disregarded by the brunet.
"Nice, don't you have anything better to do than wait outside my patient's room?"
Nice blinks from the accusation and his lips curl into an embarrassed smile. "Heh, sorry about that Ratio. Anyway, has Murasaki been here earlier? The latest clue I got was to meet you - "
"Did you eat the chocolate yet?" Ratio interjects.
"N-No. Wait, how do you even know - "
"You should."
"Alright, but what does tha - "
"Make sure to eat it carefully though."
Nice huffs angrily. "Will you stop interrupting - "
"Give me the flowers," Ratio says curtly, ignoring Nice's internal seething and his aggressive murmuring of 'oh my fucking god.' He gives the flowers to the doctor and Nice realizes that it probably wasn't the greatest idea to hold the flowers so tightly while running through bustling city streets at high speed. Some of the petals are falling off, others torn. Nice winces from the torture he's given to the unfortunate recipients.
"So now will you tell me what's - wait, what are you doing?" The brunet stares aghast as Ratio plunges his hand into the lavender and yellow depths, his hand rummaging around with the grace of a stoned alligator, finally pulling out a single sweet alyssum with a note tied around the stem.
"Here," he says, giving the ruined flowers back to Nice. "Also, happy birthday," Ratio bids him with a wave and leaves for his next patient.
"Uh, thanks," Nice says to the doctor's retreating back, still shell-shocked from the entire ordeal. He reads the paper around the stem, seeing it to be yet another address. He places the devastated lone flower back into the cluster and takes out the red box given to him earlier from his vest pocket, still holding the flowers as he takes his leave from the hospital.
Now that he thinks about it, Nice has never actually gone to wherever Murasaki lives (but he shouldn't be having epiphanies while eating melting chocolate, holding torn flowers, looking into space at the middle of a busy intersection).
He yelps when he bites onto something oddly metallic inside the sweet, grumbling about 'chocolate makers these days,' while nibbling around the shiny object. Once finished, he sees that the metallic object was a key.
"Who the hell puts a key inside chocolate," Nice says, a bit too loudly, startling a few passerbys near him. He tells himself to keep note of this to complain to Murasaki once he finds the bastard.
Nice double checks the apartment number displayed before him. It's just like any apartment, ordinary and quaint, though the muffled acoustic music coming out of it definitely deserves his suspicion. He knocks on the door, curiosity evolving into impatience as his light knocking goes into full out banging.
Nice stops his fist when he realizes that the sound of skin hitting wood is no longer ringing in his ears and that his hand is resting on a firm chest.
"You had a key," the man says, his chest rumbling with each word spoken.
"What." Nice manages, mentally smacks himself from such a stupid statement.
Murasaki smirks, marveling at the brunet's eloquent statement. "Did you not get a key?" he asks, walking back into the apartment, motioning for Nice to follow.
The shorter male walks in and closes the door behind him, kicking off his shoes. "Well, yeah."
"Then why didn't you use it?" Murasaki calls out from another room, probably the kitchen, considering the pleasant aromas wafting through the apartment.
Rather than answering his question directly, Nice plops onto the other man's sofa, propping his feet onto the table. "Who the hell puts a key in chocolate anyway? I could've choked on it. I could've died," he complains dramatically.
"But you didn't," Murasaki points out, emerging from the kitchen.
Unable to reply with a proper comeback, he decides to comment on Murasaki's fashion. "Nice apron," he retorts, eying the bright pink fabric resting on the taller man's torso.
"Feet off the table," he chides, taking off the apron and throwing it at Nice. "Help me set it up, too."
Nice gets up and drops the apron on the floor. "Alright, alright," he says, taking plates of food and setting it on the table. "What's the music for?"
"I felt like it," Murasaki answers, placing the rest of the condiments on the table.
Nice snorts. "Sap."
"Eat your food," the taller man grunts, picking up his fork.
Nice chuckles and sits next to him, taking his own plate. "Why did you do all of this anyway?"
"Because it's your birthday," Murasaki replies easily.
"Does that mean I get a birthday kiss, too?" Nice asks cheekily.
Murasaki pauses his eating, considering the question and says, "No."
"Why not?" Nice pouts.
"Because we're not dating."
"Who told you that?"
"Hmm," there's a small smile on Murasaki's mouth, "a certain someone."
Nice mumbles something and Murasaki's grin widens. "What was that?"
The brunet fidgets in his seat sulkily. "Can we be? Dating, I mean."
Murasaki sets his plate down and reaches over to Nice, moving the russet locks so that it curls behind his ears and kisses the bandage on his cheek. "Sure."
"Yay." Nice is sure there's a stupid smile on his face, but he's too damn happy to care, as his heartbeat thumps away, overwhelming the melodious guitar playing in the background as it beats with Murasaki's own.
The duo arrive at the cafe the next day holding hands, all which was overlooked except by one individual.
"Now are you guys dating?" Birthday shouts, giggling all the while.
"Shut up, Birthday."
.
.
fin.
i procrastinated this way more than usual
accept this shitty thing for your birthday nice, because you're too poor to get anything better