favorite flower | a short kanej fanfic

1: INEJ

There she was, running towards her parents. Nothing about this seemed real. The smile on her father's face, the tears of joy running down her mother's face, even the memory of Kaz's hand wrapped around hers; These things seemed too good to be true, and yet here they were. And it was all because of the bastard of the barrel.

    "Mama. Papa," she said, voice cracking as she sobbed in their arms.

    "Inej, my darling," her father said. The roughness in his voice was something she had never thought she would have the privilege of hearing again.

    "We miss you terribly. We both do," her mother said. Inej noted the way her tears glistened as the sun hit her mother's Suli skin.
Her eyes wandered across her parents' face. She wanted to remember every single detail of this moment—afraid that at any moment she would wake up and all this would be a cruel dream.

    Her father did not hesitate to bombard her with questions. "Oh darling, we have so much to tell you! How have you been doing? Please tell me you've been taking good care of yourself. Your mother and I—"

    He stopped abruptly as his eyes diverted behind her. "Mr. Brekker."

    "Please, call me Kaz," he said as he extended an arm out to Inej's father.

    "Kaz," her mother said solemnly. "We cannot thank you enough."

    Inej turned to him. If anyone else saw Kaz's face at that moment, they would
think he was up to no good. They would mistake the curve of his lips as a devious smirk. But the way his eyes lit up told Inej otherwise. Kaz Brekker was smiling. The man people feared—the man who had people begging on their knees, was smiling as he looked at the girl before him. That was the moment she knew that she was willing to wait for however long it takes for his armor to come off. Whether it took a day or a decade for those gloves to come off, she knew that it would all be worth it in the end if it meant seeing him smile.

    The joy she was feeling at that moment made everything that came before fade to noise. The menagerie, the impossible heists, the ache of the past. They still ate her away of course, but this moment was proof that anything was possible. She knew that someday she could walk through West Stave without the fear of seeing one of her past clients. And maybe, just maybe, someday she wouldn't need all those knives to make her feel safe.