“I’m sorry it’s not a normal kind of date. I just remembered I’d agreed to help Shikiba and I didn’t want to cancel on you outright…”
“For all the experience I have, this could be a completely normal date!” said Nagito cheerfully.
“But do you know what Celeste said when I told her? She said ‘Well, I wouldn’t trust you pair of submissive lambikins around any kind of tools’…” Makoto unlocked the garden shed. “But then I asked if she meant she wanted to come help, and she said ‘That’s what I have men for, dear’. Like, make up your mind!”
“It’s not as though we’re doing anything dangerous,” said Nagito, picking up a trowel and giving it an uncertain heft.
“He even labelled them for us, he said.” Sure enough, Makoto found the small sack marked Early Onions without difficulty.
Nagito had found some gardening gloves; he handed Makoto a second pair. See, they were off to a great start!
“All right. He said it’s this bed over here, the one under the cherry tree…”
Nagito followed him with the rest of the gear, sparing the tree a wry look. It was bare, of course, being February. No blossoms for Makoto’s birthday. But maybe there would be for Nagito’s! He could take Nagito to look at them. Yes, they’d go together and they’d hold hands—Nagito would finally agree to let people see they were dating, he’d realise he was worthy of Makoto—better yet, he’d realise there was no such thing as worthy, and then maybe… maybe they’d kiss! In front of the trees and everyone! Now there was a hopeful thought.
Makoto tripped over his feet in excitement and planted his face in the bare earth.
“Are you inspecting the beds personally?” asked Nagito with all that subtle irony he displayed sometimes.
“Yeah, something like that.” Makoto picked himself off, brushed off his nose and the knees of his uniform pants—on reflection, he should’ve done like Nagito had and changed into something more casual before heading off to grub around in the dirt. He’d been too excited to think about details. Cute guy and all that.
Nagito smoothly folded his long legs into a kneel. “Ah… Shikiba really didn’t leave much to chance.” He held up a hand-drawn diagram of a bulb, tiny feathery roots and all, firmly labelled PLANT THIS END DOWN.
“I guess everyone thinks we’re that hopeless,” said Makoto with a rueful grin.
Nagito’s laugh was gentle, as if apologising for its audibility. Makoto wanted to hear it more often. “Then they’re wrong. It’s never hopeless with Makoto around. By definition.”
“Are you talking about—ah, Nagito, you know Ultimate Hope is just a nickname my classmates came up with! Now I think about it, it must have been after I tried cheering Toko up one too many times…”
“That many Ultimates can’t be wrong, that’s what I always say,” said Nagito, who was capable of digging in his heels on certain topics every bit as effectively as he was currently digging in the onion bulbs.
Makoto stuck out his tongue, but he continued in Nagito’s wake, patting down the soil and giving the bulbs their first watering-can baths.
It looked as though, in spite of certain people’s expectations, their task would soon be finished without any disasters at all.
“I wonder how long until we see them growing,” said Makoto. Dim recollections arose of the time he’d planted an acorn and checked back hourly on its progress, before running to his mother at dinner time in tears because it hadn’t become a tree. Hey, he’d been five, all right?!
“Assuming my accursed presence hasn’t poisoned them somehow,” Nagito offered cheerfully. “Knowing my luck, they’ll all wither and the soil will go completely barren, or they’ll grow into homicidal monsters, or…”
“Or,” said Makoto, before the ball of hypothetical horrors could really get rolling, “what if it’s good luck instead, and they all grow big and beautiful and tasty in stir fries?”
“Oh, no, I think I’ve already identified the good luck in this situation,” said Nagito with hooded eyes.
“Really? What’s th— Nagito, why’s your bag glowing?”
Nagito followed his eyes. He took off his gloves and opened his book bag. “Ah…” he said.
Makoto realised what it was just before Nagito produced his wand. The weird, dark metal wand, one of the pair they’d found by accident while out walking together. Glowing, which was why they’d originally seen them, but hadn’t happened since then.
“Do you think it senses danger?”
Makoto picked up his own backpack.
“Ha! So you don’t want to be far from yours either?”
“I feel all uneasy and lonely if I get too far away from it, a little like when I’m away from… um, from home,” Makoto quick-thinkingly unadmitted. Ha, and to think Kyoko had called him an open book! “But mine isn’t glowing, look, so either it doesn’t mean that or… heehee… I’m the threat.”
Nagito gasped dutifully at Makoto’s fierce face and intimidating flex. But he did grin a little. “If I ever find the Ultimate Hope is my adversary, I’m switching sides.”
Makoto zipped his backpack up again. “So maybe yours wants you to transform. You could try it.”
“I don’t even know how it happened the first time. Do you?”
“Um, no.” Makoto frowned and touched his chin with a knuckle, a gesture he’d unconsciously picked up from Nagito. “Maybe wave it around? Twirl with it? Is there a magic word written on it…?”
“No, no and no,” said Nagito dizzily. “I don’t even think I was thinking anything special that first time. All I remember was feeling—um, well, that surely wasn’t it.”
Makoto leaned forward like a puppy seeing a ball. “What? What?”
“Oh, nothing… um.” Nagito squirmed. “I was just feeling very… extremely ga—”
It happened immediately. Nagito’s formerly quivering fingers clamped firmly around the wand and he struck an unlikely pose, spine bent such that somehow his chest and his rear were in view at once. Blood-red ribbons of light spilled out and cocooned him. Makoto even thought he heard a faint theme song.
Nagito’s high heels touched the ground again. He looked down and smoothed his slinky red cocktail dress.
Makoto choked on a giggle. At the questioning look, he said, “They’re back…”
“What are—oh no.” Nagito reached up and tugged at one fuzzy cat ear. “Magical girl and catboy now? How is this reasonable?”
“I don’t know about reasonable, but it’s cute.”
“Yes, but we didn’t even turn into cats… dog… animal people on the same day—they were completely separate incidents!”
“Maybe your magic wand found it cute too.”
Nagito’s fluffy white tail lashed. He started to lick a hand, then thrust it embarrassedly behind his back. “And what was even the point of this?” he demanded of the magic wand.
“…just trying to have a normal date with a very adorable boy and you go around glowing and, and giving people hairy ears willy-nilly…”
“Um…” said Makoto, who was all squeaky inside after being described as very adorable.
“…appreciate some idea of what you want me to do here. I mean, magical girl powers aren’t exactly something the guidance counsellor can help with, and I’ve asked her…”
“…said it wasn’t even the weirdest thing she’s been asked by a student at this school, which is saying somethi—yes, Makoto?”
“…oh,” said Nagito, accurately.
The onions were growing big…
“Nyaow!” Nagito hissed and swiped his wand at a waist-high bundle of leaves. The leaves took no notice, neither to attack him nor to quail away from his indignant hiss. The bulb at the base of those leaves, half submerged in soil, was massive, more like the size of a pumpkin.
The onions stopped growing with a self-satisfied chlorophyllic creak.
“…Yeah,” said Nagito, slinking farther away from the garden bed before anything else could happen.
“Do you think that’s your magic power? Nagito, that’s such a cool power! They’re blooming like crazy!”
“I don’t think onions bloom, do they?”
“I have no idea, but I’m pretty sure they don’t normally do that, either.”
They stared at the vegetable garden a little more. Then, both at once, they started laughing.
“Onions, right? Pungent and making people cry. Perfect imagery for me!”
“Nooooo, onions are good! They’re good in cooking, they give things flavour, and… they have like, circles. What’s the word? Like layers! They’re complicated, just like you!”
“You think I’m good?” Makoto realised Nagito had stopped laughing.
“Yes, silly catboy, I think you’re very good.” He stuck out his tongue, just to be extra convincing.
Nagito wordlessly reached out and brushed a petal out of his hair.
“And I’m not sorry we’re dating, even if weird stuff like this happens every time.” A falling petal tickled his nose. He rubbed it with the back of his gardening glove. “At least I get to experience the weird stuff with you.”
Nagito shuffled his feet. Or maybe he was just trying to keep the heels from sinking into the grass. He rubbed the back of his neck, trailing the red veils that formed part of his distractingly alluring outfit. They looked kind of nice, spangled with pink petals.
“Wait a minute,” said Makoto, looking up.
At the riotously blossoming cherry tree.
They gawped at each other, framed in falling flowers. Then one of them reached for the other’s hand, and later on neither remembered who it had been.
They did remember the kisses, though. So it was a pretty good date after all.
