||FINISHED|| Pink Roses (JSAB Fresh x Reader)

It's not Over

"Couldn't sleep." She sighed. "This is like, the only place in the damn place where I can get some privacy without being stuck in a freezing cold bathroom that smells like piss."

'Oh. Okay.'

Silence.

"(Y/N), lemme just ask you something - why exactly did you start... dating... that Dickwad?"

'Excuse me, Dickwad? Fresh?'

"He's a Fresh Dickwad?"

"No, that's actually his name!"

"Fresh?"

'Well... Not his real name but what he asked me to call him.'

She nodded. "Okay. Anyways, answer the question."

'He was nice... And he took care of me, he's one of the few people to ever treat me so kindly-'

Lumina snorted and started laughing. I blinked. What was so funny to her? The damn guy is DEAD and she's laughing!

"Nice... Took care of you... Ah man, that's hilarious..."

'What?' Mordecai turned his body towards her. 'What did he ever do to you?'

Her expression darkened and her smile dropped. Fear? 

"Let's just say... I won't be eating meat for a while..." She shuddered as she hugged her elbows close. I could see a flash of mixed emotion in her eyes. It was a mixture of hatred and fear. What did he do to her? "Especially not raw..."

Silence.

"How's your arm?" She asked. It was the first time she'd seen me since I had locked myself up in my room, so I guess it was only appropriate to ask.

I lifted up my left sleeve and exposed my arm. She nodded.

"The colour's less pink than the last time I saw it." She examined the colour. Ever since the thorns of the rose had sunk themselves deeply into my palm, and subsequently, for some reason I couldn't explain, Corrupt my left arm, it has been dyed the same colour as Fresh's skin. She was right - the colour was less angry, it was very slowly returning back to its natural shade of (S/C), and thankfully it didn't hurt anymore, but occasionally it would flare up. I still don't understand how the thorns of a dead rose could be so sharp. And the weirdest part is - if I touch the ring Trinity gave me with my right hand, nothing will happen, I won't feel any pain, but if I touch it with my semi-corrupted Left arm, it will burn.

'Yeah... I guess...'

"How're you getting on with finals?" She asked, changing the subject. Seemed like the only appropriate question given that our end-of-year exams were approaching rapidly. So was summer. I was going to be graduating soon, this is honestly scary, not to mention that I'll be moving out of the Orphanage as soon as I do so.

Lumina and Tetra both have somewhere to go to because Quin, their older brother having graduated already, managed to get an apartment. Since the four of them were the people who "saved" Paradise, they were given a handsome reward, half of which they spent buying a house that they were all planning on moving into. And besides, since the three of them will be moving in there - that means that Pi, who still technically has a year left before he's supposed to graduate, moves out of the Orphanage early to live with his siblings. And meanwhile I won't have anywhere to go to. I'll have a little bit of financial support when I move out, but that's only a little. I'll be all alone, in the outside world, not having any idea how to live. It's scary.

"I'm... well..." I tried to answer her question. I'm honestly doing horribly. After I lost Fresh, all I could find the energy to do was to lie in bed and stare at the wall, unblinking, unmoving as the hours passed by. Nobody questioned why, they just assumed that something bad happened to me during the "dark days", which they called it. Kinda ironic considering those days were the happiest days of my life. I was screwed for exams, honestly, but I couldn't find the ability to care. "Doing... great."