it’s the clear product of both too much and too little thought ——– something needlessly fretted over but kept modest all the same , because the last thing he wants is to come off too hot , hot , hot when he knows it’s better to play it cool .
among the many skills denki’s yet to unlock in his short lifespan is that of wrapping gifts . he doesn’t bother katsuki with what little his knowledge covers in that regard , spared some eyesore of old newspaper mummified in scotch tape for the much safer option of a plain , plastic black crate left on the seat of his desk chair . real fancy shit . there’s some violent hope that the presentation mellows out the message .
he doesn’t bother sticking around for the grand unveiling , keen to hit his boyfriend with this bad boy and run . maybe act like he's got no idea what katsuki’s talking about when he inevitably brings it up later — not even in some humble , sappy boyfriend way , but that real grade - a acting , like no really kats , what’re you talkin’ about ? there’s no way i’d be dumb enough to do something like that . it’s gotta be a prank . a weird , stupid prank . you should just throw it all out just to be safe .
except that plan totally sucks , and totally contradicts the point he’s trying to get across ; the point kept safe in the warmth of his favorite auburn flannel , soft from wear and folded neatly at the bottom of the crate . the point that shines when you hold it up to the light , that special piece of red sea tucked in the breast pocket , a near - impossibility kept close to the heart .
the point scribbled in dying pen on the back of half a ripped train ticket , duly noting everything katsuki was wearing the afternoon of their first date . the point sang by seventeen different artists to mark the occasion , locked and loaded in a cassette player he’s happy to lend — never mind that katsuki has his own . you need to hear it how i hear it .
the point spelled between the pages of a half - filled moleskine , the heart of it all , serving to document every stray , incomplete thought he’d ever had about katsuki in their eight months of footing loose soil over the hatchet . journal entries that have no real beginning or end ; sometimes just a date , sometimes a profession of some dumb thing or another .
pages filled only with colors as if to visually express everything katsuki had made him feel ; yellows and mauves and peaches and green , a dead green , a mold ; black ; pink ; sticky honey - gold and everything autumn . things buried in crossed - out pen and then circled and re - circled and crossed out again . pressed flowers that aren’t pretty , weedy corpses beneath yellowed masking tape . patterns doodled through all the times he’d just sat there thinking about him . music notes . a kiss to the cover he can’t see .
and beside all that , something of an afterthought : the point that comes in flavor , a bag of spicy chips that made denki cry the last time he tried them . just in case katsuki hates the rest . a consolation prize .
@blstys : happy birthday bitch .
to see the edge of an auburn flannel peeking out the bottom of the crate is to know.
impulse wants to haul - ass to denki’s door. by - pass stairs entirely and launch himself onto his balcony and ask him why he's being squirrely about the whole thing. always quick to demand answers for someone that keeps his own heart tucked safely in the breast pocket. rationale slows him; it is obvious. he is meant to have the private moment to figure that out for himself. to make of it whatever he wants. drags eyes back over the bestowed treasure trove - crate - filled with an array of presents. puzzle pieces.
presumably the full picture is supposed to say i remembered, happy birthday. maybe it is — that would be enough. katsuki can’t shake that it feels surface level. denki is so prone to romance that it seems hardly a hunch and more a probability. could just be his own bad habit of taking things apart to see how they fit back together. he’s over - thinking, jumping in front of the gun before he’s checked for bullets.
dissembling, he removes items one at a time and places them in order on the bed from right to left. then goes down the line.
surface level to sea bottom:
spicy chips, an easy favourite. something denki couldn’t stomach the taste of.
a moleskin journal, half full up. katsuki thumbs through the pages greedily, eager to see what’s tucked into the pages; colour and words and flowers, scattered like a pattern of thoughts.
a familiar tape - player, knowingly unnecessary and thus purposeful, cassette already loaded. this is the piece that takes the longest to get through - patience lent by motivation to hear what denki means to tell him. he listens, the way denki intends for him to, eyes closed in the middle of his room while the sun bleeds out through a crack in the curtains. seventeen tracks later, he rewinds the tape and sets it back in its place.
half a train ticket doesn’t tie to a sense the way the other items do, ruining his running hypothesis. he flips it over, confused: almost didn’t and is relieved at the impulse when he sees what he would have missed in scrawled words on the back. a memory jotted down from their first date. i wanted to remember, he can almost hear denki say it. i did remember.
it still doesn’t feel like the point of the whole.
he reaches for the piece that had initially caught his attention and holds it, folded in his hands like an open book. there is no mistaking the flannel for anything other than denki’s go - to. the favouritism is evident in the fade of color and looseness of buttons in equal measure to its infinite - wash softness. katsuki doesn’t know what else to do with it but put it on. he wonders after the intention of it; whether it is meant to be borrowed the same way the tape - player is, something for katsuki to wear to know more about denki, or whether it is switching ownership permanently. either way, he’ll be hard - pressed to let it out of his possession any time soon. he shrugs it on, suddenly aware of the weight in the breast pocket.
a hand runs over the open front, smoothing out invisible wrinkles and landing right over the solid bump. he doesn’t have to fish it out to guess what it is; doesn’t have to hold it up to the light to know, but he does. impossibly red, a dead match for equally improbable eyes.
there he is, tucked into the heart adjacent pocket of denki’s favourite flannel. laid out in pieces on the edge of his bed. some kind of metaphor. it is not what he thinks, though — gently placing the glass back in the flannel’s empty space on the bed. what he thinks is this: denki knows him. in colour and sound, by trigger words and in memory. in touch and taste and favouritism. denki knows him enough to pick the pieces of him out and hand them back. denki knows him better than he knows himself, even and loves him just the same. it might not be the full picture intended but it is the one he sees. it is the one he chooses to believe.
katsuki uses the stairs, knocks twice and waits.
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