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They’ve been in the bathroom for half an hour now; technically, they could have left twice, but after five minutes of Ran lifting her head out of the toilet bowl and telling them she’s alright and ready to stand up, she’s suddenly proven very wrong, in the most unpleasant (yet somehow most aesthetically pleasing) way possible.
“Hey. Now you’re puking flowers is your dad gonna finally love you?”
“That’s harsh, Moca.”
“…heh.”
…with how worn out Ran is from all this, Tomoe thinks, good on her for actually grimly chuckling in response to that. Thankfully they were at Moca’s when this started, and Moca’s bedroom is right next to the bathroom, so it only took a couple seconds of frantic shuffling from the three of them to stop Ran’s newly acquired party skill from making a mess all over the floor, but of all the many things in life the three of them have prepared for, flower-vomiting was not one of them.
“I thought this flower thing was like, one of those urban legends. Wiiiiild that it’s true.”
“Like ghosts?” Tomoe teases, but immediately feels a pang of guilt – no need to put any more existential terror onto Ran while she’s in the middle of spitting out petals, after all.
“Noooo, ‘cause this is actually real… Right, Ran? Oh, you don’t gotta reply. You can just nod.”
“I can talk. For now,” mumbles a very pale-faced Ran, still staring into the improvised and unintentional flower arrangement in the basin below her. Looks pretty decent for a random bunch of flora in a toilet.
“Okay, so, this unrequited love flower disease thing, what happens if we don’t deal with it?”
“Iunnoooooo. Probably fatal.”
“…Ran, I think you have to go ask Yukina if she wants to go get a coffee sometime or you might die?”
Ran looks up at Tomoe for a second, skin pale, the purple shine of her eyes replaced with the darkness of the night sky, and with an expression that says perhaps I’ll choose death, Tomoe, before plunging right back into the toilet, followed by another melodious chorus of flowers pouring out of her mouth.
The weirdest part – well, maybe not weirdest, there was a lot of competition for that title – was that this had all kicked off pretty suddenly when, in a middle of an extended conversation about how Afterglow were gonna kick Roselia’s weedy gothic asses next time they went for a battle of the bands, Moca had uttered what seemed like a pretty obvious statement –
“Sooooo, are you gonna make out with Yukina before or after we win?”
– because Moca and Tomoe had assumed that if you spent a decent portion of each day talking about how much you wanted to validate yourself to a girl and prove your worth and kept on hanging out with her every day and dragging her to the side every time your two friend groups met up, you probably liked that girl in question, but apparently that was something that was either lost on Ran (or something she’d been denying), and as soon as the realisation hit, then Ran kinda… spat out a flower.
And then a whole bunch of them. Tulips, lilies, dahlias, alstroemerias, five different rose varieties – you name it, Ran apparently had it, and the two of them had quickly hustled her along to the bathroom so that the whole experience would be slightly less distressing and messy than it would be otherwise.
“Yo, sooo, not to harsh the situation any more than it already has been, but… do flowers like, properly flush down?”
“Like, down the toilet? I can’t see why not.”
“Yeah, but… it’s a bit thicker than just puke, right? Liiiike, definitely not saying ‘fuck you Ran, don’t throw up in the Moca-throne’, but maybe we should switch to, umm, a bin?” Moca gestures in the air, tilting her head to the side to see how full the toilet is – the lever’s on her side, so she’s in charge of occasional flushing duty, but you can’t just send that much plantlife down the pipes without wondering if it’s gonna have consequences.
“Then you go and get it.”
“And just leave Ran here to die!? No way… You’re no medical professional. Bet you don’t even know, like, the meaning of what she’s spitting up. You don’t speak the flower language.”
“No, I really don’t?” How would that even help, anyway? Unless—maybe it would. It’s not like any of the rest of this made sense.
“I’m gonna call Hina up. She’ll know…”
“Don’t? Hey, Ran. Look over here.” Tomoe squats down to look right at Ran; and god, she looks like shit. Her eyes are dead, her hair is unkempt, her lips and surrounding areas are covered in flower bits, and all in all maybe it’s not the best idea to go talk to the girl you’re now aware you like while looking like…. this. Good jacket today, though. One of Tomoe’s favourites. Ran’d definitely be out to slay if it wasn’t for the stupid Vocaloid-ass flower-spew stomach ache. Grabbing at her cheek, Tomoe gestures over to Moca to pass her some of the toilet roll so she can wipe Ran down in an attempt to make her seem a little more, well, same as always. “Hold still for a sec. You got that like, uh, yellow bit on you. Uhhh… Stamen? You got stamen on your face.”
“Heh.”
“Moca, shut the fuck up.”
“…sorry.” Moca hangs her head for few seconds – like she’s genuinely apologetic – before gently placing a hand on Ran’s shoulder. “Heyyy, Ran, c’mon. This ain’t my Ran. My Ran gets in there and gets herself the pwussssssy. What’re you so scared of?”
“That I might spit flowers in her face.”
All Tomoe and Moca both can think is Aww. She really does like her.
“You think she isn’t into that? She’d totally love it. Bet she used to write visual kei fanfics where they fed each other flowers by mouth because it was symbolic, ‘cause the camellia represents trust or something.”
“That’s tulips,” Tomoe interjects, before immediately realising this isn’t helpful to anyone in the room, except Moca, and anything helpful to Moca is probably not helpful to the situation at large.
“I thought you said you didn’t know flower language stuff.”
“…you pick it up, sometimes.”
“…holy shit, you read her Hyde x Gackt fics.”
“Moca, no-one here read any of those. Mostly because Tomoe was far more into SCAND—bleurgh.”
Tomoe’s last-minute conversation-interrupting decision to smack Ran on the back in a prelude to asking Moca to get her some water had instead resulted in making Ran spit more flowers into the toilet, leading to an incredibly guilty-looking drummer, a guitarist trying to not shit her pants laughing, and Ran basically not bothering to acknowledge either of them at this point. They’ll have to show some maturity before they’re worthy of that.
“…hey, uh. Iunno if it’d help, dude, but I could call up Lisa. Explain the sitch. See if she can arrange something.”Moca digs around in every pocket of her hoodie – today’s has eight pockets, and that’s what we call style – until she finds her phone, tapping away at it; but this time, her smile’s less manic laughing, and more resigned seriousness with a bit of confidence mixed in. They’ve got a job to do, now.
“Better choice than Hina.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m sorry. I’m gonna actually help this time. Moca’s honour. But yeah, Ran, only if you want! No pressure, it’s just…”
“You don’t want me to be stuck in a toilet for the rest of the day,” Ran’s voice echoes out of the porcelain, spitting the last flower currently in her mouth out.
“Yeah! Or, iunno, your life.”
“…even if I do like Yukina, I’m pretty sure I can get over her.”
“I am not in the business of taking chances with my best buds. Okay, lemme just get her up… okay, so… ‘ran’s got the dumb flower vom thing, sad emoji, and i bet you know over who, emoji who looks like they just nutted, emoji who looks like they just nutted’ aaaand, send—“
“Not gonna workshop that with us first?”
“The emoji looks like he’s nuttin’, though.”
“That’s not what—" Bzzt. “…that was quick.” Tomoe leans across Ran’s back to try and get a look at the screen, curiosity kind of getting the better of her.
“Yeah. Guess she’s not doing—ohhh my god, guys. Guys, this is good,” and Moca coughs, raising her voice just a little bit, and putting the tiniest whine into each word. “’OMG………… same, laughing emoji, that emoji that’s crying but it looks kind of amused, y’know the one, that one’s twice, we are around the sink right now – abbreviated to arr-enn – and yukina is just like making a beautiful flower display in here…… id be making flower crowns if she hadn’t puked them, zipper mouth emoji.’ Raaaaan, I think she likes you back…”
“…maybe not the time to say it, but, uh, congrats, Ran?”
“Mmf.” There’s no flowers coming out right this moment, but it’s fair enough if Ran doesn’t want to open her mouth too much.
“Lessee… ‘it’s mutual bby… poppin the biggest bottles tonite?’”
“What bottles do we even have?”
“Iunno. Go and use like, how much everyone loves you in the shopping district and get us somethin’ good.” Moca shrugs; honestly, considering the magical bullshit stomach ache Ran’s got, maybe booze wouldn’t be best. “'we r around the toilet! lemme take a pic—'”
“No,” Ran says, with an impressive amount of determination considering her current situation.
“Fiiine. Vetoed. ‘its me and tomoe and ran and we’ve been in here for like most of an hour by now rip’. That okay? Oh, and a tongue-out emoji at the end, but not like, one of the horny ones. Uh, the one that looks like it’s gonna glomp you—"
“It’s fine. It can be one of the horny ones. Just send it.”
“Woah, Tomoe, comin’ on strong. Ran? You cool with that?”
“I do not care.”
“Ah.”
A moment of calm passes, tranquil, eternal, soothing and silent, and then Ran is throwing up again. Moca decides to not make the emoji the horny one, just to preserve a tiny weeny lil’ bit of dignity in this situation, though by the time she’s sent the new message, Lisa’s reply to her earlier comment has come on through.
“LOL maybe!!! i told yukina that ran is into her too but it didn’t stop anything… im actually a bit worried, worried emoji, yep, Lisa playin’ to form here, maybe they need to meet each other in person for it to work out?’ Aaaand, yesss, thinking emoji. It’s perfect. I actually kiiiinda think she’s right, though?”
“Oh, yeah, it follows. I mean, psychologically, us telling Ran this isn’t any better than us being all ‘oh I’m sure she likes you back’, right?”
“Yep. And the magical flower vomcano deffos listens to like, logical cause and effect. I’m gonna go tell her that we agree and we wanna meet up, then?”
“Sure.” Silence follows this, too, aside from the sound of Ran retching up daisies. “…aren’t you gonna say what you’re writing?”
“You guys were soooo mean last time that I didn’t wanna. Crying emoji.”
“Fine, whatever. Just don’t say anything stupid. Hey, Ran, sorry if we’ve been kind of ignoring you… you want water? Some more paper?” For the first time in a while, now, Ran lifts her head, and holy shit maybe save meeting Yukina for tomorrow-- but, in spite of looking half dead and seriously needing Himari to do some makeup for her, she smiles at them, with a warmth normally reserved for when they’re all at their very best.
“…no, I… mm. I appreciate what you’re doing. A lot. I’m just here throwing up and you’re actually sorting all this crap out for me.” She rubs her eyes, turning her head from side to side, making sure to give both Moca and Tomoe as reassuring a gaze as possible. (It’s not really that reassuring, but they can feel the effort.)
“You’re worth it.”
“You’re Rantastic.”
They both move in to kind of cuddle her, kind of – more like an awkward half-huddle around the toilet, Tomoe’s arm over her shoulder and Moca’s crossing over her back while Ran continues to grip the edge of the seat, but they know what they all want to say and do. They wanna have a big group hug, and tell Ran it’s gonna be alright.
--also Moca’s phone has buzzed maybe five more times while they’ve been having the big communal three-fifths-of-Afterglow-squeeze.
“'oh we’re all at circle!! ok so this is so funny, it happened while we were practicing and sayo was like ‘yukina sing with greater love in your voice perhaps’ and THEN ako was like ‘ok should i call tomoe and get her to bring ran around’ and then yukina’s eyes went all shiny and pretty and she just spat a flower right into rinko’s face’.” Moca doesn’t even feel the need to comment on this. She just lets it sink into the room, observing Tomoe and Ran’s faces with equal amusement.
“...don’t you dare call us similar, Moca.” Ran is shaking, knowing that Moca has every right to.
“Okay, I’m gonna… have to tell Ako not to do stuff like that. I guess. Maybe.” Tomoe is also shaking, only because she’s trying so hard not to laugh.
“Heeeey, there’s more. ‘anyway ako is crying and apologising rinko is just crying yukina’s throwing up sayo wants to punch someone but i dont know who or why so she’s staring off into the middle distance n vibrating and im kinda worried but also i think this is good?’ Yeah. It iiiis. Gonna say so.”
“Yeah, real good that our friends have some life-threatening illness.”
“Aww, c’mon. Good that they like each other and they’re both awkward about it and we’re gonna watch ‘em confront each other about it.”
Ran lets out a loud, retch-gasp noise at this, and turns to Tomoe in horror – Tomoe, specifically, because she doesn’t even think it’s worth pleading with Moca right now. Her eyes beg for anything, anything but having to go and see Yukina with them in tow.
Tomoe looks back with pity in her eyes, but rationality in her heart.
“I get it, Ran, but you need someone to like… escort you there to see her. Unless you wanna struggle on over by yourself?”
“I can,” she snarls, spitting a flower out of her mouth in a way that almost looks tough, “and I will. Same as always.”
The pity in Tomoe’s eyes remains.
“…I don’t mind some help.”
“Thattagirl.”
“How’re we gonna get her there, tho’?”
It’s a good question, because all three of them stare at the toilet bowl in contemplation, trying to work out any practical way to sneak Ran across town without attracting too much attention; because there’s a first time for everything, whether it’s Ran facing up to her feelings, or Afterglow trying to keep a vaguely low profile.
“Lotta vomit bags.”
“Just, like, a full on trash bag. We can empty it out into bushes as we go.”
“Y’know those like, hats with the beer cans?” Moca cups the sides of Ran’s head, gesturing and miming out the shape of the theoretical headwear. “That, but instead Ran shoots flowers out of her mouth and into flowerpots.”
“I’ll take one of your hoodies and throw up into it.”
“Hellll yeah you will. Flowery-fresh Ran scent. Saves me having to Febreeze it next time I take a girl out on a nice date.” Fumbling around in the pouch of the current, non-flower-scented hoodie she’s got on, Moca fishes out her phone again, checking for the latest intel on the situation. “Ohhh, speaking of, update from lovely Lisa. Yukina doesn’t want to leave the studio right now, sad face, not an emoji—“
“Marina’s letting them stay?”
“I mean, it’s Marina! But uh… can u – letter u – guys get over here and sort this out… im really sorry we can’t drag her out of here but i think if i tried sayo would throw a shitfit so… lmao… Damn. We can’t let my girl Lisa get mauled by a wild Sayo for trying to do the right thiiing…”
“I’d already decided I’d go see her. This changes nothing.”
Tomoe looks at Moca, Moca looks at Tomoe, they share a big grin, and right now the Afterglow family feels truly tight-knit. They’re both proud for Ran, and also already thinking over how they’re going to tell this entire insane story to their two absent friends.
“Calm down, stud. Let me get you… at least some kind of bag to go with.”
And, as Tomoe excuses herself from the bathroom to go and surreptitiously look for any black bin bags that might be lying around Moca’s house in preparation, two thoughts occupy her mind.
God bless you, Ran, for always trying so hard.
Also, fucking hell, Ran, do you always have to try so hard.