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“There, your stopwatch should be good as new, Cara.”
Serval handed the now-fixed object to its owner, a young woman of around 20.
“Thanks, Serval. You sure work fast, I was worried I might not be able to make it to the florist before it closes today, but now I don’t have to,” Cara said, a relieved expression on her face.
“Oh, what are you planning on going to the florist for?”
“I’m planning on confessing to my crush soon, and since it’s almost the time of year when the Ball Peonies bloom, I wanted to get one before I do it. They say if you can get a ‘yes’ from the one you love before it blooms, even death cannot part the two of you from each other.”
“So I hear,” Serval said, a fake smile on her face. “I hope they say ‘yes’.”
“I hope so too, thanks again!” Cara said, before leaving, waving goodbye as she did so.
As soon as she was out the door, Serval let the smile fall from her face. The Ball Peony… Serval didn’t have the heart to tell her the legend was just that: a legend. It was something she herself found out the hard way.
“Serval, is that a Ball Peony?” Cocolia asked, blushing a little, as Serval set it on top of her dresser. “You do know what that means, right…?”
An also blushing Serval nodded. “Yes, I know full well what it means.” Serval took a deep breath, working through her uncharacteristic nervousness. “Cocolia, I… I’m in love with you. I have been for a while.”
Cocolia’s blush deepend, and she looked off to the side. “Serval… I-It wouldn’t be proper for us to-”
“Forget propriety!” Serval said, taking Cocolia’s face in her hands and forcing her to look at her. “I don’t want to hear any excuses. Do you return my feelings or not?”
“Yes. I-I do, but-”
“But what?” Serval snuck a glance back at the Ball Peony. It hadn’t bloomed yet, what a relief, she’d gotten her “yes” in time then. “If you feel the same way, what’s stopping you from being with me? If you’re really so worried about what other people might think, they don’t have to know.”
Cocolia gave a sigh of concession. “I suppose you’re right. But we tell absolutely no one, okay? Not my daughter, not your bandmates, not even your brother. The public at large already knows us to be close friends; let their perception of us stay at just that. Is that acceptable?”
“Okay,” Serval said, and the two leaned in, sealing the deal with a kiss, the first of many they would share. When they eventually broke it, Serval spared another glance back at the Ball Peony. “Oh hey, it’s blooming now.”
“Was it blooming before I said yes?”
“I checked after you did to make sure it wasn’t,” Serval said, shaking her head, before grinning. “Guess not even death will keep us apart now.”
Oh, how she wished that had been true. At the time, she’d really thought it was. Cocolia had been so much kinder then, it was hard to believe she’d ever become as cold and distant as she was now. Serval wasn’t sure what had made her heart freeze over like that, but one of the first signs of her changing came when Cocolia dumped her.
“Let me get straight to the point: We need to break up.”
“What?!” Serval couldn’t believe what she’d just heard. She’d thought Cocolia had summoned her for another one of their little trysts, so to hear this instead was especially devastating. How could Cocolia do this to her? And to break the news so bluntly too… “What about the Ball Peony? Weren’t we supposed to stay together forever?”
Cocolia shook her head. “That’s just a legend. Don’t tell me you actually believed it?”
“I wanted to…” Serval said, sadness in her voice. “Why are you doing this?”
“This relationship was never going to work out. It was a mistake to even entertain it in the first place.”
“A mistake?!” Serval’s hands were balled up into fists, and she was holding back tears and visibly shaking. “Don’t you dare call what we had a mistake!”
“You can take your leave now, Serval Landau,” Cocolia said, in a commanding tone that made it clear the discussion was over.
Serval turned and stormed out the door, avoiding other people as she quickly made her way back home. She kept her tears held back until she got there, not wanting anyone to see her cry, before finally letting them flow. When had Cocolia become so cruel? Had it been a lie when she said she’d loved her? Had she just been using her this whole time?
These days Serval was certain she hadn’t, but back then, when she was at her lowest point, it felt like a possibility. Serval had cried harder that day than she ever had before or since. Though she thought she’d done a good job moving on since then, as Serval felt a tear streak down her face, she wondered if she really had. Then again, it was the first Ball Peony season she was experiencing since the breakup; it was probably inevitable that these old wounds would reopen.
And yet, the breakup wasn’t even the worst part. That was what came after. Apparently not content to merely break her heart, it wasn’t long before Cocolia had her Research and Development department dismissed too, crushing her aspirations as well. Despite it all though, Serval still loved her. She refused to believe she’d lost all her compassion. She just needed to find a way to bring what remained of it to the fore.
In the meantime, she hadn’t let the loss of her job keep her down. Thanks to the help of an Underworld merchant named Sampo, she’d been able to continue her Geomarrow research in secret, and she was confident that one day, she would find the answers that proved her theories right. And maybe then, Cocolia would… Serval had no delusions about getting Cocolia to take her back, she hoped she could at least make her see reason. What hurt more than anything, more than the break up, more than losing her job, was seeing the kind of person Cocolia had become.