Shades of Petals

Left Alone With Just My Thoughts

"Are you sure about that?" Yosano pushed. "No one that makes you feel strange? Someone you're oddly really happy around and enjoy being with? Who gives you funny feelings in your stomach or makes your heart act out?"

Atsushi felt tense, hands curling into fists and her mind trying not to think about what she said. "N-no," she denied again, but a flash of a smug face, a soft smile that made her want to smile, clear blue eyes she looked into for too long, and soft golden hair she liked touching when she could...

She swallowed and closed her eyes, shaking her head in denial. "No."

As if to prove her wrong or the universe was mocking her, despite the door being locked, Francis opened the door and entered eagerly.

"Don't break doors and barge in like you own the place, Fitzgerald-san," Yosano huffed, but Atsushi went stock still and silent, looking at Francis blankly while the familiar pressure of pain in her chest, along with her heart going out of control, began and made her entire being fill with dread.

A fullness from her chest was crawling up her, up through her throat and until she was again coughing up petals.

"Ah, geez. Still with the petals, Atsushi?" she dimly heard Francis asked.

They were different this time —a striped pattern that was pretty, mostly white and tinged with red, almost like the white petals had been tainted with blood...

She laughed weakly and looked to an amused, sympathetic Francis watching her with his pretty blue eyes and firmly shut her mind and feelings down, filling herself with complete denial.

Atsushi focused on him, refusing to see Yosano glance between them and gain a sorrowful expression colored with resignation, even though from the corner of her eye she'd seen and knew what the other was thinking and had put together.

Because it wasn't true.

She was not in love with a man so desperately grieving and missing his estranged, unhappy wife and deceased daughter.

༻❁༺

Atsushi watched her legs swinging back and forth, waiting for Francis to come back with the takoyaki he'd been so eager to try. Fascinated by the strangeness of Japanese cuisine, he'd run across the snack somehow and had wanted to try it immediately, heading to the Agency to drag her with him.

"I'm back," Francis said, holding up the containers. "It smells good? I hope it'll taste good too," he said dubiously.

She smiled at that, though it was tired and probably not as normal as she'd wish it'd be. "It's fine. I don't think your delicate stomach will mind."

"My stomach isn't delicate!" he protested, but he laughed after and handed her a container before sitting next to her. "Mind you, I might actually have an iron stomach —I think I can eat anything."

"If you say so," she said doubtfully, trying to ignore the dull ache in her chest while trying to keep on smiling at him.

"Is there somewhere else you want to go?" he asked her, already forking one of the takoyaki balls. She filched one of her own with chopsticks and put it into her mouth, chewing in thought.

"No, nothing comes to mind," she said after swallowing her bite of food down. "What about you?" she asked, deciding to humor him a little longer.

Francis glanced at her. "We could walk by the docks."

She blinked, having not expected that. She opened her mouth, only to cough for a few seconds, petals escaping from her and she blushed, irritated with herself. She glanced at him but he was waiting patiently, even though he was smiling in amusement.