Chapter Text
Isa has a headache. That, in itself, isn't strictly unusual. He has a headache a lot. Having a headache because of Lea, too, isn't unusual. Even if the proper cause of the headache was moreso Demyx than anyone else... Eh, the particulars don't matter. No doubt Demyx is in for some serious repercussions, at least if Isa has his way. Slacking off is one thing. Slacking off in a way that led to exposure, far more exposure than Isa is comfortable with, hell, probably that Xemnas is comfortable with, is a completely different thing. How the hell did he mess up recon so badly as to miss an entire child, a boy, in the target home? Isa remembers Lea swearing a blue streak when he'd gotten back, although he admitted that he didn't think the kid saw him, or at least not well. He hadn't wanted to kill the kid though. Isa didn't blame him.
Anyway. So it's been a full 24 hours, or nearabout, and Isa definitely has a headache still. He'd had Xigbar immediately get all the information he could on the survivor. A boy named Sora. Isa has his face memorized, now, as he tends to a forget-me-not and keeps one eye on the door. It probably wouldn't come up, but... One could never be too safe in this line of work.
Just as Isa glances up at the door, the bell connecting to it rings as a boy steps through.
He seems around 14 or 15 and his eyes were red from apparently crying, brown spiky hair dampened by the rain outside. "Uhm..." He clears his throat, holding a piece of crumpled paper close to him. He shakes his head and looks to the ground, before looking up again to the blue haired man with some withering determination in his eyes.
"Hello sir- can I, uh- Are there any flowers to speak with the dead?" He stumbles over his words, a bright red blush of embarrassment crossing his freckled face. Okay, that totally is not what Kairi specifically told him to say, he screwed it up! The boy shuffled on his feet before just slamming the piece of paper onto the counter, neat handwriting scribbling a list of flowers across it. "One of my best friends told me to uh-- come here. And just...give this to you. Yeah- Sorry I don't go to...” A small hand wave, cut off suddenly as if he's unsure if even that is appropriate. “…Places like this a lot." He raises the hand and rubs the back of his head instead, looking away from Isa.
The litany of swearing running behind Isa's flat eyes would have made Xigbar blush. Wake him up (wake him up inside) can't wake up (wake him up inside). Isa set down the clippers he was holding and folded his hands behind his back, fingers picking at the sleeves of his turtleneck. He reminds himself to stop that. The head-rubbing resembles Lea, overwhelmingly, and he forces himself to stop that, too.
"Ah," Isa says in as bland a voice as he could manage, picking up the paper with mild interest. Flowers to speak to the dead, huh? Mourning flowers, of course. Sora.
The list is... Straightforward. A lot of it, if it isn't needed in truly bulk quantities, which Isa doubts it is, he has on hand. White, red, and pink carnations, white heather, violets... Isa looks between the list and the boy in front of him and guesses that he's right that Sora won't be needing a whole lot, at least not at the moment. He clears his throat and sets the paper down. "Alright." He turns and, unceremoniously, marches the child over to a small indoor garden box. There is a bigger greenhouse out on the side, which he'd normally run to on his own, but he isn’t keen on leaving the boy alone in his store. "Here, look. These are the carnations, they're significant on your list."
Sora looks over the flowers, slight awe passing over his eyes. "Woah- they're...really pretty!" He exclaims, bending over to take a closer look to the colors. "Hmnn...I guess if Kairi suggested these the most...then I'm sure they'd love them!" He stands up straight with a grin that comes and slaps his bad mood away all of a sudden. It seems like he is brimming with energy now despite the tragedy that had taken place not too long ago and the dreary weather outside. "How much are they, sir?" He asks as he tilts his head, looking up to Isa, who thinks he looks distinctly… Puppyish. "I hope it ain't too much... Riku and Kairi's parents gave me a lot of money but I don't wanna use all of it up..." Sora muses, mostly retreating into thinking to himself as he trails off.
Despite himself, Isa huffs in mild amusement. He’s still swearing a little in his head, and the kid's voice wasn't much helping his headache, but... It was refreshing, and a little funny, a little cute, to bear witness to this childish innocence. Isa turns, tucking his nose slightly down into his collar, so that he won't have to show this child the weakness, and berates himself a little. Does his inner voice sound like Xemnas? Agh.
"Come, gather up what you want and we'll see." He says, voice rough as he walks over to the counter again, brushing past where the greenery is, looking at it uncertainly. Who is Kairi? Does he have to get Xigbar to look into that? And Riku? That could spell problems, if these... Whoever they were, kids, Isa assumes, are close enough to Sora to know already what was going on. And who knows how much he's told them? Isa leans on the concrete countertop and exhales, making a note to talk to Xigbar later. Or Axel, since the latter was... Not more trustworthy, necessarily, but at least a little less... Bloodthirsty.
Isa doesn't know what his deal is all of a sudden.
As told, the boy grabs at a few carnations and scrambles over to the counter after Isa. Sora looks to some of the other flowers around, noticing how well taken care of they are.
"Wow,” He says brightly. “All the flowers look so... cool and healthy! I think I have a friend that would really like this place." He hums, putting the carnations he collected onto the countertop.
Since Sora is a little short for his age, he's on his toes to even get his elbows on the surface. "Oh! Uh, sir. I didn't ask for your name..? If that's okay to know--! My name's Sora!" He grins again, except it is wider this time, showing his teeth and all. It kind of feels like he is just radiating light now in the small flower shop.
Isa takes the flowers from Sora and sets to wrapping them in paper with a practiced hand, anything to keep his eyes away from the kid's own earnest ones. "Thank you," He says, voice still level and flat, with only the faintest glimmer of pride regarding his well-kept place. He has assistance, here and there, but since Xemnas largely doesn’t need him doing anything more than managing things, and he can do that much from here (not to mention a lot of his colleagues enjoy sitting in his flat upstairs and making a mess of things, or hanging in the back room, or even this front room, and giving him a hard time), he can take care of it mostly on his own. He doesn’t ask about Sora's friend, yet, although he makes a note of that mentally also. Maybe it is Riku or Kairi, the mentioned-but-yet-unknown possible-friends, or maybe it was a third individual of whom Isa was yet ignorant.
"Hm? Oh. My name is--" He pauses for just an instant, a blink-and-you-miss-it kind of thing. "Isa. It's nice to meet you, Sora." He is saying it to be polite, but something about the words, when they came out, strikes Isa as just a tad more genuine than he'd thought or intended. He tapes the paper together, so that it contains the stems and lets the beautiful heads bob free, and then glances at the rain outside before putting the whole thing in a plastic wrap to protect it.
The cash drawer that he has is ancient. Lea likes to joke that it’s about as old as Xehanort—the old man who was sometimes around with Xemnas. Isa always scowls at that, though not without commenting that they really don’t know how old Xehanort was, and it was a family name anyway, so he'd better be careful about how he uses it, maybe he’s referring to the younger. He'd turned away as Lea laughed for much the same reason he'd turned away from Sora before. But anyway. Isa types a few numbers in, appraising the flowers critically, and then clears his throat. "That's 12 munny, then."
Sora watches the process with intrigue while catching the man's name. "Nice to meet you too, Mr. Isa!" He chirps, perching his chin on his hands.
His eyebrows perk up when he hears the price and nods quickly, digging through the pockets of his jacket and pulling out the exact number of munny needed; miraculously since he always seems to make a mess usually.
The boy puts the munny on the counter and slides it over to Isa with a proud grin, "I never did much of these stuff by myself before!" He proclaims, "I always had my m--" He cuts himself off, a frown overtaking his mouth. "Sorry-! You didn't need to hear that." Sora mumbles.
"It's not-- Okay." Isa mutters under his breath, sighing. Mr. Isa... That made him feel old. He swept the munny off the counter into his hand, glancing it at for only a moment before putting it away and sliding the flowers towards Sora.
The boy's misstep doesn’t take Isa by surprise; in fact, he barely bats an eye. He isn't curious about where that sentence was going. On the contrary, he is overly familiar with where it was going, but nevertheless, he knows it would be unusual if he didn't rise to it. Yet he couldn't reveal that he knew too much; he couldn't reveal much of anything, really. "Is everything alright?" He opts for, speaking politely if still emotionless.
Sora takes up the flowers in his hands and purses his lips together at the question, seemingly deep in thought.
"Uh....well..." He sighs. "I would have thought it would be all over the news by now but-" The boy shrugs and breathes in, letting a small crack open in his strong facade. "I think... All of my family had disappeared. I don't wanna believe they're 'dead' like the police told me because that just isn't possible right?! They can't just up and vanish in middle of the night! I don't think I was even barely awake during that time so I had no idea what was going on besides feeling scared!" His voice raises up in anger or sadness, who knows.
"I know they aren't dead! They're somewhere out there! And I'll find them, however long it takes!" Sora grits his teeth. "The flowers are just a promise to my friends that I'll find a way to handle this but-!" He closed his eyes tightly as he felt emotions swell over him and angry tears started to pour.
He snaps his eyes open as he realizes what he is doing, "Oh n- Agh! Sorry Mr. Isa! I didn't mean to just say all that all of a sudden! It probably doesn't even make sense to you." He sniffs and uses his wrist to wipe away his tears from his outburst. At least it didn't last too long...
It was right in front of someone he just met though! And that just was really embarrassing for him. The man probably thinks he was annoying or something!
Sora hugs the flowers close to his chest and backs away from the counter. "I uh- should probably go now-!"
Throughout Sora's outpouring, Isa is quiet, watching him neutrally, hardly even moving. It’s interesting, in a weird sort of way, to see how the child interpreted everything, to see where the information went in, what got caught, what escaped, and how he conceptualized it on the way out. His determination could be a problem, the will with which he said that he'd find his family-- while maybe Saix could get away without telling Xemnas about most of this interaction, at least that declaration has to be reported.
Almost unconsciously, Isa reaches below the counter and pulls out a tissue, passing it to Sora delicately. "Wait," He says, fighting with himself. "Wait right there for just a moment." He doesn't leave room for argument as he walks out the side door to the greenhouse, letting the rain soak him. He's not Axel, he doesn't mind.
He comes back with a small bundle of blue and purple hyacinths, which match his general aesthetic pretty well, if Sora's paying attention. There's just a few of them, tied together with twine, and he presses them into Sora's arms also. "Here," He says calmly, a string out of place on his turtleneck's cuff. "Take these, too. They're nice."
Sora blinks with confusion, using the tissue to wipe away at the rest of his tears, flabbergasted by the other flowers. "Huh? A-Are you sure? What for?" He asks Isa, tilting his head. He doesn’t understand what the extra flowers were for but...he appreciated it.
"Ah- Never mind! You don't need to answer. Thank you, Mr. Isa!" He subconsciously bows a bit, a smile regaining on his face again. "Thank you for listening to me and helping me out! I'll come back tomorrow to check out more of your pretty flowers!" He huffs with glee strongly apparent in his body language. It seems like Isa really cheered him up from his small outburst.
Sora walks over to the front door and opens it, putting his hood over his head. He stills as he takes one step out, turning around and waving at the man before darting through the rain to head back to wherever he is staying at for now.
Isa allows himself a small smile when Sora turns and waves, maybe more for the child's benefit than his own, but then as the small figure disappears, swallowed by the rain, he sighs heavily and leans on the counter, putting his full elbows on it and letting it take his weight, exhausted. This would be a huge hassle, he thinks. He shakes his head and feels droplets spin off his hair, which was growing out at the insistence of a few different people among the Organization's ranks. If the kid was truthful, he was already getting a little attached to Isa, which would be a big pain. He was doing so well, this could ruin it. The next time he sees Demyx, the guy is really going to get it from him.
He calls Xigbar on the burner in the back. The sharpshooter picks up after just one ring, which Saïx is grateful for. This would be difficult enough without dragging it out. “This is Two,” He says when he answers, short, sweet, and to the point. This is why they get along.
“It's Seven. I've got a little bit of a problem.”
“Huh?” The older man laughs and Saïx's skin crawls just a bit. “What kind of problem could you possibly have? Wait, let me guess.” Infuriating. “It has to do with Demyx and his screw up yesterday.”
Clearly, Xigbar expects him to have a problem relating to paperwork. Maybe a bit of fear regarding approaching the Superior with this. The berserker takes a small measure of grim delight that he's about to surprise him. “Yes, I suppose it does. The boy has made contact with me.”
There’s a sputter on the other end. “The—The kid? From Axel’s mission yesterday?”
“Correct.”
“You can’t just say this sort of thing all casual, Seven!” He’s maybe a little more shocked than Saix thought he would be, and even a little… Pleased? Although he can’t possibly fathom why. “Okay, so why call me, anyway? You’re all cozy with Xemnas, you could just bring this straight to him.”
“Who says I’m not?” Saix doesn’t give him a chance to answer that, though he can all but feel Xigbar’s snort. “He mentioned two friends, though, that seem close to him. Before I bring that much to Xemnas, I want you to dig a little into them. Find out who they are.”
“Aye aye,” Xigbar says with a touch of mockery. Saix, figuring that ignoring him is the better part of valor, hangs up. He will bring this matter straight to Xemnas but… He puts his head in his hands and sighs. First, his headache needs to wear off a bit.