Roses for you - Michael Kaiser
Tag: Fluff, fluff, Kaiser being a lovesick idiot, Ness Mention
"In which Kaiser flew sixteen hours to Japan, just to see the girl he holds closest to his heart."
The silence in the Tokyo hotel penthouse was heavy, thick with the weight of unspoken words. Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, the city sprawled like an endless ocean of neon and concrete, but inside, the only thing occupying Michael Kaiser’s mind was the delicate crinkle of cellophane.
Alexis Ness stood near the doorway, offering a meticulously arranged bouquet of blue roses. His smile was soft, practiced, and devastatingly hollow.
"Take them, Kaiser," Ness said, his voice barely rising above a whisper. "Go see her. I’ll… I’ll stay back at the hotel. I have some film to review anyway."
Kaiser didn’t take the flowers immediately. He stared at Ness, his sharp blue eyes piercing through the fragile lie.
Ness loved you just as much as he did.
It was etched into the quiet longing in Ness’s eyes every time your name was mentioned, in the way he meticulously picked out these impossible blue roses because he knew they were Kaiser’s symbol, effectively erasing himself from the narrative.
For a fleeting, agonizing second, the Emperor’s armor cracked. A voice in his head urged him to be magnanimous, to say, “Don’t be an idiot, Ness. Come with me. If you love her, be a man and say it.”
When it came to you, Michael Kaiser was a starving man. He was greedy, fiercely territorial, and utterly selfish. His love for you left no room for anyone else, not even his most loyal shadow.
"Right," Kaiser said, his voice unusually quiet, stripped of its usual mocking lilt. He reached out, his fingers brushing Ness’s as he took the bouquet. "I’ll see you later, Ness."
Ness simply nodded, the door clicking shut between them. Kaiser stood alone for a moment, the blue roses heavy in his grip, before turning to face the city.
Stepping out onto the streets, the evening air was humid and electric. Usually, Kaiser couldn't care less about the scenery of a foreign city. To him, the world was merely a stage, and the crowds were just faceless extras meant to watch him shine.
But tonight, his gaze lingered.
He looked at the narrow alleyways glowing with paper lanterns, the hurried salarymen, the distant silhouette of the your city's tower. This was the city that raised you. This was the air you breathed, the pavement you walked on when you were just a girl with scraped knees and big dreams. Suddenly, the chaotic sprawl felt sacred. Every neon sign and quiet temple roof felt like a secret piece of your history that he was finally being allowed to witness.
He walked slowly, letting the rhythm of your hometown seep into his bones, until a sudden burst of color caught his eye.
A small, humble flower shop sat wedged between two towering buildings. Kaiser stopped, looking down at the perfect, genetically modified blue roses in his hand. They were beautiful, yes. The blue rose meant him—a madman relentlessly chasing the impossible. But looking at them now, they felt entirely too arrogant. Too manufactured.
They needed something to soften them.
They needed a piece of you.
If he was the madman chasing the impossible, then you were the one whose whole existence was pure impossibility, a miracle he still couldn't quite fathom he had found.
Pushing the glass door open, Kaiser’s expensive sneaker caught on the edge of a watering can left near the entrance.
He stumbled, barely catching himself against the doorframe.
The tiny bell overhead jingled frantically in response.
He cleared his throat, quickly adjusting his jacket and hoping to God nobody had seen the Emperor of the pitch nearly face-plant into a display of ferns.
An elderly woman emerged from the back, wiping her hands on an apron and greeting him in cheerful, rapid Japanese.
Kaiser froze, his usual silver-tongued confidence vanishing. "Ah. Guten Abend. Wait, no. Uh… Konbanwa?" he offered, his harsh accent brutally butchering the word.
He frowned, pulling out his phone. He typed furiously, his thumbs slipping on the glass, the blue glow of Google Translate illuminating his sharp, stressed features. He held the screen up to the woman.
"White roses. I need white roses."
The woman nodded warmly, her eyes crinkling in amusement at the tall, intimidating foreigner acting so skittish. She moved to a bucket of pristine, cream-white blooms, gathering a handful. She reached for a pair of shears and some wrapping paper, motioning to the blue bouquet in his hand, asking through gestures if he wanted her to combine them.
"Nein, nein," Kaiser said quickly, his hands waving awkwardly to stop her. He nearly dropped his phone in the process. "I… I will do it. Let me." He pointed to himself. "My hands. I need to do it."
The woman blinked, stepping back with a knowing, gentle smile to let him work at her counter.
Kaiser set the blue bouquet down. His hands, usually so precise, so deadly and calculated, suddenly felt massive and entirely useless. He began pulling away the tape Ness had so carefully applied, wincing as the cellophane tore with a loud, obnoxious RIIIIP.
He removed a few of the blue roses, tossing them aside unceremoniously to make room. He picked up a white rose, attempting to snap the stem to match the length of the others, but it didn't break cleanly. It bent, leaving a jagged green string hanging off the end.
"Damn it," he hissed under his breath. He tried to shove it into the center of the blue roses anyway.
"Stupid," he mumbled in German, a self-deprecating scoff escaping his lips as a stray thorn violently pricked his thumb. A bead of blood welled up, bright against his pale skin. He shoved his thumb into his mouth for a second, glaring at the flowers as if they had intentionally fouled him.
"Look at you, Michael," he muttered, aggressively jamming another white rose into the bundle. "The Emperor of the pitch, reduced to an uncoordinated toddler with two left feet for hands. A brain-dead pigeon could build a better nest than this."
He adjusted a blue rose, then stepped back to look at it, shaking his head. "No, now there's too much white on the left. It looks like a lopsided football formation.”
“Congratulations, genius, you've successfully created a botanical car crash." Kaiser sighed.
He pulled three flowers out and tried again, trying to intertwine the white with the blue. The madman intertwining with the pure miracle.
The elderly woman tapped the counter, offering him a spool of red silk ribbon with a quiet, encouraging nod.
Kaiser eyed the ribbon like it was a live snake. "Danke. I mean, arigato."
He attempted to tie a bow. He looped the ribbon around the stems, crossed the ends, and pulled. It was too loose. He tried again, his large fingers fumbling hopelessly with the thin, slippery silk. He ended up tying a knot. Then another knot. He pulled it tight, creating a strangled, misshapen red lump holding the lopsided flowers together.
"Perfect," he said sarcastically, letting out a heavy breath that blew his blonde bangs out of his eyes. "Absolutely flawless. She's going to think a feral dog chewed on it."
He stared at his disastrous creation, his jaw tightening. A wave of hot frustration washed over him. It lacked Ness’s artistic touch. It lacked grace. It looked incredibly, undeniably sloppy. He was a genius, a prodigy, yet he couldn't even put a simple bouquet together for the woman he loved without ruining it.
It was a glaring physical manifestation of his own flaws—messy, imperfect, trying too hard to fit things together that maybe didn't belong.
"How the hell does Ness make this look so effortless?" he muttered aloud, his voice tight with a sudden, uncharacteristic vulnerability. He looked at the mangled stems, thinking back to the pristine, elegant bundle his teammate had handed him back at the hotel.
From across the counter, a soft sound broke his focus. The elderly woman was covering her mouth with her hand, her shoulders shaking with a quiet, endearing giggle. Catching his eye, she beamed at him and gave him an enthusiastic, encouraging thumbs-up.
Heat violently rushed to Kaiser's face. The great Michael Kaiser, humiliated by a Japanese grandmother in a flower shop.
Desperate to save whatever shred of his pride remained, he snatched up his phone and began typing at lightning speed. He shoved the glowing screen across the counter toward the giggling woman.
The translated text read: This is modern art. Please forget you ever saw this happen.
The woman only laughed harder, bowing her head respectfully despite her amusement.
She’s going to laugh at me just like that, he thought of you.
But surprisingly, the idea didn't sting. A soft, breathless chuckle actually escaped his own lips. If it made you laugh, maybe his humiliation was worth it.
He pulled a handful of yen from his wallet, setting it on the counter—far more than the white roses were worth. He offered the elderly woman a curt, deeply embarrassed bow, and scooped up the chaotic bundle.
Stepping back out into the Tokyo street, Kaiser held the messy, tape-covered, badly tied bouquet a little tighter against his chest.
