[There's a boy (middle school age, short, green-eyed, with fluffy black hair and an open expression) crouching in front of a patch of lavender.]
You look very nice today too. [He says, politely, to the flowers.] You're a lovely color.
[And then, he keeps talking, to no one at all.] I don't think they're able to do anything except compliment-- come on, they're just being nice! They're better than the other ones!
if you don't hold your tongues, i'll pick you!
[Chuuta keeps picking flowers on accident, pulling handfuls of dusty grey blooms off bushes and then dropping them in apologetic shock. He's always been kind of spacey, so it's not really a surprise that he's finding himself with petals between his fingers. The yelling is disconcerting though, vicious insults and anger from the blossoms.
Eventually, he finds himself staring at a flower in his hands, and pulling at a petal.]
She loves me. [He whispers.]
[She loves you not.] [Says the voice in his head as he pulls another petal.
They go on like that for a while, Chuuta's murmured "she loves me" followed by the reminder of "she loves you not" from Drew, a reminder that only Chuuta can hear.
At the end, Chuuta's the one speaking as he pulls the last petal and turns to a passerby in excitement.]
Look! You love me! That's great, since I really love you too!
in most gardens, they make the beds too soft
[Remember that time when you were six years old and the bigger kids were teasing you for being weird? They shoved you down, said stop talking to yourself, crazy, said what, do you think you can talk to ghosts or something and you were on scraped hands and knees still trying to figure out what happened. He stepped in, your best friend, a boy your age with bright red hair and an even brighter smile and crouched down beside you as you wiped little bits of gravel off your hands and said it's okay, I don't care if you talk to yourself, and he took your hand and--
Chuuta, age fourteen, is on his hands and knees again, but this time there's no best friend to pick him up with a smile, just a field of flowers and a stranger who just saw the sort of memory that makes him really want to cry.]
Chuuta Kokonose | élDLIVE
if you don't hold your tongues, i'll pick you!
in most gardens, they make the beds too soft