slow down, you're doing fine
Flora tips her head toward him with a crooked, bright-edged grin that always seems to spill warmth into the spaces between them, her curls brushing lightly against his temple as she answers with a playful ease that carries something much steadier beneath it. "Well, better not go anywhere without me then," she murmurs, the teasing lilt in her tone wrapped around a truth she doesn’t bother to hide. Some people might call it clingy, but to Flora the logic is simple: if they don’t have to be apart, why would they ever choose to be? There had been enough distance in her life already, enough hollow places carved out by time and choices and grief. She isn’t interested in adding more when she doesn’t have to.
Still, her expression shifts, her smile softening at the edges as she exhales a breath that carries last night’s echo. "It was crazy seeing you like that," she admits, shaking her head a little as she steps under the café’s awning and lets the rain fall away from her shoulders. "I knew it wasn’t you, that something else had to be going on, but..." Her throat tightens before she can smooth it away; she swallows, shaking her head again because the memory of it still feels jagged. Seeing him act like such an asshole was so wildly out of character that it grated against everything she knew and felt about Kaisel in a way that made her want to shiver.
Flora's brows lift as the moment lightens, another grin curling its way across her face. "Mmhm, he sure does. For the like, two weeks that we dated, basically all we did was go shopping," she says, tone bright with remembered amusement. The thought of Asta looks less intimidating when wrapped in something familiar and mundane like colour palettes and tailoring. She nods as they approach the hostess stand, her voice warm as she adds, "We can pick him up some of the dark cherry tea that I know he likes, after breakfast because his shirt is probably already at the dry cleaner’s anyway."
At Kai's declaration he might sleep with one of the pancakes instead, she nudges his side with open scepticism. "As if you’d be able to keep yourself from eating it as a midnight snack," she teases, already imagining him sneaking bites out of his hypothetical pancake bed the moment he thought she wasn’t looking.
Once they’re shown to their booth, Flora shrugs out of her jacket in one fluid motion, tossing it onto the seat she’s meant to take. Instead of sitting across from him, she slides in right beside him without hesitation, her hip brushing his as she settles in with the contented ease of someone who never intends to spend a meal an arm’s length away from the person she loves.
Still, her expression shifts, her smile softening at the edges as she exhales a breath that carries last night’s echo. "It was crazy seeing you like that," she admits, shaking her head a little as she steps under the café’s awning and lets the rain fall away from her shoulders. "I knew it wasn’t you, that something else had to be going on, but..." Her throat tightens before she can smooth it away; she swallows, shaking her head again because the memory of it still feels jagged. Seeing him act like such an asshole was so wildly out of character that it grated against everything she knew and felt about Kaisel in a way that made her want to shiver.
Flora's brows lift as the moment lightens, another grin curling its way across her face. "Mmhm, he sure does. For the like, two weeks that we dated, basically all we did was go shopping," she says, tone bright with remembered amusement. The thought of Asta looks less intimidating when wrapped in something familiar and mundane like colour palettes and tailoring. She nods as they approach the hostess stand, her voice warm as she adds, "We can pick him up some of the dark cherry tea that I know he likes, after breakfast because his shirt is probably already at the dry cleaner’s anyway."
At Kai's declaration he might sleep with one of the pancakes instead, she nudges his side with open scepticism. "As if you’d be able to keep yourself from eating it as a midnight snack," she teases, already imagining him sneaking bites out of his hypothetical pancake bed the moment he thought she wasn’t looking.
Once they’re shown to their booth, Flora shrugs out of her jacket in one fluid motion, tossing it onto the seat she’s meant to take. Instead of sitting across from him, she slides in right beside him without hesitation, her hip brushing his as she settles in with the contented ease of someone who never intends to spend a meal an arm’s length away from the person she loves.
Flora
you can't be everything you wanna be before your time
