#i looked it up before i wrote this just to be sure
Growing up, Shoto had never paid much attention to or cared all that much about flowers, or really anything that he wasn’t specifically told to care about. There was a garden on the grounds of his family home, of course, but it wasn’t as if he’d ever had the time to or was allowed to visit it. Frivolities such as that, he was always told, were beneath him. But Izuku, he’d learned, loved flowers. Especially dandelions. He’d said that he found them inspiring, the way that they persisted despite constant attempts to eradicate them, how they found ways to grow in the most unlikely of places, places where other plants could never have gotten a foothold. Even if they were just weeds, it was something to admire, that tenacity.
“We should all strive to be a little more like dandelions,” Izuku had said, flashing one of his smiles bright as a ray of sunlight, the kind that always dazzled Shoto.
From then on, he took a lot more notice of flowers. Dandelions, in particular. He saw them everywhere, sprouting up from small mounds of dirt collected in rain gutters, poking in between cracks in the sidewalk, dotted across lawns and fields and grassy parks. It was evidence of the tenacity Izuku had spoken of, and it always made him smile to see those little yellow flowers and be reminded of the person he cared so deeply for everywhere he went.
When his relationship with Izuku moved beyond the boundaries of friendship- even close friendship such as they’d had- Shoto made a point of snapping a photo with his phone anytime and anywhere he happened to see dandelions and send it to Izuku, hoping it would make him smile. He longed to give him actual dandelions, but he feared they wouldn’t survive the trip to UA’s campus in a condition good enough for them to be considered a worthwhile gift. He’d hoped that would no longer be the case once they moved into the dorms, but there again his efforts were stymied. He didn’t know if UA had a gardener or a groundskeeper- he’d certainly never seen any such a person on campus- but someone was taking the time to make sure that not a single one of the sun colored puffy flowers that Izuku loved so much disturbed the uniform greenness of UA’s manicured lawns or sprouted up along its neatly kept walking paths.
“It pains me that I’ve never been able to give you real dandelions,” Shoto lamented to Izuku as they walked to class one day, hand in hand. “I know they’re your favorite, and the pictures honestly don’t seem like enough anymore. I know how much it would make you smile to have some on your desk to look at while you’re doing your schoolwork, and I want to be able to do that for you. I want to make you smile.” He saw Izuku eye him curiously at that. He’d gotten better at expressing his emotions, but he sometimes he still struggled to put words to the things he felt, and it could be surprising when he was willing to be so open about his feelings.
“It’s funny that you should say that,” Izuku said, tugging on their joined hands to draw Shoto to a halt. “Look.” He held his phone out for Shoto to see. On his home screen, right where it would be the first thing he saw when he unlocked his phone, was an album of saved pictures titled “Flowers From Sho”. He didn’t need to see the album’s contents to know that it must have been the place where Izuku had collected all the pictures that he’d sent him of dandelions he spotted in his travels throughout the city.
“See?” Izuku said with one of his characteristic sunbeam-bright smiles. “I don’t need quote unquote real dandelions. I have these. Honestly, it’s enough to know that you remembered that they’re my favorite. It’s enough to know that you think of me every time to see them, enough that you want to make sure that I get to see them too. That reallydoesmake me smile.”
