roses. | eren x levi

roses. | seventy-four

i couldn't help reexamining the letter.

it felt foreign, in some fashion. like a compelling item of testimony to a quandary that i did not conjecture. particular features stuck out to me like never before, and now i could do nothing except search for a clandestine cognizance.

as i handed a venerable woman an arrangement of tulips, in a series of flashes, i ultimately understood what i was missing. the lost portion of the puzzle had conclusively shifted into place, but rather of the triumphant spirit of fulfillment, i felt a burden drop in my abdomen.

tulips were mrs. rose's beloved flower, was it?

i extracted the note from my pocket and brushed over it for the tenth time or so.

erwin smith... tulips to my apartment... i loved erwin smith more than i could ever love tulips, though...

"mr. florist?"

i hastily glanced up.

mr. rose was attempting to not blatantly gawk at what i was carrying, but i saw his eyes slide down recurring times in precise glimpses. i rammed it in my pouch and hauled out my journal.

mr. rose, what was erwin smith's favorite flower?

nowadays, it seemed like mr. rose continuously acknowledged my interrogatories with reticence and reluctant looks.

"they were... they were tulips."

i nodded.

that's a real coincidence. tulips are your, mrs. rose, and erwin smith's favorite flower?

"i just want my tu-roses, please."

hey, mr. rose, can i ask you an atrocious leading question?

he scoffed and peered down. "you would ask me even if i said otherwise, but i appreciate the gesture."

you're using mrs. rose, aren't you?

mr. rose stammered, his eyes shooting over diverse components of the room. copious syllables came out of his mouth, but none of them made sense.

"wh..? why do you think that? how could you think that?"

he trembled and gaped at me with wide eyes. i knew i was correct. everything should've been apparent since the instant he handed me that note.

he didn't absolutely adore mrs. rose as much as he alleged he did. he was forecasting the affection he felt towards erwin smith on her, as if they were identical.

they might've not shared the same surname, the same philosophies, or even the same sex, but it didn't matter to mr. rose, because they both prized tulips, and he met them both from the substitution of a flower. 

those were the most conspicuous aspects to him, and he would do anything to strengthen erwin smith in his heart, even if that indicated undividedly destroying everyone else in the process. he was too passionately devoted to erwin smith.

i grinned, the thorny vines encasing my mouth unhesitatingly cutting my lips and making them ooze, but at this moment, i did not mind if the patch of blood on my mask was visible.

why did mr. rose actually hand out roses every day?

i've asked before, and he invariably produced that unprejudiced response. selflessness. pleasure. it was such an uncanny response, i never did accept it.

i knew the genuine purpose now. why was this so laborious for a florist to realize?

mr. rose gave out roses because they were the practical opposition of tulips. 

it was a fruitless struggle to assure himself that he would never see erwin smith on his doorstep anew, a desperate venture to move on.

a tulip was a diffident and unpretentious figure, unwilling to take more reservation than required. they wordlessly appealed for consideration, while a rose screamed for it. a rose is self-centered and sophisticated, with an efflorescence disseminating a rose's wings farther than a tulip ever could.

as i stared at mr. rose, these extemporaneous realizations plunged in like a tsunami, the dams of my brain ultimately breached.

he was weeping.

why was it forever my fault for his tears?

his face was obscured by his hands as he sniffled. it was much unlike the last time he sobbed when his melancholy was considerably noticeable and his cries were public for me to see.

bending over the counter, i extended my fragile arms to his back and stroked it, enabling him to cry on my jacket.

i believe that mr. rose realized, exactly at this moment, that what he was doing to mrs. rose was wrong. it was egotistical and ruthless.

mr. rose asked for twelve roses that day.