The theory of flowers

Four

"What do you want Childe, I'm busy trying to clean up Dottore's mess. Half his test subjects escaped, so I'm very busy," Arlecchino told her fellow harbinger.

"This is important I swear!" He told her, the persistence in his tone almost making her curious.

"Go on," she answered.

"Okay, so do you remember Cyrus L/n? The famously rich businessman who built his fortune by predicting the market? The one who vanished without a trace?", Childe asked, building suspense because the absurdity of the situation was worth it.

"Obviously I do, we've been looking for him for quite some time now," Arlecchino responded, not understanding where he was going with this.

"Yeah, that was half a year ago now. But get this, I was training those useless recruits, and a girl stumbled upon the training encampment, no idea how. What was her name?...Y/n, Y/n L/n," he said with a smirk, so proud of his discovery.

"...his daughter?" she added, trying to piece together information but something wasn't right.

"You're piecing it together now, the man had a son and a daughter, respectively Silas and Sky, L/n. But not a Y/n L/n! Now the next question goes, did Sky change her name to Y/n? Nope, I checked the pictures and they're definitely not the same person. Although, they do look similar...like how siblings are similar," Childe said smugly.

"Are you saying she's a long-lost love child?" Arlecchino asked him.

"That's a possibility, she could've also been kicked out of the house or left of her own volition, or even left for any reason for that matter," the ginger told her, grateful for the lost girl.

"We should interrogate her then, maybe she knows something," Arlecchino said with certainty, only seeing the goal.

"No no, family stuff requires tact and charm. After all, not a lot of people would sell out their own family. Family comes first for a lot of people," Childe said, his own moral values affecting his judgment of the situation.

"Pff, I know better. One's family is oftentimes our greatest enemy," The Knave added, knowing too well that biological or not family could be cruel.

"Whatever you say, let me handle this! And don't meddle because one wrong word could mess up everything," Childe said, knowing that if he asked her to leave him be she wouldn't step out of bounds.

"Sure, with pleasure 11th," she told him, and the conversation ended there.

They bid each other farewell and Childe went on his way to gather some intel about a certain woman.

+++++++++++++

"What about your parents, what do they do?", he asked trying to make it sound like he hadn't read a document long enough to be a novel, with its sole topic being her father.

"Oh, I assumed you knew already," she asked, not wanting to sound pretentious, and for a moment a drop of sweat almost dripped down Childe's back. He thought she had figured him out until something else came out of her mouth.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to sound pretentious, I really did think he was well known. Especially in the business world, which you told me you dabble in," y/n said, trying not to blush from embarrassment.

"Oh, really it's no problem. I have heard of Cyrus L/n if that's who you're referring to. I simply didn't want to assume and be rude," Childe, said with a charming smile to cover his nervousness.

"That's very kind of you but you were correct in assuming that man is my father," she answered with a distant look on her face.

"From the way you refer to him, I take it you too aren't close then," Childe said, chuckling but in reality wanting to roll his eyes because Arlecchino had probably been right about her not being fond of her father.