(Canceled.) Osmanthus (TWST X F!Zhongli Mc)

❤️09. Painting Roses

"The rumored what now?" Deuce asked.

"You guys haven't heard? There's a rumor going around that she's foreign royalty visiting our school to check out the competition." He said as I raised a brow.

"While I do indeed hold a relatively high position back home, I'm afraid that it's nothing akin to royalty." I said as Grim laughed a little, earning a glare from Xiao.

"Oh, by the way, it's cool if I post these pics on Magicam, right? Gimme your names so I can tag you!" He said to the boys, who had been caught in the so-called "pic" of his.

"I'm Deuce Spade."

"Ace."  Ace said this as he crossed his arms, looking rather unhappy with this whole situation.

"I'm Grim, and that's my Henchman Xiao!"

"I'm not your lowly henchman..." Xiao said as I shook my head slightly.

"Uploaded, sweet!" He said as he looked at the rectangular device in his hands.

"Oh, I'm Cater Diamond, by the way. I'm a junior here at Heartslaybul. But just Cater is fine. Or Cay-Cay if you're cray-cray! Nice to meetcha!"

I smiled lightly and nodded.

"My name is Hana. It's a pleasure to meet you, Cater." I said as he grinned.

"Oh, you're the prefect of that so-called Ramshackle Dorm, right? Like, I can't believe you actually live there!" He said as I paused, confused by what that meant.

"It's all gloomy and looks like hot garbage on Magicam. No filter could save that dump." He continued.

Ah, so he was making fun of our dorm then...

"You know, you've done nothing but diss us here, Pal! Hana worked hard to make the inside look better than how the outside of your dorm looks wacky!" Grim yelled as I smiled down at said cat.

Cater looked about ready to retort when he suddenly paused.

"Gah, what am I doing?! I don't have time to chat! The party's tomorrow, and if we're not ready, it's off with my head!" Cater said as he went back to waving his pen at the roses.

"Hey, you kids wanna help me paint some roses?" He asked as he changed their color with magic.

"Yeah, uh... Why are you doing this exactly?" Ace asked.

"Because red roses are so much more photogenic! Or something...?" Cater said as I hummed.

"Are roses white here naturally? Where I come from, they are usually purple." I asked curiously.

My brother liked to learn about flowers due to our mutual friends' influence, but it had rubbed off onto me somewhat as well, it seemed.

"Purple roses?" Deuce asked as Cater hummed.

I nodded before pulling a Sumeru Rose from thin air.

In actuality, it had come from what the outlanders had called my "inventory."

"Whoah, I've never seen one like that before!" Ace said as Cater looked over at it in surprise.

"They're called Sumeru Roses, after the nation they are found in." I said as Grim stared at it.

"Grim, you can't eat this one. It's not edible to humans nor monsters." I said as he frowned.

"Darn!" He said as I then put it away.

"Right, well to answer your question, roses can be red, pink, white, or, if consistently exposed to magic, blue, but I don't know what color these were originally." He said as I nodded.