The memory was still fresh in his mind.
Her scent that smelled of flowers, her dying screech, her withering form, all engrained into his brain. A year has passed, yet his thoughts have yet to calm itself. An echo of a thought situated itself in his consciousness.
Taranza was mourning.
Awakening from his slumber, he examined his bedroom. A flowery scent was prevalent. The room was furnished with messy bookshelves and a bed in the middle. There wasn't actually much to admire considering he had just moved in. Everyone was nice enough to help him find a home in Dreamland knowing of his exile from Floralia.
Taranza didn't feel like doing anything today. It was always like this, he would laze around and mull over things, leaving only for necessities like food. He would distract himself, play with his phone, reread books, yet his thoughts would always redirect themselves to her.
Seeing today as another meaningless day, he opened his phone again except that something was different. A lone notification sat in the middle of the screen, a message from... Susie? Taranza stared at the message with an expression resembling confusion and shock. The message read about some sort of meeting and he was invited.
Honestly, he felt bothered to attend. Taranza contemplated attending it, he mulled over things like he usually did. He came up with excuses like feeling tired, feeling sick, or even just saying that he didn't want to attend.
Looking around the house again, he did owe Susie quite a bit. She was one of the people who helped with him obtaining shelter and he was of course thankful for that. She even got him (and everyone else) phones. A short pause later, he made up his mind. Sighing, he made his decision.
The wardrobe door creaked. Taranza looked through apparel suitable for a 'meeting', only to come back to the same green spiderweb motif cape and red scarf. He groaned as he reached for the outfit, putting it on half-heartedly.
Curious about how he looked, he decided to go look at himself in the mirror. A stray "Oh Nova…" escaped his mouth as he saw what seemed to be a husk. All he saw in his reflection was a face ridden with fatigue. Black eyebags were plastered on his face and his posture was slouched. He fixed his posture out of instinct and touched and prodded his eyes in disbelief. Would Susie be fine with how he looks now? Anxious, he tried to find a way to hide them. Eventually, he gave up trying to keep up appearances and left it as is.
"I hope Susie is fine with a corpse attending…" he remarked jokingly.
Taranza looked outside to scout around the place, worried about his departure. Anxiously, he peeked out the window to see orange light. The sun had already started to set, leaving the sky an orange hue decorated by yellowish clouds. Encaptivated, he admired the view through his window. He hadn't seen anything like this for a long time. It was beautiful.
It reminded him of-
"Ranza! Bowler! Come on!", shouted a female voice.
His thoughts were interrupted when a feminine figure appeared in his field of vision. Opening the door in a hurry, Taranza rushed out to see a familiar face. Pink hair styled in a ponytail accompanied with a tank top, the girl kept shouting his name and other weird sounding nicknames,
"Susie?"-he questioned nervously- "Why are you…"
She closed the distance between them and gestured him to follow, "What're you waiting for?"
"Again, why are you…"
"You're late."
"Ah," He glanced at the clock showing the time, 6 pm. "M-my bad."
Sighing, she walked back to where she came from and motioned Taranza to follow her.
He was brought to Susie's business suit, parked in the middle of the grassy plain. The pink mech caught his eye as the owner entered the very same mech. "Hop on.", her voice signaling him to get in the mech. Hesitantly, he followed suit as the mech drove towards their destination.