local loser

“Sorry- it’s, um, a bit messy. I was in the middle of some orders when I left.”

Your words tumble over each other, quick with embarrassment, as you shuffle across the shop. Pots sit clustered on the floor like little sentries, soil speckling the tiles; ribbons spill from a drawer you forgot to close. You scoop up pruning shears, stray twine, a few trailing leaves, stacking them into order. The table looks no less cluttered for your efforts, but at least it feels intentional now.

You disappear to the back, rummage hastily, and reemerge with a towel in your hands. You thrust it toward him, the fabric clean but warm from being stored against other linens.

“It must be cold. Do you want something to drink?” The nervous energy starts bubbling, pushing words through your lips faster than sense allows. “I have tea, coffee, water-”

“Tea is fine.” His voice cuts through the flutter like a soft blade, even and quiet. His emerald gaze follows you as you bustle, as though you are some bewildered creature trying to tidy up raindrops. A sound escapes him then, half chuckle, half sigh, as if he can’t help but be amused by your restless pacing.

While you fuss with cupboards and jars, he lets his attention wander. His eyes roam the walls, paintings and sketches unevenly framed, colors both gentle and bold. Some are signed by friends, others anonymous, gifts from patrons who must have felt at home here. A pinboard tacked with paper blooms catches his eye, brimming with little notes, hearts, and scrawled confessions.

“Lily of the valley was so pretty, it also matches the aesthetic of my apartment. Will return for some more.” -Sarah Your reply beneath, looping in cheerful ink: I always keep some for you every Wednesday <3

“Do you like lemon drops, dear?” Of course I do, Mrs. Susan ^^

“Mom said I can buy as many flowers as I want once I get marry, is it true?” -Abby Your reply: You can buy as many flowers as you want once you grow up.

“Will you go out with me?” -Josh Your neat answer: Sorry, I’m not looking for a relationship at the moment. Underneath: Agh dang :((( 

Scrawled in his handwriting, heavy with melodrama.

And tucked in the corner, smaller: “You remind me of my wife a lot”

The signature smeared, anonymous, perhaps too tender to name.

The board blooms with laughter, longing, and quiet affection, a chorus of voices that stitch the shop into something more than walls and counters.

“Got it!” you announce suddenly, clinking teacups as you open a cupboard. Steam begins to curl upward, filling the air with the first breath of herbs. “You can look around if you want. I don’t have much to show, hahah.” The laugh is awkward, high-pitched, your attempt at warming the space for him, as if it needed warming at all.

His gaze drifts once more, landing this time on the counter where roses sit waiting for their final arrangement. Wrappers lie open beside them, gloves discarded with fingers curled like sleeping hands, pruning shears resting sharp and casual at the edge. The scene speaks of someone interrupted mid-thought, mid-craft, yet too trusting to guard the tools of their trade.

And he wonders. Wonders if you realize how easily you’ve let him in, into your store, your sanctuary, your world. Wonders if you grasp how the scattered shears and exposed blooms might look to someone less kind than he is. If he were a man with crueler intent, this open door, this unguarded place, would have made the work too simple.

Yet you never paused. You never questioned. You only offered towel and tea.

-----

“I hope I didn’t disturb your work.“ he murmurs, his voice low enough that it nearly blends with the steady percussion of rain against the glass.

You peek your head out from the back room, strands of hair slipping forward as you glance at him. His emerald eyes aren’t on you, though, they’re tracing the walls, pausing on a framed photograph of an elderly woman flanked by her companions. The corners of the picture are worn, the smiles timeless. His gaze drifts again, settling finally on the half-finished bouquet of roses waiting for you on the counter.

“Oh, that?” You follow the line of his attention and let out a small laugh, brushing off the weight of his curiosity. “It’s only one order, so it’s not much work.”

When you set a steaming mug on the table before him, you speak in the same soft, hurried cadence you always fall into when nerves take hold. “It’s still hot, you might want to let it cool down a little.” You fumble, then add, “Uhm… I know your work requires you to keep the mask on, so I thought the straw might help.”

It’s a small thing, an ordinary mug with a thin straw meant for children, but when his eyes land on it, something in them brightens. He chuckles, the sound low and warm, mingling with the patter of rain until it feels like another note in the weather’s song. “Thank you,” he says, amusement lacing through the words, “that’s very thoughtful of you.”

Your smile comes awkward. You almost want to explain yourself, to tell him the straws were bought for restless children who once ran circles around your shop, never for adults in masks with emerald eyes. But he doesn’t seem to mind, and so you simply retreat back to the counter, tugging on your gloves and picking up the roses once more.

You try to lose yourself in the familiar rhythm of your work, trim, angle, adjust, tuck. Yet his gaze lingers. You can feel it like a tangible weight pressing between your shoulders, a heat that makes your fingers stiffen. You’ve never been one to work well under watchful eyes; nerves tug at your precision, threaten to turn stems crooked, ribbons uneven. So you force yourself to imagine he is nothing more than another fragrance in the shop: part of the blend of petals and soil and tea, not a man seated straight-backed in the corner.

The room falls into a hush, broken only by the rain outside. Then you hear a click, a soft mechanical sound ripples through the air, followed by the sudden, gentle swell of a melody. Strings rise beneath a faint crackle, filling the quiet with a warmth that almost startles you. Both of you turn instinctively toward the sound.

“Ah- sorry,” you rush to explain, reaching toward the record player perched at the back. “I set it on a timer sometimes. I’ll turn it off-”

Before your fingers find the switch, his voice interrupts, softer even than the tune threading through the room. “It’s all right. I quite enjoy music, too.” The bells on his hat tremble faintly as he speaks, chiming in harmony with the record’s song.

Your hand hovers a moment longer over the machine before you let it fall back. The record belongs to the shop’s true owner, the old woman who loved to fill her store with melodies nearly every day. She’s away now, somewhere sunny, and you’re only the lucky employee trusted to hold the key in her absence. You never had the heart to move her things; the music feels like her signature, her way of keeping the shop alive.

“I see… most of my customers like it too,” you add quietly, smoothing the petals beneath your fingertips. “So I tend to put it on sometimes.”

From the corner of your eye, you glimpse him, seated straighter than anyone you’ve ever met, posture held like a soldier’s. Perhaps it’s habit, or perhaps it’s necessity. His emerald gaze has shifted now to the window, watching the torrents outside as lightning flickers in the distance.

Water still clings to his hat, droplets sliding down the brim, and his shoulders darken where the fabric has drunk in too much rain. You wonder how heavy it must feel to wear such intricate clothing, every fold and layer burdened by damp. And yet, even drenched, even chilled, he looks entirely composed, as if discomfort is a thing he has long since learned to ignore.

----

“If you need anything… I have the bathroom at the back,” you offer, your voice softer than you intend.

His emerald eyes shift back to you, sharp yet unreadable beneath the porcelain mask. The lamplight glosses over the surface, catching on the painted green swirls beneath his eyes, except they are no longer pristine. The rain has smudged them, streaking faint trails down like ghostly tears. At first you thought the patterns were carved or printed into the mask itself. Now you see they are painted anew each time, different today than yesterday, different still from the first time you saw him outside the shop.

You must have lingered too long, staring. His voice cuts the silence. “Is there something on my face?”

Your gloved palms grow clammy, throat tightening with panic. Was I rude? Did I offend him? The words trip out of you, tangled. “N-no, I just- your paint, it smudged a little. I thought it was… a print pattern before.” You nearly bite your tongue trying not to make it sound like an insult.

A soft laugh breaks from him, deep and unbothered, weaving itself into the music floating through the room. The bells at his hat answer, chiming faintly with his mirth. “Hahaha, no need to be so nervous. I’m not going to bite you.”

You let out a shaky breath, almost dizzy with relief. Sweat prickles at your hairline but eases as you drop your gaze back to the roses, focusing on the simple act of plucking their thorns.

“I think you might have noticed it already,” you admit after a pause, voice low. “I’m not really good at communicating with others.” The words feel bare, but also strangely freeing. You’ve long since decided there’s no point pretending to be someone else. It’s easier to be truthful than exhaust yourself in masks that don’t fit.

He doesn’t mock or question, only listens. “Isn’t everybody at the beginning?” His tone is thoughtful, weighted with genuine attention. You feel it pressing against your skin, the way his words seem to see between yours, and it leaves you faintly exposed.

“I used to be not good at communicating either.” His admission comes just as the record clicks and slides into its next track, the strings sighing back to life.

You glance at him, brows knitting. “I-I see. That’s… quite surprising.” Truly, it is. A performer, forever in front of crowds, basking in applause and attention, you had assumed such confidence was woven into his very bones. To imagine him awkward or hesitant with words feels impossible. Or maybe you simply don’t know him well enough to see it.

“It’s true,” he says simply, as though sensing your doubt. His gloved fingers tap idly against the wooden tabletop. Not harshly, not impatiently, but with a curious rhythm, each nail clicking like a measured note that threads itself into the melody playing overhead. Normally, that sound would set your nerves on edge, stir the awkward itch of being observed. But from him, it blends seamlessly, syncing with the music, with the rain, with the faint rustle of roses in your hands.

“Then you must have been very great,” you murmur, slipping a thorn into the jar beside you. “I mean… improving so well.”

His gaze shifts briefly to the jar, registering the odd detail: each spike carefully plucked, collected instead of discarded. It seems to hold his attention, his eyes brightening with some unreadable thought, as though this quiet habit of yours reveals more than your words ever could.

-----

“You kept the thorns after plucking them?”

His question slips through the quiet like a note plucked on a string, low and resonant. It lingers in the air even after the sound fades, circling around you as his gaze fixes on the jar filling steadily at your elbow.

“Yes,” you answer, your voice softer now, careful. “It’s an odd order. The customer wanted roses with thorns, but asked me to remove them and keep the jar. She said her daughter used to collect them when she was little.”

The jar grows heavier with each prick you drop inside, tiny reminders of what’s been stripped away.

“It’s strange, isn’t it?” His voice has roughened, raspier now, like stone dragged across velvet. You keep your eyes on the roses, not daring to meet his stare. “They want roses with thorns, and yet they remove them?”

The spikes in your fingers feel sharper than before, as though the thorns themselves react to his words. The shop feels colder, though the rain’s rhythm hasn’t changed. And the roses, once a soft, wine-red glow, look darker, richer. Their hue flirts with the color of blood, and the realization makes your hand falter mid-pluck.

“I suppose… different people prefer different things,” you whisper, as if afraid the thorns themselves might listen. “Or maybe they just don’t want to risk being pricked.”

It isn’t the strangest request you’ve had. You’ve seen plenty of oddities in orders, people with specific whims, sentimental rituals, impossible expectations. Perhaps you’ve grown too accustomed to oddness. What unsettles others has become almost ordinary for you.

“Well,” he murmurs, his voice taking on that melodic lilt again. “I believe roses with thorns look more beautiful without.”

For a fleeting moment, you wonder if it’s the honey you stirred into his tea making his words feel so sweet, so smooth. But then you remember, he hasn’t even touched the cup.

Your hands busy themselves, though your mind wavers. Roses aren’t your favorite. You’ve handled too many to give them special reverence. You know each flower carries its own grace, its own history. Why choose one to place above the rest?

“They like the beauty but not the risk, don’t they?” His words tug your gaze upward. “Admire someone’s edge, then file it down.”

The bells on his hat give the faintest chime, yet you never heard him approach. Suddenly, he’s there, leaning across your counter. His proximity steals the breath from your lungs, and instinct makes you step back a pace, heart ticking too fast. How does he move so quietly when every jingle should betray him?

“Which makes me wonder,” he continues, his voice softer, closer, threaded with that unnerving calm, “whether they truly love the roses… or only the idea of them.”

The bells hum in agreement with the melody drifting from the record player as he tilts nearer, enough that your eyes drop instinctively to the roses instead of his mask. You refuse to be swallowed by whatever game he plays with words. Perhaps this is simply his stage persona bleeding through, the riddles of a circus performer who delights in unnerving his audience.

Your voice comes smaller than intended. “What about you?” You tuck a final thorn into the jar, trying to mask the tremor in your hands by busying them. The bouquet begins to take shape under your fingers, the paper cradling the roses into form. “What kind of flowers do you like?”

A chuckle rumbles from him, teasing, accompanied by the faint chime of his bells. “Ah. I believe I’ll leave that to the expert.” His tone slows, weighted with intention. Emerald eyes catch yours, gleaming behind porcelain. “Tell me… what flowers do you think would suit me?”

-----

The smudged paint is clearer now, green streaks running like delicate streams beneath his eyes, as if his porcelain mask itself wept. So close, you can’t tell whose breath you hear mingling with the soft music, the steady draw of his through porcelain, or the shallow hitch of your own. The record clicks again, shifting to a gentler track, filling the air with something almost too tender for the silence between you.

It might have been a question meant in passing, but you cannot take it lightly. What flowers would suit him? A question simple on the surface, but weighty when given to a man who cloaks his face, who speaks in riddles and laughter like bells. “Suit” doesn’t always mean “beloved.” Suit could mean reflect. And you don’t know him, not enough to decide which is his mask, and which is himself. His life is performance, his face hidden even now.

Still, you answer. “I’d say… pansies suit you.”

He tilts his head, bells chiming faintly as though amused, the smallest pause stretching between you. “Oh? And why would that be?”

Your fingers tighten on the paper wrapping the roses, your words fumbling forward with care. “Because… the petals. They resemble the mask. And… you wear a mask.”

It sounds clumsy, childlike even. You cringe inwardly. But it is the only truth you have, the only thing you know about him.

He chuckles low, the sound curling in the air, velvet and edged with mirth. The bells sway with his laughter, light and unbothered. “Such an imagination, isn’t it?”

His tone is teasing, slippery, making you wonder if you’ve offended him without meaning to. “I- I didn’t… I just...” you stumble over yourself, your throat tightening. “I only meant it as resemblance, not anything more…”

“Relax, Fiorellina.” His voice folds over you like silk, coaxing you to stillness. “I take no offense.” A beat passes, and softer, he adds, “In fact, it is quite an honor, to be compared to such a delicate creature.”

Your gaze drops, heat rising unbidden at your neck. He speaks kindly, yet you know better than to believe your clumsy tongue makes for good conversation. Embarrassment knots in your chest, urging you to hide among your roses, to vanish behind your work.

Then his voice finds you again, tugging at the thread of your thoughts. “Do you know which flower you remind me of?”

Your head lifts slightly despite yourself, caught by the weight of his tone. “Snowdrop,” he says.

“Snowdrop? You mean Galanthus?” you ask, seeking clarity, though the soft chuckle and nod he gives in return already confirm it.

The question lingers on your lips, why? but you don’t need to ask. His emerald eyes seem to catch the unspoken and hold it still, narrowing faintly as though he can read the fluttering uncertainty in your chest. The awareness makes you flinch, as if he’s peering past skin into the marrow.

“The way their petals bow downward reminds me of you,” he murmurs, his gloved fingers tracing along the counter, a slow rhythm against the wood. “Like how you always lower your gaze instead of meeting another’s eyes when you speak.”

The truth of it sinks like a pebble into your chest, rippling out. You swallow, unsure whether his words sting or soothe, unsure whether he means it as flaw or as fragile beauty.

He isn’t wrong. You’ve always found it safer, to avoid the weight of another’s eyes. A single glance can feel like exposure, like someone is peeling away the thin veil you’ve wrapped around yourself. 

But you also know how it looks to others. Cold. Distracted. Rude. You’ve heard it before, in whispers and in sharper tones. The thought curls in your chest now as you risk the question you’ve never dared to voice aloud.

“Did it… come out as rudeness to you?” The words leave you cautiously, almost brittle, like glass too fragile to bear the weight of their own meaning.

He doesn’t falter. Doesn’t hesitate. “No.” His reply is smooth, certain, flowing into the quiet like water into cracks. “I think it’s quite normal. Aren’t humans meant to be like that? To retreat. To grow uneasy when faced with what they don’t yet know?”

His phrasing makes you pause. The ease with which he says humans, as though placing himself on the outside of the word, peering in. A strange slip, or perhaps only your imagination. Still, it settles oddly in your chest, and before suspicion can take root, you force yourself to let it drift away. People speak in strange ways sometimes. Perhaps it’s just his manner of expression.

“W-well… yeah, I guess so,” you answer softly, unsure what else to give him in return.

His gaze lingers, emerald eyes unwavering behind porcelain. That mask conceals so much, yet you feel laid bare under it, as though those painted, smudged patterns only deepen his scrutiny. Your hands fumble for refuge in work, you tug at the ribbon, draw it taut around the bouquet, let muscle memory guide you. But your nerves betray you, your elbow catches a small jar perched too close to the edge.

It topples, clinking lightly against the counter before spilling its treasures, lemon drops scattering across the wood like pale amber marbles.

“Oops hahah… clumsy me,” you stammer, crouching quickly to gather them. Heat prickles at your ears as you glance up, half-expecting amusement or reproach. But he only watches, gaze steady, then shifts it toward the bright candies glinting against your palm.

Desperate to ease the awkwardness, you thrust the little jar toward him. “Do you want some? They’re lemon drops. A bit sour, though… I don’t really like things that are too sweet.”

The jar looks out of place on your counter, and you wonder if he’ll notice. It’s not a decoration, nor something meant for guests. It exists because of her, your Sunday regular. A gentle woman with silver-streaked hair who presses candies into your hand each week as though you’re a child who needs spoiling. “Keep these,” she always says with a knowing smile, “they’ll sweeten your day.”

You don’t confess that they’ve become your secret ritual. That on days when the work feels endless, or the silence too heavy, or your nerves too sharp, you slip one into your mouth and let its sharp citrus bite ground you. That their sourness makes you focus, anchors you. That the faint sweetness lingering after is a reminder that not everything bitter stays bitter.

He chuckled, low and lilting, before reaching into the jar and plucking a few lemon drops between gloved fingers. The little bells on his hat chimed faintly with the motion, almost as if they were laughing with him.

“I believe I shouldn’t disturb your work any further,” he murmured, emerald eyes flicking once more toward the glass pane where the rain smeared the outside world into watery blurs. The downpour had softened since earlier, but it was still steady enough that a walk through it would leave anyone soaked to the bone.

“You’re leaving already?” The question slipped out before you could catch it, your voice quieter than you meant it to be. For a beat, you wondered if he had somewhere urgent to go or task that couldn’t wait, even in weather like this.

His gaze snapped back to you, and though the mask concealed his mouth, you swore you saw the edges of a smile in the way his eyes curved.

“If you miss me, Fiorellina, you can always come to my show.”

The teasing lilt in his tone set your cheeks ablaze, as though the word miss carried far more weight than he intended.

You cleared your throat, flustered. “Ah! wait here for a bit. I have an umbrella at the back.”

Because of course you couldn’t let him wander into the rain again. His shoulders had been soaked through once already; the thought of him walking off with damp clothes clinging to him seemed almost reckless. He might not mind, but you did.

You hurried to the back room, heart thudding as you sifted through umbrellas until you found one, your friend’s, the one you’d have to return tomorrow anyway. Perfect. But when you stepped back into the shop, umbrella in hand, the words froze on your tongue.

The chair was empty.

The space by the counter held nothing but shadows.

As though he had never been there at all.

The rain still pattered against the glass. The record still spun, humming its soft melody, punctuated by that delicate click as the track shifted. But the air felt… thinner, emptier. A strange hollow settled in your chest.

You blinked, scanning the shop. The door had made no sound, no bell jingling, no creak of hinges. Had he left so silently? Was that even possible? 

Your eyes fell to the table where his untouched tea had been set. The mug was empty. You’d been watching, hadn’t you? You never once saw him lift the cup. And yet, gone.

Moving it aside with careful fingers, you spotted something tucked neatly beneath. 

Thank you for the tea and candy ^^ -H

Your lips parted faintly as you stared at the elegant handwriting. Each letter flowed like ink caught mid-dance, curving with deliberate grace, every stroke blooming with a flourish. The script mirrored his voice, measured, poetic. Even the playful smiley face carried an odd, almost whimsical weight, like he’d left a fragment of himself pressed into the paper.

You held the note for a long moment before pinning it carefully onto your board, sliding it among the countless other scribbles and mementos your customers had left behind. And yet, despite the clutter of colorful handwriting, doodles, and heart-scrawled confessions, his note stood out starkly, like a single bloom in a field that seemed to demand the eye’s attention.

Your gaze drifted over the wall of words you knew by heart. Little fragments of strangers and friends alike, voices captured in ink. You lingered on his once more, letting the shape of it etch itself deeper into your memory.

Ring ring ring.

The jarring ringtone shattered the hush of the shop, cutting sharply through the record’s lullaby. It rattled your nerves, made your shoulders stiffen. You turned, staring at the phone vibrating against the counter. 

I made this version for my friends 🤧