In the Language of the Flowers

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✾ Bird's Foot Trefoil ✾

"I see." 

That's what he said when we entered the room. He slowly slid his hands into his expensive suit pockets, barely inclined his body towards us, and frowned. I see. 

A reunion years in the making, ages to meditate on his mistakes, and those two words were all he had to offer Ren. 

"You should go, Tatsuo," Ai said quietly. She looked like she'd shrunken a size while Ren and I were away. She'd shriveled to her actual age in front of her husband, her eyes quite literally appearing sunken and her face shadowy. 

"I won't go. This is my apartment," he said. "I paid for it." 

Ren scoffed and crossed his arms over his chest, which incited a small flare of anger from his father. "You have something to say?" 

"You didn't pay for it. Your parents did," Ren said. 

"You have no right to say that to me, leech. I know she's been stealing money from my accounts for you."

I choked my gasp down. I felt like I'd tripped into a tub filled with acid. I looked desperately to Ai, hoping that she would do something. But she just stood there meekly. Perhaps with no right, I felt let down.

"I didn't want her to do that," Ren said, bowing his head. He looked ashamed. 

"But you took it anyway."

Ren scowled. "Why are you even here?" 

"I came to see my wife. Is that so shocking?" 

"It is when she doesn't wear her wedding ring," Ren hissed. I had never seen this venomous side of him. He was doing everything in his power to tear the person in front of him down. I wasn't sure how to feel about it. I simultaneously wanted him to stop, to have mercy, and to keep going. Keep going. Destroy the asshole in front of us. Get proper revenge and be free of him.

"She didn't tell me she was speaking to you again. Seems she was ashamed." 

Ren took the hit in stride as though he hadn't even heard his father's words. "It's you who should be ashamed, clinging to a woman who hates you." 

"Don't project your feelings onto your mother like a child." 

Surely, she'd say something now. But Ai just took a step back. I bit the inside of my cheek. I felt like we were all being swept up in the tide of their anger, the years of resentment and abhorrence rolling over us. Ai and I were invisible behind their towering rage. 

"Aren't you the one who's projecting, Dad?" Ren said. 

"Get out," he said, his voice low.

The man wasn't particularly tall. His hair was mostly black save for streaks of grey at the temples. He had broad shoulders hidden underneath a navy suit, which effectively made him appear clean and approachable. He had the same dark eyes that Ren did. 

Well, not the same. There was something about those eyes on the man in front of me that was different. On Ren, they were mysterious and confusing sometimes, but they were gentle. His father's eyes were blatantly hostile. There was a terrible energy exploding from him which was entirely concentrated in those eyes. I could see clearly how they belonged to a man who would hurt a child. Once I had seen the danger in his eyes as he told his son to leave, there was little the tailored suit could do to offset the malice of its owner. 

"I won't leave her with you," Ren said firmly. "Not again."

"I'm ok, Hana," she said finally. But anyone could tell it was a lie. My stomach turned.