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A spindly flower lays in the center of Izuku’s desk, a delicate smudge of yellow on the immaculately white plastic.
He writes it off. Alone in the classroom, it’s easy to imagine that it had somehow strayed from the outside and coincidentally landed on his desk. Still, the flower is beautiful in its fragile simplicity, the pale yellow petals sprawling lazily from the steam like a tired sun.
Shrugging, Izuku presses it gently into the pages of his notebook.
He is unable to write off the heavy bouquet of yellow flowers that appear on his desk the next morning.
Running late, Izuku charges into the classroom only minutes before the beginning of class. When he sees the crowd of people tittering around his desk, he skitters to a stop and inches forward cautiously to uncover the center of their attention.
There, sitting on his desk in an identical position as the day before, are more flowers. An entire bouquet of them, similar in design to the single flower yesterday but bigger. Bright yellow petals erupt from the thick stems, spiraling and narrowing into a tight trumpet shape in the center.
The first flower had been meek, timid, easy to ignore. This one screamed, “Pay attention to me!” at the top of its lungs, bursting with its demand to be noticed, to not be written off as its predecessor had been.
Izuku blanches, mind running a mile a minute to find a way to diffuse the inevitable situation, but Uraraka is already whirling around! “Deku!” she chirrups, grabbing him by the shoulders and thrusting him closer to the bouquet! “Who left you these?”
“Maybe Midoriya’s got himself a girlfriend,” Kaminari teases, shoving into him good-naturedly.
Face splotched red, Izuku raises his hands hastily, spluttering to defend himself. “N-no, no girlfriend.” He shrugs helplessly. “I, uh, I don’t know? I don’t know who, uh, left these.”
Uraraka gasps. “A secret admirer?” Her eyes flutter shut as her hands fall from Izuku’s shoulders to rest against her own pink cheeks. “How romantic,” she breathes. “Who do you think it could be.”
Izuku shrugs again.
Iida, loitering stiffly beside Uraraka, pushes his glasses up his nose and frowns sternly. “There is no card left to identify the identity of the unknown, ahem, admirer. They appear to wish to remain anonymous.”
A huff of air comes from the desk behind Midoriya’s, where Katsuki sits casually with his feet thrown onto the desk in front of him. His mouth is furrowed in a tight line, like he’s trying very hard not to say anything, although Izuku can’t imagine why; Katsuki’s never hesitated to speak his mind before, no matter how tactless his thoughts.
Ruby eyes are trained intently on the flowers, and Izuku reaches out for them warily to slide them away, out of reach of explosive palms.
Katsuki glares harder.
“Hey!” Someone yells, and the crowd shifts to Kirishima, bustling into the classroom even later than Izuku had. “What’re we all—Oh, flowers?”
“They’re Izuku’s,” Uraraka supplies helpfully, still glancing dreamily at the bouquet.
A strange look crosses over Kirishima’s face as his eyes slide from the flowers to the space behind them. His eyebrow quirks in silent question, and the corner of his lip tilts upwards. “Are they?”
Izuku tries to follow his gaze, but Kirishima has already turned back, his smirk growing wider. The only thing behind the flowers is Katsuki snarling angrily at the surface of his own desk, a can of worms Izuku decidedly does not want to open.
“The placement of the flowers on Midoriya’s desk would imply that he were the intended recipient, yes. Although the identity of whomever left the flowers has not yet been revealed.”
A laugh rumbles in Kirishima’s chest. “No card? No note or anything?” When Izuku shakes his head, he hums amusedly. “That’s not very manly. Kind of cowardly, gotta say, if they won’t even reveal themselves.”
An abrasive thud, reverberates around the classroom. Katsuki hunches aggressively over his desk, palms smacked flat against the top and his chair tipped onto the floor behind him. “Shut the fuck up, shitty hair. It’s not fucking cowardly, it’s called romance, something you wouldn’t know if it rubbed its ass against the shithole you call a face, you asswipe.” Impressively, Kirishima retains his smug smile throughout the name-calling.
“You!” Katsuki suddenly shifts, raising one hand to point an incriminating finger in Izuku’s face. “You’re a motherfucking sap, right? This has got to be right up your fucking alley, the secret admirer bullshit.”
Face flaring, Izuku scrambles for the flowers, juggling them clumsily in his hands before hugging them to his chest. “I, uh, what?”
Katsuki growls, and Izuku’s mind empties. He doesn’t understand why Katsuki is so invested in this, in Izuku. They’ve been getting along marginally better—although the bar of friendship was never really set too high to begin with—but really only because they’ve been tolerating each other and their differences. Izuku’s never been one to linger in the past, even one as tumultuous as his history with Katsuki, but even he recognizes how little hope there is for a stable friendship when Katsuki has only just now traded hatred for tolerance.
Which is why this aggressive interest is so wildly out of character, throwing Izuku off any sort of rhythm he had found when it came to dealing with Katsuki.
With a resigned, frustrated sniff, Katsuki kicks his chair upright and collapses into it bodily. “Although,” he sneers, and Izuku reels because this tone of voice is more familiar but also, what the fuck, “maybe their intent wasn’t necessarily romance. Maybe they were just too fucking embarrassed to be interested in a shitty Deku like you to sign their name on the piece of fucking paper.”
“So they were scared?” Kirishima clarifies, despite the cutting glare he receives.
Izuku calms, though, mind clearing with Katsuki’s mood shift. It was mean, yes, but this is a Katsuki he recognizes, and his anger is somehow less alarming than any other emotion. Something niggles in the back of his head, a nudging suspicion as to why Katsuki was so invested in his reaction to the flowers. It’d be surprising, and Izuku would never have thought it to be a possibility, but maybe…
He pets the petals absentmindedly. “I think it’s nice,” he says, smiling as Katsuki turns his gaze to Izuku sharply. “And maybe they are embarrassed but it’s, I think it’s okay. Understandable. But I do hope that they do come forward, eventually. That’d be—I’d like that.”
Aizawa trudges into the room them, tiredly commanding that the class return to order despite the apparent importance of Izuku’s secret admirer. Throughout the rest of the day, Izuku feels the warmth of Katsuki’s gaze burning a hole behind him.
Pointedly, angling himself so that the action can be clearly viewed by Katsuki behind him, he plucks one flower from the group. Opening his notebook to the page where a smaller flower is already delicately flattened, he places its brighter cousin beside it and gently shuts it away.
There isn’t a bouquet on Izuku’s desk the next day—its purpose had been to demand acknowledgement from Izuku that the flowers were more than coincidence, and it had been successful in its intent—but there are three separate flowers waiting for him, each drastically different from the other. One is colored brightly gold, a gentle explosion of soft petals falling from its center. The other is much smaller, the purple petals unfurled in the shape of a rounded star. The last is a long, thick sprig with several small, pastel yellow flowers crowding its stem.
Izuku arrives at his normal time today, far earlier than anyone else. But Katsuki is already here too, leaning back in his chair and very pointedly not looking at the flowers lain gently on Izuku’s desk.
When his eyes do flicker over, watching as these new flowers were pressed into the notebook just as gently as the ones yesterday, Izuku says nothing and smiles genuinely as he tucks them away.
The lurking suspicion grows stronger.
The same routine occurs with new flower the next day, this one a large orange flower with thick, pointed leaves. Crisp red spots decorate the flower’s center. It only barely fits in his notebook, a new one he’d bought especially for this. He’d spent the night before researching the flowers, identifying them and scribbling their names in the pages of this notebook beneath each one.
Daffodil.
Daffodil.
Marigold. Petunia. Yellow Hyacinth.
Katsuki watches lazily from his perch behind Izuku. The classroom is empty, as it normally as at this time of the morning, and Izuku’s theory—as ridiculous as it sounds—won’t be quieted.
“Hey, Kacchan,” he asks. His heart races when Katsuki’s eyes snap to his, narrowed in calculated annoyance, but he pushes on. “You’re here every morning, pretty early, right?”
Katsuki grunts suspiciously.
“I was wondering if you—uh, if you’ve maybe seen whoever’s left these flowers? If you don’t wanna say who, that’s fine, of course! It’s obviously private, and they must not want me to know, but it’d be nice to have, um, some kind of idea of who it might be? A hint or something, or anything—”
“Oi, shitty Deku, why would I care who the fuck’s leaving you flowers every morning?”
Izuku nods frantically. “Right, sorry to bother you with that, Kacchan. Of course you’re not—”
“Shut the fuck up, Deku. Giving me a fucking headache.”
Izuku obeys, his heart pounding wildly in his chest.
Katsuki had blushed.
With the evidence stacking up behind it, the absurdly ridiculous suspicion begins to solidify into actual fact.
The next day brings long stem bursting with pink, trumpet-shaped flowers. Izuku is early again, but this time, Kirishima lays across Katsuki’s desk. He watches silently as Izuku presses it into the notebook and tucks it into his bag, grinning sharkily.
Daffodil.
Daffodil.
Marigold. Petunia. Yellow Hyacinth.
Tiger Lily.
And now this one, too.
He still doesn’t know what to make of these flowers, doesn’t know what sort of promise they are meant to entail. Despite his suspicions as to who is leaving the flowers, he is still unclear on the why.
One part of him—the one that has been bullied and hurt, the one forced to watch his prized possessions go up in flames, the one who lost a best friend for vain reasons—believes it to be a cruel prank.
The other part of him—the one that has always been optimistic for better things, the one that’s cherished the renewal of a broken friendship, the one whose heart can’t help but stutter at the flicker of ruby eyes—really hopes it’s not.
“The secret admirer’s still secret, then?”
Katsuki glares, burning a whole into the side of Kirishima’s face. “Kind of the fuckin’ point, ain’t it?”
Kirishima hums. “Isn’t it frustrating, Midoriya? Not knowing who’s into you like that?”
Izuku glances at Katsuki to find him already watching, intently waiting on his answer. “Yeah,” he says, making direct eye contact. I know, he wants to scream. So please just come out with it and tell me if it’s a joke or not. I hate this. Instead, he says, “It’d be nice if they’d be a littler clearer with their intentions. So I know what exactly they’re trying to get across.”
Katsuki frowns. “Have you even been checking the fucking meanings?” When Izuku blinks blankly, his glare hardens. “For such a shitty fucking nerd, you don’t actually do your fucking research.”
“I—I don’t—what?”
Katsuki cusses, but Kirishima slaps a hand over his mouth, quirk hardened in anticipation for when Katsuki inevitably bites him. “There’s a whole flower language. It’s actually pretty neat! Maybe your secret admirer has been giving you flowers with specific meanings to get their message across?”
Izuku’s mouth twists in distaste. “That’s so complicated,” he pouts and stares forlornly at his notebook. “Why can’t they just make it easier and say what they mean?”
Katsuki rips his mouth from Kirishima’s hand, snarling, “‘Cause it’s fucking romantic that way, shitrag! What kind of fucker is wasting his time with an asshole like y—”
Once again, Kirishima covers his mouth and uses his other hand to keep him firmly in place. “Don’t worry about it too much, Midoriya! I bet your secret admirer’s just too shy.”
Katsuki grumbles angrily.
Today, there is another bouquet of flowers. These ones all have stems lined with small purple buds. Izuku recognizes the plant as a Hyacinth, the same one he had received on the third day of this whole event but this time a deep lavender rather than a bright yellow.
Once again, he presses it into the pages of his notebook.
“I didn’t get a chance to look up the meanings last night,” he says out loud for Katsuki to hear. They’re alone again this morning.
“The fuck? Why’re you tellin’ me this? You think I give a shit?”
Izuku shrugs. “Thought maybe you’d deserve to know,” he says quietly.
Daffodil.
Hopeless Love.
Marigold. Petunia. Yellow Hyacinth.
Cruelty. Resentment. Jealousy.
Tiger Lily.
Pride.
Gladioli.
Sincerity.
Purple Hyacinth.
I am Sorry, Please Forgive Me, Sorrow.
There is a flower on Katsuki’s desk the next day.
Izuku waits patiently, flipping through his own notebook of pressed flowers and glossing over each word printed onto the page. If he had doubts before—and he had many—they’d been forced away as he’d transcribed the meaning of each flower into his notebook.
There was no denying it.
However, the reality of the situation doesn’t set in until Katsuki meanders into the classroom, clutching his hands to his chest protectively.
He doesn’t notice Izuku at first, not until he’s only two steps from the desk. When their gazes meet, Katsuki flounders and curls his hands into fists. A spot of red flutters from between his fingers.
“What the fuck are you doing here so early, shit nerd?”
Izuku glances pointedly to the flower petal now laying against the tile.
“Fuck.”
Izuku holds out his hands. “Can I?”
“What makes you think it’s for you?” When Izuku says nothing, Katsuki snarls but hands over the flower anyway. “Fuck you.”
Red Rose.
Love.
Izuku’s heart squeezes, and his eyes flutter shut, fighting against the tears. “Kacchan—Katsuki,” he breathes, mindful of the other’s sharp intake of breath. “I have to—is this genuine. Please be honest, you mean—this isn’t a joke to you right?”
“As if. I don’t play around.”
Izuku smiles. “Okay.”
“Okay? I go through all this fucking shit, and all you got is fucking ‘okay’?”
Laughing, Izuku opens his eyes to meet fiery rubies. “I still don’t know why you couldn’t just say it outright.”
Katsuki slams his palm into his forehead, dragging it down his face in despair. “I swear to fucking God, none of you assholes appreciate romance. I’m not about to halfass shit like this, you got it?”
“Ah, so Kacchan, you can be nice.”
“Of course I fucking can. I’ll be so fucking nice, especially after all that shit when we were younger—fuck I was—am an asshole. But you’ll see, Deku, I’ll be the best fuckin’ boyfriend—” he cuts off. “Shit, you still gotta accept. Look, Deku, I’m a motherfucking catch, a nerd like you ain’t gonna find anyone better. Fuck, I’m doing this wrong.”
Izuku takes pity. “Kacchan,” he says, “you know flower language, right?”
Katsuki rolls his eyes. “How the fuck else was I supposed to pull off something as great as this.”
Twisting, Izuku pulls the flower from Katsuki’s desk where it had been obscured. “Then here.” He passes it over, and Katsuki stares for several long beats.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh, fuck yeah. You down for a movie tonight, shit nerd?”
Izuku smiles. “I’d like that.”
White Tulip.
I forgive you.