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It’s a warm day out and you’re sitting at home with your teacher. He’s watching you write, fill in the lines of your notebook with carefully printed characters. His manga hooked on his thumb, momentarily forgotten as he rambles on about the small cactus he keeps on the balcony. It’s beginning to bloom and he’s talking about how he’s never seen a cactus flower bloom before.
You’re watching the sunlight slide off his smooth features, tracing the movement of his lips. He smiles and the corners of his eyes crinkles in a way they did not months, weeks prior and you’re humbled to have noticed this change.
You have stopped writing and he has stopped talking. He’s looking at you with a bemused smile, “-ou listening?”
You snap to attention, ever the diligent student, you are ready to answer his question. “Absolutely, I will ensure that the cactus is watered twice daily, please leave it to me, I will tend to it carefully.”
He chuckles, and if you had a heart, it would have stammered, as it is, you feel your systems overclocking to keep up, “I just said, we don't need to water it that often. If you water it too much, it’ll drown.”
You deflate, face hot and head suddenly too heavy with embarrassment, “O-of course.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he says dismissively. When you dare to look up, his expression hasn’t changed but you can see the way his eyes melt a little the way it does when he receives fan mail, though his smile looks impossibly softer. “A little goes a long way, you know?”
“That’s how it is for cactuses?”
“That's how it is with a lot of things. Like nappa cabbages. You can stir fry it, put it in soup, boil it and garnish it with seasonings-”
His voice, though calm, rings with authoritative experience, the kind that makes you feel stable, secure, even when he’s just rambling. It doesn’t matter. It is a voice like rain heard from within a warm house, like a seed planted in your heart, the roots spreading downwards and outwards, gripping it firmly, but not tightly, not enough to be worried by it, not yet. He continues to list the different dishes, as if indulging in a private joke and you let the syllables wash over you, bearing you on a raft, out into a golden ocean of an afternoon.
Then he says, “I’m only kidding, I’ll make your favourite dish for your birthday. Er, what was it again?
“Oil sardines, sensei,” you say.
"Sure.” The afternoon rearranges itself into a manner that sparkles in the sunshine.
“Th-thank you!”
The television blares out a warning. A man with a serious face has serious words to say about the serious attack on City V about a giant bee.
By the time you and your teacher arrive at the scene, the citizens have already evacuated. The city is an empty hive and the bee darts from building to building as if trying to harvest nonexistent nectar from these steel flowers. It moment it notices you, it begins its assault, launching physical attacks through its stinger to protect its hive. You scream in rage, firing your canon in response and dodging the attacks you can hit. It shakes its grotesque head when it realises its attacks are ineffectual and darts away to hide. You heard somewhere smoke confuses bees so you set fire to some trees by the roadside and sure enough, the bee emerges from a row of skyscrapers, hulking and shuddering. It releases a pink cloud large enough to engulf the city. Probably a defence mechanism, you think. Organic in nature. It won’t affect you. You haven’t been organic in 4 years.
You try to get close to land a hit into its head but its wings are like steel and bat you away like a fly. You hit the side of a building and peel yourself off. Before you have regained your bearings enough to jump back into the fray, you hear someone shout “Hey, buzz off!” before you see the bee swell and explode. All that remains of the yellow jacket is the yellow caped hero. As you look into the blinding light, you feel something beginning to take root, forcefully, painfully. It’s just a small twinge in the chest, though, nothing to worry about.
You push yourself off the building to join your teacher.
“You really smoked him out, Genos!” Saitama exclaims and high-fives you before running off, calling over his shoulder as he “Now quick, there’s a store in the next neighbourhood which sells those sardines you like.” You watch his back retreat, as you often do, mouth agape. When you drop your hand, flower petals drift to the ground. You dismiss this anomaly, all around you flowers are blooming and you must have accidentally grabbed a spray.
You record your daily observations and add it as a footnote. The next day, something Saitama-sensei says makes you burst into laughter. Surprised at your own mirth, and the sudden sharp pain in your chest when you catch him smiling at you, you bring your hand to your mouth for decency, a flower falls into your palm.
The diary becomes more of a growth catalogue after that. As the flower sightings increase in frequency along with the pain. Eventually you write:
The amount of petals pouring from my mouth has become uncountable. Something has taken root in my body and though neither I nor the doctor can locate it, petals continue to spring forth, worming out of infertile metal parts.
The doctor is worried they will jam up my mechanisms though the more pressing matter is how quickly they distingerate my parts. Even more perplexing is the way they sap my fuel which should be poisonous or at the very least unuseable by plants. The doctor has suggested a full overhaul of my body and core in an attempt to rid myself of this blight. He has also suggested a complete reboot of my system which would be sure to rid me of all traces of the pest, though does not guarantee that my personality or memories will be preserved.
Sensei has expressed concerns for the procedure, however. "Why do you need to replace your entire body? Won’t it, that take a while? I thought you said it was just a temporary pain, like a theoretical one." He asked. I replied that I felt fine, although in truth i felt weak, and my joints creaked, jammed as they were with roots and petals. The gentle vegetation is viciously corroding my frame. They grow like weeds, sprouting when they have been uprooted, rooting where they sprout.
Sensei seemed inordinately concerned as he made me tea. Though it is not the first time he has made me tea in an effort to allay my fears, this time, he seemed to be more worried than I. He told me if it was fatigue, it might be a mental issue (I didn’t tell him about the flowers). Although I am not sure how problems of the mind manifests as petals, the fact that sensei gave some consideration to my dilemma, to the point where he loses sleep, is...as always...incredibly humbling. I
Saitama calls you from the kitchen and you shut your book, incredibly embarrassed. You cough while trying to respond and crimson petals fall to the table. You sweep up every last petal, each one shining like blood.
You manage to hide it until Thursday, until you are busy dressing and fail to hear the door opening as Saitama comes in looking for his toothbrush.
“Sorry, just came to get my-” Saitama’s voice trails off as you struggle to disentangle yourself from your shirt. “Genos, what, what is this?” Through the neck hole, you can see Saitama stoop down and pick up something red and you freeze.
Your mouth is moving automatically, “Sorry you have to see me this way,” you say when you manage to pull on your shirt. “I didn't mean to conceal it from you.”
Saitama is slowly shaking his head, “I don’t, is this why you’ve been avoiding me? Going out all the time? Coming back after I’ve gone to bed? Changing in the toilet?”
You try to change the subject instead, “I was afraid my appearance would repulse you.” You gesture to your rotting frame, the petals squeezing out from the joints.
“Dude, no! If this is why you wanted to change your body, I’m not, it’s not gross!” He grabs your wrist when he sees the doubt creep across your face and you yank your hand away, surprised when you manage to break his grip. Petals flutter to the ground.
He is shaking his head, his face is a room horrified by its own emptiness, “Genos, I don't understand, I,” he coughs, petals fall from his mouth. His face is a room horrified by the echo of red on the bathroom floor. Your petals and his stain the wet floor. “Don't look.”
You are horrified too. In this short span of time you have managed to corrode the one thing that you weren’t supposed to. The one thing you swore to protect and have come to cherish and, “I've passed it to you, sensei.” You’ve destroyed yet another gorgeous thing. “You should stay away.”
You leave, and Saitama follows you.
“No way, Genos! If you, if you have the same thing as me,” he trails off, as if thinking about something, he flexes his wrist. “Anyway, you're not well!”
“All the more you should not be in close proximity to me!”
“How do you figure that!”
Saitama has blocked your exit, has backed you out onto the balcony where you’re fighting among the clothes hanging out to dry. They snap like flags in the morning breeze.
“You're being affected by it! If one of us should bear this curse, I should, you are too amazing, too important for me to have ruined in any way.”
“Curse? Genos, what are you talking about?” Saitama says as he reaches out to you.
“Don't touch me!” You shout, knocking his hand away. You might get worse, you think furiously, I might make you worse.
Saitama looks worse anyway when he flinches away, petals falling from his fingertips.
“Sensei!”
Saitama gasps, his face contorts as he clutches the front of his shirt, slowly sinking to the ground. “My chest,” he groans. “Hurts.”
“Sensei!!” Your most precious teacher is in pain. You crouch in front of him to examine him, try to assess the damage but you can’t think straight. Saitama’s face peeks out from a wet shirt waving in the wind. His face is pale and washed out under the accursed sun. He coughs out petal after petal, each brighter and more vivid than the last. You reach for him and hesitate, your own vision beginning to blur as you shed petals of your own.
Saitama grabs your hands. Flowers, full flowers, bouquets of them, bloom from your joined hands.
“Sensei, let go! Please, let go!” You plead.
Saitama doesn't loosen his grip, “I don't want to.” His hands are trembling, “It wasn’t because of you, that I’ve, that this has been happening. I've had this since a week ago. Sorry, I didn't tell you. I didn't want you to leave.” He utters the last statement so quietly you have to strain to hear it. Between you, the bouquet is growing and you feel yourself growing weaker, see Saitama growing paler, as if he were bleeding out, but he holds on. “We'll fix this, please believe me, we don't have to, you don't have to go.”
“Sensei, you must let me go!” You insist. “I can’t let you suffer!”
“And I can’t deal with the fact that you might never come back!”
There is feeling like you both have said something incredible, that something earth-shatteringly incredible has happened and all at once, the bleeding stops.
A huge gust of wind kindly blows all the petals from the balcony, leaving you both exhausted, mentally and physically, to fall backwards into the house.
“Is that it? Is it over?” Saitama asks.
“I do not know,” you admit.
“You're not a rose garden anymore. Well, neither am I.”
“Those weren't rose petals.”
“Weren't they?”
“No, it was some species of cactus flower.”
“Maybe it’s the cactus’ way of wishing you happy birthday.”
“Even if it was, I don’t appreciate such birthday gifts.”
“You're right, it nearly killed you.”
“You too. You're not blooming anymore.”
“Flowers don't really suit me anyway.”
“I don't agree. Sensei looks good in anything. Besides, the colour red suits you. Quite well, in fact.”
Saitama falls silent and when you look up, he is frowning strangely, as if he might burst into tears or laughter. Instead, he covers his face and yells, “I can't believe this!”
The tips of his ears and his neck have turned red and you point them out teasingly, “See? It suits you.”
“Shut up. Aren’t you cold in just a shirt?”
“What about you?”
“This is nothing.”
Through his thin cotton shirt, you can feel Saitama’s heart beating slow and strong. He looks different from his angle, with your head pillowed on his chest. His chest rumbles when speaks, “What do you want to do for your birthday?”
“This is fine.”
“We can't do this the whole day.”
“Can't we?”
“Well, what do you want for your birthday?”
You close your eyes. You can feel the stress of the past week slipping away, pressed between the warm sunlight and the warm body beneath you, managing to slur out a response before you’re delivered the rest you’ve been deprived of. “This is fine.”
Saitama’s voice is a raft bearing you out onto a golden afternoon. “I meant a gift. What do you mean? Genos? Genos??”
Art by onepunchstuff. Do not repost anywhere