Summary: Hakuba receives eight roses, varying in color. He doesn't know what they mean, until he does. And he has a reply for his secret admirer. /HakuKai, slight AoAka/

GA: I love flower language so much? I just adore both hanakotoba and English interpretations, and I...ugh.

Enjoy!

EIGHT ROSES

One blue, three orange, four red, all thornless. All in all, eight roses sitting neatly on his desk. The bouquet attracts quite a bit of attention, some of it from fellow classmates, but most of it from the recipient himself.

Hakuba Saguru is...not used to having admirers.

He picks up the solitary blue rose and begins inspecting it, recognizing it as the shade of blue that they sell at the florists down the street (a quick color change using a white rose and food dye). He's all too familiar with what blue roses represent. The impossible, the unattainable. No, he's not used to having admirers at all, not when his European stature is intimidating to most of his classmates and his Japanese features make him too slight to be attractive to any of his friends back at home.

The orange roses come next, desire and enthusiasm. Well, if they're this forward with their feelings, the enthusiasm is definitely received. He wonders if it's a prank, but it's too elaborate to be a prank. A confession is obvious, but he has to wonder if the person has chosen the wrong desk.

The last to be examined are the four red roses, bright Hallmark flowers that bring a similar shade to his cheeks. Their quality is far superior to any possible flower shop - homegrown? - and their meaning is obvious, the plot point in many a romantic movie. Love, beauty, passion. The four roses have almost no blemishes between them, save for the jagged cuts where thorns were snipped from stems. Still, the choppiness of the actions are fitting. Perfect imperfections.

One blue, three orange, four red, all thornless. The only thing that confuses Hakuba is the number. Eight. Seven roses signifies infatuation, nine is a symbol of everlasting, but eight roses have no meaning. Neither does four, oddly enough, the number of red roses meaning nothing in flower language. One rose, one blue, is love at first sight, while the three oranges are I love you, plain and clear, but yet no outstanding translation for the four red roses.

It puzzles him all day.

He's too absorbed in the mystery of the eight roses - one, three, four - that he doesn't notice how Kaito has been quiet all day, or how Aoko and Akako give him odd looks, worried that the detective hasn't tried to trick the magician into confessing about being Kaitou KID. At the moment, eight roses are all that matter.

'The moment' stretches into lunch, then study hall, until it's the end of the day and he still can't for the life of him decipher the meaning of the roses. "Hakuba-kun, you need to relax," Aoko assures him, trying to calm him even as she glances down at her phone, a slight blush working its way up her face. The number, he notices as he glances down at the text she has just received, corresponds to Koizumi's, and while a text from her girlfriend isn't unusual in and of itself, the contents of the message baffles him.

"Ichi shi san," he mutters mostly to himself, but Aoko hears him and flips her phone shut, her blush increasing in intensity. "If you don't mind me asking, Aoko-kun, what does that mean?"

Her fluster is abated by the fact that he doesn't understand, and she looks at him curiously - he would almost say knowingly, but he puts that aside. "You don't know what it means?" She asks for clarification, and he shakes his head. "Oh, I thought you'd know for sure, since it's a Western saying. It means I love you."

It makes sense, he determines, one-four-three the letters in each word. I love you, one four three...one three four. Blue, red, orange.

He almost drops the roses in surprise.

Even as Aoko calls out to ask him where he's going, he collects the flowers in his hands and races out of the school. Everything makes sense, and he's suddenly a mess, and wow that's so damn clever and witty and probably even cute.

Although, to be frank, he isn't quite sure if he would have expected any less.

Eight roses sit in a vase on his desk the next week, all of them a bright blossoming red. The ensemble attracts quite a bit of attention, most of it from fellow classmates, but very little of it from the recipient himself.

Kuroba Kaito is...very used to having admirers.

He admits that none of them have done this much, but there's a first time for everything, and that word of mouth must have spread that he's refused the last five girls who had made him personal bento for lunch. It's not that he doesn't like food - he'd be the first person to say that the way to his heart is through his stomach - but rather that none of them are made by Hakuba.

He prods at the red roses, slightly curious but also slightly deterred by the number. Love, beauty, passion, all obvious meanings for the crimson blossoms, something that everybody and their mother is aware of. It's not thought-provoking, not like the teen he wants roses from, and thinks nothing of the gift. He knows his secret admirer will reveal herself - or himself, he was well received by both persuasions after all - soon, and instead focuses on his heist for that night, and how to both humiliate the Task Force and woo his Brit.

He's so deep in thought that he doesn't notice the way Hakuba keeps glancing at him, or how Aoko and Akako keep whispering under their breath and giggling. He doesn't notice much until it's the end of the day, and he's concerned that his secret admirer hadn't approached him at lunch, or even during study hall. Still, it's of no concern to him, and he carries the vase home, mind only barely lingering on the admirer.

After all, he's not concerned with his suitor, not if it's not his detective.

Kaito is legitimately floored when he escapes to the rooftop that night, and discovers three ruby red roses taped delicately to the railing. They're wrapped in silk ribbon and caution tape, and his heart flutters imperceptibly, because there are only a handful of people who could possibly have left them there. He picks them up and twirls them in his hand with the intent of putting them in the vase at home, eight and three making eleven, and he almost drops the small bundle.

That damned sly fox.

He almost regrets not sticking around for tantei-san to wake up from a weak dose of sleeping gas so he could bid him farewell, but the look on Nakamori-keibu's face is enough as he tosses him the heist target and takes off into the sky, a hopeful smile on his face at the eight red roses who have three new friends joining them.

This time, there aren't eight roses, and none of them are red, but it's much better this way, Kaito decides, as he leans against the doorframe, surveying the blond sitting on his school desk with a smile. There's just one rose in his hand, a deep blue that looks home-formed. Kaito stares at Hakuba, and Hakuba stares back, holding the rose out, somehow awkward yet confident at the same time.

"Twelve is a much nicer number than eight, don't you agree?"

Kaito simply smiles wider, a grin with emotions rivalling the eleven red roses at home, yet coming nowhere close to the one in his detective's hand.

"Yeah," he says finally, accepting the twelfth, blue rose even as an orange rose blossoms in Hakuba's shirt pocket. "But I think that one is the nicest."

GA: Cheesy fluff? A lot of symbolism, too! Some of it wasn't explained, so-

The colors of the roses were all explained - red is love, blue is unattainability/impossibility, and orange is desire/enthusiasm. In this case, though, blue stood for Kaito while orange stood for Hakuba. Therefore, I (blue rose, Kaito) love (red roses, love) you (orange roses, Hakuba).

Some of the numbers were explained, but not all. Eight roses actually have no meaning. Eleven roses means that somebody is truly loved and treasured, which was Hakuba's intent with giving Kaito the next three roses. Twelve roses is a proclamation of dating, or steady love, but a single rose signifies the only person I love, basically a sign of devotion.

Anyways, that was a lot of explanation. 'Til next time!

~G. Annihilator