"What made you want to become a florist, anyways?" Len asked into the lull of a slow morning, the pitter-patter of the icy rain against the windows and Piko's lethargic preparations for the day the only prominent sounds in the shop. Piko huffed and put down the wire he was busy disentangling.
"I had no idea what to do with my life," he replied, sounding surprisingly detached. "My mom used to love flowers and a local flowershop was hiring, so I applied and went through with it."
Len blinked, not having expected such a straight-forward answer at all. Then, however, a realisation sunk in. "Your mom 'used to love' flowers?" he asked, wide-eyed and afraid of having touched upon a sensitive subject. Piko just nodded, expression unreadable. Len felt a bit like screaming in frustration, maybe. "What happened to her?"
At that, the florist shrugged, but his expression went grave. The next second, his lips started trembling and Len could have sworn his heart stopped beating right at that moment. So it was something bad, after all. He probably made Piko relive some bad memories and—
"Hay fever," Piko replied curtly and turned away from Len at the speed of light in a vain attempt to hide his growing smirk, all under the guise of going back to his wire.
"You're awful," Len muttered. Piko snorted and spun around again, his grin so wide, it looked as though it was splitting his face in half.
"You totally expected a sad backstory just now, didn't you?" he asked blithely, eyes wide and shiny. Len silently crossed his arms and stuck his nose up in the air with a huff. Piko laughed. "You're such a loser, not even denying it," he said, voice airy and light.
"I'm sorry for even trying to be sensitive," Len shot back, pointedly glaring at Piko as if to emphasise how offended he was. But the florist just laughed- a happy sound, chime-like and easy- and maybe that made Len's resolve crumble, just a bit.
(Perhaps he even started laughing along, at some point; he'd deny it afterwards.)