Oihina Week 2020 Part Two

the prettiest flower in the garden

SUMMARY

It's  easy for Tooru to be marvelled by Hinata's beauty. Everything he does,  no matter how average or simple, is always bright. How he waters the  hyacinths, how he plays volleyball, how he is always lighting up the  room he is at. It's even easier to fall in love with him.

If only he could have him.

"I guess what scares me the most now is the thought that I won't be able to protect you."

― Julia Hoban, Willow

The  first time Tooru sees him, he is marveled by his beauty. He is  fulfilling his duties as the sun god, driving his chariot across the  blue skies, and then he spots a man tending to the beautiful flowers of  his balcony. But that doesn't catch his attention, not the balcony on  itself, nor the man, but the flowers he is tending to. The hyacinths  look healthy and of a bright violet color, clashing with the greys that  seem to cover everything else around them. It's obvious for anyone that  the man takes great care of them.

Tooru, who holds hyacinths  especially close to his heart, remembering a love that could have been  but never really was, can't help but to feel interest. Who in the mortal  world would have a balcony solely for hyacinths? This is the first time  Tooru has ever seen one, and it's one of the most beautiful bunch of  hyacinths he has ever seen, rivalling even the ones left for him in his  shrines back when people still prayed for him every day.

With this  in mind, he sets his chariot - currently on his Ferrari mode - on  self-drive and goes to look a bit more closely. He doesn't appear in  front of the man, he is a mortal after all, but Tooru makes himself  invisible to observe without being noticed, and looks at the man from  where he is resting against the glass door that leads to the man's  apartment.

The man, Tooru notices once he is closer, is beautiful.  He is quite small, smaller than him by a long shot, and his orange hair  looks like it is on fire. His face holds a ton of freckles caused by  the summer sun, and his brown eyes shine with happiness as he hums an  idle melody while tending to the radiant hyacinths. Somehow, his sunny  expression rivals the beautiful flowers.

Tooru leaves soon after,  before the sun sets and his sister can spot him while she rides her own  chariot. But for the first time after thousands of years, Tooru can't  get a mortal out of his head.

Suddenly, Tooru finds himself  looking for the orange haired mortal every day while he rides his  chariot, a small smile tugging on his lips every time he sees him. The  man, Hinata Shouyou he comes to learn with time, isn't always tending to  the hyacinths, but everything he does is enthralling, from buying  groceries at the convenience store, to spiking balls at volleyball  practice, something he seems to love just as much as tending to the  flowers.

Tooru has never let Hinata see him. Even though mortals  no longer believe in them, and they have long since stopped praying for  them, the gods try not to alert them of their presence. Mortals are  safer that way, they don't get in the way of things, and the gods don't  have to worry about them at all.

But this mortal... well, Tooru  can't say he's not interested. Tooru has had many lovers in the past,  and was once considered to be quite a flirt. Still is, according to  Hajime, but then again, it's not Tooru's fault the other goddesses and  nymphs throw themselves at him. That doesn't mean he hasn't had a fling  or once during the last eons, but it has never been anything serious.  Not since the last one of his lovers got once again turned into a type  of plant. His sister Miko always laughs, telling him he's cursed and  that he should have been like her and taken a chastity oath. Tooru is  always sure to flip her off as he tells her her to watch it because she  has a son, one Tooru has to look after quite a lot, mind you.