that-damn-virgo - Tumblr blog

that-damn-virgo · 1 day ago

Text

No Other Shade of Blue, But You || Taiju Shiba

—fluff. slice of life. established relationship. 2.6k+.

a/n: happy birthday to the most beautiful man on this earth, I hope he knows how many times he has saved me from my own self ♡

Loving Taiju comes in shades. Most of them are blue like his streaked, ugly, gelled-back hair. But still, there are few hues hidden beneath the creases of his rough palm that you only got to discover when he first placed it on your cheek and hushed you to calm down after you had a nasty altercation with your insecurities. The color that day was green. Like the grass in Shinjuku Garden where he took you on your first date.

He was silent the whole time. You were the one who did most of the talking.

The weather's nice.

That's a unique shade of rose.

Have you seen this new web series on second world war?

"Hm..."

That's how he replied to your every sentence. His large hands in the pockets of his trousers as he walked silently by your side.

Taiju Shiba has a zero sense of dressing even when his brother's a model and sister no less than a model and his best friend such a great designer. Because like—seriously—who wears a three piece business suit to a picnic date?

"Is it hot in it, Shiba?" you asked, concerned. Your hands curled around the basket heavy with fresh fruits and pie.

He slipped a finger in his collar, clearly sweating. But still said, "no. I'm good."

You stopped in your track and it made him frown. His yellow eyes (the most beautiful yellow eyes) begin to crumple beneath his brows as you handed him the basket and raised your hands to loosen his tie.

"Hey—" he gave out a small, confusing laugh. "Trust me, gremlin. I'm good—"

"When are you going to tell me you lost the investor?" your tone was straight, and it made him froze.

Even though it's your first date with him, you've known him for so many years now that it's not easy to count them on one hand. There are even photographs to prove it. A newborn you in his two years old arm. Crying. Gripping onto his t-shirt with your tiny hand as he himself looked on the verge to break down.

Nothing has changed in those 23 years. You're still that crying thing. Clinging onto him. But he... he grew up faster than you, yuzuha and Hakkai. Silenced himself too fast, too rigidly after his mother died. That Taiju was grey. Until he turned eight and somebody mixed red in his character. Everything he did after that begin to singe in shades of fire.

He was angry. He was angry for several years. And never for once he stopped missing his mother. She told him to be a good brother. But he failed. Terribly. He regrets it even to the date. But... this twenty five years old Taiju isn't red. He's something more solemn. Less noisy. Less rash. Less irritated. And little scared.

"It's their loss, not ours, Taiju." You said, lowering your hands from his tie as he tried to smile but failed. He was with the man who promised to put money on his first restaurant before coming to meet you here with a bouquet of yellow tulips.

Some stupid audit team did a pre-launch analysis of his restaurant and generated a really negative report, causing one of the important stakeholder to withdrew from the equity table just ten days before the opening day. And this is what causing him so much distress.

"There's lot of cash I invested in this business, (f/n)..." Taiju said, his voice, that's generally so strong that it feels like it could even melt a rock suddenly begin to feel so feeble. "If it flopped even before starting—"

"—it won't, Shiba." You moved in closer, your heels bumping with his polished shoes as the world around you both dimmed a little. "You worked so hard for it. Just ten more days. You'll prove everybody wrong."

You searched his face. Any flicker of hope. Any flicker of that suppress smile that he usually wears on his thin lips. But there was none as he looked away. His jaws clenching over the words blooming onto his tongue. His yellow eyes caught a couple yelling at each other in distance before the fountain.

He could forsee a breakup from there. Ugly words. Blames. Calling each other things like "liar", "cheat", "I knew you were never right for me".

It's how every relationship ends. Taiju believed. In hate. In selective amnesia for all the good days. In "I hope we've never met" that would haunt you for the rest of your life.

"It scares me."

Left the words from his lips. It took you a second to connect them. But soon when you saw where he was looking, you became aware of all the thoughts running like neon letters do in the display screens at the train stations.

"Will we turn like them if things go bad?"

You had no answer for this. Because you knew if you said, "no... we won't" he would snap with "They must've said this at some point too. But look at them now..."

So instead of speaking, you placed your hands on his huge ones and made him look away from them and at you.

"I'm sorry..." he said. "This was supposed to be a memorable day and I turned it in—"

"—shut up." You tsked. "It's still a memorable day. I mean, which idiots go on first date after knowing each other for like..." Taiju watched your face crumble as you begin to do the counting in your head. A small, highly invisible smile graced the corner of his lips, as his brain that felt like a clogged kitchen drain since morning started to flow again. "...23 years! God. That's long."

Taiju snorted. Handing you the basket back, he flicked your temple and begin to walk towards the spot that looked less noisy.

"Ow! What was that for!?" He felt your voice follow as you came to glare up at him.

He looked at you and said, "23 is your age. You didn't take in the account the days I spent hating you, miss fog-head."

"You hated me!?" you gasped. A fake expression of exasperation forming on your face that almost made the sad giant chuckle.

"You didn't knew?" Taiju played along. His hands returning back in his pocket as the glint of his wristwatch almost distracted you.

"No." You shook your head. "I thought I was born being loved by you. Don't you remember that one photograph in which—"

"—I threw your face in the cake?"

"No! The one in which you were looking at me like you wanted to marry me!" You said it so fast that it almost took your breath away.

Now you're angry.

Suddenly remembering your tenth birthday on his mention. It was a disaster. He practically grabbed your neck and slammed your face in the strawberry vanilla cake. The taste of which still haunts your nostrils.

"I don't remember any such photograph." Taiju said. Making your mouth drop. "Except this one in which you were "just" born and mom forced me to take you in my arms."

"Don't be nasty, Shiba." You shook your head, slightly hurt. "You weren't forced! Your mom used to say that you pestered the hell out of her to let you hold me."

Taiju rolled his eyes. Coughing. As he recalled his mother recounting the moment you were talking about. However embarrassing, it was true. And now, he felt like burying his face in a hole so you wouldn't get the satisfaction of seeing it so bummed up.

"You're silent because you knew I'm right." You smirked. "Also, I've proof."

Taiju looked down at you and made a face that said, "what?"

You pushed the basket towards his chest and removed your hands from its handle so fast that he almost folded in half to catch it from falling on the grass below. "What are you upto, crybaby?"

You didn't replied to it and took to take your phone out of your bag. Taiju peered down. His own face that she has used as a wallpaper peered up at him. You unlocked the screen and he saw another of his picture decorating your home page.

It was from last year.

Taken on his birthday. It was just you and him and this cake you made for him in his apartment. It was the worst cake he ever had in his whole life. The base was burnt. Icing way too sweet. And the piping looked as if it was done by a five years old. But still... Still... it was the most beautiful cake he ever saw in his life.

His eyes rocked from your phone to your face that held the same determination Hitler had when he proposed the Operation Barbarossa to his team in that new series and it almost made him laugh.

"Look!" As you said, thrusting the phone close to his nose, he was forced to look away from you and at your phone's screen. And there behind the tempered glass was... you.

Tiny. Five. Smiling. In a beautiful white dress with a fairy staff in your hands.

And there, exactly behind you was a boy. Tall. Not more than seven. Standing seemingly frozen.

It was funny how it didn't even took Taiju a jiffy to recognize you from your younger self but took a good amount of time to become aware of the fact that the boy behind you was no one but him.

"Isn't that the face a man make when he wants to... spend eternity with someone?"

Came your question. Softly like the lighting in that picture that looked like it was taken from a photograph.

"You were more honest with your feelings when you were a kid."

As you said this, he found himself taking your phone from your hand.

Suddenly... everything, even you, turned to a backdrop for him. All that existed in the fraction of that moment was him and that picture and your smile and that boy's dazed face.

It all felt so distant. Yet, he could hear that day thumping loudly in his ears.

That photograph was taken by your mother outside the apartment building in which you all used to live. There was a fancy dress competition in your kindergarten that day. Hakkai was in your section. He and Yuzuha were in elementary school. It was only supposed to be you and the cherry blossom tree in the picture. But somehow... Taiju found himself in the moment and your mother ended up clicking the photograph in hurry because somewhere in the background, Hakkai, his little brother, his only brother, his useless brother, fell down from his bicycle and started to make a ruckus about it.

Now what remained of that day was you and him and the scar that Hakkai still have on his right knee.

"You were the most beautiful fairy I've ever seen..." the words left Taiju without his permission and he only realized that when your chuckle reached his ears.

Oh no. He froze. Did Taiju Shiba just let out his inner voice speak out aloud?

"I'm sorry..."

You frowned as he apologized. "For what?"

Taiju... gave that photograph a glance before returning you your phone.

He begin to walk towards the spot he was eyeing from the start. Without a question, you begin to follow him. A cool gust of wind passed from the distance between your bodies and none of you spoke anything for a moment. It was Taiju who dared against the lack of the words.

"You must've felt bad when I told you that you looked like a white pig."

He turned to look at you, and you didn't know what to say. But still, you managed a "yeah, it was kinda mean, yeah" that made him look away from you again.

"You would've won that competition if I hadn't made you cry and it hadn't ended up ruining your face."

Taiju said. Almost as if admitting to a crime. But you shook your head and told him, "no. I would've never. My concept was childish. Love Fairy was a stupid idea."

The way you said this made it hard for Taiju to maintain a serious face and a small laugh slipped from his teeth.

You mirrored him.

And a feeling that felt something like peace and silent afternoon started to nestle in the cracks of your heart.

Loving Taiju comes in shades. And that's true that most of them are blue like his streaked, ugly, gelled-back hair. But there are other's too. Like mango yellow, apricot peach, pearl white and birch brown. You've lived and loved all of them. You've been around him so long that you even outlived those colors that no one would ever associate with him.

Like baby pink. The same one as the rose you once tucked behind his ear. Or the neon orange. Like the friendship band that you gave him in first year of your highschool.

It's crazy how you were born knowing him.

"I wonder is there any way I can apologize for my past actions?" He asked. Not avoiding your gaze this time.

You thought for a second. And shook your head. "It's okay." You said. "We were kids."

Taiju hummed. And I was a bad one. He thought in his head.

"But..."

Your word dragged him out before he could even drift in his thoughts.

"It would be really nice if you can admit to the part that in that picture..." you trailed, a small smile on your face. Taiju waited for you to finish your sentence. "...you were looking at me the way man do when they want to spend forever with someone."

There was a second of silence between you both before Taiju chuckled. Normally, you would've shouted at him for not doing what you say. But... not today.

He turned away. His back to you. All that you could see of him was his pinstriped handsome suit and his ugly, gelled hair. But it was enough to make something in your heart swell up.

Taiju on the other hand, could see nothing of you. There was just this large tree and the shaded spot where he set the basket down gently. He was about to turn to tell you to come up, but before he could get the chance, two arms circled his torso from behind him.

"I hope you know I love you, Shiba...." came the words, vibrating in his spinal fluid as he felt you placed your face against his back.

A smile, small, but there fell on his lips and he said, "I do..."

"I'll never leave you. No matter how many investors you'll lose."

He knew you mean that. He knew how you mean everything you've ever done for a man like him. He's older and wiser but you... you're kind and honest. Two things he never properly learned to be. But you complemented him. And all the shades that he's ever been.

"You know what a man do when he wants to spend forever with someone, gremlin?"

You frowned. "No...?"

Taiju smiled. He lifted his hands, the same ones that has made so many mistakes. The same ones that has felt so lonely and cruel all his life until he held onto yours for the first time three years back.

"He looks at her like his life depends on her and when she catch him looking, he tell her that she look really ugly."

"Like a white pig?"

You asked, once realizing that he was talking about the day that was eighteen years back in time. When he still had his mother and Hakkai didn't had that scar on his right knee and everything was much more easier than it's now and you didn't have to worry about university stuff and he didn't have to worry about the investors and cap table.

"Exactly like a white pig."

"I would've killed you that day if I had a knife."

Taiju begin to laugh, and the sound of it took to paint the summer sky silver. Loving him really comes in shades. And it is not always blue.

*:･ﾟ✧ thank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed it ♡

#tris-spilled-the-ink #taiju shiba #taiju shiba x reader #taiju x reader #shiba taiju #tokyo revengers #tokyo revengers x reader #tokrev

16 notes · View notes