roses. | eren x levi

roses. | eighty-three

on the prime of mr. and mrs. rose's matrimony, mr. rose went to visit the flower shop for the ultimate time.

it wasn't that mrs. rose was, in any manner, skeptical of mr. rose and mr. florist's association. she intentionally kept her long fingers out of affairs her fiance had not already familiarized her with. it was simply because they had organized a state transition after they were espoused.

it was time to purchase the marital bouquet.

mr. rose had questioned if he should compensate for the bridal bouquet times beforehand, allowing mr. florist time to develop it and such. but mrs. rose, the bride and terminal decision-maker of all, had merely requested twelve roses, nostalgic to how they met.

so the groom of a rather humble noblewoman stood at the entrance of the flower shop, sharpening his voice to yell for the owner to unlock the door. though this time, unlike the various separate times, the door was already unhitched, but mr. rose could not locate the florist anywhere.

black petals wafted from inside and past his head. he had never seen such obscure blossoms exit the shop before, nor ever seen them on display.

maybe this day was also an exceptional day for the florist?

levi couldn't suppose so. even if today was a day a commemoration for the man behind the counter, what could he possibly be reveling for?

levi had never considered inquiring about his story, but he assumed that he was an unfrequented fellow, with levi's appearance the only thing he looked forward to. and it was so blatantly apparent the man would oppose levi's proclamation to marry, so why would he felicitate levi with flowers?

levi took a step into the shop, noticing that these petals swimming in the ambiance were also disseminated onto the ground, amongst many other opaque colors. the sharp fragrance of citrus was so overbearing, it made him featherbrained. he crumbled to the carpet, and the door shut behind him.

the tumultuous mechanical buzzing of architecture became a distant shriek now. there was nobody on the street to testify for levi's entry or question why he never exited.

the leaves on the ground were indeed of a rose, but they felt too fleshy, appeared too vigorous to be a conventional flower. he had only seen petals resembling these twice, and those both correlated from the flowers planted in mr. florist's own abdomen.

levi gradually stood up and glanced around. if these petals were of the same flowers that feasted on the florist to shine, then why were they concealing every platform, instead of nestling conciliatingly inside the man's body?

had eren finally given up?

he reached the table now, but it was, likewise, covered in sepals. he could see a paper's salient corner stick out, and he plucked it, shaking off everything remaining on top of it.

the words seemed as if they were formulated in a fluster, and the ink had been splotched.

he hadn't hesitated to glimpse behind the bar for mr. florist by this time. instead, he stared at the note that was recorded in noxious black ink.

thank you, levi. you truly have left me with no regrets.

levi looked beyond the counter, recognizing the last thing he aspired to see.

the hazy, unfocused eye of mr. florist peeping through a bundle of black corollas.

levi flung to his side, immediately attempting to rescue eren's corpse. the tears were too frightened to stream, and his hands were too unsteady to make a process. with progressive movement, levi realized that eren's figure was no longer recognizable.

skin had been supplanted with viridescent crawling plants that crept their way to the carpet, slithering around levi's feet like serpents. flowers had bloomed in areas where vines didn't linger, covering his adam's apple and traveling upward, even into his ear. contrary to the thousands of black flowers that coated his throat, there was a grand white rose established at the peak of his head.

levi edged closer to eren and studied his face, a soothing reaffirmation that the body with florets for fingerprints and legs so feeble they were rendered incompetent was that of mr. florist, the character he envied so fondly.

remarkably enough, despite his limbs dangling by a single thread, he smiled when he died. the smile was still present, though he was far beyond corporeal existences.

levi brought up his hand to stroke eren's thinned hair, vipers poking and prodding from within. even among such a benign touch as his, the mouth had already hung open.

a white rose like the one on his head grew on his tongue, showcasing itself in front of him, a proper distraction. the plants growing from his mouth plainly unfolded themselves from the confined space to maintain the enclosure of vines that levi was now confined in.

he could not precisely register the reality that eren's body did not stink of death, or look much like a customary carcass. his disconnected parts simply looked like props to an exhibition, the frame to a masterpiece. he seemed like a beautiful rose shrub.

levi enveloped his hand around the stem of the white rose, feeling the thorns puncture his hands, but did not cease until he ripped it out.

how could levi generate so much anguish to the man to cause him to die in a flurry of sepulture flowers, and not display the last flower the man could ever give him as contemptuously as he could tolerate?

how could levi permit eren to exist in levi's novel, as his dramatic tragedy, but not hold on to something to treasure him as his story advanced?

the flower was disconnected from eren's body. the instant that levi touched the petal, the chastity of the rose turned into a wicked black. the vines from eren's mouth had flown to levi's neck, suffocating him and stabbing him with their prickles.

that was when levi realized it.

the black petals did not symbolize eren's death, the passing of a pretty florist. it was the concluding cleanse of eren's errors, corrupt filth that swelled up over years, decades. these were the delusions and the weaknesses of mr. florist summed up in the tears of a flower.

and just like that, his transgressions had been washed clean too.

the vines from eren's mouth swiftly divided into two particular parts, some retracting back into eren's mouth and latching on to other vines. either way, levi was being pulled by the throat closer to eren, to the point that they were touching noses.

he couldn't breathe. he couldn't force the contaminated oxygen in this flower shop to go to his lungs, and he couldn't promise that he would live to experience his honeymoon.

a bundle of vines intertwined together to make one dutiful javelin pointed at levi's back and intruded through his body. his white suit altered to a profound red, and now, he was declared impassive.

he was squandering blood rapidly, but the infected plasma that trickled onto the floor solely refreshed the flowers and made them even more tantalizing.

and as levi took his final gasp for air, he gave it to eren.

he achieved the floral bond between soulmates, he fulfilled the true intentions of the roses. their crimes were shared and accumulated as one, and the peduncle on eren's head withdrew itself to form a spiraling stem on the both of their heads, producing a rose with a chroma so mahogany it would only be affiliated with pretentiousness and aloofness.

and as levi exhaled, he did not give eren a fragment of consciousness. instead, they both had given up their humanities.

the kiss of death had been performed.