[牛天 | UshiTen]: Our Flowers

Part 11: [i admire you]

Wakatoshi stood there, thunderstruck. He could not remember anyone loving him so much. He could not remember such affection even from his own mother!

***


In a flash, the last three years reeled in his head, and he swiftly calculated just how much time, roughly, they had had for each other. Courtship had not been a thing for them, as their friendship dated back years. They knew each other too well, warts and all.

It was just, when they turned 25, something clicked, and at one of the rare Shiratorizawa's team's re-unions, Tendō had dragged him outside and had told him, with his most serious face:

- I'm sure you know that I have been in love with you, for a long time now. I don't think this will ever change... I just can't picture anyone but you in my future. So... what do you say, Wakatoshi-kun? Would you like to get married?

It was a blazing moment that Ushijima would never forget. He had stood there, speechless, and he felt frozen all over, unable to breathe. He had had no plans for future marriage; his plans were his volleyball career. His parents had made some feeble attempts in the past, to find a bride for him, and he had tried to oblige them, but... He saw all girls as somehow incomplete. A couple of very different girls, but all of them somehow seemed the same to him.

He needed logic, explanations. He saw them as weak, and capricious. Sometimes, he saw them chasing after his fame and fortune, and it repulsed him. For some unknown reason, his parents were prone to choosing a housewife type of woman for him, and it made almost no sense to him, as the largest part of the year, he was living in his apartment in Poland. He could not think about a household, and children, not right now.

Children...

Glaring at the gracious, fine-looking young women made him truly wonder. Most of them didn't even reach his chest! How would mating look like? With a weak, fine woman? Would they need medical assistance in order to be able to conceive? He frowned at this; albeit looking serious and cold, Ushijima craved for human warmth. A human who would be able to endure his weight, his height, his strength.

And being a father was not in his top 3 priorities at the moment. He wouldn't know how.

That was why, he hadn't minded the relief in those wanna-be brides' eyes when he would inevitably turn them down. Probably instinctively, women felt that their fragile bones would not be able to manage his rough love.

Satori had surprised him, but the same dual chart got called up in his mind immediately, and, for a very time-stopping minute, when Tendō's poor heart had literally stopped beating between his air-deprived lungs, Ushijima-san had drawn the pros and cons.

In front of him, pretending to be nonchalantly sipping on white wine, was someone he knew well. Someone strong, independent, cool-headed, and quite disillusioned about being an adult already, despite their young age. Someone who had his own life, career, and made his own plans and arrangements, not caring what others thought or how they judged.

In a way, they matched. In many ways they were the same.

This love confession, carelessly skipping the stupid steps of love letters, dates, and endless family cross-conversations and cross-examinations brought relief to him, this time around. It made him take a better look at Satori, look at him, from head to toe, judgingly, assessing.

He approved. It was logical. The pros outnumbered the cons.

Tall, smart, a little strange, but kind. Kind-hearted. And, last but not least – a man.

Ushijima surprised himself by taking the last argument in terms of sturdiness, and not so much gender. He felt extremely silly, but it sharply dawned on him that a person to match him in weight, height, strength would inevitably be... another sportsman, another volleyball player.