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Angeal had never minded Genesis using his name and mailing address for his subscriptions; his friend was sent out of Midgar on missions more often than not, so he was glad to have his numerous gardening and botany magazines sent to his address and save the other the trouble of needing to get them out of the mail room. The pictures were nice to look at, even if he didn’t understand most of what the articles were talking about.
Unfortunately though, it seemed that the subscriptions had been leaked to his ‘ fans ’ and they now thought that he was the one interested in flowers and the like, which couldn’t have been farther from the truth. He may have grown up in a farming town, but he didn’t know the first thing about plants; he’d never done anything more than help pick the ripe fruit or vegetables from the fields and orchards, and though they’d had a herb garden at home, it’d been his mother’s.
Sephiroth found it hilarious, that his fans kept sending him different seeds of flowers and plants when he couldn’t even keep a cactus alive longer than a fortnight. Genesis was blissfully unaware of it, ignoring his and Sephiroth’s fans unless he was comparing their sizes to his own, otherwise he was sure his friend would never stop bringing it up. And he might’ve realized that he had been regifting him the seeds he’d been sent, he might’ve been a bit angry about that.
No, it usually wasn’t much of an issue, but Zack never failed to make life interesting for him.
He’d somehow gotten it into his head that Angeal was great at gardening, that he enjoyed it and it consumed his free time, and had decided to introduce him to a friend of his who also enjoyed gardening. He’d tried to explain the mistake to his student but Zack had been so excited at the prospect of them meeting that he really couldn’t bring himself to say anything, Sephiroth would no doubt tease him about how he indulged the boy later but Zack was grinning like it was his birthday so he’d ignore him for the time.
But that left him with the awkwardness of having to explain the mix-up to Zack’s friend, preferrably when Zack was well out of hearing range. Zack’s friend, who lived, under the plate?
Angeal worried for a second that his student’s friend was actually some kind of drug dealer trading in their home-grown narcotics, but he trusted Zack to know well enough to avoid those kinds of people. Besides, Zack wasn’t stupid, he wouldn’t introduce a criminal to one of Shinra’s highest-ranking SOLDIERs.
Probably.
He allowed Zack to introduce them though, showing up early and getting on the train with him instead of calling off the plans and staying home on his day off. He hadn’t been planning on doing much today anyway, maybe catch up on some reading but it wasn’t something he couldn’t do later, the next book in the series wasn’t due out for another few months anyway.
He didn’t really start to worry until Zack started to lead him towards what looked like an old, decaying church, the perfect grounds for some less than legal activities. He really hoped that his student wasn’t doing something stupid, Genesis wouldn’t let him live it down if he did.
But, to his relief, the ‘friend’ Zack wanted to introduce him to was a young woman who grew flowers in the church. She seemed nice enough, if a bit nervous, but that was understandable, he was a First Class SOLDIER after all. She probably hadn’t been expecting him when Zack said he wanted to introduce them, it sounded like something his student would do.
“Hello,” he greeted once Zack had finished introducing them, taking the first step as ‘Aerith’ peered at him, it reminded him of the way Sephiroth would peer at new foods for some reason. “I like your flowers.”
“Thank you,” she responded slowly, blinking wide, impossibly green eyes at him.
Well, this was certainly awkward. Zack didn’t seem to notice though, as he only continued to beam at them. “I’ll let you guys talk about your plant stuff! See you later, Angeal! Aerith!”
He was gone before Angeal could stop him, practically sprinting out of the church and leaving them staring after him. He turned back to Aerith once Zack was gone, left under the full brunt of her stare.
“I have to admit,” he started, raising a hand to rub at the back of his neck and avoiding her eyes. “That I don’t know anything about plants other than how to kill them on accident.”
“Really?” She questioned suspiciously, shifting where she stood.
“Ah, no,” he shifted himself, swallowing heavily. “You see, my best friend loves it and he has his subscriptions sent to me because he’s away more often than not.”
“Oh,” she sighed, sounding relieved. Glancing up at her showed him that she’d relaxed, shoulders untensing and falling loosely by her side. “That’s nice of you.”
“He hates the mail office,” he explained with a small, fond smile. “So he tries to avoid it as much as he can.” It was hilarious, how someone who loved getting things as much as Genesis did down-right despised the post office; he’d almost set it on fire a few times.
“No wonder Zack thinks you like gardening,” she chuckled, fixing him with a bright smile that lit up her entire face. She took a step back, gesturing him forward. “You wanna come see my flowers anyway? You probably won’t kill them if you only look at them.”
Angeal grinned himself at her teasing words, stepping forward to join her at the broken floorboards that surrounded the patch of dirt she grew her flowers in. Things were turning out alright, despite the odd start.