lay your soul onto mine
Flora huffs an affectionate little sound through her nose, rolling her eyes as she angles her head back toward him, curls bouncing against her shoulders. "I do like cardio," she insists, widening her eyes at him with exaggerated sincerity that immediately tips into playful mischief, the sort that suggests she is being deliberately unhelpful and enjoying every second of it. Besides, it wasn't her fault he still had the lung capacity of a toddler.
When the door swings open, she blinks into the dimness beyond, already braced for hushed lighting and carefully curated tranquillity, for salt lamps and trickling water and someone murmuring about inner balance. Instead, what greets her looks like the opening moments of a horror comedy, all mud-splattered surfaces and overturned furniture, the scene painted in brown rather than red but no less unsettling for it. Her lips part around a confused, half-formed, "Wh—?" just as Kai's hand slips from hers, and she turns to take a better look, eyes tracking the streaks along the walls and the dripping armchair with dawning disbelief.
A scream cuts through the space again, sharper this time, and she barely has time to register the movement beside her before something wet and squelching slaps across her face, cold and heavy and profoundly personal. Mud splatters her cheek and shoulder, sliding down the front of her new sweater in slow, obscene rivulets, and she lets out a drawn-out, deeply offended, "Ewwwuh!" while scrubbing at her skin with the heel of her hand, only succeeding in smearing the mud further. It drips down her arm, plops onto the floor, and she stares at it for a heartbeat in horrified fascination as it begins to glob together to reform.
A heavy crash echoes from deeper within the spa, the unmistakable sound of something large being knocked over, and Flora freezes, mud still clinging stubbornly to her sweater. She exhales slowly, tilting her head toward the noise with grim understatement. "That," she says flatly, "does not sound very relaxing."
When the door swings open, she blinks into the dimness beyond, already braced for hushed lighting and carefully curated tranquillity, for salt lamps and trickling water and someone murmuring about inner balance. Instead, what greets her looks like the opening moments of a horror comedy, all mud-splattered surfaces and overturned furniture, the scene painted in brown rather than red but no less unsettling for it. Her lips part around a confused, half-formed, "Wh—?" just as Kai's hand slips from hers, and she turns to take a better look, eyes tracking the streaks along the walls and the dripping armchair with dawning disbelief.
A scream cuts through the space again, sharper this time, and she barely has time to register the movement beside her before something wet and squelching slaps across her face, cold and heavy and profoundly personal. Mud splatters her cheek and shoulder, sliding down the front of her new sweater in slow, obscene rivulets, and she lets out a drawn-out, deeply offended, "Ewwwuh!" while scrubbing at her skin with the heel of her hand, only succeeding in smearing the mud further. It drips down her arm, plops onto the floor, and she stares at it for a heartbeat in horrified fascination as it begins to glob together to reform.
A heavy crash echoes from deeper within the spa, the unmistakable sound of something large being knocked over, and Flora freezes, mud still clinging stubbornly to her sweater. She exhales slowly, tilting her head toward the noise with grim understatement. "That," she says flatly, "does not sound very relaxing."
