A/N: I have no clue what prompted this one. It's an interesting situation to spawn an entire fic though... Hm...
Seven: Paper Flowers
"What sort of flower would it be?" He murmured softly, plumping the papery plumage with his thin fingers.
"Wouldn't be a flower, it's paper…" Kurogane muttered irritably.
The man hummed softly, "It would be a carnation," he sung to himself, answering himself. No one existed to him any more.
Kurogane shrugged, tearing his eyes away from his common-law husband. He couldn't bear watching the once vibrant man any longer. "I'm going."
Fai didn't answer him, "I knew someone who liked carnations once," he crooned to the flower, "Bright and red like you." He laid the paper flower down, reaching for a new piece of wire. His eyes absently trailed down to his lap, where numerous sheets of crepe paper lay, waiting to be shaped.
Kurogane's eyes swept the small apartment. Paper flowers flooded the room, spilling off shelves onto the floor; carnations, roses, cosmos, dogwoods, irises littered the view of white furniture and dusty walls.
Fai's hands shook as he piled cutout upon cutout, his lips pursed in silent concentration.
Kurogane sighed; nothing had been the same since the accident. Fai hadn't been the same. The man was now pale and ashen, confined to a wheelchair. His large, once energetic blue eyes were glassy and almost dead. He spoke to no one, not even his adopted daughter, Sakura, who'd moved in to help out. Ever since he'd been discharged from the hospital, he'd begun to make thousands of paper flowers. Every second he was awake, he was working on the petals of a new creation. Thin, shaking fingers deftly smoothed and crinkled petals of paper, pulled florist's tape along the stems, murmuring softly in pleasure when he finished one.
It was his fault, Kurogane knew. If he hadn't decided to surprise Fai with a date that night, if he'd watched the weather before going out, if he could've braked one second earlier… The entire accident wouldn't have happened.
He watched sadly as a tear streaked down Fai's cheek. They continued to plummet like the rain had that night, one after another, falling softly on the tissue paper, wilting the flower petals under his fingers. He continued to stack the small circlets of paper, one on top of the other, finally crunching them all together. He began to fluff it, the damp paper tearing under his fingers.
Finally he gave up, staring at it sorrowfully, sobbing quietly. In his lap lay the red carnation and the crumpled, damp, ice-blue cornflower he had been working on.
"…You were a pretty flower," he murmured mournfully. "It won't do if they wilt in the rain..." Kurogane knew what the flowers were for, and it made it even worse...
Kurogane tore his eyes away, unable to watch the scene any longer. It was his fault.
Yes… his lover had never been the same since the accident…
Since he had died.
"…I'm sorry, Fai," he whispered.
And as always, Fai didn't answer. He could no longer hear him.