Work Text:
Blooming Affairs was a flower shop that sat, rickety and ivy-covered, in the center of town. Everyone knew the flower shop’s best boy, Oikawa Tooru, for his encyclopedic knowledge of flower taxonomy and charming nature that seemed to bloom like the very flowers he surrounded himself with.
It was six in the morning on February the 13th, what was considered crunchtime for flower shop boys, and Oikawa Tooru was already elbows deep in a bouquet for Mr. Eto’s wife: amaryllis for splendid beauty, gardenia for sweetness, and a red rose for true love. Oikawa scanned the piles and piles of flowers at his disposal for just the right flourish.
“Ah. You .” He pointed definitively at the sprigs of Gypsophila piled to the right of his desk. (Baby’s breath for a love everlasting .)
Although Oikawa was good at his job, he sometimes scolded himself for getting slightly carried away with the romance. Flowers and romance went hand in hand, especially in his line of work, everyone wanted that extra bit of it. Supply and demand.
For someone so fluent in ways to say “i love you", he had never said it in real life. Oikawa had come to the dull conclusion that maybe he wasn’t one to fall in love. That he was destined to say “I love you” to and from his customers and their loved ones over and over and never for himself.
It was a Wednesday, so naturally Oikawa plucked a sprig of lilac and nestled it behind his ear. Maybe today is the day. He thought. Lilac for a first love.
He rifled through his invoices to be filled that day, and sighed. He rolled up his sleeves for a long day of clipping rose stems and pricking fingers. In the shuffle, one page slid from the pile and dropped to the floor. He picked it up and returned it to the top of the pile when he accidentally read the “Notes” section.
Additional Notes: Please make this arrangement passive-aggressively say “fuck you” in flower.
Oikawa laughed under his breath. Despite this being probably the most interesting request he’d ever received, the please was what really got him. He checked who had received this particular customer and the invoice had been generated by his coworker Hinata who was already hunched over in his own section of the flower shop.
“Hey Sho-chan,” Oikawa sing-songs over his shoulder. “What’s up with this customer, Mr. Iwaizumi Hajime? The notes section must have a typo, did you mean ‘love you’?”
Hinata turns around in his swivel chair and looks up through the lenses of his glasses.
“No, that’s correct. He clearly said ‘Fuck You’.” Hinata delivered the sentiment in a frustratingly cheery way. “He was a little scary actually.” Hinata began imitating the customer’s scowl and deeply furrowed his eyebrows, as he recited some mocking version of what this Iwaizumi had actually said: “I have this really shitty boss, I want these flowers delivered to their office. I want to watch them sit in there for a week thinking its from a secret admirer while knowing that they actually mean ‘fuck you’” Hinata finished his performance with a huff and haughty expression. “Kinda hot though,” He said offhandedly, returning to his work with a dramatic turn on his chair.
“That’s very petty. I love it.” Oikawa mused. He hadn’t really been feeling in the spirit of the holiday anyway, and this project sounded like it would fuel his bitterness just enough to make the day bearable.
He already had some ideas: geraniums for stupidity, tansy for toxic thoughts, (also literally toxic, if ingested), maybe some meadowsweet for uselessness...
Oikawa placed his fuck you in flowers project in the pile for the afternoon, so he had something to look forward to. He dredged through bouquet after bouquet of pink peonies for compassion and morning glories for affection, and oh, lots of tulips for a declaration of love.
Oikawa had almost made it to his lunch break when next on the stack, was an invoice from the very same Iwaizumi Hajime, this time, no profanities in the Additional Notes section. It simply said:
To Mom, Thank you for everything. Love, Hajime
Under special requests , scribbled in his own scrawl was, ‘yellow, she loves yellow’. Oikawa’s heart lurched. He may have had it up to his eyeballs in romance today but, damn, his heart wasn’t made of stone. One doesn’t become a flower shop boy if you aren’t secretly a hopeless romantic.
Who was this Iwaizumi Hajime who orders simultaneously the rudest and most thoughtful arrangement of flowers on the same day?
He adjusted the lilac still nestled behind his ear, and permitted himself just one, fleeting daydream about the handsome Iwaizumi Hajime, buying flowers for his mother on Valentine's Day and probably hand delivering them to her house on the back of his motorcycle. Black leather jacket emblazoned with a bouquet of wildflowers : larkspur and primrose and poppies ; Which, when he absolutely was forced to choose,was Oikawa’s favorite kind of flower. Wild and tenacious, survivors of both draught and bitter cold. Wildflowers just seemed to pop up in a kind of brilliant spontaneity.
Back to Iwaizumi’s motorcycle. It was sleek but rugged and painted a soft purple. The words Lilac Sky were airbrushed onto the body that fit perfectly between Iwaizumi’s thighs and--
Oikawa shook out of his own daydream. He would have to have to face this real human person at some point, and he would appreciate it if his brain wasn’t picturing him shirtless on a motorcycle until then. Shit. Iwaizumi would come to pick up his mother’s flower arrangement tomorrow. And Oikawa would have to face his mysterious customer-crush on Valentine's day. He slowly dragged a hand over his face in horror.
He had some work to do.
Creeping ivy snaked around the lintels and dust motes danced in the late afternoon shadows, as Oikawa busied himself at the cash register, awaiting customers for pickup. He was filing away a receipt when the bell above the door jingled.
Iwaizumi Hajime stood under the lopsided doorway of Blooming Affairs with golden rays of sunlight framing him, Oikawa almost spit out his coffee at the sight. Held under Iwaizumi’s arm was a purple, dare he say lilac, motorcycle helmet, his eyebrows fixed into a distinctive grimace that Hinata actually managed to capture perfectly.
Trusting in his gut, Oikawa ventured, “Iwaizumi Hajime?”
Iwaizumi looked confused, which quickly disappeared from his face when he saw the beautiful bouquet of yellow sitting on the counter to his right. There were only two bouquets waiting for pick-up, Iwaizumi and old Mrs. Kojima, so Oikawa took a leap of faith on who he was.
“It’s lovely,” he softened as he daintily touched a petal of the King Protea at the center (Protea for compassion and stability). It was framed by several calla lilies (for beauty), many yellow daffodils (for joy and exuberance), and sprigs of Queen Anne’s Lace for flourish (and for home).
“Quite a different sentiment than fuck you in flowers ,” Oikawa leaned over the counter on his elbows, “Are you secretly a big softie, Iwaizumi?”
Iwaizumi grinned, but tried to hide it with his sleeve. Oikawa imagined real woodland creatures flocking to this boy’s smile while tiny sparrows perch a ring of daisies as a crown.
Back in reality, Oikawa realized Iwaizumi was staring at him, “You’ve just got something--” He reaches over the counter and brushes away a fluffy-looking flower that had been caught in Oikawa’s hair. The flower glides back and forth in the air and Oikawa catches it.
“Oh, dandelion , for courage. You can always use some.” Oikawa holds the stem gingerly before extending it to Iwaizumi. “Right?”
Iwaizumi seemed almost.. was he blushing? If he was Oikawa watched as he quickly controlled it.
“You’re so full of shit,” He was clearly teasing, and Oikawa was absolutely enthralled as he watched Iwaizumi snatch the dandelion from his grasp and affixed it behind his own ear.
Oikawa didn’t mention that he had picked that dandelion on his walk to work this morning, hoping that, for once his flowers told the truth, that he might just muster up the courage to do something, anything that might keep Iwaizumi in his life a little longer.
But his words fell short as Iwaizumi paid for his flowers and carried them out the door. Oikawa had one thousand voices in his head telling him no, one thousand more with excuses against giving just a little romance a chance.
Oikawa watched Iwaizumi leave. He watched the door jingle closed, and heard the rev of a motorbike on the street outside. Then he saw, lying on the cracked yellow linoleum floor of Blooming Affairs, one single daffodil a little too conspicuous to be an accident.
Oikawa felt a bloom of hope in his gut. This was his sign. Daffodil for new beginnings. He ran out the door, daffodil carefully affixed in his hair. Now the voices in his head just yelled: run .
Oikawa froze mid dash, ready to sprint after Iwaizumi’s motorcycle, only to find them both idling in a parking spot out front.
“Is there a flower for wanna get a coffee ?”