"Why haven't you been speaking to me?" Francis said at last, staring defiantly at Arthur across the café table. He had invited him to the bustling city, hot with summer air and choked with tourists, for that single question.
Arthur refused to part his lips, save to sip from his glass of water. He ran his fingers down the sweat lining the outside of his glass.
"Please?" Francis suggested. The silent grudge against him stabbed his heart. It had gone on for over two months. Arthur remained quiet. Francis leaned back. The first two weeks he returned the frozen stares and wordless interactions, assuming it was a momentary sort of grudge. When it drew on long enough to be considered a psychological issue, Francis decided to step in. He constantly shoved letters under Arthur's door or left rambling voice messages, asking Arthur to a café or diner. Arthur had refused; up until now.
"Won't you say anything?" Francis said. Arthur grinned slyly.
"Waitress, please," Arthur said, looking over his shoulder at the waitress serving them. She walked over, her tightly curled blonde hair bouncing around a round face. "I'd like to pay." She nodded and left. Arthur didn't look again at Francis until she returned and he handed her the cash, telling her to keep any change. He rose and with a single glance at Francis, handed him something from his pocket before melting into the growing crowd within the establishment.
Francis's lips curled in and he bit them both, staring at his stale coffee. He looked in his hand and understood all at once. Lying on his palm, prickly and light purple, was a thistle. He fondly remembered days long past and lying bare on his palm was the first sign of communication from Arthur. A thistle: hatred or hostility to all of society.
The following day Francis slid, under Arthur's door, a bundle of dead leaves cradling a small, three-pointed purple flower, an iris. Sadness and faith together. Yet the iris itself meant more to Francis.
Three long days of steadily increasing summer heat loped by without response. Francis waited by his door, peering under it. He went to his mail constantly, even when he knew the mailmen hadn't even set out of their homes yet. Finally, it came. A geranium, five petals all a blissful purple, found its way to him. It came with no note or sign of sender, but Francis knew. Only Arthur would send him the flower of folly.
Arthur had great trouble deciding on what to send Francis next. It took him two nights of pondering to pick the geranium. It wasn't that Francis's messages were particularly hard to decipher, they simply were so blunt. Arthur had tried more elusive, vague messages but Francis understood them with clarity and responded with the only way he knew how: a gentle honesty.
Arthur paced around his living room, ignoring the TV hawking its wires on who committed what crime and what so and so did at whatever place. Arthur held Francis's reply in his cupped palm and stared at it, wringing it for information.
Yet, how could he reply to grass: submission?
Then it struck him, seeing the flower sitting lonesome in a thin vase, illuminated by a slice of light cutting through his curtains. Arthur went over it and plucked the head from the stem, feeling the soft orange petals, lined with red at their base. A marigold, the sign of cruelty or grief.
He delivered it by hand, sliding it into Francis's mail slot in his apartment complex and disappearing again, knowing Francis would be returning from his workplace at any moment.
Francis did in fact return a minute after Arthur turned the opposite corner. He sighed heavily, digging for his keys. He forgot to check his mail. Slumping inside, comforted by pale evening light, he lay down on the couch, cruising through channels and forgetting about his ongoing conversation with Arthur for the time being. He fell asleep there.
When night finally settled in, he rose and prepared himself a slice of toast and butter, unable to sleep more. The floral patterns along his kitchen walls reminded him and he checked under the door and wandered into the halls, without much hope. He munched on the buttered slice, awaiting disappointment. When he found the marigold sitting there, he wished he hadn't found it.
The next day was his day off and he took a trip to the florists. The smiling woman at the counter asked him what he wanted and he asked for an orange lily and purple hyacinth. The woman found the lily but apologized for the other flower's absence due to it being out of season. She watched the lily in Francis's arms dolefully, wondering who he had to express hatred to.
"What else, then?" Francis asked, knowing the woman spoke the language of flowers.
"For an apology?" She asked. He nodded. "But what for?"
"For giving up everything I have felt towards him… I want to surrender. As funny as that may seem," Francis chuckled lightly.
"I have a rare opportunity then," She said and went into the back, leaving Francis surrounded by a mass of colors and flowers. She returned with a small flower, all its red petals pointing upwards tensely. "A cyclamen, a good-bye."
Francis paid and returned home. He placed the cyclamen in a vase and let the lily rest in the dry patch beside it. The following evening, after Francis rested at home and worked, he gathered the lily, browned and wilted, and the still sturdy cyclamen, and headed to Arthur's house. He slid them beneath the door and rapped gently, not staying.
Arthur rose from his couch, setting away his book and catching sight of blonde hair in the window. He bent down to pick up the flowers and his eyes widened. He placed the decayed Lily on his table and tossed away the cyclamen.
He wasted no time that night going to the florists, just before they shut for the night. The woman, the same one who had helped Francis the day before, saw the urgency in his eyes and let him in.
"I need a white chrysanthemum and gardenia, please."
The woman nodded and turned away, her short brown hair tangled with petals. She went into the back and Arthur waited, admiring the cool of the room and the bright colors all around him. In the corner, bowed and slowly dying, were yellow roses. He looked at them. They were overlooked by the red roses, jealousy hidden behind true love.
The woman returned with a bouquet of them. Arthur frowned at the amount.
"I'm assuming you want a lot and you want them now, right?" She asked, gently plucking away and bruised petals from the white bundle. The flowers looked like fireworks heading down in the night sky, bundles of petals, clustered together and all curving down. Arthur paid and rushed to Francis's apartment building. He didn't bother being discrete or shy this time. Shrouded by the shadows coating where the lights along the building avoided, Arthur stood steadfast. He held the bouquet ahead of him, frowning.
Francis pulled open the door, tired. His hair was tied back and his sleeves rolled up. A smell of sweet, creamy foods rolled out the door and caused Arthur's mouth to open. Francis stared in confusion and then cast his eyes at the bouquet.
From a vase beside the door, he plucked up a single flower, with a sturdy steam. Beads of water clung to each thorn, sliding down. The red rose hung between Francis and Arthur, both not knowing how to act or what to do. Before Arthur could mumble an apology, Francis had stepped forward and pressed his soft lips to Arthur's, muffling any words.
White chrysanthemum: truth
Gardenia: secret love
I do not own Hetalia. All references here are towards the "language of flowers" from the Victorian age. Flowers can have more than one meaning, as well, so if it conflicts with what you know, why not add it along to your definition?