Silent Beauty

Chapter 28: Flower Language

No One's POV:

A red rose symbolizes love.

A pink rose symbolizes friendship.

A yellow rose symbolizes happiness.

An orange rose symbolizes desire.

A white rose symbolizes purity.

A cream rose symbolizes gratitude.

A green rose symbolizes growth.

Did no one else find it strange that colors determine a meaning? Why can't a green rose symbolize love? Why can't pink be desire?

Why does a thornless rose symbolize love at first sight?

Arthur had had these questions for a long, long time. The question only expanded further when his teacher gave the newest English assignment: to write a story about the rose color they were assigned.

Arthur, (un)lucky as he was, was not assigned a color like Lovino (he got pink). His teacher wanted to test his limits and assigned him something else.

Arthur had to write a story about why a thornless rose symbolized love at first sight.

He wanted to know, first, why? Who came up with the idea that roses and their colors meant something? Who thought a flower was a good way to express love or joy or hatred?

He remembered stories from his mother about the Moon Goddess and her lover the Star God. He created a flower, the rose, pure white like the light of his love to symbolize her purity from the world.

Did the Star God, Astéri, create the other roses as well? Did he create flowers and the world for his love?

Wow, Arthur really needed to touch up on his religious studies.

Arthur sat at his desk miserably. He didn't know what to write about for this story. He wasn't sure where to start! How do you start writing about a flower's meaning when you don't understand why it has a meaning?

Maybe...maybe he didn't have to know. Maybe it was just a known thing. No different than the knowledge of the sky being blue and that he was an omega.

It was just something that was known.

A thornless rose was love at first sight, and Alfred gave him a thornless rose that day in the gazebo.

Arthur had kept the flower, now withered and dry, in the same drawer that he kept the sticky notes in. Each sticky note was numbered at the bottom so when he reread them, he'd know the exact order of their conversation. (Was that weird? It didn't feel weird. It was like rereading texts but on paper.)

Did Alfred know the meaning of thornless roses? Was he aware of the message he gave Arthur?

Oh look at that, his anxiety is back. Yay.

"Arthur?" There was a knock on the omega's door and he looked up, unsure who it was. He stood up and walked over to it, surprised to see Dylan. He opened the door further and brought him in, noticing the tech in his ears.

The school finally got more hearing aids, enough for every student that needed them. That meant Feliciano had some too!

Arthur squealed and made noises, jumping when he saw Dylan's hearing aids. Dylan laughed.

"I can hear now. Been too long. Voice sounds strange." He spoke in fragmented English, and in a bit of his old accent.

The alpha was right. It had been months since his old hearing aids broke. They hadn't been replaced fast enough.