Izuku stared up at the flower shop sign for a moment. Though 'Bramblebloom' seemed a strange name for a place selling flowers, Izuku supposed it at least sounded kind of... floral. Or at least plant-ish. Was plant-ish the correct word? Botanical maybe? That sounded too scientific. Wasn't floral arrangement something you could go to school for though? Did that make it a science? Did that make arts classes all count as sciences?
Izuku shook his head before that train of thought carried him any further into lunacy. He settled on instead swallowing down his trepidation and pushing the glass door open with one scarred hand on the metal handle and his other hand, still bleeding a little from when he punched through a car window, in his pocket.
"Good morning!"
The woman behind, no, atop the counter was... not a woman. At least, not a human woman. Instead the countertop was occupied by a vast array of flowers in vases, a little stand holding a big bouquet of colourful lollipops, and a small green thing smiling at him. Izuku halted where he stood and turned his head back towards the green thing, which was indeed alive, moving, and smiling at him. It was perhaps the size of a volleyball, with stumpy little legs and arms and a big round head that looked sort of like a chipmunks. As a matter of fact, the whole of it looked like a chipmunk, though it's ears looked more like those of a lemur, big and floppy with a little hole in the left one. It's eyes were small, beady and black, yet it's mouth was indeed curled up in a big smile. The whole affair was covered up in short dark green fur that turned a paler colour on the face and belly, with pink skin inside the ears.
"Hiya!" the creature called, proving to Izuku that it was indeed the person who had addressed him before. "I'm Petal, owner and proprietor of this happy little shop! What can I do to assist you?"
"I-I'm Izuku Midoriya," said Izuku, looking around the shop. "I... well, I need some flowers, and uh... a friend of mine suggested I come here. He said you were, uh, really good and not too expensive..."
Petal, as the creature was apparently named, grinned. Then she jumped some ten feet through the air, landing on the display table beside him without disturbing a single petal on the many flowers covering its surface. She plopped down onto her... haunches? Butt? She sat down, legs spread and hands on the metal table between them, and leaned closer.
"Yep!" she agreed. "I like to think I'm the best in the neighbourhood, actually! So, what's the occasion? Is it a date? No... you look kind of glum... maybe something for a friend? A sick friend?"
Izuku swallowed.
"They're..." he pushed his index fingers together and stared at the floor, something he did quite a bit when his already frayed nerves were being stressed even further. "They're for my... my mother."
"Oh... is she sick?" Petal asked, cocking her head to one side with a sad little frown on her strangely expressive face.
"N-no... she's... I-I'm... I'm visiting her grave..." The admission was quiet as a whisper, as he stared at the floor, but Petal's ears flicked and she nodded slowly. "I-I wanted to... bring her something, you-you know? But I... I thought flowers might..."
"Miss Petal?" a voice that was all at once strangely familiar and yet foreign to Izuku's ears called out suddenly, its owner slipping through the swinging door behind the counter with two armfuls of flowers. "I finished those orders for the wedding, but I fear we are running out of hydrangeas again."
Izuku looked and stared for a moment as Ibara Shiozaki, one of his peers in class 1-B, laid the spectacle of multicoloured plants out on a big metal table behind the counter and then caught his eye, eyes going wide for a moment. She was wearing a white apron stained with green and a few other choice colours over a plain white shirt and blue jeans, the vines that constituted both her hair and Quirk twirled together behind her head in a strange sort of braid. Petal looked between the two, her ears flicking and eyes narrowing, before she smiled and clapped her little paws together.
"Oh!" She looked back at Izuku. "You must be Izuku Midoriya! Oh, I saw you at the Sports Festival, you made quite the show! You and Ibara must be classmates!"
"Not quite, Miss Petal." Ibara shook her head, taking a step around the end of the counter and towards the other two. "I am in class 1-B. Midoriya is class 1-A. Some purport us to be rivals, but in actuality we are simply peers."
Izuku nodded in agreement, a little surprised by Ibara's sudden appearance in the flower shop. He had seen the girl around before, as he had most of class 1-B, but he had never really interacted with her in any meaningful way beyond basic pleasantries and greetings. Petal looked between the two again as Ibara came to a stop just a few feet away, before her little chipmunk face took on a mischievous aspect and she leapt over to the counter again.
"Ibara, could you please help Midoriya with his order?" she asked. "I'm going to make some calls about the wedding order and the hydrangeas. Just help him with whatever he needs!"
Before Ibara could get a word in edgewise, Petal disappeared through the swinging door, and Izuku was left alone with the girl who was apparently UA's resident florist-in-training. She sighed quietly, shaking her head, before turning towards Izuku and smiling. It was a strange smile, equal parts graceful and cold. Izuku swallowed.
"How can I be of assistance?" she asked.
"I... I..." Izuku glanced at the walls of the shop, covered in shelves that were themselves covered in even more flowers, and swallowed. "I need some-some flowers, for... my... my..."
He took a step back, away from her, away from the sudden pressure he felt as she stared him down with an almost blank gaze that betrayed only faintest hint of disdain. This wasn't the same fear sparked by Toga and her glittering mad eyes or her savage grins, this was something gentler and yet far, far more oppressive. He wasn't even sure what he had done to deserve such a look; he only knew that whatever it was, it must have made Ibara quite upset.
"Hopefully they are part of an apology," Ibara declared, her voice as cold and hard as steel in the winter. "But I wouldn't expect such a thing after some five weeks of silence."
Izuku blinked.
"I..." He looked at her, confused. "What... are you talk-talking about?"
Her expression shifted for a moment, from cold anger to quizzical confusion, before her eyes narrowed even further and the anger became almost overwhelming.
"You don't even remember." she spat the words. "You hurt her and you can't even be bothered to remember your crime."
She took a step closer to Izuku, who himself took another step back. She hadn't raised a hand, she hadn't begun to untie the knot her hair was in; she simply moved closer, and he moved away because the weight of her anger was like a sledgehammer beating at his chest and head. He felt guilty, and he wasn't even sure what he was guilty of. Then, without warning, she surged forward and grabbed his shoulder.
Red eyes.
Yellow eyes.
Why were they always different in his mind?
Blue eyes.
He was smiling. Laughing. Watching. He was amused at his weakness, his idol thought his suffering was funny. I AM HERE. He was there. He was watching, he was smiling and laughing and watching. She held him tight to her body, breasts pressed against his chest, tongue in his mouth and she giggled as-
"Please..."
He realized only a few moments later he was on his knees, head bowed and hands up, shielding himself from Ibara who herself had frozen where she stood, the anger slipping away as she stared down at his panicking, trembling form.
"I'm sorry please please please I don't want to hurt any more..." Be whispered the words as he shielded himself from her dark gaze and her anger. "Don't hurt me please..."
He heard something drop to the floor in front of him, and flinched away from the sound before he felt a soft hand touch his face. His eyes shot open and he saw her arm, slender and pale, her fingers against the edges of his ear while her palm pressed against his cheek, soft and warm and much too close so he swatted the hand away and felt the green lightning engulf his body.
"Midoriya."
Her voice was different now, calmer, that cold edge gone into nothing and replaced with only a gentle reprimand, more like a quiet reminder that he needed to stop what he was doing. It... it reminded Izuku of his mother, and without even willing it to be so he felt One For All's surging power fade away, and his muscles relax as he slumped where he knelt. Unbidden tears flooded his eyes as he realized the truth. He had cracked. Again. He had let his stupid stupid stupid insecurities and fear overtake him and he had nearly-
"Midoriya."
Her voice again, calming, soothing, like cool water on his head, washing over him, cleansing him... her hand was back on his cheek, but this time he leaned into it. He blinked, looking up, looking at her. She met his gaze unblinkingly, any possible confusion or lingering anger well hidden behind an expression of quiet concern and gentle warmth. He blinked away the tears in his eyes and noted that Ibara Shiozaki's eyes were quite like his own in their rich shade of green. Curious.
"Are you well?"
He almost laughed. But that would have been rude and pointless, so instead he nodded because it was better to weakly lie than to admit the legitimate truth. She stared at him unblinking for a moment after, eyes narrowing ever so slightly, then nodded back.
"Do you need any help?"
It was a simple question. It was a question Izuku had been asked, with wildly varying choices of words and sentence lengths, about a hundred times. Probably many, many more. He usually forgot, as his response was the same now as it had always been. He shook his head, climbing back up to his feet and looking around for the shop again.
"I-I... I could use some flowers." he said, pleased with how steady he managed to make his voice despite his total emotional imbalance. "I... I'm visiting my mom's grave."
He regretted the words a moment later when a look of utter shame washed over Ibara's face, and she looked at him with eyes that made him want to cry again. He cut her off with a shake of the head, tentatively reaching out and putting a hand on her shoulder.
"It-It's okay, you didn't know..." he assured her. "I... I don't want to talk about it. I-I just want some flowers. Do... do you have any in-in green?"
Ibara took a moment to collect herself as well, before silently taking his hand in her own. He started at first, but she led him to a wall of displayed flowers, many of them green and white with a little red dotted here and there among the pack. Izuku stared up at the wall, eyes picking through the arrangements with lightning speed.
"Green is a colour used to display calm and life." Ibara said, her voice soft as she pointed to some of the flowers. "White is for purity and cleanliness and, usually, health. Red is passion of many sorts; a red rose represents love and lust. Meanwhile, a poppy is usually used to denote sacrifice."
She pointed to each flower in turn.
"Might I recommend something of this sort?" she continued.
She proceeded to lay out a short list of strange flower names that left Izuku a little lost, and she seemed to realize when she smiled and handed him one of each, plucked from the wall.
"A simple bouquet; unless you'd rather put them in a vase so they last longer?" she asked.
"The... I'll put them in-in a vase." Izuku agreed. "She... she'd like them to last."
Ibara withdrew behind the counter and began assembling a rather pretty little arrangement; a small circle of green flowers Izuku couldn't remember the names of, with a single poppy in the centre at the centre at his request. His mother had always loved poppies; apparently before he had been born, she and Izuku's father had travelled to Canada in the fall, where most of the people they met were wearing fake poppies as pins. His father had poked himself with those pins at least five times trying to put them on, and his left pectoral had resembled a well-used pincushion for several days afterwards.
"Will that be all?" Ibara asked, and Izuku nodded as he reached for his wallet.
She shook her head.
"I'll pay." she told him, her own wallet emerging onto the counter. "I... I must apologize to you somehow."
"No, it-it's fine, I can-" She cut him off with a raised finger.
"Let me pay this time." she said. "And you can give me something later in exchange, if you truly must."
Izuku wasn't sure how to come back to that, so he just nodded and let her pay for the flowers. She placed the small arrangement, including a pretty little bell-shaped vase, in his hands. He stood there dumbly for a moment, before thanking her and turning to leave.
"Oh, and Midoriya?" He turned when she called to him, his shoulder against the door. She had that finger raised again, wagging it back and forth.
"It isn't polite to lie." she told him, before turning and disappearing into the back room through that swinging door.
