Chapter 7: Relenting

It was about six o'clock on Wednesday, and Nowaki was getting ready to end his shift at the flower shop when someone came in. It was a young kid, probably still in high school, and despite the scowl on his face, he still looked like he had no idea what he was doing in there. The strange combination of him trying to look confident but utterly lacking confidence made Nowaki tie his apron back around behind him and walk up.

"Can I help you?" he asked with a kind smile. The boy had been looking at a bucket full of forget-me-nots, and he jumped in surprise, clearly not expecting someone to see him. "Were you looking for something specific?"

The boy was still scowling, and Nowaki tilted his head. There was something about him that reminded him of Hiroki, but he had a feeling Hiroki wouldn't appreciate Nowaki comparing him to a kid. Finally the boy said, "Roses. Red."

"Alright," Nowaki said, doing his best to keep his smile despite the boy's curt way of talking. As he went over to get some he asked, "How many would you like?"

"Two dozen," the boy answered quickly, like he had rehearsed exactly what he wanted to say before coming into the shop.

By the time Nowaki had gotten the order and the boy paid, Nowaki decided to leave. He'd already technically clocked out, but it'd only been a few minutes so he doubted the manager or owner would bother finding a way to count it against him. He hung his apron by the door and when he looked up, he found he and the boy were heading the same way.

"…are you following me?" the boy asked, hugging the bouquet to him like a lifeline, the wrapping crinkled in his delicate fingers.

"No," Nowaki said. "I'm actually going this way, to meet someone at M University."

"Then I guess we're going the same way," the boy muttered, averting his eyes. He seemed uncomfortable with how friendly Nowaki was. "Your nametag said your name is Kusama, right?"

"Kusama Nowaki, yes."

"Good to meet you," the boy said, but he didn't offer his own name.

Meanwhile, at the university, Hiroki had been working late trying to grade the first paper of the semester for his Intro the Japanese Literature class. The students had groaned when they saw there was a paper due so early, but Hiroki wouldn't be Hiroki if he relented just because his students were lazy, self-entitled brats. Most of the papers were mediocre at best, though, and some were so jumbled and nonsensical that he was starting to worry for the future of the human race. Takahashi Misaki's, Hiroki noticed, was one of the latter. At least he couldn't blame Akihiko for liking the kid for something as shallow as similar interests, he thought with a sarcastic snort.

"Ka-mi-jou," came a voice, and Hiroki's eye twitched but he ignored it. Miyagi entered their office with two disposable cups of coffee, clearly ready to pull an all-nighter after Hiroki informed him that he refused to do Miyagi's work for him when he was perfectly capable of accomplishing it himself. The older man set one down on Hiroki's desk, though, and he eyed it. "What? I didn't put poison in it if that's what you're worried about."

"…thanks," he said, picking up the cup and taking a long drink from it. It was black, just as he liked it. He was amazed Miyagi remembered that, though with how many 'black like your soul' jokes he'd made, perhaps he shouldn't have been incredibly surprised.

"You're welcome," Miyagi said, sounding satisfied. "I'm glad you accept my peace offering."

Hiroki eyed the cup once more, like he believed it wasn't poisoned but he wouldn't have put it past Miyagi to drug it in some other way. "Peace offering?" And then he remembered: Miyagi had gone overboard with his flirting earlier, to the point where he'd tried to hug Hiroki and the two ended up crashing through about five carefully arranged piles of books. Hiroki kicked him out and locked the door. Miyagi must have finally remembered he had a key to the place.

"I'm sorry!" Miyagi said, and he tackled Hiroki in a hug, careful to not make Hiroki crash to the floor for the second time that day. "You know I love you and I'd never do anything to hurt you on purpose my dear, sweet, Hiroki."

Hiroki flailed, trying to get Miyagi to let go of him, but the man's grip was iron-tight. "Would you get off me, Professor?"

"Get you off? That's not exactly appropriate for the office, Hiroki," Miyagi said in a sing-song voice. "And besides, what would that tall, handsome boyfriend of yours say?"

"He'd say to let go of Hiro-san."

Before Miyagi knew what was happening, someone had grabbed the back of his dress shirt. Hiroki's rolling chair only went about half a foot with him before he let go of his colleague and was tossed haphazardly against the doorframe. He blinked and looked up into the scowling face of a young boy. He grinned in a nervous sort of way and said, "Shinobu! I didn't know you'd be here."

Shinobu scowled even harder, thrust the two-dozen red roses he'd gotten from the flower shop into Miyagi's chest, and stormed off, clearly not willing to talk about it. Miyagi frowned and stared down at the flowers like he wasn't quite sure what they were. One look at Nowaki standing there beside Hiroki made his mind up for him, though, and he ran off to console Shinobu.

Hiroki sighed and ran a hand through his hair, trying to pat it down into a more professional look. It had been messed up long before that incident, though, and he finally gave up on it and rolled back into his desk so he could continue working.

Nowaki placed a hand on Hiroki's head and said, "Does that happen a lot, Hiro-san?"

"What, that brat coming in and throwing a fit over Professor Miyagi? Only in the last couple days." Hiroki's face had gone a light shade of red, but he did his best to ignore it as he pushed his glasses back up on the bridge of his nose and went about marking up another essay with his red pen. "No idea who that kid even is."

"That's not what I meant, Hiro-san." Nowaki's voice was soft, but when Hiroki dared to look up at him, it was clear from the serious look on his face what his concern was.

Hiroki cleared his throat. "Professor Miyagi constantly flirts with me but he's not serious about it. It's a horrible distraction at best." When that didn't seem to appease Nowaki, he turned back to his paper and added, "He did it before he even knew I was gay. And Professor Miyagi was married at one point so I doubt he's even interested in men."

Nowaki nodded and went over to sit in Miyagi's vacated chair, clearly willing to wait for Hiroki to finish his work so they could leave together. They'd never agreed to meet up, and Hiroki was a bit put-off that Nowaki had assumed he could just walk in and expect to spend time with Hiroki. There was also the fact that they hadn't seen each other since that Saturday when Hiroki had pushed Nowaki away. He had pretty much expected Nowaki to have given up and gone on to pursue someone who wasn't so cranky and more emotionally open, but here he was.

The final straw was, of course, that he felt the need to defend Miyagi to Nowaki. Akihiko had spent time in Hiroki's office since he got the job at M, and he'd been witness to more than one of Miyagi's affectionate displays. Hiroki never felt the need to tell Akihiko that Miyagi was just an idiot, not for a lack of curious looks and innuendo-laced questions on Akihiko's part.

Hiroki was honestly surprised that after half a year, Akihiko hadn't thought to write one of those depraved Junai novels about them. This caused Hiroki to shift his eyes over to Nowaki, curious as to whether Akihiko would get the wrong idea about them and start another book should he run out of ideas to torture poor Misaki with.

He snorted. Probably.

"Is something the matter, Hiro-san?" Nowaki asked, tilting his head. Hiroki blinked and realized that he had been staring in Nowaki's general direction for almost a minute. Before he could make up some kind of excuse, though, voices sounded down the hallway, and Hiroki and Nowaki both turned.

"Why am I even telling you this?" Miyagi asked.

"Because I love you!" And that was Shinobu. "I told you, you need to take responsibility."

Hiroki and Nowaki's eyes met, and it was clear they were thinking the same thing: it would be safer to just get the hell out of there. So, Hiroki gathered up his things, not thinking to take his glasses off, and they were out the door just in time to pass a very irate Shinobu and a very tired-looking Miyagi in the hall.

Suddenly, though, Hiroki stopped, whirled around, and stared at Shinobu. "Holy hell I do know that kid."

"Hiro-san?"

"He's the dean of literature's youngest," Hiroki said as they continued on so the bickering pair wouldn't hear them. "I met him briefly when I first got the job here. Jesus that's hilarious!" Once he had started laughing, Hiroki found it rather difficult to stop, and they left the university with Nowaki smiling and Hiroki laughing like he'd just heard the best joke in the world. There were students milling around for evening classes, and they quickly parted like the Red Sea for the two men to go through, not wanting to find out just why Kamijou the Devil was laughing like that.

Hiroki was in such a good mood, in fact, that when they left the grounds of M University and Nowaki took his hand, he didn't even protest. So they walked like that for a few blocks, their hands swinging together between them and Nowaki suggesting ways they could spend the evening.

"I haven't been to the bookstore in a while," Hiroki said absently. He had calmed down by then, but Nowaki's firm hold on his hand hadn't been broken with a glare and a million excuses for why they couldn't do that in public, or at all, depending on Hiroki's mood. Without having to say any more, the two headed towards the subway so Hiroki could go to his favorite bookstore.

It was only when they got off the subway (Hiroki had broken the hand contact in his predictably grouchy way) and they were walking that Nowaki realized where they were. They approached a building Hiroki had never really paid attention to on his way to Marimo Books, but Nowaki had to stop and stare.

"What?" Hiroki asked, the good mood from earlier dissipated since he'd had to spend time sandwiched into the subway between people he didn't know and, based on their body odors, didn't care to know. He shifted his eyes to the building and recognized, from the sign, that it was a kindergarten.

"Ah, this is where I work, Hiro-san," Nowaki said with a smile. "Other than the flower shop, I mean." There was a gate around the front and probably the back as well, and Hiroki stared at the place as well. It was where Nowaki spent a good amount of his time when he wasn't stalking Hiroki, and Hiroki found himself wondering just what Nowaki was like when he was with all those children, teaching them to read kana and other things.

It had, obviously, been quite a while since Hiroki was in kindergarten so he wasn't exactly aware of what they learned at that particular stage of schooling.

Nowaki continued on, done staring at the building, and as they walked down the street and closer to the business district that housed Marimo Books, Hiroki couldn't help but think that maybe he needed to know more about the man that was trying to steal his heart.