Duskwood: Petals | Jake x MC

-1-

Some years after episode 10.

Ana has hated Valentine's Day since school: all those pieces of pink cardboard, the sudden need to show feelings...

Ana:
This holiday is overrated and raised to a cult 😡
The couples around are going crazy! They walk, hold hands, hug and kiss... Infuriating
[16:01]
Tell me that at least you understand me, huh?
[16:02]

Jake:
So you do not even think that I can participate in "the crazy couples festival?"
:)
[16:02]

Ana:
You? A guy who's been wanted for more than 4 years?
In a relationship and openly goes outside?
Nah
You're not an idiot 😐
[16:02]

Jake:
It seems to me that you could do without such comments.
[16:03]

Ana:
Srryy 🙏
You know, sometimes I can be too harsh... Peace, gum, friendship? 🥺
[16:03]

Jake:
It is okay... I am used to it :)
But it was "Peace, friendship, gum" there. I looked at it on purpose.
[16:04]

Ana:
Boring programmer
[16:04]

Jake:
I am :)
But you know, Ana, your reaction to this holiday...
[16:04]
You remind me now of a loner who gets angry because she's a little jealous.
[16:05]

Ana:
Oh, yeah l
[16:05]

Jake:
Ana?
[16:05]
What happened?
[16:06]

Ana herself didn't fully understand what had happened. She was just hastily shuffling her feet in the crowd in order to quickly find herself in the walls of her apartment, isolated from the romantic craziness and suddenly a van with a garish painting pierced millimeters from her face. And that felt like... It was as if they had hooked a fur hood at the last moment and held it, so now she was sitting under a traffic light and not...

"You have to be careful, girl, very careful," a raspy voice.

She was lightly slapped on the back somewhere in the area of the shoulder blade. She turned around — a short old man was smiling and holding out her phone with a cracked screen. And why did it seem that the rest of the passers-by simply did not see both of them?..

"Y-yes... Exactly... Thank you..."

The old man nodded — how funny his long silver mustache snaked! In any other situation, Ana would definitely smile. He nodded, clapped on the shoulder once more and walked away into the crowd. Ana was almost sure she heard him muttering, "What a  trouble, now I have to account for the extra arrow." She shook her head. Everything could seem due to fear! Although there was still a tingling sensation on her back, where the old man had touched her...

Her hands were shaking a little as she got up, walked to the corner of a large brick building, turned on the phone again.

Ana:
Holy macaroni...
I think I was almost smeared across the crossroads... Oh, FSM*...
[16:10]
Oh, I mean, I'm fine now, I was just a little scared
[16:11]

Jake:
Annabel.
We are going to have a serious conversation.
[16:11]

Ana:
Maybe it's not necessarily?
[16:11]

Jake is now offline

She took a deep breath of the frosty air and on wobbly legs, holding on to the rough buildings and sticky cold stacks, and went straight ahead. Ana was wandering the streets. She didn't want to go home, because there would probably already be a boring hacker waiting there to properly scold for inattentiveness on dangerous sections of the road, like a dumb kid. Jake was very fast when he needed to be. He appeared out of nowhere for a couple of hours and disappeared into nowhere, leaving only memories and a very special Jake's smell on towels and sheets. She didn't want to go home, but here's a problem: on February 14th, it's simply impossible to go anywhere without bumping into at least one cute twittering couple, and she began to feel sick just looking at this cloying picture. Of the two evils, it was worth choosing the lesser to minimize losses.