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Flower was having a weird day. Well, everyday was weird when she was in a competition being hosted by two aliens with powers none of the competitors, including herself, fully understood, but this day was one of the stranger ones.
Everyone had returned to their own groups for the most part, in conversation, talked about the events in the courthouse. Except for Leafy and Firey, everyone was still speculating about who the copret could be, but it wasn't that that bothered her—it was someone.
Lollipop. It was Lollipop. Flower wanted to tear her petals out. Their interactions had been odd so far in the competition, and she just could not put a finger on it! Did Lollipop hate her? Definitely. It was hard to find anyone that didn’t hate her, that part she was sure of. But why?
The only times they’ve really talked were on the spaceship, where Flower lied about being a good driver, making Lollipop enraged, and now in the court house, when she kept insisting she was the one who stole the diary. She didn’t steal it! She didn’t even know who did!
She needed to talk about this with someone, but who would even listen to her? Woody was out of the question, Teardrop would listen but wouldn’t give advice even if she could speak, Gelatin was chatting with Lollipop, and the list went on, until a single name caught her attention.
‘Okay… This could work. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind, she always likes helping people out, right? A little too much, but that’s fine with me right now.’ Flower thought over the decision and concluded that yeah, she was her best bet. She walked over to said person, who was sitting on the grass apart from the others.
"Hey Leafy, can I talk to you for a minute?" Flower asked with hesitance, and watched as Leafy looked up from her spot on the ground, her face immediately brightening. "Why, of course you can!" She patted down on the spot on the ground next to her, and Flower accepted the offer, getting into a criss-cross applesauce position.
Maybe this wasn’t such a bad idea after all. It was only Leafy, if anyone would be the nicest to her out of the group it would be her. Even still, her throat was starting to feel dry. She hoped Leafy didn’t notice the anxiety in her question.
"You know Lollipop, right?" Leafy nodded, and answered with a grin, "Oh yes, she is my friend after all." Flower stared at her, wide-eyed. It took her a second to process the information, while the fellow competitor beside her only smiled in pride.
"Wait… you’re friends?" She empathized with the last word in the question, waving her hands in front of her to demonstrate her point. "Not friend-friends… but she’s said good morning to me before, so that’s kind of like being friends!" Flower almost rolled her eyes.
That made much more sense. "Right… Anyways, I’ve thought about it and I can’t figure out why she hates me! Do you have any ideas?" Leafy gasped, it was impossible to tell if her next words were genuine.
"Whaaaat? That’s crazy, nobody could hate you." Flower stared at her with a deadpan expression, unamused, "Leafy, everyone hates me, that’s like, my whole thing." Something about saying it out loud made it a little bit worse, but it’s not like she was wrong.
She didn’t know why Leafy insisted she disagreed. "But I don’t hate you! What’s making you ask this, anyway?" Leafy shifted closer to Flower on the grass, and she mirrored the action. She really didn’t want anyone else to know about this, and if that meant keeping her voice down to a whisper, so be it.
"Well, between that moment with the spaceship and now the courthouse, I know I annoy her, but I can’t figure out why. It’s so irritating, I know why anyone else hates me, but they were around when I was mean. Now, I just don’t get it!" She exclaimed, moving her arms in a dramatic fashion as she spoke.
Leafy’s next words weren’t the comfort she wanted to hear. "You could talk to her." She glared at her, not appreciative of her attempt at advice. "I’m not doing that." Flower insisted, crossing her arms in resistance.
"C'mon, you're talking to me just fine, what's the difference?" she frowned, growing tired of her stubbornness. Flower stared at her like she was asking the most obvious, ridiculous question in the world.
“Because you’re you and she’s Lollipop.”
A beat of silence passed between them. The look Leafy gave her wasn’t offended, but thinking it over, something in her head was telling Flower she definitely shouldn’t have said that. "I’m not following…" Leafy’s voice trailed off, and she could understand why.
"Whatever, it’s just different with her." Flower insisted, and Leafy only sighed, not seeing the point she was trying to make. It was true, though; every interaction Flower and Lollipop had was vastly different from her and Leafy’s. She just wished she could figure out why.
"Even if it is, you really should talk to her if you want the real answer. Talking about your feelings is hard, but if I didn’t do that, Firey and I never would’ve made up, and we’d spend the rest of our lives thinking we hated each other. Just give it a try! Besides, Lollipop isn’t as mean as she seems, she’s just… very sarcastic!"
Flower thought for a moment, processing her words. Then, a realization hit her. "Wait, you and Firey made up?! Leafy, that’s awesome!" Leafy smiled bashfully, rubbing the back of her head. "Ha, yeah, we did when we left the courthouse on break, and thanks. Your situation may not be as serious as mine was, but you really should talk about it to make sure it doesn’t end up like it did. You might be overthinking it, but it’s better to check! Take it from someone who put off talking about her feelings for such a long time."
Flower wanted to believe her, really did, but something in the back of her mind told her that no, there was no way what she was telling her was true.She was hated. That was Flower’s entire character. If someone didn’t hate her… then who was she?
She knew Leafy didn’t hate her, but that was Leafy. Flower was used to being disliked, but it was only now that she was beginning to loathe it. She thought it was getting better, that the other contestants were warming up to her, but the way Lollipop accused her in the courtroom…
Flower wasn’t sure anymore. She could tell Leafy was staring at her, expecting a reply. Well, there was no getting out of this now. Leafy said something sentimental, so she might as well return the favor. This conversation was going on longer than she had planned.
"You know, I spent so much time not caring about what people thought of me, I had no idea what a jerk I was, but when I noticed it I couldn’t stop. Now, it’s like, if someone doesn’t like me, it’s proof that I’m the same person I was before the competition."
"I get it. But, you won’t get anywhere if you’re always hung up on the bad stuff. I’m still learning that every day. And even though Firey doesn’t hate me anymore, I get the feeling that… everybody doesn’t like me very much. Especially after I just made my team fail the challenge."
She was curious to know why Leafy did that to her team but kept her mouth shut. Something about it was weirdly personal, and she didn’t want to ruin the moment. Besides, it wasn’t exactly her problem if her team won.
Flower stared at the ground, running her fingers along the grass. It was strangely calming, even if this conversation wasn’t. She couldn’t remember the last time she actually talked about what she felt, this was all foreign to her. But maybe, just maybe, it no longer had to be.
Leafy’s advice was starting to not sound as bad as she thought. What did she have to lose by talking to Lollipop in the first place? Her respect, maybe, but she never had that, did she? Did Lollipop respect… anyone? Maybe Flower wasn’t special after all. Oh, that would be much worse.
"You know what, sure," she said, taking a deep breath. "What’s the worst that can happen?" Leafy smiled and got up from the ground, stretching her hand to help Flower up and she gratefully took it. "Now you get it!" Leafy opened her arms, offering a hug.
Flower surprised herself by how quickly she accepted. They pulled apart, and she replied with newly found appreciation, "Thanks, Leafy. This… helped a lot." She reassured with a grin, "Any time! See you around, friend!" She watched as Leafy bounded off towards the Have Cots, who were conversing in the distance.
Her eyes instantly gravitated to Lollipop, and her throat went dry. Was she really doing this? Confrontation was her strong suit, she knew that. But personal matters— that was a different story. Whatever, she was Flower! She could do this!
She could not do this. Flower paced back and forth, leaving a heavy trail of footprints on the ground as Lollipop was leaning against a tree in the near distance with a bored, uninterested expression as usual.
Four was nowhere to be seen, but that wasn’t unusual, considering how unpredictable they could be. Everybody was waiting for the next challenge to start, so if Flower wanted to do this, now would be the time to do it.
That didn’t make her less willing to back out. ‘Okay, I can still get out of here without her noticing; I just need to be super quiet.’ She began making her way past Lollipop, sneaking by on the tips of her toes. Just a little bit further and she'd be safe...
Snap!
Lollipop whirled her head around, and their eyes met. Flower lifted her foot to see a broken stick. Great. This was wonderful. Flower would’ve swore if she had the guts to speak. "Oh. It’s you. Here to finally confess to stealing the diary?" Lollipop’s voice was nonchalant, and Flower envied her calmness.
She was not, however, envious of the blatant lack of trust. "I told you, I didn’t take it!" Flower insisted, her frustrating showing through her scowl. "You did. I know you did, I can hear it in your voice. " She spoke as if this was the most boring conversation in her life and Flower almost felt her heart sink. Almost.
“Ugh, no!”
“Ugh, yeah!”
Flower pressed her fingers to her forehead in exasperation, and Lollipop stared back. "Whatever, this isn’t about that." She confessed and was surprised to see her gaze briefly switch to curiosity. "Go on." Lollipop prompted, and she desperately hoped her next question wasn’t a mistake.
"How much do you hate me? Like, give me a general range. Scale of 1 to 10. 1 is enough to physically tolerate on a daily basis but sort of despise, and 10 is you are currently plotting my murder."
“Zero.”
“What?”
"I said zero. I don’t hate you. Is that all?" Lollipop was inspecting her nails now, blissfully unaware of the thoughts spinning in Flower’s head. Shock. Her brain was filled with shock. Oh, and her jaw was agape now. Fantastic.
There was a pause before she regained her voice. "Wh- But you- What?!?!?!?" She stumbled over her words, and, god, Lollipop was not helping.
"I said what I said." Her eyes met Flower’s again, and for a split second, she believed it was genuine. That was until Lolipop got up from her leaning position on the tree and briskly walked back to the others. A moment passed. And another. Flower screamed.
“WHAT?!?!?!”
Lollipop barely said a word to her the rest of the evening. It was always because she "had someone to be" or didn’t "have the time for this." If Flower was annoyed before, she was absolutely furious now.
The one time she tries to talk about her feelings, this is what she gets! Not only did Flower not know why Lollipop hated her, she had the guts to lie straight to her face. Of course she hated her, but now she was upright teasing her by making her think otherwise?!
Well, she wouldn’t be fooled that easily; she would never be so stupid to fall for a trap like this. No way, no how. And when she saw Lollipop walking by, she lost all the hesitance she once had, running in front of her and blocking her path. Lollipop looked at her with nonchalance.
“My apologies, but I simply cannot talk right now, I have to-”
"No, no, you’re not getting away that easily. Why have you been avoiding me? You say you don’t hate me, but you don’t talk to me half the time, and every time you do, we argue! I don’t get it. You’re just so… frustrating!" She exclaimed, making a vague yet dramatic gesture with her arms.
Lollipop slowly blinked, a brief look of surprise appearing on her face that vanished as quickly as it appeared. "What I said is true, I don’t hate you. Are you not happy with our dynamic?" Flower’s mind went blank, not unlike the moment in the woods.
"Our what now?" Lollipop groaned in annoyance and gave a look that said, "Are you kidding?’ which Flower fell silent at. Taking it as a yes, she took a sharp breath and explained, "Our dynamic. We fight, but in the playful, old married couple way. Did you… not realize that?"
Wow. Okay, Flower might have been lost on what to expect, but Lollipop thinking of them as a married couple was not one of them. "Uh, no. I thought you were really mad at me." She managed to choke out, and Lollipop raised her brow. "About the spaceship? Flower, that wasn’t a big deal."
Oh.
Leave it to Lollipop to make her feel like an idiot.
"Yeah… yeah, you’re right, I’ve been overreacting. Just being my dramatic Flower self. Ha ha. Well, I better leave." She lifted a foot and prepared to get as far away as she possibly could. And then she felt a warm hand wrap around her wrist, and every limb felt as if it had turned to stone.
“Wait.”
She never would’ve guessed that Lollipop's hand was warm to the touch, she always assumed it would be as cold as she was. Lollipop didn’t exactly have the warmest personality. But now, with the way she was looking at Flower, she was beginning to have a few doubts.
"Look, I know I have… problems with being genuine. I may come off as sarcastic a lot, and I usually am, but I’m being honest with you. The ‘fights’ we’ve had were me joking around. I didn’t mean to come off the way I did."
Lollipop must’ve noticed her lasting gaze on her hand on her wrist because the next moment she was letting go and bringing her arm back to her side. "Woah. Okay. Uh. Thank you." Flower averted her eyes, and Lollipop hummed quietly in acknowledgement.
There was something else she needed to make sure of before she left. She did not, however, plan for them to come out in a jumbled mess. "Does this make us friends now? I mean, we don’t have to be, if you don’t want to. You can just say the word, and I'll leave now."
"Yes, Flower, we’re friends." Lollipop rolled her eyes in affection, and she only smiled, relieved that she cut her off before things got any more embarrassing.
That relief was snapped by Lollipop's next words, "Wait, I have a question." Oh, great. Well, being friends with her was fun while it lasted. There’s no way something good can come from the serious look in her eyes. It was all over. She might as well—
"Are you sure you didn’t steal the diary?"
"Oh, for petal’s sake!"