Clear Blue (also on Amino somewhere...)

Roses

Month 7, Day 7 

Cobalt didn't think that roses were anything to be afraid of. Sure, he was afraid of a person named Rose, but he's always thought that roses were pretty and that was it. The rose Melapetals were all sweet, to boot. The Orange ones favored Cider (which was to be expected from a person whose name was a shade of orange), and the Red ones never seemed to stop pestering Scarlet who never really minded the extra attention. The Yellow ones absolutely loved Amber's energy, and the Green ones (yes, those existed) nuzzled Viridian for a lot longer than the rest of them. It goes without saying that the Manager won over the affections of literally every Melapetal in the greenhouse- her charm was way too strong for them to ignore.

But alas, there was no such thing as a Blue Rose breed- because those didn't exist in real life either. Science wasn't kind to the color blue in plants, apparently.

Case in point, the roses were fine to him... at least before today.

There was a sweet couple in the district known for how unbelievably compatible they were with each other. At first Cobalt thought that this was just an exaggeration on their part, but then he heard about how they even got together, and suddenly everything made sense. He had to question how he didn't know about it earlier- it all happened just a few weeks ago, and on Amber's shift, no less.

He's already known the two a bit beforehand. Lilac Dalton was a short and chubby young woman that Scarlet went to school with sometimes, and Flint Ramsey was a part-time engineer from the next street over that he's friends with. For a brief moment Cobalt wondered if he was just that detached from local news.

Amber was ranting about couples one day when they were all on break (and making suggestive jabs at him since Rose wasn't there to do that), and started bragging about how she brought together the cutest couple on the block. Everyone knew of this except him it seemed- he was the only one who spat out their drink while everybody else just rolled her eyes in a 'here we go again' manner. She apparently helped Lilac pick out her own Melapetal when the Lavender Melapetal just started glowing around Flint. By that point, everyone in the shop's already read the guidebook that he and Viridian revised.

"I can't remember ever having squealed that loudly before! It's the first time I've ever heard it happen in real life, oh it was just so romantic~!" She sighs dreamily, and the bell rang just in the nick of time.

That gave Cobalt a rather strange sort of fear for the Rose-types, particularly the Red and Lavender ones. The Lavender Roses glowed around love at first sight, and the Red Roses glowed around soul-mates. Eden explained this away in one of her lectures, saying that Red roses were bred with that sort of instinct, and God forbid that eleven of these Red roses become stuck in one room while soul-mates are in close proximity with one another. They would start up a literal light show.

His first thought was 'How have we never taken advantage of that ability?' of course- since humanity never seemed to get tired of light shows and loved blowing things up just to get one...

But what came next was the morality of all of this.

"It's far too convenient," He told her with a skeptic edge in his tone. "And let's be honest for a moment here- who would believe that sort of thing? And what if the person doesn't like their so-called 'soul-mate'? It all just seems like a big marketing strategy..." Cobalt looked up at his manager, expecting her to have an expression with any semblance of deep thought, but she merely sat there with a knowing smile on her face.

"I know, and that's why I had to make you and Viridian re-asses the handbook. I had Scarlet change the writing a little bit so it would all seem like some myth that we thought up." Miss Eden replied as she took out a smaller version of the handbook, containing only the most basic of information regarding the Melapetals. "I know it sounds like a fad, but it really is true, Cobalt. I've seen it happen before with my own eyes!"

After that, the conversation just boiled down into a mess of light show talk. When Cobalt left the room, he gained a new sense of slight fear towards the Roses, and started to seriously consider avoiding them (they didn't like him enough to miss him terribly anyway) for the time being, but couldn't find a reason to do so.

Maybe it was just his insecurities speaking, but he really didn't want anybody who would be unfortunate enough to be around a glowing Rose-type with him to deal with him.