NO CORN WAS HARMED IN THE MAKING OF THIS FIC. ALL ALIEN SPECIES APPEARING IN THIS WORK ARE FICTITIOUS. ANY RESEMBLANCE TO REAL PLANTS, LIVING OR DEAD, IS PURELY COINCIDENTAL.

Seunghyun has never wanted to pollinate another living being like he wants to pollinate Jiyong, the horticulturist who oversees the oxygen garden and plant production on the Campbell. Jiyong’s form is pleasing, and he is incredibly intelligent, and has a great sense of humor. Not to mention the way his eyes light up every time Seunghyun leaves C-Deck and casually drops by the greenhouse to check in on the tomatoes (they had a rough start and he’s concerned, as a fellow photosynthetic lifeform).

The thing that really draws him to Jiyong is the way he talks to the plants under his care. Seunghyun has lived amongst humans for many years now, and has never come across another who speaks to plants as though they can understand him. They can’t (though they do use a more advanced form of signal transduction to communicate with each other), but the fact that Jiyong is always so upbeat with and kind to them makes Seunghyun wish he were part of a more ostentatiously flowering species. Then he could show Jiyong his ual organs in a manner consistent with the most innocent of human courting rituals.

As it stands, he really just wants to stick his stamen into whatever passes for the human equivalent of Jiyong’s stigma.

The biggest problem, the one that is really throwing him for a loop, is that Seunghyun has never felt romantic or ual attraction to any member of any species in his life, and thus has no idea of how to go about informing Jiyong of his interest short of walking up to him and telling him exactly that-- is something his people consider functional, as is the resulting pleasure. The idea that he could even be attracted to a human had only been a flight of fancy until he’d met Jiyong. Seunghyun is an engineer. A scientist. He understands attraction, theoretically, but if he’s ever experienced it himself, he has no frame of reference. Jiyong is it.

Infatuation, he finds, is terrifying in its intensity.

“You showed!” Jiyong laughs when Seunghyun rounds the corner and stands behind the glass door of the greenhouse. His long hair is tied up into a knot on top of his head, though it’s obscured by the hood of his white cleanroom suit. Seunghyun wonders what it would feel like if he were to run his fingers through it. What passes as his own hair, and that of every other member of his species, is grass-like, but Jiyong’s appears to be made of inky black spider silk. Fascinating.

“Of course. Who knows what would happen to the tomatoes if I did not come by every once in a while?”

The smirk on Jiyong’s face makes him look like nothing so much as the ship’s resident communal cat. “Once in a while?” he drawls, dusting black potting soil from his gloved hands. “You’ve been here three times this week.”

“Yes. And?”

“It’s Tuesday. You visited twice yesterday.”

“I came on Sunday as well, but you were not here, and so I left.”

Maybe he shouldn’t have volunteered that information. Jiyong’s eyebrows are creeping slowly toward his hairline. Not for the first time, Seunghyun thinks it would have been a good idea to browse a digital encyclopedia or two about human reproductive rituals. Jiyong is still smiling, however, so he can’t have said anything too horrible.

“Using the tomatoes as an excuse to see me?”

“I did not think I need I needed an excuse.”

Jiyong laughs again, the tips of his ears turning a charming shade of pink. “I guess you don’t. So,” he says as he pulls the blue nitrile gloves from his hands and points to the plant he’s been tending, “are you here for the tomatoes? They’re right on track for harvest. Nothing to worry about, I promise.”

It’s well known that Seunghyun’s species doesn’t prevaricate. They’ve never developed or even understood the need to lie to others of their kind, and they’ve maintained their truthful nature even after finding the opposite seems to be the case with most other species across the universe. Seunghyun hasn’t encountered a problem with being truthful in his approach to… well, anything. He knows enough about human social interactions to realize he should perhaps be a little more circuitous in his approach to wooing Jiyong, but—

“No, today I am here only for you.”

He knows how that must sound to Jiyong. He’s seen romantic human media. If Jiyong was the main character in a theatrical adaptation of their lives, his face would turn red and he would stammer out something to direct the conversation to more neutral territory. But this is not a movie, and Jiyong is no shrinking violet. Even though his entire head is now roughly the shade of one of his hothouse tomatoes. Instead of turning away, he continues walking toward Seunghyun, stopping only once he’s opened the door that separates them. His expression is a mixture of confusion, surprise, and what Seunghyun can only hope is reciprocated interest.

“I mean I came to see you. To speak with you,” Seunghyun clarifies, feeling a bit flustered. And that is a new sensation. He knows what it is to feel anxious, but not in this context. It’s awful and exhilarating at all once. Jiyong must be able to sense his nervousness, because his eyes go soft, crinkling at the corners, and he puts a gentle hand on Seunghyun’s shoulder.

“Come on,” he coaxes, fingers sliding over the thin, silky material of Seunghyun’s engineer’s uniform, “let’s go see if the corn is ready for pollination.”

After replacing his gloves and outfitting Seunghyun in a cleanroom suit and gloves of his own, Jiyong leads them down several corridors. Every few moments he bumps Seunghyun’s shoulder with his, and smiles when Seunghyun blinks at him in confusion. Seunghyun is so focused on the heat of Jiyong by his side, on the flash of his white teeth and the mischievous glint of his dark eyes, that he nearly walks into the glass door that divides the hallway from the nursery. He scowls at the door as though it has personally offended him, and Jiyong snorts in amusement. Once they’re inside, Seunghyun follows Jiyong down a row of flowering corn stalks, watching as the other man examines each one.

“You see the yellowish things up there?” he asks, gesturing at a few offshoots on top of the stalk. “Those are called tassels. And then… here. Check it out.” Jiyong reaches up and pulls the plant closer to them. “These little cylindrical bits hanging off the tassels are anthers. That’s where the pollen is housed. We want to check them to see how close they are to being ready for pollination. Now if I shake this just a little—”

White-yellow dust bursts free of the corn plant, floating into the air and attaching to anything it can find, including both of their faces. There is pollen on Jiyong’s pouty pink lips. There are millions of grains of pollen containing male genetic material on the object of his desire’s face and Seunghyun is afraid he is going to say something about it. He can feel his mouth open, his lungs inflate. Words are about to come spilling out of him and he is going to ruin whatever rapport he has managed to build with Jiyong.

“There’s plant on my face, isn’t there?”

Seunghyun his lips between his teeth and nods slowly, still not trusting himself to say anything.

“Is that why you look like you’ve just been caught watching ?”

This is why humans lie, he realizes. Situations like this are why humans say one thing when they mean another, because Jiyong is right, and Seunghyun is very reluctant to admit it. He has no idea if Jiyong also desires him, or if the feelings he harbors for Seunghyun are entirely platonic. But Jiyong is watching him intently, his expression betraying nothing.

“Your face—i-it is a little obscene,” Seunghyun stammers, and then feels his own face go slack once he realizes what he’s said. Jiyong had begun to wipe the pollen from his skin, but he freezes at Seunghyun’s words, mouth drawing into a thin line. Oh. Oh no. Seunghyun has upset him, and now they will never e and Seunghyun will have to live the rest of his days in regret, playing this moment over and over again in his head. Infatuation makes one stupid, and is possibly the worst thing in the universe.

“I do not mean your face is obscene!” he corrects quickly, though, when he thinks about it… “Your lips may be considered by some to be lewd, but, on the whole, I find you quite pleasing.”

Jiyong’s eyes are wide open, two black holes drawing Seunghyun toward his inevitable demise. And he cannot. Stop. Talking.

“I had not realized it was possible to desire a human, but I desire you, and not only because your face and body are satisfyingly symmetrical. You speak with your plants as though they could speak back, even though I’m sure you know how absurd the notion is. They are quite happy in your care, however. Although my species has evolved vocalized speech, we are still capable of chemical transduction. The tomatoes, in particular, enjoy your attention.” He clears his throat and continues, though he wishes the soil beneath his feet would open up and swallow him into its silent depths. “You are kind, kinder than most beings I have met. You treat others as equals, and do not hold your intelligence as a mark of superiority. I like most everything about you, and I suppose that means I am romantically attracted to you, as well as ually.”

They stare at each other for several tense seconds. Seunghyun can feel moisture collecting under the hood of his cleanroom suit, and has never been happier that he is incapable of blushing. One side of Jiyong’s pollen-dusted mouth has curved upward. His round cheeks are tinged pink, and he doesn’t appear to be angry, but he still hasn’t responded. Not so much as a word, gesture, or noise. Seunghyun’s sympathetic nervous system is preparing for flight.

“Three years on this ship, and you wait until we’re four months out from Iacchus to finally come clean?” Jiyong asks, nose scrunching up in a way Seunghyun has always found adorably child-like. “We could have been exploring your interspecies attraction for years. Mine too, by the way.”

Jiyong grins, and just like that the adrenaline seeps from Seunghyun’s body, leaving him feeling weak and shaky, but exhilarated.

“I am sorry I did not say something sooner,” he breathes, swiping at his sweaty face with his forearm, “but I did not know how to express my desires.”

“Well, you did a bang-up job just now.”

Pollen swirls in the air as Jiyong moves toward him, one gloved hand reaching up to wipe a few stray grains from Seunghyun’s cheeks and chin. The moment could be a scene from a romantic human movie, and, as ridiculous as it sounds even in the privacy of his own mind, Seunghyun feels like he could float away with the pollen Jiyong casually flicks from his fingers.

“I’m going to kiss you, okay?” Jiyong murmurs, so low Seunghyun hardly registers the words. His intent is written clearly on his face, though, and as he leans up, Seunghyun in a steadying breath.

Jiyong’s lips are still covered in pollen, but they are just as soft and warm as Seunghyun could have imagined them to be. A rush of arousal floods his body, and oh, he was not expecting the connection of non-ual tactile sensory organs to cause such a reaction. Kissing is a new concept, and it is wonderful, and they will have investigate its mechanics together many, many more times. Jiyong slowly draws back after a moment, and Seunghyun can’t help but to lean down for more, a tiny gasp escaping him when he realizes he has forgotten to breathe. He also was unaware he’d closed his eyes, and when they open, Jiyong is beaming at him, nitrile-clad fingers hovering over his own mouth.

“Can we do that again?” Seunghyun hears himself ask, and then their lips are pressed back together, a little less carefully. It’s just as enthralling as it was before. Maybe even more so.

“As soon as we’re done walking this field,” Jiyong pants, in between lingering kisses, “we’re going back to my cabin.”

“More kissing?”

“Kissing and more, if you want.”

Seunghyun pulls away first this time, eyes traveling over Jiyong’s flushed face. He does. He wants kissing and more. He wants everything with Jiyong, anything. If kisses make him feel this euphoric, well, he can hardly imagine the heights of emotion that await them in Jiyong’s cabin.

“But maybe a shower, first? Not sure how you feel about, uh, sharing me with another man,” the human jokes, gesturing at the fine dust that still coats his eyelashes and cheeks.

As an answer, Seunghyun leans in and kisses the smile off his pollen-covered face.