Megu already did some gorgeous art for this prompt, but I wanted to reverse their roles this time. So here's some Sousuke longing for Makoto.
1,075 words
Before you know it, you’re all caught up.
Swirling sakura petals in spring, luxuriant sunflowers in summer, defiantly colorful bellflowers in autumn, and pristine hothouse chrysanthemums in winter. He seems to be surrounded by the blossoming beauty of the earth wherever he goes, whatever the season.
And you look at him with longing in your eyes and an ache in your heart.
You find excuses to buy him sakura-flavored candies in early spring, and his smile almost kills you with its brightness- and its sheer indifference towards you.
In the summer you gather sunflowers in a huge green basket and you pretend to have run into him while biking around town. And you insist that he take the flowers, and what a great help it’d be if he did. And you know it’s all lies. You know all you could think of were his eyes when you were picking the best blossoms from your backyard. He smiles again, and you think the sun shines simply to light up his face, and make his green eyes sparkle like jewels in his gentle, beautiful face.
You pretend to reluctantly join your friends for a hike in the mountains when the leaves start turning to orange and yellow and all the shades in between. But your heart leaps with excitement and you cannot sleep the night before, because you know he will be there too. He picks a blue bellflower for his best friend, and smiles for him in a way he never smiles at you. And it breaks your heart. But you would rather be near him than be with anyone else. When his friend drops the flower unknowingly on the way home, you bend down quietly, pretending to tie your shoelace, and carefully tuck away the flower in the innermost pocket of your jacket. You still have that flower, faded and almost falling apart, tucked away among the pages of your favorite book of poems.
After the first snow falls, you catch a cold from staying up all night to stare at the glassy stars in a deep indigo sky. You dream of a universe where you are the only one his eyes could see, and he smiles only for you. In a fever dream, you think he came to see you, and brought you a few white flowers tied with a ribbon the same color as his eyes. You think you saw him stay by your side for hours on end. Just him, and no one else. Looking concerned for you, and not merely obliged to visit you for the sake of some pointless social custom. When the fever breaks and you can see clearly again, you see four white chrysanthemums sitting in a glass on your bedside table. It takes all your courage to ask your mother if he was the one who left them behind. When you text him a simple note of thanks, he replies almost immediately, and you end up calling him, and you talk about the most inconsequential things late into the night.
As the year turns back into spring, sakura trees slowly awaken from their long sleep, waiting for the right time to put forth their pink blooms. He has so many admirers that you cannot even bring yourself to count the boxes of chocolate you stupidly offer to help him carry home, after you see him struggling along by himself on the way back from school. But the way he thanks you and invites you in, his cheeks a little pink from the effort of carrying piles and piles of sweets, makes up for the agony of wondering how many girls and boys have probably confessed their love to him already. Your own little packet of sakura sweets seems stupidly inconsequential in front of the imported boxes of Belgian chocolates some of his classmates have gotten for him.
Before you mumble some stupid words about how much he means to you, running nervous fingers through unkempt hair, he cheerfully leads you to his room and offers you tea.
And you sip at it awkwardly, and wonder how you made it even this far with him.
You think you’d be happy to have him smile at you for the rest of your life, lighting it up like the silvery glow of a full moon on a clear night, its perfect face reflected in the still mirror of the ocean, eclipsing all the stars with its glowing splendor, sending the sweetest dreams into the smiling hearts of night-blooming flowers.
Bur your heart nags at you and whispers in a biting voice: it’s not enough.
So you think to yourself, it’s do or die now my lad, and you pull out the crumpled packet of little pink flower-shaped sweets from your pocket, and you offer them up to him- a lowly sacrifice to such a perfect deity.
He looks at you- startled, baffled, blushing.
The moment is everlasting- a million flowers blossom and die as you wait, and the moon turns in its path for a hundred years and one. You begin to understand what eternity would feel like. You begin to understand how even forever wouldn’t be enough.
And then he takes your offering from your trembling hands, and his fingers brush lightly against yours, and you both go all red in the face, like roses in summer.
You stay with him until the moon is shining in the sky.
You stay with him until he falls asleep next to you, head dropping carelessly on your aching shoulder, tired after playing video games with you.
You stay with him the next morning, laughing about your first impromptu sleepover at his house, knowing there will be more.
You stay with him for months first, then years, and before you know it, you’ve lived a whole life by his side.
It’s a wonder, you tell yourself, old and grey, sitting next to him still, how he manages to shine so brightly even after all this time.
You think you’ve managed to catch the moon by sheer luck, and trapped it in a lantern to light your way through this dreary world.
You know yourself for a thief, but you would bear any punishment for the crime you’ve committed.
And you know- oh how perfectly and surely you know- that you would steal the moon again even if you lived this life a second time. Or a third. Or a thousand times more.
FILL: TEAM TACHIBANA MAKOTO/YAMAZAKI SOUSUKE, G
Megu already did some gorgeous art for this prompt, but I wanted to reverse their roles this time. So here's some Sousuke longing for Makoto.
1,075 words
Before you know it, you’re all caught up.
Swirling sakura petals in spring, luxuriant sunflowers in summer, defiantly colorful bellflowers in autumn, and pristine hothouse chrysanthemums in winter. He seems to be surrounded by the blossoming beauty of the earth wherever he goes, whatever the season.
And you look at him with longing in your eyes and an ache in your heart.
You find excuses to buy him sakura-flavored candies in early spring, and his smile almost kills you with its brightness- and its sheer indifference towards you.
In the summer you gather sunflowers in a huge green basket and you pretend to have run into him while biking around town. And you insist that he take the flowers, and what a great help it’d be if he did. And you know it’s all lies. You know all you could think of were his eyes when you were picking the best blossoms from your backyard. He smiles again, and you think the sun shines simply to light up his face, and make his green eyes sparkle like jewels in his gentle, beautiful face.
You pretend to reluctantly join your friends for a hike in the mountains when the leaves start turning to orange and yellow and all the shades in between. But your heart leaps with excitement and you cannot sleep the night before, because you know he will be there too. He picks a blue bellflower for his best friend, and smiles for him in a way he never smiles at you. And it breaks your heart. But you would rather be near him than be with anyone else. When his friend drops the flower unknowingly on the way home, you bend down quietly, pretending to tie your shoelace, and carefully tuck away the flower in the innermost pocket of your jacket. You still have that flower, faded and almost falling apart, tucked away among the pages of your favorite book of poems.
After the first snow falls, you catch a cold from staying up all night to stare at the glassy stars in a deep indigo sky. You dream of a universe where you are the only one his eyes could see, and he smiles only for you. In a fever dream, you think he came to see you, and brought you a few white flowers tied with a ribbon the same color as his eyes. You think you saw him stay by your side for hours on end. Just him, and no one else. Looking concerned for you, and not merely obliged to visit you for the sake of some pointless social custom. When the fever breaks and you can see clearly again, you see four white chrysanthemums sitting in a glass on your bedside table. It takes all your courage to ask your mother if he was the one who left them behind. When you text him a simple note of thanks, he replies almost immediately, and you end up calling him, and you talk about the most inconsequential things late into the night.
As the year turns back into spring, sakura trees slowly awaken from their long sleep, waiting for the right time to put forth their pink blooms. He has so many admirers that you cannot even bring yourself to count the boxes of chocolate you stupidly offer to help him carry home, after you see him struggling along by himself on the way back from school. But the way he thanks you and invites you in, his cheeks a little pink from the effort of carrying piles and piles of sweets, makes up for the agony of wondering how many girls and boys have probably confessed their love to him already. Your own little packet of sakura sweets seems stupidly inconsequential in front of the imported boxes of Belgian chocolates some of his classmates have gotten for him.
Before you mumble some stupid words about how much he means to you, running nervous fingers through unkempt hair, he cheerfully leads you to his room and offers you tea.
And you sip at it awkwardly, and wonder how you made it even this far with him.
You think you’d be happy to have him smile at you for the rest of your life, lighting it up like the silvery glow of a full moon on a clear night, its perfect face reflected in the still mirror of the ocean, eclipsing all the stars with its glowing splendor, sending the sweetest dreams into the smiling hearts of night-blooming flowers.
Bur your heart nags at you and whispers in a biting voice: it’s not enough.
So you think to yourself, it’s do or die now my lad, and you pull out the crumpled packet of little pink flower-shaped sweets from your pocket, and you offer them up to him- a lowly sacrifice to such a perfect deity.
He looks at you- startled, baffled, blushing.
The moment is everlasting- a million flowers blossom and die as you wait, and the moon turns in its path for a hundred years and one. You begin to understand what eternity would feel like. You begin to understand how even forever wouldn’t be enough.
And then he takes your offering from your trembling hands, and his fingers brush lightly against yours, and you both go all red in the face, like roses in summer.
You stay with him until the moon is shining in the sky.
You stay with him until he falls asleep next to you, head dropping carelessly on your aching shoulder, tired after playing video games with you.
You stay with him the next morning, laughing about your first impromptu sleepover at his house, knowing there will be more.
You stay with him for months first, then years, and before you know it, you’ve lived a whole life by his side.
It’s a wonder, you tell yourself, old and grey, sitting next to him still, how he manages to shine so brightly even after all this time.
You think you’ve managed to catch the moon by sheer luck, and trapped it in a lantern to light your way through this dreary world.
You know yourself for a thief, but you would bear any punishment for the crime you’ve committed.
And you know- oh how perfectly and surely you know- that you would steal the moon again even if you lived this life a second time. Or a third. Or a thousand times more.