Birthday Pictures.

"Little flower, what do you want for your birthday?"

He received no answer, the silence lingered for a short moment.

"Little flower?"

"I dunno what there is..." She whispered sadly. "I-I uh… like Capri Sun!"

Watari smiled softly and ruffled her hair in a comforting manner, "It's okay, we can see what you want later on. We have to go get some groceries for the week maybe you'll see something whilst we're out, go get dressed."

Luculia smiled back and saluted as she walked over to their room, a slight skip obvious in her steps.

Watari stood at the elevator doors waiting patiently as the toddler ran up to his feet, holding her arms up to be carried. He smiled and leaned down to pick her up and place her on his shoulder like usual.

"All set?" She chirped an affirmative

"Access card?"

"Check!" She confirmed with a cheer, "I'm super ready, I promise. Let's go visit Muscles and Bella zia!"

"Yes, ma'am." Watari replied playfully. He somewhat hoped the toddler would never grow out of her love for her friends.

The easily amused Luculia proceeded to break into a fit of giggles.

The pair were currently situated in front of Jolly Market, Stefano had decided to join them as they walked by his stall and the adults were currently having a very interesting conversation between themselves that Luculia wasn't paying attention to at all.

The toddler raised a stubby arm in the direction of a young family that were making their way to the beach. More specifically she was pointing at the contraption that the father had hanging off his neck.

This action somehow dragged the attention of all the adults simultaneously.

"What's that?" she asked vaguely. A simultaneous look of confusion spread across three of the four adult's faces. Watari however, smiled sagely and replied accordingly.

"That's a camera, little flower. It takes photos that you can look at later."

The other three adults stared at him in bewilderment.

"She literally pointed in the general direction of the beach and you managed to identify not only the specific person she was pointing at but also the item that she was actually asking about?" Curly questioned, completely flabbergasted and impressed at the same time.

Watari just smiled at him causing Curly to sigh, "I don't know why I even doubted you."

She blinked at Watari in curiosity, ignoring Curly and his private mental explosion. "Like memories?" she asked.

Watari nodded an affirmative.

The toddler turned her attention back to the device. Her stare never wavering.

Watari knew exactly what to buy his little flower for her birthday.

"You look absolutely adorable, little flower." She beamed in response, "You need to take a picture with me too, Watari! We can ask Curly to take it!"

"Hey, I wanna be in it too!" he protested, fake tears dripping out of his eyes, "How could you forget about your Uncle Curly like that, Sweet Cheeks!"

Luculia giggled, "I want one with Watari first! Then you can join, okay Curly?"

The flowery man just sighed in resignation and took the camera from the toddler. The muscley man beside him threw an arm over his shoulder laughing and pointed at himself with his thumb.

"Muscles and Bella Zia are gonna join the family photo too, Principessa!"

Luculia sent Muscles a tiny thumbs up and Luca slyly kidnapped the camera from Stefano, triggering a squawk in protest.

Holding it up to her eye, she yelled, energetically waving for the pair's attention. "Say cheese, baby girl!" she called out.

"Cheese!"

Click!

"Curly time!" Stefano exclaimed running over to join the pair.

"Wait, one more!" Luca called over to the trio.

Luculia grinned cheekily and waved at Stefano, "Hehe, bye Curly~~"

Curly moved away from the camera's line of sight once more, dragging his feet along the ground. "Booo!" He whined.

Click!

"There, perfect!" The woman exclaimed with a happy smile.

Heels clicked against the pavement, approaching the group. "Oho? What is this?" an aged voice spoke out.

Luculia's ears perked at the familiar voice. "Mariana!" She exclaimed, "Come take a photo with us!"

The old woman smiled at the girl's energy. "I would be honoured to join you, little miss birthday girl. Happy birthday, by the way." She handed a small gift bag to the toddler which elicited an estatic expression on her face.

"Thanks, Mariana!" The old woman's smile grew.

Muscles took that moment to jog back to the group, a stranger trailing shortly behind him. "This is one of our regulars, Principessa. I asked him to take the photo."

The birthday girl smiled brightly at the stranger as Luca handed over the camera, briefly explaining the controls.

Stefano swooped in and snatched the toddler off the crouching old man's shoulder and placed her on the floor on his left, Watari's head positioned between the two. Luca sat herself down on Luculia's other side holding the girl's hand gingerly, Mariana slipped into the space behind the pair and Mario leaned down behind the whole group in the middle and wrapped his arms around Watari and the other reaching down to ruffle the birthday girl's head.

"Ready?" The camera man called out.

Luculia grinned up at the camera, posing a synchronised peace sign with the two young adults on both her sides.

"3! 2! 1! Cheese!"

Click!

Now, that would be a photo she would remember for the rest of her life.

Verde.

Dingdong!

Little footsteps could be heard hopping down the stairs.

"Watari!" She called into the kitchen, "Someone's here, someone's here!"

The old man in question popped his head out of the kitchen, wiping his hands on a cloth, "Yes, yes. I heard the bell ring too."

Luculia ran over to the couches in the main room, grabbed the remote and turned on the front door CCTV. There was a little baby there.

Making immediate assumptions the now three-year-old pouted at the suit-clad old man that was approaching her. "Mou! I'm not a kid anymore, you didn't have to get me a play-mate!"

Watari barked out a laugh, "He's not a play-mate, little flower. He's a colleague of mine."

The self-proclaimed not-kid blinked. "But he's- he's like my age!"

"Physically, yes. I will allow him to explain himself to you when he gets in."

Pulling out his 'Access card', Watari pressed one of the many buttons aligned on the bottom left corner of the coffee table.

"The gate is open, Verde." He spoke clearly into the card.

Luculia blinked and stuffed her hand into her pocket, dragging her own access card out and just blatantly stared at it. This thing is a microphone too?

Watari walked towards the elevator door and pressed green button that was next to the up arrow.

Momentarily, the elevator doors opened and their guest(s?) entered the home.

Luculia gaped at the visitor for a second before a bright grin broke over her face. She sprinted to the newcomer petting him furiously.

If you thought we were talking about Verde, you were incorrect.

"Wooaaahh! A crocodile!" She exclaimed in excitement, slightly baffling the green haired guest. "Hi, Mr. Crocodile. How are you?"

Watari sweat dropped, "Verde, this is my ward, Luculia. Little flower, this is my old colleague, Verde."

She stood up, staring into the space above him before recollecting herself. She bowed slightly to the scientist and smiled at his physical form. Verde tilted his head in her direction in acknowledgement and greeting, a question lingering in his gaze.

"It's nice to meet you, Verde!" she greeted before skipping over to the kitchen, the crocodile trailing along behind her. "You're just in time for lunch! Watari, just finished cooking when you arrived. Come, come~"

Luculia subconsciously sent out a string of flames towards Verde and tugged his star towards her and the food. She didn't think it'd hurt him, well, at least she wasn't sure that it would. She thought her flames was harmless, like an extension to her body.

Verde's star was dim and restricted, it was also displaced compared to his physical form. 'Eyes are the window to the soul' was the saying she read once before, she believed that the stars that she saw were souls since they usually made the same expressions as one's eyes and typically stars were positioned behind their eyes.

Luculia had to adjust her eyes to focus on physical forms instead of flames, occasionally slipping.

Verde had almost doubled over due to the sudden flare of sky flames so close to the most sensitive part of his being. He barely pulled his flames back in time to hold himself from the flame attraction welded in with the innocent gesture.

Watari sent him a slightly concerned look that the lightning arcobaleno waved off as he recomposed himself, one hand against his chest. "Well shit." He cursed under his breath.

He received a disapproving look and a half glare. He huffed in response but obliged to the little sky's wishes.

"What's for lunch, old man?" Verde questioned, strolling casually into the kitchen like he owned the place.

Watari sent him look, a 'really?' could be read clearly off his face. Verde just responded with a nonchalant shrug.

Watari sighed in resignation, no matter how old Verde was mentally, he never grew up.

"Cottage pie." He replied before glancing over his form, "You have no luggage with you? Did you not expect to be able to stay?"

Verde paused, "…no."

Bright sparkles and flowers dances around the oven, the source of the energy being the sky whom was crouched down in front of it, watching it bake.

Listening in on the conversation, Luculia's head snapped over to the arcobaleno's direction at neck braking speeds, her eyes were literally sparkling.

"We have plenty of room here, the more the merrier, I say. I love making friends, I'm great at it!"

She made the mistake of looking at his star out of habit, whilst it wasn't as harmful when it came to regular stars but it was unnerving to the arcobaleno that knew that if he wasn't cursed that would be the most respectful place to be looking when speaking to him.

Verde chose to brush it to the back of his mind for the moment and deadpanned at her, "Oh, really? And where are these friends of yours now?"

She sent him a guilty look. "…at their homes?"

He didn't believe her, not one bit. "Uh huh." He replied completely convinced, "And how many of these friends are within ten years of your age?"

"…none."

Watari ruffled her already permanently messy hair and gave an amused smile, "I suppose we do need to find you some friends your own age. As childish as he is, Stefano isn't exactly the ideal best friend you should be having at your age."

She huffed at him, "Curly's great." She defended, "He plays with me, and eats food with me and talks with me. I'm pretty sure that's a good friend."

Verde rolled his eyes, "I'm sure he is a great friend, brat. The issue is that he's almost three times your age."

"Oh."

"Yeah, 'Oh.'" He snarked at her before going silent and whimpering internally when the girl continued to stare into the eyes of his non-existent adult body, the memory physically hurt.

"Little flower, what are you looking at?" Watari questioned, asking the question that Verde desperately wanted to ask but didn't have the right to as a house guest.

"His star…" she whispered in awe. "It's interesting and different to anything I've seen before."

Verde's eyes widened. Star? Could this girl be able to see people's flame cores? What an outbreak of science, if she could. He had to know how it worked.

Watari shut him down with a pointed look that clearly stated his refusal of any experiments regarding his ward's organs.

"Yeah, I can see ghosts too."

Verde's jaw dropped, "Wait really?"

"That's a lie, little flower." Watari pitched in.

"Half lie." She corrected matter-of-factly, "I can see passerby stars sometimes. I just ignore them."

Verde looked absolutely done with her. This kid just wasn't going to stop she was already borderline supernatural.

"That's insane, brat." A lie, he sort've wanted to see what these so-called ghosts wanted. He gave up on holding back his curiosity.

"Can you drag one into one of my machines?"

"Oh, sure!"

"Puppets" and Strings

It was a lovely summer afternoon on a Friday, not that they paid much attention to the days of the week. Naturally, the normal response to such a day was as it appeared.

Luculia was lounging on the couch in front of the TV, a controller in hand and angry grunts and pouts firing out of her mouth as she tried to physically turn her body to make her car drift better. Verde had situated himself beside her with another controller completely and utterly destroying her in every way shape and form.

"…you know, turning the controller won't make your character move that way."

Her face flushed and she spluttered, "Shush! That wasn't my intention, I swear. It just helps me play better!"

The look Verde sent her with regards to her claim was a deadpan stare that read 'oh, really?'. This kid had been losing left and right since they started. They started playing at almost 7am, it was 2pm.

She puffed her flushed cheeks up in irritation and snapped her attention back to the video game.

"You're going down this time!" She announced. The scientist sighed, "Maybe some other day, brat."

For a moment, Verde felt terribly bad for the kid but his pride didn't want to let him lose. His thought process ran through several sequences of the following.

Let the brat come first.

Oh, wait did Watari just walk in to watch?

Well, dayum. Maybe next year brat, I ain't losing with an audience.

Proceeds to annihilate her with the dreaded blue shell and banana combo.

Needless to say, this resulted in a very grumpy 4-year-old. Not for winning, oh no, she was fine with that. But for the fact that he dangled the treat in front of her face before kicking her in the metaphorical balls, jumping on her face and smirking at her in amusement.

He was going to freakin' get it.

"Are you ready for training, little flower?" Lu turned her head to him and beamed, temporarily wiping away her irritation in favour of learning.

"Yes!" She exclaimed, scrambling off the couch and to the stairs. "I'm gonna go get changed. Thanks for cleaning up, Verde!"

Watari chuckled at Verde's offended look. That was just a dirty move, brat.

The trio gathered in the south training hall, it was the smallest of the three but still spanned a good could-probably-fit-two-cars garage area. The walls were white and plastered with reinforcement, the only thing that stood out in the plain room was the door and the widespread window that allowed for outside viewing.

Watari handed the young girl a spool of thread. The other two present just stared at him and the item in bewilderment.

"What on earth is she here to train?" Verde wasn't about to sit through a life lesson session full of inspirational quotes and likely knitting or sewing of some kind. He sent the thread a dubious look.

"No, seriously. If she's here to learn how to knit scarves for her future grandchildren, I'm going to neck."

Luculia snorted and Watari sent her a pointed look, she was 4 for goodness sake, she shouldn't know what 'necking' means outside of the scientific term. Watching material's fail under tension is not exactly amusing.

Her hands shot up to cover her snickers, Watari just sighed. "I'm sure you've noticed her excellent yet terrible control over her flames alongside the tremendous capacity she apparently holds."

Verde nodded and gestured for him to continue. "She described her precise flame usage and 'playing with strings and pulling stars' thus I thought it would be appropriate to teach her the ways of physical threads and potentially puppetry."

The scientist paled a few shades and nodded stiffly. Puppetry, he whimpered in his mind. The brat was learning freaking puppetry, she would be the cause of his upmost doom with all the chaos she could do with that stuff. Oh, and don't get him started on razor threads when Watari said physical threads he 800% actually meant razor threads.

He needed insurance, goddamit! Well, he'd get the second-best thing.

"Ensure that stuff is never aimed at me, okay brat?"

"…" Oh, come on. Say it, please.

"Okay." Success. Now if I get hit by those things she'll feel half obligated to fund half my projects with her inheritance.

"…I'm not going to fund your stuff if she hits you a couple of times, Verde." Verde huffed, "Oh, come on."

Watari rolled his eyes and held his hand out to his sky for the thread back and subsequently held the spool up to attention. "This is normal thread. Not razor thread, not metal thread, not wool for knitting. It's normal thread that you would use to connect seams."

Verde sent him a pointed look, "No, we are not fixing clothing nor learning how to do so. She will be learning how to send out and control the movement of this before anything dangerous."

Watari pulled out the open end of the thread and passed it to the girl before giving her the rest of the spool. "Throw it at Verde, little flower. Try and wrap it around him with a single movement."

Verde looked completely betrayed. Watari had ignored his whole internal monologue about not wanting to die via brat and strings and had sent him straight into the gutter.

…

Verde was so done, he just wanted to die right there.

The brat was sitting next to him, throwing the little end of the thread at his face and he didn't even feel the want to yell at her for the blatant disrespect. Watari was sipping tea and observing, visibly enjoying his suffering.

The old man looked at the small silver watch sitting on his inner wrist after he finished his tea and stood up, taking the spool of thread from the girl as he rose.

She tilted her head in question. "Dinner time." He informed them.

Verde just gave up and let his body flop onto his back. He held up his hands to the two, "Carry your loyal training dummy, peasants."

And no, he was not adopting the mannerisms of a future psychotic prince.

Luculia was pouting, she could feel the lack of improvement or any sign of progress within her training and it was bothering her.

Watari looked contemplative, "Perhaps we should find something to connect the ends to. Razor wires are noticeably heavier thus may be easier to send out, but being able to use strings of any kind would be a good technique."

She squinted at him, "How? Not everyone holds string with them."

He chuckled, "No, but everyone does wear clothing. At least everyone that you should be interacting with. Hair would do as well. It's like the excess threads that sometimes come off your sweaters."

Her mouth formed an o and she made a noise of understanding.

The green-head sent his old "friend", more like colleague now, a glare. "And you couldn't have thought of that 2 hours ago?"

His smooth chuckling continued, "No, of course not. Patience is a virtue, my friend."

"Waiting is one thing, waiting and being hit in the face by strings is another. Now, what were you looking to attach to those strings?"

Watari leaned back in his seat, "Perhaps, needles, knives or senbon? Those work well with poisons as well."

The little sky whined, "I don't like needles! They scare me." Her lightning rolled his eyes. "You aren't the one being poked, you're doing the poking."

She puffed her cheeks in annoyance, her stubborn nature revealing itself. "I still don't like it."

It was clear that nothing he would say would get into that stubborn head of hers so he redirected the job to Watari, passing the baton with his 'now, it's your turn' look.

"Well, what do you want to use, little flower?" The oldest asked her. Giving her the option to choose, in his mind, would either allow her to suggest her own methods or give in and agree to one of theirs. It was honestly a flawless psychological trick to use on children.

The girl in question went silent, she didn't know what else she could use. "I guess senbon wouldn't be bad for now… for now. I'll think about it, maybe I'll come up with something else."

Watari nodded sagely, "Good thinking, now I will fetch some senbon to work on for tomorrow after dinner."

"I don't want to do poisons though," A shiver crawled under her skin, "that stuff is even scarier."

Watari tutted her, "Now, don't go writing things off. I'll have you know, Shamal is very well versed in his ways of medicines, diseases and poisons. I'm sure if I pay or pull a few favours from him, he'd be willing to teach you."

Verde stared at them with a bored look, "No, if you age a few years till you're at least 12, he'll judge your worth as a woman and teach you purely to get you to love him... if you're pretty."

"…what."

Cooking 101 - (This was meant to be in a different chapter but I got lazy so it's here, wooo)

"How bad could this be?" Verde questioned. "You only managed to almost burn water the last time you tried to help bake a cake."

The 4-year-old puffed her cheeks in irritation, "Hey! Baking and cooking are like, different… I could be a cooking extraordinaire!"

Verde snorted, "Yes, yes, brat. I believe in you" he commented dryly.

Luculia dragged the stool next to the one Verde typically occupied and brought it in front of the stove. Verde had made himself comfortable on the kitchen benchtop right next to it. He would never admit it to anyone but he was actually legitimately concerned that the little sky would somehow cook herself instead of whatever monstrosity she was trying to dish up.

"So, what are you trying to make again?"

"Pasta! Watari loves creamy tuna pasta." She replied excitedly. Luculia had always wanted to do something in return for everything that Watari had done for her in the past two years and this was her chance. (Almost) nothing Verde said would stop her!

Verde paused. …Oh, creamy pasta doesn't sound too hard. Maybe she won't die today.

"Do you have a recipe, brat?"

The girl froze halfway climbing up the stool, "Uhh… I was getting to that!" she climbed all the way back down and ran into the bookshelf that was against the wall in the main room.

She slipped the book out of the shelf and waved it at the lightning arcobaleno, "I got it now!"

The scientist rolled his eyes and signalled her towards him, "Alrighty, come back then."

As Luculia toddled her way back, Verde pulled out a pot from the cupboard and placed it on the electronic stove for her. She plopped the recipe book on the left side of the stove in between herself and Verde.

Verde flicked open the book to the bookmarked page. Luculia hovered her finger over the list of ingredients. "So… fettuccine, tuna, I think canned would be fine… milk, cream, pepper . Easy!"

Her lightning sent her a look of disbelief, "You said that before you tried making that cake, brat."

"Booo~" she whined.

30 mins later…

By this time, Verde had started dozing off in boredom. The brat was just stirring and adding and repeat. I mean look its like the third time she's added a little bit more of tu-

"OI BRAT THAT'S CHILI TUNA." He shouted in alarm causing her to pull the arm she was pouring the tuna with back due to reflex. She put the can down on the bench and put a hand to her chest, breathing deeply to calm herself. "You scared me! Gosh!" she complained, "It's not like it would be terrible with chilli!"

Verde sighed in resignation. Honestly… this brat.

"It would change the entire flavour," He explained calmly. "canned tuna has flavouring added to the chilli flavour meaning the whole thing would taste more like tomato and chilli than actual tuna. Plus, neither you nor I will be able to eat that spicy shit."

"Well… it's for Watari anyway?" she attempted to reason.

Verde just closed his eyes, shook his head and sighed, "No, we are not going to starve tonight and watch the old man eat your strange and deluded attempt at making tuna pasta. He would probably eat it no matter how terrible it was, smile and compliment you."

Lu sighed, looked down at her creation and pouted, "That sounds kinda accurate."

"It is accurate, brat. Now go get the smoked flavoured one and dump it in so we won't starve to death tonight."

Mix…mix…mix…stir…stir…mix…

"Are you done now, kid?" The girl ignored him and pulled open a drawer on the her right, grabbing two forks, passing one to Verde.

Well, his question was half answered at least.

As the girl reached her fork into the pot to taste, Verde hit the utensil away and put to the side. She stared at him with a flat, unamused look to which he returned with an equal amount of very amused amusement.

"Get a serving bowl or a plate or something. Do you really want to give this to Watari in the pot?"

"Fiiine"

…

Beep!

The sound of the doors of the elevator opening glided through the air and to the cooking pair.

"Ahhh! He's back!" Luculia screeched, quickly jumped off the stool and grabbed the closet serving bowl she could find.

Watari's shoes could be heard slightly around the entrance of the building. He was likely taking his time taking off his shoes and listening to her adorable attempts to rush.

"Verde, catch!" she yelled as she chucked the bowl up at him and clambered up the stool. The arcobaleno stumbled slightly but found a decent grip on the glass bowl before it fell… for a while, that is.

The little sky decided that it would be a great idea to pour the food into the bowl while he was still trying to get steady. This caused the bowl and the pasta inside of it to fall out of his hands.

The pair gasped in horror as the glass bowl plummeted to the ground.

All hope was not lost however as the old man that they had been cooking for had previously entered the kitchen and was watching them in amusement. As the bowl fell, Watari caught it with his foot and placed in on the kitchen bench next to Verde, his groceries were sitting on the bench behind him.

Verde stared at the bowl of perfectly safe pasta and Luculia sighed in relief before also staring, but her nervous gaze was on the somewhat amused man in front of her that she could feel a lesson dropping out of.

"Uhh... Welcome home?" she greeted nervously. "We made dinner?"

The old man chuckled, "I can see that. Now, let's go get some plates and have some dinner, shall we?"

Suddenly, a slight slurp ringed the attention of both the oldest and youngest in the room to the middle child. Verde had taken his fork and pasta-napped three strands or so to taste test.

"Wait what the fuck, it's actually good?" he spoke genuinely surprised.

Lu glared at him and whined dramatically, "So cruel, Verde!"

Watari frowned at both of them. "Language. Both of you." He scolded.

"Sorry, Watari." They replied in unison, with their heads lowered.

"Now go get the plates, little flower."

"Okay!"