Flower [Hetalia]

❥ chapter V

"What is the occasion?"

"I'm afraid I've crossed my neighbour a little, and since he's very interested in flowers, I wanted to give him a bouquet to appease him," you explained to who you assumed was the owner of this little store. "He told me that he's coming here often to buy flowers, so you might know him. His name is Tim—"

"De Vries, right?" the brunette woman cut you off. The corners of her mouth turned upwards as a smirk slowly built on her lips.

You nodded. "Exactly."

"He's not only one of my best customers, he's also my dear brother." She extended her hand to you. "I'm Alice Lebeau, but just call me Alice. Nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you too, Alice," you replied, shaking hands with her. "I'm [First name] [Last name]. So, can you help me choose the right flowers for Tim?"

"Absolutely. I know just the right flower for him." The smirk on her lips grew wider for unknown reasons, and it made you quirk an eyebrow at her questioningly, but she chose to ignore it. Instead, she pointed to a particular set of flower buckets with a sweeping movement of her hand. "Tulips are his all-time favourite flowers."

There were white, yellow, orange, pink, red, blue, black, and even multi-coloured tulips, with two buckets for every colour. You crouched down to examine them better and gingerly touched the silky-smooth petals of a yellow tulip.

"What would you recommend?" you asked eventually, after vacantly staring at the tulips, lost in thought, and looked up at Alice for help. "I'm kind of spoilt for choice here. What is his favourite colour, perhaps? Does it happen to be one of the tulip's colours?"

"His favourite colours are red, white, and blue," she answered. She had reduced her broad grin to a smile in the meantime, though there still was something sly to it that boded ill, but you shook off the unfounded feeling of sneaking suspicion. "Want me to make a bouquet out of them?"

"Yes, please," you answered while standing up.

"Will do!" Alice gathered some tulips of the three mentioned colours and nimbly arranged them to a lovely bouquet with other ornamental plants and flowers on the checkout counter. "Here you go, [Name]," she said as she gave you the bouquet wrapped in white waxed paper. "I'm sure Tim will forgive you."

"I really hope so." You paid for the bouquet and beamed at her. "Thank you very much for your help, Alice. I appreciate it. Have a nice day."

She smiled brightly at you. "You're welcome, and same to you."

You two waved at each other when the entrance doors to the store automatically slid open in front of you. Then, you stepped out into the bustling street and set off for Tim's house. Fortunately, the bouquet survived the crowds in the streets on the way to your car and the car ride back home after that completely unscathed. You wouldn't want to give Tim an even just slightly damaged bouquet since he loved flowers so much and probably wouldn't accept it anyways.

You parked your car on your driveway as usual and walked over to Tim's house with the bouquet of tulips in one hand, using the other to ring the doorbell. You patiently waited for him to open the door, swaying back and forth on the balls of your feet and promptly stopping as soon as the door was opened.

Tim looked you straight in the eye at first—kind of making you jump a little, mind you. But then he took notice of the bouquet in your arms and stared at it instead, hints of surprise registering on his face and his green eyes widening just a tiny little bit.

"Good day, Mr. de Vries," you said cheerfully and held out the bouquet to him. "I wanted to give you this as a token of my apologies for the trouble I caused you earlier this morning. I'll try my best to never let something like that happen again."

The smouldering cigarette between his lips wandered from one corner of his mouth to the other. His gaze was fixated on you again. "Where'd you get that?" he asked.

"Uh ..." You were taken aback by this unexpected question of his. You had actually expected a yes or a no concerning your offer, but you still answered him, "I drove to the flower shop you told me about the other day. Your sister is working there, and she arranged this bouquet for me."

Nodding slowly, he took the bouquet from your hands. "Dank je wel. And please call me Tim."

Wow, this was something you hadn't expected either. 'Seems like I'm finally on a personal basis with him. But why this sudden change of thought?' you wondered. "You're welcome, Tim," you replied, a smile tugging at your lips. "You can call me [Name], of course. So, you accepted my apology, right? You're not mad at me?"

"I never was to begin with," Tim said as he swiftly leaned back to put the bouquet down on something standing in the hallway of his house. "It's not your fault that your friend threw up in front of my house."

You scratched your cheek bashfully. "Well, that's right."

He then proceeded to look at you for some moments, seemingly deeply absorbed in his thoughts and not saying a single word until he finally spoke up, "Are you allergic to animal hair?"

You shook your head, yet arched an eyebrow in an inquisitive manner, but of course, your silent question was as always ignored. Maybe you should start to actually ask them out loud and not just silently ...

"Would you like to come in? I just made some tea."

You glanced towards your house. You had told Antonio that you would be gone only for a short while, but he was still sleeping in all probability, meaning that he wouldn't notice. It wouldn't do any harm to drink a cup of tea with Tim, would it?

"Sure thing." You smiled. "Thanks a lot for the invitation."

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dank je wel = thank you