A Flower's Affection (KiriBaku Flower Shop AU)

Eijiro Kirishima-"...Hi..."

        Waking up on his own was something Kirishima took pleasure in doing. He prided himself in knowing that he didn't need an alarm or another person to wake him up before seven every morning, even on days that he didn't work--typically Thursdays, sometimes Tuesdays, but only when he had other plans, which he, more often than not, never did. Given this, he was very irritated Sunday morning when his phone started buzzing to wake him up before five-thirty. He'd already gotten used to the sun being tinged red from the flowers on the windowsill and was extra bitter that he was being woken before the sunrise.

        "Hello?" He answered harshly.

        "Wow," the familiar feminine voice replied, "someone sounds happy to hear from me."

        Kiri growled at Mina's antics. "I just woke up." A sitcom comedy sound filtered through the phone, accompanied by lighthearted music, but Kirishima knew those sounds from many years of being her friend. "Mina, we've talked about this--you can't solve your problems with incidental music."

        "I can try."

        He groaned. "What do you need?"

        "I am calling as a courtesy to tell you that you have exactly five seconds to open your door before I melt it."

        He sat up, smirking. "Go ahead. I haven't lived there in years."

        She paused. "Oh? Then I guess you won't mind me vandalizing all the flowers while I'm at it?"

        Eyes widening in realization, Kirishima vaulted himself out of the bed, ignoring the lingering pain in his chest, and skipped most of the stairs. He tossed his phone on the counter and snatched up the keys as he raced to the front doors. "Mina, I swear you're insane," he growled at the pink-skinned person on the other side of the glass as he jammed his key into the lock and roughly twisted it open.

        The girl on the other side was taller than he remembered, but that was understandable, as they hadn't seen each other in years. Still, she and her fluffy head of pink curls only came up to the redhead's shoulder, and Kirishima realized he had grown as well. Under her yellow eyes and their black sclera lay an adornment of freckles across her cheeks. Her hand, covered in loose bangles, was still outstretched to the door, prepared to use her quirk to melt through the lock, and the other still held the phone to her ear. She was looking at Kiri blankly as if trying to remember where she'd seen him before. Her small yellow horns twitched. Tentatively, she reached up and grabbed ahold of one of his disheveled red locks and pulled.

         He swatted her hand away. Their usual greeting had been a hug, but he felt a little awkward, seeing her again after all this time. He'd imagined their reunion would have been filled with a lot more squealing, and maybe sometime around noon. "Ow," he scolded. "Nice to see you too, Ashido."

        She blinked. "...Hi..." Lost in a daze, she pulled the phone away from her ear and ended the call. "You're... You're different... from what I remember."

        Kiri realized she was talking about his hair and build, and his face softened. He looked almost nothing like the boy she had known. "Things change," he shrugged, pushing away from the door and crossing his arms over his chest. "Why don't you come in? Raid my fridge, judge my closet, jump on my bed--old times, yeah?"

        "Yeah..." she murmured, "that sounds great. You're not wearing a shirt, by the way."

        He tensed. "Like I said: 'I just woke up.' The sun hasn't even woken up yet." He turned, headed for the stairs to get dressed so that a repeat Friday wouldn't happen, or that she wouldn't question the painful dark mark in the middle of his chest. "To what do I owe such an early morning visit?" He prodded, noticing that she had begun to follow him, and took special care to keep himself angled away from her.