#had a bunch a fallen flowers petals and buds fall off of this bouquet and figured to use them in the pic 😆

[eternal-reverie]

got my kairi zine bundle in the mail today!!! The work from everyone involved is so beautifully done 🥹🌺🌷💐🌻💕 ✨ thank you @kairizine !!!

[jomamaofficial]

The Rite of Acceptance (Zhongli x GN!Reader Angst Oneshot)

A/N: So, first of all, THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR ALL THE LOVE ON MY LAST 'Childe x GN!Reader Angst' fic. Some of you requested with a happier ending and to that I say.... *drumroll please* ...no I'm a sadist 💀💀. But dw, this sadist will take it easy on you guys today, I hope it alleviates your aching hearts. It's one of the more happier fics I've written... CW: Mentions of Death (Osial). Masterlist Word Count: 1301 Summary: It had been five years since the Rite of Descension, and Liyue grew up to become stronger than ever. With the death of their founding father, their beloved Rex Lapis, Liyue bustled with independence and assurance. Whilst the Qixing fulfilled their duties by stepping in the position of Morax himself, the fallen archon, now commonly known as Zhongli by his mortal companions, was running late. His anniversary with his dearest spouse would be delayed and the young man would have to go through the gruelling task of making it up to you.

——————————————————————————————————

“Have a safe evening, Director Hu.”

“You too, Mr. Zhongli”, she hummed, her eyes glued to the remaining paperwork left to approve. 

A short chime followed his exit, the Liyuan sky reflecting a deep intent in his eyes, the crimson that once lined his lash non-existent as if it was simply wiped away. The normally reserved and collected gentleman had an odd urgency to his stride. 

He glanced at the watch sitting on his wrist, picking up his pace as he cut through the guild of merchants and scholars with a courteous, “excuse me, kind gentlemen”.

He kindly nodded at the mothers he was well-acquainted with, witnessing the budding glimmer in their eyes. As they spoke about their newly-acquired professions, his chest swelled with pride and he softly smiled. 

Zhongli nodded as he acknowledged the familiar faces of the Milileth stationed at the entrance of the harbour, climbing up to the Yujing Terrace as he took two steps at a time.

“Ah– Rex Lapis, running late I see,” she welcomed, earnest eyes, smiling fondly at the man who bowed down in front of her. 

“Unfortunately”, he grinned as he rose up, browsing the variety of flowers displayed on the old woman’s cart. “We had a lot of clients at the parlour today, more than expected.”

“I see”, the woman nodded distantly, walking behind the younger man, her cane clicking on the floor. “I’m sure Hu Tao appreciated the help, Morax–” she expressed, bunching a handful of Chrysanthemums.

Her skilled hands ornate them with foliage and smaller flora, arranging them to hug the delicate petals of the flower, which was blessed with a beautiful, pink gradient. 

“Be a dear and collect some Glaze Lilies for me, Rex Lapis, this old lady can no longer work as she did in her youth”, she called out, threading strings of Eucalyptus leaves between the stems of her bouquet. 

“Of course, Madame Ping”, Zhongli responded, the warmth in his chest building fondly as he gathered the frosted lilies– five to be exact. He took a deep breath as he held them in his hands, glancing at his watch once again, before he passed them to the awaiting woman. 

Madame Ping watched the young man walking towards her, her gaze falling on the lilies held tightly in his hands. 

“Five hm–?” 

Zhongli felt a comforting hand on his shoulder, a vacant smile occupying his chiselled face as he closed his eyes, a subtle tilt to his head. 

Madame Ping pressed her lips together, patting his shoulder before collecting the lilies from his hands whilst slowly taking them back to her workshop. 

Zhongli found peace in watching her craft, a tranquil silence blanketing upon them. 

She cleared her throat as she stepped aside, finishing off the bouquet with a gold ribbon.

“Gold is Liyue’s treasure, Rex Lapis–”

“Thus the blood that rushes through her heart”, he finished, admiring the bouquet that was handed to him. 

“Give it to the little dearie, I’m sure they’ll love it–”

---

Time passed fast yet, as he reached the last five minutes of his journey, time suddenly froze. 

Time froze but memories thawed. 

As he took his final steps, he could hear the crunch of the gravel, familiar with the sound under his feet. 

He saw a few footsteps leading to the entrance in front of him, his eyes drawn up as he approached the cobbled pillars, colossal in size– but he supposed it added to the sheer size of the area within the enclosed gates. The grand arch sat atop these pillars welcomed him, the overhanging eaves lined with intricate trimming, decadent, and gold. The structure accommodated two roofs, stacked upon each other, one smaller than the other. 

Qingce Pine, he acknowledged, the material robust and ornate. They upturned in the corners, weighed down by the meticulously carved gold sheets that illustrated the last form his people saw him in. 

The Last Rite of Descension, a festival that marked the supposed death of Zhongli– well, the death of Morax that is– or Rex Lapis, as his people called him. 

It had been roughly five years since it all happened; the uproar and fear of the public, the diplomacy of Liyue Qixing, the generous contributions from a certain harbinger, and of course, the doting love and support from his spouse– Y/N. 

A spouse that was long awaiting his arrival, he reminded himself, tearing himself away from the nostalgic memories that flooded his senses. 

He was ten minutes late– no, twelve. Thus the urgency in his steps were back. 

His hand grasped onto the bouquet of flowers, whilst his other hand tugged at the collar of his shirt, pulling the material away from his neck, which seemed tighter than usual. 

With padded, light steps, he stopped to smooth out the imaginary wrinkles on his white linen robes, golden light peaking through the thick leaves of the majestic Sandbearer tree. 

The young man leaned against the thick trunk, sheepish, and slightly disappointed. 

“I apologise for my tardiness, my dear”, he began, setting his bouquet on the concrete slab in front of him, sighing heavily. 

“It was a busy day at the Wangsheng Parlour, a swarm of clients, and their respective orders for burials. You would be greatly astonished at how much paperwork goes into the parting of others. As well as the rituals of course, because I certainly was pleasantly shocked”, he chuckled.

“But… it seems as though I am coping well with the role of the ‘Consultant’, as Director Hu puts it”.

The winds brushed past him, the cool air wrapping the archon in a gentle embrace. 

He sighed at the stone-cold silence, although it was to be expected. 

“It has been five years, yet I still run late. Do I not, my dear?” he asked, folds appearing near his eyes as he placed his hand near the stone you laid upon.

“I bumped across Childe earlier”, he started, feeling the worn fabric that he donned upon himself. 

“You surely remember Childe? The harbinger who summoned Osial in attempts to gain my Gnosis he so ambitiously sought after. One could argue that it was a very poor reflection of his character… yet he involuntarily helped the public rest their full faith in the Qixing. Gathering the cast of Childe, the adepti, and the Qixing allowed them to play their roles together on the stage that was Liyue. Of course I didn’t anticipate the materialisation of Osial himself. Nevertheless, the harbinger truly sped that process up, don't you think?” he noted, gazing far into the wilting sky. 

“In the end, the resolution to all that had transpired was even more satisfactory than I could have hoped for”. 

His heart felt heavy in his chest; it felt as though it would drop through his ribs at any second. The light breeze felt colder; the gentle embrace strangling his frame. 

He longed for a response.

One that would relieve the wound that ripped open just as it was about to heal. With a mouth as dry as cotton, the archon glanced at the vast vacuum encompassing Teyvat, the celestial heavens above reflecting in the slight glisten that pricked the corner of his eyes. 

“Just one more response?” he pleaded, his deep voice catching in his throat. 

---

Just as a child matures after losing their parents– Liyue matured without its Archon; an archon who had finished his duties long ago.

And so, the defeated Archon rose from his seat. And with eyes that finally felt sad, he looked back at his spouse for the last time. 

His tourmaline eyes hardened as a cold, granite stone stood alone, wilted petals rotting beside the corpse that rested under.

If Liyue matured after losing her Archon, it was time that Morax matured after losing you.

——————————————————————————————————

PS: So... I guess I lied to you <3. I'm sorry don't cancel me, I'm too young to get cancelled. You can cancel me when I graduate.

[heathcliffdt]

Flowers Had Long Spoken the Language of Love

Summary: The hanahaki disease is an illness contracted from unrequited love, causing the patient to throw up and cough flower petals. It can be cured through surgery, removing the very roots of the flowers alongside the patient’s love for the person. In which Mikasa spews lovely petals of blue out of love for Eren.

1.

When he was young, Eren saw multiple wilting flowers and petals: some in one stem, others in bouquets, in the fields where he used to play back at their hometown with Armin and Mikasa, the five-day-old gardenia on their dining table, the hopeless daisies for comrades injured or patients in hospitals, sunflower petal-bookmarks in between Grisha’s medical books. In fact, there were more dead flowers he had seen than thriving and alive ones.

There were also wilting flowers which sprung in the absence of love.

One lazy day, when people were too weary to visit the marketplace or the town square, Eren accompanied his mother. It was supposed to be a normal mundane day, until he saw a young lady whose eyes were puffy and red from crying. Her shoulders shook tremendously as she gasped for air. Blood trickled from her mouth to her palms trying to scoop it but they just spluttered on her dress.

For a moment, Eren thought his eyes were playing tricks on him. He blinked twice, but the woman did not disappear. Eren tugged the hem of his mother’s dress and discreetly pointed to the woman crying.

“Mom, look.”

Carla turned around and followed the direction where Eren’s index finger was pointing. At the foot of the town square’s mossy fountain was a young crying.

There were bloodstains in her clothes.

“Gracious! She’s bleeding. We need to help her! Quick!”

When the two of them crossed the square, the woman kept crying, bawling her eyes out alongside the occasional coughs and sputters of blood.

And flowers. She coughed blood and flowers.

“Excuse me,” Carla carefully tapped the woman’s shoulder.

The woman wiped her tears with the back of her hands and then looked up at her. She then shifted her eyes to Eren. “Sorry,” she sniffed. “Sorry, uh, for the mess. Can I help you?”

“Are you alright, miss?” Carla asked.

Eren studied the distressed girl. Before they approached her, Eren could only see blood pooling at her little spot. It surprised and scared Eren that her blood tended to and watered a small garden of fallen flowers. They were wildflowers of shades of pink and purple and red with streaks of blood that fell on her lap, on the gravel of a floor, on the marble of the fountain.

“You need help. I can brew you some warm tea. It may ease the bleeding for awhile, but then again, I can see that in your case, it is, um, worse than the mild ones.”

“This is nothing,” the girl’s voice trembled as she coughed, another bunch of flowers overflowing out of her mouth.

This time, there were thorns on her wildflowers.

2.

True to her word, Carla brewed a nice warm tea for the lady. Grisha summoned the girl to his small clinic in their house for visiting patients. He recommended the girl to visit a surgeon to have the flora roots removed from her lungs as it contracts the respiratory cycle.

“The roots are getting in the way of the pumping of the oxygen-depleted blood via the pulmonary artery,” he scribbled in indecipherable round letters. “Overtime, blood will fail to reach the lungs for oxygenation. You need to see a surgeon.”

The girl coughed and out came striped carnation and acacia blossoms.

“And to forget that man,” Grisha added.

“I love him. It just confuses me how that should kill me.”

When the woman left their small house, young Eren learned two things: first was that loving a person who does not love in return caused the heart to ache and pretty flowers to fall from a forlorn lover’s mouth, and second, sometimes, flowers hurt.

3.

Mikasa was a lost girl, and she only came into peace with that fact when one night, just before they waged war for the redemption of their island, he asked her what she would do afterwards.

She blinked at him. "I, uh, don't know."

"What do you want?" Eren repeated his question.

She hesitated. First, she thought of what would be the limited choices for her after all this mess. There were not so much options for her to choose from, to be frank. Right now all she wanted was to be with Eren, to protect Eren. She was satisfied with that. Once, when they were younger, Carla whispered to her a wish that bound her to her present: 'please take care of Eren. Look after him. He's a boy whose eyes are the colors of seafoam and his wings sore higher than the sun.'

Mikasa, out of sheer love for Carla and Eren, wholeheartedly promised she would never leave his side.

'Oh, I know he'll take care of you too, Mikasa,'she reassured the little girl with the warmest smile. 'Someday.'

But she was no longer the little girl anymore. And there were times when Eren was no longer of the bold and bright colors of cadmium yellow to her; sometimes, the color of Eren's soul turned gray, like in the moment he killed children and civilians in the Marley internment camp, and blue when they found out that he only had eight years to live due to the curse of Ymir he was doomed with.

"All this time, my only goal was to follow you. I just want to be with you.” The sun’s vibrant orange afternoon light cascaded over the houses, the warmth of the sun infiltrated the room lovingly. “But now, I don't know anymore."

Eren looked up at her. "What do you mean 'you don't know anymore?’” It sounded foreign to Eren; Mikasa was annoying. She was a pain in the ass. In fact, he had grown accustomed to her bugging him and tailing him around. That hearing her express doubt alarmed him.

“I tried so very hard to keep you and Armin safe, Eren. To keep you alive. In case you haven’t noticed, you two barely have more or less of a decade before you die.”

She was right. Perhaps, it was selfish of him for never actually paying that much attention to the fact that in the end, it was never going to be the three of them. Stars have their own lifetimes and they would stop existing, and the stars etched in Mikasa’s palms, were dull and cold. He wondered, if not hot flaming balls of gas, what were Mikasa’s stars made of?

“And no matter what I do, no matter how hard I try, it just keeps falling apart. It’s hopeless.”

“It’s not hopeless, Mikasa.”

“Not hopeless?” she shot him a questioning stare that screamed of accusation. “Eren, come the next decade, I will be alone. What am I to do without you and Armin?”

It was not a question. It was desperation.

Eren could only wish he had answers to her questions. As he stood up from his seat and walked away from her, Mikasa let out a painful cough. He could swear he saw blue petals dropped to the floor.

4.

Mikasa contracted the disease.

Her flowers were blue. Sometimes, of the shade of purple dreams. She coughed petals of lupines and delphinium. She did not bother to know about her illness; she did not look it up nor consulted a doctor. She supposed the flowers one coughed up had something to do with one’s past memories pressed in between diaries. In Shiganshina, she and Eren would lie on the outskirts of a small shady forest on summer days, with blue flowers surrounding Eren as he dozed off to sleep.

She had not seen budding delphinium or lupines in spring since Shiganshina days. And she had not been expecting to be coughing their petals.

5.

When the war was over, everyone expected Mikasa to continue rendering service to the military. She was after all among the humanity’s strongest. Armin, on the other hand, was dead set on retiring, said he had some other plans. He wanted to travel and start a research society, maybe even found a lyceum when he returns.

“You sure are set to see the world, huh, Armin?”

“You bet I am.”

“Will you still be here on Hero’s Recognition? I’m sure everyone’ll be present.”

“Ah, I guess not. My expedition’s set in a week, and the recognition’s, what, in two weeks?”

Mikasa smiled. “You really can’t slow down, can you?”

“You know me, Mikasa. Plus, I only have a few years to live,” Armin heartily chuckled. However, it was easy to catch how Armin’s face quickly shifted. His eyes, from a moment ago, were twinkling, and now they whispered worry. “Mikasa, we need to talk about…things.”

Her hands were clasped on her laps like clamped oysters. She did not look up at him. “I…I know. I just…”

“Mikasa,” he said sternly. “You need to make a decision in two weeks.”

“I know, Armin. It’s just that for once, I feel…indecisive.”

“Uh huh, I can see that.”

“Armin, what can I do? You’re going away. It’s going to be months, hell, it could even be years before you return! And he, I--I don’t know about him. I don’t know anymore. Ever since, you know I was set on following him to hell. But now--”

The routes changed and led them to heaven instead.

Her throat was itchy. She tried to hold in a cough but before she could even do it, azure petals rained down from her mouth.

“Shit,” Armin hissed. He knelt beside her and carefully caressed her back as she continued coughing.

“Mikasa—“

Her coughs were worsening.

“We need to do something about this.”

She was persistent. And stubborn. She told Armin that she did not need to see a doctor. That she did not need any operation whatsoever. Armin was many things: he was smart, he was inquisitive, he was a dreamer, he was empathic, even. But Mikasa made him think if one can ever unlove a person. Of course, it worried him that she was risking even her health. But she assured him, when he first found out about her disease, that it was not because she was the sadist he thought of her to be. ‘It’s not that I don’t want to be cured, or I’m scared of the doctor, silly. It’s just that I love him more than anything else.’

“I made my decision, Armin.”

6.

In the end, Mikasa chose to resign from the Scouting Legion. Everyone was surprised by her decision, even Levi did not expect that from her. Mikasa bid her goodbye to Armin, who promised that he will write her every month, and still go home to spend special dates and holidays with her. He reminded her to take care of herself and drink tea when it gets worse.

She had just finished packing her things when someone knocked on the slightly opened door.

“Knock, knock.”

She looked up from her trunk to see Eren standing on her doorway, pushing the door ajar. “Eren! Hey.”

“Can I come in?”

She nodded her head.

Eren let himself in, but sheepishly. He surveyed the room; it was clean. Clean pertaining to bare. The bed mattress was not covered in bedsheets, and the windows were without curtains. All of Mikasa’s belongings can be found in one trunk.

“You’re really leaving,” Eren said.

She bit her lower lip and nodded. “I am.”

They stood in silence for a moment. Eren did not really know what else to tell her. His only intention was to wish her goodbye, that she should take care of herself, that she should not forget to write him regularly.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be visiting Shiganshina once in a while,” he smiled faintly.

“That would be wonderful,” she smiled back at him. She had thought of the times when Eren would be visiting her in Shinganshina. She told herself that it would be just like the old times when life was simpler, when Carla cooked them meals, when the they could still play along the stream spotting for shiny pink rocks. When flowers were still comforting.

Since the day he asked her what did she want after the war, they never managed to talk again as freely as they did before. Things changed. They were haunted by gray and dull colors and dead stars and flowers.

Before exiting the room, he turned around to face Mikasa. “About your—uh—I, I know about your…”

He painstakingly looked at her. He attempted to articulate it: illness, disease, sickness, garden. He shrugged it off and instead said, “You really should see a doctor. Thorns and blood come out when it gets worse.”

7.

During the first few months, Eren and Mikasa corresponded with each other diligently. It felt like it was a chore for the both of them, however. They were just giving out reports to one another about how life is going on with the restoration of fallen cities, how there was a leak on Mikasa’s kitchen that seemed too stubborn to be fixed.

He did not visit.

She did get visitors once in awhile. There were old friends, and even Levi, who visited her. But never Eren. He would just relay his visits and ‘wish I could come visit along,’ but she knew all too well that there were unsettled grudges between them, and that just seemed understandable.

Apparently, the exchange of letters became sporadic. It was Mikasa who surprisingly ruined the routine. They wrote each other every two weeks. When one letter reached her, she cried herself to sleep that night, and full bulbs of flowers spewed out of her mouth drenched in blood. Mikasa’s stunt of not replying got Eren worried that he wrote a letter the following week, just to make sure that she was safe and all.

She loved him horribly so. Still.

8.

Eren,

I am sorry for not replying immediately. It slipped my mind. I’m sorry I got you worried. Things are fine here. Life’s not so much of a buzz right now, but I could not wish for it to be any other way than peaceful. I hope you’re doing fine. Pass my hellos to people.

-Mikasa

P.S. We haven’t really talked about this, but I have an appointment with a doctor. He performed surgery on the same disease before.

9.

It had been seven months since the last exchange of letters.

He had not heard of her since. People moved on with their lives, and their visits to Mikasa’s place had also gotten scarce. Thus, he failed to fish for stories about how Mikasa was doing. He had already filed for a leave from his post for a couple of days since he intended to visit Mikasa.

A small piece of crumpled paper was tucked in his coat pocket. It was the address of Mikasa’s place. He checked it and read the words scribbled in it for the last time and then looked at the homely cottage that stood few good meters before him.

He is home.

He hesitated—he could feel his feet dragging himself reluctantly across the small pavement which led to the front door. He could hear the breeze singing an ode to all things wonderful and alive, alongside the sun’s warmth. It was a promise. When he was a few inches away from the door, his senses told him to retreat, that there was nothing more to discuss with her and she had her life stitched finely. Appearing to him as a sound idea, he did however the opposite, and knocked on the door nonetheless.

In a few seconds, the door bolted open.

The moment Mikasa opened the door his senses engulfed him. It was every bit of a chorus fanfare moment when cherubs blow their trumpets and strummed their harps.

“Hello, Mikasa,” he said. Stupidly.

“Eren,” she barely breathed his name. “I wasn’t expecting you.”

“I know. I should have written you first. It was rude of him.”

Without warning, she pulled Eren into a warm embrace. He felt her burying her nose and her face on the corner of his neck as she pulled him closer. Her actions caught him by surprise that it took him a few seconds before he hugged her back.

“Come on,” Mikasa said ruefully as she tenderly pulled away. A smile made its way to her lovely thin lips. “Cut the formalities. It’s like we didn’t live in the same house before.”

Mikasa led Eren inside her home. The small cozy living room smelled of birch tree, damp earth, rain, and berries; a fireplace was situated in the corner. Adjacent to the previous room was a small kitchen with a circular dining table fit for four persons. He surveyed the place and noticed that there were also a couple of small bedrooms connected to the living room.

“It’s not much, but please make yourself at home.”

That morning, Mikasa cooked lunch. She normally just fed on bread and some cottage cheese but that day was special because Eren was home. She peeled and cut potatoes and carrots, and diced some onions and minced some garlic. She cooked stew and buttered garlic rice, and Eren was red as a beet when he realized he did not even remember to bring her anything out of courtesy’s sake.

“You really shouldn’t have, Mikasa. I hate to impose.”

“Don’t be silly. It’s not everyday that you’re here. It’s a special day.”

He smiled. He had not seen Mikasa this...happy for a long time. Years actually. When her smile radiated like moonbeams, he felt crystals that shone in the lake at night. “Well, I guess I should have brought something. Maybe a pie. Or some flowers.”

Flowers.

“We could go to that old place we used to play at,” Mikasa suggested. “The place is fresh with flowers there in bloom.”

When they finished with their lunch, they headed to the field where they used to play at as planned. They packed a picnic cloth and a basket with wheat bread and her cottage cheese, and some dried leaves and crushed berries for tea.

The field was not like before. There were changes. The weeds were wilder, and the grass was taller, and the tree was bigger. They laid out the piece of picnic cloth they brought with them and sat idly, chatting about mundane things. They talked about the military, about the government and how Historia was such a good monarch, how she was planning to engage in external relations for increasing the economy. They talked about how Shiganshina was a different place altogether but it remained nostalgic nonetheless. And they talked about Armin. God, did they miss Armin so much.

“I wish he’d come back soon,” Eren sighed. “He’s been out on the sea for like, what, eight, nine months already?”

“Do you two still write each other?”

He hummed. “Very rarely so. It’s hard to send mail if he’s always on the move.”

“I see. I, myself, had not received any letter for two months already. And he promised me to write every month.”

Suddenly, Eren felt a surge of hurt after hearing that Mikasa’s last correspondence with Armin was just two months ago, while theirs was seven. It was no denying that between him and Mikasa, there was a falling apart.

“Hey, Mikasa?”

“Yeah?”

“How come we never wrote to each other anymore?”

His words caught her frozen on the tracks. She wanted to tell him everything. Everything. How it killed her that they were apart for so long for the first time ever. What made it worse was they were not even talking to each other. She wanted to tell him how he killed her, literally, that it was impossible for her to breathe and how her love could create patches of blue and purple flowers.

“You got me worried. I know you can handle yourself, but it’s just that, well, you’re alone. And there are times that I feel alone, and people surround me, all kinds of people surround me.”

She did not say anything. Mikasa studied Eren. Once upon a time, Eren was a mirthful young boy that shouted life in the forest of his eyes. But now, he was tranquil, and serene. And it made her wonder if the atrocities they took part of was the reason just why he was robbed of starlight.

“I can only imagine how alone you felt in the last few months.”

“It felt lonely. At first. But not really now.”

Eren shifted in his position. “Not really now?”

She nodded. “I’m satisfied with my life.”

His eyebrows scrunched. Was she unsatisfied in how she led her life before? When she chose him?

“I’m sorry. For being a jerk.”

She licked her lips and smiled frailly. “It’s not your fault. You did nothing wrong. It was my decision after all.”

A silent gush of wind blew west. Tenderly, it kissed Eren’s cheeks, escorting earthy scent to his nostrils. The delphiniums and lupines danced gaily along.

“Mikasa,” he straightened himself. “In one of your letters, you said, you uh, you mentioned that you had an appointment with a doctor. About your uh, situation, I suppose. How did it uh, go?”

“Oh,” Mikasa tucked a portion of her hair that got in the way of her face. “It went, uh, fine, I guess.”

“Fine?”

“Well, there were a few initial check ups that took place. I refrained from his well, suggestion. However, it just got worse overtime. They used to come out in petals, but then they came out whole and bulbs.”

“Did they come out with thorns?” he asked nervously, but he tried to sound calm.

“Thankfully, no.”

“When I was young, I met a woman who threw up flowers with thorns. Good thing it wasn’t the same case with you.”

“Yes. I think so too.”

“So what happened? Are you like, uh, cured?”

“I resorted to surgical removal.”

He nodded. “I see.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”

For a moment, they remained silent. It deafened them: the blow of the wind, a cricket’s violin, a soprano of a lark, the echoes of Persephone’s voice from below the earth.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” Mikasa repeated her words. “I loved you so much. With all my heart. I would have endured so much more if I could. For you.”

“I know,” he croaked.

“Things will be better now.”

He nodded. But Eren was not sure if he agreed to her words. “Does it still hurt? Or did it hurt when they uh, removed it?”

“Oh, Eren,” she smiled. “That’s not even the hardest part of the operation. Unloving you is.”

At that moment, Eren failed to understand how flowers mourned and wilted for Persephone during autumns. Surely there came a time when autumns were a lovely season, and Persephone learned to love Hades.

“I’m such a jerk, Mikasa. You never deserved this.”

She laughed. He knew that she forgave him—she always does. “It’s getting late. Let’s go home.” Mikasa stood up from her spot and grabbed the small basket with her, and started walking. Eren stood as well and picked up the picnic cloth, dusted and folded it. While he trailed behind Mikasa, watching her body get smaller as she walked back towards the small house and farther from him, he realized that the weather suddenly became mistier and colder, he could have sworn he caught coughs and colds at that exact moment.

Until tears came streaming from his eyes, and flowers spluttering out of his mouth.