EFFLORESCING EDELWEISS ( s. todoroki )

6; betony

HANAKO LIKES HER QUIRK.

Flora. Flower. True, it has a stupid name, but Hanako adores how she fools everyone with their meager understanding of it. It is registered as the ability to grow flowers in the different parts of her body. What they don't know is she can plant their seedlings unto other people's flesh.

It is a shame she can only plant it on humans and animals.

Momoka sips on her iced latte, Mei reads a book by the corner, Hanako thinks. If only there was a way to lessen the repercussions of the quirk on her body. Flora turned human and animal cells into plant like tissues, and in doing so, taxed on her energy and made her skin paper thin. Simple cuts and bruises were very detrimental on her and there were instances wherein she put too many flowers in an enemies heart that flowers grew in her too.

She likes how it is beautiful, but deadly. Just like her.

"You guys busy this evening?" Momoka asks, the iced latte now discarded on a nearby trash bin.

"I have to attend a family dinner," Mei says. "But I can cancel if you want."

Momoka regards her with a simple, "Tch." She turns to Hanako next, Hanako who's always been too quiet and emotionless. All that rage bottled up in a girl with midnight skin and golden eyes. "If I remember correctly, you're free from the convenience store during Wednesdays, right?"

"I have somewhere else to be," Hanako merely says, because Wednesday evenings are all visiting the makeshift grave for Papa and flowers put on the marker, flowers that carry multitude of meanings that show so much of her love and devotion for Papa. Love and devotion that she must have dented by talking to that rugrat of a boy with his stupid red hair (her mind turns into a lovely shade of obsidian at the thought of Todoroki Shouto!).

"You guys are bummers!" Momoka says as she's perched casually on the rooftop railings, her eyes trailing downwards. She's situated so precariously that a strong gust of wind would topple her down five floors. Hanako wonders of the backlash if she gave Momoka a little push. ( Of course she won't do it, these thoughts are only reserved for Hanako, but sometime, someday, she'd make all the pretty flowers bloom in spaces she want to. )

"We're very sorry, Momoka," Mei says as if Hanako is too. What a foolish mistake. Hanako is never sorry, monsters never apologize. "What are you watching there anyway?"

The book on Mei's hand is now placed on her bag, forgotten. Hanako remains.

"It's their P.E. today," Momoka says in a conspiratorial voice that is so fitting for her viper face.

Hanako blurs out the conversation just like what she always does during conversations that bear no merit for her. Hanako's interest cannot be piqued by profligate activities. She'll probably buy flowers at Royal Garden, just like the norm. White hyacinths as thank you for always understanding me, dark crimson roses for mourning and pink carnations because Hanako will never forget Papa, never ever so she will destroy the one who destroyed Papa.

The flower shop is open. It still carries the amalgamation of different scents brought forth by all the lovely flowers growing on dark soil. The owner gives her a smile when she enters, but Hanako doesn't reciprocate and heads straight to her selected flowers and she's about to get one of the dark crimson roses when a hand gets to it first. Hanako turns to the person and it's Todoroki again. The roses mix well with his hair and she reminds herself of how she bears so much enmity for that red.

"What are the flowers for?" he asks.

"None of your business," she responds and selects three dark crimsom roses. She'll get the pink carnations and white hyacinths next to get this over and done with. And who is he mourning for? What are the roses for? Todoroki Shouto is an enigma almost as complex as Hanako who should be minding her own business because it's adding more cracks and dents on her plan and it's almost nighttime and the way to the grave is only lit by unreliable lampposts so she must hurry if she doesn't want to encounter accidents.

"Those are pretty roses, sir," a fresh face comments and Hanako watches in her peripheral vision ( even though she shouldn't shouldn't shouldn't foolish girl because you have to hurry and that boy's different colored eyes might draw you in, but it's danger, danger symbolized by that red you hate so much ). The girl is probably a new staff the owner hired and from the looks of it, unable to speak in the language of flowers.

"They're for my mom," he says with that soft voice and mothers again, what are mothers for and Papa where is my mother? "I'm visiting her in the hospital."

She didn't want you darling, but we don't need her because Papa is here and Papa will take care of you.

Hanako pays for the flower as Todoroki Shouto continues to chat with the new girl (she's very beautiful, but Hanako is prettier) over how pretty the roses are, no clue that the thornless things meant mourning.

Hanako looks at him over his shoulder. "Dark crimson roses mean mourning," her voice is in monotone. "You should get her day lilies or peonies."

And with that, she leaves.

° ° °
b e t o n y ;
surprise