Chapter 1 - Perfect Situation
Wallflower never knew she could really make a friend with someone. By herself, that is. Not that she didn’t appreciate Roseluck and Ditzy, they were great friends! Even still, the three only met because they both joined the gardening club. Which was after…everything with Sunset.
Yes, Sunset helped her make the gardening club a bit more popular—enough to have a few people actually join—and they were on decent terms at the time, that wasn’t exactly the case anymore. Nowadays, they were more distant than ever. It just..happened. The rest of the Rainbooms were, at best, politely sociable.
But that was fine. Roseluck and Ditzy were her new friends, and Wallflower enjoyed their company. They accepted her, and genuinely liked her despite knowing what she had done with the Memory Stone months prior. Was having only two friends kinda sorta totally pathetic? Yes, Wallflower reminded herself of that fact every single morning.
But now? Well, Wallflower had three friends now.
“Hey! You there?” Aria waved her hand in front of Wallflower’s face, pulling her out of her thoughts and into reality.
“W-Wuh? Oh, yeah. Yeah. I’m here.” Wallflower nodded. Aria’s voice brought her back to reality, the halls of CHS. They walked once again, moving from the standstill Wallflower temporarily took in the middle of the nearly empty halls.
It had been a few weeks since the beginning of their friendship, the two putting the slightly rocky start behind them and deciding they enjoyed spending time with each other. Spending part of the evening with Aria at the Dazzlings’ house became a regular part of Wallflower’s schedule for most days. Goofing off, playing video games, talking about music..
Wallflower loved it.
It was like the perfect friendship she had always dreamed of. Someone who understood her, and someone she could understand. Someone she could spend hours with. Someone who made her legs feel all shaky when they were together. Someone who was almost always on her mind.
She didn’t feel that way with Roseluck or Ditzy, so it meant her friendship with Aria was special. Right? Otherwise, the cause of the odd giddiness she felt around Aria was unexplainable.
“..so, you were saying?” Aria glanced over to Wallflower as they walked. How could she walk without looking where she was going so easily?
“What I was saying?” Wallflower asked, questioning herself. “Oh, right. Right. So..since we’re friends,” Wallflower didn’t have the nerve to title them as best friends yet, “I wanted to, err..introduce you to my other friends.”
Aria raised a brow. “Including the one who runs away from me.” She bluntly stated. A smirk came to her face as she turned to look forwards again, clearly still entertained by the thought. “She’s still terrified of me. You should see her reaction when I’m with Adagio and Sonata, it’s hilarious.”
Wallflower stifled a snort. She found it a bit rude to talk about Roseluck behind her back like this, but it was all in good fun. “I talked to her about it, soooo..hopefully she doesn’t pass out? Or run away. I just want you guys to be on good terms, since you’re my friend and they’re my friends and all of us being friends would be nice..”
This was an incredibly delicate operation, something Wallflower had been planning for quite a while. It was like the surgical operation of an organ transplant, except Aria was the new kidney or heart or whatever and her small friend group was the body. Inserting Aria into her friend group deserved the same amount of preparation and delicacy.
“Fine, fine, fine. But,” Aria stopped Wallflower in her tracks by tugging on the collar of her sweater, pulling her close in what was probably a lighthearted attempt at friendly intimidation. “We’re hanging out tomorrow like usual. We were supposed to play Hellraisers today, and I can’t play the Raise Harder expansion without your help. ‘Dagi and ‘Nata were gonna be out of the house today, damnit!”
“I-I thought you played with them when I’m not there?” Wallflower stuttered out, the familiar feeling of shaky legs coming to her. Aria must have noticed Wallflower’s rosy cheeks just as Wallflower herself did, suddenly letting go of her sweater collar.
“Well, uh, yeah. But they aren’t actually good at the game..” Aria grumbled, folding her arms as they resumed their walk. “Sonata doesn’t even use the rocket launcher against the tanks, and ‘Dagi kills me at the end of every mission..”
Before Wallflower could comment on the questionable gaming skills of the other sirens, the two turned a corner to the usual set of stairs where Wallflower, and thus Ditzy and Roseluck, often hung out during lunch and briefly after school. There sat Ditzy, helping a hyperventilating Roseluck calm down.
“There, there, Rosie..it’ll be fine, if Wallflower likes her then she’s definitely nice!” Ditzy turned to face the two as they showed up, her smile still remaining even with one of the sirens being right there. “Oh, good! Uuhm..I tried calming Roseluck down, but she’s still kinda scared, I think..”
Roseluck took a deep breath and actually looked up, only to cower once again once she saw the purple siren. “Ah! You didn’t say she was here already!”
Before Aria could do anything brash, Wallflower stepped in to sit next to Roseluck and make an attempt to calm her. Which was going to be pretty difficult if Ditzy couldn’t, as Ditzy being able to comfort someone no matter what was supposed to be one of the permanently solidified laws of the universe that held space and time together.
“Roseluck, c’mon. You could at least give her a chance. I was just as evil, remember? If not worse! But I’m not anymore, right?” Wallflower forced a smile as Roseluck hesitantly looked back up.
Wallflower’s efforts seemed to work, as Roseluck was now smiling (an actual smile) and flicking Wallflower on the nose. “You broke your streak again. One week and a half since you said something bad about yourself.”
“Oh, right..uhm, promise to try harder if you give Aria a chance?”
Roseluck’s smile turned into a frown, another flick promptly delivered to Wallflower’s nose. “Bargaining like that with a promise doesn’t seem healthy, Wally,” She sighed, giving Aria a side-eye glance which was—surprisingly—not met with a scowl, “I guess if you trust her, it’s fine.”
Ditzy interrupted by suddenly clapping, big silly smile plastered on her face. “Yay! We’re all friends now!”
And with that, the operation was complete. The Aria organ had been successfully transplanted into the friend group body and was now being sewn shut. Of course, that was ignoring all the bonding that had to be done for. But Wallflower had planned for that!
Aria cleared her throat. “So. Where are we going, anyways?” She questioned, really only speaking to Wallflower directly.
“We—”
“To the store!” Ditzy cheerily replied while standing up and pulling Roseluck along with her, “Wally says we gotta move some plants inside the greenhouse, so we’re buying more soil aaaand..pots..aaand, uhm..more seeds!”
“Oh.” Aria bluntly responded. She turned to Wallflower, who was giving her a tiny little smile to try and sway her to go along with it. “..sure, whatever. I’ll come.”
Wallflower was grateful to find relief from the biting cold now that they were all inside the generic big box store, only wearing her jeans and slightly ratty sweater as warmth. The others had clothes that were far more suitable for the fall season, Aria notably having swapped out her usual look for a hoodie.
“Ooohkay..” Wallflower murmured, taking a handwritten list from her pocket. She squinted at her own poor handwriting before reading, “Soil, small pots, some tools, fertilizers, trays for germinating, and the usual seeds we get. We should be able to find everything we need in the gardening section, I think.”
The four set out to the gardening section of the store, the entire section acting as a giant greenhouse and a separate wing of the store. Roseluck and Ditzy set out to find all of the non-seed related supplies, still not quite as well versed in gardening compared to Wallflower to pick out anything else.
Wallflower never asked Aria to stay right by her side as they shopped, yet she was right there next to her. Hands in her hoodie pockets looking so stupidly cool without even trying.
“You, uh, didn’t have to follow me. I’m sure Ditzy and..er, well, just Ditzy would have been happy to have you along,” Wallflower pointed out. Roseluck, not so much, but Ditzy would probably be friends with anyone Wallflower called a friend.
Aria shrugged. “I like you, and I don’t like them enough to be ‘actual’ friends. Hope you don’t expect me to.”
Wallflower partially ignored the fluttering feeling in her chest when Aria said she liked her, finding her sudden realization much more important in the moment. Of course Aria didn’t have to be friends with Ditzy and Roseluck, they just had to be acquaintances on good terms! She didn’t know much about friendships as a whole, but something along those lines was probably a valid relationship.
“Oh, gosh, I don’t know why I didn’t think of that..” Wallflower cracked a smile at her own stupidity. How could she be so dumb? “I was gonna try and get you all to get along, but..yeah, just acquaintances is good.”
“Mhm.” Aria stepped from behind Wallflower to be shoulder to shoulder with her. “Still not sitting with you guys at lunch. Only dweebs sit on stairs away from people.”
Wallflower glanced over to see Aria giving her another one of those leg-shake chest-flutter inducing smirks. That was how best friends were supposed to make you feel, right? “Am I at least the best dweeb out of the three of us?” She innocently asked.
“Sure. You’re already the only dweeb that matters, anyways.
Did she really mean it? Was Wallflower the best dweeb in Aria’s eyes? For some inexplicable reason, the mere idea was making her cheeks feel warm. “You..really mean that?” Wallflower questioned further, a smile now quickly forming on her lips.
Her question was met with a light punch to her shoulder, Aria’s cheeks taking a similar hue to what Wallflower’s must have looked like now. “Y-You know what I mean, alright?” It looked as if she was about to scowl, yet faltered once the two made eye contact. Aria quickly looked away. “Don’t make it all weird..”
Wallflower stifled what was going to be a giggle, only letting out an odd and indecipherable grunt. “Okay, okay..just saying, I uh. Really like being your friend.” She casually stated while her eyes went back to the seed packets. It was oddly easy to give friendly affection to Aria.
Out of the corner of her eyes, she could see Aria squint like something was wrong. “..oh, uh. Okay. Yeah, whatever. Being friends with you is..nice.”
Quick to avoid any semblance of an awkward silence, Aria presented a packet of red chrysanthemum seeds to Wallflower. “These look nice. You could, uh, plant ‘em for me. Since I won’t be there.”
Wallflower examined the packet, her mind already working through all the complications of growing mums in the school greenhouse. It’d be a challenge, but mums were one of her favorite flowers next to forget-me-nots. “Yeah, sure! They’re kinda hard to grow, but..I’ve never tried. Once they bloom, they should be pretty easy to upkeep. It’ll be a fun project, maybe..”
Another tiny smile came to Wallflower’s lips, which Aria promptly rolled her eyes at. “Yeah, yeah. Don’t smile at me like that too much, or I’ll punch you.”
A sudden crash from near the tool shelves quickly grabbed their attention, as well as anyone else who was in the gardening section. Sharing a glance, they both decided it was worth seeing what happened. Wallflower already knew, anyways.
“Oops..” Ditzy mumbled, shovels and trowels and plastic pots and other miscellaneous gardening items piled on the floor.
Ditzy was in the middle of climbing on a ladder that was clearly meant for employees only, Roseluck hastily trying to put everything back on the shelves as people watched. “Dangit..Ditzy, help me out! I told you not to climb up there!” Roseluck exclaimed, a hint of annoyance in her voice.
“Ohkay, ohkay..ooh, there’s the soil we need!”
As always, a mix of school funding and money from Roseluck and Ditzy paid off all of the supplies. Without a car to transport all of their items, the group hauled everything back to the now mostly empty school (which was far easier with a stronger fourth person.)
Roseluck went home shortly after everything was inside the greenhouse, and Aria made a hasty return to get back home on the bus right after. In her own words, Adagio and Sonata were going to bug her for hours about why she took so long.
As the sun began to set, Wallflower and Ditzy remained and took shelter from the biting fall breeze inside the greenhouse.
“Thanks for staying to help, Ditzy,” Wallflower said as she opened the red chrysanthemum packet with her mouth, “It means a lot..being lonely here after school always gets to me.”
“It’s no problem, Wally!” Ditzy chirped, her hands deep in a bag of soil as she filled germination trays. “I know you don’t like being alone too much. And, uuhm, I like being around you here. Mhm!”
Ditzy slid the tray over to Wallflower, set to be filled with the chrysanthemum seeds. “Thooough,” she continued, “I think I know who you like being with more, hmmm?” Ditzy flashed a coy smile, which just ended up being cute with her crossed eyes.
“Huh?” Wallflower cluelessly asked while carefully inserting the seeds into the tray, “What..do you mean?”
“Aria!” Ditzy exclaimed, pulling out her dirt-covered hands from the soil to gesticulate, “I’m really super happy you made a friend by yourself, and uhm..I noticed how much you like to spend time with her. Sooo..are you two best friends now?”
“Uhh..” Wallflower nervously laughed, “I dunno. Maybe? I just..know I like being around her. It’s nice. We actually have a lot in common, like the kind of music we like and video games and stuff. And it’s..surprisingly easy to talk to her about stuff we don’t really have in common. I dunno, it’s just. Nice.”
She glanced over to Ditzy, who in turn gave her a nod. “Mhmm, go on!”
“Uh, well..” Wallflower shrugged, “I just..feel good being around her? I mean, whenever I look at her I feel good, and hearing her talk gets me kind of..I don’t know, giddy? And I really like her personality, I guess. Being with her makes me feel energized, or something.”
“Hmmm..” Ditzy’s smile turned into a thinking frown, her index finger tapping at her chin and smudging dirt on it. “I’m not the smartest person ever..buuuut, Wally, that kinda sounds like you have a crush on her?”
“...What?”
Ditzy’s smile returned. “I just think it sounds like you have a crush on Aria! You spend a lot of time with her, really like being around her, uhmmm..” She had begun to count on her fingers, trying to name all the symptoms of crushing on someone, but stopped at two. “All those other things you said!”
“I-I..” Wallflower hesitated, gripping the edge of the table in front of her to ground herself. “I don’t..”
It all made sense. Too much sense. The way she adored Aria’s smirk, how she admired how crass and unabashedly rude Aria could be at times, how much she liked it when Aria eased up when they were hanging out together, how much she…
Wallflower’s train of thought came to a screeching halt. She looked down to the nearly empty packet of red chrysanthemum seeds in her hand and pocketed it like it was going to kill her if she looked at it any longer. Her hands found a familiar place around her, hugging herself and hiding her sleeved wrists against herself.
This was wrong. Very, very, very wrong.
“Uhm..Wallflower?” Wallflower could see Ditzy turning back to face her, just out of the corner of her eyes. “Are you okay?” Ditzy innocently asked, unaware of the bomb she just dropped onto Wallflower. The bomb that exploded in Wallflower’s mind and laid waste to her composure.
“..Y-Yeah, yeah. I’m fine,” Wallflower hesitantly stuttered out. She dug into her other pocket, fishing out the greenhouse keys and sliding them towards Ditzy.
“Could you, uh, finish that tray and lock up? We can pick things back up tomorrow, I just..gotta, uh. Go home,” Wallflower said, forcing a smile. The greenhouse suddenly felt far too stuffy, far too hot. The more she stood still, the deeper the pit in her stomach felt. “My uncle doesn’t like me being out too late. Gotta get back.”
Ditzy must have said something, but Wallflower didn’t hear anything. Before she knew it, her legs were moving out the door and off campus. The cold breeze was biting at her once again, but she didn’t care. Her feet were aching from all the walking in her dirty sneakers, but she didn’t care. It was a long walk back home and she couldn’t afford taking the bus, but she didn’t care.
This was very, very, very wrong.
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Cute and definitely worth following. Looking forward to more.
11513142
Thanks!
That was adorable.