Chapter Text
Seungcheol eased into the studio as quietly as possible, following the sounds of murmured voices to the back of the classroom. A group of students hovered around a display of flowers, organized by type, with big blossoms and tiny sprigs alike. A woman in an apron was clearly presiding, and she greeted Seungcheol with a smile.
“I’m Ms. Park, and you are?”
“Seungcheol. Sorry I’m late.” He ducked his head, embarrassed.
Ms. Park waved it off easily. “We are choosing flowers to use on our flower crowns. Take your time looking.”
Seungcheol bent down in front of the flowers to look. The largest and more colourful blooms were on the table, while containers of leafy plants were on the floor. Each container was labelled. Most of the other students had finished picking, so he quickly pulled a few that looked nice to him. Eucalyptuses had many flat green leaves, fritillaries were muted purple flowers with yellow insides, and delphiniums were small violet blossoms.
Looking up, he scanned for a seat. There were four tables, and five chairs per table. All of the tables were full except for the one in the back, which only had one person, already bent over their creation. Seungcheol hurried to sit down there, choosing the aisle seat as it was fastest, and leaving some distance between him and the other person.
Ms. Park came up to hand him some materials–wire, floral tape, scissors–and then returned to the front of the class to give instructions.
“First, you’ll want to measure your head, or approximate the head size of the person you want to give the flower crown to. Then, twist the remaining wire to secure the circular shape.”
Seungcheol fiddled with the tiny wire, already beginning to feel frustrated. Why had he come here? He had never liked crafts. He put it down for a second to breathe.
You’re here to de-stress, not be stressed. he told himself firmly. It’s the act, not the end result.
In a show of defiance, Seungcheol twisted the end of his wire into a tail and imagined that he’d created a two-dimensional, malformed tadpole. He swam it through the air, then abruptly put it down when he made eye contact with his table-mate accidentally.
“Hello.” His table-mate had wide eyes that gave the impression of innocence, thin lips, and a pleasantly polite expression.
“Hey.” Seungcheol coughed out.
“I’m Jeonghan, I use he/him pronouns.” Jeonghan tilted his head to the side, warm brown hair falling across his cheek.
“Seungcheol. He/him as well. Um, nice to meet you.”
“You too.” Jeonghan smiled, and Seungcheol was momentarily overloaded with the thought, cute.
“We’ve chosen some of the same flowers.” Jeonghan reached over, tapping a strand of delphinium against Seungcheol’s matching stems.
“Oh. Yeah.”
Seungcheol knew nothing about flowers. He stared at the table, his words deserting him.
“I’ve never done this before.” Seungcheol blurted out, at the same time that Jeonghan said, “You should probably start cutting your stems.”
Seungcheol, flustered, flailed with his scissors and managed to knock a few flowers to the ground. He realized with dawning horror that Ms. Park had been talking this entire time, and he’d missed most of the instructions. The students in front of him were already wrapping flowers onto the wire. He bent down to gather his flowers and wondered if he could escape before the class was over, before Ms. Park could find out what a disappointment he was.
He forced himself back up and yelped a little in surprise. Jeonghan had moved to the seat right next to him, looking at his flowers with calculating eyes.
“Who are you making this for?” Jeonghan asked.
“Uh…” Seungcheol thought about it for a second. He hadn’t considered giving a flower crown to anyone. Would any of his friends want one? He doubted it, and since he wasn’t sure he’d be able to make one successfully anyway, he shrugged it off.
“Myself, I guess. What about you?”
“For my sister.” Jeonghan’s eyes creased in fondness. “She loves flowers.”
“Oh, that’s great!” Seungcheol grasped the topic like a lifeline. “How old is your sister?”
“She’s twelve.”
Before Seungcheol could ask any more, Ms. Park appeared beside him. She eyed his misshapen wire without much expression.
“Need any help?”
Seungcheol glanced surreptitiously at Jeonghan. He’d somehow managed to wrap one and a half flowers onto his flower crown with floral tape, while Seungcheol had accomplished nothing.
Seungcheol chopped off a few stems with his scissors. Ms. Park wandered to Jeonghan’s side, noting the progress and making no comment. Seungcheol attempted to wrap one of his own flowers, only for it to slip from his fingers. He tried again, for a moment thinking he’d succeeded–but the flower hung limply from the tape, which had been wrapped too loosely.
“Ah–I’m annoyed,” he muttered.
“You picked difficult flowers.” Ms. Park said.
“I did?”
“Yes.” Ms. Park picked one up to demonstrate the wrapping technique to him. Her movements were smooth and effortless.
“That’s my life,” Seungcheol grumbled. How had he managed to choose flowers that were difficult? How could flowers even be difficult? It seemed unfair.
He was having trouble imagining that anyone found this relaxing.
Ms. Park abandoned him–no, left him to his independence, he was a grown man–to help the other students. Jeonghan started up the conversation again like they’d never been interrupted.
“Her favourite flowers are roses. She told me that another kid said she’d chosen a bad flower, and that his favourite was better. Kids can be ridiculous sometimes, can’t they?”
“Yeah.” Seungcheol felt like he was wrestling a slippery eel, and somehow jabbed himself in the thumb with a particularly sharp stem.
“Do you have any siblings?”
“No. Just a cousin.”
“Only one?”
Seungcheol set his crown on the table and looked at Jeonghan. His body faced Seungcheol fully and he had his chin propped up on one hand, looking up into Seungcheol’s face with clear attentiveness. The sleeves of his sweater draped on the table.
“I have a small family.” Seungcheol responded. “Don’t you find it hard to talk and make this thing at the same time?”
“I’ve found something else I want to devote my attention to.”
The statement was so matter-of-fact that it threw Seungcheol off. Is he flirting? Seungcheol wondered. Before he could figure it out, Jeonghan continued.
“We’ve got time. There’s no need to finish one every class, anyway. Flower crowns don’t have rules.”
“That’s true.”
Seungcheol sighed. He pushed the flowers away, staring blankly ahead of him. Yet again, he’d been stressed by a self-imposed deadline, and his own perceived sense of failure when skill didn’t matter. He wasn’t being graded, this wasn’t his job, it was for fun. A stranger had to remind him what his therapist had tried to instill in him for months.
“Want to play a game?”
Jeonghan’s tone was light-hearted, but Seungcheol eyed him warily.
“What kind of game?”
******************
The game was made up of three mini games: rock-paper-scissors, cham-cham-cham with the pointer alternating, and a game where the number of fingers held up couldn’t match the number you said aloud. Each round was rapid-fire, with a light hand slap as punishment to the loser. Seungcheol realized immediately that Jeonghan played with no mercy, and his competitive spirit soared when Jeonghan slapped his hands several times before Seungcheol even registered that he’d lost. He rose to the challenge, concentrating hard until he began to beat Jeonghan.
An unknown amount of time later, Jeonghan waved his hand for a break.
“That was fun!” Jeonghan’s eyes glittered with delight. His nose scrunched up when he grinned, giving him a mischievous aura.
All of Seungcheol’s stress had faded in the adrenaline pumping through him, and he was about to demand one more set–he’d lost two out of three games in the last one–when Ms. Park clapped her hands at the front of the class.
“We’re at the end of our time now,” she said, “and you can put your unfinished flower crowns in these containers. We will continue next class.”
Seungcheol’s jaw dropped in shock. The class was over? They’d spent most of the time playing, and he hadn’t even fixed his circlet of wire. He’d done...nothing?
He looked at Jeonghan, who had stood up and was patiently waiting for him. His expression was serene and completely unbothered by the lack of work they’d done that class. It calmed Seungcheol to see that Jeonghan, at least, wasn’t disappointed in him. Seungcheol supposed he had followed his therapist’s recommendation of relaxing, just not in the intended way.
That’s much better than nothing, Seungcheol decided.
As they walked to the front of the class to store their flower crowns, Seungcheol fought the absurd urge to hide his wire and unattached flowers behind his back. However, no one even glanced at him, Ms. Park included. Undisturbed, he set the materials in a container before writing his name on the tape label.
At the door, Seungcheol and Jeonghan both paused to look at each other.
His cheeks look soft in this lighting, Seungcheol thought.
“I’ll see you next time?”
Jeonghan sounded unsure, and Seungcheol almost laughed. Of course he would, because Seungcheol wouldn’t miss a chance to see him again. Except, he realized, Jeonghan was probably wondering if Seungcheol hated the crown-making enough to quit.
“Yes, definitely. I’ll be there.”
“Then I’ll look forward to it.”
Seungcheol’s breath caught at the warmth in his tone. He wanted the moment to last, but Jeonghan was already walking away.
He found himself smiling. The next class couldn’t come soon enough.