Dearest, You Said 》BNHA

Chapter 9

[3 years later, summer of 1946]

Warm sunlight and a pair of warm lips on the tip of his nose woke him up.

He was greeted with the scent of coffee mixed in with the usual floral smell wafting in from downstairs.

"Eh?", he muttered, yawning. He stretched his body out like a cat, then looked over at the person greeting him out of his slumber.

"Good morning", his wife said, smiling at the sight of him slowly waking up.

"Oh! Good morning, dear", Denki smiled back and kissed her on the forehead.
"Thanks for the coffee."

Denki's wife, a good friend of his family's and a Japanese-American woman herself, was the waitress he kissed on New Years in 1943.

Her name was Ochako Uraraka.

They had gotten married the winter before, after Ochako moved from New York City to Denki's apartment. They now worked happily together in the florist's shop.

"Are you going to get ready? Your brother will be here any hour."

The man sat up in bed.
"You're right", he said, yawning again, "Go ahead and head downstairs! I'll get his room ready."

Eijiro was staying a week or two with his new wife, Mina. They were to be staying with Denki and Ochako while they looked for apartments.

"Oh, there's no need, I've already gotten it ready", Ochako said, heading down the stairwell.

"I need to get a few things out of there!", Denki called after her.

The man quickly changed into some casual clothes, then grabbed his coffee and ventured into the spare room across from his.

Nobody had been in the room for years until the couple recently fixed it up. It had been coated in a thick layer of dust, but was now spotless.

Denki stood in front of the closet.

He really didn't want to face what was in there.

But why couldn't he face it? He was happily married, there was no reason he couldn't.

He opened the closet and gazed upon the wooden box on the shelf.
The box, having not been touched in years, seemed to stare at Denki. A darkly depressing energy emmitted from it.

The box of letters he had written to Thomas the year he was gone, and all the letters he had written to him a year after his death.

Denki picked up the box and carried it into his bedroom where he slid it under his bed.
He didn't need Eijiro getting curious and looking through it.

Eijiro would ask questions and bring back painful memories Denki had been trying to repress for years.

The florist had tried his best to move on. He found a girl and he got married. But every now and then, Thomas would invade his thoughts like an uninvited guest.

"When do you think he'll get here?", Denki asked his wife, stepping into the shop.

Ochako was handling some marigolds, but she quickly replied that Eijiro would be there around noon.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Is that it? No, that's a coffee shop. Oh, what about- No, that's a bar."

Eijiro Kaminari, or sometimes called by a shortened form of his middle name by his wife, had his face pressed against the taxi window.
He eagerly pointed out different shops thinking they were his brother's flower shop, but to no avail.
His newlywed wife, Mina, teasingly poked him in the shoulder.
She was a pretty girl he met during the war, with fair skin, short honey brown hair and eyes, and an energetic personality.

"Kiri, be patient", Mina said, "I'm sure we're almost there."

"I can't help it! I'm excited!", the man said, his dark eyes showing his pure eagerness with their shine, "I get to see my little brother again! I haven't seen him since before the war ended! I hear he's got himself a pretty wife now!"

The former pilot wrapped his arm around his wife's shoulders and kissed her cheek.
"And soon we can find our own place in this charming little city."

The taxi stopped, and Eijiro took no hesitation to prance out of the vehicle and over to his brother, who was standing in the shop doorway.

The older brother practically smothered the younger one, ruffling his longish blond hair. In retaliation, Denki reached and messed up Eijiro's neatly combed red hair.

Eijiro had never actually been to Denki's flower shop. It was a white painted building, and from the doorway he could see nearly every color inside. A sweet fragrance radiated from the shop and his brother.

He deemed it cute. Like his brother, in a way. Calm, but robustly colorful.

"You finally got that haircut!", Eijiro pointed out, flicking the ends of Denki's hair.

"Ochako made me get it", the blond brother stated.

"Ochako? Oh, your wife!"

His eyes soon settled on the small woman beside him.
A woman with a small build and chocolate-colored hair that was cut at her shoulders. In her hands was a pot of orange flowers, but she managed to smile sweetly at him and wiggle her fingers as a hello.

Eijiro slapped Denki's back, nearly knocking the wind out of his brother.
"By God, Denks, she's an absolute butterfly!", he exclaimed.

So he actually listened to his advice? He found himself a gal.

Everything about Denki seemed brighter than the last time he saw him.

Eijiro was happy for him.

Happier than his brother could ever realize.

Happier than his brother will ever know.