"Do you like the sunflowers, Len?" Miku asks once they're in the gardens. She's wearing a simple dark blue kimono with periwinkle flower buds blooming at the sleeves and shoulders; she calls it simple, though its fabric is silky and embroidery is skillfully done by the family's tailor.
Len takes a moment to process the question, enraptured by the sight of unfamiliar flowers amongst the camellias and lilies. He fingers its yellow petals and wrecks his brain for the vaguest sense of feeling. He likes the appearance of its disk-arranged petals, resembling the sun.
Its name makes sense. Sunflowers.
Miku patiently waits for him to nod. She rewards him with a grin. "I'm glad! You see, these are not from here. A travelling merchant was selling these from a country beyond the sea and Otousan bought them. I thought you would like something new."
Oh, this explains why he didn't recognize them. He never saw sunflowers before.
...Did he? He doesn't remember.
Miku is always talking about memories and his life as a human, but much of what she says does nothing to lift the fog in his mind. He feels disappointed that he can't remember because it makes her sad, and he doesn't like when Miku is sad.
He knows he likes flowers as much as he likes Miku. Instinctively. It's not only a devotion since she's his master, albeit a clumsy one—it runs much deeper than that. He's certain he had known her before he died. He lacks context, but the thought sounds right.
Len makes a happy noise, vocal cords suddenly betraying him, and hides a frown behind a smile. He is hungry. His body is showing signs, he knows, but he doesn't want to cry hunger when Miku brought new flowers to him.
He doesn't want to drench the sunflowers in blood, the messy eater he is. It would be awful.
Miku's hand on his shoulder grounds him back to reality. Len gulps air despite having no real need to. Breathing is voluntary, now; Miku seems to be pleased when he pretends to be alive. The warmth in her hand seeps through the fabric of his kimono, searing with a crushing reminder of his frigid skin.
Len opens his mouth and rasps, "The flowers... are pretty..."
It's no good. It's clear that he's reached his limit. Normal food is not enough. It is never enough. Miku giggles by his side, but even she can tell, beneath the self-fabricated illusion she's built for herself, that he can't go any longer without feeding.
"Miku... I'm hungry..." It's a simple, innocent-sounding sentence; between him and Miku, it is all it takes to shatter any happiness shared in this moment. He doesn't demand food. Miku asks for his presence for meals—breakfast, lunch, snacktime, dinner, midnight snack. If he does, then...
Miku's expression freezes, unsettingly so. And he can almost listen her heart stumbling off its rhythmical melody, tumbling violently against the ribcage and plummeting down to her stomach. Happiness becomes feeble like a candle flame, blown off with the weakest breeze.
"A-ah, yes. Yes, yes. I see. Uh, I'll bring you something, Len. Just... just wait for me, okay? I'll back soon." With a shaky stride, she hurries away from the gardens.
He glances back to the sunflowers, shutting off any thoughts about his hunger—is it just him or they tilted slightly to a side? Are they following the sun? How intriguing.
His stomach growls. Whatever magic ties his soul (or its dregs) to his body roars in his ears. He's hungry. God, he's so hungry. And he doesn't want to be hungry.
He doesn't like to remind Miku that he is dead.